Pirin stepped out from the cover of the tarp and onto the front platform of the afterdeck. At first, he shielded his eyes from the sun, but his eyes adjusted to the harsh light a moment later. Already, birds circled overhead, preparing to converge on the capital city and wipe out its siege defences before it could deploy them on the main Sirdian army.
Though he couldn’t see Vel Aerdeil yet, he knew the city was ahead. Smoke from chimneys rose up above the hills at the edge of the river, nearly blotting out the sky.
He approached Gray, who stood on the brink of the barge’s raised afterdeck, and climbed into the saddle. Reaching into the saddlebag, he retrieved a headset, then tugged it onto his head.
With an easy flutter, Gray took off from a standstill and fluttered high into the sky. Once they’d reached a standard altitude, they turned and made a straight line for the rising smoke.
Most of the forest had faded away on the many days of river travel, leaving only fields of fescue grass and shrubs. In the autumn, they were turning yellow and drying out, and orange leaves scattered across them, blown from distant forests. Hillocks rolled up and down for miles in every direction, only for rivers to intersect and interrupt them. Just ahead was the Senflow river, which ran parallel with the Eldflow for a few miles, before it reached a city.
From the air, Pirin now had a clear view of Vel Aerdeil.
The elven capital was a sprawling expanse of old building with branches of pale, interwoven branches and thatched roofs and newer, wood and daub structures, with cobblestone chimneys and stacked, overhanging gables. Every so often, Pirin glimpsed a structure of white limestone—a hall, a storeroom, or something else of the like, but it wasn’t the main culprit.
The entire outer curtain wall was cloud-white stone. It was a meandering, drifting length of ashlar bricks with towers inserted at even intervals. Each tower supported traditional trebuchets, but the wall also boasted smaller wooden platforms for flak catapults and repeating crossbows.
But the outside curtain wall wasn’t the city’s only defence. An inner, taller wall protected the city’s palaces and administration infrastructure, and it had defenses of its own.
Worse, scattered around the ring of houses and streets and buildings between the keep and curtain wall were newer castles, built in rudimentary utilitarian fashion. They bristled with flak catapults, ballistae, and crenellations for archers. They were the true air defences.
Pirin reached up and pressed the windstone headset up to his ear. Instantly, chatter rolled through. They didn’t have their full squadrons with them—only a hundred or so birds—and they had to make it count. Each of them had the smallest alchemical bombs they could equip—apple-sized packets, each scripted with runes and filled with explosive ingredients. Enough to wipe out a trebuchet, but not enough to cause massive collateral damage and hurt the civilians.
“Alright everyone,” Pirin said, projecting his voice through the receiver as loudly as he could. He didn’t have his mask on, so he used the Fracturenet to enhance his body. The other chatter cut out as soon as he spoke. They heard him.
And the entire squadron was listening. All hundred of them.
“The army will be amassing on the western side of the city,” Pirin said. “It’s our job to protect their landing, so they can breach the wall and take the city. Our first targets will be the flak castles, then we’ll move on to the heavy artillery on the curtain wall. Understood?”
The rest of the squadron called out in affirmation, their voices turning to a jumbled din. Pirin slid his mask onto his face and switched to Gnatsnapper Essence, then guided the wind away from the windstone, muffling it and quieting the other pilots’ voices to whispers.
“Ready, Gray?” Pirin whispered. “We’re leading the assault, and we’ll draw lots of enemy fire.”
That’s why you put on the mask? she asked.
“We’ll need to evade as best we can.”
Pirin shut his eyes and tried his hardest to cast out his own spiritual perception. Initially, it had only been good for sensing arcane presences, but now? He sensed the nearest pilots to him.
Even without opening his eyes, he knew they stopped circling, and now moved into formation behind him. He sensed a pilot’s armour shifting—a completely inanimate object.
At least this way, he’d have warning when gravel or small stones were about to shred them to mist.
Despite the other riders’ formation and dedication, their mounts wouldn’t keep up with him. Not when he started trying.
By design, of course.
He gathered a pulse of wind behind him, then pushed beneath Gray’s wings, thrusting her through the sky faster than they would’ve otherwise flown.
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The wall’s defenders had been scrambling before, loading their catapults and repeating crossbows. Archers in ambersteel armour scrambled up onto the ramparts and drew their bows back.
But they’d been expecting a bird flying at a normal speed. Not Pirin and Gray.
Pirin and Gray shot overhead, passing the curtain wall while the first volley of arrows flew harmlessly into the sky behind him. They had about a half hour before the ground forces advanced on the city, and a quarter hour until the barges entered the heavy artillery’s range. They couldn’t waste any time.
“That flak castle!” Pirin called, pointing at the nearest keep beyond the walls.
That’s our target? Gray asked.
“Yep! Ready to dive?”
If they stayed high, most of their enemy’s projectiles would fall short, dulled by gravity, but they couldn’t do any damage.
