The starry sky above was clear, the darkness below was unbroken, and between the two the horizon was predatory, jagged. Felix twisted his body to catch a glimpse of the armies camped around the Teeth of the Red Dragon. They appeared as gold-orange rings of light around the two coppery bases. That light would provide a useful point of reference, an anchor in the darkness. To either side, dozens of glowing crimson trails ascended into the night like inverted comets.
Felix pointed his own nose at the sky and was pressed back into his seat. The whirring propeller darkened the stars. The engine was a dull roar, the sound mostly abated by wind sorcery within the glass canopy. However that sound was still present, and comforting. The whole aircraft was rocked and buffeted by imperfections in the air as Felix ascended. The wings oscillated and contorted, one of the many flaws in the design that they never had time to fix.
However, the most concerning problem was the airspeed indicator. It was just a ball in a tube that used incoming air to indicate speed relative to incoming air. It was only really accurate when perfectly horizontal, and as the craft ascended vertically, the ball rolled around in the tube meaninglessly, sometimes moving below the stall speed, and sometimes moving above the never-exceed speed. In a sharp descent, the stall speed indicator was slightly inaccurate, a problem that Neasa had theorized and that Felix had demonstrated.
Felix twisted the entire craft around and began to ascend at an angle parallel to the camped armies. Climbing took a long time, but the craft was fast and the engine was strong. Dark shapes began to appear, small ovals and bird-like shapes silhouetted against the rings of light. The invasion had begun. One by one, the dozens of crimson flames in the sky dimmed and then vanished. Soon half of the trails were gone, while the other half leveled off in logarithmic curves.
No sense in waiting, Felix thought.
He pushed down on the stick until the horizon rose into the center of the propeller disk. Then, he closed his connections to the Realms. The crimson streams of flame pouring over the heat-shielded wings dimmed and then vanished. The interior of the cabin was consumed, not only by total darkness, but also by an uncomfortable silence. Felix could still hear the windmilling propeller, but it was not loud enough to drown out the subtle gusts of wind that buffeted the canopy.
Although he could not see the airspeed indicator, he knew it was going to begin to drop after the craft lost power. He pushed full forward on the stick, used the rudder to bring the camped armies into view, and held those rings of light steady in the center of the propeller disk. There were flashes of blue light down below as the enemy drakes assaulted the armies with draconic breath. While it had felt horribly slow to ascend, the dive-like maneuver felt much faster.
Soon Felix was close enough then to see the shapes of the blue drakes clearly. Their shining azure scales reflected the light of the camped armies. Their blue flames were first answered by eight thin trails of crimson, and again by four long plumes as the Paladins attacked. The red draconic flames struck the unsuspecting shapeshifters from the side, ripping their wings off or severing the necks. Four Paladins attacked, and four different drakes sembled into their human forms and plummeted into the hungry spears of the soldiers below. But still the airplanes rushed ahead at full power, blasting more plumes of crimson fire into the enemy drakes.
Felix saw this play out as he descended. Finally, he was close enough to the Teeth to start his engine again. He reached out and connected to the three Realms, combined them, and fostered the draconic flames within his engine. Red light filled the cabin as flames erupted from the exhaust, and Felix could once again read the position of the ball inside the airspeed indicator. He was flying faster than the perfect conditions limit, but below the never-exceed speed.
The four Paladins cut a scourge through the enemy drakes, but a second wave was pouring over the escarpment. Felix picked one and brought it into the center of his propeller disk. First he focused on his connection to the Realm of Wind, and expanded the wind barrier into a long cone. Then, he attacked. Draconic breath lanced out into this target, severing both wings. The enemy drake was moving somewhat fast, so flew forward as it sembled. At that high speed, Felix saw burning bodies flying away from the drake as it sembled. Human bodies.
He put it out of his mind immediately. He had a job to do, and he was about to enter into the most dangerous phase of that job. Ahead, the four Draconic Paladins had finished their attack and they were busy ascending once again. The twin streams of crimson exhaust gave them away. If any drakes had survived, they would know to give chase, and it would take a long time before they were at a safe altitude to cut the engine once again. Even if they managed to avoid being seen, Felix feared that the enhanced hearing provided by shapeshifting would allow the enemy drakes to hear the windmilling propeller.
Felix looked straight up into the sky. The only light was that of the stars. The next wave of Paladins had cut their engines already, so at that moment they would be descending for their attack.
