The Ethereal Squadron: A Wartime Fantasy (The Sorcerers of Verdun)

by Shami Stovall

  “This would be easier if you told me how you made it. I could start producing more. It’s no good to us if you keep all your knowledge locked up in your head.”

  Heinrich didn’t respond. He kept with his work, his hand red and white from the strain of crushing gemstones.

  Tinker walked over and pushed Geist toward Heinrich. “Get him to talk. I’ll be back after I speak to Major Reese about our breakthrough.” Then he strode from the room, leaving Geist alone with the German.

  “What’s this all made of?” she asked, cutting straight to the heart of the issue.

  “Opals,” Heinrich answered.

  “What else?”

  He didn’t reply.

  Geist met his gaze with a glower. “I thought you here to help us.”

  “I am.”

  “Then tell me.”

  Again, he said nothing.

  Tinker flew down the stairs, interrupting the silence. “We need to pick up the pace,” he said between huffs as he jogged into the room. “Something is happening outside. The barracks are swarming with soldiers.”

  “Why won’t you tell me?” Geist said.

  Heinrich gritted his teeth. “The destruction the magi-tech will bring… I will be responsible. Every weapon—every death—will stain my soul no matter who makes them.”

  Geist clenched her fists. “Is the alchemist who discovered gunpowder responsible for every man gunned down on the battlefield?”

  Heinrich stopped his work but he didn’t look over.

  “Is the first man who sharpened a stone responsible for every death at the end of a sword?” Geist continued, her voice growing louder. “Stop thinking about yourself, goddammit! This isn’t about you! This is about countering the destruction already in the world! We talked about this in the OHL—trying to keep this knowledge contained is a fool’s mission. You’re only allowing more people to die by keeping this all—”

  “It’s blood,” Heinrich interjected.

  Geist stared. “What?”

  “Blood is the key. Sorcerers draw their magic from their blood and opals can tap into that same strength.”

  “Opals can?” Tinker asked as he walked over to the table and examined the supplies. “How?”

  “They’re like sponges. They can hold the sorcery for prolonged periods of time. That’s why the opal operation for sorcerers has been so effective. The magic contained within makes it easier for the sorcerer to tap into the strength.”

  “How are you making material that cancels out the GH Gas?”

  “I study nullis sorcery.”

  “Really?” Tinker asked, disbelief written across his face. “You aren’t affected by magic at all?”

  “That’s right.”

  Geist was taken aback. Everything made sense. Heinrich was immune to the GH Gas because he was immune to magic itself. Which is why he could study and experiment with such terrifying substances.

  Tinker stared at the opals longer. “Then… you’ve been using your own blood?”

  Heinrich rolled up his long sleeves and revealed the partly healed slashes down his arm. His pale complexion said what he could not.

  That every bit of anti-gas they had was part of him.

  Memories of the magi-tech floated through Geist’s thoughts. Every instance of magi-tech had actually been someone’s lifeblood poured into the technology. A sorcerer had given part of themselves to make it reality. From the zeppelin, to the U-boat, to the dungeon in the OHL. Geist could barely believe it.

  And the GH Gas… The sinister near-sentience of the gas left her wondering. How is it made? Is it just blood? Or is it… more?

  Bells rang out throughout Fort Belleville. Geist knew the sound well. It was a call to arms. The German army was moving into Luxembourg and preparing to attack Paris.

  “So we can’t mass produce this on a huge scale?” Tinker asked, ignoring the summons. “Because we need to, and I don’t know of anyone else here capable of using nullis sorcery.”

  Heinrich motioned to the crushed opals. “Once I’ve made enough, the sorcery contained in the opals can be spread to the others.”

  “Like a disease?”

  Heinrich glared. “Yes. Like a disease.” His distaste almost made it funny, but Geist couldn’t bring herself to laugh when her heart was beating so fast.

  “Then we need to keep this up. Tell me how to help.”

  Geist turned for the door. She knew she wasn’t needed in the arms room. She wasn’t a scientist or a researcher or a test subject. She was a soldier needed for the front line.

