by Devin Hanson
Andrew's cannon roared as Joshua yanked on the firing lever. Andrew staggered back to the cannon, eyes locked on the flick of steel that was the cannon ball. It punched through the dragon's wing and the great beast screamed its fury as it started to tumble, the delicate balance of muscle and sinew thrown off by the sudden change in resistance in one wing. For a brief second, Andrew had hope. The dragon wasn't going to recover. It was going to plummet to the earth and smash itself to pieces on the rocky plains below. But the dragon found its balance again, and Andrew knew they would never defeat this magnificent lord of the skies.
It took a distinct effort of will for Andrew to begin the recharging process on the cannon. What was the point? They could fire at the dragon until it tore them all to shreds and there was nothing the weapons could do. Despite his fear, though, despite the crushing realization of his imminent demise, Andrew held to a flimsy ray of hope. The dragon could be hurt. It could be killed. They needed some luck, but it could be done.
He heaved at the wheel, panting as he worked, trying to find a rhythm with Timothy. Finally the screw clanged shut again and Andrew fell back once again to give the gunner room to fire. He had lost track of where the dragon was while he worked the screw, and he frantically tried to locate the swooping beast. His ears pounded with the uneven thunder of the fleet's cannon, but he couldn't figure out where they were firing.
The smell of scorched cinnamon washed over Andrew, and he spun about to face the prow of the ship just in time to see the dragon land on the forecastle. The deck bucked beneath Andrew's feet then jumped up and punched him in the face. For a second he was airborne, open space yawning beneath him, the ground so far below it was invisible in the darkness, then he hit a taut line and managed to wrap an arm around it.
His heart hammered in his throat and he hung on for dear life as the ship bucked under the weight of the dragon. Fire, liquid orange and blindingly bright, burst from the dragon's mouth, incinerating half the starboard cannon crews. Remembering what happened to the first airship to be hit by the dragon, Andrew flinched, half expecting the swampgas stores below to ignite. The relatively small explosions of the cannon bursting was tame in comparison, but the shockwave was enough to knock Andrew spinning.
The deck swam below him, but Andrew's arms, already strained from the work of charging the cannon, couldn't hold onto the rope any longer and he dropped, squeezing his eyes shut and offering up a prayer to any god who might be listening. The impact with the deck knocked the wind out of him and Andrew felt a flash of pain in his chest, followed by a grating agony as he struggled to draw air into his lungs.
The deck rocked again as the dragon launched itself into the air, a second before the hornet howl of a flight of cannonballs passed over Andrew's head. The Belathon had fired its broadside at the dragon, heedless of the damage it might cause to the Caerwin.
Andrew struggled to his feet, trying to find his air legs as the Caerwin lurched beneath him. Somewhere behind him a cable burst with a crack and the ship heaved. A hand grabbed Andrew's shoulder and hauled him around. The crew chief hollered something at him, lost in the ringing of Andrew ears, but the fire extinguisher shoved into his chest communicated what words were having difficulty conveying.
The rear of the ship was on fire, so Andrew turned that way. As he staggered through the billowing smoke, he gingerly worked the charging handle on the extinguisher until his broken rib stabbed agony through him with every motion. Orange light flickered to his left, and Andrew hosed it down for a few seconds before remembering his training and aiming lower where the base of the flames would be. He was rewarded with a sputtering hiss as the curdled foam hit the burning wood. Satisfied that the fire was out, at least in that spot, Andrew lurched forward through the smoke again, working the charging handle as he went.
After what seemed like hours, but was really just over a minute, a vibration ran through the deck as the Caerwin shuddered as her props started spinning again. The forward motion cleared the deck of the remaining smoke and Andrew could see clearly about him for the first time since the dragon had struck the Caerwin. The fire was out, or near enough to make no immediate difference.
