Page 63 of Stalk the Sky

The dark gray mass of Urixidor Island was barely visible below them, its lighthouse shining a light into the gloom. The icebergs and ice floe protecting Dar Goranth were completely hidden by the fog.

Would the Mongavarian fleet follow Battlegroup Anvil into the ice floe? Such a thing was dangerous even in good weather for any ship that didn’t have a troll warrior with ice magic stationed on board. But in this soup, the Mongavarians would have to be suicidal or incredibly focused on victory to follow Battlegroup Anvil into the narrow, ice-choked channel between the islands.

Ahead, huge figures of dirigibles loomed out of the gloom, the gray, red, and green circle of the Alliance painted on their sides to make them easily distinguishable from the enemy once the battle commenced.

The airships stretched into a line, ready to go into battle and bristling with guns. The nearest airships flew the flags of Tarenhiel and Escarland. Fieran searched the nearby airships, but he couldn’t pick out the KAS Dominion among the fleet.

He leaned over the side of his aeroplane, trying to peer through the fog to see the assembled Alliance surface fleet. He caught a few glimpses of gray shapes and white wakes, but that was all he could see. They didn’t have funnels or clouds of black smoke pouring from them, so those ships must be Battlegroup Anvil and not the Mongavarian fleet.

Fieran led his squadron above the line of airships. He couldn’t see Lt. Rothilion and Flight A in the fog, but he assumed that they must be off to the right somewhere. He could hear the drumming of their engines echoing through the morning.

No, wait…Fieran tilted his head, then lifted a hand away from the control stick to pull his leather cap away from his ear to hear better.

That sound was far too loud for Lt. Rothilion’s Flight. The magically powered engines didn’t make nearly the amount of noise of gasoline engines or coal-powered steam engines.

Fieran pressed the talk button. “Merrik, do you hear that?”

A pause. Then Merrik’s voice came over the radio. “Yes. I think—”

The fog ahead of them parted to reveal the dark gray, massive shapes of the Mongavarian airships slicing through the sky.

“Incoming!” Fieran banked his aeroplane to dive at the Mongavarian airships. If he could get among them before they engaged the Alliance airships, he would be free to use as much magic as he wished without worrying about taking out any of his own people.

As he neared the enemy airships, he called up his magic, letting it twine around his fingers and burn in his chest with readiness to be unleashed.

Even as he lifted a hand, preparing to strike, something about the nearest enemy airship seemed off. The silhouette was not the same as the one he’d seen in the skies over Bridgetown.

But it had been dark that night. He hadn’t been able to see details. The airships simply looked strange because he’d never seen them in daylight.

Or maybe these were newer airships while the ones sent into Escarland had been older models in case their foray turned into a suicide mission.

But the top of many of these airships was oddly flat. Even as Fieran watched, the front wide plate lowered into a better aerodynamic form.

What was going on? Fieran almost didn’t want to destroy it so that he would have a chance to figure out.

Oh, well. He could still bring it down. If he did it right, the navy could fish out a dirigible carcass or two and then they could figure out why these Mongavarian airships looked so strange.

Fieran bore down on the leading airship. Their machine gunners opened fire on him and Merrik, but Fieran blasted a shield of his magic, extending it to protect the rest of his squadron following him. The machine gun bullets incinerated in his magic, useless except for giving Fieran an easy trail to follow right back to the airships.

As he’d done in the Battle over Bridgetown, Fieran let his magic leap from bullet to bullet until he reached the airship. The enemy machine guns went silent as his magic consumed them, metal dripping down the side of the airship a moment before his magic lapped up that too.

Fieran curved his aeroplane around the airship as he unleashed his magic, letting it roar along every metal brace and beam. At one end of the gondola, men jumped out, wearing parachute packs as if they realized their airship was doomed.

The rest of Fieran’s squadron zoomed past him, breaking off in pairs to engage the airships.

Fieran’s magic ripped the enemy airship apart, briefly outlining the internal workings of the airship.

The inside of the dirigible had odd structures as well. What seemed to be a trolley system ran underneath the metal ramp above with four large metal cages dangling from it. There seemed to be some kind of lift at one end that led to a hatch in the ramp.

What could that apparatus possibly be for? It niggled at something in Fieran, even as the airship gave a groan, the balloons deflating, and it began falling from the sky. This was more than just metal reinforcing the airship’s spine or an attempt at armoring something vital.

Those cages had held something. Something that wasn’t there now.

Fieran pointed his aeroplane at the next airship. About half of the airships he could see sported the same wide, metal ramp.

A metal ramp that was wide enough for an aeroplane.

Ice ran through Fieran’s veins. The schematic sketched in his head, as if he was looking at it with Pip or his dacha.

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