“Yes! Finally!” Murray whooped into the radio. “There’s a huge hole in the airship’s skin. Fire magic incoming.”
“Bombs incoming after that.” Fleetwood’s pilot seemed to have fallen in with the squadron easily enough, even mimicking their cheerful cadence. “I wouldn’t recommend being underneath the airship when all of this explodes.”
Fieran muttered cat names under his breath. That was exactly where he and Merrik were going to be when the bombs went off. But they didn’t have much of a choice. With both Fieran’s and Tiny’s magic caught, they couldn’t risk that the machine would avoid destruction in the airship’s crash.
Merrik dove into the forest of wires, the ends trailing over his aeroplane’s wings and fuselage. The green of his magic pulled away from his aeroplane, running along a wire before disappearing into the machine to join the brightness of Fieran’s magic. Less than a second later, Merrik’s machine gun fell silent.
“Merrik. Merrik!” Fieran shouted into the radio, but there was no response. Merrik’s aeroplane must be dead in the air, its propeller spinning only from its own momentum.
There was nothing for it. Fieran dove into the tangle of wire, reaching into his chest and unleashing his magic. He didn’t even try to use his machine gun.
The wires gobbled up the magic in his magical power cell, and the chatter of voices on the radio cut off, leaving him in a silence his cockpit hadn’t experienced since they’d installed the radios back at Dar Goranth.
And yet he could feel it. There was less strength behind the tug on his magic. The machine glowed brighter, brighter, sparks flying, a high-pitched whine filling the air even over the noise of battle and the clanking of the airship engines.
He gave one last shove with his magic. With a brilliant burst like sunlight, the machine below the aeroplane exploded, sending a shower of shrapnel in all directions. Fragments of metal tore through the tail of Fieran’s aeroplane, and he scrambled to blast his magic, now returned to his control, outward to incinerate the shrapnel before it could tear into him or Merrik.
The sheer relief of his magic releasing was heady. He drew in a deep breath, his mind clearing from the painful tearing of a moment before.
With a greatwhump, an explosion detonated somewhere deep inside the airship. Debris lashed outward in a deadly storm of shredded metal. Flames wreathed the ship, tongues of fire licking out of each of the busted windows and holes in the sides. With a groan of metal, the airship began plummeting toward the earth…and toward where Merrik’s and Fieran’s aeroplanes were gliding, powerless, through the sky.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Pip tried not to throw up as the squad of dwarves charged through the carnage. Here the fighting was more fierce, farther as it was from where King Rharreth and Prince Rhohen provided a shield for the Alliance soldiers with their magic. The Alliance and Mongavarian soldiers struggled in a chaotic melee, without any discernible line between them. Bayonets, knives, and even a few swords flashed in the sunlight, the blades coated with dripping red.
And the bodies. So many bodies. They had to step over them—or step on them when there was nowhere else to go.
She wasn’t built for this. She’d gladly keep the aeroplanes flying. She’d take the dangers of bombing. But she couldn’t fight like this on the front lines, despite her powerful iron magic.
But right now, she couldn’t retreat. She had to get that second machine, then she, Mak, and the dwarves could get out of here.
“We’ll have to fight our way to this one.” Uncle Thortrad thumped his axe against his shield.
The dwarves, already in their wedge formation, presented their shields and weapons. As they charged forward, they kept up their magical shield, but they didn’t use it to shove thefighting soldiers aside as they had before. Instead the dwarven warriors plowed into the fight, their weapons glinting.
Mak wrapped his arm around Pip, and she pressed her face against him. Perhaps it was cowardly to block out the sights like that. The sounds and the smells were bad enough, and she just couldn’t keep going forward otherwise.
Trusting her brother to guide her, she simply held her magical shield in place and clung to Mak. He all but carried her in one arm, still gripping the remaining horse’s lead with the other.
“The dwarves! Rally to the dwarves!” That voice shouted in Escarlish.
Pip didn’t even peek to see what was going on.
“We’re here.” Mak’s voice spoke near her ear as she was set more firmly back on her feet.
Pip peeled her eyes open and found herself only a foot away from the looming side of the wreck of the armored vehicle. If a team of horses had been hooked to it, they were gone now.
Without looking around at the raging battle, she clambered up the side and peered over it.
This machine appeared in better shape than the other one, with fewer melted parts and a stronger sense of lingering magic. If the Mongavarians had gotten this one back, they might have been able to repair it, assuming they could get past the lingering magic of the ancient kings imbued into every piece and part of the machine. At least this second incursion would be worth the trouble.
She ran her magic around and beneath the machine, severing all the brackets, bolts, and wires holding it in place, as she had the last one.
But this time when she glanced around, the dwarven warriors were locked in battle with Escarlish soldiersinterspersed in their ranks. No one would be able to help Mak leverage the machine out of the armored vehicle.
No matter. She’d just use magic instead of brute strength.
