Sardelle gripped his shoulder, then touched his cheek again before settling back to let him fly. She understood. Good.
They soon flew over the shoreline, passing into snow-dusted foothills, then snow-buried peaks. The storm clouds Duck had noted grew darker and denser, and flecks of snow stuck to Ridge’s goggles. He wiped at them with his scarf.
Can you sense any other trouble ahead?
Not at this time. There’s nothing else in the air in our immediate vicinity. There are some villages near the streams down there, so I wouldn’t fly too low. Your propellers are noisy.
Yeah. That is one thing airships can do that we can’t: coast.
“Heading out to the steppes,” Ridge said when the coastline had disappeared behind them. “We’re going to fly north of Brandenstone, then west another fifty miles to our coordinates. We’ll find a landing spot and then send our worker bees off on their mission.”
“While we nap like turtles in a sunbeam, sir?” Duck asked, his words garbled by a yawn.
“While we take turns camouflaging our fliers, then maintaining a vigilant and professional watch over them and our surroundings, alertly awaiting the return of our allies.”
“I can nap while doing those things.”
“I did see him sleeping on the gun range once,” Apex said. It was one of the first things he had said all day that wasn’t a response to a direct question. Ridge planned to split him and Tolemek up as soon as the squadron arrived. “The cacophonous explosions going off all around him did not disturb his slumber.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. I was practicing feigning death, the way hog-nosed snakes do, so if I’m overrun in a big battle someday, the enemy will ignore me and go on to someone else. Someone with a big mouth full of big words maybe.”
“If you’re referring to thanatosis, the process by which some animals deter predators, then I believe it’s done without snoring.”
Ridge smiled, glad to have Apex speaking again. He hoped Apex would speak to
him
at some point, too, and that he wouldn’t be lumped into the enemy camp for having brought Tolemek along.
“Village lights below,” Ahn said. “And something bigger and brighter on that tower.”
Ridge saw it. There was a conical beam coming out of the top of the four- or five-story stone tower. They were too far inland for a lighthouse. Could the Cofah have some kind of searchlights for watching for intruders by night? He had flown all over the sea between Iskandia and Cofahre, but the king rarely ordered missions that actually breached enemy borders.
“Anyone know what that is?” Ridge asked.
It wasn’t here the last time I was in Cofahre, but that doesn’t mean much
, Sardelle thought dryly.
It looks like a mill converted into a watchtower. There’s a single person in a room at the top.
“Nowon says the Cofah have watchtowers in all of their villages within fifty miles of the ocean,” Apex said. “Their status as an aggressive and conquering nation has earned them enemies from all over the world, but they’re particularly concerned about Iskandian fliers, so these lights can be trained toward the skies.” After a pause, he added, “He’s also heard that some of the towers are equipped with defenses.”
“Like what?” Ridge asked. They were thousands of feet off the ground, so he couldn’t imagine anything ground-based bothering them.
“Nowon could only speculate. He’s always come to Cofahre by sea and traveled into this area by land. As far as he knows, we’re the first team performing an aerial incursion.”
“So we get to be the experimental mice in… some scientist’s lab, eh?” He had almost said Tolemek’s lab, and didn’t know if he had caught himself too late. Any mention of labs might remind Apex of his unwelcome ally.
“Apparently, sir.” Yes, Apex’s tone had chilled several degrees there.
Getting them to work together and get to know each other might be preferable to keeping them separated
, Sardelle suggested.
Despite his reputation and past mistakes—and, no, I do not mean to make light of what he was responsible for—he’s not a heartless, megalomaniacal tyrant when you talk to him. He’s actually pleasant and personable. That surprised me. Perhaps Apex will be able to, if not forgive him, forget about his past most of the time and learn to regard him as a coworker.
Pleasant and personable?
That wasn’t quite how Ridge would have described the pirate.
Your Lieutenant Ahn finds him so.
Are you sure she didn’t use the words handsome and loyal to her to explain his appeal?
