City in the Sky (40 page)

The Skyborne needed to kill something and this skyship, whoever she was, had just volunteered.

“Form up!” Dekker bellowed to his men. “Man as many 'bows as you can on each side.”

Erik watched the dragons as the
Tarverro
whipped into their ranks. “Take us right through them, Harmon,” he ordered. “Let's get their attention.”

Almost as he spoke, fire flashed across the side of the ship, leaving visible scorch marks in the wood.

“I think we've got their attention,” Ikeras replied, his hands busy inside the control matrix. A moment later, the ship suddenly shifted left as control paths changed. Fire blazed through the air where the
Tarverro
would have flown if she hadn't dodged.

Erik blanched as he looked over the side of the ship and saw just
how
many dragons were coming at them. He'd expected to get some, possibly even a lot, of dragons to come after them. He hadn't expected to get
all
of them.

“Dekker, where are those 'bow crews?” he demanded.

“Forming up!” the Wind Guard officer replied. A moment later, two of the crys-bows on the port broadside fired, blazing a black from the sky moments before
its
crys-bows fired into the yacht's hull.

In a spattering of lightning, the starboard broadside opened up again, five bolts lashing out in a staggered sequence at three dragons. Two died, and the third fell towards the ocean, one of its wings crippled.

Three more bows opened up on the port side, taking down another dragon, and then the first two fired again. That was all they were going to get, Erik realized, and he hoped it would be enough.

Sky-Major Kolanis was a trained warrior, taught from the day he'd Bonded with Lalen to control both his own emotions and his dragon's. His skill at that training, even more than his ability to lead or his skill at arms, was what had made him an officer.

But his training had failed, and he led not just his men, but almost
all
of the Skyborne armada in an insane attack on the single skyship. Fire ripped at its masts and hull, and still the ship flew onwards.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, that tiny part of him that was still in control screamed a warning. They'd crossed into the range of the forts' guns and crys-bows. But no  cannonballs or lightning bolts struck down the dragons, and the warning was lost in the tumult of his dragon's rage.

“Why don't they fire?” Ikeras demanded, his voice scratchy from the smoke of the
Tarverro
's slowly burning hull. “The Fires-burnt lizards are in range, why don't they fire?”

Even as the non-com spoke, a fireball tore the central mast clear off of the skyship, taking the man who'd been spotting from there with it. Lightning bolts from one broadside answered, and the screams of the man were lost in the roar of dying dragons.

“They can't,” Erik gasped, holding onto a rail as the ship
bucked
beneath them. “We need warships to drive them against the guns. We have to lure them deeper!”

“This ship isn't going to hold together much longer,” Dekker snapped, as another series of fireballs seared across the decks. Despite what the fire had to be doing under the decks, the crys-bows continued to fire, answering the fireballs with their lightning bolts.

“She'll hold together long enough,” Erik replied. “She
has
to.”

“There!” one of the men switching crystals shouted, gesturing to the south. “The ships!”

Erik turned, and knew what had happened. Whoever was in command of the ships had taken the time to circle around, outside the range of the forts' weapons, and hit the dragons from behind. It may have cost the
Tarverro
and her impromptu crew damage, even lives, but it gave them the best chance of inflicting critical losses on the Draconans.

Even as he began to cheer, another salvo of fireballs hit home, and this time even
he
knew something had gone wrong.

The first thing Kolanis knew of the approaching warships was when a cannonball blew Sergeant-Major Cerians out of the sky less than ten yards from where he flew. He turned Lalen in the air, forcing her away from her prey as he finally, slowly, regained control of himself.

He saw the remaining battleships of the Aeradi squadron formed into a neat line, their broadsides blazing fire and lightning as their formation wrapped around behind the Skyborne host. Even as he began to turn to give orders to his own people, the forts behind them finally opened up, catching the Draconans between two fires.

Enough of the mindless rage remained that he wasted precious seconds finding the skyship that had lured them into this trap. He grinned coldly as he saw it, remaining masts ablaze, descending towards the city.

The last of his rage faded under the rush of cold fear as he saw another green dragon come diving
through
the fire from the forts, desperately trying to signal something. Kolanis didn't manage to catch the signals before one of the battleships blew the dragon away, but he wondered why the man was signaling by hand. The scouts had tablets, after all.

He knew, then, how bad the mess they were in was, but it took him a moment to drag out his own tablet to confirm it. As he feared, the crystal was dead and cold. The length of the battle had stolen the Draconan communication advantage, and the solitary scout's warning, whatever it was, was in vain.

A horrific whining noise resounded across the burning deck of the royal yacht
Tarverro
, ignored now by her erstwhile opponents as the forts and warships gave them more pressing concerns.

The whine and the crackle of fire gave an eerie backdrop to the sight of the city beneath them, growing only closer as the ship slowly began to drift downwards, gaining speed as she got lower.

“Harmon,” Erik said quietly, “we're falling.”

“No shit,” the non-com said flatly. “That's not our problem. You hear that whine?”

“Yes.”

“
That's
our problem,” Ikeras told him. “
That
is the primary crystals overloading, because those Fires-burnt dragons fused the connector crystals. I no longer have control. We are going to fall. We are going to hit the city. And
then
we're going to
blow up
.” The last two words were screamed aloud to the winds, and Erik took a step backwards at the force of Ikeras' fear.

