Radeon waved the crowd goodbye and caught sight of the captain, mouth agape. He clapped the man hard on the shoulder.

"Easy now, no need to open wide like that. This old pirate won't be stealing your helm today."

"I never knew you had that trick in you. Did some bastard swap you out while I wasn't looking?"

"You just never asked, is all. Who'd bother replacing me just to kidnap your old hide? You a royalty now, captain?"

With a swift motion, he took the captain's badge from his hands. He was relieved to see the tent already replaced or at the very least patched up.

Radeon ducked inside and looked around. The array he had created was long gone. The earlier one had burned itself out from overperforming.

He sat in silence and sank into meditation, delving into Giovanni's memories. Defensive installations, killing traps and illusion arrays rose up one after another. He needed something he could use. He still wanted to keep the identity of the old man for later.

Radeon was too deep in it when a hand grabbed his shoulder. He jolted awake then saw it was only the captain.

"You'll be needed at that job in an hour. Better fill your belly than your meridians."

"Got it, captain." Radeon rose without another word.

"Don't die."

Radeon's mind was sharp, yet his brain had its limits. That was one more reason he needed to reconstruct his body.

He did not sit down for a meal. He took the bread and the piece of steak to where the ship waited and started fiddling with the array, making sure they would not be shortchanged during the scouting run.

'Looks like everything's in place.'

Spotting a mortal errand youth, he beckoned the boy closer and pressed a spirit stone into his palm.

"See that grass over there. Rub it on the wood till it looks ugly and grimy. Just the grass. Can you do that?"

Radeon knew a white sail was useless for what he had in mind, yet every small detail still mattered when lives would hang in the air.

The errand boy sprinted about his task and with less than a quarter hour left before departure, Radeon finally called him off, satisfied to see the work already halfway done.

Radeon flicked him another spirit stone and tucked a folded note into his hand, a quiet request from the higher ups for a few choice array parts when the boy came back.

By the time Radeon finished inspecting the stripped down Karvi one last time, the scouting team of six had already gathered, most of them with swords at their hips and one with a bow in hand.

Their faces were bright with the kind of excitement born from watching his earlier display and from the quieter hope that if they followed a helmsman like that, they might just make it back alive.

The man assigned as their temporary leader stepped forward. His beard was grey, yet his straight back said he had his share of experience. The rest looked to be little more than twenty or thirty.

From what Radeon could see, all of them were itinerant cultivators, either at the peak or close to it on the cornerstone stages of cultivation. His finger started to move.

"You lot, I'll give each of you a number. Learn it by heart."

His hand swept along the line as he spoke out numbers, odd for the skinny ones and even for those with thicker muscle.

As a final safety net, he asked each of them which number they had until he was satisfied. A lighter boat meant their weight might decide his fate after all.

The ship came to life beneath them, wood humming as the array lit. From the ridge, the captain watched his first mate rise toward that bloodied mountain peak and some godforsaken stretch of sky.

High above, Radeon kept to a cautious pace, neither fast nor slow. Behind them the camp blurred and vanished inside its own rolling fog as the defensive array took hold.

Below, the land lay quiet and empty, yet he could trace every killing ground the cultists had carved into it.

The men shifted and muttered as the ship drifted off what they thought was a straight path.

Radeon led them through slow, deliberate curves, then a sudden jagged zigzag. None of them had ever flown a spirit boat. At last one of them stepped closer.

"Why aren't we flying straight, ser? No slight to your skill, but at this pace we aren't going places."

Radeon did not answer. He snapped the rudder and drove the ship into a bank of cloud.

The world turned white. Then he dropped hard. The deck slid under their boots and a few curses spilled out.

Only when he leveled the ship again did he look back at the man who had spoken.

"Anyone of you lot got a stone? Toss it there, to your left."

The archer had a pocket full of pebbles. He plucked one out and flicked it where Radeon pointed.

It never finished the arc. For a heartbeat it seemed to soften in the air, then it unraveled to fine dust that vanished without a sound.

The men, who had only been curious, stared down with pale faces now that they knew why he refused a straight line.

"You thought the pay was fat because the job was easy. Ah, lads... you're sadly mistaken."

Radeon drew out the map. On paper the task was simple, to sketch in the blank piece no one else had come back to fill.

"We're only twenty miles in. Our mark's not even halfway yet. I've counted at least seven scouting parties below. Not even one from our camp."

He searched for a place to tuck the ship. He settled it in a pocket of air above a tall spruce, branches a dark cage beneath them. If anyone lost their nerve, he did not want them close enough to call for help.

"You can step off here if you like. No tongue wags about it. This run's not for the faint of heart."

The scouts traded uneasy looks. The old man at the helm, with faded white hair and calm, flat eyes, did not look like someone who would spend mercy on a lie.

"I'll stay. I need the stones."

"If it pays for a couple years drink, I'm in."

Radeon woke the array and eased the ship back into motion. He did not trust their brave words. He trusted only himself.

At the first hint that his life truly slid toward real danger he would cut them loose to save it.

An hour dragged by as they neared their destination. The men were still chewing on their choice when the ship lurched forward.

Power surged underfoot and the hull shuddered. Radeon wrenched the rudder into a hard left that almost pitched them over the railing.

"What's going on, then?"

"Look down there."

A crimson qi arrow rose from the clouds, silent and steady. Its path ran straight for their bright white sails.

Radeon snatched up a coil of rope and flung one end toward the men.

"Right then. Who here can swing in midair?"

The leader moved swift. He grabbed the rope and without a word hurled himself over the side to meet the arrow.

Radeon hauled on the line to swing him true, not letting the man dangle wide and useless. Man and rope cut across the sky, racing to meet the crimson light.

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