“Turbos,” Trenton yelled, although he knew the others couldn’t hear him.
A second later, Rounder blasted out of the swarm of dragons like a comet. With the turbos on, smoke boiled out of the back of their steam engine.
Trenton cheered to see that the smoke was a deep red. The iron oxide ball Plucky had dropped into Rounder’s furnace had worked. Thick, red smoke filled the air, making it all but impossible to see as Clyde looped around and around. They were no longer attacking, only trying to create as much confusion as possible.
Four dragons swooped toward Ladon, and Trenton had to focus on his own fight.
“Hold on,” Kallista said, grabbing the controls.
Trenton swallowed. It was time to try something they’d only talked about doing.
Flying straight toward the dragon swarm, Kallista dropped Ladon’s right wing down and pulled his left wing up. Spinning like a corkscrew, they dove into the fray.
Trenton clamped his hand on the fire button as earth and sky rapidly swapped places. Talons slashed around him; fangs bit at metal. Flames, acid, steam, and scales blurred until he had no idea who was attacking whom.
And then, miraculously, they broke out on the other side. When Kallista pulled out of the spin, there was not a single dragon between them and the white tower where the monarch still perched, watching the battle below. They had to draw him out.
“Go!” Trenton screamed.
Kallista didn’t need to be told twice. Realizing the tower was unprotected, the dragons behind Ladon screamed with fury and turned to chase them.
Angus and Simoni took down a black dragon with a blast of fire and flew toward the monarch again, but a pair of blue dragons appeared from behind the tower, belching steam.
A trap.
Walls of scalding vapor drove them back, and Simoni headed low over the water to avoid being engulfed. Devastation was only feet above the waves when a hooked purple tentacle reached up and wrapped around the dragon’s metal leg.
“No!” Trenton screamed.
He dove down, blasting one fireball after another at the sea dragon. The water boiled, and the creature howled. Simoni dug Devastation’s talons into the sea dragon’s back, and it released them.
Kallista tried to cut left, but they were surrounded. A green dragon clamped its jaws on Ladon’s tail, swinging them through the air. Trenton yanked the tail control left and right, but he couldn’t break free.
The green dragon forced them down. Waves rushed up, and Trenton held his hand in front of his face, sure they were about to crash.
A stream of fire blew so close he felt his hair curl from the heat.
He looked up to see Angus grinning at him as Devastation flew past.
The green dragon opened its jaws with a roar, and Trenton pulled up just before Ladon hit the water.
“Take that,” Angus shouted.
Trenton leaned close to Kallista, yelling to be heard over the noise of the battle. “We have to get the monarch out of the tower.”
Kallista nodded. Ignoring the dragons around them, she raced toward the white tower. When they drew close, Trenton slammed the fire button over and over, blasting the white dragon with everything he had, but the flames didn’t appear to have any effect at all.
They were almost to the edge of the cliff. Kallista screamed at the monarch as they flew by. “I know about your laboratory! My father showed me where it was. You might control his mind, but he will never serve you, and neither will I!”
Trenton blasted a fireball that melted a chunk of the tower wall.
Roaring with rage, the monarch shot out a stream of purple energy from its jaws.
Trenton yanked the flight stick backward, and the energy beam passed under them. It hit the water, and the ocean turned purple.
“You will die!” the monarch screeched. Spreading its white wings, it dove out of the tower toward them.
Immediately Kallista hit the turbo button, and they circled toward the dragon. To their right, Simoni and Angus did the same. The engines in both mechanical dragons roared, and black smoke boiled from behind them.
Trenton gritted his teeth. Either his plan would work, or they were all about to die. The idea had come to him when he remembered how Simoni had sedated the wasps back at the campsite with smoke. At least part of the white dragon’s power came from the jewel wasp DNA. The question was if the jewel wasp part of it was strong enough to be stupefied by smoke the way the regular wasps were.
Racing at a speed so fast it threatened to tear off their dragons’ wings, Kallista and Simoni circled around and around the white dragon. Silver lightning flashed from the sky, and purple energy beams split the air, but Ladon and Devastation were moving so fast it was nearly impossible to hit them.
The dark smoke grew so thick it was hard for Trenton to see what was happening. Peering through the black cloud, he hacked up the sludge coating his throat.
“Something’s happening,” Kallista yelled. “I think it’s working!”
The monarch’s purple eyes flashed bright, then dimmed. It wings stuttered.
“More!” Trenton yelled. He flew dangerously close to the white dragon’s head. If the monarch chose to shoot one if its energy beams, Trenton, Kallista, and Ladon would be vaporized.
But the monarch didn’t attack. Its body shuddered. Its head wobbled. “What . . . are you . . .”
For a moment, it looked like it might to fall into the ocean, but it managed to make it back to the cliff and landed at the base of the tower. Its wings flopped limply open. Its head dropped back against the tower, leaving its chest and neck exposed.
“Now!” Trenton screamed.
As one, both Ladon and Devastation turned to attack. Trenton checked the pressure gauge. It was dangerously high. They had thirty seconds before the engine would explode. They only had time for one shot.
