by Steve Rzasa
The Keach guns mounted in the armored turrets angled down. Right at the Perch troops, Winch realized.
“Fiend!” Keysor aimed his pistol. “We came to you seeking truce!”
Beam smiled. “I came to you seeking your city.”
“Doubtful.” Cuthbert put his fingers to his lips and whistled. It was so loud his branter reared up and tossed its head.
Gunfire erupted from the forest to Winch’s left. He ducked instinctively, but he paused halfway crouched when he realized it was directed at the Trestleway forces. He couldn’t see anyone in there. He thought he heard branters baying.
“Get up there! Move!” Cuthbert shouted.
Perch militia leapt from their motorwagons and sprinted for the forested hillside, firing broadside as they went. The Keach guns atop the other motorwagons let loose a blazing staccato of gunfire.
The armored Trestleway ’wagons returned fire. Several Perch militia were cut down instantly, some of them screaming in pain. The remaining motorwagons backed quickly down the road, their gunners trading shots with the Trestleway vehicles. Militia clad in the familiar Trestleway tan poured forth from the trucks farther back in the column.
Winch ran pell-mell for the trees, praying as he went, and clutching his rucksack. The adrenaline coursing through his veins banished any vestiges of exhaustion from his lack of sleep the night before. His glasses bounced down his nose. He shoved them back up.
“Shoot them! Shoot them all!” Beam was incensed. He held up both his hands. Bullets ricocheted off shimmering circles before him.
Allfather, keep us in the palm of your hand.
Winch staggered up the hill, slipping between trees. Green jackets of the Perch militia were all around him.
Cuthbert sat astride his branter. He yanked on the reins, forcing the creature about. He leveled his rifle over one arm and fired. The shot sparked against one of the gun ports of the first armored motorwagon. The Keach gun’s chatter died.
“Mayor-general! Over here!” Someone shouted over the roar of gunfire. Winch saw dozens of militia behind trees and boulders. Their branters were tied up behind rock outcroppings farther down the ridge, toward the north.
Keysor took the advice and steered his branter their way. He fired several shots from his levergun.
Winch followed his lead and leapt over a pair of boulders. He rolled to a stop, ungracefully, against a tree truck. Thank Thel he didn’t break the camera.
“You! You armed?” A bearded private dragged him to his feet.
“Yes—yes, I have a gun.” Winch drew the pistol he’d taken off the Peace Branch man back in Trestleway.
“Hmph. A pea-shooter, but it’ll do better than a sharp stick.” The soldier got back behind his boulder and fired off a round from his bolt-action Shiraga Kukiken rifle. “Don’t just sit there admiring scenery! Shoot!”
Winch took up as concealed a position he could manage, picked out a Trestleway soldier and fired. The constant gunshots filled the forest with hazy smoke. He couldn’t tell if he’d hit anyone. But the Perch troops appeared to be holding the Trestleway militia from advancing any further. Some of the Perch drivers managed to get their motorwagons up the hill, nearly wedged between trees, from where they could unleash their Keach guns again.
“Where did you all come from?” Winch fired another shot. Didn’t hit anything.
“Colonel Cuthbert had half of us take the Jefferson cut-off halfway down from Perch.” The bearded private squinted down his sights and fired. Winch saw a burst of red and a Trestleway soldier collapsed, his arms pinwheeling. “Spot on! We fanned out in groups of twenty. He had a feel that Trestleway might do something of this sort.”
Suddenly a cluster of trees exploded. Pine needles, cones, and splinters showered Winch and the soldiers.
“What in the blue skies?” the bearded private sputtered.
Winch stared wide-eyed over the boulder. Beam and ten other men in black suits advanced up the hill. Beam held a hand aloft and a slash of—energy? light?—cut through the air. It snapped a tall pine in half and blasted two more into fragments. The other men sent similar bursts in his wake, though theirs succeeding only in knocking men and branters over.
Cythramancers. But Beam’s power now far exceeded what Winch had seen before. And the malevolence in his expression was plain as day, not like the calm and composed Peace Branch captain Winch had faced.
Winch emptied his revolver in Beam’s general direction. Then he was clicking the trigger on an empty chamber.
