Deadly Wands (32 page)

But they didn’t. True, they still had no idea
they fought the Red Baron, but that was the correct tactic for the
threat they faced. To counter, Billy slid around fireballs while
blasting bombs. For a few magical minutes he exploded an entire
battalion -- until the company he lured away returned, and not even
Billy could evade fireballs that consumed a few hundred square
kilometers of sky.

But, then, neither could the Mongols below
him. Billy waited until the last moment before popping down below
the battalion, using the enemy to absorb the fireballs. Dozens of
roasted marathoners, screaming in agony, fell while taking off
burning clothes. He couldn’t stay there because the survivors above
him could hit him at point blank range, so he flew in the opposite
direction to lure the battalion away from the main group.

Noticing he lost the battalion on his
northern wing, General Tamerlane avoided an ambush by abruptly
changing direction at a 90 degree angle to the south. He had to
assume that large units now raced to block his path to Madrid.

Tamerlane heard his airmen shooting over his
head. Alarmed, he turned over to fly on his back just in time to
spot a dark object barreling right at him. He didn’t feel the
blades puncture his chest, but the impact dropped him like a stone.
He fell like he got thrown off a cliff.

The stranger wrapped his legs around him as
they spun head over heels like an asteroid as Billy tore the
general’s wands from his grasp and transferred ownership -- no easy
task in freefall.

Tamerlane caught glimpses of his personal
bodyguard racing after him, but afraid to blast without a clear
shot. The life draining out of him, he watched his assassin
stabilize their fall and use the general’s body as a shield while
shooting at his pursuers. Thousands of troops descended to either
rescue or avenge him. This pleased the general until he saw the
bastard smile, still falling back-first and firing four wands.

Which only the Red Baron could do.

Oh, crap. The general saw everything clearly
now: no one was gonna catch the Baron. He’d drag his troops down,
then out-race them back. Then he could detonate bomb backpacks with
impunity. And with his second-in-command chasing them, there was no
one to correct their course.

Airmen not expecting trouble can fly farther
than those expecting an ambush. The stress of imminent combat
quickens their pulses, costing them speed and altitude. His troops
would now wonder why they should continue to an ambush in
Madrid.

“Do you remember your engagement to Lady
Elizabeth? She was banging my father while you stood at the alter
looking like a fool. I am her son.” It shocked Tamerlane that his
killer spoke to him in English. The pain on Tamerlane’s face
thrilled Billy. “The Red Baron would have never been born if my
mother didn’t find you so odious. Fifty million Mongols have died
because a princess preferred exile to marrying you.”

He didn’t use his wands during this monologue
because he didn’t want a record of it. But now he recorded
Tamerlane as his face expressed waves of emotion. The last thing
Tamerlane saw was the Red Baron laughing as he breathed his last
tortured breath. This clip would soon become the year’s best
selling video in India, and add another chapter to his growing
legend.

CHAPTER 38

Billy dragged thousands of enemy escorts
behind the main body, then out-raced them back. He attacked the
battalion in the middle since they had no protection. It felt like
dueling: dodging blasts while targeting bomb packs. Eventually
enough bombers dropped their bombs in order to drive him off. He
simply hit the next battalion. When they finally swarmed him too
much, he hit the next formation.

Except this battalion dropped their bombs at
once to envelop him. Billy barely escaped with his life. Two lucky
swipes cut through his heavy chest plate like an “X.” The wound
didn’t bleed much, but its sting made his eyes water.

Billy rose above their ceiling, lost them in
a cloud, and went north, humming a catchy song from his childhood
to help him relax. Exhausted, he spotted a dark shadow on the
horizon and saw tiny fireballs on their right wing.

Prince and Princess arrived! That energized
him. Soon, more of his fastest fliers would get here.

A battalion drove the twins back, so Billy
hit them from behind. Falling in an arc, Billy fired four wands
from five hundred meters. Although not hot enough to burn flesh,
the pressure waves that accompanied the fire swatted them down like
flies. He first targeted the battalion commander, then aimed for
company commanders. As he fell closer, his volleys burned smaller
groups of airmen until he concentrated all four to ignite the
bombs.

