Chapter 55
Chapter fifty-five
Evander
Trailing in a V like geese, the Ashkendoric fighter dragons soared toward Dread Five. The pilots held the dragons’ reins, their razers kneeling behind them with mounted weapons at the ready.
From the tripod, Giles sprayed the oncoming fighters with pellets. Two plummeted into the trees, their pilot and razer’s gliders bubbling open in the air.
Evander’s mind raced. If they turned, the fighters would mow them down as they banked. If they dropped low, they’d strike the trees. They were alone, Dread Seven having peeled off with their own fighters to contend with. There was no escape, no reinforcements.
Evander pressed down his fear, his dread, his despair. He would survive this day, and so would Dread Five.
And then he felt a pulling sensation behind his breastbone, and he had an idea. A reckless, wild idea.
“Go straight and do not fire!” he shouted over the beating wings and the whistling wind.
“WHAT?” Samara screamed. “If we don’t fire, they’ll shoot us down!”
“Trust me! Trust me!”
Samara shook her head and let the reins slip in her fingers so the dragon would fly level, its long body stretched behind it.
Scattershot ripped into them, and the crew ducked as the balls rattled along the dragon’s scales.
Pellets bounced off Samara’s chest and arms, and Evander thanked the Only he’d given her the shirt back.
The fighters were so close now that Evander could make out the individual scales on the dragon’s sides. He reached out with his magic—a hand groping in the dark—and something inside him seemed to latch onto a vague consciousness.
With a twist deep in his stomach, Evander’s suspicions were confirmed. He had trained many of these fighter dragons himself. He could command them.
Pushing aside the crowding guilt, Evander ordered the first dragon to dive into the forest. It obeyed, cracking into the dry branches, its wings tearing. He shuddered, but more shotfire balls tore into them, and he bent his attention on the others.
He commanded the second fighter to pass, but when its rider nearly overcame it, Evander steeled himself and made it crash.
He quickly did the same to the third and fourth, and the enemy dragons fell around them, their riders struggling and screaming.
Only five remained, trying to fly beneath them and escape.
“Fire now!” Evander shouted.
The dreadnought opened its mouth and a billow of flame curled out, then down, curving below them in a stream of orange, scarlet, and black. The heat was oppressive.
The fighter dragons lost formation—one burnt, one spiraling into the trees in a panic, three giving up on Dread Five and making for Dread Seven.
The crew cheered, but Evander did not join them. He had never done anything so dark and so desperate. He looked around at the young faces, alight with victory. He had done it for them. It was worth it for them. Still, the sting of shame did not fade.
A flash caught his attention. Behind them, Dread Seven went down, followed by two small Ashkendoric fighters.
The tripod razer, the blond boy, was still standing at his shotfire, even as flames licked around him.
His crew bailed as he remained, spraying the fighters as they dove after him.
He shot them down before he and his dragon collided with a bunker, smashing it to pieces.
Evander glimpsed the aft-razer glide to the ground and run madly toward the rubble where their dead dragon and the tri-razer crashed. Ryland Everette followed, limping, shouting. Evander could not make out what the captain was saying, but he was certain he was screaming his brother’s name.
“Toward the manor!” Evander told Samara. “Let’s finish this mission!”
Their dragon banked.
“Bombardiers, get ready! Giles, get to your wing!”
Giles grabbed Evander’s arm, and Evander swung him away from the tripod, back toward his station. The boy clipped to his tether and crouched, waiting. Elspeth crawled to the other wing, her shoulder bleeding, her face pale. Ignatius knelt at the tail.
The air was thick with smoke. It stung Evander’s eyes. He glanced at his hourglass. They could fire again, but there were no enemies to their front. The fighters were clever, and they knew to attack at the rear.
A knot of fighters dove toward them. Evander squeezed the trigger, and the shotfire sprayed pellets into the oncoming dragons. He aimed deliberately, not bothering with the pilots, but shooting for the dragons’ weak spot: a tiny soft space between their front legs.
He could hear the enemy’s pellets whistling past his ear, like bees, then pain ripped through his arm and he fell hard, grasping the cable with his right hand before he slid over the side.
Blood smeared across the dragon’s scales behind him, and Evander grit his teeth as he lurched to a stop.
His shoulder popped, and he screamed. His arm hung dead at his side, blood tickling inside his jacket sleeve, the joint dislocated.
Giles caught Evander’s tether and hauled him up. Painfully, he crawled to the tripod and pulled himself to his feet. They were surrounded, only two wingbeats from the manor.
The fighter dragons opened fire, and light showed through Dread Five’s wing. Evander tried to shoot back, but his shotfire only lurched. The belt was empty. He had no more pellets.
He had no more pellets.
“Ignatius!” he screamed.
But the boy shook his head. They were helpless, exposed, and out of ammunition. As Evander tried to wade through the pain and fog in his head and think up some miraculous salvation, flames tore through the fighters, and they peeled away, their pilots swatting at their burning jackets.
Squinting through the smoke, Evander spotted Valenna tearing out of the clouds. She flew past them, luring the fighter dragons after her. Evander’s heart buckled as he watched her go.
“Ready?” Samara asked.
The building passed beneath them, first its outer wall and the grove of dead dragon willows.
Evander just had time to notice that the willow under which his father died was blooming before they flew over the upper parapet. He waited for the downward beat of the wing.
The bombardiers took small sparksticks from their pockets and held them ready.
Giles fumbled with his, struggling to light it.
The wing started its downward beat, and Evander brought his good arm slicing through the air.
“Alight!”
The bombardiers darted over the side of the wing, their legs braced against the dragon’s side, and lit the fuses, then scrambled up and released the canisters.
Giles yanked on the release, but it stuck.
Elspeth’s canisters hurtled, whistling, into the manor and exploded on impact. Samara pulled their dragon up as stone and debris arced through the air and showered the dunes.
The crew celebrated, whooping and cheering.
“CAPTAIN!” Giles shrieked.
Evander turned. And his heart froze.
Giles hadn’t released his canisters. They had jammed, the metal hooks soldered together from the heat of their own fire.
Evander jumped forward, but it was too late. The canister blew, and the dragon’s wing shattered, splinters of bone and flaming flesh tearing through the crew. Evander was thrown off his feet, into the tripod. He gripped its metal legs.
Samara grunted and bit her lip as she fought the dragon. It tipped to the side, its wing sheared off.
Struggling to his feet, Evander ordered, “BAIL! BAIL!”
Ignatius went first, then Elspeth tottered over the edge. Giles lay stunned, blood streaming into his eyes.
He began to wail.
“GO, SAMARA!” Evander ordered.
“BUT …”
“GO, GO, GO!”
Samara unclipped and leapt off the dragon. Evander grabbed Giles with his good arm, pulled the cord for the boy’s glider, and flung him over the side. Then Evander jumped.