Aphenglow scooted along the stone-block wall to where she had a slightly better vantage point. Arling came right behind her. From where they were situated above the rampway, they could see nothing of the catwalk or the progress of the Druid and the Elf who by now were navigating it. It was supremely frustrating.

The sisters waited, huddled together behind the wall, eyes on each other, listening to the voices of the Federation soldiers clustered below.

Then Aphenglow heard the sound of radian draws being snapped in place and diapson crystals powering up. She had just enough time to peer through the slits in the half wall before Arrow had shed her mooring lines and lifted off. Bombax had chosen to take back his own airship, as she had suspected he would—familiar with its weaponry and operation, comfortable behind its controls. She could see him situated in the pilot box, already swinging the airship around so that its starboard rail slings were turned toward the barricades where the Federation soldiers were scrambling in every direction. Cymrian had cocked all of the slings, and now he was racing back the way he had come from one sling to the next, releasing their triggers.

Shards of metal flew everywhere, tearing into the barricades, shredding them. The Federation soldiers not caught in the firestorm and dispatched had flattened themselves against the decking to either side, finding cover wherever they could.

Then abruptly Cymrian disappeared.

Aphenglow searched the decks of Arrow for him without success. Bombax had turned his airship so that her bow was facing toward the barricade, assuming a course that would take her either through or over its center and to the doors leading into the Inner Wall of the Keep.

Cymrian was still nowhere to be found.

Then she saw him. His white-blond head flashed across the landing platform, darting through the shadows between airships until suddenly he reappeared aboard Wend-A-Way. Apparently the Elf and Bombax had decided to steal both ships to rescue their companions, thinking the chance to do so too good to pass up. In seconds Cymrian had the light sheaths raised, the radian draws locked down, and the thrusters engaged. Wend-A-Way lifted off, swinging around to join Arrow.

Behind the barricade, the Federation soldiers still standing had recovered enough to try to stop them. A handful had converged on the only weapon still available to them in the wake of the initial raking of the wall, a rail sling situated on the far left of the barricade. Bombax, focused on his efforts to surmount the barricade, nevertheless saw them. Without leaving the pilot box, he summoned the Druid Fire and sent it hurtling into the soldiers and their weapon. Both vanished in a cloud of debris and smoke.