  This is it. We either save Paris and fight back or we lose Paris… and surrender.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  THE PARIS GUNS

  “WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH COUNTER-GAS to cover Paris,” Major Reese said.

  The transport motorcar shook and jostled with every bump on the road. The Verdun sorcerers sat packed together, shoulder to shoulder, holding their rifles between their legs. Geist held a cigarette and match in her hand, fumbling thanks to the shake of the vehicle. She didn’t smoke often, but the eve of battle seemed as good a time as any to indulge a vice or two.

  Major Reese steadied himself with a leather strap that hung from the metal frame of the overhang. “Our plan—our only hope—is to neutralize the GH Gas shells before they’re fired. We know there are six guns. Each team will get to a gun and disable the shell before it launches. Afterward, you’ll take out the gun itself, preventing any further attacks.”

  The soldiers nodded, but no one spoke.

  “Victory’s sorcery tells us we can be successful, but don’t let that kind of fool confidence get to your head. If we fail, Victory’s seen a hundred nightmares’ worth of horror. That’s what’s at stake, men.”

  Geist struck a match as the vehicle lurched and she lost her last light. Before she could ask around for another, Big Wick held out a large hand and a flame sprouted from a fingertip. Geist gave him a lopsided smile and lit up.

  The harsh whistle of bombshells and bullets made their way into the motorcar. The frontline was mere yards away, and everyone knew it.

  “Once boots hit ground, make your way through the enemy lines in any way you know how,” Major Reese shouted over the din. “There will be enemy sorcerers in your way, but they don’t have the moxie we do. We’re fighting for innocent women and children. Let that strengthen your hearts and harden your resolve. I say we push these monsters back all the way to the dark forests they crawled out of.”

  Geist took a deep drag of her cigarette as the men in the truck slammed the butt of their rifles into the floor, whooping in agreement.

  The truck stopped. Everyone stood. Showtime.

  Geist’s boots hit mud. The smell of gunpowder and copper mixed in equal amounts in the air. The rattle of machine gun fire nearly deafened her, but the rest of her senses were razor-sharp, attuned to every detail. In a way, Geist preferred the chaos of a largescale battle like this to the fierce focus of single combat. The battlefield had a music that guided her forward—the drumroll of gunfire, the percussive beat of mortars striking, the shouts of the men around her… She looked left and right; Blick, Dreamer, Victory, Vergess, and Battery were all there with her—and she knew she would never be alone.

  Victory stayed behind with a radio. If his visions revealed anything devastating, he would send word.

  Dreamer grazed his fingertips over every Ethereal Squadron sorcerer who passed by, wrapping them in his powerful illusions, masking them as German soldiers, so they could sprint through the enemy lines unimpeded. He held Geist back when he touched her shoulder.

  “There will be House Cavell sorcerers here,” he said.

  She glanced up at him, her eyebrows knit together.

  “You take a lot risks with your life,” he murmured. “But specter sorcery is one of the only ways to counter specter sorcery. We’re counting on you.”

  Geist replied with a curt nod. “I need to go with the others. Stay safe, Dreamer.”

 
; Each team met Heinrich at the front of the truck. He handed over the anti-gas grenades and motioned to the pin keeping the precious cargo intact. Geist took her grenade and thanked the man with a look. Heinrich, dead on his feet, answered her in kind. His ghostly complexion reminded her of high price he’d paid to create the devices—a price paid in blood.

  Heavy artillery struck all around the sorcerers, blowing craters in the earth as deep as a man is tall. Men unlucky enough to be caught in these explosions didn’t even have time to scream. Their decimated bodies flew in random directions, splattering the warzone in gore. Geist leapt over the bodies, trying her best not to stare at the viscera below her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the medics—and Cross—rushing in to aid the wounded. The closer she got to the trench, the more Geist felt she needed to keep an eye on her. When bullets whizzed by, Cross ducked down and allowed the French soldiers to return rifle fire.

  She doesn’t have a gun? Why isn’t she armed?

  Geist gritted her teeth and made a mental note to speak to Major Reese about this if she survived the battle.