Flying like two arrows shot from the same bow, the mechanical dragons closed in on the monarch. Kallista and Simoni aimed their dragons’ heads while Trenton and Angus prepared to fire. When they were nearly at point-blank range, Angus yelled, “This is for the Runt Patrol.”
“This is for all the people whose freedom you stole,” Trenton said. Then he added quietly, “Especially Kallista’s father.”
At almost the same time, two massive fireballs exploded out of the mouths of Ladon and Devastation. A pair of dragons who had swooped in to protect the monarch tried to fly away, but the flames turned them to ash in an instant.
Trenton’s shot was slightly off, hitting half of the monarch’s body and half of the white tower. But Angus’s shot was perfect, hitting the dragon directly in its exposed throat.
The huge explosion made the air ripple. Black smoke billowed as the mechanical dragons banked away from the heat. As the fire died away, Trenton swiveled back to see the results. For once he hoped Devastation’s name was accurate.
The smoke slowly cleared, revealing the white tower leaning precariously toward the ocean. Standing at its base, though, the monarch appeared undamaged. If anything, the flames seemed to have woken the dragon from its smoke-induced stupor.
The white dragon tilted its head, spread it wings, and laughed. “Did you really think your fire weapons could harm me?”
Trenton’s heart sank. He had failed again.
Ladon’s engine began to shudder. Trenton glanced at the pressure gauge. The needle was at the far end of the red. They had to shut off the turbo before they exploded. He glanced from the gauge to the broken white tower and the dragon standing beneath it.
He knew what he had to do.
He didn’t need to tell Kallista. She reached for the controls.
Before she could touch them, a blur of gold flashed past. Trenton barely had time to see Angus’s sunburned face and a hint of streaming red hair.
He saw Angus’s jutting chin and heard Simo
ni’s voice: “He fights hard, he talks hard, and he flies hard because he believes it’s the only way to protect the people he loves.”
“No!” Trenton cried.
The monarch’s violet eyes opened wide, glowing purple, but its mind control couldn’t touch Angus or Simoni.
Instead of going directly for the dragon, Angus flew low over the water, aiming for the cave opening where the water flowed out from the lab. He slowed for a moment and leaned forward as if whispering something to Simoni. As she began to look back, he unclipped Simoni’s harness. He slipped one of his arms around her waist and pushed her into the water.
A second later, Devastation hit the rock and disappeared in a ball of flame. The rocky cliff exploded outward, revealing the lab inside. The white tower—already damaged—toppled toward the ocean.
The monarch looked up in terror. Tower, cliff, and dragon disappeared into Devastation’s inferno and plunged to the jagged rocks below.
As the water boiled and the dust settled, everything seemed to come to a halt. The dragons continued to circle above the city, but none of them were attacking. It was almost as if they expected the monarch to rise from the debris and tell them what to do.
Kallista half expected that as well. The monarch seemed unstoppable—a perfectly designed creature that would live forever. But looking at the water near the base of the cliff, she could see the white dragon’s body crushed beneath tons of rock and dirt. It wasn’t moving, and it was clear it never would again.
There was no sign of Angus or Devastation. She tried to tell herself she hadn’t seen her friend disappear in a ball of fire, but she knew in her heart that he was gone. She’d thought about doing the same thing—she almost had—but for Angus, there had been no thought, only action. He’d been a bully most of his life, but in the end, he’d sacrificed himself for the good of others.
She switched off Ladon’s turbo.
Trenton was the first to come out of his daze. “Simoni!” he shouted. “She’s somewhere in the water. We have to find her.”
They circled Ladon and searched the choppy ocean. Kallista was afraid Simoni was gone too. Angus had slowed at the last minute, throwing Simoni away from the cliff, where the water was still deep and the debris from the explosion would be unlikely to reach her, but they’d still been moving fast. Too fast? Could she have survived the drop at that speed?
Even this far out, the once blue-green water was turning a sludgy brown from the sudden influx of millions of pounds of rock and dirt. It would be impossible to locate anything in that.
Trenton dropped them so low, Kallista could feel the spray of saltwater against her cheeks. “There!” he shouted, pointing to a small, redheaded figure floating in the water. She was face up, arms spread, but she wasn’t moving.
Trenton unsnapped his harness.
“No,” Kallista said. “You can’t swim, and I can’t fly Ladon by myself.”
“I have to save her,” Trenton growled, jaw set.
“We will.”
Kallista circled around, setting them up to make a pass over Simoni’s body. “Cut the power back all the way, but don’t turn off the engine. Gun it as soon as we have her or we’ll end up in the water too.”
Trenton dropped the engine speed to idle, putting them into a glide, and Kallista opened Ladon’s talons wide. She reversed the dragon’s legs so the talons became scoops. It was still going to be tricky, and dangerous, and if it didn’t work, she wouldn’t be able to keep Trenton from diving over the side, leaving him to drown and her unable to help him.
“Easy,” Kallista whispered, her eyes focused on the body that bobbed up and down on the waves. “If we miss her the first time, we can come around for a second try. But if we drop too low . . .”
“I’m not going to miss,” Trenton said. “Just be ready to close the talons as soon as we have her.”
