Page 51 of Magick and Lead (Dragons and Aces #2)

CHARLIE

“ W ell, look who finally decided to join us,” General Peckham groused as I burst into the briefing room.

From the looks of things, the briefing had just ended.

Pilots were putting on their flight gloves, cinching their scarves, gathering their maps, and hustling out the far set of doors to their waiting planes.

I was breathless and my whole body still vibrated from riding the motorcycle so hard to get here, but I’d made it just in time.

“You missed the briefing, Inman,” Peckham snapped.

I tried to disarm him with a grin. “Just point me in the right direction, sir. I’m ready to go.”

The general looked me up and down. Though I had my leather flight jacket on, I was still in civilian clothes.

“You’ll fly in Major Blaize’s squadron,” he said.

“Blaize? To hell with that. I always fly lead.”

The general’s eyes grew fiery. “Dismissed!” he barked at the pilots who’d paused to watch our interaction. “Get your asses to your planes. I want dragon tail for dinner!”

My fellow pilots hustled for the doors, several giving me encouraging smiles or pats on the shoulder as they passed. I started to turn and file out with them, but Peckham jabbed a finger at me. “Not you,” he growled. “You stay put. You and I are going to have a talk.”

Blaize was the last one out, striding by me with fire in his eyes. He made sure to bump me with his shoulder on the way past, and it was all I could do not to turn and punch him in the head. But in a second, the room was clear except for me and Peckham.

The general moved toward me, as deliberate as and forbidding as a rhino.

“Listen up, Inman,” he said, pointing at me with a lit cigarette between two of his fingers.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but you seem to have gotten the impression that your shit don’t stink.

Are you the best pilot we got? Maybe. Are you a hero for the spy work you did behind enemy lines?

Sure. Hell, every man and woman in the Air Force wishes they could be you, me included.

But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you let it go to your head. ”

“Sir—” I started.

“Shut your ass,” Peckham barked. “Anyone else would have been thrown in the brig if they no no-showed like you did the other day. And if anyone else questioned my orders in front of the whole squadron like you just did, you best believe I’d snap their pecker off and beat them over the head with it.

Major Blaize has made some rather outlandish claims about you as well—claims that, if I believed them, would be grounds for court-martial—and more. Treason.”

My stomach twisted at the thought that Blaize had been running his mouth about me. But the worst part was, he was right. I was a traitor.

“But I don’t believe him,” Peckham went on. “You know why? Because you’re Charlie goddamn Inman. You’re a hero.”

I nodded. “Thank you, sir…”

“But don’t let it go to your head, man. You’ve gotta know your goddamned place. A lion is the star of the zoo. Everybody goes to see it. It’s their prized possession. But what happens if that lion gets out of his cage? Gnaws on a couple of tourists? Eh?”

I shook my head, bewildered by the analogy.

“They shoot its ass! And get a new lion. Or maybe a tiger. You feel me, Inman?”

“Yes, sir,” I muttered with a glance at the window. The other pilots were getting into their planes, firing up their engines.

“Don’t be a dead lion, Inman! Do you understand?”

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

But despite all he’d said, I couldn’t follow Blaize. How the hell was I supposed to lead everyone away from Essa if Blaize was leading?

I opened my mouth to object, but the threat in Peckham’s eyes warned me to silence.

“Good. Now, get your ass out to that plane and follow Blaize like a good little soldier—before I do lock you in the brig,” he snarled. “Go!”

I was about to object. But then, out the window and across the tarmac, I saw a long black sedan pulling through the base’s entry gate. An Intelligence vehicle. The spooks were here… and that was my cue to go.

I gave Peckham a salute and jogged off to my locker, where I grabbed my flight helmet, goggles, gloves, and scarf, then I raced out the door.

The planes were already fired up, some of them taxiing for takeoff, and the tarmac sounded like a nest full of monstrous hornets.

I hurried to my new Silver Wraith, shouting to one of my fellow pilots as I passed her.

