'What?' said Vulpine, finding the dragon's exaggeration amusing. 'In the three minutes since they knocked open the gate?'
The dragon shook his head. 'In the thirty seconds after they reached the foundry.'
'Are they in retreat?'
The sky-dragon sounded angry. 'I mean, sir, that every last earth-dragon that followed Sawface has been killed.'
Vulpine's voice caught in his throat. In the distance, he spotted the angels shooting into the air, straight up, one, two, three, four, five of them. They rose at an impossible speed until they vanished in the bright sky above.
Arifiel, who was with them at the command post, turned and said, 'As of now, the valkyries are no longer part of this mission.'
'What?' asked Vulpine.
'Has age dulled your ears?' Arifiel asked. 'An angel came to the defense of the Nest. I'm alive because that angel saved me after I'd been badly burned. I was uncomfortable this morning when I saw the angels. They look different from the one who saved me, but their wings are the same. Now, the angels have come to the defense of Dragon Forge.'
'And it's your duty to fight them!' said Vulpine.
'No, sir,' said Arifiel. 'A valkyrie's first loyalty is to the Nest. The Nest survives due to angelic intervention. Now, they have chosen to defend Dragon Forge. I don't know what their purpose is. But there are mysterious forces at work here, and I don't intend to leave those forces angry at the Nest.'
'Arifiel!' said Sagen. 'Such cowardice!'
'It's not cowardice that guides my judgment,' said Arifiel. 'It's-'
She never finished her sentence.
Vulpine's jaws closed around her throat quicker than she could react. He felt her swallow against his tongue. He whipped his head violently to the side, tearing away her windpipe.
She dropped to the ground, dying; bright red blood surged from the long rip in her pale blue throat. Vulpine spit away the bits of scaly hide that clung to his teeth.
'You're now in command of the valkyries,' Vulpine said to Sagen.
Sagen looked pale as he stared at his father's bloody mouth.
'What if she's right?' Sagen asked. 'What if there are forces at work here we don't understand?'
Vulpine's anger welled. 'Of course there are forces here we don't understand! Wars unfold in a great fog, and any dragon who thinks he can see the grand picture is a fool!' He shook his head. 'As I have been a fool,' he whispered.
'Sir?'
'From the start, I've been advised to simply burn Dragon Forge and build a new foundry on the ash pile.' He sighed. 'In my arrogance, I believed I could control events to produce a more favorable outcome. I should have known better, Sagen. I should have known that the world is bigger than any one dragon can fathom.'
'No one could have foreseen the intervention of angels,' said Sagen.
'It's not angels that plague us,' said Vulpine. He was certain of this, despite the evidence of his own eyes. 'It's our unknown genius within the walls of Dragon Forge. All this time, I thought we had the luxury of waiting them out, as disease and dwindling resources depleted them. In truth, they were waiting us out… no doubt he calculated that the great empire Albekizan commanded would unravel before their food was exhausted.'
At his feet, Arifiel convulsed briefly before her body went completely slack. Blood stopped spurting from her throat and slowed to an ooze.
'I learn from my mistakes,' said Vulpine. 'Load the catapults with oil and pitch. We may not eat lunch in the foundries, but it's not to late to roast our dinner upon the coals of the-'
Before he could finish, there was a clap of thunder from the southern side of the fort. He looked up and saw black smoke rising from the hill where the southern catapults had been stationed. An instant later, the ground beneath their claws trembled as if a giant fist had struck the earth.
He followed the trail of black smoke upward and spotted the five angels a mile above. 'Load the catapults quickly,' said Vulpine, kneeling to pick up Arifiel's spear.
'Where are you going?' Sagen asked as his father spread his wings and jumped into the sky, catching the spear in his hind-talons.
'I'm going to kill the angels,' said Vulpine.
'YOU HAD TO hit it,' said Jeremiah. His voice sounded odd. His ears were still ringing from the simultaneous firing of the rifles. Bombing the catapults below hadn't helped things.
They were up so high that Jeremiah was certain, had it been night, he could have tested his theory that Vulpine had carried him high enough to touch the moon. Even though the sun was out, the wind was piercing cold. He held the torch of oil-soaked rags closer, grateful for the heat.
Poocher hung beside him in the air. The pig was draped with a dozen quivers of arrows. Vance hovered nearby, sky-wall bow at the ready, eyeing the thick black smoke beneath them for any signs of dragons.
'I'm pretty sure you destroyed it,' Stonewall said to Anza. Anza was about thirty feet down, tilted out parallel to the ground, studying the brief flashes of the dragon encampment that could be seen through the smoke. Stonewall was almost directly above her. He looked as at home in the air as Jeremiah felt. Except for Thorny, everyone who used the wings liked them. Jeremiah wondered if the wings did something to his mind to make him feel less afraid.
Stonewall was dragging a net filled with eight twenty-pound kegs of gunpowder. They'd already used two kegs. Anza's job was to pull them from the net and figure out the right spot to drop them from to hit the catapults. Jeremiah's job was to light the fuses. Vance was to protect them from any dragons who tried to reach them, and Poocher's job was to make sure he didn't run out of arrows.
Finally, Anza nodded and gave a thumbs up.
'West,' she said, swinging around and darting off.
'West it is,' said Vance.
The southern catapults had been taken completely unaware. They weren't going to be as lucky at the western station. There were at least thirty sky-dragons climbing toward them, straining to match their height. Jeremiah wondered if Vulpine was among them. It was hard to tell sky-dragons apart. They were all about the same size and color. Still, he didn't see any of them carrying whips.
They closed in swiftly on the thirty dragons. Jeremiah was a little nervous, but Vance said, 'They carry spears, but they can't throw them far. They normally use them when they dive at people. We can be a few yards from them and not be in any real danger.'
'I'd prefer not to test that theory,' said Stonewall.
The dragons were now a hundred yards away and closing.
Vance lifted his bow. He began to fire, and dragons began to drop. Jeremiah eyed the dragons nervously as they grew ever closer. Poocher, too, focused his attention on the wall of enemies that approached.
Anza temporarily had her hands free, so she reached for her throwing knives.
Stonewall said, 'Shouldn't we climb higher?'
'You guys are too nervous,' said Vance, as his bow continued to sing.
As he reached the last arrow in his quiver, a dozen dragons were in freefall. The survivors wheeled, fleeing for their lives. He turned toward Poocher and grabbed a fresh quiver.
Jeremiah noticed how Vance's face went slack as he looked back. Before Jeremiah could turn his head, a blue shadow flashed across the corner of his vision. A long slender spear caught Vance dead in the center of his chest and pushed through. The impact of the weapon through his shoulder blades popped his wings off cleanly.
The sky-dragon who'd killed Vance released the spear in his hind-talons and snatched the loose wings from the air. He swooped up higher, flapping his wings to pause for a moment as he looked down to study the device.
A long whip of tan leather hung from the slavecatcher's belt.
'Vulpine!' cried Jeremiah.
Perhaps it was only a reflection of the silver wings, but Vulpine's eyes twinkled as he gazed at the boy. 'A true angel wouldn't need machines to fly,' said the slavecatcher.
ANZA HURLED HER throwing knives at Vulpine, folded her body, and shot into a dive. Vulpine kicked up with
