Havemercy. Part 23

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

ROOK.

Fighting every night on a dragon who couldnat even see her way past her own f.u.c.king wings and sometimes wouldnatave been able to fly her way out of a wedding veil didnat have too many f.u.c.king benefits, but there was one, and it was the one I was looking for: I didnat have to think about n.o.body or nothing. It was just me, Have, the way she jerked and b.u.mped beneath me, the way sometimes she fought me when I tried to steer her, and the belching of flames and smoke when I did my best to aim and fire, her whole metal body shaking between my legs and me just hanging on for dear life.

Like Iad told the professora"my f.u.c.king brother; f.u.c.king Hilarya"there wasnat any time to be thinking when you were up in the air. It was even more true now that Havead gone out of her mind, and the only thing keeping me from plummeting to the grounda"or worse, getting caught alive by the Ke-Hana"was how tight I could hold on to her with both my thighs.

I developed a sort of trick for staying on her that involved wrapping the reins around both my wrists, underneath the gloves. This could f.u.c.k me or save me, depending on how things shook down. Like, for example, if Have got hit by a blast of wind which the madness didnat make her even more determined to fight and she went down because of it, then I was going down with her without any way to wrangle myself to safety. And that would be it, lights out for good and forever. But if she did another one of the crazy flips shead done the first timea"which almost sent me flying to my death, and the only thing saving me sheer p.i.s.sed-off determination, and me nearly tearing off my own two legs by the time shead righted herselfa"then Iad be pretty glad for the reins holding me to her back. After all, two broken wrists were the sort of thing you had to barter to avoid a broken neck. It was just that simple.

Anyway, I didnat have any choice. I had to take these chances, since now more than ever the only thing keeping the Ke-Han from kicking down thaEsaras door was us, the Dragon Corps, and we were really fighting like dogs.

If I didnat diea"like, if these stunts didnat kill mea"I was going to wipe the smug look off every last Ke-Han face. I just didnat know how I was going to go about doing that, or if Iad ever get the chance to see it done.

Itad only been a weeka"maybe less, now that all the days were blending together in one mess of almost dying and almost dying againa"and already we were on the edge of being no more f.u.c.king use to anybody. Compagnon had done a run with Spiridon that put her out of commission, we guessed probably for good, and all of the swifts but Balfouras Anastasia could barely lift their own heads for flying. We were f.u.c.ked at both ends, and pretty soon we were gonna crack right in half with the pressure of it.

That didnat stop me from flying out, thougha"acause like I said, somebody had to do it, and besides which, it kept me from having the time to think about anything.

So I was out on my lonesome, just me and Have since it was all the corps could spare, flying low along the mountains all night long and blasting down fire whenever we thought the Ke-Han mightave forgotten about our being there.

The thing was, it was just a game of tag at this point: We had to keep letting aem know we were still okay for flying, because if they werenat clear of us, they couldnat leave the cover of the mountains. The main problem with this plan was that they could hold out a h.e.l.l of a lot longer than we could, since the only girls we consistently had up in the air were my Have, of course, and the other two Jacquelines, those being Jeannot on Al Atan and Ace on Thoushalt. As for the rest, there was Adamo on Proudmouth, Ghislainas Compa.s.sus, then, when they could wing it, Evariste and Niall on Illarion and Erdeni, in that order. All the other girls were f.u.c.king out. It p.i.s.sed the others off, especially Ivory, who Iad never have pegged for it, but that was how itad broken down, and that was how we had to abide by it.

It p.i.s.sed me off, too. There wasnat none of this that didnat make me redder than Ke-Han wine with rage, but all I could do was keep picking them off one by one, if I got lucky.

Oh, and I had to get out well before sunup, too, since Have got confused by the light now, on top of everything else. The way wead learned that was a real son-of-a, nearly taking the whole Airman down with us.

But that night was quiet, just me and the whole Ke-Han army hiding like rats in the mountain and Have occasionally spitting.

