“Taking me out?” Cas mouthed the words, sure she had heard incorrectly. “I don’t need anyone to take me. Those are Wolf Squadron fliers.”
Her first thought was that this had to do with her resignation, that Ort didn’t trust her to fly a military craft anymore. But the king himself had sent her along to help, and it hadn’t been that long since she’d been in the air. She was still qualified, even if she wasn’t officially an officer anymore. Just a month before, she had performed well in the battle with the flying fortress. She’d even tried to save Zirkander from falling to his death. It wasn’t her fault that he’d decided to wait and jump into the cockpit with some Cofah pilot instead.
“Yeah, but you’re taking the sword. The general must have figured you’d have a hard time waving that around while piloting.”
“The sword? To deal with someone tossing explosives?” Cas took a step toward the hatchway. She needed to talk to General Ort, to see what he was thinking. This didn’t make any sense.
“To deal with a sorceress tossing explosives,” Kaika said.
Cas halted. “What?”
“We don’t know she’s out there, but she was the source of the trouble when I was here two weeks ago. Same area. She was making fliers invisible, fliers that we later learned had been sent to pick up Cofah operatives tunneling around in the hills down there. They were stealing electricity from the king’s secret facility and trying to blow up a bunch of dragons like the one that got out and has been burning the countryside.” Kaika laid a hand on Cas’s arm, her face bleak. “She was doing more than hiding fliers. She threw a big ball of fire, the same kind we dealt with at the fortress battle, and it incinerated my C.O. and one of your pilots. Colonel Troskar.”
Cas stared at her, then toward the dark mountains looming closer. Colonel Troskar had died? She had missed so much in the last month.
Kaika released her arm. “I’ve been to far too many funerals in the last few weeks. We’re all hoping, the king included, that you and that sword can kill the sorceress as well as the dragon.”
Cas winced at the mention of funerals. She hadn’t gone to Apex’s. She had been too afraid, too horrified to face his friends and family—to see him waiting to be buried. She had wanted to wish him well in the afterlife, but she’d been his murderer. How could she have gone?
“I thought it just slew dragons,” Pimples said.
Cas shook her head slowly, remembering how it had compelled her to swing at Sardelle and how it had made her resent Tolemek too. She thought of the kiss they had shared just a few hours ago. She didn’t want to resent him, especially not now. She had just gotten comfortable with the idea of caring about something—someone—again.
“It loathes anyone with dragon blood in their veins,” Cas said.
“Ahn, Pimples, Kaika,” came General Ort’s call from across the deck. He stood next to Major Cildark, the airship commander. “Get your gear. We’re going in two minutes.”
Feeling numb, Cas forced herself into a jog, a jog that would take her below decks to her cabin, to where that box waited. “I hope General Ort doesn’t have any dragon blood in his veins,” she muttered.
• • • • •
Cas sat in the back of the flier with her cap and goggles on, feeling useless as she alternated between searching the sky ahead and staring at the back of General Ort’s head. His cap and scarf hid his gray hair, but she couldn’t help but feel odd at having a general flying her around. Her rifle rested in her lap, and she had her legs squeezed around the heavy sword case, both weapons reminding her why she was in the back instead of piloting. She wasn’t here to fly; she was here to kill. Her stomach soured at the thought, but wasn’t that exactly what she had been planning for her new career? Better to take out an enemy sorceress in service to her country than some target her father assigned her for pay.
She thought of Tolemek. He ought to be safe up here on the military airship, but what would happen once they returned to the capital? How could he avoid her father? And what was the solution? To kill her father? Why was death the solution to every equation she ran lately?
“Nothing in sight yet, sir,” Pimples reported over the communication crystal.
He was flying to the side of Ort, and Kaika was anything but a still passenger behind him. She kept leaning over the sides and rising up to peer over his head.
“No, and I can’t hear any explosions over the noise of my propeller,” General Ort said.
Cas had nothing to add, but once again, she noted how strange it was being a passenger and not having access to the crystal. She would have to lean over Ort’s shoulder if she wanted to be heard, and that would be uncomfortable. One didn’t lean on generals.