“Fall back!” Cuthbert was still astride his branter. The black beast lashed out with its forearms at a Trestleway rifleman who got to close. The man staggered back with a bloody rend in his arm. “Block the road!”
The private next to Winch grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him through the dirt and pine needles. “You heard the colonel! Move!”
Winch scrabbled across the ground until he found shelter behind a copse of trees. He hauled himself up and ran alongside the Perch militia retreating in the general direction of Perch. But the city was fifty miles away.
An explosion echoed through the trees. Winch spun around. He’d managed not to break his glasses, thank Thel. His camera had avoided gathering bullet holes. He aimed it at the fire raging in the middle of the Ridge Road. Someone had set two Perch motorwagons ablaze, apparently in response to Colonel Cuthbert’s order. The motorwagons that could still drive were retreating up the road toward Perch, laden with men and firing their Keach guns through the blaze toward the Trestleway forces.
But the Trestleway troops advancing in a line across the wooded hillside showed no signs of faltering. Not with Beam tearing trees asunder.
There came a hoot and a holler that caught him by surprise. Something came clinking down the hillside from higher up. Winch had a glimpse of a battered metal canister the size of a breadbox tumble by. It hit a rock, hard.
Smoke burst forth.
All across the running battle, more than twenty gouts of smoke appeared. Soon the area was filled with thick, bluish-grey clouds of smoke that irritated Winch’s eyes and made him cough. Men all around him shouted in confusion, and he could hear Beam cry out in rage. Whoever dropped the smoke had magnificent timing. Breezes drove it east and south, into the path of Trestleway’s troops while leaving things clear for the bulk of the Perch soldiers. It gave them a barrier and a reprieve.
Hooves thumped the ground. A hand grabbed Winch. “Get’er up, baka, and we’ll get you out of this heap of trouble.”
The voice was familiar, rough and female. “Maddy?”
Winch found himself on in the saddle atop a white branter behind “Mad” Madelyn Kuroi. She grinned broadly, her frizzy hair nearly the same color as the smoke whirling about. “Fine day, ain’t it, Winchell? Brought some of my nearest and dearest to your soiree. Your Colonel Cuthbert there sent word and a hefty payment for me to show up on your side. Allfather knows I ain’t got no love for Trestleway, neither.”
Booming gunshots sounded. Several dozen men on branterback—rough looking folk Winch recalled seeing at Maddy’s ranch—rode up down the hillside, with their Twing shotguns still smoking. Their cries were those of the people of the Red Lotus Domei, and the sound made Winch shiver. They charged at the Trestleway men.
A bullet passed nearby. Without hesitation, Maddy aimed a Shiraga revolver into the smoke and fired three shots. A Trestleway soldier staggered out of the mist and fell at the feet of her branter.
“Colonel!” Maddy jerked the reins and brought her mount about. Cuthbert was a few dozen feet away. “Suggest y’all make the most of the havoc me and my fellas provided.”
“Indeed I shall, señora.” Cuthbert tipped his hat. A few more green-clad men staggered out of the smoke around him. More gunfire came their way, albeit poorly aimed. “We owe you many thanks and the honor of the Consuls.”
“Consuls.” Maddy snorted. She urged her branter onward, following the Perch militia as they withdrew. Her own workers, or warriors, Win
ch supposed, came swirling out of the cloudy barrier and slipped between the trees. “We shadowed your shooting gallery pals from the Raptor’s Cut, but I’d never wagered we’d actually need to fight ’em. Ah well. Ain’t nothing better than giving Trestleway a bruise. Hang on there, Winchell, and we’ll have these boys thanking Ifan in no time.”
Winch patted her on the back. “Emin to that.”
Saturday
The aerodrome was a madhouse. People were everywhere—workers flocked from aeroplane to aeroplane, dragging tools and fuel jerricans where needed.
Inside the first squadron’s hangar, the pilots berated their work crews and did last minute checks on their aeroplanes. Their compatriots from Second and Third squadron gathered around them. Cope hauled himself up onto the top wing of his Vigilante biplane. He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled sharply.
“Now, children, we haven’t time for me to hold your hands and sing you lullabies,” Cope said cheerily. “Stick with your wingmen. If you get into a dogfight, make sure you’ve someone of the friendly persuasion at your side or on your back. Look for signals from your flight leaders. And flight leaders, keep those signals simple, please? We should all know them by now.”
