Vol 8, Chapter 25

◆ First Duchy ◆

The Count's dining hall was unusually empty.

A huge hundred-seat table was occupied by only a few dozen people—the Count himself and his close aides. The aristocrat, bored, was prodding his silver plate with a bone, trying to fish out a spinal cord, while his adviser, in turn, attempted to get through to his sovereign's mind.

"There's a rebellion in our lands, Your Grace," the adviser repeated for the second time.

"Yes, yes, I've heard... Baron Manus will deal with it, I'm sure. Now tell me why dessert still hasn't been served? Where is my damned servant? Why is the steward Serbar not here yet? And what is that wine barrel doing under my table?"

"A barrel?" the adviser repeated in surprise and, breaking etiquette, peered beneath the table.

A pinch of dark-brown powder spilling from the barrel made it clear it wasn't wine. The recipe for smoky powder wasn't complex, and the Hardans always had the best spies.

Boom!

The table was torn to pieces in an instant, along with all the guests seated at it. The dining hall filled with fire.

Like many such halls across the First Duchy...

All across the duchy, the nobles clutched at their throats after tasting the poison. And they were very lucky if the poison was deadly. Those whom the poison had left dazed and apathetic, stripped of will and control over the Source, were dragged to the scaffold. The servants who had faithfully served for many decades rose up against them. The obsidian knives of hired assassins caught their throats. The masters' bedrooms were barricaded and set on fire. Stewards fell from the windows, overseers received bags of gold and silently turned away when the Hardans brought entire carts of weapons right to the workplaces.

Cold calculation and Rage poured onto the streets.

Not everything went smoothly. Servants were hanged on any suspicion, informers were gutted, veteran guards slaughtered the untrained rioters. Authorities tried to suppress uprisings with hysterical, mass executions of everyone, guilty or innocent... But it would be easier to douse a burning house with a mug of water than to curb these riots!

After all, it wasn't only the Hardans who had risen.

The Duchy was swept by a bloody tide. A Red Wave.

A flamethrower in peasant clothes, his hands scarred by burns, using a simple red scarf instead of a gas mask, drenched a barracks with flame. A peasant waved a flag from atop an overturned cart; its owner lay in a pool of blood, riddled with bullets. A rebel who survived a clash with the guards clutched a stump of an arm, not letting go of his sword. The cobbles were strewn with bodies—guards and comrades alike. Shouts and machine-gun bursts echoed through the city.

Like a knight on a chimera of the new age, an armored vehicle moved slowly through the streets. Red-hot barrels belched smoke. Beside a building stood his mangled comrade. A steel cuirass of plated armor had been ripped open, the metallic innards stained with the crew's blood.

Torn apart by its autocannon, the chimera lay in a heap of flesh nearby. The local lord was not taken by surprise everywhere. Now he was indistinguishable from his mighty mount—the high-caliber rounds had blended them into one. The castle burned. In the city square, a caravan distributed weapons and food. Seeing the armored car, soldiers grabbed jerrycans and rushed to meet it. Refuel. Restock ammo. Move on. To the next town.

On the road between two towns, in a snowy ditch, another armored car stood stalled. Breakdown. Not all losses were from battle. Its commander raised his eyes to the clouds and saluted.

A grotesquely swollen airship drifted in the sky... A flying castle bristling with gun barrels and comms antennas! Its metal-clad hull gleamed in the sun, and eight rotors grabbed the air, allowing the titan to crawl forward with confidence. Invisible signals flowed to and from it.

The bloody wave lapping the Duchy followed it... and it was heading straight for the castle that had never been stormed in its history. The impregnable fortress of the First Duke.

************

Outside the captain's cabin window, clouds slid by and a large rotor, somehow reminiscent of a mill, spun so fast the eye could not follow it. Eight electric motors, each the size of a chimera's head, pushed the airship forward like a sluggish hippo. If they had been mounted on a glider, they would have lifted even a small bomber into the air! But alas... the airship's massive sail area and atrocious aerodynamics prevented it from accelerating even to the level of a crop duster.

