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.
“This night is getting better and better,” Deimakker growled.
Send forth your leader now to surrender your land to me, Gharettomenko the Bold, and perhaps we will not destroy your entire city.
The gold dragon circled the castle, apparently knowing exactly where the “leader” lived.
Rysha stepped back onto the platform and aimed at the dragon again. Until someone told her they were surrendering, she would keep shooting. Dragons weren’t immortal, just very hard to kill. If they kept hammering away at that gold’s shields, just maybe it would get tired. Maybe those shields would falter.
The gold dove down toward the castle, flames roiling from its maw.
• • • • •
Trip sailed into the split formation Zirkander ordered, his finger on the trigger for his machine guns. The cool night air whipped through his hair and battered his face—he hadn’t taken the time to put on any of his gear except his goggles—but he barely noticed. He was focused on the dragon, though the sheer power roiling off her made him want to fly down and find a rock to cower behind. Instead, he did his best to wall off his emotions, to resist its power. A few seconds, and they would be within firing range.
“Sir,” came Tranq’s voice over the crystal, “we haven’t been able to stop either of them yet, and the gold is attacking the castle.”
“Do your best,” Zirkander said. “We’re about to engage the second gold. Trust that King Angulus is somewhere safe.”
“Wish I was,” someone muttered.
“Stow that,” Tranq barked.
“Just keep them as busy as possible,” Zirkander said. “Sardelle has gotten in touch with Tolemek and the rest of Wolf Squadron. They just finished a battle of their own, and they’re flying up from the south with the dragon-slaying blade. Just over a hundred miles away now and coming fast.”
Trip grimaced. A hundred miles in a flier was still almost a two-hour trip, and they would be flying against the prevailing winds.
The squadron split to sail around the dragon, shooting forward and toward it. Machine gun fire blasted over the roar of the ocean and the now-distant sirens from the city. Every fourth bullet was an incendiary and lit the sky orange as it streaked toward its target. Because of that, Trip could see the bullets bouncing uselessly off the dragon’s invisible shield.
Laughter sounded in their minds, rolling over them with power that could have brought men to their knees, had any of them been standing. As it was, several fliers wobbled, and guns stopped firing.
Trip gritted his teeth, took a couple of last shots at its tail, then prepared to circle back to chase it down the coast and fire again. He touched the two grenades he had wedged between his thighs. Not the best place for them, but he needed them to stay put when he flew upside down.
A wave of power rolled off the dragon as the fliers tried to close again.
“Brace yourselves,” Trip blurted, not sure if the others would sense it coming.
It slammed into their fliers like a tidal wave. There was no chance to ride it out. Before Trip knew what was happening, his flier’s tail flipped over its nose, the craft tumbling through the air like a hapless leaf on the wind. The hurricane wind.
A myriad of curses burst from the communication crystal. Trip hadn’t been the only one hurtled away.
Something snapped ominously in the rear of his flier. The frame?
He forced himself to relax—but tightened his grip on those grenades—knowing he wouldn’t be able to gain control of the flier again until the wave washed past them.
“I’m damaged,” someone said. “Losing altitude.”
“Take her down, back to the base if you can,” Zirkander said.
“My brain is damaged,” someone else growled. “Feels like that dragon is stabbing mental daggers in it.”
“You stay with us. And learn to like that feeling.”
“Planning on it, sir.”
“My squad—I’m calling you Dragon Squadron for now—I’ll try to draw her ire,” Zirkander said, his voice remarkably calm given all that was going on. “Jaxi can protect my flier somewhat. While the dragon is focused on me at her head, I want you strafing her belly. If her defenses falter at any point, Jaxi will tell me, and I’ll let you know. Don’t waste your grenades until then.”
Draw her ire? That didn’t sound healthy.
Zirkander zipped ahead, flying faster than his craft should have been able to go. Was the soulblade giving him more speed? If anyone in the newly formed squadron wondered who or what Jaxi was, they didn’t ask.
Trip followed the others, trying to come in from the side and under the dragon, even as they kept following it southward, back toward the city. But as he flew, he groped for ideas. Shooting wasn’t doing anything. They had to get her shields down.
Zirkander banked and flew straight toward the dragon’s face. That seemed suicidal, especially since she could breathe fire, but maybe he hoped to be enough of a distraction that their winged enemy would lose focus and drop her barrier for a few seconds.
Trip pictured the dragon’s head in his mind as he flew under her, angling fire up toward her scaled belly. Jaxi had claimed that he shouted when responding to her telepathically. Did that mean he was… transmitting words? Or whatever the term was?
