by Brent Reilly
CHAPTER 24
Warriors from both sides flew to Castle Edinburgh all day. Several hundred enemy supporters arrived, but in small groups.
Billy blasted a long trench along the edge of the forest to display the dead bodies. He made sure the earth piled up on the side away from the forest so that the enemy would land with their backs to the trees. Where his two-wanders hid. The women and children pretended to cry over the richly dressed corpses whenever their scouts signaled fliers coming. Billy turned having only women and children from a negative to a positive.
Billy reveled in his good fortune: his enemies not only came to him piecemeal, but landed with their backs to his ambushers. It was something his father would have appreciated.
But good luck never lasts long. Billy looked west to see one hundred quads and two-wanders flying in formation. But instead of stopping near the corpses, the enemy landed inside the castle and manned the ramparts. After far too long, the quads flew over them and the forest, taking their time, before landing a safe distance from the bodies.
"What happened here, boy?" the eldest man demanded impatiently of Billy, who wore a guard uniform.
"We didn't have patrols up, so they took us by surprise. I got knocked out. The few of us who survived prepared the dead for burial, but wanted to give family members the opportunity to identify loved ones."
"I sent three teams here, and none came back. What happened to them?"
Uh oh. "The usurper's supporters ambushed them from the air, sir. They have left us alone since we’re burying the dead."
"Come here, boy."
Ah, crap. They know. Billy noticed them spread out, wands in hand, eyeing the woods. He dared not look at his three dozen women and teenagers pretending to cry.
"Yes, sir!" Billy answered, walking with an exaggerated limp the long way around the trench, knowing the old man wanted him to fly over so they could blast him when he used his wands to land. Billy ignored the yells as he stretched their line out. No sooner did he round the trench than four quads hopped over to take him from behind as others met him head on. Anyone but the world's best dueler would have been screwed.
Wands unexpectedly appeared in his hands, followed by unbelievably long swords that Billy used to cut down those in front of him. He blasted the line of quads because it’s so much easier to hit them on the ground, then fired on those behind him, who were taking fire from the two-wanders. Caught in a crossfire, Billy took out two and the two-wanders killed two.
Now he could focus on the main group, now exchanging fire with his own quads, and the two-wanders from the forest rushing to their aid. Billy hit their flank. He darted from side-to-side and up-and-down to strike down one enemy after another, rolling them up piecemeal while his team fixed their position.
Dueling just a few at a time enabled him to mow them down. The old guy must have come to the same conclusion because his wand screamed for backup. Three squads of two-wanders flew from the castle. Billy needed to intercept them, but faced twin brothers who fought as a team.
Quads resort to swords at close range because wands have a lag time between shots -- wands must "breathe.” The more powerful the wand, the faster it can re-fire, but most wands need a heartbeat to recharge. At close range, that's enough time for an opponent to slice a quad open, so fliers fired until an enemy got too close, then drew steel to defend against steel. Quads can zip away from an incoming blast easier than they can avoid two long weightless swords coming at blinding speeds.
Billy blocked a sword when a blast from his brother struck him full in the chest. A more powerful fireball would have engulfed him. He saw it too late, turning before it hit.
The brothers used an old technique: one occupied with a sword while the other fired, then they switched so the enemy faced both a sword and a blast every heartbeat. It works well two-on-one, and even better four-on-one.
Oh, how he longed for his own armor. His shirt burning his skin, Billy flew up with his boot wands to concentrate on removing what was left of his smoking chest plate. He fired down at the closest brother, hitting him right in the face, before soaking up his wands to heal his own crispy skin. Billy often went through a dozen sets of body armor when fighting all day in the arena. Today, he just discarded his second set.
Two-wanders can't bob and weave like a quad, so commanders used them as a group to shell an area. Billy raced to catch the third squad. Formation flying with the leader in front of three lines of three, Billy only needed two swings of each long sword to slice them up. He didn't kill them, but the cuts made them tumble to the ground. A powerful burst of speed and he matched speed and angle with the second squad. Billy cut them quickly and raced to the first squad, now about to fire their first volley.
Billy got them first, then shot down at the enemy, starting with the quad crying over his smoldering brother. Billy's quads instinctively surged forward as the enemy turned to face the new threat behind them, while several fled back to the castle.
The problem with running away, as every defeated army learns, is it lets the enemy attack from behind. Just as cavalry chases down an enemy running away, so did Billy, Susan, and Emily. The last one made it within range of those manning the ramparts, but it did him no good as Billy trusted his maneuverability long enough to slice the guy’s legs off.
Now all of Billy's quads hovered over one side of the castle to pick off the defenders, then moved to another area. The enemy foresaw the result and hid within buildings, which limited a quad's maneuverability. Billy's two-wanders now re-entered the fight, and with superior numbers they overwhelmed each pocket of resistance.
Not bad for a bunch of women and kids.