“I still hear them here,” Major Cildark said. “They’re right over that southern peak.”
Cas hadn’t realized the airship had a crystal, too, but it made sense.
“Deathmaker’s with me,” Cildark added. “He says that’s where the secret facility was. He thinks the Cofah might not realize it’s been moved and that they’re late sneaking forces over here to destroy it.”
Cas hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to Tolemek—there had only been time to grab her weapons and flight jacket. She regretted that and hoped nothing happened that would make her regret it more.
“They could also be there to destroy the chamber of imprisoned dragons,” General Ort said.
“To what end?” Cildark asked.
“To ensure Iskandia isn’t able to free the dragons and turn them into allies.”
“I suppose it’s possible, sir, but the one that got out hasn’t proven itself much of an ally. We wouldn’t be hunting it otherwise.”
“I would wager they were sent to destroy the research facility,” Tolemek said, and Cas leaned in so she wouldn’t miss hearing his voice. For a silly second, she thought of leaning forward and telling him to be careful or that she loved him, but this was hardly the place for that, not when everyone could hear this channel, and she would have to yell the words past General Ort’s ear. “Now that I’ve seen some of what Angulus’s people were constructing in there,” Tolemek continued, “I can assure you that my—that the Cofah would want the weapons destroyed. Desperately.”
Once again, Cas felt as if she had missed much by skulking in the shadows this last month.
A red flash appeared in the distance, about halfway up the side of a dark mountain. They were close enough now that they could hear the rumble of falling rock even over the propellers.
Ort veered in that direction while maintaining a high elevation. Yes, that was what Cas would do. Try to attack from above. But she couldn’t see anything in the air over where that flash had been.
“I have no knowledge of this facility, sir,” Cildark said dryly.
“I know,” Ort said. “It’s top secret. Deathmaker should be keeping his lips tied.”
Cas frowned at the back of Ort’s head.
“It’s been moved,” Tolemek said. “It hardly matters if people know where it was. I shall say nothing of where it is now.”
“Should I be upset that a former pirate knows top secret things that I don’t know, sir?” Cildark asked.
“Not now,” Ort said. “Just keep up with us the best you can. If the sorceress is involved, know that she likes to keep her people invisible, so we could be fighting with blindfolds on out here. We’ll need all the help we can get.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think it’s a certainty that magic is involved, sirs,” Pimples said. “Otherwise, we would see fliers or an airship by now. Captain Kaika says those explosives are definitely being dropped from above.”
Another flash lit up the mountainside. In the darkness, Cas couldn’t tell if there was a cave opening—or if the rocks were burying a cave opening—but she assumed the Cofah hadn’t achieved their goal yet. Her finger found the trigger of the Mark 500. They were a good two miles out and not close enough to fire, not that she had a target. She could make an estimate abou
t the vertical plane the bomber was on based on those flashes, but whatever was dropping them could be fifty feet above the detonations or five hundred feet.
“Sir, does Kaika know if those bombs have a set fuse length?” Cas asked loudly. “Like how many seconds pass between when they’re lit and when they blow up?”
“You hear that, Captain?” Ort asked.
“Yes. Maybe.” Kaika’s voice also sounded distant, since she was yelling from the back seat. “They can be adjusted, but if the artilleryman is uncreative, three seconds is the factory setting.”
Cas’s mind boggled slightly at the idea of there being such a thing as a bomb-creation factory, but she accepted the information with a nod. “Pimples, do some math for me, will you? How high above are the men dropping the bombs likely to be? General, can you fly parallel to the mountainside? Get us within five hundred meters.”
She felt presumptuous making requests of a general, but it wasn’t as if she could control their route.
“Roughly 44.1 meters, Raptor,” Pimples said.
Ort obliged by paralleling the mountainside. “Fly above us, Pimples,” he ordered. “See if Kaika can find something to drop a bomb on.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ort had a steady hand on the stick. Cas could already tell he wouldn’t have Zirkander’s flash in a battle, but he might be perfect for a backseat sniper. She settled low, aware that someone could be targeting her from behind that barrier of invisibility. She wished she knew if they were dealing with a couple of fliers or an airship or both. The sound of their own propellers was echoing off the rocky mountainside, bouncing back to them. She didn’t hear any other noise out there, but it was so difficult to tell with the constant buzz in her ears.
