Page 28 of Winds of Death (War of the Alliance #4)

Which attack should Fieran head off? No matter which he chose, he’d leave the other half of his squadron facing the enemy without his magic.

The attack to the rear. His squadron would need their retreat clear, more than they needed their line of attack open.

“I’m taking on the enemy to our rear.” Fieran aimed his aeroplane in that direction. He quickly rattled off names, dividing his Flight. He sent most of them to reinforce Lt. Rothilion and those fending off the frontal attack, keeping only a third of his Flight to reinforce himself.

As he neared the attack to the rear, he shoved his magic outward once again, re-engaging his shield around the aeroplanes of his squadron. Each time his magic touched Pip’s familiar magic, he wrapped his magic around the wires, protecting that aeroplane.

Yet Pip’s magic wasn’t the only magic he sensed. As bolts of his power brushed the enemy aeroplanes, it skidded off with the taste of that foreign magic he’d encountered before.

“Their aeroplanes are shielded.” Fieran tilted his aeroplane still more steeply upward, right at the edge of how steep he could go without stalling out.

An enemy bore down on one of the elven pilots. The pilot’s wingelf was already swooping around to come at the enemy from the side, but Fieran squeezed the new trigger lever on his control column.

His twin machine guns barked, their rhythm different than what he was used to from before.

Either because they were a different gun or because of the interrupter gear, he couldn’t tell.

At the very least, there was no familiar clang of bullets hitting the metal reinforcing the back of the propeller.

He coated his bullets with his magic, but as soon as they neared the enemy aircraft, they almost seemed to deflect away, missing instead of striking.

Fieran bit back a curse as his line of bullets shot off into the sky, thankfully missing the wingelf’s aeroplane, which swooped down, firing.

Her bullets struck without deflecting, so that foreign magic wasn’t yet a solid shield like what Pip could create even if it was stronger than it had been before.

Was it his magic that caused the problem? Fieran fired again, this time without adding his magic. His bullets slammed into the enemy, catching the aeroplane in a crossfire. The engine burst into flames, the pilot slumping, before the aeroplane rolled into a death spiral.

Fieran tipped his own aeroplane into a roll, the move almost scarily easy since the aeroplane had wanted to turn in that direction anyway.

He swooped around to target a cluster of enemy aeroplanes that were converging on a pair of elven pilots.

As they were far enough away from his own men, Fieran blasted his magic outward.

His magic just skated over the aeroplanes and ricocheted in all directions. Where it struck one of Fieran’s squadron, the magic was just absorbed into the protective shield. When it struck an enemy, the magic skidded off again, bouncing around the sky until finally dissipating.

“That foreign magic is stronger than before.” Fieran growled the words between his gritted teeth as he gripped the trigger and bore down on the enemy. “I won’t be able to just wipe out the Mongavarians.”

“At least it doesn’t seem to affect your protective magic,” Lije added as his aeroplane roared at an angle below, followed by his new wingwoman. “You might not be able to incinerate them, but they can’t shoot us.”

“A true dogfight it is.” Pretty Face almost sounded cheerful about that. He swung his aeroplane higher than Fieran’s, the bullets from his machine gun shooting over Fieran’s head.

The enemy turned toward them, machine guns blasting. Yet the bullets were nothing but bright flares against his protective magic surrounding his aeroplane. Under the combined fire from Fieran and Pretty Face, the other enemy flyer burst into flame.

Perhaps…Fieran wheeled his aeroplane to chase another Mongavarian aircraft…perhaps Fieran didn’t need to actively target the Mongavarian aeroplanes. His own squadron was immune to his magic, thanks to the shielding wires.

Instead of following the line of bullets from his barking machine guns, Fieran let his magic explode outward, filling the sky with a haze of crackling magic. He didn’t try to pinpoint anything, simply letting his magic hang in the sky.

His magic curved around his squadron but radiated in starbursts from the enemy aeroplanes as whatever magic they had on them deflected it.

But he could sense it. The way the constant deflecting wore down that foreign magic. It was strong, but not strong enough to continuously bat away his magic.

“Uh, Fieran.” Lije’s voice came over the radio. “Were you trying to make it harder for us to shoot back?”

Oops. Fieran fired his machine gun and winced as his magic in the sky ate the bullets before they got far. “Not my intention. It’s burning through that other magic.”

Which was more important? Making sure his flyboys and flygirls could shoot back or that he destroyed that other magic?

