“What are they, sir?” Trip asked from the end of the line, hopping from foot to foot in his eagerness to get out there and do something. To save the city and to prove himself. One way or another.
“The only weapon we’ve got left that can eat through dragon scales,” Zirkander said. “We’re out of the bullets, but these grenades have a special acid in them, made in part using dragon blood. Our mad scientist Tolemek got ahold of some a few years ago and made us some weapons.”
“Deathmaker,” someone in line said. Not a correction but a clarification, Trip sensed.
And he nodded. He’d heard of the infamous pirate, someone who’d had a reputation even greater—and more fearsome—than Neaminor.
“He works for us now,” Zirkander said, glancing toward a flier several times as he doled grenades out from a box designed like an egg carton. “We’ve had him trying to invent some new weapons that work against dragons, but we’re out of dragon blood, and that seems to be an integral element. This is all we’ve got. And I do mean all. We don’t have Kasandral in the city right now, so we have no way to get through the dragons’ magical armor. These grenades will only be effective if they’re blown open when a dragon’s barriers are down.”
“How are we going to get them down, sir?” someone asked.
“Without Kasandral? I don’t know. We’re going to have to be creative and hope attrition might do something. We’ll get everyone up there shooting. We can’t let dragons raze the capital without a fight.” Zirkander’s face was as grim as death, so different from the affable general from the meeting that afternoon.
“Will the soulblade be of any use?” Trip asked, stepping to the front of the line.
Zirkander placed two grenades in his hand, pins to arm them evident.
“She’s always useful,” he said, “but she can’t out-magic a dragon or force one’s defenses down.”
“Attrition it is, then.” Trip gripped the grenades and ran toward his flier. He tried not to think about the grimness on Zirkander’s face, but it was hard. His sixth sense was telling him that nobody had ever worn down a dragon through attrition, at least not using mundane human weapons.
You are correct, a voice spoke into his head—Jaxi. But it’s possible the dragons will find us irritating enough that they’ll leave the city. We’ll be like flies harassing an elephant.
Trip had reached his flier, but he paused, looking toward the hangar door, imagining Jaxi must be close. Would she expect to fly with him?
Sardelle strode through the doorway, being passed by men and women on the run, more pilots who had come up in the next tram car. She looked aggrieved at her pace and held a hand to her stomach, but she turned toward Zirkander, her face determined.
I’ll fly with Ridge this time, Jaxi told him. We’re old combat buddies by now, and we’ve fought in many battles together. Besides, he needs me.
It took Trip a moment to realize that “Ridge” was Ridgewalker Zirkander. He couldn’t imagine being on a first-name basis with the general.
Leftie and Duck jogged into the hangar, and Trip tossed them a wave before climbing into his cockpit, careful not to jostle the grenades. There hadn’t been time to fix his flier’s cracked windshield, but it would have to do. It sounded like he would be flying a two-seater for the mission, rather than his C-23, old Sky Hawk. Assuming everyone survived the night and there still was a mission.
What if attrition didn’t work and the dragons couldn’t be driven off? He could sense the second one entering the harbor now, and another sailing down the coastline from the north.
“You’re not trying to leave without me, are you, Trip?” Leftie called from the line, something gripped in his hand. His hookball luck charm?
“If you can’t keep up, that’s not my fault,” Trip called back.
Fliers were already rolling out of the hangar and toward the runway, lights shining on their bronze hulls, the dragon snouts and fangs painted on the noses. When fliers had first been built, nobody had seen a real dragon in a thousand years. Next to the real thing, the fliers seemed woefully inadequate. But Trip would do the best he could out there.
He flicked on the engine power, and the energy crystal mounted in the cockpit flared to life with a yellow glow. He dropped the hood over it, so it wouldn’t be so noticeable out there in the dark. Not that a dragon would fail to sense its magic. But with fliers swarming all over, the creatures shouldn’t have a reason to target him in particular.
