The Little Jack was within a short moonstone's burst of the battlefield when an impossible jolt of energy cut through the sky. The fishing vessel skimmed to a halt, Tika'tika's slipstream canoe peeling to a similar stop at its side, as Vyse and the others took a moment to comprehend what happened. It was the power of a Gigas but the source had not been Grendel. The blast originated in the Valuan fleet, burning through the firmament first to slam against the giant and then a second time to burn the sails from the most prominent of Ixa'Takan vessel. The sheer power on display drove all above the Little Jack and its sister vessel to step out directly on their decks to observe the carnage.
Somehow, the giant stood. Wind howled, followed by Grendel's roar.
"What the hell was that?" Vyse asked, adjusting his goggle to zoom in and take a look at the Valuan fleet. He caught sight of the Chameleon. Its side was peppered with flames as it drifted away in retreat.
"They finished it," a voice said behind him. Hopping from Tika'tika's vessel, Hans stepped to the young pirates side and gave a low whistle. "Dad had mentioned a new weapon but…"
"There's no words for the real deal," Aika finished with a nervous chew of her lips. "Could never have imagined something like that was possible."
"It's almost as strong as an Old World weapon," Fina mused. "Such concentrated glimmer…"
The fear in her voice was matched only by her amazement. Implication floated after she spoke. She clearly had not expected to encounter anything like this during her travels. At least not from the sky dwellers themselves. They'd come farther than she or her Elders could have imagined. In time, they might not even need the Moon Crystals to devastate the world.
All it would take was bigger and bigger bombs.
Tika'tika rolled his characteristic clucking. "This is what the moonstones my people mined have been used for? This god-killing cannon?"
Hans nodded. "Pa called it the moonstone cannon," he explained. "Said that De Loco forced him to work on one of the final pieces but he also said he'd sabotaged it…"
"Would explain the blowback," Drachma growled. "Admiral's ship is lookin' scuffed."
"Way to go, Centime!" Aika couldn't help but cheer at De Loco's misfortune.
"That's strange," Vyse thought aloud as he continued to watch the Valuan fleet.
"Is something wrong?" Fina asked, taking a concerned step towards her friend.
"Y'mean 'sides the giant monster what's stompin' about?" Drachma drolled.
Vyse shook his head. "I'm just a little surprised," he started. "Valua's doing something smart for the first time ever. Least this is the first I've seen of them acting wise."
Hans squinted his eyes and looked toward the horizon. "They're spreading out?"
"Falling back," Vyse clarified with a raise of his finger. "I half figured they'd dig in rather than look weak but I guess without that cannon in working order, their goose is damn cooked."
Aika laughed confidently "Good news for us! I don't think we could have fought all of 'em"
Fina frowned meanwhile. Her eyes gazed on the distant battlefield and saw a field of stars slowly getting snuffed out. Valuan and Ixa'takan. And in the midst of that starry medley, she saw a supernova burst brimming with energy. That was certainly the Green Moon Crystal. Reaching out further in her perception of the glimmer weave, she saw that wellspring of glimmer connected to a host. Who wasn't moving.
"The Valuans fired one of their shots at the Ixa'takans instead of the Gigas," she noted. "Whoever is controlling Grendel was caught in the blast."
"Isapa?" Vyse asked.
Tika'tika twitched. "He would not be allowed that power," he said. "No one but the king would have that honor and the Ironheads struck right at his vessel."
Aika looked out at Grendel. The giant was continuing to stomp and raze the land even though the Valuans were scattered. "That looks bad."
"Gigas shouldn't be able to function without a connection to a living soul," Fina noted.
"Which means either the king's fine with that thing continuing to rampage," Vyse started with some doubt in his voice. "Or he's lost control over it somehow."
"I will go to him," Tika'tika said firmly. "Whatever I can do to stop the beast, I will do."
Vyse sighed. "Suppose that leaves us to try stopping it the hard way," he said with a wry smile. "Hopefully this isn't the start of a habit be one Gigas was already enough."
