I couldn't help but wonder how Velos felt with that massive gun attached to his belly. I had imagined it would be pulling him down to the ground, making his flight a lot slower and a lot clumsier. But he seemed instead to sail along quite smoothly.
"How come he can take the weight?" I called back to Faso. "What did you do to Velos?" I kind of imagined that Faso had put some kind of extra solution into the secicao that fed Velos through the armour — something that wouldn’t be good for him in the long run.
And I heard the inventor let off a cursory laugh from the back seat. "Obviously Pontopa, I can't expect a simple mind like yours to understand the basic principles of aerodynamics. This gun acts like a spear, cutting through the air so that it passes more easily over Velos' wings. His head does exactly the same thing, which is why he’s shaped like he is. And I believe we're flying in a V formation right now for similar reasons."
If I didn't have Wiggea between me and him, I would have turned around to thump him right now. "I understand this stuff. I'm not stupid, you know."
"Of course. You just choose not to try to think things through, sometimes."
"I do more than you realise. If I reacted on instinct all the time, you wouldn't be sitting safely in your seat right now."
"And I'd have had had one less black eye in my lifetime.” Faso was referring to the huge welt I’d caused over his eye after he’d installed the dragon armour on Velos without my permission. Really, I’d been quite proud of my strength back then.
"Anyway,” Faso continued, “if you're wondering why Velos can handle the weight better, I've also added some extra strength to the secicao blend."
"You mean to tell me that he wouldn't be able to carry this cannon if it wasn't for the secicao?" Which didn’t sound good. All we’d need then is for the supplies to dwindle or for there to be a leak somewhere and the cannon would drag us to the ground.
"Didn’t you listen to Winda?" Faso asked. "The cannon is made of super light materials. Plus, Velos is a strong beast. Of course, the extra weight would be harder on his wings. But he can manage it and he’ll get more strength for it, naturally, as he carries it more."
Two years of Faso Gordoni and he hadn't got any less annoying. I thought I'd try to get some moral support from Lieutenant Wiggea instead. After all, he was my most trusted dragonelite, so you would have thought he'd be on my side. "What do you think of the cannon, Lieutenant Wiggea?" I asked.
I turned around and saw his astonished look in his eyes. Clearly, he wasn't used to being asked his opinion on things. "What do you mean, Maam?"
"Aesthetically and practically. Do you think it works, or do you think he'd do better without it?"
"I think it does its job, Maam. Cini's forces and automatons are getting stronger and anything we can do to combat them, is to our advantage. We have to keep with the times."
"But surely we can get better physically and mentally. That's why you’re training me, right? If we rely on technology to make us stronger, what will we become then?"
"I think we need to learn to live with it," Wiggea said.
I sighed and looked out into the distance. I had really hoped that Wiggea would side with me, and not having his support caused my heart to sink slightly in my chest. I guess I just wanted to be on the same wavelength as him. There was something about him that I liked… A lot.
I couldn't see Charth, the secicao clouds being so thick. But I’d kept a channel open between us so I would know he was nearby.
How far? I asked the dragonman in the collective unconscious.
Not sure, Charth said. But I think about twenty minutes still. If I risk sensing Alsie, she might soon also be able to sense me. We need the element of surprise.
So how did you spot her in the first place?
She spotted me. Charth said. I reached out thinking that it was you or a dragon queen. Fortunately, I escaped, and she chose not to pursue.
A wave of panic rose up in me as the realisation dawned on me. If she didn't chase you, maybe she wanted us to follow. She could be luring us into a trap. The airship captain had after all wanted me to follow him to his leader. He had said it wasn't a woman but a man. But maybe he was trying to lead me astray. Or maybe Cini was somewhere in an airship, overseeing this all.
After all, wherever the king’s consort went, the king would surely not be far away.
I don't think we have a choice, Charth said. And you've assembled a large enough task force to defeat five mammoths.
Five mammoths, but what else is there?
Just her.
No airships?
Not that I could tell. Although, you have to understand, visibility was limited.
