Sardelle backed into the doorway to give herself a moment to think. A shield. That was what they needed. Yes.
Around the whole fort?
It has to be. Sardelle took a deep breath and concentrated. She created a translucent dome, so subtle that the fiery rain continued through it at first, slowed down but not extinguished. Gradually, she added more energy until the burning pellets bounced off instead of falling through.
Someone cheered from the wall. She doubted the soldier had any idea what was going on, other than the fact that fire wasn’t falling onto his head, but Sardelle let herself feel bolstered—appreciated—nonetheless.
They’re going to want to shoot through your shield. In fact, they’re about to try now.
Sardelle grimaced. Ricocheting cannonballs would not be good. Let me see if I can tinker with it and—
I’ll handle it. You look for a way to deal with the shaman. He’ll know right where we are now.
Understood.
She would have preferred to search for Ridge and see how he was doing with that owl, but the shaman had to be the priority.
He found her first. With a mental attack. Something like a harpoon blasted into her mind. Pressure erupted from it, until her eyeballs felt like they would burst from her head. Sardelle dropped to a knee, pressing her fist into the cold earth for support. If not for Jaxi, the shield would have fallen. For a moment, all Sardelle could focus on was building her own shield, one around herself, one that could repel his attack. She gathered the strength to thrust him away, to return the assault, but paused before deploying it.
What if she played dead? Lured him down? She couldn’t physically touch him as long as he was up on that ship, but if he came down, looking for Jaxi…
Yes, use me as bait. We invaluable swords love that.
Sardelle’s head was still throbbing—if she fought him off completely, he would get a feel for how much power she had, and he wouldn’t come down—but she managed a quick response. Who told you that you were invaluable?
All of the truly wise people who have known me. Go on. Crumple to the ground with theatrical flair. I won’t give you away.
Sardelle opted for slumping against the doorjamb. She quieted her mind, as if she were unconscious. The attack continued to batter at her, but she gritted her teeth and endured it. If this didn’t work in the next few seconds, though, she was going to get angry and start looking for ways to rip his hinges off, whether he was a hundred meters above her or not.
The flames have stopped, Jaxi reported. Should I drop the shield?
Yes, he’ll be distracted with me for the moment. She hoped. Besides, to further the illusion, she had to stop doing anything that showed off her power. Just be prepared to raise it again.
Got it.
Then the shaman was probing her, the mental equivalent of checking her pulse at her throat. Neither she nor Jaxi thought a word lest he feel it. The sensation of letting him investigate without putting up defensive shields was like having ants crawling all over her skin, but she endured it, as she had the pain.
Eventually, he withdrew. The cannons were firing again—both from the fort and the ship—but Sardelle and the shaman had other concerns.
He’s coming.
Flying? Sardelle had never heard of a sorcerer who could, at least not without the help of some sort of apparatus. Or did someone drop a rope? Was the airship close enough for that? Surely the soldiers would object…
He’s bringing down a hot air balloon. Must be the airship equivalent of a lifeboat.
Are our soldiers attacking it?
Jaxi paused. Yes, but the shaman is shielding it, just as you did, and he’s protecting the airship, too, though it looks like your flying friend did some damage before the shaman was prepared.
Ridge? Good. Sardelle felt a swell of pride for him. Though it quickly turned to worry. Would the shaman sense it if she stretched out, trying to locate him?
Stay still. He’s landed. And he’s walking this way.
Sardelle cracked an eyelid. She was surprised there weren’t any soldiers racing down from the walls to attack the shaman.
Ah, but he wasn’t alone. The bronze-skinned man who strode toward her in a cloak of black fur, his long white hair startling in contrast, was surrounded by no less than two dozen other men, shaven-headed Cofah warriors wielding short-swords and long double-barreled firearms that they shot one-handed from their hips. The soldiers inside the fort were shooting at them, but the shaman was shielding them.
Jaxi’s hilt grew warm, ready for a fight. You drew them in. Do you have a plan? I don’t think he’ll be bothered by a rash.