His own fear tried to take control, and he used it to sharpen his voice as he stepped closer to Ikeras. “Harmon
hept
Ikeras
kep
Tarverro!” he snapped. “Control yourself, or we all
will
die!”

Ikeras stared at him, his gaze half-blank, but no longer paralyzed with fear. Finally, the older Aeraid nodded his control.

“You said the crystals were fused,” Erik said patiently. “Can we break the connection from here?”

“Maybe...” Ikeras said in a whisper, as if he was thinking of something else. He turned back to the crystal matrix behind him and began twisting crystals.

He gave up after only a moment, and looked at Erik. His eyes were calm, far calmer than they had been before. “I can't break it here, Erik,” he said quietly, softly. “There's only one way I know of that I can.”

“What's that?” Erik demanded.

Ikeras only shook his head. “I'm sorry, Erik,” he told his young lord, then turned and headed for the trapdoor into the depths of the ship, leaving Erik standing stunned behind him.

By the time Kolanis broke free of the melee developing around the forts, he'd lost his entire command. He had no idea where
any
of the Skyborne in his battalion were. He'd managed to gather a small group of green flyers around him, but they were far from free yet.

The forts’ guns ignored the small group of dragons in favor of larger concentrations of targets, but a solitary frigate caught the group as they cleared the forts’ range, bearing down on them with cannon and crys-bows blazing.

With a snarl on his lips, Kolanis led his dragons against it. With no choice but to destroy the ship or die, he drove Lalen harder than he'd ever driven the dragon before. The green somehow managed to avoid the lightning bolts to come within feet of the frigate's deck.

He touched her with his heels, and she spewed fire across the deck, scattering men and supplies until it hit a keg of firepower. Just one. The explosion ripped the top off the sky-ship's deck, exposing the ships' crystal rooms.

A single fireball, and the crystals fused, overloading with sparks and explosions. Lalen lifted away from the dying ship, and as she did, Kolanis got a good glimpse at the flag flying from the ship's mast.

That glimpse froze his heart, for it wasn't the winged ship of Newport's banner, but the crowned cloud of Sky Hame. No Sky Hame warship was supposed to be here. Indeed, he could only think of one reason for
any
Sky Hame warship to be at Newport, and as he turned his gaze to the northwest, his fears were confirmed.

To an untrained eye, the smudges along the horizon would have been nothing more than dark clouds. Kolanis' eyes, however, had been trained by the best Dracona had to offer. To him those smudges were sails and hulls –
hundreds
of sails and hulls.

The Grand Fleet of the Realm of the Sky, the one that gathered only once every year for immense war games, was coming to Newport, bringing with it death for all the hopes of her Draconan attackers.

Erik stared after Ikeras in confused shock. The whine around him increased in pitch, but the fires were fading as Dekker's men beat them back. The Wind Guard commander himself returned to Erik's side just in time to see Ikeras vanish through the trapdoor belowdecks.

“Where is he going?” Dekker asked.

“I don't know,” Erik admitted. “He said that the crystals were fused and had to be broken. He couldn't do it from up here.”

“No he couldn't,” Dekker said softly, and Erik realized that, while he had ridden on Aeradi skyships, he didn't know as much about them as would someone raised among the Aeradi. Someone like Captain Dekker
sept
Corens.

“What?” he demanded of the Wind Guard.

“He can only break them physically,” Dekker replied. “Which would...”

“Release the energy stored in them into the breaker,” Erik breathed in horror. Leaving Dekker standing on the deck, he lunged towards the trapdoor himself.

“No! Erik, wait!” the other Aeraid bellowed after him, but Erik ignored him as he plunged into the fire-stricken depths of the
Tarverro
.

Smoke and heat greeted him in the darkness as he dropped to the deck. Coughing, he tried to orient himself, forcing himself to remember where the crystal rooms were. All his memory of his time on other skyships told him was that there was one fore and one aft; nothing said which one Ikeras would have gone to.

The sound of the crystals whining intensified, and Erik realized the answer. The whining was coming from the aft, and he ran backwards through the smoke.

“Ikeras,” he yelled. “Harmon, wait!”

He didn't hear a response, but it was possible he couldn't have. His ears ached as he grew closer to the whining, and he wasn't sure he could hear anything
other
than the sound of the crystals dying.

Finally, he broke through the smoke, and saw the open door to the crystal room. Fire and smoke billowed around it, but he could see a figure inside.

“Harmon!” he bellowed again, as loud as he could, but he couldn't even hear
himself
over the crystals.

As if to mark the futility of his attempt, a burning plank from the deck above collapsed, shattering and setting the deck in front of Erik aflame. It also cleared the smoke away, and Erik could clearly see Harmon standing in front of the painfully bright crystals with his sword drawn.

“Harmon!” he bellowed again, and ran forwards, heedless of the fire cutting him off from his mentor and friend.

Before he could enter the flames, arms grabbed him from behind and dragged him back. As they did, and long before Erik could ever have reached him, Ikeras spun and struck the crystals with all his might.

The fused mass of crystal and slagged glass shattered into a million pieces. For a moment, it looked like that was all that was going to happen, but every single piece glowed with the same brightness as the original for a moment.

Then the moment faded, and the crystals flared blindingly bright as they voided their energy, ripping through the crystals around them, the hull of the
Tarverro
and the body of Harmon
hept
Ikeras
kep
Tarverro.