The fleet was scattered. Shattered might be a better word. Of the five ships in the original formation, three were left. The Caerwin, half her cannon destroyed and her aft a smoking cinder, drifted to the north, coming about under low power to bring her surviving broadside to bear on the circling dragon. The Belathon, her airon-plated decks smoking in places but relatively immune to the dragon's fire, sat in the middle of the formation, the careful volleys devolved into panicked gun crews reloading and firing again as fast as they could. Last, the Brighid, hung from a single torpedo balloon, her gondola spewing smoke and flames. The Meremacht was gone from the skies, as was the Morrigan. The cloud layer below glowed a dim orange - fires in the city far below caused by exploding swampgas reserves.
As Andrew watched, the dragon swung by the Brighid and seemed to perch for a moment on the lone balloon holding the ship aloft. Smoke gurgled and whirled about as the balloon tore and released pressure. With the integrity of the balloon lost and the pressurized gasses inside howling to escape, the balloon ruptured, a split that stretched halfway down the length with a loud bang. With the loss of lift, the Brighid dropped below the clouds, to crash with a thunderous boom after a long delay.
The Caerwin had finally managed to come about, and her gondola rocked as the remaining broadside thundered out. Cannonballs tore spiralling vortices through the smoke toward the dragon. Some few of the shots hit with dull cracks against the armored hide of the dragon and it lurched in the air before catching its balance. It screamed in rage and dove beneath the cloud layer.
Seconds passed. Then a minute. Andrew hung over the rail, scanning the clouds. Was it over? Had they won? The dragon wasn't dead, of that he was certain. But perhaps it had been wounded enough to cede the battle? Abruptly, he realized he hadn't seen Timothy or his team's gunner since the dragon had set fire to the Caerwin. Were they okay? He swallowed. It didn't seem particularly likely.
Hesitant cheers came faintly from the Belathon. Andrew limped forward toward the prow to get a better look at the warship. Her airon armor was cracked and blistered, with smoke drizzling through the seams. More than half her cannon were fused and burst. If this was victory, Andrew thought, he would hate to see defeat.
From the corner of his eye, Andrew saw the clouds shift, and the dragon came up from below the Belathon. He opened his mouth to scream, one hand extending forward, then the dragon struck.
With grace that belied its huge size, the dragon flipped upside down and clawed a grip into the keel of the Belathon. With its hind legs, the dragon tore and ripped into the airon armor, sending the plates spinning through air in fractured shards. Before the Caerwin had the time to pivot her broadside around, the great beast had torn a hole through the keel, exposing the core of the ship where the swampgas storage tanks were and the engine throbbed.
The lick of dragon fire was almost invisible. Instantly, brilliant blue flames shone out through the cannon ports and blazed out through the hole the dragon had torn in the keel, and for a moment, the airon shell held. Then the airon failed all at once and the Belathon exploded. Shrapnel ripped through her armored balloons and the swampgas within ignited, adding volume and brilliance to the expanding cloud of boiling flame.
Andrew had time to open his mouth in horror before the shockwave slapped him into the air and threw him fifteen feet back into the wall of the forecastle. His head cracked against the wood paneling and light exploded through his vision. His ears were ringing, giving the shrapnel tearing through the Caerwin a surreal feeling. Nothing could be wreaking that much destruction and be completely silent.
A pair of boots hit the deck next to Andrew's face, and he tilted his head up with great effort to see Captain Ambrose standing above him. The captain's lips moved then he shoved Andrew to one side and reached into the locker Andrew had been lying in front of. P
arachute backpacks tumbled out of the locker, and Andrew roused himself enough to hook an arm through a strap and worry it into position. His broken rib was a fire in his chest, lost among the general shell-shock pain and the throbbing of his head.
The gondola lurched and Andrew stumbled to his knees. The scent of cinnamon rolled over him, gagging him with its strength. Captain Ambrose ran past him, curved saber drawn, and Andrew stumbled drunkenly about trying to follow the captain with his eyes. The bulk of the dragon rose behind Andrew, and he flinched so hard he fell backwards.
