Lizanne began to lift her hand in a wave then abruptly pivoted, bringing a carbine to her shoulder as a Red came screaming in from the side. Whatever manner of bullet she had loaded into the carbine was clearly something special, leaving a trail of flame in its wake as it impacted on the Red’s torso. There was a blinding flash and the Red had mostly disappeared, save for a few chunks of flesh tumbling in the aerostat’s slip-stream.
The sky suddenly grew dark and Clay realised they were now surrounded by Reds. A glance at the sea below Lutharon’s wings revealed that the ships were no longer under attack. Looks like we been recognised, he thought.
The guns of the three aerostats all began firing at once, sending streams of tracer in all directions. Clay held Lutharon on a steady course as he continually scanned the sky for threats, sending one Red tumbling away with a blast of Black and searing the eyes of another with a fulsome torrent of Red. The loud, bone-jarring thump of a blast wave snapped his gaze back to the aerostats, finding the one on the right had lost an engine. Clay could see the blackened corpse of a Red falling away in a cloud of shattered, smoking mechanicals. The aerostat began to spin out of control, losing height and drawing away from the others. Sensing a kill, the Reds mobbed the stricken craft, uncaring of any danger as they streaked in from all sides to slam themselves into the envelope, many falling victim to the craft’s guns, which continued to fire without pause. More and more drakes flung themselves onto the aerostat, tearing at it with claw and tooth, others belching fire at the gondola until it was a mass of flame. The aerostat’s descent accelerated, its nose tipping forward as it went into a dive and exploded before hitting the sea.
Clay tore his gaze away from the dreadful spectacle in time to see a large Red slip through the gap between the two remaining aerostats, flaring its wings as it reared back, talons flashing. Lutharon coughed out a brief but intense stream of fire, the force and the heat of it sufficient to cast the attacking Red aside, leaving it a smoking tangle in their wake.
Lizanne reappeared in the aerostat’s rear hatch, urgently pointing a finger at her head. Understanding the signal Clay closed his eyes, trying to shut out the screams of a thousand drakes as he slipped into the Blue-less trance. Lizanne took a second to appear, her whirlwinds more disordered than he had ever seen them and he was appalled to find a glimmer of panic in her gaze.
Thank you for coming, she said, forcing a smile.
Said I would.
She nodded, the misty vortices beginning to break apart as her mindscape darkened and Clay realised he was trancing with a woman who expected to die very soon. They’re forming up above the shore-line, she told him. Follow us closely. We’ll make a hole. There’s a hill a mile to the west. You’ll find her there.
Clay began to reply but she was gone, leaving him alone on Nelphia’s surface. He ended the trance, blinking tears in the rushing chill. When his vision cleared he saw multiple smoke streams blossoming from the base of the aerostat’s gondolas. Rockets, he realised, watching several small cylindrical forms detach from the craft and streak away. The rockets flew in spirals of varying widths, hurtling towards the wheeling barrier of drakes in a concentrated swarm. Their impact resembled a short but impressive firework display, except every flash and boom meant the death of at least three drakes. When it faded there was a large rent in the flock of Reds through which Clay could see a broad plain beneath a cloudless blue sky.
The two aerostats immediately accelerated towards the gap, guns blazing as they fought to keep it open. Clay sent all the urgent thoughts he could to Lutharon but the drake needed no encouragement. He surged forward with a growl, sail-sized wings sweeping faster than Clay ever thought possible. He kept his gaze on the plain beyond the gap, refusing to be distracted by the roaring gun-fire and screaming drakes on either side.
She’s intending to die here, he knew, hating the knowledge and hating himself for the determination not to turn away and save her. Make it mean something.
Lutharon went into a steep dive as they cleared the gap, increasing his speed yet further. Clay quickly found the hill-top, the White an unmistakable landmark. Its wings were spread wide, head thrown back and mouth gaping. Even above the rushing wind Clay could hear its challenging roar.
Remember me, huh? he asked it, surprised to find a grim smile playing across his lips. He tore his gaze from the White, Green-boosted eyes scanning the hill until he found her, a slender figure standing alongside a Spoiled wearing some kind of uniform. Her features became clearer as they flew closer, eyes of red and black staring back at him, her face a porcelain mask of disconcerting beauty.
Catheline, he thought, slipping into the Blue-less trance state, summoning all the images he had memorised, all the stories from the periodicals and the scandal sheets, reaching out. There was no response, the trance felt like sinking his hands into tepid water. Hate, he reminded himself. You know hate, and so does she.
He summoned his own memories to join with hers, everything he tried to keep locked away in dark crevices of his mind. The first time he saw his father beat his mother . . . His father’s head jerking as the bullet slammed home, blood and brains on the cards . . . Dozens of vicious back-alley struggles in the Blinds . . . Keyvine’s blade at his neck . . . Silverpin, the red wings blossoming across the glass floor . . . And the White. He hated it. Hated it for all it had wrought upon the world. But more, he hated it for what it made him do. Silverpin as the longrifle bullet tore through her . . . All those good people lost on ice and in the battles since . . . Lizanne, accepting her own death just to get him here.
The hate burned at the core of him, filling the trance with the purity of its heat and finding a mirror in the soul of Catheline Dewsmine.
A moment of complete emptiness. He felt nothing. Not the beating of his heart. Not the air on his skin. His eyes saw nothing. There were only his thoughts, roiling in panic as he pondered if this is what it meant to die. Then he saw a single point of light, no larger than a raindrop, but growing steadily, expanding into a ball that filled his gaze and soon enveloped him.
He stood in a garden of some kind, neat hedgerows and flower-beds surrounding a vast lawn at the centre of which stood a three-storey mansion house. The sky was darkened by clouds pregnant with rain, the air chilled almost to the same degree as the southern ice. Trees dotted the garden, their bare branches sagging with a macabre fruit.
Bodies, Clay realised, gaze snapping from one tree to another. Men and women, boys and girls, old and young. They all hung from the trees, grey faces bloated and hollow eyes empty as they twisted in the stiff breeze.
I don’t recall inviting you in.
He turned, finding Catheline standing close to the shore of an ornamental lake. She was human now, her eyes a pale blue, though her beauty remained undimmed, even enhanced. No human skin had ever been so luminous and no hair so golden. Her vanity, it seemed, extended deep into her consciousness. But no amount of visual artifice could mask her emotions. He could feel her outrage at his intrusion, it hung in the air as a simmering electric thrum that reminded him of the moments before a storm.
You didn’t, he replied. Yet here I am.