Kallista chewed her lower lip. If they were off by even a little, Ladon’s talons would—
She couldn’t let herself think about that. Riding the current like a seabird, they swooped toward the water.
“Here we go,” Trenton whispered, feathering the flight control. “I’ve got you.”
The waves lifted Simoni up just as Trenton pushed the flight stick forward, dropping Ladon’s legs into the water. “I’ve got her!” he shouted.
Kallista closed the talons, and Trenton gunned the engine and pulled back on the stick at the same time.
But was it too late?
They tried to pull Ladon up, but he was dropping deeper into the water. First his talon disappeared, then his legs. The water reached all the way to Ladon’s belly, and Kallista could feel the waves trying to drag them under.
Trenton yanked back on the flight stick while Kallista jiggled Ladon’s wings left and right. A sudden gust of air jerked them free.
They quickly banked and headed back to the city. Kallista spotted a small patch of open grass near where the white tower had once stood and headed for it. Using the same technique they’d used to pick Simoni up, they glided over the area and rolled her onto the grass.
They’d barely landed before Trenton was over the side of the dragon. Gripping the sides of the ladder, he slid to the ground and ran back to where Simoni lay on the grass.
Kallista closed her eyes and held her breath. Don’t let her be dead too.
“She’s breathing!” Trenton shouted a moment later. “Simoni’s alive.”
Kallista exhaled deeply and shut off Ladon’s engine. She was thrilled Simoni was alive and that they’d killed the monarch, but it had come at a high cost. At the thought of Angus, she felt a sob clog her throat. She shook her head. Mourning would have to wait. The battle was far from over. With the monarch dead, the dragons were free to do whatever they wanted. And, more important, had the monarch’s death freed the humans’ minds or were the effects permanent?
With no one in charge, things could quickly turn into a bloodbath.
As she climbed down the ladder, Clyde and Plucky flew over the park. One of Rounder’s legs was completely torn off, and huge rips in the metal fabric on the wings flapped as the dragon came in for a rough landing that churned a deep furrow in the grass and ended with Rounder facedown in the street.
Clyde scrambled down from the dragon. The cuts and bruises on his face and body were no longer fake. He had a deep scratch on one cheek, and the right side of his shirt was soaked with red.
He stumbled to Kallista and grabbed her arm. “Where’s Angus?”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she shook her head.
“No,” Clyde sobbed, burying his face in his hands.
The men and women who were standing nearby blinked in dazed surprise, looking around with shocked expressions as if unsure where they were or what they’d been doing.
A shadow passed over the park, and a huge black dragon landed by Rounder.
Plucky, who was climbing down the ladder, jumped the last few feet as the black dragon closed its talons on Rounder and smashed the mechanical dragon to the ground over and over.
“What have you done?” the dragon roared.
Two other dragons landed in the park.
“They have killed the monarch,” a golden dragon snarled.
A red dragon blasted the ground with a stream of fire that turned the grass black.
The dragons closed ranks, forcing Kallista, Clyde, and Plucky into a tight circle with Trenton and a still unconscious Simoni at the center.
“How dare you attack our city?” the black dragon roared. “How dare you kill dragons?”
Kallista’s heart pounded, but after all they had been through, she wasn’t about to back down now. “How dare you? Killing humans. Kidnapping them. Forcing them to be your servants without the ability to think for themselves. What gives you the right?”
Trenton, who had been kneeling beside Simoni, stood
. “You think you’re so powerful? Who do you think created you in the first place? You may be bigger and stronger than we are, but we will never stop fighting.”
The black dragon snorted and turned to the red dragon. “Destroy them and hang their bodies in the city as a warning to any other humans who think they can disobey us.”
As the red dragon moved forward, a single figure climbed from the hole in the ground where the white tower had stood. His face and hair were blackened with soot, and his left arm hung useless at his side, but Kallista recognized him immediately.
“Dad!”
Leo Babbage stumbled toward the trio of dragons. “Stop! Stop!”
The red dragon paused, glancing toward the black dragon uncertainly.
“Half the laboratory is gone,” Kallista’s father gasped. He raised his good arm, revealing a small black box with a copper switch set into the top. “If I flip this switch, a series of explosives will destroy the rest of it.”
The black dragon tilted its massive head. “We will force the other humans to rebuild it.”
“No,” Leo said, his breathing pained and shallow.
Kallista saw his right pant leg was slowly turning red. She started toward him, but he shook his head.
He stared the black dragon in the eye. “Without the white dragon, you can no longer control the people of this city. Stand down, and I will preserve the lab—and the documents describing how each dragon is created. Continue to fight, and I’ll destroy everything.” He shook his head. “No laboratory means no more dragons. Ever.”
Was he bluffing? Had he really planted explosives? He’d managed to resist the monarch’s mind control enough to lead Kallista to the lab, which meant it wasn’t impossible.
Kallista knew one thing for sure. It was never a good idea to underestimate Leo Babbage.
The black dragon ripped a gouge in the earth with one of its talons and fixed its golden eye on the inventor. “Tell me what you have in mind, human.”
Embers of Destruction Page 27