Trip sprinted through the cobblestone and cement streets toward the army fort at the base of the bluff housing the flier hangars. Sirens continued to wail, and his sixth sense screamed in his ears almost as loudly as they did. Dragons. Multiple dragons.
He couldn’t see anything in the cloudy night sky yet, but he sensed their auras. They radiated power like that of the sun, and he could almost feel it beating against his skin.
He wasn’t the only soldier running toward the fort, and he found the gate already open, floodlights on. Good. He didn’t have to worry about showing his identification. He hadn’t received his Wolf Squadron pin yet—or his new rank tabs—and he didn’t have anything except his orders to prove he was a part of the unit, orders that were in the barracks room he’d been assigned that morning.
As he raced onto the fort, Trip glanced around and realized he didn’t know anyone around him. He’d sprinted off without checking to see if Duck, Ravenwood, or even Leftie were with him. All he’d known was that he had to get to his flier. That was the only place he could imagine going where he could do some good.
Some soldiers broke away, heading for the walls and the artillery weapons perched at intervals there. Others ran down the same streets as Trip, toward the tram at the back of the fort that led up to the flier hangars. He reached it as the doors were about to close. The tram car was already full. Damn it. As it was, he wouldn’t get to his flier before the dragons reached the harbor and the city.
“Out, Cricket,” a familiar voice said from behind him. “Go in the next round.”
“Yes, sir,” a soldier by the door blurted and stepped out.
General Zirkander jumped into his spot. There wasn’t obvious room for another person, but Trip saw a tiny bit of floor space and decided to squeeze in. The doors started to shut before he found a spot.
Zirkander grabbed him, and Trip thought he might push him away, but he pulled him in, turning sideways to make more space. Others squished back in deference to him.
“Thanks, sir,” Trip said.
“You bring Jaxi?” Zirkander asked.
“The sword? No.”
Zirkander swore.
“Sorry, sir.” Trip winced, now regretting his lunge into the car, and not just because he was forced to crouch, half-wedged under Zirkander’s armpit. After what Ravenwood had said, he’d already been feeling bad about leaving the weapon behind. “I was at a pub. I didn’t realize I should take it everywhere.”
“Jaxi is invaluable. And useful. Even in pubs.”
The tram shuddered into motion, the cable creaking ominously under the weight of all the soldiers—pilots—piled into the car.
“Yes, sir. I’m beginning to understand that now.”
Zirkander didn’t respond, and Trip tried not to feel like a screw-up. Just that afternoon, he’d been thinking how much better it would be to work under him than under Colonel Anchor, but if Zirkander’s first impression of him was that he was an idiot, that might have been a premature assumption.
“Sardelle will bring her,” Zirkander said as the car swayed and groaned its way to the top of the bluff.
“Sir?” Trip wasn’t sure if the statement was for him.
“She hadn’t left the fort yet to go home. She’s stopping by your room in the barracks to get Jaxi, and she’ll bring her along.”
“Oh.” Trip wondered if they were speaking telepathically. Zirkander didn’t have dragon blood, at least Trip didn’t think so, but maybe Sardelle, and perhaps the sword, could reach out to him.
Light flared somewhere outside, slashing through a side window. Someone gasped.
Trip couldn’t see past people’s heads, but he didn’t need to. He could feel the proximity of the first of the three dragons. Even though he’d never seen one in person before, he had no doubt that he was right.
“It’s descending on the city,” someone near the window blurted.
“There’s more than one!”
Trip set his jaw. Tonight, he would join Wolf Squadron, and he would help drive those dragons away. That would show Zirkander that he wasn’t a screw-up.
The car bumped to a stop, and the doors in the back opened. Men leaped out and raced for one of two hangars, the one all lit up, the one where Trip had parked his flier earlier. Just that morning. What a long, life-changing day it had been.
Zirkander took off at top speed, and Trip ran after him. The road to the hangar followed the side of the bluff, letting them see down into the dark waters of the harbor and also into the city curving along the coastline, the streets lit with gas lamps. And—Trip sucked in a startled breath—several buildings were ablaze with fire. Dragon fire.
A huge gold flew over the city, gliding and banking and doing loops, much as Trip might do in his flier. It was as if the dragon was simply enjoying the feel of flying. And the feel of letting loose flames and destroying things.
Trip grimaced, thinking he heard screams over the undulations of the sirens.
Zirkander, less enthralled with the invading dragon, had outpaced him and was running into the hangar. Trip sprinted to catch up, determined to go up in the first wave. He just wasn’t sure what they could do. What would bullets do to a dragon? Ravenwood had called the creatures nearly impervious and implied they needed one of those special swords to harm one. Could the soulblade—Jaxi—hurt a dragon?
Trip grimaced again, realizing he’d left Ravenwood down in the city without so much as a farewell or “good luck.” Had she run to the fort after him? He felt certain Leftie and Duck had been right behind him, perhaps having to wait to cram into the next tram car. But Ravenwood wasn’t a pilot. Where would she have gone? What if she was down there in a building now ablaze?
Damn, he wished he’d made sure she was someplace safe before taking off, especially after she had stepped up to his side to help him out of that jam. Even though that had been embarrassing, he’d been glad to get out of a fight that wouldn’t have gone his way, and he’d had the sense that she would have fought at his side if it had devolved into that. Strangers, or near strangers, didn’t typically jump to his defense.
“Right here,” Zirkander called from an office, waving Trip to a line that had formed.
Trip had intended to run straight to his flier—someone had already rolled open the hangar door so the craft could take off—but Zirkander was handing objects to the pilots in line. As soon as they received one or two, they ran toward their fliers, cradling the items carefully. Trip sensed something about them, some small hint of magic.
“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.
He winced. That didn’t bode well for this battle.