Sardelle’s plan had been to throw everything she had at the shaman and hope to take him by surprise, but if she could force his shield down, that might be enough. A sorcerer was as susceptible to bullets as the next person.
The Cofah warriors smiled as bullets bounced away from them and grew confident enough to launch their own attacks. They started shooting at the men on the walls. The shaman raised a hand toward the mountainside, and the doors Ridge had ordered built over the tram shafts flew open amongst squeals of metal.
Sardelle cursed at herself. Inviting the bastard down hadn’t been a good idea after all. If all those miners streamed out and started attacking their captors…
Time for her own attack. The shaman was less than ten meters away. Sardelle summoned her energy and blasted it at him, targeting his mind, just as he had done to her. She could only hope it was enough.
• • • • •
At first, Ridge had the airship in sight as he streaked across the sky, the wind tearing his eyes and scraping his cheeks raw. Then he saw the smaller balloon on the ground inside the fort, the bald Cofah troops striding across the courtyard in their crimson uniforms and cloaks. One distinctive white-haired figure at the center of their formation stood out. Ridge didn’t know who he was—or why his own people weren’t shooting those intruders—but had a feeling he was responsible for that fire that had been raining from the sky. Another sorcerer.
“Would have been nice if headquarters had had a clue about this ship,” he muttered, tipping the flier’s nose down to dive for that formation.
He fired, but realized the problem immediately. The bullets bounced off before striking the men. He adjusted his targeting, thinking he would blast a few holes in the ground next to the Cofah and see how well their invisible shielding protected them from heaving earth at their feet, but his finger froze on the trigger. Someone was crumpled on the ground in the doorway of the admin building. Sardelle.
Ridge swallowed—had she been shot retrieving that sword? Or had the shaman done something to her?
Necessity made him pull up, and she disappeared from his sight. Rage and fear formed a lump in his throat, and he almost missed the significance of a blast from overhead, a cannon firing. At him. It blazed past the cockpit, missing his wing by inches.
Ridge turned away from the fort, knowing he was all-too-well-lit by the fire and lanterns below. He aimed for high sky, though he kept the airship in the corner of his eye. If their sorcerer protector was on the ground… maybe they would be more vulnerable to attack now. He had already done some damage. If he could bring the ship down, the Cofah would be stranded, sorcerer or not. As much as he wanted to tear into the fort to protect Sardelle, he never should have fired into the courtyard to start with. He risked hitting his own men that way. This was the more logical attack.
“I hate logic sometimes,” Ridge said, the wind stealing his words. Not that there was anyone there to hear them.
Once he was above the airship again, and they couldn’t target him so easily, he veered in close. He strafed the oblong balloon, delivering dozens of small holes. With luck, the bullets might chew up the frame inside too. Unfortunately, those little holes wouldn’t bring the craft down anytime soon.
Something streaked out of the dark sky and slammed into the front of the cockpit. He jerked back. The owl, he realized at the same
moment as its unworldly shriek blasted his ears.
He banked hard, trying to hurl it off the flier. If not for his harness, he might have hurled himself out. The cursed magical bird hung on, its wings beating around the cockpit, keeping Ridge from seeing anything clearly. He glimpsed the balloon of the airship, approaching quickly. He tried to pull up, but that giant owl was either pushing down on the nose somehow or it weighed as much as another person.
Something rolled against Ridge’s foot as he twisted and turned, trying to buck the owl free.
“What now?” he growled.
Then he remembered Bosmont’s comment. Since he needed to duck a slashing talon anyway, he bent down and patted around his feet. He grasped something that felt like a cannonball. That didn’t make any sense. He slapped at the switch that uncovered the crystal in the back, and light blazed forth.
The owl squawked and let go, flapping off to the side of the flier.
“Ten layers of hell, if I’d known it hated light, I would have tried that first.” Ridge didn’t give a whit that the glowing crystal would make him an easier target for the airship, not if it kept that demon bird away. He needed to see what his engineer had given him too. It was lighter than a cannonball, even if it had the same shape, and a wick stuck out of the top.
