Page 57 of Fly to Fury
“Of course.” He forced one last confident grin before he turned and sprinted for the hangar door. He didn’t let himself pause or look back. If he did, if he saw Pip, he might falter.
Merrik appeared at his side, keeping pace as the two of them ran for their aeroplanes. He and Merrik dodged between the members of the frantic ground crews as they hurried to turn aeroplanes around and push them back the way they’d come.
His and Merrik’s aeroplanes waited at the end of the airfield, the last two aeroplanes to land and thus the last still waiting to be wheeled toward the hangar.
As he skidded to a halt before his aeroplane, Fieran tossed his scarf around his neck and glanced toward Merrikas he, too, reached his flyer. He met Merrik’s gaze, and Merrik gave him a single nod. Whatever was up there, Merrik would have his back.
Fieran wedged his toe into the step, gripped the wing strut, and pulled himself onto the wing. From there, he climbed into the cockpit. After tugging on his cap and goggles, he flipped on the switch to power up the engine. As the propeller began spinning, the aeroplane rolled forward. He used the rudder and control stick to ease the aeroplane into a wide turn, bumping over the hillocks at the end of the airfield, before his nose finally pointed down the stretch of shortened grass.
All the rain had made the airfield soft beneath his wheels. The ruts from all the previous takeoffs and landings tugged his aeroplane this way and that as he gathered speed. With all the sloppiness, it took several more yards than normal until his aeroplane grew light around him and finally hurtled into the sky.
He turned his aeroplane as it slowly clawed its way upward and finally glimpsed his first look at the battle taking place on the other side of the Wall.
A swarm of aeroplanes fought above the Mongavarian lines, silhouetted against the rising sun. With each moment, the battle moved ever closer toward the Wall and Fort Defense. Airships drifted over the Mongavarian hills, and Alliance airships sped in a battle line to intercept them.
Despite how much his world had tilted in the last few minutes, not much time had passed since he’d landed. The sun was still rising higher in the sky, and fog still drifted below, not yet burned off the lowest lying areas and mingling with the still smoking destruction Fieran had caused less than an hour ago.
Fieran squinted into the brilliance of the sun as hepointed his aeroplane at the battle, pushing it as hard as he dared. When he glanced over his shoulder, Merrik’s aeroplane was there in the wingman position, but no one else was close to getting into the air just yet.
There was no waiting for the others. Capt. Kentworth’s pilots would be overwhelmed if Fieran waited for even a portion of his squadron to assemble before he joined the fight.
Unleashing his magic, Fieran let it flow over his aeroplane before he shoved it outward. When it touched Merrik’s aeroplane, it wrapped around it, eager to travel the paths formed of Pip’s magic on the wire. Despite how much magic he’d used earlier that morning, plenty more crackled in his chest, depths he had yet to fully explore if his half-human body would allow it.
“The plan?” Merrik’s voice cut through the chaos of Capt. Kentworth’s men on the radio.
“Hold the line until the rest of the squadron arrives.” Fieran flexed his magic-wrapped fingers on the control stick.
“Understood.” Merrik’s tone was unflinching.
The two of them swept over Fort Defense, over the buildings of headquarters, the bluffs, the secondary line where the infantry was billeted. Then the frontlines were below, and the tumult of chattering machine guns, burning wings, and crashing aeroplanes filled the sky ahead.
For one moment—two—Fieran’s heartbeat pumped in his ears. His fingers gripped the control stick. His feet pressed on the rudder bar, giving him a sense of the air beneath his wings and the frame of the aeroplane around him. His magic sizzled down his hands, around his aeroplane, and outward to Merrik’s aeroplane, as poised and ready as he was to unleash destruction.
Then his aeroplane roared into the smoke of war. ThreeMongavarian aeroplanes dove toward him, their machine guns chattering.
Fieran threw his aeroplane into a turn to climb farther into the sky, letting his magic absorb the hail of bullets rather than trying to dodge. He let go of the control stick with one hand to pull the trigger of his own machine gun, reaching upward with bullets and magic toward his attackers.
The Mongavarian pilots scattered, diving away from him before he could lash out at them with his magic. He managed to brush the wing of one of the enemy flyers, and just that light touch sent a taste of that foreign magic through his own.
“Merrik, at least some of the enemy are shielded with that strange magic again. Maybe all of them.” Fieran couldn’t be sure without personally testing each of them with his magic. “I can take them down, but it’s going to be more of a challenge.”
An aeroplane from Capt. Kentworth’s squadron blew past him, and he yanked his magic back before he incinerated it.
In the chaos of this already ongoing battle, he couldn’t unleash his magic as he had before in the skies over Fort Defense. Nor were Capt. Kentworth’s aeroplanes shielded the way the Half-Breed Squadron was by the network of wires. He’d have to take out the enemy one-by-one, personally overwhelming that strange magic with his.
“Will you have enough magic?” Merrik matched Fieran’s movements as they swept past two more of Capt. Kentworth’s flyers.
“I’ll have to.” Fieran turned to the left to follow another Mongavarian aeroplane. He pressed the trigger, the fuselage of his aeroplane shaking with the force of the machine gunspitting bullets. “At least the magic doesn’t seem to affect good old-fashioned bullets.”
The bullets stitched across the Mongavarian flyer’s wing a moment before Fieran’s magic latched on to it. He held his magic there by force of will, shoving power in that direction until his magic ate through the foreign magic. Once it was gone, Fieran let his magic incinerate as it would, already turning his aeroplane away to find the next Mongavarian target.
“Fieran! One o’clock and above!” Merrik shouted through the radio, his machine gun already firing.
Fieran’s gaze snapped in that direction, and he winced at the bright sunlight spearing his eyes. He had to squint into the sun, finding the dark silhouettes against the brilliance.
Five more Mongavarian aeroplanes dove at him, nearly on top of him. Their machine guns stitched lines of lead through the sky, targeting both him and Merrik.
A quick glance showed that none of the Alliance aeroplanes were close. Fieran pointed his aeroplane’s nose in that direction and gripped the trigger of his machine gun, firing back even as he blasted his magic outward. He caught all five Mongavarian aeroplanes with blistering power, forcing his magic to stay in place as he tore first through that strange magic, then through the aeroplanes.