Perhaps a bomber would have been better for my purposes, but... we still lacked many things to build one.

Yet we had everything needed to create a full-fledged zeppelin! And an experienced crew already used to balloons. We only needed to increase our airship in size. A lot.

Building a bomber from scratch... perhaps we could have managed it, but who would fly it? You can teach someone to shoot passably in a day; teach them to drive a vehicle in a week. Need a navigator for a steamship? That's even easier: there are damned experienced sailors, and a steam engine is simpler to handle than a sail rig.

Training pilots who can not only take off but also carry out a bombing run, and most importantly, land intact—that takes many months of work. And that's not counting how many will crash during training while trying to learn to fly without instructors, without lengthy theoretical preparation, relying only on their own experience. You can't train them "well enough" here; each one must be trained perfectly. No wonder pilots are considered the elite.

The phone rang, pulling me from my thoughts. To reach the handset on the console, I had to step over the elf sprawled on the bulletproof glass like a fly, watching the landscape below with keen interest. To be honest, I was even a little grateful to her for serving as a sort of rug. Though I was the one who ordered an observation window set into the cabin floor... that glassed hole made me nervous.

I picked up the receiver. Internal comms were our lifeline; to save weight, most of the airship's compartments were linked only by wires.

"Five more vehicles have failed. The First Company has no operational vehicles left. Fourth and Sixth Companies report depleted supplies. The counties of Surey, Neman, and Schramburger have fallen, as has the whole northern Marquisate. In the County of Kerton, and in the Baronies of Gretland and Dragoven—fighting. In the Barony of Zimonyov, the uprising has been suppressed. Cells in the Foothills baronies await orders," the radio operator droned, his voice distorted by a primitive carbon microphone.

"Copy," I replied, quickly checking the map on the cabin wall. In many places the impulse had faded; people were exhausted, the machines kept breaking, and supplies of fuel and ammunition were running out. The wave of uprisings was no longer keeping pace with us, falling back tens of kilometers behind. Which meant...

"Telegraph them. Let the Foothills continue to await the special signal."

"Sir, but we don't have any 'special signal' for this situation."

"They'll know it," I said simply, setting the rasping receiver back on its cradle among the others.

Alas, the technology still hadn't been refined enough to use beyond the internal network. However, the signal I spoke of—they would not miss it. No one would.

"Looks like someone's being executed in the square," Lariel announced.

I glanced down. We were so high that even the castle looked toy-sized, the people smaller than ants. She had excellent sight if she could make out details from this height.

"O-o-oh, the lord has an interesting chimera. That's a lord, right?" the elf went on, and I realized she wouldn't be quiet. When Lariel started talking, she rarely stopped.

"Better tell me how the promised meeting with your elders is progressing?" I cut in. Not that I didn't know the answer — it was simply the surest way to shut her up when Lariel began commenting on everything.

"Since you're not bound by my magic, arranging a meeting will take some time..."

"It's been more than a month," I reminded her.

"Well... I'm trying to hurry them along, but don't expect it sooner than a couple of years. Allowing a non-affiliated person into the heart of the forest is a very serious decision, and my kin aren't quick when it comes to grave deliberations. Oh, looks like something exploded over there. Is that a fireball?"

"Maybe you could climb up to the navigator?" I waved wearily, pointing upward. The navigator's gondola hung roughly twenty meters above us.

"Um, okay," she answered, and I heard Nyke's rueful sigh over the wall speaker. Unlike other posts, the navigator's position had a permanent line to me.

And not only that. The elf opened a hatch in the ceiling and began to climb the narrow rope ladder. Thin sheets of metal, reinforced by ribs that held the airship's structure together, sagged slightly; in one place a rubberized balloon bulged like a bubble, almost blocking the passage. A hernia, perhaps? Not good.