Gray swooped down, tucking her wings and straightening her tail feathers. Pirin leaned down in the saddle. He brought his center of balance closer, and he ordered the wind to rush around them, turning them into an aerodynamic dart.
The rooftops of Vel Aerdeil rapidly approached. “Hold!” Pirin hissed. “Hold!”
The curtain wall blocked the edges of his vision; the city filled it entirely. When he could make out the individual shingles on a roof, he pushed up with a burst of wind and called, “Now, Gray!”
She unfolded her wings and thrust herself forward, pushing against the bed of wind Pirin created. The abrupt turn put pressure on Pirin’s head and chest, and blood flowed out of his mind.Black sparks fluttered before his eyes. He clenched his teeth and resisted. Without his enhanced body, he wouldn’t have stayed conscious.
Then he and Gray blasted over the rooftops. They flew in a perfectly straight line toward the nearest castle, now seemingly towering above the city. The tower’s crew tried to turn their weapons on Pirin and Gray, but they were meant to shoot up into the sky, not below their battlements.
Archers fired arrows and bolts down at him, and he swerved side to side. He sensed the ripples they created in the air before they hit, and he instructed Gray accordingly. The arrows smashed into the city before. Heavy bolts ripped through walls and shattered timbers, and Pirin winced. At this angle, there would be collateral damage.
When they approached the tower, Pirin stood up in Gray’s saddle and unhooked his boots from the stirrups. He pulled off his mask and activated the Fracturenet, then sprang up and landed at the top of the tower in a crouch.
The castle’s operators were mostly Dominion soldiers—ostals and men, recruits from across the sea. Nothing more than an occupying force. A few Aerdian servants and squires ran about, delivering packets of gravel or quivers and magazines of arrows, and even fewer Aerdian soldiers.
Pirin sprinted a lap around the outside of the tower, striking the catapults and cutting down any archers who tried to stay at their post. He only avoided the largest ballista turret in the center, taking great care to not hit it with a technique, and only to deal with its crew. He moved in what would seem to them to be a blur of blue, flashing around the top of the tower and destroying its upper platform’s weapons with Shattered Palms—or simply striking them.
Guards approached from all directions, and he transitioned back to his wind abilities to push swathes of foes away. They had a chance to flee, and many did—especially the Aerdians—but a few charged him with short swords and spears. Maybe they thought they’d get lucky and strike down a wizard.
He drew the shattered, broken hilt of his sword and used the stub of the blade to deflect and parry incoming swipes, then concentrated bursts of wind to knock his opponents unconscious or fling them over the edge of the tower.
When he’d emptied the upper level of the tower, Gray circled back around and fluttered down beside him. She tucked her wings up and hopped to the center of the tower. How are we going to destroy it? That used up a lot of Essence, and you keep this up, we won’t have enough to clear out the other towers. They’ll shred your lesser birds before they can even drop a single bomb on the wall.
Pirin grimaced, then ran to the center of the tower. “I have an idea.” He jumped onto the rotating wooden platform that bore the largest, purposely untouched ballista turret.
Ohhh, this is gonna be fun, Gray whispered. Explosions.
“Can you lend me a hand?” Pirin asked. “Or…a beak.” He pointed at a crank at the edge of the platform. “I’ll load it and charge it if you spin it.”
“On it!” Gray exclaimed. She gripped the crank with her beak and twisted, shifting the platform and angling the ballista toward the nearest flak castle.
While she spun the ballista, Pirin hoisted up a heavy bolt with an alchemical warhead. It was nearly ten feet long, and it slotted perfectly into the weapon’s firing groove. He attached the string to its back, then relied on his enhanced body to twist the winch, charging the ballista alone—what would otherwise have taken a crew to operate.
Once they aimed the weapon, and once Pirin had tightened the ropes until they were taught as a plank of wood, he fired the bolt. The ballista thunked, the ropes twanged, and the entire apparatus shook and wobbled. The bolt flew through the air, wavering and spinning. It arced up, but reached its peak too soon.
It was going to fall short. It was going to hit the city.
Pirin ran to the edge of the tower, conjuring the most powerful Winged Fist he could, and blasted the bolt along its course. It gave the bolt the extra push it needed.
The dark thorn impacted the castle and detonated, ripping up a swath of catapults and flinging aside legions of archers. Fires washed across the upper levels and bled down to the lower platforms.
“One castle down,” Pirin said. “Three more to go.” Then the western side of the city would have clear skies. They could wipe out the curtain wall’s artillery, and the city would be theirs.
As Pirin ran back to the central ballista turret, ready to fire another bolt, three ostal hovered up on the opposite side of the tower. They wore white cloaks and light armour made of overlapping leather sheets.
All three exerted the spiritual pressure of a Flare, and all three had enhanced bodies. Hawk Familiars perched on their shoulders, looking over the battlefield with curiosity and intelligence.
Pirin clicked his tongue. “Ah…uh, good afternoon, gentlemen. If you’d kindly allow me to—”
“This siege is over,” one wizard declared.
“Your mistake.”