The flashes had stopped. The Cofah must be staring straight at the Iskandian forces, waiting for them to go away. Or they could be preparing an attack. Cas wished they would drop one more explosive. Gauging Pimples’ forty-four meters would have been easier if she was certain of where the last bomb had gone off. She searched the mountainside below, trying to spot freshly scarred earth. The area was full of scree and boulders, with no trees until a valley that ran north to south below their flier. The ground had been chewed up, but the darkness made it difficult to guess the precise place where the bombs had landed.
As soon as she believed they were within range, Cas fired her first shot. She wouldn’t get that many chances to try before the flier carried them too far. Her first bullet banged off a boulder on the mountainside.
“Flying straight is making my shoulder blades itch, Ahn,” Ort said. “I’m going to vary it up.”
“Yes, sir. Understood.” Cas wouldn’t be surprised if someone was aiming at them right then. It was quiet out there. Too quiet.
Orange flared, not a bomb striking the mountainside, but a fireball blooming in midair. It raced straight toward them.
Ort dipped as Cas ducked low, leaving only her eyes above the rim of her seat well. Her eyes and her rifle. Before the fiery inferno streaked above their heads, she was returning fire. The heat scorched her scalp through her cap, the crackling of flame filled her ears, and the intense light nearly blinded her, but she did not hesitate. She aimed for the source of that fireball and fired to either side of it, as well, imagining the sorceress in the back of a flier, the same as she was. If she couldn’t hit the magic user, maybe she could take out the pilot.
A male scream followed the third shot, and she allowed herself a grim nod of satisfaction. One of her other bullets seemed to thud off wood.
“Shouldn’t be much wood on a flier,” she muttered.
Ort accelerated away from the area, and Cas was soon out of rifle range. “We were lucky I was already dipping,” Ort said. “Those fireballs are almost as fast as bullets.”
“Stay out of range, sir,” Pimples said. “We’re dropping a—”
A boom rang out, drowning his words.
“Understood,” Ort said.
Cas craned her neck, trying to see behind them. The night had been lit up by the explosive, but she still couldn’t see the enemy craft. For a few instants, she could see a blurry gray blob that mimicked the terrain of the hillside. From a different plane, it would blend in, but from her viewpoint, she could see that the blob stuck out a good thirty meters from the slope. That blob was far too big to belong to a flier.
“Airship, sir,” Cas warned. “Take us back.”
Whoever she had hit must have been on the deck with the sorceress, not piloting her in a flier.
“No, don’t go back in,” Kaika yelled. “We dropped a Jag-4 on it, and it bounced off without doing any damage. I think that witch has them shielded now.”
“We have to do something,” Ort said. “Having them invading our nation and dropping bombs on our mountains is unacceptable.” He sounded so stiff and affronted that under other circumstances, Cas might have laughed.
“I could try the sword.” Cas had no idea if Kasandral could cut through a sorceress’s shield, but if there was a chance, they had to try.
“If that could work,” Kaika said, “cut a hole…”
“Maybe you could drop a bomb through,” Pimples blurted.
“You’d have to jump out,” Ort said. “There’s no way you can cut anything from back there. But where are you going to jump? It’s dark, and I can’t see a thing.” He was bringing the flier around, climbing up toward the top of the mountain, where Kaika and Pimples were buzzing around. “She shouldn’t be able to hit us with a fireball up here, if their big balloon is in the way, right? Zirkander had you all flying under the fortress to avoid her, yes?”
He sounded nervous about dodging more fireballs. Cas couldn’t blame him. It had been more luck than skill that had allowed them to evade the first one.
“I could try climbing up on the wings.” Cas pointed toward the top wing that stretched above the cockpit.
Ort glanced back but only long enough to shake his head. “That would be suicidal. You fall, and you’re dead.”