“Hey, I missed the briefing. Where are we going, anyway?”

“Dragon sighting in Ironberg, last seen heading north,” she called over the drone of the propellers. “We’re going to sweep north, then if we don’t find the lizard, we’re going to come back down the coast.”

North. Straight toward Essa. Great.

There was no time for more talk. The planes around me were starting to taxi. I bounded up and into the seat. The ground crew pulled the blocks out from the wheels as I fired up the engine. In seconds, I was bounding down the runway then lifting into the air.

Lay low. Don’t take off, okay? I thought in Essa’s direction. I’m going to try to get them to change course somehow, but right now we’re heading your way. …Essa?

Something was wrong. The simnal wasn’t working.

When I probed for Essa’s mind, I didn’t feel her there.

It was probably just because Parthar was still so far away, I told myself, not because Essa had closed her mind to me—or because of whatever Kortoi had done to Othura.

But whatever the reason, it was dangerous.

If our planes caught Essa in the air, alone, with no other Skrathan to help her, she’d be in trouble.

I had to figure out some way to divert our squadron, and I had to do it fast…

I leaned on the plane’s throttle, making the engine roar as I pushed ahead from my place on the right side of the V formation until I was flying next to Blaize at the front of the V.

He noticed and glared at me through the glass circles of his goggles.

Then he looked ahead and pushed his own speed, pulling slightly ahead of me.

If only aces had simnal. Or telegraph lines stretched between planes. Then, I could talk to Blaize and try to convince his dumb ass to change course. As it was, I’d have to be more creative.

I pushed the throttle until I was next to him again, inching in so close my upper wing was overlapping his, then hit the flaps, thumping his wing with mine.

This time, his head snapped toward me fast, a snarl of outrage on his face.

I pointed emphatically back the way we’d come.

He lifted his fist and gave me a middle finger, shaking it for emphasis.

Then he pushed his speed even faster, until his engine was screaming, pulling ahead of me once again.

The bastard. I should have known he wouldn’t make anything easy….

Below us, the shoreline extended until it was lost in mist, dark blue sea on the right, a patchwork of green and amber fields on the left. Soon, we’d be reaching the farm. Then, it would be too late.

I lowered my speed and jogged left, falling in behind Blaize. He wouldn’t like this. Neither would Peckham. If I’d been cruising for a court martial before, I’d be sure to get one now. But I couldn’t risk the squadron spotting Essa.

I clicked off the safety, put my finger on the trigger of the machine gun, and took a deep breath.

This was it. I was standing with my toes at the edge of a cliff.

One more step, and I’d be falling. This was an action I couldn’t talk my way out of, a leap I’d never climb back from.

Open fire on Blaize now, with the whole squadron watching, and I’d never be the Silver Wraith again.

Never be a hero again. I’d be a fugitive. An enemy of the state.

Throwing it all away. For her…

Everything I was. Everything I had. Everything I’d worked so hard to become. And that was if Blaize didn’t turn around and blast me out of the sky.

Still... for Essa…

For a girl who flew across an ocean to kill you… a cynical voice inside me said.

No, I thought , for the woman who had every reason to kill me and still couldn’t bring herself to do it.

If our situations were reversed, she’d do the same for me. She had done the same for me when she rescued me from that tower after I’d been sentenced to death.

And yet it would be so easy to simply keep on flying. To perform the mission normally and hope Blaize didn’t happen to catch sight of Essa crossing the channel. To continue to my old life. A hero.

But if they did see her. If the squadron spotted her, caught up to her, opened fire on her…?

No. It was too large a risk to take.

I would burn it all down. I would throw it all away. For Essa, I would do it a thousand times over.

And so, I squared up behind Blaize’s tail, adjusted my flight path until he was squarely in my crosshairs….

And fired.

It was just a quick burst, enough to rip a few tatters in Blaize’s lower right wing—but it had the desired effect.

He immediately took evasive action, diving and banking left, and since he was the leader, the whole squadron followed.

