Page 36 of Fly to Fury (War of the Alliance #3)
Chapter
Twenty
P ip stumbled from the hangar, her breath hitching in her chest.
Her gaze caught on the faraway dot of brilliant blue magic in the sky.
She kept her gaze locked on it, even as tears dribbled down her cheeks. She slipped and slid on the muddy ground, running across the road and through the squadron’s shelters.
As she reached the crest of the rise overlooking headquarters, that blue magic fell from the sky like a shooting star, though this one stole wishes. Seconds later, the horizon flared with a blue explosion, visible even through the crackling magic of the Wall.
Fieran. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Her body shook with the sobs she couldn’t seem to find the strength to release.
“Let me go!” The growled words came from below. “That is my son!”
Pip tore her gaze from the horizon. Beneath the trees forming quarters for the elven commanders stood Prince Farrendel Laesornysh, armored and armed, struggling against the restraining grip of his brother King Weylind. Blue magic laced Prince Farrendel’s fingers, but King Weylind didn’t waver.
A cordon of elven guards lingered behind King Weylind, tensed, though they didn’t step in between the brothers.
“I know, shashon. But that crash…” King Weylind trailed off, as if he did not want to say the hard truth of it out loud.
That truth nearly sent Pip to her knees. Even the elven king believed there was no way Fieran had survived that crash.
And yet Fieran’s last words to her had been a plea to get his father. Somehow she forced her legs to move, her feet to totter down that rise. She couldn’t fail him.
“He is my son, Weylind! You know what they will do to him. If he is alive, they will torture him. If he is dead, they will parade his body through the streets until it is desecrated beyond recognition.” Prince Farrendel stopped struggling and instead met King Weylind’s gaze with burning silver-blue eyes, his body tensing as if he was prepared to use his magic on his own brother.
“Because he is my son, they will not stop until they have avenged their dead on him.”
“And I will not watch our family’s history repeat itself with you.” King Weylind didn’t loosen his hold, his eyes and tone flinty. “I will not release you until I know you are thinking more like Laesornysh than a father.”
The magic around Prince Farrendel’s fingers built. “Dead or alive, I will get my son.”
She was probably about to get herself incinerated by her childhood hero. But Pip stumbled forward, all but falling into the two elves before she caught herself. “Fieran…”
The king and prince turned to her, and she quailed beneath the two sets of burning eyes. The elven guards stepped forward, as if she might be a threat.
But she had to speak. For Fieran.
With sobs filling her chest, she gasped for breath, barely managing a few halting words. “He said…said…get his dacha.”
King Weylind and Prince Farrendel still stared at her, as if they expected more. Somewhere behind Pip, tires crunched on gravel, an engine rumbled, and a voice shouted, “King Weylind! General Laesornysh!”
What else could she tell them? What else was there besides the faint thread of hope that she clung to? Surely he wouldn’t have sent her away if he hadn’t been planning something. He would have used his last moments for a goodbye, not a mission.
“He was going to try to land. I don’t know if he had a plan for…crashing. But maybe…I think…” She hardly dared voice more of her desperate hope than that. Would it be treason if she voiced a speculation to elven royalty, only for it to be proven wrong?
Prince Farrendel met King Weylind’s gaze once more.
King Weylind released him, stepping back. “Go. I will rally the army and follow.”
Prince Farrendel took off at a sprint. Pip whirled just in time to see him jump on the running board of an open-topped army truck and yank a rather confused human soldier out of the driver’s seat.
Even as the soldier sprawled on the ground, Prince Farrendel settled into the seat, worked the gears, and stomped on the gas.
The truck’s tires spun, spitting out dirt and gravel, as the truck roared into motion.
It tore through a section of grass as Prince Farrendel spun it through a drifting turn before the truck raced at full throttle down the hill toward the frontlines, the elf prince’s hair streaming behind him with the wind.
King Weylind was already striding forward, yelling orders first at the human soldier who was just picking himself off the ground, then at the elves clustered near him.
Another elf that Pip hadn’t even noticed stepped out of the shadows. “Merrik? Is he all right?”
Pip blinked, her brain taking a second longer than it should have to recognize Colonel Iyrinder Loiatir, Merrik’s dacha. “I…don’t know. He was with Fieran when…”
When Fieran crashed. Close enough that Fieran had been yelling at him to get back.