At that distance, he shot as many as he could
while adjusting his speed, angle, and position. Fire! Change
position. Fire! Dodge. Mongols exploded in the sky like Chinese New
Years. He sure enjoyed his job; it’s only work when you’d rather be
doing something else.

The sergeants shrieked the signal for
dropping their bombs. Billy made the most of the minute this gave
him, then he swerved left or right, or adjusted speed and altitude,
to avoid the most aggressive as he shot those slowest to rid
themselves of their backpacks. The explosions certainly rang his
ears from two hundred meters away. It must be hell for the
survivors nearby.

Just as he started considering his next move,
a wall of quads dropped out of a cloud and fired in volleys from a
position of height.

Company #1 arrived!

While it’s easy to evade one hundred blasts
fired one at a time, it’s nearly impossible to avoid one hundred
fireballs that cover one hundred square meters like a blanket of
fire. This is what happened to the Mongol front lines. The best
tactic is to pop out of the way. Instead, the battalion did what
they were trained to do when they had superior numbers -- fly at
maximum speed to close with the attackers.

Which would have worked if Billy and the
twins had not spread them out so much. Now the air unit lacked the
mass to effect a decent punch. But they tried, so Billy paused them
by doing his famous scream. Marathoners are superior quads, so
these Mongols may still have succeeded except Company #1 abruptly
flew backwards at a thirty degree angle. Recently practicing in
their new units now paid off. The old training adage held true: the
more they sweated in practice, the less they bled in battle.

Billy realized the rest of the flight would
be like this: the super-quad company using their higher ceiling to
blast Mongols with impunity.

Oh, hell. Billy suddenly realized that the
division commander would also see this, and take them home. He
groaned when he saw what he must do: kill the new unit commander.
Crap. It’s hard to fool an enemy with the same trick twice, but
otherwise these marathoners would escape his trap.

Since he didn’t see a better option, he flew
over the remaining battalions until he found the guy in charge.
Billy dived fast. Wary escorts shrieked warnings. Billy’s face
turned to horror as the entire battalion rose up so they could all
fire at him.

Oh, this was going to hurt. Bone tired, Billy
had less surprise, time, and velocity than when he took out the
general. Now committed, he didn’t have any choice but to expend his
dwindling energy reserves to maximize speed. His arms folded
against his legs, he squeezed his wands of all juice.

The commander, however, didn’t even bother
looking up. He dropped down, then reversed thrust to put the
battalion between him and the Baron.

Billy blanched as a thousand fireballs
monopolized the sky in front of him. A square kilometer wall of
fire flew up at him. He aligned himself with the commander and
blasted a narrow hole through the firewall, although no one had
ever used fireballs to deflect fireballs before. Because of the
distance, the Mongol fireballs expanded to fuse together like a
giant yellow blanket in the sky. In contrast, Billy’s fireballs
targeted exactly where he’d hit the firewall. His stronger blasts
carved a momentary opening that saved his life, if not his
hair.

In the history of wands, no one had ever
thought of this before. In the centuries to come, daredevils would
get paid a fortune trying to replicate this stunt.

With only seconds left, Billy targeted the
unit commander, who looked over his shoulder in horror.

He then tried to wrap himself in four metal
shields. If only he hadn’t grown taller! Most quads were lucky to
cover their face, but Billy could almost enclose himself like an
egg. Behind the fires lighting up the night sky, the last thing
Billy saw before closing his eyes were his blasts engulfing the
commander as if struck by the Sun itself.

Billy rolled in place to protect his face.
His back -- despite the armor and heat-resistant clothing
underneath -- cooked as if someone just branded him like a cow. He
screamed inside his own head since he’d die if he opened his
mouth.

Although Billy never told anyone this, he
lost most feeling in his skin years ago. The layers of disgusting
scabs insulated his fried pain receptors from minor cuts, bruises,
and burns. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel anything -- he just didn’t
feel it as much. He not only looked like he wore the thick leathery
hide of a reptile, but it felt like he did.