If he could get past that magic, he could end this attack in a moment.

But in the meantime, his squadron and the enemy were just wheeling in the sky, ineffectually shooting at each other.

“Get closer to the other aeroplanes.” Stickyfingers whizzed so close to an enemy aeroplane that the other aeroplane bobbled as it tried to dodge. “The magic doesn’t get in the way as much.”

Tiny and his wingman Murray flashed by. They dove at an enemy aeroplane, and Murray tossed one of his magical water globes down at the enemy. Tiny shot out his magic, and the water globes turned into shards of ice that sliced through the enemy, shredding the canvas of the wings and fuselage.

An enemy aeroplane dove at Fieran, and Fieran swung his aeroplane, trying to bring the nose up to target the incoming enemy.

Before he could, Pretty Face came in from the side, machine guns barking. This close, Fieran could part his magic to prevent it from incinerating the bullets.

Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention.

Several Mongavarian aeroplanes had peeled away from the dogfight and swooped down on the lightly defended bomber aeroplanes.

One of the pilots seemed to be fumbling with something, turning in his seat as he hefted something out of a back compartment.

“They have bombs!” Fieran let his aeroplane go into a roll before he pushed it to dive as steeply as the wings would allow. The force of it pressed on him, and he clenched his muscles to resist it. He bore down on the aeroplanes attacking the bombers, Pretty Face in his wake.

The Half-Breed Squadron had bombs tucked under their wings as well, but theirs were all rigged for ground detonation to drop in support of the bombs in the assault on their target.

The pilot of the lead enemy aeroplane dropped something large and cylindrical from the aeroplane. It plunged from the sky downward at one of the bombers.

Fieran lashed out with his magic, grabbed the bomb from the air, and slung it back at the enemy aeroplane.

The bomb exploded even before making contact, spewing fire in all directions with more force than he would have expected. The aeroplane swerved, its left wings on fire.

“They’re incendiary.” Fieran lashed out to catch a second bomb from one of the other aeroplanes attacking the bombers. “And I think they’re on some kind of timer.”

They’d likely been armed with incendiaries to combat Alliance airships, but such bombs would work just as well on the bombers. All they’d have to do was get the bomb somewhat close, and they’d set the bombers on fire.

The second bomb burst within his magic, and his power absorbed the splashing fire. He could taste the sense of human magic, likely fire magic to ensure that the fire from the bomb wouldn’t be easy to put out. At least this magic was something he recognized and could easily overcome.

Fieran wrapped his magic in a denser storm around the enemy aeroplanes attacking the airships, keeping it just far enough away that he wasn’t actually touching the foreign magic.

The foreign magic deflected his for a full minute, bouncing the bolts away, until, finally, that other magic began to weaken.

Gritting his teeth, Fieran poured more power into the magical storm. He couldn’t relent. Not until he’d destroyed these aeroplanes.

Finally, his magic touched the flammable lacquer on the canvas, and it latched on, consuming it as greedily as the magical fire of the incendiary bombs would have the bombers if given the chance.

“Lt. Blair!” Stickyfingers shouted into the radio. “Stop!”

Fieran scanned the skies, squinting into the brilliance of his magic. When he couldn’t see Stickyfingers or Lt. Blair, he tilted his aeroplane to peer upward at a better angle.

Lt. Blair’s aeroplane was diving out of the cloud of Fieran’s magic, following an enemy aeroplane with the single-minded tenacity of a falcon on a hunt. Yet two more Mongavarian aeroplanes were breaking away and diving after her, seeing an opportunity to pick off a lone aeroplane.

She was headed away from the rest of the dogfight, in the opposite direction of the bombers. Being lured away, if Fieran were to guess. A mistake by a pilot too green to realize the danger she was putting herself in.

Almost directly above, Stickyfingers had been left alone, and three Mongavarian aeroplanes converged on him. Even with Fieran’s magic protecting him, there was a chance that many concentrated bullets could get through.

“Pretty Face, I’ve got Lt. Blair. Go help Stickyfingers.” Fieran raced his aeroplane in the wake of the enemy chasing Lt. Blair. His magic tugged as he was pulled farther from the fight, and he could feel it slipping off some of the aeroplanes farthest from him.

“On it.” Pretty Face’s voice crackled over the radio, but Fieran didn’t turn his head to see Pretty Face veering his aeroplane to assist Stickyfingers.