6.0 - Raptor (15 page)

Sardelle had also said this other sorceress was much more powerful than she was. Cas wouldn’t bet on her getting worn out, though it did seem like she must be doing a lot. Maintaining an illusion of invisibility, maintaining a shield, and she’d sent out that fireball. So far, she had only sent one fireball. Maybe that meant that the culmination of everything she was doing was taxing her?

“Or maybe it means I’m being wishful,” she said.

Shots rang out. They didn’t come from Pimples’ flier. Their own airship was visible on the horizon, the lights on its deck making it stand out against the dark sky, but it was still at least three miles back—too far for bullets.

“We’re being fired at from below,” Ort said. “I’m circling. Trying to keep us above where I
think
their envelope is.”

“Sending another Jag down,” Kaika announced.

“Wait,” Cas yelled over Ort’s shoulder. “Let me try to hit it with the sword first. Maybe I can cut a hole in the shield. Then you can drop the bomb into it.” She had no idea if one could cut a hole in a sorceress’s shield, but they wouldn’t know what, if anything, Kasandral could do to the woman’s magic until they tried.

“How can you cut a hole in something you can’t see?”

“It’s a big something. I’m hoping to get lucky.”

“We could use some luck,” Pimples said, turning to stay above the area where they thought the airship was. If it was anything like Iskandian dirigibles, it wouldn’t be able to go anywhere quickly.

“How do you plan to hit it with the sword, Ahn?” Ort asked, his tone cool, a warning of you-better-not-be-thinking-of-unbuckling-yourself-and-climbing-on-the-wings easy to hear in it.

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet, sir, but I’m going to try.” Not exactly the truth. Cas had a fledgling idea, but she would only have one shot. It wasn’t an idea General Ort would like, so she decided not to explain it further. Afterward, he could yell at her. She unlatched the ancient box and tried to ignore the way the sword hummed with contentment when she gripped the hilt. “Go ahead and throw that bomb, Captain. I want to verify that the airship is still under us. Then get another one ready to go immediately after.”

“Whatever you say, Ahn.” Kaika’s tone sounded wry. Not used to taking orders from retired lieutenants, was she?

If Ort had offered up an idea that was less insane, Cas would have gone with it, but he was simply flying around and glancing toward their incoming airship. Hoping the cannons and shell guns might do something? Maybe they would, but their large and very visible craft would also be an easy target for the sorceress.

“Dropping it,” Kaika said.

A couple of seconds passed, then a new explosion lit up the mountainside. Their own fliers, almost directly above where it hit, shuddered, the wings wobbling as the shockwave washed over them. Once again, Cas detected a disturbance in the air, a place where the illusion blurred and didn’t quite match its surroundings.

“There, sir,” she blurted.

“I see it.” He turned them slightly, angling toward the blurry spot that was already disappearing as the light from the explosion faded.

Cas lifted the sword with both hands, but not in a typical grip. She held the hilt with one and the blade with the other, careful not to cut herself. All she wanted was to guide it towards its target. A sickly green glow oozed from the sword, and an uncomfortable hunger stirred in her mind. She had a fierce desire to find and kill the dragon-tainted sorceress below.

Before they could fly past the Cofah ship, Cas rose up in her seat and hurled the sword downward like a spear.

“What’re you doing, Raptor?” Pimples blurted. From his position, flying parallel to Ort, he saw what she had done sooner than the general did.

Ort soon saw and responded. “Did you
drop
it?” he roared.

The sword hit something, landing point first a hundred feet below their flier. Cas craned her neck to keep track of it as Ort curved to turn around, as if he might fly down and catch the sword before it landed in the valley far below. But the blade hung in the air where it struck, the green glow spreading across the invisible barrier that it was stuck in. That barrier flashed, shimmering in the night air. For a moment, a giant oblong bubble was visible, a bubble large enough to protect an airship. Then it vanished, and Kasandral started falling again. It bumped something invisible, was knocked to the side, then plunged toward the dark valley below.

Cas held her breath, afraid the sorceress would see it and use some magic to levitate it onto the Cofah ship. But she was either too distracted to do anything, or she didn’t want anything to do with the magic-hating blade. It tumbled through the air until it landed in a meadow. The green glow winked out. Cas did not know if it had been damaged, but they could get it later. Her only worry had been that she would miss or that it would fall onto the ship and become a gift for the Cofah.