  The battlefield, divided by No Man’s Land, had two deep lines of trenches. Geist flew over the French soldiers in their trench, never looking down, and sprinted through the barbed wire that separated one side from the other. Vergess, Blick, and Battery followed behind her at a slower pace. With Vergess in front, Blick and Battery had no fear of the bullets, but rotting through the barbed wire took time.

  When Geist was halfway across No Man’s Land, the deep chill of magic struck her like a wall. A black stallion charged toward her, its rider wielding a gleaming longsword. She slowed and focused on the man riding, her confusion transforming into disbelief as he came into view.

  Leopold.

  It wasn’t unheard of for the man to the take to the battlefield. People claimed the crown prince could not be killed, and Geist believed them. Tempest sorcery made Leopold a terrifying presence on the battlefield, and his regenerative abilities protected him from all but the most grievous wounds. She’d already seen the prince take a bullet to the eye and walk away.

  And he smiled, she recalled. He smiled like he lived for this.

  The prince sliced through French soldiers with little effort, each swing amplified tenfold by apex sorcery. His mount, a beast among horses, had all the telltale signs of magi-tech alteration. Opals lined its muscles, and the creature’s eyes bulged as if the animal could barely contain the magic coursing through its veins. When bullets pierced its hide, the creature continued forward without a whinny.

  One soldier tried to pull the prince from his mount; Leopold laid his hand on the man’s face and watched it rot away under his touch. When a group of soldiers fired upon him from across No Man’s Land, he waved his hand and blew them away with gale-force winds, sending them wheeling into the barbed wire, which quickly sliced them to ribbons. And, just as Geist had predicted, when he took any slight scratch, he healed almost instantly and pressed forward.

  Prince Leopold urged his mount forward, rushing Geist with his sword held out to the side. She froze and met his gaze with a glare. When he was on top of her, he swung, his blade passing through her neck with a whistle but dealing no real damage. In the split-second they were inches from each other, his eyes widened in recognition.

  I knew you’d remember me, she thought with a smirk.

  And the prince laughed.

  The battle—the whole damn war—this really is a game to you, isn’t it? When the prince couldn’t decapitate her in a single swing, he craned his head back to get a better look as though intrigued by the challenge she presented.

  Geist turned away, unwilling to quarrel with him. She ran for the German lines and found the men stopped firing when they got a good look at her. Geist hesitated for a moment, but remembered Dreamer’s illusion.

  She jumped over the trench ran for the back ranks. Officers shouted, ordering her to return to the front, but she ducked past them and continued, not caring what they said or did as long as they stayed out of her way.

  Vergess, Blick, and Battery still lingered behind, but Geist couldn’t slow her pace, not while she had the anti-gas grenade in hand. Just a little further.

  The shadows of the machine guns cast dark lines over the battlefield as the sun broke the horizon. Geist squinted through the morning light and spotted her targets—the Paris Guns—on the far railroads beyond the frontline. Their shadows, equal rivals to the trees behind them, stretched to No Man’s Land itself.

  Each gun was extraordinarily massive. They rested on an immense all-metal turntable railcar, towered over everything at eighty-two feet, the tips of their barrels seeming to scrape the sky. The gleam of steel blinded her, and Geist took a breath to assess the situation. Magic chilled the area, and she wondered if she was already too late.

  But the heavy clang and clink of the gun’s titanic turntables erased her concerns. The gunners in charge had to turn massive cranks to physically turn the guns in order to aim, each pop and clank swiveling the huge guns by a foot, maybe a foot and a half. And tilting the barrels up or down took another complex series of mechanisms; it would take a good deal of time before the guns were anywhere close to ready to fire.

  The German soldiers, huddled behind makeshift barricades, had their backs to the Paris Guns. An open field lay before her. A straight shot to the railroads.

  Geist spotted other members of the Ethereal Squadron rushing toward their assigned guns, but each weapon was separated from the next by a few hundred feet. Geist could only make out faint spots of people running in the distance. She could see her gun, and the next over, but everything else was a mystery. She hoped the other sorcerers would be successful, but she didn’t dwell for long.