"You're gonna go fly off and fight that thing?!" Hans' voice shook with incredulity. "It shook off a blast from the moonstone cannon! You'll get swatted out of the sky in an instant."
Drachma shook his head. For all his annoyance at the misadventure he'd found himself swept up in, he couldn't avoid the tug in his heart to do the right thing. Even if it might leave his ship a smoldering heap. "Jack's tougher than y'think," he offered. He didn't say the simpler truth: we can't do nothing.
Tika'tika was already leaping from the deck of the Little Jack and back to his own vessel. For a moment, he looked towards Hans as if expecting the young man to follow but he didn't move. While the color had drained from his face, there was the telltale sign of something stirring in his heart. He'd been so eager for a chance at adventure, so deeply jealous of Vyse's accomplishments. Now he was standing at the precipice of something both incredibly daring and utterly stupid. His mind said that there was no way for Vyse and the others to stop this monster but his heart gave a contrarian scream. Loud and sure.
His eyes settled on Vyse. "Take me with you," he all but begged.
The young pirate smiled as if Hans had done little more than wander from the house next door to ask for a cup of sugar. "Was only waiting for you to ask!"
Drachma grunted. "Just don't break nothin' on board," he spat.
Aika laughed. "Extra hands on the engine couldn't hurt right now," she said before ruffling Hans' hair. "Just remember that I'm the big boss below decks!"
"We can do this," Fina intoned with a determined nod. "For everyone under the Green Moon."
If someone had posed the scenario to her in the first weeks of her journey, the Silvite might've balked at the enormity of the task. Not anymore. No matter what moon she was underneath, no matter what monster stood in her path she knew it could be overcome with Vyse and Aika at her side.
"May your shots fly true," Tika'tika invoked. Within moments, he was already guiding his ship towards the distance where Cuitláhuac's vessel had fallen.
Vyse took another look at Grendel. In the distance, the Gigas had started to reach down into the earth and tear it up in a display of sheer madness. The young pirate smiled.
"Look sharp, people!" he said happily. "We got a giant to slay!"
It was only a few minutes before the Little Jack reached the Gigas. Cutting a path through fleeing Valuan ships and scattered Ixa'takan forces, the erstwhile fishing vessel painted a picture of heroism as it rushed into the path of danger. Vyse half-expected the Valuans to take pot shots at them out of spite but not even as much as a single subcannon had blared even as the Little Jack came within spitting distance of the Chameleon and her escorts. He didn't know if it was fear or awe that stayed their hands but either way he was grateful for the lack of impediment. As fun as it might have been to tangle with the Valuans, he didn't have the time.
No more than a quarter-league away, Grendel's rampage continued. Whatever raw power shimmered through the giant turned every footfall upon the jungle floor and stray hand brushing against the canopy into a torch that seared the earth and ignited another swath of the Green Continent into ash. He dared to hope that the Gigas would be locked on the landmass it was trampling but knew better than to assume with any Old World threat. If the raging demon suddenly grew glimmer-wings that carried it from island to island, he wouldn't be shocked. Thankfully, nothing so drastic had happened yet. Instead, the giant simply thrashed about.
"I'd ask iff'n ye had a plan," Drachma started as he limped to take his place at the helm beside Vyse. "But we've been partner'd 'nuff I know that ain't yer manner."
Vyse chuckled. "Not really," he agreed. "We need to try buying time. If Tika'tika can talk some sense into the king, then he can use the crystal to call it off."
"Grendel is still recovering from centuries of slumber," Fina noted softly. "Clumsy, off balance…"
"Yet even a lonesome swat'll tumble us t'dirt," Drachma said. "Ken ye guide 'er true, boy?"
"Second time you've asked that while we're facing a giant monster," Vyse mused.
"S'funny this has happened twice!" Aika giggled. "In a "not really funny oh god why does this keep happening" kind of way."
Drachma spat on the floor. "Quit jabberin' an get down in that engine room."