“Bombing the stuffing out of them,” Kaika said, and Cas glanced in her direction in time to see two small packages dropping toward the location where Kasandral had struck. A match flared as Kaika lit another one.

Good. Cas hadn’t expected the entire shield to go down, and she couldn’t be positive that was what had happened, but if it
had
, they needed to act quickly. It probably wouldn’t take long for the sorceress to rebuild her barrier.

The first bomb exploded a few meters from the spot where Kasandral had struck. This time, more than a blur came into view. The dark brown of a Cofah airship balloon appeared in the air, and even more delightful, the explosion tore a giant hole into it. Kaika’s second bomb struck ten meters farther along the envelope, tearing another massive hole in the fabric. Even better, the invisibility field disappeared, and the entire ship grew visible. From up above, Cas couldn’t see the deck or the crew, but she heard alarmed shouts.

She closed the box between her knees and took up her rifle again.

“Sir,” she said, “now would be the time to attack.”

“You’re as crazy as your C.O.,” Ort growled, apparently forgetting she wasn’t Zirkander’s officer anymore. Regardless, it didn’t sound like a compliment. Nonetheless, the nose of their flier dipped, and they dove.

The deck came into view, and Cas started firing, her eyes locking onto a target immediately. Even as she shot, she used her peripheral vision to look for more targets, hoping to find the sorceress. A bullet probably wouldn’t take her down, but maybe she would be discombobulated, and Cas would get lucky.

Ort raced toward the deck, flying under the balloon to strafe the crew. Return fire came, and artillery weapons swung toward them. The shaven-headed Cofah soldiers kept their equanimity, and bullets cut through the wings of Ort’s flier. Cas kept firing, though she would have created more of a zigzagging path if she had been at the stick. Then she saw the sorceress, the long-haired woman holding a glowing sword aloft, its light gleaming off the golden armor she wore. No wonder Ort was flying straight. He was going straight toward her, his intent clear.

Cas kept firing, knowing they might only get one chance at this. She couldn’t shoot at the sorceress from her position, not without risking hitting Ort or their own propeller, but she picked out men on the deck who looked like they might be officers.

The sorceress’s eyes narrowed as they approached, and she flung up a hand without fear.

“Dodge!” Cas yelled, certain what would come next. From this close, they would never be able to get out of the way in time.

Ort’s bullets clipped the deck at the woman’s boots, and Cas thought he might not listen, that he wouldn’t turn away, but he pulled them to the side. The fireball leaped from the sorceress’s fingers. Ort had turned soon enough to evade it, but her sword added its own attack. A streak of lightning flew from the blade and branched to follow them. It struck the side of the flier, right behind Cas’s seat. She should have ducked—a sane woman would have—but she fired, trying to strike the woman in the chest.

Her aim felt true, but the sword pulsed, and a tiny flame burst to life in front of the sorceress’s chest. Her bullet, Cas realized. Incinerated.

More rifles fired, and holes pierced the tail of their flier. Cas had no idea where Pimples and Kaika were, but she and Ort were taking the brunt of the Cofah attack. As Ort sped away from the airship, flames licked the side of the flier where the lightning had struck.

Reluctantly, Cas jammed her rifle between her legs along with the box and twisted in her seat. She unfastened the top half of her harness and, with nothing else to use, yanked her uniform jacket over her head. She leaned back and batted at the flames, afraid they would spread if they weren’t put out.

As she beat at the fire, she saw the airship receding behind them. The deck was at an odd tilt, and flames leaped from one side of the balloon. Cas hoped that the sorceress couldn’t put those out. She spotted Pimples’ flier near the rear of the craft. Kaika drew back her arm and hurled another explosive. This one headed toward an empty area on the deck, on the opposite end from where Cas and Ort had battled the sorceress. Someone had run up to the woman, but she was waving him away. She looked like she wanted to hurl more fireballs.

“Did you get it?” Pimples asked.

