by Frank Morin
The rapid-fire siege weapons were mostly focusing on slower monsters breaching the gates or still swarming up the walls. She turned on a speakstone linking to the main communications hub to listen to reports of the rest of the fighting.
It wasn’t encouraging. The river-facing wall was breached almost down its entire length, and the eastern reaches of the city were being savaged by water-bound monsters, despite every effort by defenders to plug the gap.
The rest of the wall was holding, but just barely. Defenders were spread thin, and now they were exposed to attacks from the air on all sides.
They were about to be overrun.
Verena hated doing it, but she activated the link to the commander line. Just in time to hear General Wolfram’s panting voice shout, “We have to fall back.”
“We can hold!” Shona protested, but when Verena glanced back she saw even Shona and her small force fighting for their lives as they were steadily driven farther back from the gate. More monsters were pouring through the breach and already climbing up the inside of the wall to attack defenders from behind.
“The wall is lost. Fall back to secondary defenses,” Verena said.
Shona muttered a curse, punctuated by a scream of one of her companions then said, “You’re right. Issue the orders, Wolfram. Fall back!”
Verena left them to coordinate the retreat. “Lady Briet, if you have any missiles left, target Army gate. Fire everything you’ve got. It might delay the advance long enough for our people to get away.”
“Roger. Sending everything,” she responded instantly.
Verena didn’t have time to help the retreat. She had ascended into the air to get a better view of the city and the damage being done. She entered the domain of the flying horde and monsters swept in from every side, shrieking bloodlust, some spitting flames.
Verena’s worries and tension evaporated as battle rage swept through her. She shouted a wordless challenge, mimicking Rory’s earlier cry as she activated full thrust and rushed up to meet the nearest monster.
They outnumbered her hundreds to one, but she was the hunter, and she opened up with twin streams of hornets from her speedslings. The nearest monster was a magnificent pedra, bigger than her Swift, wings spread wide as it raked toward her.
Verena blasted it right across the face and neck. Hornets chewed into the monster, while the explosive rounds blasted its head into pieces. It erupted in a spray of muddy water that Verena shot right through.
Her shields shuddered as she plunged through the corpse, already spinning the Swift horizontally in a full circle. She fired two missiles at birdlike monsters swooping in from either side, smashing them out of the sky.
But dozens more were swooping in. The explosions and death shrieks of the other flyers drew more monsters, howling for blood. Not even Verena could shoot down so many.
So she rolled the Swift upside down and activated the Puking Dooms on the underside of the craft. Flames erupted forth, shooting into the sky and crisping a winged monstrosity Verena could not name.
The pressure hurled the Swift toward the ground, pressing Verena into her seat so hard she felt the skin of her face stretching. She pointed the Swift straight down and activated full thrust.
She shot downward with terrifying speed, momentarily outpacing her pursuers. The swarm gave chase, wings flapping, snakelike bodies undulating like mad as they swam through the air.
Verena pulled up and activated additional thrusters under the front side of the Swift to help her make the turn to horizontal just before smashing into the ground. She leveled out barely six feet above the ground and shot down one of the main streets into the military district.
Buildings blurred past and she grinned with the thrill of such awesome speed in such a tight space. One mistake, and she would shatter to bits, despite her reinforced shielding.
To her right, she glimpsed the soldiers that had been manning Army gate rushing down a parallel street toward the castle-like military command building. It would serve as one of the secondary defensive sites, along with the palace itself, and other rally positions scattered around the city.
The flying swarm could wreak terrible havoc among the fleeing defenders, but it looked like Verena had distracted at least a hundred of them.
She glanced back, impressed by how fast the monsters could fly. Some were winging down the street behind her, while others dove from above, cutting the corner and closing with astonishing speed.
“Let’s see how maneuverable you are,” she growled as she focused on the first turn. The road split into two smaller thoroughfares. She banked the Swift to the left, easily making the first turn, now following the street toward Market gate.
A flood of earth and fire-bound monsters was already pouring over the distant wall toward her, so she banked right and entered a warren of smaller streets.
Instincts kicked in as Verena flashed through the city, banking, turning, firing thrusters and Puking Dooms on every surface of the Swift to make the turns. It was hard to breathe, hard to see as each turn came faster than the last.
Monsters poured down the streets behind her, a wall of flapping, howling, deadly destruction. More monsters plunged down from above, raking at the Swift as the monsters dove at her.
She dodged most of them. A couple raked her shields glancing blows that nearly sent her spinning into buildings, but she managed to hold on, shouting curses at her foes the entire time.
Then one huge monster dove out of the sky directly on top of her. It didn’t bother raking at her as she sped past like the others had, but plunged down on an intercept course. Too late, Verena realized the monster planned to simply collide with her and smash her into the cobblestones.
She threw the Swift into a barrel roll, firing thrusters out every side just before impact. The monstrous body smashed into the Swift, momentarily blocking her view as it bashed her down toward the cobblestones.