Then, she said, aWe arenat alone.a aYeah,a I said, aright, sure. Whatever you say, darlina.a aNo,a she told me. aIam not mad. Donat use that tone with me or Iall snap your neck, you foul-mouthed wh.o.r.eson.a aLeave my mother the f.u.c.k outta this,a I said. aShe didnat do a thing to you, and you know it.a aShe birthed you, didnat she?a Have asked, real snide, just like old times. It wasnat like old times, though, and I had to keep reminding myself of it.

aYeah, guess so,a I said. aSo whoas with us, then?a aAll of them,a Have said. aEveryoneas coming.a Maybe this was a signa"maybe she really was losing it, and this was where my luck ran out. Iad been drawing too much on it lately anyway, and I guess I shouldave been expecting it.

Then, there was a sound like a swift coming up on my left. I twisted, a.s.suming the Ke-Hanad taken the time in the Cobalts to figure out how to get their catapults to actually worka"only I saw the glint of fading moonlight off metal wings.

as.h.i.t,a I said.

It was Balfour, riding Anastasia.

Have was right; I shouldave known to trust my girl. Behind me I could see the winking of the other airmen and their rides, like the stars had come down from the heavens to dance with us, to interfere in the lives of mortal men just like they did in the old stories.

as.h.i.t,a I said again.

aWe have a target,a Balfour called out to me, voice almost swallowed up by the wind. He made a fast circuit around me, doubling back.

aThe f.u.c.king coordinates,a I shouted back at him.

aWeare taking out the magicians,a Balfour howled. aWeave got to hit thema"at once!a There mightave been more to what head said, but I didnat need to hear it. Every man jack of us knew that the magicians of the Ke-Han stayed all together in their blue dome. I hoped to the sky that they hadnat decided to break that tradition and start working with their army rather than from back at home.

Wead never been able to get close enough to the city beforea"but then again, the entire Ke-Han army hadnat been holed up in the mountains waiting to invade Volstov before, either. Having enough fuel to get there and back didnat matter for s.h.i.t, now. Worrying about the Ke-Han winds didnat matter for s.h.i.t, now. We had a chance, however small it was, and we had to take it.

It was like spitting below you in the pitch-dark, but we had barely an hour of nighttime left, and if we were going to get this donea"and all the boysad come out to play, so youad better believe we were sure as f.u.c.k going to trya"then we had to fly out now.

One thing I knew for sure: We could make it back to their big blue city before their warriors could, even on horseback.

aWe can do this,a Have said in a queer voice.

I spurred her in the flanks. aThatas my girl,a I said.

And then we were flying, me and Have in the front, but all fourteen of us more or less flying together.

Right away some of the others started dropping alt.i.tude, like they were having real trouble flying in a straight line, and some of the girls were bucking in the air no better than wild horses, but the sky was pretty big even with all of us in it, and I guessed there was room for everyone. It was only instinct that set me against moving as so large a group. Wead make a d.a.m.n big target for any lucky son-of-a who happened to look into the sky at the right time. Flying solo had its own risks, but it never made me feel itchy in quite the same way as this, like Have and I were getting crowded in on either side. Even though the corps was a team, official-like and all that, everyone with a brain knew that Havemercy and I worked best when it was just the two of us alone together. We just rose above that, was all, and though it was a weird time to think of him, f.u.c.king Hilary, head never seemed able to get that straight from the first, either.

It wasnat like I wouldnat help any one of the boys who needed helping, but my job was to do that by taking down every last man of the Ke- Han that I could, and that came first.

We were all taught to look after our own selves before anyone else, and if it went against what everyone else did, well, we werenat nothing like anyone else, anyway.

The wind whistled past my ears as Have picked up speed, like we were racing against the others rather than with, the way we did some nights coming home, punchy with adrenaline and no way to bleed it off but to act like we were ten years younger and stupider to boot. Now there wasnat anything we were racing against except time, and it had all become deadly serious.

