Sooner than she expected, the pilot tried to fire his guns. She worried that the bullets would simply shoot through her obstruction, that the metal would still be pliable, but a small explosion boomed. The pilot jerked back in his seat, startled. Sardelle didn’t think it would ultimately do anything except deny him a couple of weapons, but the barrel of the guns had blown open and peeled back like flower petals. A piece got in the way of the propeller blade, causing it to jam and freeze up. The flier’s momentum carried it a ways, but it soon tilted downward, falling toward the ground. Sardelle stared, unable to take her gaze from its plummet, newly aware of how fragile these craft were, of how little it took to knock them out of the sky.
“Jaxi?” Ridge called aloud after downing the sixth flier with the help of the other Iskandian pilot. “Sardelle? I’m out of targets to send that rocket into, unless I crash it into the city, which I don’t want to do. Anything you can do?”
Sardelle had almost forgotten about the second rocket. Ridge had been avoiding it so deftly that it seemed he could do it forever, but with the dragon blood powering it, the weapon kept after them, its speed not flagging at all.
I’m having trouble destroying the vial this time, Jaxi admitted, presumably speaking to both of them.
Their flier twisted through the air like a corkscrew, Ridge doing his best to avoid the rocket. He tried to turn in time to shoot at it, but it was too fast.
The other Iskandian flier had left Ridge’s tail and came in from the side. The pilot unloaded bullets at the rocket. Most missed the sleek, narrow cylinder, but one caught. Sardelle hoped that might be enough to destroy it, and indeed, it was knocked from its path for a second, but it righted itself and sped after Ridge’s flier again.
They switched from glass to iron, Jaxi added. Specially treated iron. It’s resisting my attempts to incinerate it.
Sardelle peered into the innards of the rocket, trying to make sense of the circuit board and wires inside. She sensed the encapsulated dragon blood riding in the center near the front and understood what Jaxi meant. Either a shaman had treated that metal, or the Cofah had found some old stash of ingots treated long ago, perhaps in creating armor to battle dragons and sorcerers. It resisted her attempts to melt it.
Let’s destroy the rest of that board and those wires, Sardelle told Jaxi. They’re not armored the way the vial is. Even if she wasn’t an engineer and most of the new contraptions of this century confused her, she assumed that those parts somehow controlled the rocket.
I think your soul snozzle has something else in mind.
Sardelle had sunk low into her seat, losing awareness of their surroundings as she focused on the rocket, so when she sat taller and had a look ahead of them, her stomach nearly dropped to her boots. Black jagged rock filled her vision. She was barely aware of the castle to their left. They couldn’t be more than two seconds from crashing.
Pull up, she thought—or maybe she screamed it.
At the last instant, Ridge did so. The bottom of their flier’s tail scraped across a jagged boulder protruding above the others. An angry shudder rocked the craft, and Sardelle thought they were dead. Before she could tell if they would be able to rise up again and escape, an explosion ripped the air behind them. She barely had the presence of mind to shore up her shields and protect them from the shockwave.
Their flier soared away from the angry orange fireball churning the air. The rocks skimming past below disappeared, replaced by the gray waters of the harbor.
“Sorry,” Ridge said. “It had to be close. As I found out last time, those rockets are not easily fooled.”
“I understand,” Sardelle rasped, her voice barely able to escape her tight throat.
“Nice flying, sir,” came the other pilot’s voice over the crystal. “Though that explosion got the guards in the castle towers all riled up.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard they’ve had a bad week.”
He sounded as casual as if they were all sitting at a bar and sharing drinks. He probably wasn’t even sweating.
Sardelle mopped moisture from her own forehead as she slumped back in the seat.
At least you didn’t throw up like Colonel Therrik did, Jaxi observed.
Once the flier had sailed to a safe height again—one where it was not in danger of hitting rocks, buildings, or crashing into the castle, Ridge twisted in his seat to grin back at her. He found her hand and clasped it—he didn’t seem to notice that her knuckles were white from gripping the edge of her seat.