The fliers sailing out ahead of him had the Wolf Squadron “W” on the sides next to their numbers. There were a few other fliers with different letters, such as Leftie’s C. One next to him had an L, Lion Squadron. Was he supposed to fly with Wolf Squadron? None of them knew him yet, including the commander, Colonel Tranq.
As Trip rolled toward the exit, chatter started up, audible through the comm crystal on the control panel.
“Wolves, you’re with me,” a woman said. That had to be Colonel Tranq. Trip had seen the officer’s name in reports before but hadn’t realized she was a woman. Not that it mattered. “Everyone else, you’re going up with Zirkander. He’ll direct the assault. Keep your yaps shut unless you have something major to report.”
Trip reluctantly let a couple of other fliers roar out ahead of him, since they were Wolf Squadron. He was honored to fly with Zirkander, but he also wanted to get out there right away.
Fortunately, the general had handed off grenade distribution to a mechanic. He sent a parting wave to Sardelle as he raced toward his flier, one that still had a W on the side.
Ignoring the rungs, he vaulted into his cockpit, slapped the power on, and was rolling toward the hangar before his crystal flared fully to life. Trip caught a worried expression on Sardelle’s face as she gazed after him, but Trip turned his focus to following Zirkander out of the hangar.
Along with Leftie and several others, they rolled into the fresh ocean air. Trip looked toward the night sky and the two dragons flying over the city, the gold he’d seen on the way up, and a smaller bronze. If the legends he’d grown up with were true, the bronze shouldn’t breathe fire, but with a wingspan of almost fifty feet, and the strength and mental power of a demigod, it could still do plenty of damage.
“Tranq, form your squad up into four-man teams, two on each dragon,” Zirkander said. “You know the drill, all rounds go out toward the ocean, and stagger runs to stay out of each other’s fire. No dropping grenades over the city. Do your best to lure the dragons out over the harbor.”
“Yes, sir. We’re on it.”
“There’s another gold dragon coming down from the north. Cougars, Lions, Bears, and anyone else I’m forgetting, you’re with me. We’re going up to meet her and try to stop her from reaching the city. V formation until we make contact.”
Several yes, sirs sounded in response.
Trip veered into the night after the general, surprised he knew about the third dragon, since it wasn’t in sight yet, and also surprised he apparently knew its gender. Her gender. Or was it a guess? Even Trip couldn’t tell that.
He has a magical spy, Jaxi spoke into his mind, startling him. As to the rest, the cloaca of the female is significantly different from the cloaca of the male. Do they not teach young pilots anything?
Uh, just how to fly, ma’am.
Ma’am? Oh, this is much improved from earlier. But you can call me Jaxi. I was younger than you when I entered the sword. I’m not a stuffy old lady.
I’ll keep that in mind. Based on what Ravenwood had told him, “entered the sword” meant that Jaxi the person had died at that point. He wondered what had happened to her to cause her death when so young.
A question for another time. The second gold dragon had come into view, and she was huge. Even larger than the first gold. She sped fearlessly toward them.
The first bangs of machine guns erupted behind Trip, Wolf Squadron engaging the other dragons. He didn’t sense any pain or concern coming from the dragons. If anything, he sensed… amusement.
br />
He winced. That didn’t bode well for this battle.
6
Rysha ran up the stairs to the wall that surrounded the army fort, the largest installation on the West Coast and the city’s major ground defense against those dragons. Booms thundered, and the stone steps shivered under her feet. Already, someone manned the cannons, guns, and other artillery weapons, lofting projectiles into the cloudy night sky.
Fire lit the city, at least a dozen buildings burning. Wood snapped and flames crackled, the noise competing with the siren, the terrified shouts of people, and the roar of the ocean beyond the breakwater. So far, the fort hadn’t been hit. Men ran to their duty stations while shouting orders. High above, fliers took off from the bluff.
Had Trip, Leftie, and Duck already made it up there? Some of the fliers, barely visible against the dark sky, veered toward the dragons tormenting the city, and others headed north. Were more dragons coming?