The captain of the Caerwin leapt at the dragon, a silent howl of defiance twisting his bearded face, sword held high, then a clawed hand the size of a wagon swatted him from the air and crushed him to the deck. Andrew screamed, or he thought he did, and the great dragon's head swung around. An eye the size of Andrew's head blinked down at him from an arm's span away, the nictitating membrane sliding free to reveal a horizontally slit pupil and an whorl of refracting gold iris. Cinnamon washed over Andrew and he froze in terror, expecting to die.
Then the dragon turned and launched itself from the deck of the ship. The downdraft from the wings picked Andrew up like a leaf blowing in the wind and flung him over the rails and into the dark night sky.
Definitely worse than pirates.
Chapter 2
Aftermath
Andrew was stunned, his mind frozen in fear. A flash of blinding blue and a billowing orange fireball told of the death of the Caerwin and the end of mankind's brave defiance of the dragons. Seconds later, the shockwave crashed into him and set him spinning through the air, completely disoriented.
Andrew fell. The wind whipped at his face and tore at his clothes, silent through the ringing in his ears. The sudden dampness of the clouds brought a surge of awareness and panic with it. He searched frantically over the straps on his chest, found the metal ring, and yanked it down. For a moment nothing happened then the chute opened with a lurch and a blaze of pain from his broken rib.
About him, the clouds glowed orange with reflected light from the fires below and he coughed as he drifted into a column of smoke. Vague demands from his training started impinging on him, and he gripped the guidelines on his chute and steered away from the smoke. Smoke meant buildings and fires, neither of which would be conducive to a safe landing.
The ringing in Andrew's ears gradually cleared as he fell and the faint sound of voices shouting commands rose up with the smoke. Moments later he cleared the cloud layer with shocking suddenness, and the full impact of the lost air battle hit him like a punch from a prize fighter.
Three of the five airships had crashed within the walls of the city and Ardhal was on fire. Andrew hung from his parachute and gaped at the people scurrying about below like ants, their firefighting efforts almost laughably ineffective. As he watched, the ruins of an airship gave another burble of blue flame as a sheltered swampgas reservoir gave way, enveloping nearby buildings with newly raging fire.
Thunder boomed in the distance, and Andrew started putting serious attention toward getting down on the ground. Landing in the city itself was almost guaranteed doom, so he hauled hard on the guidelines and drifted toward the nearest wall.
Andrew's training for parachuting had come from a grizzled old pirate hunter, one eye, one leg, half a hand missing and a quart into his daily beer ration an hour before noon. The full lecture on the proper use of a parachute went roughly like this: "If you find yourself time to get a parachute from a locker and get it on before the ship falls out from under you, the ship doesn't explode, you're not on fire or bleeding out, you have all your limbs and you're not too close to the ground, try not to land in a tree or on a building. Keep your legs loose. Ah, the hells with it."
With these words of wisdom to guide him, Andrew strained his eyes against the darkness, knowing that if a tree came up in front of him, he didn't have the skill or experience to dodge around it. Not that he'd even see it before a branch ran him through, of course. Somehow he had managed to avoid buildings and trees so far. Next up, keeping his legs loose. He didn't even know what that meant.
He was still trying to figure it out (Raise his knees up? Keep them floppy?) when a low stone wall came out of nowhere and socked his legs out from under him. He had just enough time to draw a breath to start screaming when a hedge jumped out of the darkness and did its best to flay him. The parachute dragged him free then swung him around into the trunk of a tree. Dazed, bleeding from a dozen small wounds, his nose bloody, he barely had the presence of mind to release the parachute straps and work free of the backpack before a gust of wind could yank him off the ground again.
It came to him gradually, as he lay gasping on the ground, his wounds dragging tears from his eyes, that he was still alive. He had gone up in an airship, fought a dragon, and came out the other end of it alive. Bruised, yes. Broken, yes. Bleeding, of course. But alive.
Lightning cracked the sky in a blaze of brilliance and thunder boomed. As if it was a signal, the clouds abruptly opened up and started pouring rain.
