Chapter 22

Twenty-Two

Pip blinked rapidly to stave off the blackness at the edges of her vision. Her magic burned inside her, as if strained to the breaking point. She was on her knees, though she couldn't remember getting there.

Above her, her shield strained, and she sucked in a painful breath, squeezing her eyes shut. She couldn't withstand another direct hit like that.

Something bright and sizzling burst across her senses. She forced her eyes open as Fieran's magic blasted over hers, a crackling tide shoring up her shield.

Pip gripped the flagpole and struggled back to her feet. She braced herself with her back to the pole, using the metal to strengthen her, even as a second burst of Fieran's magic spread over her shield. Gritting her teeth, she unleashed more of her magic, letting their two powers blend together.

Through the blur of crackling blue and shimmering silver, the black specks of the flyers darted around the huge airship, seeming more an annoyance than a deterrence.

At least the airship seemed too distracted to drop more bombs.

Using the respite, Pip gathered herself, her gasps coming hard in her chest.

Something bright and blue flared across the sky, streaking toward the airship. Moments later, a brilliant burst of blue spread against the darkness over the airship, bathing the night in light.

Fieran.Pip might have breathed his name out loud, though she couldn't have been sure.

One of the infantry men who had been racing toward the headquarters halted, gaping upward. More men halted, gathering into a crowd as they stared upward. Someone nearby murmured, "Laesornysh," loudly enough for the name to carry on the breeze.

The blue magic flared even brighter, and it took Pip a moment of squinting to make out what was happening. The magic almost seemed to be eating the airship, incinerating it to ash before their eyes.

The sheer power he demonstrated was almost enough to make her quake, even knowing him as well as she did. Even knowing he was on her side.

This was the magic of the ancient kings fully unleashed.

The Mongavarians had no idea what power they were up against.

Cheers broke out all around her. Doors slammed open as those inside headquarters and the infirmary stepped out to see what was going on.

The black shape of the airship's gondola plummeted from the sky, looking like it would land in the river beside Fort Linder. A few smaller black shapes jumped from the gondola, their white parachutes opening against the sky a moment later.

Pip propped herself up against the flagpole, finally daring to exhale a long, relieved breath. High above her, the three flags stirred in the breeze, undamaged and undaunted.

Someone—likely a high-ranking commander of some kind—barked orders, organizing a special detail of men to round up the Mongavarians before they could escape into the night. He also called for volunteers to head into Bridgetown, even while that city remained under attack, to provide aid.

Pip pushed away from the flagpole and hurried toward the officer. "Sir, I'd like to go along." She pointed upward. "I'm the one shielding us. But now that Fort Linder is safe for the time being…"

"Go." The officer barely blinked at her offer, despite the fact that she was a tiny girl volunteering to go into a war zone.

This night had changed them all, it seemed.

The next thing she knew, she was being lifted into the back of a truck, packed in with a squad of infantrymen on their way to help the stricken city. A few of the nurses, including Chelsea, also squished inside, clutching boxes overflowing with medical supplies.

Within moments, Pip jounced in the back of a truck as it rumbled at dangerously high speeds over the pitted, bomb-damaged road stretching between Fort Linder and Bridgetown with only the weak beams of the headlights to illuminate the craters before they could plunge into one. Through the canvas flaps at the rear, the headlights from the truck behind them wavered as it mirrored their swerves and dodges.

She struggled to hold the shield over the convoy of trucks as best she could at this speed. As soon as they reached the city, she'd stick with the officer placed in charge, creating a shield over wherever he decided to set up a command post.

Ahead, the city burned. The remaining airships loomed overhead, continuing to drop bombs onto the helpless people below.

A bright ball of blue magic streaked across the sky, headed for Bridgetown and the remaining five airships.

Headed for a reckoning.

As the whiteplumes of unfurling parachutes drifted downward, Fieran pointed his flyer's nose toward the five airships bombarding Bridgetown and Calafaren. There was no need to signal with the orange flag. Merrik and Lije fell in behind him along with a few of the other pilots who had been harassing the airship over Fort Linder, forming an organized force for the first time since this air battle started.

The stretch of open farm fields that they had driven past so often to enjoy weekends in Bridgetown flashed by below, black and empty.

Ahead, the airship nearest them appeared to be sagging, long gashes torn through its outer canvas shell. A two-seater aeroplane flashed into view, Pretty Face in the front seat, Tiny crammed in the second seat.

Even as Fieran roared closer, Tiny poured a stream of water from a canteen, freezing it into a long shard of ice. He hurled the ice downward in a blaze of his magic.

The ice shard tore into the airship below, creating yet another long slash through the dirigible's side.

Might as well help Tiny along, though Tiny looked well on his way to taking down the airship on his own.

Fieran swooped close, tipping his aeroplane on its side so that his head faced the airship. As the various machine guns opened fire on him, he used the same trick as before to follow the line of bullets back to the airship.

Even as he poured magic into the airship, he spread a trailing shield of magic behind him, protecting Merrik, Lije, Stickyfingers, and the others from enemy fire. Pretty Face dropped his and Tiny's aeroplane into the formation as well.

Lije ducked his flyer below the line of Fieran's magic, and Stickyfingers opened fire at the gondola. Glass shattered. Wood splintered. As soon as a machine gun set in the side of the gondola swung toward the flyer, Lije swerved the aeroplane back into the protection of Fieran's magic.

Fieran poured more of his magic onto the airship. As he swung around the dirigible, he plunged through clouds of smoke billowing up from the burning Bridgetown below. Across the Hydalla River, the trees of Calafaren burned.

When the entire airship crackled with his magic, Fieran drew in a deep breath and unleashed his magic to consume the balloon, gondola, people, everything. While Fort Linder could handle rounding up a few prisoners, the town below couldn't. All he could do now was finish this.