These are my observations, not hers. Though I’ll be happy to let him know you find him attractive.
Ridge grunted.
You learned to tolerate him during our shared weekends together
, Sardelle added more seriously.
Mostly by avoiding him…
I wouldn’t recommend he start a snowball fight with Apex. He’s not the playful spirit I am.
You know Ahn started that fight, right?
I suspected. I know my pilots well.
“That light is definitely probing the sky,” Ahn said. “It’s powerful for a gas lamp. What? Oh.”
Ridge was on the verge of asking her what she meant, then realized Tolemek must be saying something. The conical beam coming from the tower had lifted toward the sky and was sweeping across the clouds. Ridge didn’t like the way it was turning in their direction.
“Tolemek says the towers use oil burners, the same as their lighthouses, and an optical lens system to focus the intensity of the light. They’re on moveable somethings that can be tilted and turned.” Tolemek said something Ridge couldn’t hear—a correction probably, because Ahn added, “Close enough.”
“Well, that light is moving in our direction,” Duck said.
“Veer away,” Ridge said. “We’ll fly over the mountains until we’re past the city.”
I don’t suppose you have any way of quieting our propellers, Sardelle?
I could, but your own people would notice. Do you want me to do it anyway?
He grimaced, not wanting to reveal her powers. If it had just been his squadron, maybe, but he didn’t know Nowon and Kaika that well. Therrik had certainly been full of threats when he had found out about Sardelle. Whenever and however that had happened.
No, never mind.
Ridge led the way toward the mountains again, though he didn’t like the heavy clouds wreathing them, obscuring the crags and ridges. Snow was falling, even out on the steppes, and something more akin to a blizzard lay ahead of them. He trusted his pilots to handle their fliers in winds and poor visibility, but at the same time, they were a long way from home without any spare parts or mechanics if they needed to do repairs. Only a few weeks had passed since that pirate battle over the harbor, where Tiger Squadron had lost two fliers and one pilot. Sardelle might be able to heal human beings, but cobbling a flier together and making it airworthy for a thousand-mile flight? He couldn’t count on that.
Something’s coming.
Ridge wiped his goggles and scanned the trees, rocks, and snow on the mountain slopes ahead.
What? Where?
From behind and below. Two somethings. I don’t know what they are. They’re mechanical.
He loosened his harness and peered over the sides of his flier. Snow fell diagonally, thick flakes that hid the terrain. He could still make out the light being cast into the sky by that watchtower and thought he glimpsed something flying through it, perhaps halfway between that village and their current location. But as soon as it flew out of the beam of light, he lost it. The distance and snow made it hard to tell how large it had been. But smaller than an airship, he was certain of it. Another aircraft like a flier? The Cofah were reputed to be working on such technology, but nothing of that ilk had been spotted in Iskandian space yet.
“You see something, sir?” Duck asked.
“Maybe. I’m going to swing back and take a look. Everyone else, stay on course. If we get separated, meet at the first set of coordinates.”
“You want help, sir?” Ahn asked, and he imagined her patting the sniper rifle mounted in the cockpit next to her.
“Let me see what we’re dealing with first. You three have passengers that need to make it to the landing spot. If there’s trouble, and I can delay it… that’s acceptable.”
The mumbles and murmurs he got in reply didn’t seem to agree. Oh, well.
Ridge pushed forward on the stick, dipping below the rest of the fliers and turning back toward the watchtower.
Definitely not airships
, Sardelle thought.
But nothing natural. Almost like small versions of your fliers, but without pilots.
How is that possible?
Ridge’s mind raced even as his eyes darted back and forth, searching the snowy night sky.
Some kind of magic?
Even with the Iskandian power sources, his people couldn’t put fliers in the sky without pilots.
I don’t sense anything like your energy sources, but there is… something.