I caught sight of Jeannot having a real problem with keeping Al Atan from speeding off ahead of the rest; he was keeping her reined in nice and tight just to hold whatever sad-b.a.s.t.a.r.d formation we were clinging to with so many limping, crazed machines underneath us. Iad never had cause to think of Have as a machine before, but then shead never fought me like this before. Thinking of her as a person only made it seem just like watching somebodyas mind unravel like they said Caius Greylace made happen once, and that was something I didnat like any which way.

Right then, Have was humming a little tune under her breath, sweet and strange, and a little eerie, too. To our right, Vachir gave a screech, like the kind she wouldnat ever have made if shead been in her right mind and knowing what we had ahead of us, how important the element of surprise was. I couldnat quite make out Merritt astride her, but I knew he had to be s.h.i.t-panicked at that, wondering whether she was going to do it all the way there and warn the Ke-Han where we were and just how fast we were coming. But she didnat make another sound after that, though, and Iam sure we all felt a little relieved about that.

So long as I was feeling things, a little bit of pride didnat hurt either, since we were each one flying at best with a half-cracked dragon, and not one of us was falling to anything worse than a little dip here, or an exceptionally strong tug on the reins there. As far as I saw it, so long as everyone could keep from crashing into the Cobalts, itad be all right. There was a shaky moment there when it seemed like Raphael would have a sc.r.a.pe of it with his Natalia, but then she pulled up real sharp in a wrench thatad probably have broken her neck if shead had bones to break, and after that it was air silence from that end same as from Vachiras.

Wead never flown in such a group before, except in the real bad timesa"and even then it wasnat all of us, maybe seven or ten at a time. ThaEsar just didnat like the idea of losing all his dragons at once, if it came to that. There were always a few of us kept in reserve; it was good strategizing, pure and simple.

Only it seemed like there wouldnat be any need for strategy if the Ke-Han were just going to waltz into the capital and take over. Wead been pushed into making a move, and now we just had to fight it out or die trying. That sort of thing suited me just fine, I guess, seeing as how it was better than just waiting around.

It was still dark out, and a good thing that it was, but it wasnat so dark that you couldnat see the color of the mountains beneath us, blue and deep like the f.u.c.king ocean, only the ocean had some sparkle to her, cheerful, like maybe if you crashed then itad still work out all right. Not so with the range. They were dead blue, steel blue, capped white on the top and no more beautiful than a great jagged stretch of deception.

Lapis was carved out like a bowl by the edge of the Ke-Han River on one side, and on the other tucked into something like a valleya"which was going to make the flying real difficulta"and the big domed haven for the Ke-Han magicians smack in the middle, like the big blue target on a dart board. Its obviousness had always made my skin p.r.i.c.k just a little, but I wasnat a complete idiot, and theread been no way before now to make it work without running out of fuel entirely or being dashed to bits against the Cobalts for trying until the sunrise. Taking down the Ke-Han wasnat worth losing Have, only now it was sort of like Iad lost her already. I couldnat really think about that.

The whole city was laid out in circles, which I guess was the shape the Ke-Han worshipped, only because of us, half the wall, the outermost circle, was torn down.

The way I looked at it, the magician dome would make a pretty target if we all could see to flying that far. Ivory in particular seemed to be taking it rough, with Ca.s.siopeia making hollow, smoke-filled sounds like shead forgot the proper way to breathe fire, and Magoughinas Chast.i.ty undulating in the air like some kind of sea serpent, only we sure as f.u.c.k werenat flying through water.

The only problem I could see was that Lapis doused her lights at nighta"the Ke-Han werenat dumb any way you sliced aema"and without fire to depend on as any kind of a reliable resource, we were pretty f.u.c.ked as far as seeing our target ahead of time went.

The color blue wasnat so easy to see in the nighttime. It just blended into so many shadows, and I didnat much like our chances.

At least there was always the possibility that some idiot had helpfully repaired the guard towers, fitted with wide, silver bowls of fire that were just cozy as beacons lighting our way.

