“What absolute nonsense,” General Sako said. “You’re no soldier. You’ll put the mission in jeopardy. Or perhaps that’s your intent?”
“My intent,” Faso said a little sterner now, “is not to get bored within these walls. You wanted to employ me to be a scientist and that’s what I intend to go out and do.”
“You will do no such thing, Faso Gordoni. An order is an order.”
Faso lowered his head and he looked as if he was about to sit down, almost defeated, until a lithe woman in a grey felt frock coat stood up. She wore glasses and had short raven hair parted in a fringe. “Please, General Sako. If I might make a suggestion?”
“Please do,” General Sako said. “But come and do so out here where everyone can see you.”
“Thank you,” the woman said. She walked to the front, leaning forwards with her hands behind her back making her look older than I was sure she was.
“That’s Asinal Winda,” Sukina said in my head. “Gerhaun’s Chief Engineer. The way that Faso looks at her, I think he has the hots for her.”
I chuckled under my breath. “Is it mutual?”
“Who knows,” Sukina said.
“You’re not jealous, are you?”
She folded her arms. “Not one bit.”
The engineer had now reached the map and turned to Faso, who still stood at the back, his hands in his suit pocket. “Mr Gordoni, I must say, I’m fascinated by your automaton. You call him Ratter, right?”
“That’s the one,” Faso said. “Ratter’s one-hundred-per-cent modifiable, the most versatile automaton around.”
“And he runs on secicao, I noticed.”
Faso frowned. “How on earth could you know that?”
“I merely looked underneath the hatch. I was careful not to damage the mechanism, as I really do find it a fascinating machine.”
I huffed quietly. If she had seen the thing when it had that syringe plunged into Velos, she might have thought different.
“He is quite,” Faso continued. “I hope you understand that I wish to take him with us on our little mission.” Faso had regained his haughty posture now that he wasn’t addressing General Sako.
“Actually, I was thinking that you could stay behind and help a little?”
“And miss out on a chance to survey a piece of technology.” Faso put his hands on his hips. “Tell me, is anyone who has volunteered today a scientist?”
“Well, no—”
General Sako cut the engineer off mid-sentence. “Faso Gordoni, you are in no position to be making demands. You will stay here and help Winda in the laboratory, or we’ll lock you back up.”
“Actually Butan,” Sukina stood up. “I think Faso might be right. He may be of use.”
“Sukina—”
“Look, if we could get any useful information on those Mammoths, then we might be able to exploit their flaws in case Cini does build any more. I know you don’t like it, but Faso does have a talent for observation.”
“Blunders and dragonheats! He’ll compromise the mission.”
“I’ll make sure he does no such thing. I’ve just spoken to Gerhaun, Butan, and she agrees that Faso should accompany us.”
General Sako gave Sukina one hard gaze, but she didn’t back down. He took another huff on his pipe and blew out a plume of yellow smoke that Winda backed away from, while wafting at it with her hand.
“Very well,” General Sako said. “So, we’ve selected who will topple the Mammoths. Eleven troops, plus Sukina, Miss Wells, and Gordoni. We’ll send out fourteen Greys—”
“We’ll take Velos and eleven Greys,” Sukina interrupted. I felt Velos awaken and he let out a stiff roar, causing half the gathered soldiers to almost jump out of their seats.
“Yes, right,” General Sako said. “And I certainly have a headstrong daughter.”
Surprisingly, a chuckle emanated from the crowd. Everyone clearly must have been used to the little spats between Sukina and her father. General Sako turned to me. He spoke to me much more gently than he’d addressed me before.
“Miss Wells, is there anything you need to ask?”
I knew that there was no point asking whether there was any news from my parents. General Sako was unlikely to have heard anything more than Gerhaun. But there was one other thing that had been on my mind. “How dangerous will it be?” I asked.
It was Sukina who answered. “Don’t worry about that. We have the best troops in the land.”