Unless cut, smacked, or burned too much. That
he felt. And now he felt like he jumped into a cooking pot like the
infamous dodo bird.

Deaf, blind, and mute, he slammed into
another body at high speed. It felt like hitting a wall while
running through a burning building. Flame tried to pry open his
mouth and suck out his breath. His nose felt like he snorted a lit
match. Terror seized him as he realized his burning clothes were
cooking his skin. The stench of burning flesh nauseated him. Hell,
his eyebrows were on fire!

Billy used his boot wands to maximize thrust
while frantically stripping. He cut off George’s armor like it had
lice. His clothes seemed glued to his melting skin. It was like
peeling off hot sticky mud.

Weakened by fire, the leather straps that
held his wand sockets broke loose. Billy hoped his foot wands,
protected by thicker leather, held up. If he lost even one wand,
he’d bloody the ground like a giant tomato.

So this is how his enemies spent their last
moments, a rogue part of him ruefully realized, elated at how
horribly their lives ended.

The smoke burned his eyes, but when he could
finally do more than blink, he spied a large lake right below him.
But, rather than head for obvious relief, Billy dived over a hill
towards the smallest stream he could find.

The burst of speed increased the distance
from his pursuers, but then he had to use full power to slow his
descent. His head seemed to sink into his shoulders and a different
type of nausea washed over him just as he belly flopped into the
shallow water. He kissed a riverbed of smooth rocks and his groin
hit something hard that curdled his blood. He rolled over to cool
his burning back and gulped water for his dehydration. The abrupt
change in body temperature sent him into shock.

A shadow falling from the heavens turned into
hell as a Mongol battalion searched for him. Fireballs pounced on
suspicious shadows. As the fires grew in number and strength, the
Mongols briefly turned night into day. So many fires cast so many
shadows that its reflection seemed to have a life of its own. Billy
half expected the lake to bellow like an angry dragon.

Billy waddled like an beaver to the thickest
brush and submerged everything but his hands and face while holding
his wands to heal his wounds. He covered his hands and face with
cold mud. A dragonfly landed on his nose and he lacked the energy
to swat it away. The damn thing made him cross-eyed when he needed
to track enemies targeting him.

He assumed they wouldn’t stop until they
found him. He couldn’t beat a thousand vengeful marathoners now.
Hell, he couldn’t stop a rabbit from nibbling him to death. It was
hard enough to keep his nostrils above water. He had always
wondered how he’d die. He just always assumed it would involve
falling from the sky burning in agony. Not lying in the world’s
most horizontal waterfall. He smelled death like a fart in a tent.
After giving so many others the fiery death they deserved, Billy
was finally gonna get what he had coming. And he knew he deserved a
horrible death. A spectacular, mind-blowing, soul-shattering,
body-blazing death. That was all that kept the guilt away.

But it wasn’t until the rock hard erection
popped out of the cold water to look him in the eye that he
realized his possible imminent death turned him on. Pre-puberty, it
just had not manifested itself sexually before. He knew warriors
who got off killing -- literally twisting the knife in others got
them off -- but fascination with one’s own death was a kink he had
not known existed. And he watched every porn his father bought him
-- he totally lied to Emily! -- so he thought he saw
everything.

But this was new. Too bad he couldn’t do
anything about it. He couldn’t feel his numb hands, much less his
penis, swaying in the stream like a reed. Then a Mongol blew past,
shrieking like a dying wolf, and Billy convulsed in an erotic panic
as he waited for a fireball to consume him. His erection not only
had a mind of its own, but apparently a volition as it spewed like
a micro-volcano. If Billy had not already screamed his throat raw,
he’d have given away his position for sure.

Yet the fireball never came. Instead, the
shocking discovery that he enjoyed being scared overwhelmed his
exhausted mind. The threat of death thrilled him. Fear aroused him.
No wonder the world’s most powerful guy squealed in delight at his
lovers tying him down.