“Thanks for your help,” he said. “Sleepy never would have made it if we had been any later.”
“That’s the other pilot?” she asked.
Ridge nodded. “Tiger Squadron. He’s just a kid. I’m going to ask him about where the rest of his squadron is, but wanted to say thanks.” He squeezed her hand again, then turned back to his controls.
He thanked me too. Jaxi sounded pleased. Or pleased with herself. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.
Jaxi sniffed haughtily in her mind.
“Sleepy,” Ridge said over the crystal, “want to tell me what you’re doing down here by yourself? Did—”
A wailing alarm emanated from the city below, drowning out his words. Sardelle had heard it before, the night the pirates had attacked.
They’re a little late, Sardelle thought to Ridge.
He turned to look back at her, his usually warm and cheerful eyes grave. “No, they’re not.”
He tilted his chin toward the sea, past Sardelle’s shoulder.
You don’t want to look, Jaxi said.
She did, anyway. She looked… and stared.
About three miles out over the ocean, beneath grim gray clouds that promised more rain, a massive fortress floated in the air. It reminded her of the floating pirate city they had dealt with earlier that winter, but it appeared much more sophisticated, much more impenetrable. There weren’t any balloons holding it up that one might target. Sardelle had no idea what was holding it up. Dragon blood had to be involved, but an energy source, no matter how powerful, could not defy gravity.
A pair of dirigibles floated on either side, the oblong balloons appearing small next to the walls and towers of the fortress. Even from here, Sardelle could tell that cannons, guns, and rocket launchers were mounted on those towers. An open area lay visible, too, almost like the courtyard in the castle, except one could have walked right off the fortress platform and fallen into the ocean. Or flown off, she realized, squinting at the dark smudges lined up in rows in that open area. Fliers. A lot of them. Fifty? One hundred?
Bleakly, she thought of the empty hangar she and Ridge had visited.
“Sleepy,” Ridge said, “I hope you had a good breakfast, because it doesn’t look like our work is done.”
“Oh, sir.” The other pilot had spoken with relative calm during their battle, but his voice had a choked, mournful quality to it now. “What can we do against all that?”
“Pray,” Sardelle whispered.
Chapter 15
Ridge did the aerial equivalent of pacing; he flew from one end of the harbor to the other, then back again, never letting the floating fortress out of his sight. He had expected it to mount an attack as soon as he had seen it, but three hours had passed since he had first noticed it out there. It hovered as easily as the airships, in a way that seemed to defy gravity. He could only assume some dragon-blood-powered thrusters lined the underside of the platform that the massive structure sat upon. A lot of dragon-blood-powered thrusters. He had hoped that his team had deprived the Cofah of their reserves, but they must have had many more vials squirreled away on different bases. And this monstrosity had to have been far along in the construction process when Ridge and his squadron had been on the continent.
“What are they waiting for?” He drummed his fingers on the metal first-aid kit strapped to the side of his seat.
He shouldn’t be impatient. Their delay had allowed eight more fliers to join him in the air, patrolling the harb
or, ready to face impossible odds when they had to. They were all Wolf Squadron, pilots who had received his telegraph message and risked punishment to come back and join him. It felt good to have Crash and Masser in the air behind him, but even if all of Wolf and Tiger Squadrons had returned, it wouldn’t have been enough to equal the seventy-five fliers he had counted sitting on that launching pad. The city’s big artillery weapons, mounted on towers at the north and south ends of the harbor, were pointing toward the fortress, but the Cofah seemed to know their range and hovered outside of it. Ridge didn’t even know how effective the weapons would be against those walls. The fortress appeared to be made of metal. His mind boggled at the idea of keeping that much weight in the air.
I don’t know, Sardelle projected into his mind, but I’m going to have to use that tube soon if we stay up here.
Probably better to do it before the next fight. Keeps things from happening unexpectedly when something alarms you.
Ridge did not have to look back to know Sardelle was raising her eyebrows.
Are you suggesting I might urinate on myself? she asked.