Aika waved a lazy hand. There was plenty to be nervous about heading into battle but she'd made a habit of pushing those feelings to the side in the most dire cases. If she could handle leaping into a Valuan cruiser's middeck, she could handle yet another Gigas. At least that's what she told herself mentally. Anything to keep a focused mind in the face of such danger.
"Yeah, yeah," she shot back at the fisherman as she turned to rush down below. Reaching out, she snatched Hans' hand and dragged him along as well. "Time for a real trial by fire, buddy."
"Okay! Yeah! We got this!" Hans' words were meant for himself more than anyone. Voice shaky, knees wobbling.
Drachma rolled his eyes but nevertheless hobbled over to the gunnery console. "If'n I knew this were what I was signing up fer, I'd left y'damn kid on Windmill Isle."
"Can't turn back now," Vyse replied. With a thrust forward, he pushed the Little Jack's engines into high gear. Aika and Hans would figure out how best to manage the strain but there was no room to play this cautiously. They needed to swarm the Gigas and pester it like a wasp.
The ship rocked, lurching forward and streaming through the sky at such speed that a streak of moonstone-tinged smoke followed in the wake. They were on the Gigas in an instant. Though it had towered over the land even from a distance, drawing in closer truly impressed the scale of their foe. Recumen had been surprisingly small by comparison, tromping along on its odd crab legs lower to the ground. Grendel was huge; the Little Jack was small enough that if the monster somehow found the sense to do so, it could reach out and crush the entire ship with a smashing clench of its fist.
"Time to see what the Veridians were made of," Vyse chirped. "Hope we brought enough cannonballs."
An eruption of cannon fire bellowing in the distance signaled the battle's start as Tika'tika guided his ship to the jungle floor. The Little Jack's shots sounded surprisingly quiet, as if Vyse and the others had trailed away even further from than imagined, and rang entirely unsubstantial by comparison once Grendel let out a roar halfway between pained bawl and furious scream. Tika'tika turned to look at the conflict and saw the Little Jack swerve about in the distance, cannons peppering the Gigas rapidly. No visible mark was left on the giant's glistening green hide but judging from the way it bent and reeled, they still were hitting hard but at this rate, they'd run out of shot before the beast could be killed. Nothing seemed to leave a lasting effect.
In reply, the Gigas began to swing its arms and swat at the ship. From far away, the motions had a lumbering sway but Tika'tika had no doubt that they were swinging in swiftly. Grasping hands and hurled fists lashed at the Little Jack, which did not so much evade the attacks as much as scarcely outpace them. One of the closest was a temper tantrum fueled grasp of desperation; Grendel stamped forward like a child chasing a butterfly and reached out with both hands as if to crush the annoying ship haranguing it with fire and fury. Fingers curled inwards close enough that Tik'tika, blessed with eyes keener than most men under the Green Moon, saw the Little Jack 's sails ripple from the resulting wind. The ship squeezed through the gaps of two fingers with barely a moment to spare.
A miracle by any definition of the word. How many more did Vyse have in his pocket?
The hunter shook his head in both amazement and doubt. Vyse might be boastful enough to talk as if facing a freshly awakened god was as easy as sipping a morning cafēnyōlli brew but Tika'tika wasn't so certain. The young man had already done plenty that seemed impossible but this was a matter of an entirely different scale. Shaped by arcane magicks and fire and centuries' old rage.
All the more reason to stop gawking at the fight and set about to his actual business. He didn't know how long Vyse and the others could last against the Gigas. If the winds of fortune started to change, something would need to be done. Tika'tika was willing to do anything and everything in that case. He also prayed, with a small utterance under his breath as he pressed into the jungle growth, that he might avoid the worst options. The King hopefully lived, and if he could be made to put the giant back to sleep then the day would be won easily. But that was if and only if he saw reason.