“I’m going to try dropping some more bombs on them,” Kaika said. “Sardelle gets tired after a while when she has to use a lot of magic. Maybe this witch will get tired if we bombard her.”
Sardelle had also said this other sorceress was much more powerful than she was. Cas wouldn’t bet on her getting worn out, though it did seem like she must be doing a lot. Maintaining an illusion of invisibility, maintaining a shield, and she’d sent out that fireball. So far, she had only sent one fireball. Maybe that meant that the culmination of everything she was doing was taxing her?
“Or maybe it means I’m being wishful,” she said.
Shots rang out. They didn’t come from Pimples’ flier. Their own airship was visible on the horizon, the lights on its deck making it stand out against the dark sky, but it was still at least three miles back—too far for bullets.
“We’re being fired at from below,” Ort said. “I’m circling. Trying to keep us above where I think their envelope is.”
“Sending another Jag down,” Kaika announced.
“Wait,” Cas yelled over Ort’s shoulder. “Let me try to hit it with the sword first. Maybe I can cut a hole in the shield. Then you can drop the bomb into it.” She had no idea if one could cut a hole in a sorceress’s shield, but they wouldn’t know what, if anything, Kasandral could do to the woman’s magic until they tried.
“How can you cut a hole in something you can’t see?”
“It’s a big something. I’m hoping to get lucky.”
“We could use some luck,” Pimples said, turning to stay above the area where they thought the airship was. If it was anything like Iskandian dirigibles, it wouldn’t be able to go anywhere quickly.
“How do you plan to hit it with the sword, Ahn?” Ort asked, his tone cool, a warning of you-better-not-be-thinking-of-unbuckling-yourself-and-climbing-on-the-wings easy to hear in it.
“I haven’t quite figured that out yet, sir, but I’m going to try.” Not exactly the truth. Cas had a fledgl
ing idea, but she would only have one shot. It wasn’t an idea General Ort would like, so she decided not to explain it further. Afterward, he could yell at her. She unlatched the ancient box and tried to ignore the way the sword hummed with contentment when she gripped the hilt. “Go ahead and throw that bomb, Captain. I want to verify that the airship is still under us. Then get another one ready to go immediately after.”
“Whatever you say, Ahn.” Kaika’s tone sounded wry. Not used to taking orders from retired lieutenants, was she?
If Ort had offered up an idea that was less insane, Cas would have gone with it, but he was simply flying around and glancing toward their incoming airship. Hoping the cannons and shell guns might do something? Maybe they would, but their large and very visible craft would also be an easy target for the sorceress.
“Dropping it,” Kaika said.
A couple of seconds passed, then a new explosion lit up the mountainside. Their own fliers, almost directly above where it hit, shuddered, the wings wobbling as the shockwave washed over them. Once again, Cas detected a disturbance in the air, a place where the illusion blurred and didn’t quite match its surroundings.
“There, sir,” she blurted.
“I see it.” He turned them slightly, angling toward the blurry spot that was already disappearing as the light from the explosion faded.
Cas lifted the sword with both hands, but not in a typical grip. She held the hilt with one and the blade with the other, careful not to cut herself. All she wanted was to guide it towards its target. A sickly green glow oozed from the sword, and an uncomfortable hunger stirred in her mind. She had a fierce desire to find and kill the dragon-tainted sorceress below.
Before they could fly past the Cofah ship, Cas rose up in her seat and hurled the sword downward like a spear.
“What’re you doing, Raptor?” Pimples blurted. From his position, flying parallel to Ort, he saw what she had done sooner than the general did.
Ort soon saw and responded. “Did you drop it?” he roared.
The sword hit something, landing point first a hundred feet below their flier. Cas craned her neck to keep track of it as Ort curved to turn around, as if he might fly down and catch the sword before it landed in the valley far below. But the blade hung in the air where it struck, the green glow spreading across the invisible barrier that it was stuck in. That barrier flashed, shimmering in the night air. For a moment, a giant oblong bubble was visible, a bubble large enough to protect an airship. Then it vanished, and Kasandral started falling again. It bumped something invisible, was knocked to the side, then plunged toward the dark valley below.