Page 62 of Fly to Fury
As soon as the wheels touched down, they collapsed. The whole aeroplane crumpled, the nose slamming forward into the ground. Hard. Fire engulfed the craft, the green magic winking out.
No. Pip wasn’t sure how she found more strength, morespeed, but she reached the aeroplane only moments after Colonel Loiatir. He swept a wave of his green magic over the sagging, broken wing, smothering the fire, before pulling himself up.
Pip scrambled up the other side of the wing, wrapping her hands in a layer of her shielding magic so that she didn’t burn her hands on the wing strut or side of the aeroplane. Black smoke choked in her lungs, the heat blasting against her face.
In the cockpit, Merrik’s head lolled, blood streaming over his far-too-pale face.
Colonel Loiatir pressed his fingers to Merrik’s neck, then leaned farther into the cockpit. “His legs are pinned. I cannot lift him out.”
Normally it wouldn’t be advisable to move someone after a crash before the elven healers arrived. But the aeroplane was on fire, and Pip didn’t like the sound the engine was making. The magical power cell was in imminent danger of exploding.
“If you can lift him, I’ll use my magic to pry the aeroplane from around him.” Pip pressed her hand on the back of the cockpit and worked her magic down and around Merrik. She could feel where the engine compartment had crushed onto his legs, and her stomach churned as she struggled to find where the metal ended and his legs began. “All right. Ready.”
Colonel Loiatir reached into the cockpit and wrapped his arms around Merrik. “Go.”
Pip shoved outward and upward as hard as she could with her magic. What was left of the front part of the aeroplane blew outward.
The instant the wreckage shifted, Colonel Loiatir lifted Merrik free, jumped from the wing, and raced away from theaeroplane.
Pip sprang from the wing as well, landing on the ground so hard that her knees nearly buckled. She stumbled only a few yards away before she let herself fall the rest of the way. Pressing both hands to the earth, she shoved more of her magic into a domed shield over the aeroplane’s wreckage.
Not a moment too soon. With awhump, the magical power cell exploded into a fireball of magic and a cloud of shredded wreckage. Shrapnel and pieces of aeroplane pinged off her shield, the force contained inside battering against her strength.
As the explosion subsided, Pip released her magic and climbed to her feet.
A few feet away, Colonel Loiatir had laid Merrik on the ground and was grimly tying a tourniquet around his thigh.
Pip’s stomach heaved at the sight of mangled flesh and bone that were Merrik’s lower legs and feet, and she yanked her gaze away. Stumbling forward, she knelt beside Merrik’s head and brushed strands of his hair out of the still bleeding cut across his forehead.
Not Merrik too. She couldn’t lose both of them. She just couldn’t.
Even as she knelt there, more aeroplanes roared past, taking to the sky. More of her flyboys throwing themselves into battle. More friends she could lose this day.
The elven healer stationed in the hangar raced up, followed by two soldiers carrying a stretcher.
Pip half-crawled, half-stumbled away from Merrik to give the healer room. Her vision blurred with tears, her sobs coming harder until she was choking on them.
“Pip!”
Then her brother was there, enfolding her in his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder and finally stoppedfighting the sobs. He held her, letting her cry for several minutes.
Another pair of aeroplanes roared by, so close that the wind of their passing whipped Pip’s hair.
“We should move.” Mak spoke in a low tone. Gentle, even as he tensed, preparing to stand. “Let’s get you back to the hangar.”
Pip forced the sobs back. Forced the pain down. Forced herself to straighten out of the comforting warmth of his arms. In this moment, she had to be iron. For Fieran. For Merrik. For all her flyboys who were even now heading into battle without Fieran’s protection.
She swiped at her face to banish the last of her tears. Then she pushed to her feet and marched through the long grass along the airfield, trying to ignore the smoking remains of Merrik’s aeroplane behind her. “Not the hangar. I need to protect headquarters.”
Mak caught up with her in a few long strides. “What do you intend to do?”
Right. Mak hadn’t seen how she’d joined the fight at Bridgetown. He hadn’t seen the way she’d protected Dar Goranth. He might know her magic, but he didn’t know what she’d become thanks to this war.
“With Fieran...” Her voice quavered, but she forged onward. “Not in the sky and his dacha leading the attack, Fort Defense has been left undefended from bombing. I can’t protect the whole complex, but I can protect the hangar and the headquarters.”
“Pip.” Mak reached for her, as if to stop her. But she dodged him, marching forward as four more aeroplanes roared past. He waited to continue until the aeroplanes took to the sky. “Can you stretch your magic that far?”
“I’ve done it before. At Bridgetown and at Dar Goranth.”Pip shot him a look filled with too much hurt thanks to the deeper pain in her chest. “There was a lot I couldn’t include in my letters.”
