Glittering Shadows (44 page)

“Tell the airships to move in for bombardment,” Sebastian told the radio operator.

“Is this going about as well as expected?” Freddy asked.

“Yes. But I was hoping for better than expected. We could really use it.”

The
Falcon
and the
Invincible
rose over the horizon behind them, their engines small and softly whirring in comparison to the bulk of their silver skins. Eight hundred feet long,
the crew had told Freddy during the tour. They looked gentle, like whales swimming through the ocean. They swept over Otto’s army, flying low so their machine-gun crews could run swaths of
bullets through the enemy. They dropped explosives that tore up the landscape, scattering chunks of dirt and rocks. From Freddy’s vantage point, the bodies looked like tossed dolls. The sense
of death was thick in the air.

On the ground, the Irminauer tanks were all destroyed or damaged, while Sebastian had two remaining. But Otto’s army was swarming toward them, pitching grenades that ripped through turrets
and tracks, until the tanks were nothing more than husks surrounded by the remains of their useful parts, like dismembered bodies.

The infantry divisions were beginning to engage, the loud and more infrequent firing of tanks exchanged for the constant noise of soldiers’ weapons. Sebastian’s vehicle moved forward
to keep up with the front line, staying far enough back to avoid most of the danger but close enough that Sebastian could keep an eye on proceedings and Freddy could revive. Men started dragging
bodies to him, and soon he had a line of them waiting. Magic burned hot down his arms. He grabbed their hands, two at a time, barely aware now of the chaos around him.

“What the hell is that?” Sebastian stopped panning his binoculars.

Freddy glanced in the same direction, seeing what appeared to be a person flying up to meet the
Falcon
.

“Send a message to the
Falcon
: Take out whatever it is flying toward them quickly!” Sebastian told the radio operator. He got out of the jeep for a better view.

“A flying magic user,” Sebastian said.

He had only time to say this before the person reached the airship’s hull, which was filled with bags of flammable hydrogen. For a moment, they lost sight of the distant form.

Then fire sparked in one of the gas bags, spreading in seconds through the entire hull, stripping the airship’s skin away to the metal framework, but even that was crumpling as the burning
ship sank. Some of the crew jumped from the ship’s cabin to escape the explosions. Otto’s men were running from the blaze; even from here Freddy could hear the shouting and panic.

“Get that magic user!” Sebastian screamed, as if anyone in earshot could help. “Tell the
Invincible
to shoot them down! Where did they go?” He tore his hat off and
dashed it into the snow. “Damn it. No one warned us about this. Where the hell did he get a flying witch?”

“It might be an air witch, sir,” their driver suggested. “A really talented one. Or even a dual elemental.”

“Good god.” Sebastian slapped his hand on the roof of the vehicle. They were all watching the sky, looking for the witch.

“That was quite a blaze when it went up,” Freddy said. “Maybe they got caught in it. Wait—”

The witch was in the air again, shooting for the
Invincible
. Everyone around watched, completely still.

A fierce round of shots came from the
Invincible
. This magic user was on a doomed mission from the start, Freddy thought, wondering if the sacrifice had been willing. The witch hung in
the air for a long second, as if held by the hand of the wind, then dropped like a stone, limp arms lifting above the head. Freddy instinctively shut his eyes when the body struck the ground.

Sebastian grabbed his hat and got back in the jeep, drawing a deep breath. “All right. Report from the
Invincible
?”

“They’re fine, sir. They’ve taken out five divisions, but they’ve maneuvered out of position in order to strike Otto himself. Should they circle back around?”

“Yes. Hopefully he doesn’t have two of those! Freddy, how are you holding up?”

“Fine,” Freddy said, although stopping to watch the airship had broken his momentum, and he felt a little dizzy when he had a chance to think about it. He must have brought back a
hundred men already.

“Good,” Sebastian said. “We’re going to need every last man. Get back in the jeep, we need to move up.”

M
arlis wondered if she’d ever be able to wipe the sight of that burning airship from her eyes. Such a beautiful thing, gone that quickly.

With the tanks all knocked out and one airship down, the battle had descended into man against man. Marlis stood on the hill behind hastily erected ramparts, watching the valley turn into a
churning mess of shooting and shouting and bodies. She kept picking out Sebastian’s jeep in the crowd, but was too far away to identify him or Freddy.

They shared the hill with the artillery from Lingfeldt, and Marlis kept moving back and forth, checking on the artillery commander and getting the latest reports, then joining Thea at the wall
to keep her eyes on the fight.

Sigi snapped photographs of the battlefield, complaining that their vantage point was poor. They were removed from the fighting up on the hilltop, with a broad view of men spilling across the
valley, churning up dirt with the snow. The rear of the army was closest to them, so the fighting was mostly distant and she didn’t see many fallen men, but as time passed, Otto’s men
mixed in more with Sebastian’s, and blood stained the slush. Sebastian’s men were being slowly pushed back, she noticed—not a good sign.

Nevertheless, the radio operator said, “Prince Rupert reports that we’re holding our own.” Sebastian’s ranks had swelled so much since he had been revealed as the prince
that hardly anyone called him Sebastian anymore, but Marlis still had a hard time getting used to it.

“Good,” she said. But she felt a little useless. Nan had asked her to stay out of the fighting.

“I’ll take care of Ingrid,” Nan had said. “One of us should stay back in case the battle doesn’t go well.”