Feeling the jungle beneath his feet only impressed the severity of the King's offense to Tika'tika as he darted further inland towards a plume of smoke that marked where Cuitláhuac's flagship had crashed. The softness of the dirt, the crinkle of leaves and vines. Each of these felt precious to Tika'tika as he proceeded. The hunter did not always find himself comfortable around people. Not when he could spend his time among the plants and animals. Sometimes, his hunts in the jungle would last for weeks as he sought the proper prey. He loved the lands under the Green Moon. Right now, the Gigas was tearing up those very lands. His steps seared trees and his fist plunged into the ground to create massive craters. The raging monster might have turned its focus to the Little Jack but if left to his rage, it would wound the land. Every fresh clearing scoured by fire and craterous mark was a wound to the very world.
And what were the Ixa'takan people if not an extension of the world itself? A part of a greater whole, a piece in an ecosystem, a drop in the waters. To damage the land was to damage its people. Tika'tika knew the Valuans needed to be dealt with but as he turned to look back at the raging giant, he felt pieces of himself being torn to shreds with each and every pounding footfall. He'd do anything to make it all stop.
His eyes surveyed the damage and for a moment, it seemed possible that anyone who had been on the flagship was blasted into ash. He didn't see anyone. Pressing closer to the wreckage, he turned around the cracked remains of the ship's bow. Elder tree wood was left in splinters and just beyond the debris rested a familiar figure. His fern green hair was caked with mud, small gashes on his face marring his usual grace but there he was. Cuitláhuac was sprawled on the ground some yards away, the impact likely ejecting him from his vessel. Tika'tika paused. Was he dead? If so, why was the beast still rampaging?
A meager rise in the king's chest put that notion to an end, eliciting another worry. Rushing to the monarch's size, he attempted to rouse him from his injuries. A small nudge and then a modestly conjured sacri spell. Tika'tika was no mage but could mend minor wounds—a skill essential for any hunter who spent extended time in the jungle—but he lacked the priestly training to heal with true potency. Kneeling at the king's side, Tika'tika considered his options and another roar shook the heavens as he did.
In the distance there was flame and might and doom. Held back by the sheer annoying stubbornness of heroes. And right here within his grasp was the man responsible. Whatever chains he'd shattered and whatever freedom he'd won by unleashing the Gigas on their oppressors seemed so unbearably fragile. Unable to stir Cuitláhuac and desperate to end Necoc Yaotl's rampage, Tika'taka's hand drifted towards his knife. Not even a deliberate decision but one borne of instinct. The Ironhead's boots had been stifling upon their neck but this giant would smash all. And there seemed to be only one way to end it.
He paused and looked at the moonstone blade in his hand, shocked to realize what he was thinking. But he was thinking about it. Sincerely. Ardently. Strike! Strike! Before the beast could truly awaken to whatever old powers it had nearly forgotten in the haze of its centuries-long slumber. Tika'tika felt ice in his veins, disgust and guilt grasping at his heart. But if this was what it took to save everyone…
The thought settled into his heart. All he had to do was raise his dagger and strike.
Tika'tika braced himself for whatever judgment history would pass but before he could do anything else, a massive force hurled him to the ground. He spun and barrelled over as someone grappled him down to the mud, knocking off his mask in the ensuing struggle. The hunter's emerald eyes, burning hot with the threat of tears, fixed on his attacker. Isapa glared down at him, hands wrapped about Tika'tika's knife. Not a sign of the jovial and lecherous old man. This was a devout defending his liege. This was the High Priest. Tika'tika swore he could see the hints of magick dance around the old man's form.
"You cannot!" he ordered. "Ixa'taka will need its king!"
Tika'tika resisted the urge to jerk the knife away. "So he might rule over the ashes?!"
"This is the price of freedom!"
"You all lied to us," Tika'tika spat back. "Said that the stone was lost to time. Told Fina that you did not know where Rixis was. Denied her the completion of her duty! And now the forests burn!"
Isapa flinched and for a moment Tika'tika thought he might lash out and strike him in the face. "What should we have done? Gave them the sacred stone and sent them on their way right as we finally had a chance to turn the Valuans away? I guided the king down this path because I knew it could save us."
"It needs to stop," Tika'tika replied. "Not even one more second."
The pair miraculously relaxed. Isapa drew back, releasing his hold on the hunter. Stepping back, he extended a hand and helped Tika'tika rise. "That much I do agree on," he said. "The giant cannot be allowed to continue.