From all the reports Rysha had heard, she couldn’t imagine fighting one off, much less a herd of them. Or a flock. Or whatever the hells multiple dragons flying together were called. The history books had never mentioned a term.
She ran past two gun teams, nobody glancing her way. She had no idea if anyone would have taken over Gun 7 on the northeast corner since she’d left. She’d been given command of that position fresh out of the academy, with a couple of sergeants with true experience also on the team. But it had been three weeks since she received her orders for the elite troops training, so it was possible she would arrive and find another lieutenant in charge of the position.
But it wouldn’t have made sense to run to the elite troops headquarters. There was nothing she could do to help from there. Even if she hadn’t been a raw recruit, only partway into the training, she couldn’t imagine what she might have done. For now, this entire battle was in the air.
Four men surrounded Gun 7, loading the first shells. Someone had lit a gas lamp so they could see. Half the men were in their pajamas and boots. Rifles leaned against the wall next to the big double-barreled artillery gun. If the dragons came down and the soldiers had to fight them with rifles, the entire city would be in trouble. Not that it wasn’t in trouble already.
A scream came from the city, disturbingly close. An apartment building less than a quarter mile from the fort walls almost exploded from the heat as flames surged into the night. A dragon flew away. Lazily.
Gunshots fired, cannons boomed, and a shell exploded near its head, but the dragon flapped its wings just enough to rise up above the city again.
“Bastard’s toying with us,” came a growl from Gun 7.
An angry clang followed it, the breech door slamming shut.
“That Sergeant Deimakker?” Rysha asked as one of the men in pajamas aimed the now-loaded artillery weapon.
“Yeah, that you, Lieutenant Ravenwood? Thought you’d moved on to bigger and better things.”
“Just muddier things.” She came to stand behind the men.
“Some men pay a lot of money to see women covered in mud.”
“I’m afraid I would have been a disappointing show.”
“You do the obstacle course yet?”
“Yes.”
“Make it past the Cofah infiltrator?”
“Technically, yes. After he knocked out my partner with a single punch, I talked medical science at him until he got concerned about all the concussions he’d received in his life. I jogged past him while he was pondering that.”
Sergeant Deimakker barked a laugh. “You and your brain are either exactly what the elite troops need, or you’ll be kicked out by the end of the month.”
“Or both.”
“True.”
Someone—Corporal Lancing?—fired at the dragon, a shudder going through the massive gun with the recoil. The shell sailed upward and toward the harbor, blowing through the spot where their target had been two seconds earlier, then landing uselessly in the water.
The gun team cursed, but quickly loaded more rounds.
Rysha’s fingers itched to do something, but as she’d learned as soon as she graduated the academy, young lieutenants were largely decorative. She’d done the paperwork for the unit, and in their practice drills, her job had been to walk between Guns 7, 8, and 9, to see if the sergeants, the men with the real experience, needed anything. Sometimes, her rank could facilitate requests, but her rank was admittedly puny and lowly in comparison to other officers. Nobody expected that much from her.
While that was sometimes a relief, it rankled now. She wanted to help. Especially now that this wasn’t a practice drill.
Rysha was doing her best to lock her emotions—her fears—into a box in her mind, but every time she heard a scream or a cry of pain, they threatened to escape. It had been bad enough hearing about attacks taking place in different parts of the country, but this was home. Oh, her family’s estate was forty miles down the coast, but she’d gone to school in the capital and done all her military training here. She knew the streets as well as any. And knew a lot of the people too.
She swallowed when she noticed a snarl of flames and smoke wafting upward from the southeastern side of the city, where the university lay. Most of the professors there lived close by. And many of her friends who’d stayed in academia. Might her sister be there now?
Thinking of her family made her realize that she had no idea if her mother and father and grandmother and everyone on the estate down south were all right. Had the dragons come from that direction? What if they’d burned everything along the coast on the way?
“Your big brain have any advice for hitting dragons?” Deimakker asked after taking a turn at the gun himself, only to have his rounds also fly wide.
Rysha took a deep breath and pushed her worries aside. Right now, all she could do was focus on her duty.
