Slicing the side of the armor with her magic, she bent it outward so that it formed a flat surface. Placing a small shield between the machine and the far side of the vehicle, she expanded her magic, shoving the machine with the screech of metal on metal.
Mak reached forward and tugged as well. Between the two of them, they hefted the machine onto the flat metal. He strapped it down securely. With a deep breath, she set up another shield dome beneath the flat plate, sliced it free, and lowered it to the ground, where Mak hitched it to the remaining horse.
He gripped the horse’s lead but hesitated.
Pip finally forced herself to glance around, her stomach churning. The fighting extended all the way around them with their retreat cut off. The dwarves held an impenetrable line around them, but they were being pressed back into a smaller and smaller circle.
The Escarlish soldiers fought at the edges of their defensive stand. If the dwarves hadn’t been here, the Escarlish line would have crumbled long before now under the Mongavarian onslaught on this flank.
Aeroplanes from Flight A swooped down, strafing the Mongavarians, but the enemy machine gunners turned their guns skyward to rake the aeroplanes as they swept past.
Mak began stomping his feet on the ground, calling up his own plant magic. But there wasn’t much for wood around, much less live plants here on a battlefield churned up by the Mongavarians’ long encampment on this side of the river. A few sprouts poked from the ground and whipped at the feet of attacking soldiers, but it did little to hamper the tide threatening to overwhelm the defenders.
Still holding her main shield above their heads, Pip created smaller shields, shoving knots of Mongavarian soldiers back. But with the Escarlish soldiers so chaotically tangled with the Mongavarians, she couldn’t clear more than a small section at a time. As soon as she released one shield, the Mongavarians simply surged back into the space.
“Mak…” Pip shoved more soldiers back with a shield, providing a small respite for the Escarlish soldiers to regroup. “What are we going to do?”
“Fight our way out.” Mak gripped the horse’s lead with one hand, green magic building over his other palm.
Pip swallowed and hefted her wrench, trying to pretend her hands weren’t shaking. If she wanted to live, she had no choice but to do this.
Uncle Thortrad shouted orders, Draenelynn at his right hand. The dwarves took one step, then two, fighting their way back toward the Escarlish border.
Yet more Mongavarians poured in, as if their commanders sensed the weakness of this part of the Alliance line. Machine guns pounded the dwarven shield while larger artillery pounded into the shield Pip held over their heads.
She flinched as three large shells struck at the same time, exploding with such force that her knees nearly buckled beneath her. How much longer could she hold under this bombardment?
To one side of the circle, the dwarves lost their rhythm, their section of the shield falling away. One dwarf cried out, going down, as the enemy machine guns trained on the opening. The dwarves raised their iron shields, bracing their shoulders as the magically reinforced metal deflected most of the hailstorm.
Pip stretched her own magical shield, filling the gap. But not before two more dwarves had been wounded.
They wouldn’t hold out much longer. This truly would become a fight to get out. Or perhaps simply a fight to survive.
She risked taking her gaze off the battle long enough to search the skies. But while the aeroplanes of Flight A dove and strafed, risking their own lives to attempt to hold back the Mongavarian charge, there was no familiar warbird wreathed in blue magic.
This time, Fieran wasn’t coming.
She swallowed and gripped her wrench with both hands. Then she’d do what she must. Because she really, really wanted to live.
Then an iciness filled her senses a moment before crackling bolts arched over her shield. The icy magic incinerated bullets and swept over the Mongavarian soldiers, burning with intense cold rather than fiery heat.
A force of trolls pounded into the Mongavarians from the side, led by King Rharreth with his sword swinging. Prince Rhohen fought at his side, two swords swinging, his magic unleashed and crackling around them with a power that was in some ways so familiar for its similarities to Fieran’s magic and yet so foreign with its undercurrent of ice.
King Rharreth and Prince Rhohen broke through the Mongavarian line to take up position next to Uncle Thortrad and Draenelynn. As they did, Rhohen stepped close to Draenelynn, closer than was really necessary. The two of them shared a look, Rhohen saying something to Draenelynn that Pip couldn’t hear above the clamor of battle. Draenelynn replied with a cheeky grin, a sparkle to her gaze that hadn’t been there before.
Were they…attracted to each other? That almost looked like flirting. In the middle of battle.
Pip was going to have to survive so that she could see the look on Fieran’s face when she told him she suspected her cousin and his cousin were on their way to courting.
The ground beneath her feet vibrated, a rumble growing louder and louder until it nearly drowned out even the sounds of fighting around her.
Mak had to let her go to grip the horse’s lead rope in two hands as the draft horse snorted and danced.
Then a whole line of metal behemoths roared out of the haze of gun smoke, coming from the direction of the Escarlish lines. The trolls parted, giving the tanks a clear path to smash into the enemy.
As the tanks poured through, the trolls fell into the space after them, using the tanks as rolling metal shields to charge deeper into enemy territory.
One of the tanks halted before her and Mak, and the hatch at the top popped open. The head and shoulders of a dwarf, his face hidden by a helmet, came into view. His grin was revealed a moment later when he shucked the helmet. His long brown-blond beard draped down his chest, laced with warrior braids.