Andrew was already cold, and the sudden deluge soaked him immediately to the bone, making him shiver. His torn and dirty uniform looked snappy when new, but it had none of the insulating properties necessary for surviving a night out in the rain. To the west, the clouds glowed orange with the reflected light of the burning city.
With nowhere else to go, Andrew tucked his numb hands under his arms, ducked his head, and started trudging around the wall toward the nearest gate.
Sun shone down and glowed warmly off the raised trumpets as they swayed in unison, colorful tassels swaying with the motion. The fanfare belted out, a martial cheer, and Andrew held himself rigidly to attention. His new uniform boots pinched his feet a little, and his collar had more starch in it than he was used to and a corner of it dug into his neck. He was so proud he could have burst.
Andrew stood somewhere in the middle-rear of the large formation block, the crew of the soon-to-be-christened Caerwin to the right of the crew of the Belathon. To his left, the crew of the Meremacht stood in perfect formation. The full crew of the five ships forming the very first dragon hunting fleet stood in review.
A crier shouted something up at the front of the formation, the words lost in the distance, but the man who mounted the speaking platform needed no introduction. King Delran raised his arms and shouted out a greeting to the massed crews. Between the five ships, the head count of officers and crew was nearly two thousand men and women. The number of officers was high even for a royally appointed ship since everyone who had the means had bribed, begged and borrowed their way into an officer posting. If the kingdom was going to defy the dragons, the nobles wanted their sons involved, lesser lords saw it as a way to gain favor and recognition, merchants as an opportunity to raise their caste, and the royal deputization in charge of crewing saw it as a way to gather a fortune in bribes and favors.
Andrew's own position as a gunner was purchased at ruinous expense to his parents, merchants of only moderate success, but knowing an opportunity for their only son when they saw one. Andrew had to lie about his age, claiming to be a year older than he actually was. He had handed the heavy purse over to the bursar, made his name on the registry and became the newest crewmate on the first fleet of dragon fighting airships. His parents hadn't the money to get him an officer posting, but they could get him signed on as crew; not on the capital ship, the Belathon, but on a refitted merchanter.
Still, Andrew couldn't believe his luck. Being a merchant for the rest of his life had never appealed to him and now he had an opportunity to change his fate and live a life of excitement! He might be starting as a lowly gunner but the fame and recognition that came with bringing down a dragon would boost his career in the military. He might even get knighted!
Six weeks of training later, some of the glamour had worn off as a brutal boot camp drilled the basics of military existence into him, but the lessons on how an airship operated, the lectures on dragons and the train
ing on using the cannon kept the excitement and purpose fresh.
Some of his instructors, like the parachuting expert, had left lingering doubt, but youthful enthusiasm kept his spirits up and helped him gloss over the dark comments from his new crewmates. So what if there were only fifteen parachutes on the Caerwin? They were going to destroy the dragons that came with finality, so there would never be any need for them. Besides, have you seen those cannon? Andrew had fired solid load and the fused explosive rounds at an old shack during training, and nothing could survive a direct hit from that! The shack was blown to flinders, what hope did a dragon have?
The older recruits shook their heads at his enthusiasm but didn't go so far as to tell him he was wrong. Andrew took that to mean he was right, and went about his training with undiminished cheer.
And now he stood with his new crew, fresh out of boot camp. He was too far back to hear what the king was saying, but he was sure it was motivational. The wind picked up, rustling the trees lining the parade ground and the king's words muted to a distant mutter. Abrupt cheering came from the front ranks, followed seconds later by cheering from the back ranks, Andrew along with them. He had no idea what he was cheering, but he was as boisterous as any of the sailors in the front ranks.
The king picked back up his speech again, and for a minute, Andrew could almost hear some of the words he was saying. More cheers, and this time the back ranks were ready for it and joined in with only a small delay.
Perhaps sensing that his speech wasn't having quite the effect he had intended, King Delran hurriedly wrapped it up and waved in a grand gesture. Bottles of wine with their necks tied to ropes were thrown off the airship balloons and swung down in long arcs to shatter with underwhelming pops against the hulls.
