61
TheDoctor, Having Seen That Professor Mansfield had collapsed, bustled in and, with the assistance of a horde of nurses, whisked the trolley through the wooden doors.
‘She’ll get the care she needs,’ Caroline said. She took Aubrey by the arm and shepherded him out of the preparation area, which had exploded into action as soon as the impasse with Professor Mansfield had been resolved. Screens were dragged aside, trolleys and equipment rushed to bedsides, bandaged soldiers in wheelchairs hurried away.
Aubrey was deep in thought as they hurried back to the chateau. Through adroit nudging and steering, Caroline kept him from colliding with apple trees, water pumps and the many hurrying service people who had turned the estate into a headquarters. She even had to stop his progress with an outflung arm to prevent his running into a maintenance crew that was rushing to one of the new Gannet model ornithopters that had just landed in the large flat area to the west of the chateau.
General Apsley would need to be informed, Aubrey decided, plucking a single decision from the furore in his mind. News of this development needed to get to the Directorate immediately, so Trinovant could prepare for Dr Tremaine’s assault. Not knowing the exact nature of the attack was going to make things difficult, but this warning would give a chance to ready the forces.
Aubrey was jerked out of his planning by the abrupt thumping of thirteen-pounder guns. He looked east, shading his eyes, looking past the line of poles that brought the telegraph line to the chateau. ‘Anti-aircraft artillery?’
Caroline pointed. ‘On the edge of the estate, near the road, the other side of the avenue of trees.’
Before Aubrey could make out the emplacements, he was stunned in two vastly different ways. With astonishment, he saw the target for the anti-aircraft guns while simultaneously feeling as if someone had implanted a hook below his sternum and yanked it skywards.
‘Aubrey!’ Caroline cried as he doubled over, then staggered a few steps. Around them, soldiers began running and shouting, which was never a good thing in Aubrey’s experience. The sudden appearance of helmets did little to reassure him, and the looming presence on the horizon fully justified such preparations.
A skyfleet was steaming towards them.
62
Masses of ominous dark-grey thunderheads were heaped up, towering toward the heavens. Advancing from the middle of this storm was a horribly familiar line of cloud-forged warcraft led by a massive battleship – a dreadnought large enough to make other dreadnoughts think about doing some quiet dreading.
The sun vanished. Lightning flickered above the thunderheads and the day was suddenly cold. As the storm surged toward them, wind sprang up, whipped at tent flaps and sent leaves scurrying across the ground.
The anti-aircraft guns continued their determined barrage, firing faster and faster as the skyfleet steamed closer. The shells burst all about the cloud ships but did nothing to stop their progress.
Dr Tremaine was up there. The jolt Aubrey had felt was a tug on the link he shared with the rogue sorcerer. It was a whiplash moment, then it was gone, but in that instant he had Dr Tremaine’s location as surely as if the sorcerer were standing on top of a lighthouse with a flag on his head.
Caroline was quick. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Dr Tremaine? Is that how he’s going to attack Trinovant?’
Aubrey went to agree, then another option presented itself with enough force to make him wince. He looked at the chateau, then he looked at the approaching skyfleet, then he looked at the chateau again. Was Dr Tremaine the master of multiple strategies? Of course he was. ‘Yes. Probably. Maybe.’
Caroline followed his gaze. ‘You think he knows Bertie is here.’
‘Why not create some mayhem along the way to Trinovant? The disarray it would create would be useful, just in case his Trinovant mission fails.’
The wind picked up. Aubrey had to shield his eyes from dust. Sergeants strode about, shouting, bringing order to the chaos the skyfleet had caused. A large black dog ran about, barking at the soldiers, the flapping tents, the whipping wireless aerials on top of the chateau, and the flailing trees. On the other side of the chateau, horses whinnied and stamped.
Aubrey was still drained from his efforts on the battlefield, but he ransacked his brains for a spell, something to counteract the attack that was coming. He didn’t spare any time wondering how Dr Tremaine knew the location of the new King of Albion. Magical means or ordinary spying, Dr Tremaine’s methods were thorough.
Aubrey remembered the havoc created by a similar aerial fleet attack on Greythorn. Much damage was done by weather magic concentrated by the skyfleet, but it had also dropped at least one bomb Aubrey knew about. He wondered if he could manage some sort of deflection; not stopping any bombs, but simply sloughing them to one side of the estate. If he couldn’t protect the whole estate, then maybe the chateau itself? What about the hospital, though? Could he shield it as well?
They ran, bent nearly double against the wind, weaving through the companies of soldiers who were being dispersed to dugouts and trenches about the estate. Aubrey was relieved to see that one private was dragging the black dog by a length of rope, while it continued to do its job of giving the wind a good barking at.
When Aubrey reached the side door of the chateau, he looked back. The skyfleet couldn’t have been a mile away. Its passage was flattening trees and crushing cottages, creating a swathe of destruction across the countryside. A herd of cows took one look and scattered; each cow was grimly doing its best to achieve this ‘galloping’ it had heard of but never personally experienced. The madcap sound of cowbells added to the cacophony of shots, shouting, artillery fire and the overwhelming, all-encompassing scream of the wind.
‘Get Bertie into the basement!’ Aubrey shouted to Caroline. ‘Tell him that Tremaine is here!’
Caroline glanced at the sky, then nodded sharply. The door was wrenched from her hand as soon as she turned the handle. It slammed back, almost ripping from its hinges. While guards struggled to heave it closed again, Caroline slipped inside.
Dimly, Aubrey heard the sound of breaking glass. He flattened himself against the stuccoed wall of the chateau. He had to shield his eyes from flying grit as he wrestled with the possibility of a spell.
At this distance, half a mile or so, the connection he had with Dr Tremaine was faint, almost ghostly. It tickled his awareness without giving much more impression than an itch that couldn’t be ignored. It was swamped by the magical presence that was the skyfleet itself, wrought by magic from cloudstuff – and by a furnace-bright burning that came from the heart of the flagship itself. It had the texture of the magic Aubrey had sensed coming from the Holmland trenches at Fremont, the magic that coincided with the twenty-seven points of light in the Directorate’s remote sensing.
Dr Tremaine wasn’t leaving anything to chance in his attack on the new King. He was bringing his collection of magical artefacts to add power to his magic.
Aubrey anticipated the stormfleet behaviour he’d witnessed in Greythorn. There, the skyfleet had swept in and circled a single position, creating mayhem through weather magic, trapping those inside its whirling perimeter with a wall of cyclonic wind. If Dr Tremaine achieved this formation he could pound the chateau and the new King of Albion to pieces. Basement or no, anyone inside would be doomed.
He was rapidly spinning an idea into the beginnings of a spell. The buffeting of the wind made him wonder if he couldn’t do something similar, some sort of displacement that could shift bombs. It would take a combination of the Law of Action at a Distance and the Law of Transference, but he might be able to shift a large enough volume of air to create a deflecting vacuum, or a vortex to spin a bomb aside… Of course, in order to cast these spells accurately, he’d have to spot the bombs as they fell, which would be a challenge in such conditions as the storm- brought darkness made the entire sky murky.
Aubrey’s beret was ripped from his head. It spun away and was caught in a nearby rhododendron. Aubrey ignored it as the storm rolled toward them, a juggernaut of lightning and cloud. The skyfleet itself pushed from the