I sighed. I guess then we have no choice.
No you don't. The dragonwoman’s voice resonated through the collective unconscious, loud and clear. Alsie Fioreletta. You know, I've learned some new tricks since I last saw you, Dragonseer Wells. No more masking your thoughts in the collective unconscious anymore. I've found ways to break through.
I gritted my teeth. Alsie, I said. You shall soon die.
You really think you have a chance against me? You foolish woman.
One day, I said. You said it yourself. One day we shall battle, and it shall be me who wins Alsie Fioreletta, not you.
In a way my words surprised myself. I really don’t know what part of me was talking right then. It was if someone else was talking inside my mind for me. And that person certainly wasn’t Sukina.
Oh, Dragonseer Wells. That day is far in the future, I'm afraid. Today, I only need to remind you of the limits of your capabilities. You still have a long a way to go.
We shall see. I said. I have also got stronger.
Ah, but I haven't shown you the full extent of my new powers. You know, since Charth and Francoiso left, I've had a lot of valuable time to spend with Finesia. I never realised how powerful my connection to her could be. All fuelled by Exalmpora…
Exalmpora was the potion that they forced Sukina and I to drink at Cini's palace when we'd gone in to rescue Taka, then being masqueraded around the palace as the king's nephew, Prince Artua. Enough of it would turn a dragonseer to a dragonman or dragonwoman and had caused Sukina and I to literally lose our minds. Alsie had been feeding the same stuff to Taka from a very early age and was responsible for his change in gender.
This is the end, I said. And you shall hand back Taka.
Taka? I don't have him. Weren’t you meant to be looking after him?
I clenched my teeth. I wasn’t going to play Alsie’s games. So, if you don’t have Taka, then where is he?
You mean you lost him? Dearie, dearie. After all that effort you put in to rescue him and the lives you lost, you cannot even watch over him for a couple of years. I had a feeling that you and Gerhaun would be irresponsible guardians.
Where is Taka? I said again, refusing to let this conversation to get side-tracked.
I don't know, I told you. And I never lie.
Then you have no reason to live today, I said. Maybe we’d be able to use the new-fangled cannon to punch a hole in her after all.
We shall see. Alsie said. And she cut off the channel.
She did so just as soon as the first Mammoth came into view. It looked spectral as it emerged from the secicao clouds, like the ghost of a beast from ages past. It faced us head on with its great tusks bared to the ground and its blades whipping through shreds of secicao as it swallowed them whole. It trundled on two reinforced caterpillar tracks. And, as expected, it glowed green.
“Augment,” I shouted. And I turned the dial on my mask to let the secicao gas pass through the filters.
"Keep Velos steady," Faso shouted. "I'll fire up the cannon."
"Shouldn't we first see what we're up against."
"We see our first target in range, let's show these people what we can do. Scare them a little."
"It's only Alsie and some automatons, I don't think there's anyone we're capable of scaring."
Actually,
Alsie once again opened up a channel in the collective unconscious. I think you'll see there's nothing there.
I blinked in surprise. As soon as she finished her sentence, the Mammoth automaton dissipated from view. All I could see was the clouds ghosting faintly around it. The air then seemed to shimmer around me, and some harsh notes emerge in my mind. A tune, I'd never heard before, which grated like a thousand screeching violins.
What's this? I said, clutching my hands to my ears. How are you doing this, Alsie?
Let's just say that I've learned some new songs. Dragonsongs, they've been around since the beginning of time. But there’s other songs that don’t just manipulate dragons, and Finesia knew always how to sing them. She once had the greatest connection to the collective unconscious than any creature that's ever lived. And still, her memories remain.
I tried to make out what was happening through the secicao clouds. But I could only see the thorny branches beneath. No hint of metal. Was the automaton actually there?
"Pontopa, what are you doing?" Faso screamed from his back seat. "Keep Velos steady. The target's right there."
"I can't see the target," I shouted back.
"What are you talking about? It's in plain sight. Have you gone blind?"