  We need to hurry.

  Geist turned her attention back to the last gun on the track and sprinted for it, heedless to anything else going on around her.

  Halfway to her destination, Geist was hurled forward by a powerful gust of wind. She hit the dirt and landed on her rifle, the bolt jamming up into her sternum. With a groan, she rolled over and jumped back to her feet, each breath sending sparks of pain through her ribs.

  Prince Leopold had followed her. He dismounted, not but thirty feet away, and whistled loud enough to cut through the cracks of rifles in the distance. Two men—no, not men, abominations—turned away from the battlements to lumber toward the prince. They wore clothing like Amalgam wore in the OHL, tight leather straps with hooks, and heavy gasmasks with the glass replaced by mirrors. But unlike Amalgam, they had bulbous humps on their backs, elongated arms, and stout elephant legs, shorter than any normal man’s.

  Leopold rushed forward. His sword—a king’s blade—had a honed edge. It sliced through Geist’s neck a second time without touching, but the shiver of death lingered after. The prince wanted her dead, and sooner or later her reflexes would betray her.

  Geist dropped her rifle, pulled her handgun and fired. The bullet tore through his gray and green officer uniform, ripping off one of the three general stars, but it didn’t harm the man underneath. Apex sorcery. Just like Vergess, his skin was solid as steel.

  Leopold attacked again, and she dodged out of instinct, but the blade cut through her right sleeve, detaching it from the rest of her uniform. It fell to the ground as she staggered back.

  What can I do against him?

  The prince must have had a similar thought. He motioned to one of the abominations, ordering it through gestures like a puppet. The monster lunged forward, straight for Geist, its breathing heavy through its gasmask. She leapt from its path, rolling over the dirt. Each swing whistled through the air. Geist knew the monster must be as strong as Amalgam—strong enough to kill her in a single blow.

  “You’re that woman,” Leopold said with a cruel smile. His cold voice sent a shiver down Geist’s spine. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  The abomination slammed a meaty fist into the ground, cracking it with the weight of the mighty blo
w. Geist staggered backward.

  Leopold chuckled. “You think you can fight me? I’ll—”

  Another round of bombardments drowned out his words. The zeppelins had arrived, dropping shells on the soldiers below. The British biplanes came next, and the dogfights began overhead, adding to the pulse of war around them.

  Prince Leopold slashed with his sword, jumping back into the fight the moment Geist let her guard down. Geist ghosted just in time to avoid the deadly blade and leapt away, keeping her eyes on the prince. She couldn’t lose track of him. Not once. Not ever.

  But Prince Leopold’s attention shifted to a man off in the distance. He squinted, confused, as a sorcerer ran for one of the Paris Guns. Geist followed his gaze and held her breath.

  Caveat. He hustled to the nearest gun with his anti-gas grenade in hand.

  Prince Leopold smirked. “What’s this?”

  Even with a German uniform, Caveat was distinctly heavyset and shorter than most. He stood out, and Geist knew Leopold couldn’t resist such a choice target.

  “Run!” she shouted. “Caveat! Back to the front line!”

  Caveat turned to her voice, but Prince Leopold had already started in his direction, taking one of his abominations with him. The prince moved with the speed of a jungle predator, his apex sorcery propelling him forward as swift as any horse. His monster followed behind without tiring. Geist had no way to keep up or stop them. She could only watch in horror as the prince closed the distance in seconds.

  But just as the prince swung his sword, Caveat held out his hand, freezing the moment around him, trapping the prince in a web of slowed time. Caveat, sweat-soaked and panting, turned to the monster lumbering forward. He held out his hand again, attempting to stop the beast like he had the prince—but nothing happened. The abomination thrashed about, knocking Caveat to the ground with a bone-shattering swing. Caveat’s focus failed him, and the prince was free. Dragging himself to his feet, Caveat held his anti-gas grenade tight to his chest and stumbled onward.

  Geist turned away, searching desperately for the rest of her team, and caught sight of Vergess. He loped across the battlefield, his body tense and his killer focus set.