It would be foolish to have one enormous balloon—too easy to damage. The airship was assembled from hundreds of aerostat sections and had several systems to counter light damage. After all, we hadn't come for a joyride!

Still, that particular balloon worried me. I cross-checked the wall schematic to find its serial number. Damn, I should have had them numbered right next to the balloons.

I walked to the console and called down to the engine bay... It was only nominally an engine bay, but it was what kept us aloft.

"What do you want?" Asha snapped irritably.

"Ahem."

"What do you want, Captain?" she asked a little more politely, though I could sense how angry she was.

"Number thirteen. Drop the temperature and inject a liter of liquid rubber."

"Did he get a hole in it or something?"

"Not yet, but it's better to reinforce the walls in advance."

"All right…" she sighed, but a man's voice cut her off.

"I'll do it; you rest. You need to recover."

"No, no and no! I'm sick of you! I didn't leave Ashir so you could lecture me. Hey, Ran, are you still on? When we land I'll get my revenge!"

I sighed and cut the line. Perhaps locking her and her father together in the cramped gondola hadn't been the smartest idea, but I couldn't rely on a single mage. There wasn't a gram of fuel aboard the zeppelin; I cut weight wherever I could. It would have been madness to try to start the bags with hydrogen and face a fire-breathing dragon—so our airship was, in essence, a Montgolfier and stayed aloft solely on the power of the fire-mages. They heated the whole contraption and, crucially, weighed almost nothing. I shuddered to think how much lift we'd have lost if we'd had to replace them with kerosene burners. We probably wouldn't have gotten off the ground at all.

Besides, you simply couldn't finesse altitude with burners the way our mages did. But there were downsides: people fatigued; they needed food and sleep.

For that reason I had duplicated the system, despite the loud protests of one short-statured individual. Pride of a single man could not justify risking the whole crew. Even if that person sulked at me for a while.

I was about to step away from the wall console when another phone began to ring. I reached for it, and another chimed. And another. Soon the cabin was full of unbearable ringing.

I snatch up one receiver after another.

"Third observation post—enemy in sight…"

"Second battery! Griffons on the nose!"

"Eighth! Dead ahead at twelve o'clock, there—"

Lariel's pointed head poked out of the hatch.

"Hey, I've got great news! There's a dragon! I thought they were all extinct!"

************

◆ Near the Dragon Castle, First Duke POV ◆


The First Duke tightened the reins and forced the dragon into a turn. His sky-knights circled nearby, coiled like springs in the heavy bolt-throwers they carried on griffons.

The Duke didn't dare to attack blindly. He'd encountered flying monsters before, but this one was different. Not just because its flanks were sheathed in sheet iron or because it looked like a giant carrot—no.

It was larger. Much, much larger.

So vast that all his flying troops could have landed on its back. The size raised questions, as did the glazed turrets protruding here and there. Some of those towers were huge and armed with giant swords the span of a griffon's wing. They swung them with such speed that they could have cleaved a flying beast in two.

But there was no time to dawdle. The ancestral castle from which they had taken off lay closer by the moment. Despite being surrounded, the leviathan-shaped construct drifted slowly toward the castle, and the Duke did not want to find out what would happen if the enemy reached its goal.

"Your Grace! Shall we attack?" the captain shouted, his voice cutting through the whistling wind.

The Duke tightened his grip on the reins with trembling hands.

"Yes. Begin."

The first tracers tore the sky. Heavy bolts rained down from above in reply. Fragile frost-enchanted tips shattered against armor; their icy splinters were swept away by gusts before they could freeze the target. Fire bolts struck the plating and buckled; their problem was worse. Before they could detonate, the wind carried them far away. A series of explosions thundered beneath the airship, making it shudder.

Bullets proved more effective at times, sometimes stripping feathers from the griffons wheeling about, but shooters still found it hard to hit a small, maneuvering target. Streams of casings ran down the metal sides of the airship and rained toward the ground—peasants would be astonished at the metallic downpour.

