The child shook her head, frozen by the height, terror locking her small body in place.

Radeon tried again, switching to a gentler angle, searching for a word that could pull her loose.

"Oi, sweetheart. See that big sister over there. You want to be brave like her, yeah?" he asked warmly.

The child's eyes brightened and she nodded hard, so eager it was like she'd forgotten the wind tugging at her hair.

"Tell you what, yeah. We get you down safe, I'll have your big sister teach you a few moves. Proper ones. Come." Radeon coaxed.

The little girl reached her arms at him. Radeon climbed the last stretch and caught her, one arm under her ribs, the other locking around her back before she could slip.

She latched onto him like a burr. Snot and tears soaked into his robe. He did not mind it, not even a little.

He drew in a breath, then whistled sharp and loud. The bison answered at once, wings beating as it cut through the wind.

Radeon wrapped a thread around his wrist, let it take his weight, then swung out and jumped when the distance turned true.

Fay leaned forward as they came in, eyes on the child. The little girl looked back at her, wide and shining, like she'd just met a heroine that had stepped out of a bedtime story.

"What is your name?" Fay asked.

"Thimbles," the little girl replied shyly.

Radeon did not have time for warmth. His gunblade flared in his hand.

The moths came anyway, splitting and circling, hunting them from every angle.

The bison bucked under him, half blind with fear, so Radeon took the reins by force and flew it by hand.

Four dropped from above. He shoved the beast lower and let the dive steal their timing.

Two more knifed in from the right, right in front of his face.

He snapped his aim up and tore their wings with quick shots, then hauled the bison back into the air, higher.

'One more. I need this one.'

He caught the last moth as it banked and punched a round through its wing.

It wobbled, slowed, and that was enough. Radeon flicked his wrist and loosed all ten needles.

They hit with dull thuds, burrowing clean through and punching out the other side.

The creature spasmed in midair, pinned to his thread and twisting like a hooked fish.

He shoved a blood pill into the bison's mouth.

The beast swallowed, shuddered, and its fear bled away.

The bison surged upward, Radeon kept the wounded moth on a tether behind them.

He drove for the miner's rear, cutting away from the thickest swarm.

Seeing the first rows of their pursuers, Radeon dropped the moth straight down.

It hit like thrown meat. The front of the swarm broke. Then Radeon sent the bison in after it.

It plowed through the ranks of insects like a plough through a field.

Bugs tumbled out and skittered away. Some flipped onto their backs and scrabbled uselessly, wings flailing as they could not right themselves.

He cut a path through more than a couple dozen before the bound moth's flesh finally tore.

Loose scale and ragged wing sprayed, and the needles snapped back into Radeon's hand.

He drew them back and checked each one, eyes on their make. Still straight. Still sharp. Not contaminated.

Radeon vaulted back down onto the cart by the rear. He let his gaze rake over the miners.

He saw the soot on their faces, their hands still shaking, and the way they watched him, like he'd pulled the sun out of his sleeve.

Then his focus slid past flesh and breath to what lay beneath.

Threads of fate, fine as hair, bright as spider silk. Most of them held. But of the four from before, only one remained.

It was almost gone, a pale line fading toward nothing. Radeon's mouth curled. This time, small as it was, it was his win.

"Were almost out! One more push," he boomed.

His qi bloomed in his chest and rolled out in a hard wave. Heat licked along the planks.

The wood popped, the air thickening with smoke and hot resin, bitter enough to sting the back of his throat.

Radeon moved fast. He sprang from one emptied wagon to the next.

His boots striking, body already gone again, leaving fire behind him as a warning and a wall.

Each jump tugged at him, a little drain under the ribs, a dry ache where the qi had burned through. He did not slow.

When every transport was properly lit, he dropped back toward the rearmost cart.

The riders were already up, mounted close along the buck's back, hands tight on straps, eyes fixed toward Radeon like they were afraid to look anywhere else.

"First set of wagons. Release them," he said from atop the buck's head.

The fire made a wall, rows of burning carts throwing heat and smoke into the night.

The insects tried to skirt the blaze, a black tide searching for an edge.

"Second set. Release," he roared.

Then the third. The fourth. The fifth, last. Then something in the gu broke.

Twenty five bright points in a starless sky, flames like open mouths.

Instinct won, and the swarm turned berserk for the light.

Heads and eyes locked on the fire, bodies pouring toward it as if the flames were food.

Those pressed from behind kept running and tumbled over the ones in front.

A writhing pile of legs and wings driven by the shove of their own numbers.

Radeon kept to the air and snipped down the few moths that could fly.

It was good fortune there were only a handful. He watched the ground swarm break, then regroup, then try to pull into pursuit again,

They were already too far back. By the time they reached the hundred kilometer mark, he stopped shooting.

Behind them the moths rose by the hundreds, a dark cloud trying to chase. They could not.

The air itself held them. It was like watching something trapped in a jar, beating and surging and never quite reaching the glass that kept it.

They could not push past a limit they did not understand.

At the sight of it, the miners fell silent, then roared. Laughter, tears, and joyful curses tore free of them.

Then the sound shifted. They started looking at the white haired man as if he was not made of the same meat as them.

Cultivators did not save mortals like that. Not without bargain. Not without payment named up front.

So they did what frightened people always did when a stranger lifted them out of the pit.

They called him a god. Radeon let them. That was the point.

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