The spin helped her slip past it a fraction of a second faster, and the maxed thrusters helped soften the impact with the monster as well as the impact with the ground, but could not avoid it.
The Swift shuddered as it crashed down, and Verena maxed her double-layer shielding. The impact strained the shield’s limits, but they held, and she bounced back up.
But the impact threw her into a spin that momentarily knocked the Swift out of control. The world spun wildly around Verena, filled with monsters and stone buildings. One warehouse seemed to rush toward her, its huge oak doors closed.
Verena screamed, unable to avoid the impact.
She activated blind coal.
The world seemed to shimmer as Verena and the Swift turned somehow slightly incorporeal and slid right through the warehouse. It was packed with grain, and Verena caught a glimpse of it as she slid through before passing out the far side.
Blind coal never lasted long, and she feared she might need it again soon, so as soon as she passed through the warehouse, she released it and activated the main thrusters.
The Swift shot into the air, and Verena regained control, using every secondary thruster. Behind her the warehouse exploded under a barrage of monstrous bodies that plunged into it, heedless of danger to themselves.
Verena didn’t know if any of the monsters died in the collision, but it didn’t seem like it. The sky was full of monsters, diving from every direction. She felt rising panic as she sought a way out.
Then she recognized a street and banked down into it, plunging almost to ground level, shooting east as fast as the Swift could fly.
Time to fly the Draw.
42
Hope Is Fragile but Hard to Kill
Come on. Just a little faster,” Verena urged the Swift as she rocketed toward the main city market, a huge, open square usually filled with shops and stalls, and packed with shoppers.
Today it would be empty. Scores of nightmare monsters raced after her, driven by elemental power as much as by the flapping of their wings. She glimpsed other monsters plunging out of the s
ky into the city, attacking defenders or just wrecking things.
Some were being drawn into traps that Verena had set. They were part of the Draw, a last-ditch defensive measure she’d designed with Hamish. She was about to plunge right into the heart of the Draw herself.
That was not something she would usually recommend, but she needed an edge, a way to break away from pursuit and rejoin the other defenders.
She activated a speakstone, linking her to the teams working the Draw. “This is Verena. Closing fast on Draw site One. I’m bringing the party with me.”
“Builder Verena, do not enter the Draw,” a harried-sounding officer responded. “Every station is active. You’ll fly right into a death trap.”
“I know the configuration. I can make it. When I arrive, do not hesitate, but hit them with everything.”
He paused for a second before saying, “Roger, Builder. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
So did she, but she lacked time to reply. Another huge flyer tried crushing her from above, but she’d learned her lesson. She spotted it diving, but waited until the last second to respond.
Once she was sure it was committed and unable to swerve, she rotated the Swift ninety degrees, pointing the nose directly upward, even while continuing down the street at breakneck speed.
As soon as her sights lined up on the huge, scaly monstrosity, she fired both speedslings.
Streams of deadly hornets erupted from the front of the Swift and ripped apart the monster, but it was too big and moving too fast and would still splatter her into the ground.
Verena couldn’t afford to get knocked off track again, not that close to the market. So she again activated blind coal.
Again the world seemed to darken as she passed right through the huge body’s shell, then right through the boiling fire filling the center of its torso.
It struck the ground and exploded right behind her as she slipped out the far side of it. She released blind coal, even though the flames of the monster’s explosion roiled over the Swift, shaking it so hard her teeth rattled and the controls sputtered.
Her shields held, and she still had enough blind coal for maybe one more deployment, as long as it was a short one. Verena allowed a fierce grin as she leveled out just in time to shoot into the market square.
It was teeming with people.
Even though Verena knew the view was fake, generated by a clever array of sightstone screens, for a second her heart skipped a beat as she plunged right into a crowd of soldiers, standing in battle formation. She passed right through since it was just a projection. It would look especially real from above, and she spotted several flying monsters diving toward the square, shrieking for blood.
They might be chasing her or aiming for the projections, but either way, they’d strike in seconds.
“Activate!” she cried as she threw her nimble craft into a series of acrobatic turns she’d calculated in advance.
She moved too fast to react to the Draw, and hoped she’d calculated correctly. She spun, twisted, and rolled through the square, punching through more projections, flying scant feet above the paving stones. Behind her, monsters boiled into the square.
The Draw activated.
Spikes erupted from between every paving stone, ripping into the underside of monsters. Spears longer than grown men erupted from concealed ballistae stations set into the buildings along the perimeter. Some were tipped with diorite, others with mechanicals that sucked heat out of any monster they struck, freezing them from the inside.
Other paving stones erupted into the air, revealing nests of speedslings already spun up and ready to fire. Grouped in nests of two dozen, the speedslings spewed walls of hornets into the air, ripping monsters apart by the dozen.
All around Verena, death and destruction erupted from the ground and from every side. Projectiles passed within inches of the Swift, and she couldn’t help screaming with exhilaration and fear as she plunged right through the heart of it all.