That got a laugh from the assembled pilots.
Cope slapped his flight cap against his trousers. “All right, then, get to your cockpits. And may the enemy go down in flames!”
The pilots cheered and whooped. They went sprinting for their fighters.
Cope grinned. Not too shabby.
A woman cleared her throat. Rebekah Hawes stood at the end of the right wing.
Cope gave her a jaunty salute. Huh. She didn’t seem impressed. “Your newly-minted wing commander is ready to perform his duty.”
Hawes rolled her eyes. “I’ve given you all three squadrons, Cope. Don’t break them.”
“I’ll try not to. Especially since you’ve outfitted more of us with lovely Hinohama rockets.” A pair of workmen in coveralls stained with grease lugged a covered cart to the midsection of his biplane. Cope frowned. “Huh. Do we really have time for repairs? I think I just ended that conversation.”
“Not repairs. A parting gift.” Hawes supervised the men in their removal of the two Hinohama rockets from the hatch under the fuselage.
“In all seriousness, Miss Hawes, I will need those.” Cope wasn’t one to get peevish about Hawes and her tinkering tool-types, but he had flying to do.
“No, you need these.”
Cope’s eyes widened at the sight of the two, smooth tubes of metal the men loaded in place of the Hinotamas. They sported a quartet of sharp fins at the tail end, and some manner of nozzle that reminded Cope of a fireman’s hose. “Great blue skies. What are those things?”
“We’ve been playing with a few Hinohamas,” Hawes gave a satisfied nod. “Some of the boys and I refined them a bit. They have greater stability and range, more thrust, increased velocity. Oh, and mind the…enhanced explosive yield.”
“Improved?” Cope asked. The workmen shut the hatch.
“Very. Make sure you’re twice as far away when they hit as with a typical Hinohama.”
Cope just nodded. Words could not express his appreciation.
Hawes smiled. “Your lead pilots, Daisy and Treadwell, have been equipped with these—I’m calling them Robert’s Rockets after my son, for now. Best keep them as weapons of last resort.”
“As ordered, Miss Hawes.”
“Good luck and the Consuls’ speed to you.”
“Will you miss the party, then?”
Hawes raised an eyebrow. “Hangar Zero will be along shortly.”
Cope stared as she led the workmen away. He turned and admired his aeroplane.
“Well.” Cope grinned. “Sounds as if Wintergala has come early, doll.”
• • •
The Perch squadrons launched in rapid succession. They sped down Wright Valley, formed in twelve V-formations of three planes each. Cope, Daisy, and Tread flew at the lead and slightly above the rest. From there Cope could crane his neck side to side and look down on the aeroplanes under his command.
“Thirty-six. Out to be plenty,” he muttered under his breath.
The dirigibles hired by Trestleway were dark smudges hanging just below the clouds. Things were pretty soupy out here above 13,000 feet, Cope noticed. That meant low flying, to keep the enemy in sight. He did a quick count of the enemy dirigibles and stopped, befuddled. Ten? Hadn’t he counted twelve before?
Cope did a second count. Yes, definitely ten. He waggled his wings at Daisy and signaled for her to conduct her own count. She nodded. For a moment her goggles were trained sharply on the distant force. Her blond ponytail flicked in the wind. She flashed five fingers with her left hand, twice.
Ten, then. Cope frowned. Where were the other two? There had been twelve, he was certain of it. Likely they’d turn tail and ran. Those bandit Free Fliers didn’t even trust each other.
He didn’t have any more time to fret. Eight of the ten dirigibles disgorged biplanes and triplanes into the air—Trestleway TAB IVs and the Rhodes 33 s of the Free Fliers. More planes swooped down to join them from the bottoms of the clouds, just above the dirigibles.
Branter-spit. There were dozens of planes out there. More than Perch’s three squadrons, that was certain. The sight made Cope shiver. But He grinned at the thought of the tussle coming his way, the rockets stashed below his seat, and whatever in tarnation Hawes meant when she said Hangar Zero would be ready.