Clearly, whatever Alsie's dragonsong was, it wasn't affecting normal people. I turned back to Wiggea. "Can you see the Mammoth?" I asked.
"Yes, Maam."
I shook my head. "Faso, power down the cannon.”
"What? I can't. Once it's charged, it has to release its load. Just fly in the direction, damn it."
The armour shuddered underneath me and a great beam of white light emerged from beneath Velos. It connected to a point on the ground and sent the secicao there up in flames. "You missed!" Faso screamed. "What were you thinking? It was a straight shot, and you missed!"
But I had nothing to say to that. Right now, I didn't have a clue what was going on.
I see you've also brought the young inventor with you, Alsie said. You know, I took him as a boy under my wing through his late childhood. Now it saddens me to see him fighting for the wrong side.
He loved Sukina, I said. Meaning you're not exactly in his good books.
Such a sad story. Well, I guess it's time to give you a fighting chance.
The song cut off from my mind, and I took a deep breath as if a tight vice had just been loosened around my heart. The song had kept my breath stifled in my chest. I could see the Mammoth again, a little off to the right from the fire that burned just next to it. It had its head turned to us now, raised up in the air as if it wanted to grind up Velos within its whirring maw.
Fortunately for us, Alsie said. Faso isn't the only brilliant scientist to have graced Tow. The king has an equally brilliant mind working for our kingdom, as you shall soon see.
Beneath us, the ground began to rumble, and dust started rising from around the Mammoth's feet. Molehills popped out of the grand, beneath the thorny strands of secicao, as huge metallic drills emerged from these. Soon enough, the dust settled, and we stood looking at a good two score war automatons, that had somehow concealed themselves in the ground.
"Dragonheats," I shouted. "An ambush." I turned Velos sharply off to the left as shots began to boom around us. The sky became filled with dragon roars, my comrades started getting shot out of the sky. A dozen or so must have tumbled to the ground in that first volley from the enemy. And each dragon life lost was also a strike against my own emotional endurance. With each loss of life came a ripple in the collective unconscious, almost as if Gerhaun had lost a part of her soul.
The Gatling guns on the side of the mammoth also whirred into action, sending down more dragons. As we passed, I caught sight of the other four Mammoths behind the first. Their forms looking like huge ghost in my augmented vision and edging ever closer to us.
Beneath me, Velos' armour rumbled and took on a fluorescent green hue. His Gatling guns let out a cannonade of gunfire at the foremost Mammoth. At the back, Faso had one hand on the spigot and the other on the cannon control at the handlebar. But I couldn’t see where the shots hit, and they didn’t seem to do much damage. It was as if the things had been reinforced since we’d last seen them.
"We're outnumbered, Pontopa," Faso shouted. "We must retreat."
"You never want to stay to see these battles through," I said. "I thought you wanted to test out your cannon."
"There'll be other times for that."
"Look, if we let these Mammoths survive, then they'll stumble across the base. We'll regroup and I'll call reinforcements. These things have to go down today."
I flew away from the automatons. Charth sped in front of me, then did a loop the loop and flew underneath in the opposite direction. I'll scout for weaknesses, he said in the collective unconscious.
Good, I said. And I bellowed a song at full vocal power out of my lungs, sending it out to Fortress Gerhaun. Gerhaun Forsi would hear this and hopefully call the entire fortress into action. She had thousands of Greys at her disposal and would surely send out a significant percentage, if not all of them.
Well, well, I didn't expect the opportunity to eliminate your entire base today, Alsie said in response. But that's not what Finesia wants.
Then what do you want? I said. I can never understand your intentions Alsie Fioreletta.
My intentions aren't my own but those of Finesia. She wants you and Taka to join her side. And she’s been working on Taka a long, long time. And then there’s your ‘ally’ Charth. You seem to trust him, but he’s turning back to Finesia’s side and it’s only a matter of time. Charth, my dear, you know it won’t be long until your will is Finesia’s own.
I won't let that happen, Charth said.
You really think you have a choice? You can’t draw off Finesia’s gifts without her claiming something in return.