Fieran didn't watch the airship's destruction. Instead, he swung his flyer away, heading for the next one. As he closed in on that airship, more aeroplanes fell into line behind him. He didn't even look to see who it was.

The next two airships sailed nearly side by side with only a fifty-foot-wide space between them.

Fieran led his column of flyers into the gap. Machine guns opened up, but he pinched the control column between his knees and held his hands out to either side, blasting his magic to raze both airships at once. By the time he flew out the other side, both airships were burning hulks.

Fieran's skin burned from so much magic crackling around him. His eyes watered from peering through the constant blue crackle, a shimmer of blue coating his vision. He'd never used his magic at this strength and to this extent before.

Only two more airships remained. As Fieran turned his flyer in that direction, a wave of lightheadedness crashed over him, his vision blurring. Sucking in a deep breath, he shook his head and refocused. He didn't have time for weakness.

Another aeroplane flashed by, but Fieran ignored it, except to note its location so that he didn't hit it with his magic.

Pushing past the exhaustion and dizziness, Fieran closed on the second to last airship, then blasted his magic outward to coat the airship. He didn't have to brace himself this time. He unleashed his magic, only using the mildest of control to keep it contained where he wanted it. Other than that, he let his magic do what it wished, crackling and consuming with the full fury of the magic of the ancient kings.

As that airship groaned in its death throes, plunging toward the river even as his magic licked over it, Fieran searched for the sixth and final airship.

The dirigible no longer hovered over Calafaren. Sometime during Fieran's destruction of the others, it had turned toward the east, as if to make a run for the safety of Mongavaria.

Fieran pushed his flyer at full power, ignoring the way the gauge jumped dangerously into the yellow. He swooped down on the airship like an eagle on a flopping fish. As he neared, the airship's machine guns opened fire in a valiant but futile attempt to ward him off.

He blasted his magic over the gap, and his magic blazed over the dirigible's skin. Black figures appeared at the doors and windows of the gondolas, and some leapt out, their white parachutes opening moments later.

Fieran's magic ripped through the airship, reducing it to a mangled wreck and sending it, too, plummeting from the sky.

Fieran drew his magic back, though he kept the shield around his aeroplane. A glance around the sky showed that only his squadron remained, buzzing about in the air in a mostly disorganized fashion, except for the ones trailing after Fieran. Far fewer flyers remained in the sky than there should have been, though Fieran didn't take the time to count.

Down below, Bridgetown burned, piles of rubble all that remained of large swathes of the once vibrant city. Across the Hydalla River, the trees of Calafaren sent up clouds of black smoke.

The Alliance Bridge remained, still strong, glowing blue with Dacha's protective magic.

A flash of orange came from an aeroplane in the distance, but Fieran didn't focus on it. If it was orders from Capt. Arfeld, Fieran didn't want to see it. He had his own plans of what he intended to do next, and he wasn't going to let a simple thing like orders stop him.

Instead, Fieran slid his own orange flag out, then he whirled his aeroplane around so that he was flying past Merrik, Lije, Stickyfingers, Pretty Face, and Tiny.

Fieran would have breathed a sigh of relief at seeing all of them alive, but there wasn't time. He started to signal, only for the magic still coating his fingers to incinerate the flag. So much magic still burned through him, and he wasn't sure how to even rein it back in now that he had unleashed it so fully.

He signaled with his hand, his magic a bright slash through the night, that he was going to land. He pointed at Merrik, telling him to land as well. For the others, he signaled for them to stay on patrol in the air. The six airships had been destroyed, but who knew if Mongavaria would send another wave of airships to attack.

Once he received acknowledgement signal waves from Lije and Pretty Face, Fieran took his aeroplane lower, trying to find a place to land. The road, perhaps. Or one of the open farm fields.

But in the darkness and smoke, he couldn't see anything but blackness surrounding the city. For all he knew, he'd plow his aeroplane right into the side of a farmhouse if he attempted to land.

Or…he pointed his flyer toward the one place that was clear of people and traffic, straight, long enough, and well lit.

The Alliance Bridge beamed blue light into the night like a beacon of hope despite the chaos and death of the night. Even though it must have been a target for the attack, only a few chips and dents scored the stone, not enough to truly damage it.

Fieran lined his aeroplane up, banked lower, and shut off the engine to come in on a glide. He had to lean up as precisely as possible, considering the wall that had been added to protect the lane for bicyclists and pedestrians from the two lanes for trolleys and motorized vehicles.

Keeping his flyer steady as the breezes wafting up from the river buffeted the wings, he touched down at the very end of the bridge. The wheels jounced hard against the firm stones, threatening to skid out and send his wings into the arched walls on either side. The tailskid screeched against the pavement, not doing anything to slow him as he barreled forward.

Fighting the rudder and ailerons, Fieran kept control of his aeroplane by the skin of his teeth. Finally, the upward slope of the bridge slowed him until he came to a creaking halt nearly at the apex of the center span of the bridge.

When he glanced behind him, he found Merrik in his aeroplane rolling to a halt only a few yards behind him. Merrik must have come down behind him, risking both that Fieran would crash and block his way or that Merrik's aeroplane wouldn't stop as fast and crash into him.

Fieran levered himself from the cockpit, climbed onto the lower wing, then leapt to the ground, landing lightly thanks to his elven agility. He jogged a few steps, reaching Merrik just as Merrik straightened from his own jump. Fieran pointed north. "Do what you can to put out the fires in Calafaren. I'll do the same for Bridgetown."

Merrik nodded, then launched into a sprint, racing for the elven city to the north.

Fieran jogged for a few steps before transitioning into a run, heading south toward Bridgetown.

The attack was over, but the battle to save as many lives as possible had just begun.