“Boiler and furnace should be right under there,” Kaika said. “We’ll see. We’ll see…”

The explosion flashed, the boom ringing out. It ripped another hole in the envelope, this time from below, but even better, wood from the deck and the side of the ship splintered and flew in all directions. A moment later, a second boom rang out. The sky lit up in an orange ball as Pimples and Kaika streaked away from the airship. At the front, men and women toppled to the deck, even the sorceress.

“Was that the boiler?” General Ort asked.

“I think so, sir.” Cas hefted her rifle again. “Will you take us back in? While they’re distracted?”

“Cool your blood lust, Ahn. That craft isn’t going anywhere except into the mountainside. In the meantime, we’re finding the priceless sword you so casually hurled to the earth.”

Hurled? Cas’s gamble had allowed them to take down the airship. She frowned at the back of Ort’s head as he took them downward, toward the dark valley below. Maybe this was why General Zirkander always butted heads with Ort, a lack of appreciation for calculated risks that paid off.

“Surely, attacking the sorceress while she’s distracted and maybe wounded should be the priority, sir.”

Ort leveled a cool glare over his shoulder. “That sword is our
only
weapon to use against the dragon.”

“Can
we
go back in?” Pimples asked. “Kaika has two more bombs.”

“Go on. Just don’t get hit by a fireball. Fliers are expensive.”

“Your concern for our
craft
is noted, sir,” Kaika yelled, managing to sound dry even from the back seat.

“We’ll clean up whatever is left,” Major Cildark said. “We’re close enough to fire now.”

Ort might have been right, that there was no need to finish off the airship. Above them, the sky was alight with flame, and the craft was descending toward a copse of trees at the north end of the valley. Down in the grass, Kasandral had lost its glow. Tall stalks of grass waved in the breeze. She grimaced. It might be harder than she realized to find the blade in all that.

“Did you see exactly where it hit?” Ort asked.

“Not… exactly.” She studied the mountainside and the terrain of the valley, wishing she had taken note of nearby landmarks when the sword had struck. She had been too worried about the sorceress and bringing down the airship.

Ort might have snapped something sarcastic, but all he said was, “Let me know if you see it. I’ve heard your vision is legendary, so I’m relying on you.”

Cas leaned over the edge, deciding not to point out that it wasn’t her vision that was good but her aim. And aim wasn’t terribly helpful if a person couldn’t see the target.

The grass did not part for her eyes, but she did feel an uncomfortable itch along her spine, and the hairs on her arms seemed to rise. A strange sensation called to her from across the valley. Was that Kasandral?

Trusting her instincts—or the damned blade’s pull on her—Cas said, “Two o’clock, sir. I think it might be over by those stumps.”

Without questioning her, Ort veered in that direction. He activated the thrusters before they reached the stumps. “I think this is going to be an on-foot quest.”

“Yes, sir.” Cas waited for the craft to stop, then hopped out. As she followed the strange pull she felt, she looked toward the sky again. She didn’t see the other flier, but she was in time to watch the Cofah airship crash, flames leaping from the half-burned balloon and smoke pouring from the destroyed rear of the craft.

The pull of the sword led her inevitably to it, and she was bending down to pluck it out of the grass before she saw it. As soon as her hand clasped around the hilt, a surge of alien feelings charged through her veins. Irritation at having been dropped, a fierce desire to slay that sorceress, and a craving for blood.

Shuddering, Cas pulled her sleeve down, so her skin wouldn’t be in direct contact with the sword. She hurried back to the flier and was glad when she heard General Ort speaking on the crystal, if only for a distraction. Even if she agreed with the desire to end the troublesome sorceress’s life, she couldn’t wait to lock Kasandral back in its box.

“…need help,” came a voice over the crystal. That wasn’t Pimples, and it wasn’t Major Cildark, either. Cas didn’t recognize the speaker.

Ort was beckoning to her as he listened. “Hurry, Ahn. More trouble.” He pointed toward the sky behind her.

As she ran, nearly tripping in holes hidden by the tall grass, she stared back at flames visible above the trees. They weren’t coming from the already-crashed Cofah ship.
Their
ship was on fire.

Chapter 7

S
ardelle woke to the smell of lava and the soft glow of an orange beam eating into boulders. Her head felt stuffy, and she did not know if it was because the enclosed cave was low on breathable air or because the effort of defending everyone from the dragon had bruised her brain.