“Not a wick, idiot, a fuse.” Ridge laughed. Bosmont had made him some bombs.
His first thought was that a bomb dropped onto the top of that balloon would definitely rip a big enough hole to bring the airship down. But the owl veered in again, its huge wings blotting out the stars. The light of the crystal might have startled it, but it had recovered.
“Let’s see how he likes bombs.”
Keeping one hand on the controls, Ridge unfastened the lid of the storage box next to his seat, and fished out the flashlamp used for lighting emergency flares. He thumbed the trigger on the side, and flint snapped against steel, producing a tiny flame. He jammed the bomb between his legs to hold it and hoped Bosmont knew what he was doing and that it wouldn’t go off prematurely. He waited before lighting it, knowing it would take a lot of luck to catch that owl. From the length of the fuse, he judged he would have about four seconds before the bomb exploded.
The creature had disappeared for the moment. Maybe it knew what he intended. Ridge craned his neck in all directions and up, knowing death often came from above in aerial fights, and he was rewarded. He spotted the owl diving down at him from above, plummeting for a kill.
Ridge lit the fuse, grabbed the bomb, then waited, counting. The flier shimmied and jerked, needing two hands on the controls, especially now that it had taken damage.
“Just give me one more second, girl,” he muttered.
He threw the bomb at the owl, as it extended its talons to grip the top of the cockpit again, or maybe to grip the top of Ridge’s head. Whatever its intent, having a metal ball hurled at its face altered its plan. Ridge expected the bomb to strike it and bounce off—he was hoping he had timed it so it would explode before it bounced far—but the owl reacted by snapping its beak down. It caught the bomb in its mouth.
Ridge fought the urge to gape in surprise, instead taking the flier down, knowing he had to put distance between himself and that bomb before—
It erupted with a great flash of orange and yellow, and with a boom that rivaled that of the cannons firing below. The shock made the flier buck, but Ridge got away before any shrapnel hit him. For a moment, feathers filled the sky, as if a pillow had exploded.
Ridge blew out a relieved breath but went straight to his next target. The airship. He felt around with his foot. Hadn’t Bosmont said he had packed a couple of those little gifts? To keep Ridge warm? Yes, there was another. He fished it out, setting it in his lap again. That would never cease to make him nervous, but nobody had thought to mount a bomb holder in the cockpit.
The flier fought him, and he didn’t know how many more runs he would have, but he angled it skyward again. If he could take out the airship, surely the men below could do the rest. Sorcerer or not.
As he climbed, Ridge peered into the fort, wondering about Sardelle, wondering if…
This time, he did let his mouth fall open in a gape. Sardelle was on her feet in the middle of the courtyard, her sword blazing with an intense golden light that had to be hurting the eyes of anyone nearby. Except for that white-haired man in the furs… He was facing her, his hand outstretched, some sort of red mist pouring from his fingers. Ridge had no idea what was going on—or who was winning—and as much as he wanted to help her, he was glad to be far above. He would much rather deal with the airship than magic.
Around Sardelle and the enemy sorcerer, Cofah warriors were engaged with the fort defenders in close combat. Ridge’s people had numbers and ought to have the advantage, but someone had opened the mine doors, and miners were streaming out, pickaxes in hand. There was no telling which side of the fray they would join. With that balloon on the ground, they would have to see an escape opportunity. They might simply brain anyone they crossed and sprint for freedom.
Ridge jerked his gaze from the courtyard and touched the bomb in his lap. He had to finish his part before worrying about the chaos below.
• • • • •
Sardelle advanced on the shaman, Jaxi glowing like a sun in her hand. She had surprised him with her initial attack, and his defenses had fallen, allowing the bullets to reach the Cofah warriors, but he had recovered enough to brick off his mind. That was fine. She had no problem stopping the man with her sword. So long as the Cofah didn’t distract her overly much.
They were clearly acting as the shaman’s bodyguards, whereas the soldiers on the wall… would be as happy to shoot her as to shoot him.