In essence… it was a stalemate. From a distance, the griffons suffered light losses to gunfire, yet their bolts could not hit the weak points or even punch through the relatively thin sheets.

The Duke pressed his lips together and dropped the visor, angling the dragon into a dive.

The rain turned bloody.

A machine-gun belt easily sheared a griffon flying straight into it... But the rider was not idle. An enchanted bolt struck the armored capsule's glass and lodged there. The tip glowed white-hot. 
The shooter had nowhere to go—the rope ladder he had climbed into the cell while still on the ground had frozen and snapped. There was no time to climb out and try to pull the bolt free. Having no better idea, he grabbed an empty ammo crate and swatted at the tip, trying to knock the bolt out.

Explosion.

The alarm sounded. The airship was knocked off course. Some of the internal balloons burst instantly, but the fire was quickly put out by the mages.

Everything blurred together. The dragon spewed a jet of flame, but the fire split in two and flowed around the airship. Hardly anyone weaker than an Archmage could pull that off... needed to be careful. The Duke turned the scaled beast for another pass. He didn't rush to join his knights, who had sent their griffons straight at the dirigible.

A downed winged monster slammed into the hull, forcing the plates to buckle deeply. The rider tried to free himself, to cut the straps that bound him to the dying griffon, but a precise shot from an autocannon ended his attempts. Another shot ripped the wing from a nearby flier. It toppled sideways, directly onto the engine. The griffon tried to recover, but the gust literally sucked it onto the blades. Impact!

The propellers snapped; the heavy engine nearly tore from the frame, but the griffon fared far worse. It could be served at the table right now. A massive section of the zeppelin's steel side flushed with blood. But the dirigible was stained with more than just griffon blood.

Metal screeched as claws dug in. Anchored fast, the beast loomed over a gun tower while the gunner inside hurriedly changed the ammo belt. The bolt slotted with a metallic clank. A shot! The monster took bullet after bullet, but its glazed stare showed it had been dosed with so many potions that the griffon no longer felt pain. A beak strike shattered the glass and the shooter hiding behind it.

The rider urged his griffon to take off. He understood it would die soon, and if he didn't manage to reach the ground, he would die with it.

Bang! A heavy-caliber round made his helmet bloom like a rose. The knight slackened, and the griffon fell silent, folding its bloodied head into the shattered armored capsule.

Over them flew a brown griffon, its body almost entirely draped in a bright-red tunic. A passenger reloaded a heavy rifle that breathed out a little smoke. The hunt continued.

Probably never before in an aerial battle had griffons lost so many riders so quickly. It took decades to grow and gather even a single flying squadron. It took minutes to lose it.

Laura veered away from the dragon's fire, beating her wings desperately, and slipped beneath the airship, into the protection of the remaining anti-air guns. A rain of lead forced the dragon to back off, and the elf in the gondola the dragon had flown beneath shrieked with delight.

Heavy rounds easily pierced membranous wings. Though the Duke knew of this weakness, there was nothing he could do about it. Wings simply could not be armored. He climbed above the now badly mangled airship and scanned the battlefield. The enemy smoked, was torn and battered, but still advanced toward Dragon Keep. It would take a gamble to stop it.

The Duke drove the dragon straight into the most damaged section. He folded its wings, straightened it like an arrow, and plowed the whole mass into the dirigible — forcing it to shudder beneath the enormous bulk! To the Duke's surprise, it proved far less sturdy than he'd expected. The dragon easily punched through the thin sheets; rubber balloons exploded under its talons; thin metal tubes that made up the zeppelin's frame crumpled. Above, the lone gun opened fire, but the dragon quickly burrowed deep into the airship, wrecking everything in its path. And if...

The Duke smiled, gave the command, and the beast breathed fire. Try to repel that from such distance!