Page 69 of Wings of War

She struggled to hold the shield over the convoy of trucks as best she could at this speed. As soon as they reached the city, she’d stick with the officer placed in charge, creating a shield over wherever he decided to set up a command post.

Ahead, the city burned. The remaining airships loomed overhead, continuing to drop bombs onto the helpless people below.

A bright ball of blue magic streaked across the sky, headed for Bridgetown and the remaining five airships.

Headed for a reckoning.

As the white plumes of unfurling parachutes drifted downward, Fieran pointed his flyer’s nose toward the five airships bombarding Bridgetown and Calafaren. There was no need to signal with the orange flag. Merrik and Lije fell in behind him along with a few of the other pilots who had been harassing the airship over Fort Linder, forming an organized force for the first time since this air battle started.

The stretch of open farm fields that they had driven past so often to enjoy weekends in Bridgetown flashed by below, black and empty.

Ahead, the airship nearest them appeared to be sagging, long gashes torn through its outer canvas shell. A two-seater aeroplane flashed into view, Pretty Face in the front seat, Tiny crammed in the second seat.

Even as Fieran roared closer, Tiny poured a stream of water from a canteen, freezing it into a long shard of ice. He hurled the ice downward in a blaze of his magic.

The ice shard tore into the airship below, creating yet another long slash through the dirigible’s side.

Might as well help Tiny along, though Tiny looked well on his way to taking down the airship on his own.

Fieran swooped close, tipping his aeroplane on its side so that his head faced the airship. As the various machine guns opened fire on him, he used the same trick as before to follow the line of bullets back to the airship.

Even as he poured magic into the airship, he spread a trailing shield of magic behind him, protecting Merrik, Lije, Stickyfingers, and the others from enemy fire. Pretty Face dropped his and Tiny’s aeroplane into the formation as well.

Lije ducked his flyer below the line of Fieran’s magic, and Stickyfingers opened fire at the gondola. Glass shattered. Wood splintered. As soon as a machine gun set in the side of the gondola swung toward the flyer, Lije swerved the aeroplane back into the protection of Fieran’s magic.

Fieran poured more of his magic onto the airship. As he swung around the dirigible, he plunged through clouds of smoke billowing up from the burning Bridgetown below. Across the Hydalla River, the trees of Calafaren burned.

When the entire airship crackled with his magic, Fieran drew in a deep breath and unleashed his magic to consume the balloon, gondola, people, everything. While Fort Linder could handle rounding up a few prisoners, the town below couldn’t. All he could do now was finish this.

Fieran didn’t watch the airship’s destruction. Instead, he swung his flyer away, heading for the next one. As he closed in on that airship, more aeroplanes fell into line behind him. He didn’t even look to see who it was.

The next two airships sailed nearly side by side with only a fifty-foot-wide space between them.

Fieran led his column of flyers into the gap. Machine guns opened up, but he pinched the control column between his knees and held his hands out to either side, blasting his magic to raze both airships at once. By the time he flew out the other side, both airships were burning hulks.

Fieran’s skin burned from so much magic crackling around him. His eyes watered from peering through the constant blue crackle, a shimmer of blue coating his vision. He’d never used his magic at this strength and to this extent before.

Only two more airships remained. As Fieran turned his flyer in that direction, a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him, his vision blurring. Sucking in a deep breath, he shook his head and refocused. He didn’t have time for weakness.

Another aeroplane flashed by, but Fieran ignored it, except to note its location so that he didn’t hit it with his magic.

Pushing past the exhaustion and dizziness, Fieran closed on the second to last airship, then blasted his magic outward to coat the airship. He didn’t have to brace himself this time. He unleashed his magic, only using the mildest of control to keep it contained where he wanted it. Other than that, he let his magic do what it wished, crackling and consuming with the full fury of the magic of the ancient kings.

As that airship groaned in its death throes, plunging toward the river even as his magic licked over it, Fieran searched for the sixth and final airship.

The dirigible no longer hovered over Calafaren. Sometime during Fieran’s destruction of the others, it had turned toward the east, as if to make a run for the safety of Mongavaria.

Fieran pushed his flyer at full power, ignoring the way the gauge jumped dangerously into the yellow. He swooped down on the airship like an eagle on a flopping fish. As he neared, the airship’s machine guns opened fire in a valiant but futile attempt to ward him off.

He blasted his magic over the gap, and his magic blazed over the dirigible’s skin. Black figures appeared at the doors and windows of the gondolas, and some leapt out, their white parachutes opening moments later.

Fieran’s magic ripped through the airship, reducing it to a mangled wreck and sending it, too, plummeting from the sky.

Fieran drew his magic back, though he kept the shield around his aeroplane. A glance around the sky showed that only his squadron remained, buzzing about in the air in a mostly disorganized fashion, except for the ones trailing after Fieran. Far fewer flyers remained in the sky than there should have been, though Fieran didn’t take the time to count.

Down below, Bridgetown burned, piles of rubble all that remained of large swathes of the once vibrant city. Across the Hydalla River, the trees of Calafaren sent up clouds of black smoke.

The Alliance Bridge remained, still strong, glowing blue with Dacha’s protective magic.

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