You wouldn’t be the first passenger who’s done that while flying into battle with me. In fact, I’m fairly certain Therrik did it while we were cruising through Crazy Canyon.
No, he just vomited. I cleaned the seat, remember?
Ah, too bad.
As long as we’re sharing funny stories about people peeing on themselves, Jaxi spoke into Ridge’s mind, both of their minds probably, I noticed Sardelle left out a few details when sharing the events of our castle infiltration.
I included all of the important details, Sardelle thought.
Ridge tapped the communication crystal. “Therrik, how’s the flier round-up going?”
Several times, Ridge had thought about landing, so that he could expedite the orders he had given Therrik, but he worried that as soon as he left the sky, the fortress would attack. He also thought he might get punched if he presumed to order Therrik around without a few thousand feet of air between them.
“We’ve got four more in the hangar. The maintenance team is working its hardest to make them airworthy.”
“Only four? Did you get the ones out of the flight museum?”
“Zirkander, I’m not sending people up in—”
“I’m not talking about pulling out the wrecks,” Ridge snapped. “The Eagle-7s are perfectly serviceable. And I know we’ve got extra crystals stored in some vault somewhere. They came back with me from Galmok Mountain.”
“Good, Zirkander. Talk about state secrets over an open radio that all of your pilots can listen in on.”
“Just get the damned fliers into the hangar, Therrik.” Ridge noticed he was gripping the flight stick hard enough to rip it off. He forced his fingers to relax and took a deep breath. “Duck and Ahn ought to be there any minute.” He almost forgot and said Apex would be there, too, but squashed that addition with a mix of frustration and sorrow. “If you can find any other pilots down there that you didn’t send off on your idiotic witch-hunt, we’ll want them in the air too.”
A hand came to rest on his shoulder. Sardelle squeezed him through his jacket. She didn’t presume to tell him to cool off—though it would have been prudent, since Therrik was the only one on the ground that he could deal with, and if he started ignoring Ridge, they would be in trouble. Also, any minute now, Therrik was going to realize that he still had orders saying he ran the flier battalion.
“Please,” Ridge added, though forcing the word out nearly broke his jaw.
“Shit, Zirkander. Was that as hard for you as it sounded?”
“Just… get me more fliers. Please.”
I wouldn’t have guessed I could get you to be polite to him just by touching your shoulder, Sardelle thought.
You’re serene; you make me want to be serene. Or at least less of an irritable jackass.
Nice to know I can have that effect. What I wanted to tell you is that the king made it to town.
Good.
He’s in the tram now, heading up to the hangar with Tolemek, Cas, Duck, and Kaika. Jaxi says that Tolemek is carrying a huge bag—Duck is helping him with it.
Any chance it’s full of weapons instead of dirty laundry? Ridge asked.
Perhaps a slight chance.
“Anyone know what they’re waiting for?” came Captain Crash’s voice over the crystal.
“I figured they saw the colonel blow up six of their fliers and wet themselves,” Pimples said.
Ridge snorted. It felt good to have the men bantering around him again. Even if they were looking at suicidal odds, he had missed this.
“I had help,” Ridge said.
“From your archaeologist?” Crash asked.
Several people snorted this time. Apparently, nobody believed that cover story anymore.
“Yup,” Ridge said. “I wasn’t sure if you all would be able to make it on time, what with being on vacation, touring the countryside.”
Crash hesitated before answering. “I wouldn’t have minded missing that tour.”
His tone told Ridge he didn’t want to discuss it further, at least not now, not with Sardelle right behind him. He wouldn’t try to hide the truth from her, but he wouldn’t want her to hear a first-hand accounting of her distant relatives being slain, either. Breyatah’s Breath, he hoped the squadrons hadn’t had much luck finding people.
Thank you. Sardelle squeezed his shoulder again.
“Zirkander?” Therrik asked. “You there?”
“No, I stepped out to lunch.”
Someone giggled. Probably Pimples. The boy did not have a manly laugh.
