straight.
Then it flashed again, and there was another explosion, this one more violent than the first, and again the airships were revealed, scattering in all directions now, angling away from the fireball like frightened animals. An earth–shattering boom reverberated through the night, the shock waves so powerful that Pied could feel them even through the deck of the sloop.
He knew then what it was. It was the weapon Acrolace and Parn had discovered in the Federation camp. The trap had been sprung; Kellen Elessedil's airships were being destroyed, one by one. Pied was too late to give warning. He was too late to do anything but witness the consequences of the King's ill–considered, rash behavior.
«Faster, Captain,' he said, catching hold of Markenstall's wiry arm. «We have to try to help.»
It was a faint hope at best. There was little one airship could do to help another in the best of situations, which this most assuredly wasn't, and his was likely the weakest airship aloft. But he had to get a closer look. He had to know what the Elves and their allies were up against. If the King didn't get safely back, if none of them managed to get back …
He forced the thought away, hating himself for allowing it to surface. But another firebolt erupted and another airship caught fire, the flames turning masts and rigging into torches that illuminated the whole of the night sky. Stricken, the airship wheeled away from the attack, trying to stay aloft, to seek cover. But there was no cover in the skies and no place to hide when you were burning. A second strike turned it into a massive fireball. It blazed brightly for a moment, then fell apart and disappeared into the dark.
«Shades!» Markenstall whispered again in shocked disbelief.
They were close enough by then that Pied could make out the vague shapes of the Elven airships as they wheeled this way and that to avoid the huge Federation airship that was in pursuit. Her name, emblazoned across her upswept bow, was theDechtera. The terrible weapon was affixed to her decking; Pied could just make out its armored bulk. Even as the shape of it registered, the man–made lightning exploded out of it again, crackling with energy and power, a terrible bright lance through the enfolding night, burning everything in its path. It caught pieces of two ships this time, nicking the hull of one, boring holes through the sails of another. It was firing blindly, Pied saw, unable to distinguish its targets clearly in the darkness. The moon was behind a bank of clouds, and the starlight was still too thin.
The Elven airships might have a chance if they fled now, if they turned around, if they raced for the safety of their own lines.
Incredibly, they did not. Instead, they attacked. It was suicide, but it was exactly what Kellen Elessedil would do, refusing to quit a battle, ready to die first.He will get bis wish here, Pied thought in horror. The Federation weapon was firing into the Elven airships as they drew near enough to distinguish, and they were exploding one after the other. The King was trying to ram the Federation ship, to damage it sufficiently that it could be forced down, perhaps even made to crash. He was intent on salvaging something out of this disaster, but he could not seem to recognize that it was already too late for that.
«What in the name of everything sane is he doing?» Markenstall whispered in disbelief, recognizing at once the futility of the effort.
Committing suicide,Pied thought. Trying to ram the bigger ship in the mistaken belief that by doing so he could still save his fleet. But he wasn't even going to get close. Already, theDechtera was firing at the Ellenroh, a series of short, sharp bursts that set theElven flagship on fire in several places and brought down the foremast. Still, Kellen came on, his railguns raking the enemy's decks. But the weapon that was destroying his fleet was protected behind heavy metal shields that the railguns could barely scratch. Another burst set theEllenroh's mainsail afire, and now the airship was lurching badly, her sails gone and one or more of her parse tubes damaged or blown away.
«No, Kellen,' Pied whispered. «Land her! Get her down now before she—'
A fresh burst from the Federation weapon rocked the big Elven flagship from bow to stern, striking with such force that it knocked her backwards. TheEllenroh shuddered and bucked, then exploded in a blinding ball of fire that consumed everything and everyone aboard.
In seconds she was gone.
Pied stared in stunned silence, unable to accept what he had witnessed. The King, gone. Kiris and Wencling, gone. The biggest warship in the Elven fleet together with every last one of the men and women who crewed her, vanished.
«Captain Sanderling,' Markenstall hissed in his ear, and he jerked around in response. «What do we do?»
TheDecbtera had turned her attention to what was left of the Elven fleet—a handful of airships only, three of which were already settling onto the flats. The plains were swarming with Federation soldiers marching toward the Elven lines, a dark stain that spread like ink on old parchment. Thousands, Pied judged. He watched the damaged airships fall into the mass of charging men. He watched the men swarm up the sides of the ships and onto the decks. Then he quit looking.
His eyes flicked back to the fleet, under attack once more from the Federation killing machine. The Dechtera was moving after them, overtaking them one at a time, burning them out of the sky the way an archer might shoot down a flock of trapped geese. She shouldn't have been able to do that, as big and cumbersome looking as she was. She must be powered by an abnormally high number of crystals, her stored energy capacity twice that of any other ship of the line. Some of the Elven ships were dropping toward the plains now, trying to use the enemy soldiers as cover so that they could not be fired upon from above. But the tactic wasn't working. The weapon aboard the big ship was too accurate to be deterred by the threat of what a miss would mean. It simply took its time, burning away the Elven ships whether they fled or tried to hide.
He looked at Markenstall. «We have to do something, Captain.»
The older man nodded, but kept silent.
«Can you get behind that Federation ship? Can you come up at her from below?»
The veteran stared at him. «What do you intend to do?»
«Disable her steering. Use the railguns to damage her rudders and thrusters from underneath, where they can't do anything about it without breaking off their attack and setting her down.» He paused. «We're small enough that they might not see us coming in from behind.»
Markenstall thought a moment. «Maybe. But if they do see us, we won't have a chance. Railguns are only good from close in. From more than fifty yards, we'll be so much target practice.»
Pied glanced quickly at the skyline. The moon remained covered by clouds, the light still something between dusk and full dark. Off to their left, theDechtera was hunting its Elven quarry like a big cat, stealthy and sure, striking with bursts of white fire that filled the night air with blinding explosions and the pungent, raw smell of ash and smoke and death.
«We can't just sit here and let this slaughter continue,' he said quietly.
Markenstall adjusted the controls without a word, swung theAsashiel toward the enemy camp, and sent her skimming over the heads of the advancing Federation soldiers, who fired up at them with bows and slings as they flew past. But they slipped through the darkness unhindered and undamaged, and soon they were behind their target, staying low so that they would not be silhouetted against the horizon, approaching in a gradual ascent that kept them carefully masked from view.
But suddenly new airships began to lift off from the Federation airfield, fresh reinforcements setting out to lend support to the ground attack on the Free–born camp, their dark shapes like hunting birds as they swung about to place the sloop directly in their path. «Captain,' Pied exclaimed with a sharp intake of breath. Markenstall nodded. «I see them. Warn the men on the railguns.» Pied left the pilot box in a rush, scuttling across the deck to Pon and Cresck, his safety harness dragging behind him, and alerted each of the crewmen of this new danger. He found himself wishing they had something besides railguns with which to work, but there was nothing to be done about that.
Moments later, he was back beside Markenstall. The night had gone black again, the moon disappeared once more behind the clouds, and the air turned brisk and chilly. Pied shivered in spite of himself, wishing he had thought to throw on warmer clothing.
He glanced out at the cluster of rising Federation airships. At least half a dozen were advancing in their direction.