“You talking to me, Sarge?” the corporal who’d also missed the dragon asked.
“Nah, the LT. You know that.”
“I’m big all over—my brain too. Wasn’t sure.”
Rysha smiled faintly as she looked toward the sky, studying the way the dragons, a gold and a bronze, banked and wheeled. A part of her found it odd that men facing danger tossed around banter, but intellectually, she understood. Anything to keep the mind off the trouble they were in. They not only struggled to hit the dragons, but even when projectiles came close, neither exploding shells nor cannonballs did any damage.
As she watched, a cannonball bounced off the bronze dragon, striking some invisible field instead of hitting him. She’d read about dragon powers and knew what to expect, but it hadn’t prepared her for the reality, the frustration of being able to do nothing.
“The gold likes to bank to his left,” she said. “And every time he comes to the end of the city, he loops up, rotates, and spins before flying back in.” She ran some equations in her head. “I’d guess the speed for both of them to be a steady fifty, sixty miles per hour right now, faster when they’re diving of course. It’s roughly 1.2 seconds for one of our shells to hit an airborne target at one thousand meters in altitude and at this end of the city. To the north end it’s 1.9, and more like 2.1 to the castle.” Those were equations she’d run before, when she first came to this assignment, her notebook and pencil amusing the team of veterans. “If you can catch one of them on a straight run and fire about—” She made a groping gesture with her hand, not sure how to explain. “Probably aim a good five hundred yards in front of them when they’re at this end of the city. Closer to seven hundred up north.”
“You’re right, Sarge. Her brain is bigger than mine.”
“Take a try at the gun, LT,” Deimakker said.
Rysha hesitated before stepping onto the firing platform. She’d had practice with the army’s various artillery weapons out on the range, but she hadn’t done any real firing yet, not out over the city where one had to be careful about ordnance exploding over buildings or the ships docked in the harbor. Not to mention the fliers up there trying their
damnedest to shoot the dragons.
The pilots were well aware of the artillery weapons and usually attacked in rounds to give the ground troops openings. But with the guns and cannons so far proving worthless, would they stick to routine? The pilots were firing as they flew about, and occasionally, someone lobbed a small grenade from the cockpit, but thus far, the dragons appeared uninjured. Almost bored with the battle.
Booms came from the fort walls. The bronze was heading their way.
Rysha adjusted the big gun, shifting the sights well ahead of the dragon’s path. Would it bank? Or continue straight toward them?
Guessing on straight, she pulled the two triggers, one after the other. The shells blasted away, the platform reverberating under her feet. She lost track of them in the dim light, but one of the dragon’s taloned arms snapped out. It caught something. Her shell?
It rolled onto its back in the air and tossed the shell back toward the fort. It exploded in the air before it reached them, flashing in the night sky, and fortunately doing no damage.
“Well, that was disheartening,” Deimakker said.
“Yeah,” the corporal said. “Better let me go back to firing. It’s safer when we miss.”
Rysha stared bleakly as the bronze flew over them, banked, and flapped its wings to take it up to the hangars. It landed atop the back one and disappeared from her sight, but a great wrenching of metal echoed over the sirens still wailing in the city.
To the north, the gold dragon lit fire to dozens of ships docked in the harbor and then flew toward the castle. King Angulus’s home and headquarters. There would be gunners on the castle walls, too, but what could they do that the soldiers down here couldn’t?
More than a dozen fliers veered to follow the gold dragon, their machine gun fire pummeling the night, but their foe’s wings never faltered, and Rysha knew those rounds weren’t getting through.
Puny humans! a voice cried in her mind, and she stumbled backward, slipping off the gun platform. Great power came with those words, and they rang around in her head like a clapper in a bell. We are reclaiming Serankil, and this land you are infesting will be mine. Your weapons are useless against us, as you can see. You are weaker than you were a thousand years ago. So puny! So unworthy of a world to yourselves. Henceforward, all humans infesting this land will be my slaves. Or—the voice seemed to purr these last words—my dinner.