I, on the other hand, banked right, making a 180-degree turn until I was heading back south, toward the base. And I pushed the throttle to the max.

Now they had a choice. Continue on their planned flight path north—or turn and follow me. It didn’t take a genius to guess which path Blaize would choose. And when I looked back, my assumption was confirmed.

Blaize and the whole squadron fell in behind me, their engines louder than rolling thunder, and over their din, I heard the crackle of a machine gun as the first tracer rounds whizzed past my wings.

Here we go…

I jogged right. Dipped. Climbed and then barrel-rolled left. I could almost feel Blaize’s irritation as he tried to match my motions and get a bead on me.

Lucky for me, the rest of the squadron wasn’t about to open fire on the iconic Silver Wraith... not yet, anyway. But I could feel them there, the presence of all those planes, all those guns, bearing down on me. If they did decide to open fire, I’d be shredded, burning, and falling in a heartbeat.

Go, Essa. The path is clear. Cross to Maethalia, I thought. But I could tell she didn’t receive the message. Dammit.

Blaize kept trying to blast me out of the sky, his gun thundering, tracers sizzling past. And I kept dodging, sweat slicking my forehead, my hand aching on the stick, my heart thudding in my ears, my mind reeling with the knowledge that if I made one wrong move, if Blaize’s guns caught me with a solid hit, I was a dead man.

We were nearing the base again, and beyond it, the gray skyscrapers of Ironberg. And?—

What the hell was that?

To my left, out in the ocean, almost lost in the hazy distance, it looked like hundreds of dots on the water.

For a second, I thought I was getting spots on my vision from all the drastic maneuvers I was pulling.

But no. I blinked, and the dots were still there.

Dim yellow lights. They were real. I dropped altitude and squinted out over the water.

As the distance melted away, I saw that the dots were in fact lights on ships.

There had to be hundreds of them—thousands, maybe.

What the hell was this?

I should be heading back to base, landing to face court martial—before Blaize could shoot me out of the sky and kill me.

But something wasn’t right. As many flights as I’d made over the ocean, I’d never seen so many ships.

And so, I banked left, heading further out to sea, still jogging left and right all the while to dodge Blaize’s gunfire, which had grown sporadic now as he sought to conserve ammo.

As the first ships drew near, I dropped altitude, trying to get a good look. The moonlight lent just enough illumination for me to make out ships. They had high prows, silver-timbered hulls, and an array of triangular sails in a strange configuration.

They were sylph barges, and they were a hell of a long ways north from their home ports in Koratain.

It wasn’t unusual to see sylph ships in these waters.

The sylph were known as the merchant people, and they traded freely throughout the world.

Some said that the only winner of the war between Admar and Maethalia were the sylph, who profited handsomely selling arms, steel, and provisions to both sides.

But this wasn’t just a few trading ships. It was thousands.

As I passed over a ship now, I saw that its deck was laden with crates.

That also wasn’t unusual. Except as I watched, one of the crates burst open.

I tilted, banking to get a better look, and saw something crawling out of the box.

Red eyes, gray wings. A golenae. As I watched with growing horror, the other crates began bursting open, too.

I looked out across the sea to the next ship.

The crates on its deck were cracking like eggs as well, revealing more golenae.

Sophi in heaven…

It was Issastar all over again. The same devastation that had befallen Maethalia was about to happen in Admar. I had to warn Peckham, had to—a burst of gunfire erupted from behind me and I felt the plane around me vibrate as the shots found their target.

Blaize, you dumb son of a bitch. Can’t you see I’m the least of your worries right now?

But it was too late. Smoke billowed from my engine. Half blinded by it, I banked, pointing the plane back toward McNally airbase, and pushed the throttle.

When these golenae arrived in Ironberg, there’d be a bloodbath. Civilians. Women. Children. Everyone. Millions. I had to get there first to warn Peckham, so he could sound the alarm and evacuate the city. That, or die trying.