"Vyse fights for us even now," Tika'tika explained. "Even after your lies. But that ship cannot last against the Gigas."
Isapa turned to the king's fallen figure. "I will work to revive Cuitláhuac," he said gravely. "Though his injuries are severe and even my magicks will take time to accomplish that task."
Tika'tika reached down into the forest floor to pick up his mask. As he did, another bellow shook the world. Grendel was in pain and all the skies knew. The hunter slipped on his mask.
"Make haste," he ordered Isapa. "Or else our friends will surely die."
Another round of scattered debris soared by the Little Jack as Grendel's hurled scooped earth, rock, and jungle trees at the annoyingly stubborn vessel. Compared to the Valuan ships, it was a faster and more persistent foe. Not stymied by illusions of invulnerability and fueled by a noble cause, the ship soared ahead of the Gigas' madcap tantrum. But only just out of reach and never comfortably ahead.
To those watching from a distance, the image was as farcical as it was terrifying. The might of the Old World tore up the world with a horrifying ease, leaving craters and fire with each step. Yet it swatted and lumbered after the Little Jack as a frightened child assaulted a wasp. It was a bizarre kind of stalemate, at least to the casual observer. On the Little Jack 's bridge, Vyse grimaced and held back curses.
"Gonna run out of fuel and shot," he growled with another labored spin of the ship's wheel.
That was the problem more than anything else. As the battle progressed, the Little Jack's ability to fight dwindled. Eventually, there would be no way to harm the creature and no resources to keep the ship out of harm's way. Vyse wondered if a quick death was better than this frustratingly drawn out process.
Fina stepped away from her post near the ship's moonstone circuits, taking another look at Grendel as the Little Jack rushed about. To her eyes, it was like staring directly into the sun.
And the sun was getting hotter. The glimmer in Grendel's body was growing.
"Glimmer is gathering within its body," she noted and although her voice was soft, it rang over the din of battle. "We're running out of time in more than one way."
Drachma slammed his hand against the firing console, sending another hail of cannonfire at the beast. Shots bellowed and hurled until they slammed against the Gigas with a vaguely wet crash.
"Ain't like with Belleza," he noted. "We dun got the luxury o' lull'n the beastie to sleep."
Vyse glanced around the horizon. Think, think. C'mon..
"Not enough firepower to kill it," he thought aloud. "But maybe we don't need to?"
Take it all in. Solve the puzzle. That's all this was. His father always said that a sharp blade was good but it was better to have a sharper mind. Any situation, if observed from the right angle, was winnable. He refused to believe any scenario was truly a doomed one. So his eyes danced about, taking in every variable. The Gigas was large but listless and lacking poise; Recumen had been sturdy, able to dig in and brace for powerful blasts of energy from any of its heads. Grendel didn't seem to have that capability or else was still waking up and building towards such a display. It hurled boulders and tossed trees like spears, running to swat at the Little Jack. Reaching up into… the sky… at their airship. Air. Ship.
Oh.
Vyse laughed, recalling a joke that Briggs was fond of telling. There's these two fish swimming in each others' direction. The first fish asks: "How's the water?" The second fish replies:
"What the hell is water?"
The solution was so obvious that he'd never considered it in the heat of the moment. The Little Jack could fly and the Gigas could not. Weighed down and tied to the land, and therefore the limits of the mass that it trod upon, Grendel could not chase them everywhere. So what if it chased them to the very edge?
What if there was nowhere left for it to run? What if you took the ground out from beneath a giant?
Drachma scowled at him "Boy's gone daft facin' death."
The young pirate shook his head, giving orders. "Keep firing at the Gigas," he told Drachma. "Piss it off good until it's really coming after us. Fina, you'll need to keep the harpoon cannon primed."
She nodded although her face rippled with worry. "That won't be enough."
"I will," Vyse said with a smirk. "Because we don't need to kill it. It just needs to fall…"
"Th'guss ye talkin' bout lad?"