That something buzzed out of the sky, not from below but from above, angling straight toward the cockpit. A black flying contraption with three sets of parallel wings stacked atop each other and a cylindrical body dove for him. Though startled, Ridge kept his calm, veering away smoothly. That calm, however, was threatened when the sound of machine gun fire rattled the heavens.
It wasn’t coming from the first contraption but from the second, which also came in from above, diving straight toward him on his new course. There hadn’t been a person, or even a cockpit—he couldn’t have missed that. Who in all the hells was firing at him?
“Hang on,” he yelled for Sardelle’s sake, then swooped upward, much as he had in Crazy Canyon. He looped, turning upside down so he could come back down, this time with the pair of contraptions in his sights.
Sardelle popped into his thoughts, “speaking” rapidly, probably not wanting to break his concentration.
I could keep their bullets from hitting us, but you wouldn’t be able to fire through the shield I erected.
No shield.
Ridge didn’t say more, because he had the first contraption in view now. It hadn’t changed course. His path brought him toward it from the side, and he thumbed the firing trigger. His own bullets streaked out, every fifth one an incendiary. One of those struck, and a burst of orange lit the sky for a moment. Ridge weaved and dipped, in case the second contraption was targeting him. But he caught sight of it over his left shoulder. It was on the same course as the first. They were flying in tandem, Ridge realized, now that he could see the puzzle from outside of it rather than from within. Interesting. If they stayed together, that would make them easy to take out, but he didn’t assume that they would. He didn’t know
what
these things were or what to expect.
The first was damaged, but still flying, coming around toward him, the same as its buddy. This time, Ridge dove instead of pulling upward to make a loop. He twisted as he dove, then leveled out, wanting a better look at them as he passed under them.
Their guns fired again, but he thought he was safe, since their front ends were facing where he had been rather than where he was or where he was going. But in the poor lighting, he realized almost too late that they could fire in more directions than straight. More because of instinct than anything he saw, he pulled up again. Just in time. Bullets pounded the air where he had been.
A light flared behind him, but he ignored it, concentrating on these strange new foes. He did another loop, adjusting his fall so he came down behind them this time. He showed no mercy on the trigger, hammering the back end of the closest one. They had propellers in the front, like his flier, but he couldn’t know for sure where the engine was. In the rear? Or buried under some armor farther toward the front? If there had been a pilot, he could have aimed at the person…
Hoping for luck, he continued to pound ammunition into the craft. It banked and swerved, trying to avoid him, but he hung on like a tick on a dog’s tail. Finally, one of his bullets struck something vital. Black smoke poured from the back of the contraption, and it lost all of its momentum. It dipped, spiraling toward the mountainside below. Without taking time to admire his handiwork, Ridge accelerated after the second one. They were as fast as his craft, and more maneuverable thanks to their smaller size—and lack of passengers—but whoever or
whatever
was controlling them was used to horizontal movement and didn’t think about the three dimensions offered by the sky. The remaining contraption tried to turn for home, but Ridge cut it off, slamming rounds into it again. This time, it exploded spectacularly, lighting up the night sky so much that he had to raise his arm to shield his eyes.
That wasn’t my incendiary bullet
, he thought dryly.
Jaxi wanted to help. She got excited, thinking we might deflect some bullets, or burn them out of the air, but you were too adept at swooping around and avoiding getting hit.
Ah, so that explained the glow. Sardelle had her sword out, the way she had the night she had battled that shaman and his Cofah bodyguards, the magical blade melting bullets out of the sky before they could reach her.
Sorry, I’ll try to be less efficient next time.
No need for that. But in future battles, please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.
Ridge smiled, pleased by her calm demeanor. Her first flight, and she hadn’t thought anything of the upside down loops or being shot at. Colonel Thugly probably would have been digging his nails into his shoulder. For a brief moment, Ridge entertained himself with the idea of recruiting Sardelle for his squadron, but a lot of rules and beliefs would have to change before that could be a possibility. In the meantime, they had other worries.
You can help me by figuring out exactly what those things were.
Hard from here. Can we go down and take a look at one?