The harpies and drakes were still coming, and Vanahara could feel the ice outside of the metal hull starting to splinter. Two hydromancers could only do so much in the face of this maelstrom. [i]If this is a narrow part of the Storm, I never want to see its eye.[/i] She did her best to harden the metal plating from here, but sooner or later the hull was going to break. She needed to be closer.

Vana barely avoided stumbling as the ship rocked, turning what had been a punch into a move that sent her sliding under a harpy's outstretched talon. She swept its avian feet out from under it, sending it crashing to the deck next to her, and took the opportunity to slice her punching dagger across the back of its neck, neatly severing the spinal cord. She rolled back to her feet almost immediately, but the damage was done—she could feel the punch of a drake's talons as it scored the outside of the hull, and there would only be more to come.

Her head whipped around as the Commander gave the order to retreat belowdecks. Vanahara frowned, but nodded, wrapping one hand around the rope at her waist and using it to pull herself against the wind towards the hatch. As she neared the stairs, though, her eyes caught on Andrade and Celeste—hunched against the railing, at the very edge of the deck. If they didn't move soon, they were going to get plucked off by some opportunistic harpy, and then the ice really would fail. Not to mention, they'd be dead.

Vana released the rope, letting herself be pushed backwards towards the railing. When she was about halfway there, something screeched along her senses, and she turned on instinct. A chunk of steel sputtering with flames slammed into her stomach, and she reeled backwards, arms coming up reflexively to grab it as the wind was knocked out of her. Gasping for air but somehow still on her feet, Vanahara hissed as the flames licked at her forearms, but cased in treated leather as they were, only a few inches of skin were really burned. Even as she watched, though, the flames burnt themselves out—they were purely elemental, with no one to guide them and no fuel to consume. What she was left with was a chunk of strangely light metal about the size of a man's head, and two hydromancers that needed a path below deck. She took half a moment to formulate a plan, and then she moved.

By the time Vana reached the railing, the white steel had spread into a shield, two inches thick and almost as big as she was. Holding it like that was taking more concentration than she could afford for long—she didn't know what else was in this metal, but she suspected it was water, because it moved like quicksilver but was reluctant to hold any one shape. She braced her foot against the railing next to Andrade with her eyes on Celeste a little further down the railing, shield held over their heads with one straining arm.

"Go!" she shouted, bringing her other arm up to brace the shield as a harpy slammed into it. "I'll cover you, get down the stairs and hold the ice!" A mad dash across half the deck was only going to end in blood and tears, but maybe with a shield at their backs, they could make it before the Commander was forced to close the hatch.