“But it seems cowardly,” Marlis had protested. “We should do this together.”

“You’ve been a symbol of hope for Urobrun so…you really need to take care of yourself. What if Sebastian died? They need you.”

“If Sebastian dies with Otto at our doorstep, I’m not sure all the speeches in the world will save our morale,” Marlis replied.

“You always were the pessimist, weren’t you?” Nan gave her a knowing smile before leaving her behind.

Papa, for all his failings, had never showed pessimism. He kept his brash confidence until the end. If she couldn’t believe in Nan and the soldiers of Urobrun, who would?

“Can you see Sebastian and Freddy?” she asked Thea, returning to the wall.

“It’s just so hard to tell since Freddy dyed his hair. They all look the same from here.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter when we’re too far away to do anything,” Marlis said.

“You wish you were down there, don’t you?” Thea asked.

“I just pray it all goes well. I’m not sure what I could possibly do to save Urobrun if they all died, and I’m not sure I’d have the spirit for it, either.”

“Any word from Nan?” Sigi asked.

“No. Sebastian said the
Invincible
is swinging back around and aiming for Otto’s camp. Maybe one of the explosives will take out Ingrid.” Marlis wrapped her gloved hands
around the hastily erected defensive walls. “It would be easier that way. Nan shouldn’t have to be the one to kill her.”

The
Invincible
seemed to be moving into position again, but before the guns could fire, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky.

No, not the sky exactly. Its violently bright light raced from Otto’s camp to the
Invincible
’s engines.

“Oh no,” Marlis breathed. “How many elementals do they
have
?” She was waiting to see the
Invincible
go up in flames the way the
Falcon
had, but it
was a more advanced design, with better defenses—more guns, more responsive engines, and an armored hull.

“I told him to change the name of that airship,” Thea said. “It’s just asking for trouble.”

The airship remained true to its reputation and stayed in the sky, only it was drifting off course. “It’s lost power,” Marlis said. “Maybe our air witch can steer it to
safety.”

“Can it still attack?” Sigi asked.

“I doubt they’ll risk it. One air witch doesn’t have that kind of control,” said Marlis, recalling the scenarios they had gone over in numerous planning meetings.
“They’ll need to repair the engines.”

This meant the
Invincible
would be unable to bomb Otto’s main camp. Only a weapon of substantial magnitude could possibly penetrate Ingrid’s magical barriers. Nan would have
to face Ingrid and her men.

“I think I should go down there,” Marlis said. “I should help Nan.”

“No,” Thea snapped. “She told you to stay here! If you walk down there, everyone will wonder what’s going on, and they might do stupid things to protect you.”

As Marlis glared past her, she noticed odd ripples in the snow in the distance. “Wait.” She held up a hand. “Look, there.”

They all turned. Thea had her binoculars at the ready.

“What is that?” Sigi asked.

“Something is moving through the snow,” Thea said. “Almost like…footsteps?”

Marlis rushed straight for the radio operator. “Hurry and send a message to Sebastian. An enemy unit appears to be approaching fast at his right flank—and they’re
invisible.”

“Yes, miss.”

But this wasn’t enough. Within minutes the invisible army would be within range of their men, and they would be caught off guard by shots they never saw coming. She turned to the artillery
commander. “We need to take out that approaching army as fast as possible.”

“As soon as Prince Rupert gives the—”

“He’s going to say the same damn thing. We do
not
have time to wait for messages to come through.” Marlis pointed toward the field. “Ready them
now
.”

It would still take crucial moments for the artillery to change their target. Marlis watched the tamped-down snow move ever closer, the wyrdsong thrumming through her mind, but her power was
useless from such a distance. The
Invincible
was drifting back toward the base, a crippled behemoth, and Sebastian’s right flank started getting the first round of fire from their
unseen ambush.

The battle seemed like a disaster played out in slow motion. A whole section of men went down without hardly knowing what hit them. As the front lines began to turn their attention to support
the right flank, the entire Urobrun army was driven farther back. The fighting was getting close to their hill now.

“Thea, Sigi,” Marlis said. “Maybe you should get away from the wall now, just in case. I can keep watch.”

“No,” Sigi said. “We aren’t in half as much danger here as Nan is down there.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Marlis said.

“We don’t want to be shuffled off where we can’t see what’s going on,” Thea said.

Marlis remembered her frustration at being shoved in the Chancellery basement. The girls she used to know would never have stood on the ramparts with her. Sigi and Thea might not be soldiers,
but they were just as invested as anyone. She stopped arguing. The artillery was firing on the invisible army now, the men suddenly appearing as they died and the spell broke.

But it would still take a miracle for them to win, Marlis thought.

Nan is the only chance we have.

N
an was determined not to think, not to feel. She couldn’t let herself remember Ingrid’s innocent smile or her begging for Nan’s
help. With an army behind her, she felt the weight of the whole country’s need for a new world. Yggdrasil was already dead and Ingrid had chosen her path.

You’re thinking. Stop thinking. Just find her and take her out and think later.

She couldn’t charge right past enemy lines; she had to wait out the battle stage by stage. Only after the armies were scattered and the main camp was exposed could she get close. Until
then, she waited restlessly in one of the military jeeps. The wind sorcerer had been with her until he was called away to work his magic on the airship; now she was left with the driver and a radio
operator.