Pike was full-vertical, clutching to a saddle as a fox ran across the edge of the world.

And it might go without saying, but they hadn’t covered this in basic training.

They were galloping along the walls of a fissure that went straight through the middle of a floating island, with an inconceivable drop beneath - the sight of clouds and distant seas rewarded every glance down with an instant sting of vertiginous nausea.

And someone was shooting at them.

Bullets rained into the pack of ferret-foxes making the run, cutting the unlucky out of the saddle or sending entire beasts with their warbands tumbling down as a single fated bullet slammed into a fox’s skull and ended the creature’s life.

It was a mad, disorienting dash, heading around the edge of the gap and towards the enormous shipyard built on the far-side, stretching limbs of rust-entombed metal into the sky. Atop those long piers were built numerous towers, and the steady lights of cracking gunfire rained down upon them.

Fighting the instinct to keep both hands desperately clutching the leather ropes that secured him to the saddle, Pike lifted his pistol and took aim, compensating for the bucking of the beast underneath him, the sway of his hand, letting the trajectory calculator built into the artificial lenses of his eye map a course.

And he let a single shot blaze out. A beam of orange plasma leapt down into the helm of one watchtower, scything through the ancient metal with ease. The whole construction shuddered and tilted over, the gunner inside unhurt but scrambling to keep his balance as the floor lurched underneath him.

One, two more shots, and the tower toppled over, ripping free of its moorings and falling down into the sky.

Beside him, the archers had wound the leather cords around their arms and were shooting their bows, feet braced against the sides of the saddle-bed. Arrows tipped with packages that burst into flames as they pelted the guntowers. White, flashing phosphorous ignited, spraying off sparks and poison gasses.

And above, he could see Maeve in her Titan smashing through artillery posts, bringing them down like the fucking kool-aid man going through wall after wall. Her shoulder lowered, her back foot indented the ground, and with a giant groan of metal the enormous knightly mech shot forward, smashing into the base of a wooden tower holding up an enormous cannon.

A bullet stung through the air close enough to Pike that the dust it kicked up sprayed across his face.

They were close, closing in on the city built out of the old docks, the frontrunners among the fox-riders leaping down into the suspended buildings and rope byways of the strange settlement.

Jashal roared something, clinging to the fox’s neck as it ran, and they kicked off from the wall, twisting as they fell for a rope bridge.

Pike just wanted to get off the ride, please.

The bridge shuddered and bent down hard enough, the ropes straining, that Pike could feel his heart stop for a single second. His teeth gritted until he could feel blood trickling down from his gums.

Ahead, the city’s defenders were rushing at the moorings of the rope bridge, raising axes to cut the line. The fox surged forward, elven arrows cutting down the militia-men in their petty armor of scrap plating and hardened leathers.

Pike opened his mouth and let out a wild bark of laughter as the fox leaped free of the bridge and landed, finally, on something like solid ground - a metal platform full of tightly-clustered houses. Stars help him, he was so glad to be horizontal again. The elves looked at him like a madman.

All around them, the city’s petty militia lay dying, impaled like pincushions.

It had gone so fast he’d barely taken six breaths since they went over the edge, and now it seemed like the battle was almost over. The elves dismounded, moving in coordination to sweep through the area, finishing off anyone still alive with their knives; they swept into the houses and dragged out the old, the young, wives and husbands, everyone who had sheltered inside while the militia met their end.

Shaking, Pike leapt down -

And that was when the shit hit the fan. A thin ray of fire leapt from a nearby tower, expanding into an enormous bloom of flame as it struck the building behind Pike. He flung himself down as the shockwave slapped against his back, pushing an inch-long metal splinter through his guts, knocking him into a roll.

Instinct kept him moving, fighting the searing pain in his side and firing his jump jets to regain his footing and lunge forward. A second beam smashed into the ground where he had been, the explosion lifting him off the ground and hurling him towards the edge.

He twisted, shouted ‘Fuck!’ and flared his jets, pushing back, trying to kill the momentum that was sending him spiraling through the air. ‘Fuck!’ again as his left jet abruptly ran out of power.

“Fuck fuck fuck!” He caught the railing, still firing his right jet to cancel out the force of the blast. A spinning shard of shrapnel sawed into his arm, another blunt piece smacking the side of his head and chopping the top of his ear off. Flames roared across his bare skin, burning everything not covered by the socket-suit.

The railing under his hand glowed hot enough to peel a layer of flesh from his palm. He clung on anyway, an endless fall waiting below.

Above him, he saw a figure rise into the air. The elves - the ones who’d survived the two blasts - were firing arrow after arrow, but all of them were deflected by amber panels of light that flickered into being to knock the shots away from the robed, hovering man.

Pike, out of breath and desperately confused, realized he was looking at a sorcerer.

And he was hating it.