He could see flashes of light and gouts of smoke along the Ridge Road far below. It looked like Trestleway’s column was pushing its way inexorably toward Perch. The stand at the fuel depot apparently had budged. Cope’s eyes narrowed. Winch was down there.
He pointed his finger up and spun his hand in a circle three times. Then he banked left, and dove. Daisy’s and Tread’s biplanes followed. So did the other thirty-three.
The rumble of the Vigilantes’ engines joined Cope’s as they hurtled down as one force. Had they ever trained on this one? Skies, no. Cope laughed, in spite of the lunacy.
He waited until he could make out the tiny tan figures—Trestleway militiamen—running around their grey, black and brown vehicles. He opened fire with his Keach gun, raking the column as he brought the fighter’s nose up.
Bullets ripped along the dirt road and the tops of the motorwagons. Cope had no idea what damage he’d caused. The Keach gun shook his plane and thundered in his ears. The rat-tat-tat of the anti-aero fire from Norton cannon responded. Cope swooped clear of the barrage and climbed back into the skies. He looked around—good. Didn’t seem he’d taken any damage.
The rest of his planes rose from their attack. Cope thought there was more smoke, fire and confusion among the Trestleway column. They certainly were scattering like rock chucks. “Good deal!” Cope shouted over the wind.
Incoming. The enemy planes were now high above Cope and his planes. The Trestleway pilots npeeled off from their formations in pairs. But the Free Fliers just launched themselves into diving attacks with half-crazed seeming maneuvers and no discernible order. “They’ll be the tricky ones,” Cope said.
He pumped his fist and flashed his hand forward. Engine sounds roared all about him as the Perch planes rose to meet the challenge prop-first. True to form, Third Squadron splintered into four flights of three aeroplanes and spiraled off from Perch’s wing. Cope watched the enemy intently to see if it had the desired effect—and it did.
Several flights of Trestleway planes veered to intercept them. Brilliant. Cope grinned. He led his squadron in their race up. The nearest Free triplane bobbed and weaved in his sights as the blue and red aeroplane dove at him. Steady. Wait for range…
Flashes appeared on the triplane’s nose. Cope banked hard right, just enough to put him jarringly sideways to the ground. He fired back. The Keach gun flashed, his biplane bucked, and Cope gritted his teeth as he fought to keep the enemy plane in his sights. Bullets zipped by him—one tore through
the upper wing. No major damage.
Closer. Closer still.
He could just make out the glint of light off the Free pilot’s goggles when the engine exploded in fire and smoke. Cope shouted and wrench his controls. His biplane spun upside down, soaring just overhead of the triplane. Their upper wings could be no more than twenty feet apart. His opponent’s plane exploded as the fire undoubtedly reached the fuel canisters—just behind the cockpit, from what Cope recalled of those model of triplanes. The flaming pieces rained down.
No time to exult. The two aerial forces danced about each other in a massed dogfight. Cope caught glimpses of aeroplanes diving and zooming and looping—there went Daisy with a TAB biplane hot on her tail. Tread’s fighter pounced down from above and behind, his guns shredding the TAB’s stabilizers. A Perch biplane raced by Cope, its fuselage aflame. He thought he saw the pilot go leaping out. That was confirmed by the lily-white skysail that blossomed from his back like flower petals unfurling at a hundred times Nature’s pace.
Cope leveled out his aeroplane. He craned his neck behind and above to make sure…Tarnal flames! A TAB fighter dropped down from above. Bullets streaked by the fuselage as Cope put on the sauce—his engine revved and the biplane leaped ahead.
Look back. The TAB fighter straightened out right on his tail. Cope scowled. Talk about having your head between the smilodon’s fangs.
Retournment.
Cope braked and yanked back on the control, as far as the stick would go. His plane’s nose pitched steeply skyward.
Nothing worried him at this point. It was like any other flying practice. He could hear Father’s voice: Control well back. Mount steeply.
Below him, the TAB fighter raced by.
Control to center. He adjusted. Right foot well forward. The aeroplane banked so hard it shook like a man sick with fever.
Straighten your feet! Get the control to center, ever slightly forward. Cope adjusted, his arms shaking from the strain. His plane’s nose dropped down.
Control sharp to the right, then back to center, keep it forward! Those feet have to be straight!