“The king says to get your ass down here for a meeting.”
“Everyone?” Ridge glanced at the fortress. Even if it hadn’t moved closer yet, he hated to leave it.
“Just you,” Therrik said.
“Am I in trouble?” Ridge tilted his wings to drop out of the formation and head downward.
“What kind of stupid question is that? You’ve been in trouble for the last month straight.”
“Well, I suppose I was wondering about new trouble.”
“There’s no time to waste, Zirkander,” a new voice said. The king’s voice. “Get down here.”
“Yes, Sire.” Ridge had been descending, anyway, but now he wished he hadn’t made it sound like he was dawdling. He also wished he knew how that conversation between Angulus and Kaika had gone. The king had been cordial enough toward Sardelle that afternoon—well, perhaps cordial wasn’t exactly the word. Indifferent? Unfazed? Bland? How he felt now after learning about the queen… there had not been time to ask. He trusted that there wouldn’t be an armed escort waiting to arrest Sardelle. Or himself. After all, he hadn’t been back to the base since fleeing his cell.
Ridge ignored the thrusters when the flier reached the airstrip and simply landed with the wheels, his momentum carrying him to the hangar. He circled and parked outside, the nose toward the end of the runway again. He didn’t want any delays if he needed to take off in a hurry.
Sardelle climbed to the ground before him and immediately jogged toward the hangar.
“I didn’t know you’d missed the king that much,” Ridge called after her.
I didn’t use the tube.
Ah.
That armed escort would be in for a surprise if they tried to apprehend her, especially if someone tried to throw her over his shoulder.
With one more glance toward the sky to make sure that fortress wasn’t coming yet, Ridge jogged into the hangar after her. The back doors had been rolled open in addition to the front, with cool wind gusting through. Several old fliers had been added to the empty floor, and a forklift was bringing in crates of parts. One of the decommissioned fliers had nearly naked women painted on the side.
“That must have come from someone’s barnstorming show,” Ridge muttered, then spotted Tolemek, Ahn, Duck, Therrik, and the king standing around a table. Therrik was glowering and glaring at Tolemek
. Tolemek was ignoring him. He had a hand on a big, lumpy canvas bag lying on the table. It could have held a body. Ridge hoped it held weapons instead. Kaika sat against a wall behind the group, checking no less than six guns, two knives, and the detonation apparatuses on ten bombs. Several men in the deep blue uniforms of the castle guard stood by the door, rifles in hand. Either the king had stopped to pick up his usual contingent of bodyguards, or they had found him.
“Am I late for the meeting?” Ridge asked, walking as he talked, lest the king think he needed to give him another order.
“We don’t know why they’re waiting,” Angulus said, “but I’ve radioed the other bases personally and ordered them to send the rest of our people back, as well as help from the other squadrons.”
“Thank you, sir.” Ridge did some calculations in his head. They might get help in as little as four hours. Would the flotilla out there wait that long?
“Deathmaker has brought something that may help,” Angulus said.
Tolemek’s eyebrows lifted at the use of his old moniker, but he did not correct the king. Ridge looked at Ahn, wondering if she was in a better state of mind than she had been a few hours earlier. Her bleak expression did not suggest that was the case. At least she had her Mark 500 rifle across her back instead of that sword.
“As per Zirkander’s order,” Tolemek murmured. Ridge didn’t know if that was to give him credit for having the foresight to get him to work on weapons, or if he simply wanted to absolve himself of any disasters that might result when the army used them. “I’ve been studying the dragon blood since we first found some. As you know, it’s proven an incredible energy source and also seems to allow orders to be stored in some kind of cellular memory, thus to direct an unmanned craft or—”
“We need the short version right now,” Angulus said, his gaze flickering toward the sky beyond the open hangar doors.
Tolemek dug into the bag. He pulled out a few casings. “These are smoke grenades that also do some damage. Simple weapons. I know you already have the technology to create them, but I had extra ingredients. Here are a handful of knockout grenades. These items may be useful for the incursion.”