"Off the continent. Into Deep Sky."
Fina's eyes widened. "Even if it could somehow rise back up, the distance to the surface would be more than enough to break its connection with Cuitláhuac."
Vyse nodded. "Or maybe the fall will kill it anyway," he said. "The specifics don't matter. It won't be coming back. For a thousand different reasons."
It seemed like a fair plan but there was a hitch. One Drachma was ready to point out. "Firin' the harpoon is gonna mean grindin' to a bit of a halt," he noted darkly. "Gigas might swat us dead then 'an there."
Leaning towards a speaking tube, Vyse called down to Aika. "Spitfire, I got us a plan but y'know to figure out how to spin us about faster than anyone's ever twisted a ship before."
"Wha?!" the confused call came back. "Like a big twirl? What's goin' on?"
"Gonna get that thing to chase us and turn 'bout so we can fire the harpoon into its back."
"When's this plan starting?"
Vyse grinned. "Right now," he said, turning the Little Jack in the direction of the island's edge.
Within the engine room, Aika gave a groan as if she and Vyse were seven years old again and he'd just hidden one of her dolls. "He is such a moron…"
Hans looked at his fellow gearhead with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "Might just be what makes him dangerous," he noted before turning to the engine and its collection of gears and coils.
Aika rushed to his side. "We have maybe a minute to figure out how to pull this off."
Hans immediately started taking intense notice of each and every feature of the engine. "Could finetune the crankshaft quickly? Find a way to get a bigger kick from the moonstone injector?"
Aika regarded their collection of fuel. They had a surfeit of green moonstones, which were enough for consistent gliding but not potent enough to give a big kick. "Would take more of these than we could shovel into the combustion chamber… So more reds and then.."
"What're these?" Hans asked, pointing towards a series of rings affixed around key points on the air coolers. "This is Valuan tech? Some kind of purple stone… coil? S'manages the heat? Energy?"
"Yeah! It's how we stopped the engines from cooking when we shoved through South Ocean's wi-"
Hans' eyes went wide as he formed his own madcap plan. Within moments, he was tightening the coils beyond any kind of reasonability. Enough to all but choke the coolers with their intense grip. It was completely unsafe. Any malfunction would lead to a massive explosion of force that would sputter out and..
Oh.
Aika immediately rushed to the other coil and began tightening it as well. "You are a damn genius," she told Hans. The comment brought a rush of color to his face. "Okay, okay. I see…"
Hans nodded. "We're gonna push this as far as it can go," he coached. "Every excess stone, every limiter bypassed. All that's gonna put strain on these coils and instead of letting them flash-freeze.."
"We'll let them burst!"
"Exactly!" Hans said, rushing to the final coil and sabotaging it. "Force is gonna build and build and build and we're gonna time it right for when Vyse says. Turn about like no one's business."
Aika lurched forward and gave Hans a quick hug. "Yes! Perfect!"
Hans suppressed a grin and instead looked over the Little Jack 's engine with a hint of regret. The accumulated years of Drachma's unique hacks and customizations truly was a sight to behold and though he held no love for Valua, there was no doubt that the mooncoils were amazing feats of engineering. It was like looking at an astounding mosaic that took decades to build and here he was about to scribble all over it. As if walking into a church and smashing a stained glass window, smacking down a castle in the sandbox, or picking a magnificent cardinal rose.
Sorry about this, gal.
The final adjustment was quickly made with the flick of his wrench. It took years to build something but only half a minute to get everything ready to bust it up. But the explosion he was about to create, the deeply unsafe and absolutely senseless maneuver they were about to perform, was primed to save an entire continent. That taught a strange lesson: sometimes you needed to break stuff to fix the world.
Aika pulled away from Hans and returned to the speaking tube. "We got an idea!"
Vyse's voice called back. "Perfect. Wait for my word!"
"Tell the captain that I'm sorry!"
"What? Is something wrong?"
Aika stifled a laugh. "Nope! But we're gonna need to crack a few eggs to make this omelet!"