We came up over the crest of the mountains, Adamo nearest me. Proudmouth didnat seem to be having it as bad as all the rest, though I had an idea that had a lot to do with Adamo himself, and how when he told a thing what to do, it sure as bastion had better do it. And sure enough, the city was black as the night around usa"which would be getting lighter in an hour or maybe lessa"and I didnat know whether that was a blessing, like they didnat know we were coming, or whether it was another one of their f.u.c.king traps.

But at this point, did it really matter whether it was a trap or not? Wead come so far, taken the dragons out past all reasonable endurance.

We were going to finish it, or finish ourselves; one or the other. Like I said, decisions seemed real easy when there wasnat any of that horse-s.h.i.t sitting-on-the-fence kind of waffling.

We knew what we had to do, and we were going to do it. Only two sides of the coin.

All that mattered now was what we knew, and what we knew was that somewhere in the lapis city there was a big blue saucer that had a bullas-eye on it.

aThe sunas going to be coming up,a said Have, like she could smell it.

aWeave got a while yet, girl,a I answered, though privately I wished theread been more time for us.

Adamo rose up in front, wheeled around halfway like he wanted to say something to the lot of us, only he thought thatad make things seem too morbid.

aBastion f.u.c.k!a I called to him, loud and heckling over the rush of wind. aYou got a speech to make youad better do it now!a He paused, like he really was thinking about it, and s.h.i.t, I thought maybe he had every reason to after all.

Itad be dawn soon, and with first light there was no telling what the dragons might do, the condition they were in now. Might be some of them werenat so sensitive as my girl about it, or might be wead all drop like stones from the sky and that would be that. It was a pretty b.a.l.l.sy gamble all around, especially for thaEsar to make with his beloved dragons. I thought about what head told us about how if he said so, then the dragons were as good as sacrificed. Head meant us that day too, though Iad been so mad and caught up about Have that I hadnat quite caught it proper.

Knowing it now didnat make me as angry as I thought Iad be, but my shoulders hurt, and my wrists were starting to ache where they were tied up, and I was just exhausted.

aDonat do anything stupid!a Adamo barked at us finally, then turned Proudmouth so that her tail flicked wide of the lot of us. Then, she dove in a steep descent toward the city.

We all followed, fourteen beauties glistening in the night just a little too swiftly to be clouds. I almost thought it was a shame n.o.body was looking out their windows this time of early morning, acause they would have had quite a sight to see.

The wall was crumbling in all but a few places when we flew over it, and I felt a savage sense of triumph that wead accomplished something at least that hadnat been just another part in the Ke-Hanas giant ruse.

It was a pretty neat reminder of what happened when you messed with Volstov, when you thought you could take on the Dragon Corps.

We followed the path of the river, fat and gleaming in the fading moonlight as it bordered the city and fed toward the ocean. It wouldnat lead us to the magiciansa flat, round tower, but when you only ever saw a city from the air, you got to picking out focal points that would help you triangulate your own position in relation to whatever was visible around you. Wead never got so far into the city as to be able to take out the magicians, but the tower itself was pretty hard to miss, so we were sitting pretty in terms of finding the thing in the dark.

As far as our luck stretched, that was about it, because next second a blast of wind hit us all so fierce that I thought for one minute it was going to send every man jack of us spinning off in different directions as easy as dandelion seed.

aGoodness,a said Have. Or rather, she screeched, else Iad never have heard her over the hurricane threatening to tear the skin off my bones. aItas too windy to have tea with the Emperor today. Moreas the pity.a ad.a.m.n it, Have,a I said through my teeth, trying to wrench her back into a straight line. It wasnat easy, with her fighting me and the wind at the same time, twisting frantically like a pinned animal. Only she was a pinned animal with enough metal and crazed, dying magic in her to kill me without a second thought. First rule: Never go against your dragonas nature.

