Laughter echoed across the deck and it woke an answering joy in Ragnar's heart. Suddenly there was a boom like thunder. Ragnar looked up in fear. There was not a dark cloud in the sky and no sign of a storm. There was absolutely no reason for the

noise. His keen eyes scanned the horizon looking for the source. All around him the
laughter stopped and he heard prayers being offered up to Russ for his protection. There! In the distance, coming from the direction of Asaheim he saw it. It was little more than a black dot in the distance. It left behind it a white contrail like that of a meteor in the night sky, only this was broad daylight, and the trail was a white line written on the pale blue of the sky. Even as he watched, the dot turned and swerved towards them, and began to grow with appalling speed. The curses and prayers grew louder, and men reached for their weapons. Ragnar kept his eyes fixed on the dot, wondering what it was. He could see now that it had two wings, like those of a bird, only they did not move. What sort of monster was it? A dragon? A wyvern? Some daemon conjured up by fell magic? No, it did not appear to be anything like a living thing. As it came closer he could see that it was much more like one of diose iron vessels in the harbour behind them. His mind reeled. Just as it seemed impossible that those things could float, it was surely impossible for this thing to fly. And yet it quite obviously was doing so. There was no way he could disbelieve his own eyes.
It slowed as it approached, losing some of the appalling velocity that propelled it across the sky faster than any bird. And the loud thundercrack boom had stopped, to be replaced by a wailing roar like the call of a thousand lost souls in torment. The thing was flying low and he could see the wind of its passage was whipping up the sea below it, churning the waves to foam. It appeared to be coming right at them now, and Ragnar wondered whether they had done something to anger the gods. Perhaps this terrible apparition had been sent to destroy them. It passed almost directly overhead. Looking at it from below Ragnar could see that it was some sort of metal vehicle, a winged cruciform with the shape of an eagle painted on its sides and wings. For a moment he thought he caught sight of windows in its front, and human faces looking out, but he dismissed that thought as a momentary aberration. Looking back as it passed he saw flames licked from its rear like the breath of a dragon. It screamed off into the distance towards the island of the Iron Masters and there it halted, great jets of flame belching forward. It hovered in the air above the Iron Temple for a moment and Ragnar watched breathlessly, not knowing quite what to expect.