A huge flapping fire-shape fell out of the path of a Camel. From the size, Stalhein knew it was Emmelmann. Flames spread across the vast lump of his body and scattered across the canopies of his wings. Strasser gasped as Emmelman loomed close. If he were to plunge into the gasbag, the balloon would be burst.
A Camel zoomed down on Emmelman, who changed course, diving towards ground. The pilot pursuing the flier had unknowingly saved the Attila.
'Madness, madness,' Strasser screamed, tottering towards the wall of levers. 'We must climb.'
Dracula looked sideways, eyes flaming.
Hardt, the Graf's man, levelled a pistol and shot the kapitan in the leg. Strasser screamed and stumbled, falling forwards, hands outreached.
'We shall keep to our course,' Hardt said. 'We are all brave men, are we not?'
Robur, mind gone, ordered his crew to hold the course. He turned to the keyboard and wrung chords from the pipes.
Strasser curled into a ball. Airmen closed around the kapitan, and helped him up. He was fainting on his feet.
Emmelman hit the ground and exploded.
Something big burst in the trees below. Winthrop climbed, looking around. Just now, he was a monster. But it would take a monster to destroy the Bloody Red Baron.
Though outnumbered, the shape-shifters knocked down more Camels than they sustained casualties.
Brandberg passed. A bat-thing had claws sunk into the tail of his Camel and ripped towards the pilot with tin-opener jaws. The Camel went into a spin, taking the shape-shifter down. Another fire-burst on the ground. One for one.
There was no Archie. The offensive had swept past the lines. They were deep into what had been home ground. Winthrop could not think of the big picture. He had prey to find and kill.
'Gentlemen,' Hardt said, 'you have done your Kaiser a service which will never be forgotten.'
Dracula was turned away. Robur's mad music filled the gondola.
'Our lives will have brought victory.'
A scatter of bullets smashed across the windows. Glass burst inwards with a rush of wind. Stalhein's wings shrugged involuntarily. He was ready to take to the air. Hardt saluted the company.
Winthrop sought Richthofen, slipping through the dog-fight in the shadow of the Attila. He swooped upwards and looked down on the battle.
A tiny scrawl of flame clung to the Zeppelin's gondola. It was whipped to extinction by cold winds.
A Camel rose to join Winthrop. From the streamers, he knew it was Allard. A shape-shifter pursued the flight commander. Winthrop caught its chest with a burst of fire, and it sank, recovering balance. Wounded, the thing would be an easy target for another pilot. Only one victory counted. Confirmation didn't matter. Winthrop just had to know he had done it.
Allard flew away from the Attila and turned in a wide circle. Then he swooped back, closing upon the airship as if the length of its gasbag were a landing strip. He fired a Verey pistol over the side. The flare fell on to the skin of the gasbag, burning purple, lighting up Allard's path. Seeing what the flight commander intended, Winthrop pulled up on the stick, gaining height. Allard's Camel scraped the silk with its wheels, ran into the spreading flame of the flare, then flipped up and over, prop shredding through the silk skin, wings buckling. A rent appeared in the top of the gasbag and Allard tumbled in. Gas belched out of the ruptured compartment.
Winthrop heard Allard's engine stall and buzz. There was gunfire inside the gasbag. Flashes showed through the silk as Allard emptied his Lewis guns. Then a spark of purple, as the flight commander, swamped by an atmosphere of flammable gas, fired another flare.
The Attila shuddered as something slammed down on to it. Robur screamed at the violation of his beautiful ship, jamming his hands against the keys. Tortured wind roared through the organ pipes, accompanied by the creaking and cracking of metal struts.
Hardt stood over the observation port, where Reitberg still lay, and kicked down with a heavy heel. The port fell out in pieces, dropping Reitberg like a loose-limbed tumbling bomb.
Stalhein was confined by the broken walls of the gondola. He should fly free.
Dracula was still turned away from the panic.
Hardt saluted, smiled and stepped out of the hole. He fell like a weight. Others of Dracula's guard followed. Some prayed, most were stone silent.
Strasser, conscious and intent despite the pain, pulled useless levers. Too many connections were broken. The organ pipes groaned.
The first of the big explosions came, discharging a foul smell through the gondola. Then the second.
A ball of fire burst out of the side of the Attila, ripping through the gasbag as if it were a paper lantern.
Winthrop felt the hot air rising.
He should look away but could not. The airship kinked in the middle. One compartment turned inside out in a gust of fire. Crumpling tail-planes angled up. The firelight showed a dozen flying shapes desperately trying to burst free of the gravity of the huge, doomed ship.
Another compartment, near the nose, exploded. Winthrop saw Camels and shape-shifters outlined black in the flames that consumed them entirely. He was calm. Richthofen would not be destroyed so easily, so stupidly. The Red Baron would be saved for him. Another compartment blew.
Through the hole in the gondola floor, the forests were as brightly lit as by day. The Attila was a burning red sun. Fires spread around, running along walkways, climbing ropes, chasing airmen.
Some of the crew had followed Hardt. Stalhein saw them break against treetops five hundred feet below. Some, by a miracle, might survive. He waited for his own last duty.
Strasser, almost calm, stood away from the controls and smoothed his hair, then replaced his cap. He made no move to the hole. He would go down with his ship.
Robur turned away from his keyboard and looked at his disciple. He said 'we should have won. If it were not for the insects.' He did not mean the war between the Entente and Germany, but the war between airships and aeroplanes.
Dracula stood. Knowing it was time, Stalhein rose from the floor, struggling with hot air under his wings, and took the Graf from behind, wrapping his legs around the commander. He surged forwards, dragging his burden, and burst through the last of the nose-port.
Something was ejected from the burning airship. A winged figure, something wrapped in its legs.
Winthrop let the thing pass through his sights without firing. He had more important prey.
He stalked the skies.
Above, as Dracula's weight pulled Stalhein down, the black canopy of the gasbag dissolved into a sky of fire. The organ, attacked in a final frenzy by the engineer, produced insane music.
His wingspan grew and Dracula was less heavy. They flew straight, descending towards the trees.
The Attila was lost, a string of burning balloons falling from the skies. The gondola crunched into treetops a hundred yards behind them.
Stalhein put on speed, outracing fingers of flame.
The dog-fight, scattered by the fall of the Attila, regrouped. The last of both sides forgot the possibility of surviving this battle and mixed in for death. He looked for a place to set down. Once duty was discharged, he should join his comrades in the sky.
An aeroplane was above him, closing. Though unarmed, he'd have a chance in a skirmish. He could drop Dracula and rip off the pilot's head. But he would not give up his commander.
At a glance, he realised he was spared. The aircraft was German, a two-man Junkers J1 spotter. It would give him cover.
They were past the burning forest. A straight road extended ahead. Glassy lakes reflected the fire. Stalhein spread his wings, letting wind slow him rather than speed him on, and settled towards the ground. They hit hard and he lost his grip on the Graf, sprawling in a mess of wings and limbs as he rolled across a field.