Colonel Loiatir shifted, glancing from her to King Weylind as if he wasn’t sure what his duty was at the moment. “Will you be all right? I should—”
The sound of an aeroplane coming in far too low overhead yanked her gaze up to the sky once again.
The aeroplane’s wings were engulfed in flames, black smoke pouring from the engine compartment and obscuring the nose art, even if the aeroplane had been close enough to see it.
But she didn’t need to see the art to identify it. Green magic spread over the wings, trying to stifle the fire even as the pilot fought to remain in the sky. None of the elves of the Half-Breed Squadron had gotten into the air yet, and that was a Soarwing, flown by the pilots of Flight B.
“Merrik.” Pip spun and raced back the way she’d come.
Colonel Iyrinder quickly caught up with her, then passed her, his longer legs carrying him at a sprint up the hill and through the shelters. He disappeared inside the hangar, and Pip dashed after him.
Merrik’s stricken aeroplane flashed overhead, the engine’s whine sounding off .
Pip dodged around the remaining aeroplanes inside, not stopping as mechanics shouted questions at her.
She skidded on the slick cement floor before she reached the hangar door on the far side, ducking under the wing of an aeroplane blocking the opening.
Outside, aeroplanes spun up while four more aeroplanes lined up, two by two, at the end of the airfield, waiting to take off. Even more aeroplanes waited behind those to hurtle into the sky to join the battle.
Colonel Loiatir was already racing alongside the waiting aeroplanes, running as if he intended to catch up with his son’s aeroplane before it even touched down.
Pip sprinted after him, her breaths coming hard and gasping.
Merrik’s aeroplane dropped lower, skimming above the airfield. If he crashed, he could block the airfield, making it impossible for more aeroplanes to take to the sky until the wreckage was cleared.
Perhaps he realized that because at the last moment, he veered his aeroplane to the right, setting his aeroplane down in the weeds to the side of the airfield.
She tried to reach out with a shield. Tried with everything in her to prevent what she knew in her bones was about to happen.
But everything was happening far too fast. She couldn’t correct quickly enough to take into account that last moment change in direction, and her shield flared to the left, even as Merrik’s aeroplane dove toward the weeds.
As soon as the wheels touched down, they collapsed. The whole aeroplane crumpled, the nose slamming forward into the ground. Hard. Fire engulfed the craft, the green magic winking out.
No. Pip wasn’t sure how she found more strength, more speed, but she reached the aeroplane only moments after Colonel Loiatir. He swept a wave of his green magic over the sagging, broken wing, smothering the fire, before pulling himself up.
Pip scrambled up the other side of the wing, wrapping her hands in a layer of her shielding magic so that she didn’t burn her hands on the wing strut or side of the aeroplane. Black smoke choked in her lungs, the heat blasting against her face.
In the cockpit, Merrik’s head lolled, blood streaming over his far-too-pale face.
Colonel Loiatir pressed his fingers to Merrik’s neck, then leaned farther into the cockpit. “His legs are pinned. I cannot lift him out.”
Normally it wouldn’t be advisable to move someone after a crash before the elven healers arrived. But the aeroplane was on fire, and Pip didn’t like the sound the engine was making. The magical power cell was in imminent danger of exploding.
“If you can lift him, I’ll use my magic to pry the aeroplane from around him.
” Pip pressed her hand on the back of the cockpit and worked her magic down and around Merrik.
She could feel where the engine compartment had crushed onto his legs, and her stomach churned as she struggled to find where the metal ended and his legs began. “All right. Ready.”
Colonel Loiatir reached into the cockpit and wrapped his arms around Merrik. “Go.”
Pip shoved outward and upward as hard as she could with her magic. What was left of the front part of the aeroplane blew outward.
The instant the wreckage shifted, Colonel Loiatir lifted Merrik free, jumped from the wing, and raced away from the aeroplane.
Pip sprang from the wing as well, landing on the ground so hard that her knees nearly buckled. She stumbled only a few yards away before she let herself fall the rest of the way. Pressing both hands to the earth, she shoved more of her magic into a domed shield over the aeroplane’s wreckage.
Not a moment too soon. With a whump , the magical power cell exploded into a fireball of magic and a cloud of shredded wreckage. Shrapnel and pieces of aeroplane pinged off her shield, the force contained inside battering against her strength.
As the explosion subsided, Pip released her magic and climbed to her feet.