I really felt we were going off on a tangent here. I decided to get back to the important stuff. What do you want Alsie? I asked. You didn't answer that simple question.
Well, well. Let's make a list. Firstly, I wanted to show off my new powers. That way, you’ll know in future not to cross me, like you intended today. At least for a while, for yes dragonseer one day we shall do battle. I’ve seen this in my dreams, and you will soon enough see it in yours. And only fate will decide the outcome of that battle, the decision about who will win is not your own.
So you don’t have Taka? And you didn’t come to claim him? So why exactly are you here?
To supervise the king’s harvesting operations, of course. Now, that is, Charth and Francoiso are unavailable for the job.
And you know full well that the presence of these harvesters puts our entire base at risk.
Alsie Fioreletta roared out into the sky. I took this, somehow, to be a dragonwoman’s equivalent of a sigh. You remember Charth when you told the dragonseers that these Mammoths will never stumble across Fortress Gerhaun? I wish to honour that agreement, of course. Finesia doesn’t yet want the king to discover you. Oh, she has far greater plans for Fortress Gerhaun.
She can't be trusted, Charth said.
Oh, can't I? You should know, Charth, that Finesia always keeps her word. And you also know she also has plans for you as well.
She may, Charth replied. But I'll never listen to her voice.
Oh, you can’t resist forever my darling dragonman. She can give you the life you dreamed of as a child. Immortality. To be one of the most powerful creatures on this earth. A new race better than both man and dragon. She can help your to get revenge on your father. Isn’t that want you truly want?
Another roar boomed into the sky, this time coming from Charth flying a lot closer to us. No, I cannot accept that. My will is my own.
But you will turn eventually, Charth. No matter how much you try to resist it, Finesia will find a way through to your soul. Dragonseer Wells, he says you can't trust me, but actually this man is even more dangerous. With me, I'm always honest about where my allegiances lie.
&nbs
p; I am loyal to the dragons and the land, and I have been since I became a dragonseer, Charth said.
That's right. For now…
All this time while the exchange between Alsie and Charth was happening in the collective unconscious, I was trying to work out what to do next. Faso was screaming out his own worries from the back seat, but I wasn't listening to him too much. Wiggea was characteristically and courageously quiet, seemingly trusting that whatever action I took would be for the greater good.
"Pontopa, can you hear me?" Faso shouted. I’d zoned out a little during my conversation in the collective unconscious. But now, I decided to grace Faso with an answer.
"I can, Faso. And if we retreat, Alsie will follow us to the base and that will be the end of us. This battle needs to happen here and now." I wasn’t entirely sure that Alsie would follow us, of course. But I didn’t trust her one bit.
I could feel the strength of thousands of dragons from Fortress Gerhaun approaching. Gerhaun hadn't decided to accompany them. But if she had, she would have needed to leave the pirate at the base. She needed the answers out of him even more urgently than before. If Alsie and King Cini hadn't kidnapped Taka, then we needed to know who had.
"Pontopa, you're crazy," Faso said. "We fly in and they'll shoot us down for sure."
"We have a whole force at our disposal," I pointed out.
"And dragonheats knows what else that woman has in store."
Oh dear, oh dear. Alsie's voice sucked me back into the collective unconscious again. I ask you to retreat and still you don't think it wise. You know, I really don't have time for this. And, I guess there’s no harm in reducing the numbers in Gerhaun Forsi's forces.
There was a shudder again and I looked over my shoulder to see a hatch opening on one of the Mammoth's backs. Out of it, came a swarm of Hummingbirds, glowing green in the low light. "Dragonheats," I said.
I turned the dial on the front of my mask to let more secicao gas through. I took a deep breath of this and alertness suddenly washed over my senses. The entire battlefield ghosted into a faint green and I could see all the automatons. Thousands of war automatons in a line. Hummingbirds, emerging not just from the back but from several compartments arranged across the Mammoths’ huge hulls.
Dragonseers and Bloodlines: The Steampunk Fantasy Adventure Continues (Secicao Blight Book 2) Page 6
