Aubrey forced the craft to climb almost vertically. He flicked his black hair as it fell in his eyes. 'Where is it?' he shouted over the crashing of the metal wings.
'Left!' George shouted back. 'Port, I mean! Over there, past the sewage works!' He pointed. Aubrey forced the ornithopter around until the dirigible came into view overhead.
He pulled back on the wheel with all his strength, and sent the machine into a testing climb. When he'd gained enough altitude, he levelled off and swept toward the crippled airship.
A huge gout of fire erupted from the nose of the dirigible. Aubrey gritted his teeth and wrenched at the controls. George shouted as a jet of flame reached for them, a wave of heat screaming like a flock of harpies. Their craft skated and heeled, the port wing canting while the starboard wing flailed wildly. His heart hammering, Aubrey held on, glad for the belt that kept him in his seat.
From the rear of the ornithopter came the shriek of struts protesting under strain. Aubrey held his breath and eased off the controls. The rending noise slowed, but then he heard the sharp pings of rivets giving up and popping loose. Immediately, metal crashed against metal, grinding horribly. Not a good sign, he thought. With little choice, he ignored it and concentrated on keeping the craft steady.
The Falcon was approaching the dirigible almost directly head-on. Aubrey banked to port and swooped along the vast flank of the airship. The Falcon bucked a little, but Aubrey anticipated and held the line.
The entire front half of the dirigible was ablaze. The smell of burning rubber was harsh in Aubrey's nostrils and he grimaced. He eased the Falcon toward a tight turn around the airship's stern, aiming to glide along the other side.
George shouted and grabbed his arm. The ornithopter, delicately responsive, dipped and shuddered. Aubrey had to strain the controls, adjusting wing pitch and attack, to right it again.
'Don't do that!' he shouted.
'Someone's still alive!'
Aubrey risked a glance as they rounded the tail. A stocky man in the uniform of the Gallian Dirigible Corps was in the rear observation cockpit, waving desperately.
'We'll come back for him.' Aubrey steered toward the bow, where the gondola clung to the belly of the dirigible.
The gondola was the long cabin where the captain controlled the airship. If Aubrey was able to come alongside, he might be able to get the ornithopter to hover long enough to take on survivors. The Falcon could carry four passengers, but Aubrey was sure he could cram in six, then shuttle back for the rest.
He licked lips that had suddenly gone dry, and began to edge the Falcon closer. He concentrated on keeping his hands steady.
A mighty groan came from the airship, followed by the sharp, bright noise of metal reaching the limit of its strength. Automatically, Aubrey sheered off and dropped away. Then he climbed, not wanting to get caught in the rain of debris falling from the crippled dirigible – struts, wire, shattered glass, burning fabric.
He glanced up and, to his horror, saw that the internal frame of the airship was collapsing. Tormented metal screamed and buckled. One of the motor units wrenched loose and fell, still whirring, to the ground far below. Then the entire gondola tore away. It tilted and hung for a moment, then it plummeted.
Immediately, the remnants of the dirigible lurched upwards, much lighter now. The clouds opened around it, then swallowed the flaming leviathan of the air.
Sickened, Aubrey closed his eyes, grieving for the lost crew. Brave souls, gone in an instant. He banged the instrument panel with a fist, cursing his failure to save them. Should he have gone for help as George suggested? Was he simply being too rash, too overreaching – again?
'What now?' George shouted.
Aubrey narrowed his eyes. He could still do something to help. 'The cockpit. The survivor.'
He scanned overhead and saw the remnants of the dirigible wallowing out of the clouds, shuddering like a whale in its death spasms. The remaining motor units were whining desperately, but the dirigible had begun its final plunge.
Aubrey realised his jaw was aching from the tension. George grunted, then swore as oil sprayed across the windscreen.
That's all I need, Aubrey thought numbly. He couldn't see a thing through the streaks and smears of black muck.
Doing his best to stay calm, he ran through the commonplace spells he'd memorised since he'd begun learning magic. He seized on one he'd used for practical jokes, an application of the Law of Attraction. The elements were straightforward, the duration easy to handle. Usually the spell was used to make things hard to separate – to humorous effect – but this time Aubrey inverted the spell. The oil fell away from the windscreen as if it couldn't bear to be near the glass.
The ornithopter reared, then dropped in the turbulent air caused by the burning dirigible. The flames had almost engulfed the entire airship and the heat beat on Aubrey's exposed skin. The ornithopter shuddered, then slipped sideways. He caught it with an upward wing beat, but the strain was causing the metal laminates on the fuselage to shred and peel. There was no natural way to bring the ornithopter close enough to perform a mid-air rescue.
It'll have to be magic, then.
George pointed. The tail of the airship had tipped upwards, like the stern of a sinking ship. The figure in the cockpit was pressed up against the glass.
Aubrey flinched as violet-white light flashed through the Falcon's cabin. Hard on its heels was an immense crack that made the ornithopter ring like a gong. Dazzled, with coloured specks dancing in front of his eyes, Aubrey groaned. As if they didn't have enough to contend with, the weather was closing in. The ornithopter quivered, as if it were a real bird caught in a storm.
A real bird.
Feverishly, Aubrey's mind seized on the comparison. The Law of Similarities came to him, the well-established components blazing across his mind, clear and sharp.
The ornithopter was like a bird. With an effort, and the properly constructed spell, he could make it more so.
He chanted the spell, dropping the values into the unfolding formula in the way that fitted best. He announced each element as crisply as he could while trying to hold the bucking craft steady.
'Hold on!' he barked to George. The interior of the ornithopter began to glow, but it was different from the dirigible's flames and the harsh glare of the lightning. Streaked with green and yellow, every surface began to shimmer, a spiky phosphorescence that reeked of magic. Aubrey's magical senses jangled in response.
Another boom and the ornithopter was again rocked by thunder. Aubrey wrestled controls that were growing increasingly sluggish and he dragged the craft around the nose of the dirigible.
George let out an oath as the substance of the ornithopter rippled. Wide-eyed, he clutched at the control panel, seeking something to hold onto, then jerked back as it flowed underneath his fingers. His face was rigid with terror as the machine shifted shape, threatening to dissolve and pitch them both into the ferocity of the storm.