Again, another chuckle from the audience. It caused me to break a smile too. Sukina had such confidence that I felt kind of excited to be going. Although, I did realise that this humour was just there to help keep up the troops’ morale. In all honesty, we were going up against a formidable machine.
Also, I couldn’t stop thinking about my parents. Firstly, there was the issue of whether they actually were my parents. Gerhaun had seemed to think not. Yet I’d grown up with them my whole life and I shuddered when I thought about the jeopardy they could be in.
Sukina spoke once again within my head. “Your parents will be fine, and news from the Five Hamlets will probably have arrived by the time we’re back from the mission.”
“I hope so,” I said back in the collective unconscious, and I swallowed my thoughts. Rather than getting anxious, it seemed more prudent to focus on the mission at hand.
After the briefing had finished, Sukina led us to a sealed door at the far end of the courtyard. It had this rubber suction thing around the edges, making it airtight. A large valve protruded out of the door.
“The armoury,” Sukina said. She turned to Wiggea. “Officer, would you?”
“Certainly,” Wiggea said with a slight bow. He turned the valve and the door sucked open. A sudden rush of cool air whisked past us and we stepped into a confined brass chamber with a similar airtight door on the other side of the room. Faso entered last, taking some time to examine the doorway.
We stepped into a large room, again with brass walls. Rifles adorned the back walls and in front of those stood some metal shelves with some funny looking gas masks. Each had a tube protruding from the right-hand side, just underneath the nose. The tube led to a green pouch at the end.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Secicao masks,” Sukina said. “Come, we must hurry. Put one of those on and then we can set off. Oh, and don’t forget the wellies.”
I walked over to a shelf and took the gas mask. It strapped around the back of the head using a strong piece of elastic. There was some kind of dial on the tube.
“Turn that, and it will burn some secicao,” Sukina said from next to me, as she pulled one bright yellow wellie up to her knee. “It moderates how much you take in, ensuring a consistent effect. Much more effective in many ways than drinking from a hip flask. But, of course, cumbersome and not the easiest to conceal when you’re passing through customs at the Southern Barrier.”
It made a lot of sense, really. When surrounded by secicao fumes, it wasn’t easy to take off a mask to take a swig from your hip flask. But this device combined both the secicao and the gas mask together.
I put on my wellies – needed to protect me from the resin – and then I turned to look at Sukina. I couldn’t help but laugh how ridiculous she looked with that long trunk hanging from the side of her nose.
A guard had handed Faso a yellow camo coverall to put over his suit, which he refused to take off. Underneath the uniform, I could still make out the knot on his tie. And through his goggles, I could see the scowl in his eyes.
We went back into the courtyard, where Winda was waiting for us with Ratter upside down in her hands. All of sudden, Ratter sprang out of her grasp, turned itself one-eighty-degrees in the air, and then landed and scurried over to Faso. It tried to poke its nose underneath Faso’s sleeve, which was sealed there by an elastic band. Instead, he went to rest on Faso’s shoulder.
Not far away, Velos was waiting, in line with another eleven Greys. Sukina, Faso, and I mounted Velos’ armour vi
a the ladder while the other eleven troops took places, unsaddled on the Greys’ backs.
Velos was nervous too, I could feel that much. He’d seen enough of General Sako’s diagrams to know that we were going up against automatons, and he’d never had to face one before. So, I decided to placate his spirit by singing to him. A song just came to me that I felt would give Velos a little courage, a rhythm to its harmonic procession that made it sound like a like a war march.
“You’re getting the hang of this,” Sukina said and then she joined in my song, although she varied the notes a little to reach out to the surrounding Greys.
With all the dragons fuelled by with a new energy, we took off and flew into the secicao clouds.
16
We could see nothing all around us other than the secicao gas and, very faintly, the knotted secicao branches beneath. We were right in the thick of the secicao forest. My breathing was shallow through the filter and again, the acidity of the gas stung at my skin.