A few feet away, Colonel Loiatir had laid Merrik on the ground and was grimly tying a tourniquet around his thigh.
Pip’s stomach heaved at the sight of mangled flesh and bone that were Merrik’s lower legs and feet, and she yanked her gaze away. Stumbling forward, she knelt beside Merrik’s head and brushed strands of his hair out of the still bleeding cut across his forehead.
Not Merrik too. She couldn’t lose both of them. She just couldn’t.
Even as she knelt there, more aeroplanes roared past, taking to the sky. More of her flyboys throwing themselves into battle. More friends she could lose this day.
The elven healer stationed in the hangar raced up, followed by two soldiers carrying a stretcher.
Pip half-crawled, half-stumbled away from Merrik to give the healer room. Her vision blurred with tears, her sobs coming harder until she was choking on them.
“Pip!”
Then her brother was there, enfolding her in his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder and finally stopped fighting the sobs. He held her, letting her cry for several minutes.
Another pair of aeroplanes roared by, so close that the wind of their passing whipped Pip’s hair.
“We should move.” Mak spoke in a low tone. Gentle, even as he tensed, preparing to stand. “Let’s get you back to the hangar.”
Pip forced the sobs back. Forced the pain down. Forced herself to straighten out of the comforting warmth of his arms. In this moment, she had to be iron. For Fieran. For Merrik. For all her flyboys who were even now heading into battle without Fieran’s protection.
She swiped at her face to banish the last of her tears. Then she pushed to her feet and marched through the long grass along the airfield, trying to ignore the smoking remains of Merrik’s aeroplane behind her. “Not the hangar. I need to protect headquarters.”
Mak caught up with her in a few long strides. “What do you intend to do?”
Right. Mak hadn’t seen how she’d joined the fight at Bridgetown. He hadn’t seen the way she’d protected Dar Goranth. He might know her magic, but he didn’t know what she’d become thanks to this war.
“With Fieran...” Her voice quavered, but she forged onward. “Not in the sky and his dacha leading the attack, Fort Defense has been left undefended from bombing. I can’t protect the whole complex, but I can protect the hangar and the headquarters.”
“Pip.” Mak reached for her, as if to stop her. But she dodged him, marching forward as four more aeroplanes roared past. He waited to continue until the aeroplanes took to the sky. “Can you stretch your magic that far?”
“I’ve done it before. At Bridgetown and at Dar Goranth.” Pip shot him a look filled with too much hurt thanks to the deeper pain in her chest. “There was a lot I couldn’t include in my letters.”
“And clearly a lot you haven’t told me yet,” Mak grumbled as they neared the hangar stretching before them. But he sighed and held her gaze. “How can I help?”
There wasn’t time to send him all the way to the storage caves up in the mountains for extra magical power cells.
“Get your hands on whatever magical power cells you can without risking not having enough spares for the aeroplanes.” Pip ducked inside the large hangar door. “If the enemy gets past our defenses and bombs my shield, adding the magic stored within the power cell will reinforce it.”
Mak nodded, patted her back, then peeled away from her to head toward Bay 3. Perhaps he was going to liberate a magical power cell from the airships’ section of storage.
Pip hurried out the opposite hangar door. It had been less than fifteen minutes since she’d run out that door in search of Fieran’s dacha. Mere minutes since she’d raced with Colonel Loiatir toward Merrik’s crashing aeroplane.
And yet it felt like hours. Her world had shifted. No, more than shifted. Crashed and burned. Exploded into thousands of pieces.
In the sky above the frontlines, aeroplanes still swarmed and fought.
Burning aeroplanes spiraled out of the sky, crashing to the earth among the bunkers and dugouts of the frontline infantry.
Farther out, the great behemoths of the airships pounded each other into submission, wreathed in smoke and fire until little could be seen except the faint outlines of their bulk against the sky.
And yet it was the horizon that drew the eye. Beyond the Wall, flashes of blue magic flared in brilliant bursts of power. The great warrior Laesornysh had gone to war once again .
Pip planted herself against the metal wall of the hangar, her magic humming in her veins. Digging deep within herself, she cast a shield of her magic, extending it behind her to cover the hangar and before her to extend over the shelters and beyond to the headquarters perched on the bluff.
At that distance, she stretched her magic thin, but right now, she didn’t care.
Fieran had crashed. Merrik had crashed. Some of the other flyboys she cared about might be crashing even now.
She would stand for them. No matter what it cost.