Page 36 of Fly to Fury
Ahead, the enemy airships crossed over the Wall. The large doors opened, releasing the black shapes of their bombs.
Dacha’s magic brightened as it gripped the bombs, sending them back through the Wall before they exploded on the Mongavarian side of the border.
“Half-Breed Squadron, hold steady. Things are about to get hot.” Fieran released his magic, sending it over his aeroplane before blasting it outward. As his magic reached the nearest aeroplanes, it danced over the wires. Fieran locked on to those aeroplanes, curving his magic into a shield around them before he unleashed even more magic, blasting ever outward from the ring of aeroplanes he already held in his magical grip.
His magic stretched and stretched until he held anetwork of magic anchored in the sky by the aeroplanes of his squadron.
A few cheers—and muttered oaths—filled the airwaves, but his squadron held steady, despite the fact that most of the squadron had never been this close to his magic before. Sure, they’d seen him use it in battle. They’d flown behind waves of it. But they’d never had it coating them as it was now.
They were mere seconds from encountering the first of the enemy aeroplanes. Fieran gathered even more magic in his chest, drawing upon that deep well of power inside him. The more he unleashed, the more the magic built inside him, begging for release.
Resisting the urge to squeeze his eyes shut, Fieran held his aeroplane’s control column steady and poured his magic into the network of aeroplanes as they approached the enemy flyers, the airships still trailing behind.
The enemy aeroplanes unleashed their machine guns, the bullets filling the sky.
Why hadn’t they turned off, seeing what they faced? The men in those aeroplanes were either incredibly brave, knowing how easily Fieran could kill them, or fanatics.
Fieran shoved a wave of his power forward, consuming the bullets before lashing toward the aeroplanes where he met…something. He wasn’t even sure what to call it. Some kind of magic, perhaps, but it was hard to get a sense of it as his magic wanted to avoid the aeroplanes instead of burning through them. It wasn’t like Pip’s magic that conducted his. This was more like the magic attempted to deflect his.
“Fieran?” Merrik, as his wingman, was close enough to have seen what had happened.
“They’re protected with some kind of magic I’ve never felt before.” Fieran poured more magic outward, using morecontrol to focus it on one of the aeroplanes. He wrapped the enemy craft with magic, holding his magic there even as it fought his control to deflect away.
After a second of such focus, his magic ate away through whatever protection the Mongavarian aeroplane had on it. As soon as the shielding magic broke, Fieran’s consumed the delicate canvas and wood beneath, sending the wreckage falling from the sky.
Behind them, the E.S.Lewiswas still rising. The other Alliance airships on patrol in the sky were closing fast. If Fieran didn’t do something soon, he’d lose the advantage of having only his squadron in the sky.
The enemy aeroplanes flashed overhead. They poured gunfire down on the squadron, though their bullets were incinerated before they ever touched any of the aeroplanes in the Half-Breed Squadron. Fieran’s pilots held their formation, trusting him to give the orders to win this battle.
More enemy aeroplanes buzzed behind the first wave, passing the airships as they bore down on Fieran’s squadron.
Several of the Mongavarian airships crossed over the Wall, the doors underneath their gondolas open as they prepared to drop bombs on Fort Defense. Were the airships shielded by this strange magic as well? Perhaps Fieran had been too hasty to warn the Alliance airships off.
He needed more magic. Something so overwhelmingly powerful that the strange deflecting magic wouldn’t have a chance.
There was only one source of magic more powerful than Fieran’s.
He shoved his magic downward, reaching, reaching…
His magic sparked against Dacha’s shield of magic.Would Dacha figure out Fieran’s plan? There was no time to contact him.
For one heartbeat, two, Fieran’s magic crackled against Dacha’s. Then Dacha’s magic exploded upward, following the anchoring paths Fieran’s magic had formed to climb higher into the sky than ever before. Higher than the Wall. Higher than Dacha could extend his magic into empty air without Fieran’s magic to give it something to travel along.
Fieran yelled as his dacha’s magic blistered over his, incinerating everything in the sky that wasn’t protected by Fieran’s magic. Despite that strange magic, the enemy aeroplanes disappeared into cinders under Dacha’s blaze of power.
Fieran’s vision went blue, then white as he shoved magic into the network protecting his pilots. His veins burned with the scorching heat of his magic. Sweat poured down his body beneath the layers of his warm clothing.
Somewhere, vaguely through the inferno of magic, he was aware of his squadron sweeping through the swarm of enemy aeroplanes, then over the airships. The combined power of his and his dacha’s magic tore through the enemy, leaving little but blackened shreds and terrible death in its path.
How many was it this time? Fieran hadn’t even counted the aeroplanes, the airships, the number of men. His stomach churned, even as his head grew light.
Why would the Mongavarians continue throwing so many men and machines at him, knowing what he could do? They’d seen it at Bridgetown. At Dar Goranth. Here at Fort Defense a few weeks ago. What other end would they expect but this?
And yet they’d attacked. Perhaps they’d expected that new magic to protect them, but it hadn’t been enough. Theythrew themselves into a battle they couldn’t win and forced him to have to kill in such a terrible destruction yet again.
This was what the Alliance strategy was counting on. They wanted Mongavaria to exhaust itself in fruitless battles until the death toll was so high the empire had to admit defeat.
But causing that death toll fell to Fieran. To his dacha. He wasn’t sure what would be left of their souls by the time this war was over.