We flew on Velos right at the centre of the formation, sandwiched on each side by two Greys ever so slightly behind us. We were going so fast that the wind whipped past us and roared against my ears. Otherwise, everything seemed rather silent. Never did we break from formation. We’d strayed so far from Fortress Gerhaun now, that I could no longer hear Sukina in my own mind.
Usually, I would swoop and dive with Velos, which would make these journeys fun. But Sukina had warned me against doing anything that could render us detectable. So I shifted around in my saddle, wondering when the journey would end.
Faso might have made this armour safe, but he hadn’t made it comfortable. So, once again, I found myself missing the feeling of straddling Velos’ back. I turned around every so often, awfully envious of the other soldiers. I didn’t think I could ever get used to riding in such an unnatural way.
After what seemed quite a few hours, we came across the Mammoth harvesting automaton. It appeared wispy and ghostlike at first through the murky haze. But, as we got closer, the haze seemed to clear to give us a better view.
The thing was massive. I had thought Gerhaun had been huge, but while she towered, this machine hulked. It moved forwards on two thick caterpillar tracks, flattening the secicao beneath. Although I couldn’t quite make out their scale from this distance, I guessed the tusks to be as large as Velos himself. They protruded out of a plate that swayed up and down, tossing up strands of secicao, which in turn slid down the plate into the machine’s mouth. The mouth looked like the propellers at the back of a steamship, with a contraption inside whirring so fast that I couldn’t make out the blades.
Its body housed row after row of turrets with menacing muzzles that wavered back and forth on their pivots, scanning the terrain. Clearly, General Sako had been misinformed about the Mammoth not being armed. The secicao mist in front of us thickened, once again obscuring the Mammoth from view.
“Bank left,” Sukina called from behind me, her voice loud enough for the whole formation to hear.
I steered Velos in that direction and dived down a little, so we could hopefully get close enough to see. But before the huge automaton came back into view, I heard something in my mind’s eye. A song, yet not a song, for it lacked harmony, only noise. Still, I recognised it as some kind of dragonsong, although one designed to distort.
“You heard it?” Sukina asked and I realised her to be speaking within my own mind.
“I heard something,” I telepathed back. “But what the dragonheats was it and why can we speak like this all of a sudden?”
The song came again, this time a high-pitched wail and I felt Velos buck a little underneath me. For a moment he entered a stall, just as I heard Faso shout out from behind. Fortunately, Velos quickly recovered and I turned him towards where I imagined the Mammoth to be.
“Should we retreat?” I asked Sukina inside my mind.
But she seemed more focused on singing a song. A sweet harmony that seemed to soften the wind around us. Velos’ armour glowed green and began to feel warm between my calves and I turned around to see Faso lifting himself up from the spigot on Velos’ flank.
“You better augment,” Sukina said and I remembered the dial on my mask. I reached down to turn it, and the sinking fear inside my chest was replaced by a burning resolve. “There’s no turning back now, I’m afraid.”
That grating tune came again. The song seemed to have some kind of consciousness and I could feel it trying to rock Velos’ mind. But Velos had secicao fuel in his body now.
“What is it?” I asked Sukina, now speaking comfortably through our telepathic channel. “And why can we speak here all of a sudden?”
“There’s something here,” Sukina said. “Someone I once knew and never thought would return.”
“Then we should turn back, surely?”
“No,” Sukina said. “We’ll carry on. If anything, I need to learn if it’s him.”
Perhaps the secicao burning in my mask kept me from being afraid – I’m not sure exactly what blend we were using. But then, part of me knew Sukina was right. If we gave up now, then whatever this thing was might discover Fortress Gerhaun. Then there would be no stopping King Cini as he tried to destroy the remaining dragon queens.
“Everyone augment!” Sukina shouted out louder than the wind. “We’re going in.”
I gritted my teeth and pushed right on Velos’ steering fin. Towards the Mammoth harvester automaton that again started to come into view.
“Sukina, look!” The call came from Faso who pointed up towards the sky.