But I wasnat dropping out just so the rest of the boys could be heroes and get statues built of them, Ghislainas twice as big as all the others.

Just as quick as it had started, the wind changed direction, like it was pulling, and I thought about how wind could tear houses down, rip trees up from the ground, all that kind of rea.s.suring stuff you start to think about when youare caught in it and ainat got no proper recourse but to wear it out lest it wears you out first. I pushed Have up so that we were near to vertical, and twisting over and over like shead used to do when I bragged Iad never get airsick, one swift tight barrel roll after another.

I could hear some of the boys shouting, and occasionally felt the buffet of air that meant someone had pa.s.sed too d.a.m.n close to us. But for all purposes, my mind had shrunk to hold no more than me and Have. It was what I knew, what I was good at, and it was the only way any of us was going to survive this.

aYouare going to make us both sick,a said Havemercy. aAnd there wonat be time for cakes at all.a I didnat know whether she was trying to be funny or if this was just the end of the road for us.

I didnat figure much that I even cared.

Instead of answering, I gritted my teeth and pulled her out of the climb, facing the wind head-on again. Wead come no closer to the tower in all this time, and I saw then that the magiciansa plan was pretty standard, but itad serve them just fine, acause they just a.s.sumed they needed to keep us off until morning, which was all theyad ever done before. By morning, wead have to either back off or have found a way past the gale. What they didnat knowa"that there wasnat any backing offa"was no f.u.c.king comfort if we couldnat get near enough to their tower to take them down. Fighting this wind wasnat going to do us any favors with saving fuel, either, and it was going to hit the swifts first since they were built the smallest.

Even if we could get near, there was no telling how well wead be able to use fire to our advantage in razing it to the ground. At this rate, wead be better off to wait for the first of us to fall from the skies and hope he aimed for the Ke-Han tower.

The thought didnat cheer me any.

aWeare never going to get near them like this!a Jeannot screamed over the wind. The only way I could tell it was him was by seeing Al Atan, twisting crimson and gold like a contortionistas trick in the air; I couldnat see any of the others, which meant I couldnat hear them, either.

Then there was this sound.

Iadave sworn by all of bastion that it was the worst sound I ever heard in my life, like metal scales being peeled away from metal bone. I knew that wasnat the way our girls were built, but still, it was like someone was being ripped apart, starting at the wings. Have groaned something awful, which I only knew acause she started shaking underneath me and then I saw where the original noise was coming from.

Compagnon was riding Spiridon through the f.u.c.king storm.

I donat know how he did it. Mustave been that he figured if he got high enough above the winds and just barreled down through them, he might make it, and that was what was happening. Head only get one shot with it, and I realized right away what that shot meant. If he got through, head be too low too fast, and he wouldnat be able to come around again, but it would sure as f.u.c.k worka"whatever that meant.

It was like everyone was holding his breath. Waiting. Watching. That sound tore through us all; even the wind seemed to die down. And there was Spiridon, like someonead loaded her into a catapult, slamming right through the gales like they meant no more to her than smoke.

Something moved past me on my right, and I thought it was debris or something caught up in the wind before I saw the flash of copper and silver, and I realized it was Thoushalt, with Al Atan swift on her tail. Both our other Jacquelines at once rising up on either side of Spiridon, more beautiful than anything but Have, and Adamo shouting himself hoa.r.s.e from somewhere behind me, like there was any control left to be had now.

I saw them break past the wall of winda"saw Thoushalt switch her tack without warning, which mustave meant Ace had seen the blue dome. He had better eyes than the other two. It was why he came second on the board. Spiridon came after her, and Al Atan pulled even, like itad been their secret plan all along. Have screamed and I couldnat hear anything above that, though Iad like to think, just then, the boys were screaming too, only theirs sounding like triumph.

Then Al Atan started howling fire, just seconds before the three of them hit the dome right smack in the middle. A split hair of a second past that, the winds dropped, and so did the rest of us. Into the momentas silence spilled the sound of the explosion that followed just on the heels of our boysa descent.