A Cofah warrior aimed his firearm at her. When it blasted, Jaxi blazed, incinerating what turned out to be sprayed shot rather than a bullet. Fortunately, the rest of the Cofah were focused on shooting back at those shooting from the wall. With their shielding gone, they had the low ground. Some had already run to take cover behind buildings.
The shaman tried another mental attack, similar to the one he had originally launched. He wasn’t the only one who had shored up his brain’s defenses. The assault broke around Sardelle, like water passing a boulder in a stream.
She smiled at him and walked closer. Less than ten meters separated them. If he was armed, his weapons lay under that fur cloak. She eyed it. The wombat fur or whatever it was looked coarse and dry. She waved her hand, trying to ignite it. For a moment, smoke wafted up all around the shaman, but he squelched the attack.
He sneered at her, raising his hand, and tendrils of red mist floated toward her. Sardelle kept walking, not certain what that mist was—much of his magic was foreign to her, something from a distant continent—but trusted Jaxi’s power to destroy it. For herself, she raised the soulblade over her shoulder, preparing for a physical attack.
Jaxi pulled the red mist toward her. It wrapped around the blade, then light flashed and it was gone, incinerated like the bullets.
The shaman’s eyes grew round as he stared at her—at the sword. At that moment, he knew he was outmatched.
It’s not too late, he spoke into her mind. Forget these talentless apes. They’re not worth wasting your power on. Come with me. I’ll give you more than they ever could.
Is this going to be another offer to breed? Sardelle didn’t bother to hide her disgust this time. He should have offered again to take her to the other sorcerers in the world. That would have tempted her more. Not enough to lower her sword and stop advancing on him, but more.
Do you not want children? Children with power to rival your own?
If I choose to have children, I want them to have two parents that love them, and each other.
That could come in time. With his thoughts, he sent an image of them together, locked in a lovers’ embrace.
Sardelle curled her lip. The shaman was backing away, even as she advanced. She increased her pace. Another five meters, and she would reach him. As
she pressed forward, Jaxi cut down bullets that came close—one burst into flames a foot from her eyes. That had originated on the wall, not from a Cofah shotgun. It wasn’t the first. No matter what the outcome of this battle, she needed to leave as soon as her confrontation was over.
You see them? The shaman flung a hand toward the soldiers on the wall. They would strike you down as swiftly as they would me. To defend them is utter foolishness. You are not worthy of a soulblade.
Your courting words could use some work. Three meters.
The shaman crouched like a tiger, as if he meant to launch a physical attack at her. Instead he threw up both hands, hurling a tidal wave of energy. Again she let it deflect off her mental shield, and it barely stirred her hair. Behind her, windows shattered and doors flew open. A soldier was knocked off the wall and cried out in pain.
Sardelle leapt forward, slashing at the shaman’s neck with her blade. He scrambled backward, but his heel caught on slick ground. He flailed trying to catch himself. Sardelle lunged after him before he could recover, reminding herself that, weapon or not, he was not a helpless unarmed opponent. He had come to destroy this fort—and to steal Jaxi. She finished him with a stab to the heart.
Sardelle turned three hundred and sixty degrees, checking for fresh attackers, prepared to defend herself. Rifles fired and metal clanged in all directions. Red and gray uniforms mixed, as men fought hand-to-hand. The drab garb of prisoners was everywhere too. She had forgotten—the shaman had released the miners. A pickaxe slammed into a man’s back. The victim wasn’t, as she had feared, one of the fort’s soldiers. It was a Cofah warrior. The prisoners were helping the soldiers, not hindering them.
Light flared in the night sky, and a cheer erupted. The rear of the airship had exploded, and shards of wood flew in every direction. Its balloon was already a misshapen, half-sunken mess. A single bronze dragon flier streaked out of the remains of the explosion, its frame gleaming with the reflection of the flames eating at the back of the airship. The wooden craft slumped in the sky, floating lower and lower, a crash inevitable.