The Little Jack rushed towards the final dredges of jungle, onward and closer to the island's edge where trees gave way to rocky cliffs that eventually gave way to nothing at all. Starved of firepower and banking everything on a plan that required every member of the crew to act out their role with perfection, the imagination might conjure a desperate and fleeing gnat scurrying away from Old World power. Were any other soul at the helm than Vyse Dyne, that would be true. But history had placed the right man in the worst place, and so the Little Jack streamed confidently forward even if doom was more likely than not.
Rattling with barely contained power, engines grinding and chomping on as many moonstones as possible, the fishing vessel shook with jittery jolts of acceleration. Grendel would draw close, reach out, and only just avoid snaring the ship with its grasping hands. The Little Jack pressed on with staccato thrums, engines holding their power for those last evasive moments before escaping at the final moment. In time, there was no more jungle and only the promise of open skies ahead. And where the Little Jack found freedom, the raging power of Veridia would find nothing but disaster. Grendel had some kind of intelligence but it was a meager and small thing. Enough that it could rage and tantrum while its master was trapped in unconscious realms. It could not think or plan or understand what was about to come.
"Everybody, this is it!" Vyse called out from the ship's wheel. "Wait for my signal!"
Vyse gripped the wheel leaned closer to the firing console. Fina poured countless motes of glimmer into the moonstone circuits, priming the harpoon cannon. In the engine room, Aika shoved a dangerous heap of fuel into the ship's belly while Hans kept watch on the sabotaged coils.
Not yet, Vyse thought. A little closer… A little closer…
There was no way to know the right moment. There was no way to have ever practiced for this. There was nothing to do except feel it out and act. Like enjoying the breeze. If you did it right, even the hardest thing could feel like sailing. So Vyse said nothing for a moment, allowing the Little Jack to press on. The roars and excitement faded away. Grendel might as well have been leagues away up in the sky and stood upon the surface of the moon. And for the briefest moment, the sky flared before him like a starburst. Everything came into focus, all things illuminated. Like that night where Fina shared her gift with him and all the animals and plants turned to stardust before him. A magnificent kaleidoscope.
And then: "Now!"
A tremendous explosion rocked below deck as the engine's all but burst into splinters. That force shot the Little Jack forward with a speed unlike anything Vyse had ever experienced at the helm, and in response he cut the wheel with all of his might. The Little Jack spun into a drift as if it was a racing dhabu skidding on slick sands, peeling out and around with such a turn that it almost described a perfect circle. The ship twisted with impossible agility, Grendel reaching forth to find nothing. As the Jack turned, the bow came to point directly at the monster's back, harpoon gleaming with silver light. Brilliant and ready.
"T'hell with ya!" Drachma roared, smashing the firing console. A moment too soon or too late and the shot would miss. It had to be here and it had to be now. And as another kick rocked the vessel, everyone aboard knew that the old man had done it. Be it fate or spite or skill.
Glittering with Fina's channeled magicks, the harpoon streamed through the sky like a comet until it slammed into the Gigas' back. Its rippling hide could not countenance that much force, the harpoon lodging into Grendel's sickeningly thin frame. Reaching back in desperation, roaring in pain, the Gigas could do nothing but flail and fail, stumbling closer to the island's edge. The magicks within the harpoon burned hot, primed deftly by Fina's hand, until they exploded. Glimmer-charged fired blazed, an eruption of arcane power crackling out. The harpoon dislodged, pulling back on its line towards the Little Jack.
All was quiet. Grendel took another stumble forward and careened over the edge like a drunkard hurling overboard a ship's rail. There was no roar or scream. The Gigas simply fell down, down, down.
The silence lingered. Not a soul on the Little Jack spoke, the enormity of their success gagging them. The lands were fire and ash, scattered with giant's footfalls and the debris of foolish would-be conquerors. But that was all there there was. The Valuans were gone. The Gigas was gone. Only the Little Jack remained.
And it hovered boldly in those wonderful skies, rays of emerald somehow glinting from the moon above. As if to cast a healing spell on the entire continent. Which was now truly, beautifully free once more.