### 168

You command the leader to break off his attack and he immediately obeys your mental suggestion. Yranai cheers but his triumphant cry is premature. You watch aghast as the following Itikars collide with the balloon and stab their talons into the canopy, shredding its cloth to ribbons before they fly away.

The impact of the birds hitting the canopy knocks you off your feet. Yranai falls on top of you and, for a few nerve-racking seconds, you lie entangled at the bottom of the basket as the balloon rapidly loses altitude. When you pull yourself up and peer over the rim, you see the trees of the lower mountain slopes rising towards you at a dizzying speed. Yranai looks up to see shreds of cloth trailing from the punctured canopy above and the sight proves too much for him: he faints. Hurriedly you haul his frail body over your shoulder. Then you place one foot on the rim of the basket and get ready to make a desperate leap away from this doomed balloon as the tops of the mountain pines come into view.

If you possess Kai-alchemy, turn to 107.

If you do not possess this Grand Master Discipline, turn to 115.