I turned up my head to see a black form pass over us. Dark, like a crow but with the long, outstretched wings of a dragon. Though, a colourful sheen washed over it, like you’d see in an oil slick.
“What the—” I said, although I wasn’t sure if it was in my mind or out loud.
“It’s Charth,” Sukina said.
“What? Who?”
From above the Mammoth, a roar came from the sky. I craned my head to see the dragon wheeling around up there. Wellies, how had it managed to get back so fast. But then I glanced over my shoulder, and the one I had previously seen was high above us, turning around back towards the Mammoth. Two of these creatures, that was all we needed.
“My, my, two dragonseers,” the voice came inside my own mind, male and slick. “I’d expected to only meet one of you.”
“And who, exactly, are you?” Sukina said in the collective unconscious.
“Oh yes, darling,” the other voice said. “I know you want to speak to my brother… But you know already how he’s the silent, brooding type.”
“Charth”, Sukina said. “Reveal yourself.”
“I’m sure he’ll speak when he’s good and ready. But for now, we can’t let you take the Great Harvesters. That’s not part of Finesia’s grand design.”
“Finesia’s dead,” I said. “Is he mad?”
“Not mad, my darling,” the voice returned. “For now, you might call it a religion.”
“We won’t let you get in our way,” Sukina said.
“Well, well,” the voice replied. “Let’s play for a while. I’m curious to see what you can do.”
I turned back to Sukina. “What do we do?” I asked her, still in the collective unconscious.
“We go in…” She clenched her teeth. “I never thought I’d meet him again, and now, it seems, he brought his brother too.”
We were close enough to the Mammoth, that we could see its intricate designs. Like Faso’s workshop, it had upon it the red glowing eyes of the old war automatons from the Dragonheats. But they weren’t arranged in disarray, rather on each turret that had now started to point towards us as we approached. Shortly thereafter, the whole contraption started to glow green. Secicao light pulsed over its polished brass curves.
“Dragonheats!” Faso shouted from behind. “They’ve stolen my technology.”
This couldn’t be good. But we’d come too far to back out.
“Attack!” Sukina shouted,
then she sang a short song to say the same to the dragons. The armour bucked beneath us and the Gatling guns begun to fire from Velos’ side. In chorus, the turrets responded from the Mammoth, swivelling around their pivots and firing a shot every second or so. They weren’t as accurate as I’d feared and we managed to get close enough for Velos to let out his green flame, scorching and disabling several of the turrets as we swooped by.
Behind us, came a scream and one of the dragonelites got knocked off the dragon’s back. Another shot echoed out, and the Grey went down with a huge roar.
I pulled back on Velos’ steering fin and we entered into a loop-the-loop. My stomach churned and blood rushed to my head, as the world span upside-down. Usually, I’d use my thighs to keep me in place, but now we had the seat belt harnesses. At the top, Velos tucked in his wings and did a half barrel roll, so we could then turn to come in for another pass.
We turned to see another Grey spiralling to the ground. Us and the remaining dragons had regrouped outside of firing range. On the Mammoth, half the guns on our side were now hanging from their sockets. Perhaps we could now approach and topple the thing over.
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” said that same voice in the collective unconscious. “Indeed, you’re quite impressive. Let’s call a temporary truce.”
The guns on the mechanism whirred to a halt.
Behind me, Sukina raised her hand palm facing forwards. She called out a fast song with staccato notes. The two black dragon-like creatures had now met in formation above the Mammoth. They entered into a swift dive and hit the ground. The resin they landed on turned red for a moment and then, from out of it, arose a thick yellow secicao cloud, concealing them from view.
“Why should we listen to them?” I asked Sukina. “It looks like we can take down that Mammoth.”
“Because I think they want to negotiate something that’s in everyone’s favour. I know Charth and I doubt very much his intention is to harm us or Fortress Gerhaun.”
Dragonseers and Airships Page 13