No way man or metal could survive that.

That was about the time all dragons started their wailing, and they twisted free of us, following Ace, or Compagnon or Jeannot and their girls down upon the buildings below.

Like h.e.l.l, I thought, were they going to get all the glory for themselves.

aReady,a Have said, just like old times. Just like she could read my mind, and like hers wasnat even more scrambled than breakfast.

The wind howled in our ears as we descended, shooting straight down to the remains of the dome, where flames were belching and walls were collapsing, and somewhere beneath the louder noises I thought I could hear the Ke-Han wizards screaming, or burning, or both. The air stank. We flew straight in, everything so hot I could almost feel my skin peeling. It was just like flying straight into the sun.

Canat say for sure what anyone in the lapis city was thinking right about then. The fire G.o.ds were wreaking vengeance on their heads, circling haphazard and reckless over the round roofs, raining smoke and burning gasoline down onto the wreckage. The dome was shattereda"burninga"and, because this was where the sun rose, I saw dawn begin to stain the sky, pink as a ladyas thighs.

I screamed as Have brought us down too closea"not for fear but for the pulsing heat of it. We poured fire into the crack in the magiciansa dome; beside us, Compa.s.sus turned a flip too smooth for her size to tear away a piece of its wall with her tail. Proudmouth was there too, doing the same thing on the other side, and just behind the bigs were the fire-belchers on either side, coming up along the holes Compa.s.sus and Proudmouth had torn for them and spewing fire straight inside.

The whole building had gone from Ke-Han blue to Volstov red in no more than a minute. Maybe less.

Then something came whistling past me and Have, something pretty d.a.m.n big, and we almost didnat duck it soon enough. Catapults, I figured, lobbing huge rocks at us to bring us down. The Ke-Han werenat stupida"theyad proven that much alreadya"and of course they had a defense plan. Normally they werenat a problem, but caught limping the way we were, even trebuchets were a real threat.

They all started coming like the mountains themselves were exploding toward us. Like as not, they were going to hit some of us, and the rocks they were slinging were big enough to take us down.

I saw one of the boulders go hurtling toward Proudmouthas backa"she couldnat see it, not to mention she was too big to get out of the way quick enougha"but we needed the bigs for sheer force. I was too far away to get between the speeding rock and Proudmouthas back legs when Luvander streaked into place on Yesfir, got caught smack in the side, and went down all at once, rock and man and dragon together.

It was panic in the skies because the skies had been brought down too low. All I knew was that I couldnat pay attention to the others and set to ducking the catapult fire even as Have twisted and struggled against my commands.

All I could hear, all I could smell, was fire.

I brought my girl away from it, from where we were making a real mess of the dome, vomiting fire on everything that moved and ripping out chunks of whatever was left of the walls with Haveas tail. What we really needed now was to take down those wh.o.r.esons manning the catapults.

They were positioned on the outer reaches of the city, which wasnat hard to figure, that being the most strategic place to have them. Have took down a paG.o.da with her tail as we raced too low overhead, and we had to duck a f.u.c.king shower of debris as it rained down on us from above, one of the catapults spotting our progress. We twisted around the one thatad fired on usa"Have wasnat big enough to smash through it like one of the crushers mightavea"but then she threw herself at the tower of wood and knocked it off center. I felt one of my molars crack against the impact, but the catapult went down.

Thatas my girl, I thought. There was no one in the whole world like her.

We headed for another of the catapults, and Have nearly tore her wing in half to get the second down same as shead done for the first. There was blood in my mouth and smoke streaking my goggles so bad I could hardly seea"but I could hear, and there was a crash nearby, too close to be any of the fighting going down in the center of the city, where most of the action was taking place. I brushed the smoke from the lenses of my goggles and saw Chast.i.ty and Magoughin to the left of me, doing a better job with the catapults than I ever could.

I whooped it up, though I didnat think Magoughin could hear me, and set my girl to the next one.