Dragon, he cried in his mind, trying to cry into her mind, do you fly in to help the other gold dragon? He has said he will rule this land by himself. He’d heard the announcement the male gold had made earlier. Presumably, the female dragon, and everyone in the city, had heard it, too, but one never knew. He must only be using you for your brawn.
Zirkander fired his machine guns at the dragon’s nose, and Trip suspected his words had gone nowhere. What did he know about telepathy?
Another wave of power sprang from the dragon, this time toward the air in front of it. Toward Zirkander. His flier was hurtled to the side like a hookball in one of Leftie’s matches, and fear and fury formed a hard knot in Trip’s throat. The force of the blow seemed like it would tear Zirkander’s flier into pieces, and maybe it already had. He’d gone out toward the sea, the sky dark out there, and Trip couldn’t make him out.
You think Gharettomenko is using me? The words thundered into Trip’s mind, banging around in his skull. Pain came with them, and he almost groaned aloud, his wings wobbling as his hand shook on the flight stick. Gharettomenko is my mate. All that he does is to please me.
The words caused more pain as they pounded inside Trip’s head, and he roared in frustration, bringing his flier about. Forgetting about the neat formations they’d been flying in to attack, he angled directly at the dragon’s head, firing relentlessly. All he wanted to do was make the pain stop.
“Trip, what are you doing?” Leftie demanded. “You break ranks here, and you’ll get caught in someone’s crossfire.”
My mate and I will destroy your puny city, the female roared. Was everyone hearing the words? Or just Trip? Each one struck like a dagger this time, as if she knew she could use more force to speak and hurt him more.
“Stop it!” he yelled, unintentionally speaking aloud.
The side of the dragon’s gold-scaled head filled his vision. He fired, bullets bouncing off, doing nothing. Again.
She laughed, the sound bringing as much pain as her words.
“Stop it!” Trip cried again, and imagined hurling his pain and anger and frustration into the dragon’s mind as he flew past, strafing the top of her head with his ineffective ammunition.
“Her barrier’s down,” Zirkander barked. “Grenades, now!”
What the hells?
Almost past her, there was no time to ask for clarification. He grabbed the grenades, yanked the pins, and twisted in his seat to throw them between his flier’s wings and over the tail.
Booms erupted as other grenades struck the dragon and exploded. They didn’t simply hit a barrier and bounce off. They actually struck her scales.
Trip turned his flier, hoping to come in and fire again. Also hoping to see if the grenades were proving effective. Even with her magical defenses down, those scales were like steel armor, if not tougher.
He didn’t see anything as promising as scales blown away and flesh laid bare underneath, but a brown goo clung to them after the grenades blew. It took a few seconds, but then pain radiated from the dragon, all of her previous amusement gone.
Trip would have whooped with triumph, except that fresh pain slammed into him. An attack? Or was he sensing her pain? He had no idea if anybody else felt it as keenly, but it was all he could do not to cry out as it pierced his soul.
You! the female roared into his mind.
Before he could think of a response, mental or physical, a wall of power slammed into his flier. It slammed him against his seat back, and pain blasted from his neck.
Behind him, wood snapped and crunched. One of his wings tore away from the frame as his craft was thrown end-over-end again.
This time, he couldn’t pull out of it. He moved the flight stick, but a creak and groan came from the frame, followed by a soft snap. The steering mechanism. It broke completely. He had no way to turn, no way to fly up or down. Lastly, the power crystal went dark. Even though the hood hid it from sight, he sensed the light disappearing. The magic was no more.
His forward momentum faded, and gravity caught up with him. His flier dropped like a rock.
“I’m going down,” he blurted, his voice sounding loud, afraid, and panicky in his ears.
He’d always imagined himself facing death valiantly. Bravely. Not wetting himself and weeping. But as his flier plummeted away from the battle still raging overhead, all he knew was sheer terror. His life had barely begun, and this was the end.
Trying to harness rational thought, he peered over the side. If he was over the water instead of land, maybe there was a chance.
It was hard to tell, as he was north of the city still, the coast all dark down there, but he thought he saw whitecaps breaking. If he landed, it would be behind them. In deep water. Might he survive?
With shaking hands, he unfastened his harness. Those whitecaps were close. Very close.
At the last second, he jumped from his seat, up and away from his flier, hoping in vain that he wouldn’t hit the water as hard that way.
But the cold ocean slammed into him like a pile driver. His neck, back, and head struck down with an explosion of pain, and he blacked out.
