I leveled off and let Hina catch up, taking a position directly behind me. I knew this was a test of an idea, that I wasn’t in any real danger, but still my heart skipped a beat when that cannon lowered into position, the muzzle pointed right at my back, the match cord glowing bright yellow thanks to the force of the slipstream blowing on it and making it even hotter than it would have been otherwise. It was plain Sultana was nervous too, because she kept sneaking glances behind her at Hina, and at me. She made a chittering noise, which I knew from long experience was her way of saying, “Hey! Are you going to do something about that?”
“It’s all right, girl, it’s just a test,” I told her. I picked up my trumpet from the saddle and blasted out a simple note, since I wasn’t sure if Hina knew the proper calls for Nizami fliers.
She responded with two blasts on her own trumpet to let me know that she was ready.
“All right,” I muttered. “Here goes nothing.” I took up the bedsheet, holding it by one corner of the fabric, letting the rest of it snap in the breeze like an enormous flag billowing up behind us. Once I was sure it would catch enough air to make for a reasonable target, I let it go and jerked hard left and down, leaning my body in that direction, telling Sultana to dive and turn with everything she had.
Her cobalt neck scales flared wide like the hood of a cobra as her wings rolled and her tail feathers lifted up. A weight settled upon my neck and shoulders, crushing down on my spine, forcing the blood from my eyes as we dropped into a tight, spiraling dive. All the while, I looked up, keeping my eyes on the cloth, which was fluttering in the breeze, spread wide, seeming to hover in space.
The boom of the cannon wasn’t nearly as deafening in the open air as it had been in the confines of the palace corridors, but the smoke and fire billowing out of the muzzle of the cannon resembled the real flames of a fire zahhak to some degree, and it was close enough to Sakina’s head that in the darkness, it almost looked to my eyes like the zahhak had been shooting the fire from her own mouth.
The cloth suddenly bunched up, as if it had a string tied to it and someone had jerked hard on it. With less surface area, it began to fall a bit faster, though it was still quite slow, and it was easy enough to keep below it.
Evidently, Hina had the same thought, because she had at once pitched up into a climbing turn, all the while yanking the smoking breechblock from the back of the cannon, hanging it on one of the saddle hooks, and slamming a second home. She lowered the cannon just as she reached the apex of her climb, Sakina describing a diagonal loop through the sky that put her nose right back on the cloth, but coming from the opposite direction.
The cannon barked a second time, and the bunched-up cloth shuddered and twisted and started to fall even faster, but Hina wasn’t done yet. She jerked the breechblock free as Sakina pitched up into yet another diagonal loop. This time, though, the cloth was falling fast enough that by the time Hina got the cannon ready again, they were pointing almost straight down at the palace courtyard, and rather than risk shooting and hitting our comrades accidentally, she ordered Sakina to tuck in her wings, and they dove so swiftly that Hina was able to reach out and snatch the cloth out of the air an instant before Sakina snapped her wings wide once more, pulling up sharply to save them from plowing into the paving stones at two hundred miles per hour.
My heart was thumping away in my chest. Hina was whooping from the back of her zahhak. Far below us, hundreds of Zindhi men and women were cheering. There could be no doubt at all. It worked. Now we just had to hope that they could get the saddles ready in time to stand against Ahmed Shah and his zahhaks, and I had to hope that there was enough darkness left to save my baby sister.
CHAPTER 27
Flying over the ocean at night requires nerves of steel. Even with a mostly full moon and a cloudless sky, the water beneath me was pitch black. We had long since lost sight of the coast. If not for Haider’s assurance that he could lead us to Ahura without getting us lost over the ocean, I never would have taken such a risk as flying directly. But this saved us at least two hours, and we were short on time as it was. I prayed to God it would be enough.
Behind me, Padmini was struggling to keep up, using Sultana’s wake to help give her the lift she needed to stay aloft. Her double saddle had been cut in half, with the front put in the back so that it faced in the opposite direction, allowing the flier and the gunner to share the same high backrest. One of the bronze cannons was mounted directly in front of the rear-facing seat, which also had extra breechblocks hanging from hooks, just like Sakina’s saddle had. The same modification had been made on the saddles of the rest of the Registani fire zahhaks, and four of the six of them carried the extra weight of men in their new rear gunner seats. They were keeping close formation to reduce the strain of flying at such an unnaturally high speed.
To my left and right were five thunder zahhaks, ridden by Haider and his wingman, my sister Sakshi,