Then she was through, shooting along a narrow street, hemmed in by three-story houses, packed close together along both sides. Her rearview sightscreen revealed no monsters immediately following her. She’d left the pack behind, mired down in the death traps of the Draw.
Laughing with relief, she eased the Swift to roof level and glanced around. Most of the horde of monsters that had been following her were still distracted by the Draw and seemed intent on destroying the soldiers they thought were responsible for wreaking such havoc among their brethren.
The city was getting wrecked, though. Everywhere she looked, she spotted flying monsters smashing buildings or flocking around the few heavily defended positions manned by Merkland’s brave defenders.
She risked banking east, drawing closer to the flooded neighborhoods closest to the river. Entire streets were underwater, buildings smashed apart as the floods spread. It was a sickening sight. Had the water-bound monsters discovered the nearest underground civilian caverns?
She hoped not. She headed back toward the palace, keeping low and trying to avoid monsters instead of engaging. She couldn’t afford to draw another horde around her. She might not escape again.
Verena opened the communication link to the leader channel. It was buzzing with rapid-fire reports of casualties and defensive position statuses. She was relieved to hear General Wolfram’s voice, reporting from the palace, but the news was not good.
“We’ve got flying summoned attacking every window, but shields are holding for now. We’ve allowed some to break into the trap rooms and our forces are engaging with relative success. If we could keep the numbers low enough, we could eventually defeat them all.”
“That’s not going to happen,” General Rory said, his voice grim. He sounded exhausted, but undeterred by the dire circumstances. “Here in the military command building we’re also holding for now, but we’ve got a column of heavy earth-bound closing on our position. I spotted another column heading toward the palace. Prepare ground floor personnel to repel an attack against the main gate.”
Wolfram muttered a soft Grandurian curse, and Verena felt her recent hope dwindling again. They’d killed thousands of the monsters, but still Merkland was being overrun.
“This is Verena. I led a horde into the Draw, but there are too many.”
“Verena, Tallan be praised,” Wolfram said, relief in his voice. “We thought we’d lost you.”
“Not yet.”
“Are there other mechanicals you can activate?” Shona asked. Verena suspected she was in the palace, but wasn’t sure and didn’t have time to ask.
“No. We’ve committed everything,” Verena said as she banked down to street level and sped below a row of overhanging buildings to avoid getting spotted by a trio of slow-flying monsters that looked like huge, burning blobs. She had no idea if missiles or hornets would do anything against those, and was too low on ammo to waste it finding out.
Shona cursed. “My city is overrun. We need more.”
She was right. They were in a desperate situation, defenders separated into small, isolated groups, swarmed by monsters. If any of those groups fell, no one could help.
Verena struggled to find an answer, to figure out a way to leverage their fast-dwindling resources to new advantage. Slightly distracted, she flew around a tall government building and almost flew directly into a huge eagle-like monster, winging straight at her.
Verena screamed and banked into a rolling turn, scraping along the side of the eagle as its long, deadly beak snapped down with such force it pierced the outer layer of her shielding and knocked the Swift ten feet sideways in the air.
“Verena, are you okay?” Wolfram demanded, but his connection cut out as the speakstone was overwhelmed by the sudden sounds of battle and abruptly winked out.
Verena hoped he was okay, but didn’t have time to even ask. She was too busy trying to stay alive. Half a dozen other flying monsters, also looking like giant raptors, were following the huge eagle and they all atta
cked. She spun down toward the ground and tried her escape tactic again.
The giant eagle got their first. It was like the creature had seen her escape like that once before and anticipated the move.
As Verena shot downward, driven by every thruster, the eagle struck from the side, shaking her shields and nearly overwhelming them, driving Verena right into the stone facade of another building.
She lacked time to even activate blind coal, but punched through the building so hard her shields temporarily winked out. Dust and debris filled the air around her, and Verena banked sideways, barely spinning the Swift in time to fit through the door on the opposite side of the room she’d crashed into.
Wood scraped one wing, and the doorframe ripped off the tip off the other. One of her remaining missiles fell free, and Verena activated it remotely just as another monster bird landed in the opening she’d made.
The explosion tore off the monster’s face and tossed the Swift down the corridor. She struck the carpet and slid down it, using secondary thrusters to avoid tumbling into a roll that would have ripped the Swift apart.
Panting with fear, Verena managed to turn the Swift on the carpet, aiming for the big window at the far end of the hall. She desperately reset the shield mechanical and reactivated it.
One of the big bird-like monsters descended into a hover right in front of the window, its beak open, fire dripping out.
Verena shot it with both speedslings.
The monster exploded in a fantastic fireball that consumed part of the wall and sent flames boiling down the corridor toward Verena.
The Swift plunged into them just as the shield reignited. Verena gasped from the searing heat and activated the rear thrusters. She shot out the window and blasted through the disintegrating remains of the bird’s carcass that left long, crimson smears across her shield.
That was too close. Her outer shield was inoperable, even though she tried three times to reignite it. She was almost out of hornets, and only had two missiles left. The Swift was flying well still, but another hit like that would kill her.