More drakes rushed by, and Felix scored more kills with his draconic flames. Between himself and the other Paladins, at least ten drakes had already been killed, but twice again that number were clawing their way over the edge of the cliffs. Dozens of airships were also slowly descending to the forest floor to drop their payload of soldiers. Felix quickly estimated that the total number of drakes was much, much higher than they originally observed.
"It's going to be a long battle after all," he muttered.
He reached the threshold of darkness, where the light of the camped armies was replaced by the dark carpet of the forest. Astrid's purple spire would be somewhere up ahead. Felix pointed the nose at the sky and began to ascend, but his eyes were behind him, scanning for the slight flash of his engine exhaust, which he hoped would reflect off the shining scales of any pursuers. However, ahead and behind, the sky appeared to be empty.
----------------------------------------
With an ear-shattering scream, a squadron of four airplanes streaked overhead, incinerating the blue drakes just above the battlefield. Burning corpses rained down. A fifth craft followed not long after, and Shane recognized the markings on the side. Felix pitched up and began to ascend into the sky, following the first squadron.
The Heritage Militia soldiers in the field eyed Shane uneasily. He recognized a few of them from his time in Needlewood, so they must have known he was not an enemy. Either way, a barrier of wind magic protected him from incoming crossbow bolts. If any of the soldiers had shot at him, he could not tell. He floated between two trees near the edge of the battlefield, but it was too dark to see much of anything.
A drake managed to float over the escarpment onto the battlefield and settled on the ground. Wind mages riding on the drake's back put up barriers, negating the crossbows that assailed them. Dozens of other people were chained to the sides of the blue beast. They were all completely naked, and Shane realized with horror that the fires of the battlefield reflected off of red hair.
The chains fell away, and the naked people fell onto the mud and grass, tumbling upon each other in a pile of human flesh. Then they began to stand and lurch forward. Men and women both, completely nude, with bodies that glistened with red scales in places, sickly thin limbs, bellies that were swollen with starvation, and perhaps worst of all they had no hands. Their hands had been chopped off, and long metal claws had been attached to the stumps, held in place by long metal spikes that had been rammed through the flesh. Many of them were still bleeding from these wounds.
"FOOD!" They screamed in the Quarian language. Shane felt a shiver down his spine. The same cry, over and over again. "FOOD! FOOD!"
Without any fear or hesitation, they charged the Heritage Militia soldiers. A few unfortunate soldiers on the front line hesitated and were ripped to shreds. The naked people began to greedily hack away at the screaming soldiers, greedily devouring chunks of human flesh that became caught between the claws. They paid no mind to the fact that the claws sometimes pierced their own cheeks, ravaged their own teeth and gums.
Shane saw all of this, frozen in astonishment. But his perspective allowed him time to observe and comprehend what was happening. This time was not afforded to the militiamen, who began to panic and pull back into a line. Shane amplified his voice so that everyone on the battleground could hear: "They are no longer your kin!" he bellowed. "Fight them or be devoured! Fight or be eaten!"
He rushed forward, storm sorcery crackling as he flew. He blasted a long swath of lightning across dozens of the Quarian cannibals, transforming their pale naked flesh into black char, glowing orange from within. They screamed, but even as they screamed with pain their hunger animated them. Many of them stood back up, and began to devour the smoking wreckage of their own bodies. The Heritage Militia managed to restore order as commanders on horses charged forward, holding their sabers in front of them, commanding their soldiers to charge.
Wind magic lanced out from the mages riding on the drake. Shane felt the connections, however, and he simply deflected the magic with his barrier. He rewarded those mages with a cone of lightning that struck the drake in the chest and the wings, causing to writhe back in pain. The drake crushed both riders under its bulk as it squirmed on the ground, leaving long blood-blue smears in the dim light of the soldier's flames.
Below Shane, a naked woman was screaming "FOOD! PLEASE FOOD!", her shrill voice blocking out everything else. Both her legs had been slashed apart by sabers, and finally a soldier crushed her skull with his boot, ending her misery. In front of Shane, soldiers skirted up against the escarpment. The bright oval shape of an airship drifted just off the edge. The interior of the airship was packed with more naked bodies.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
More drakes flew overhead, ignoring the soldiers near the edge of the cliff, carrying their payloads deeper into the camped armies. Crimson lights flashed overhead, as a second squadron of four airplanes rushed by with a deafening scream. Several drakes exploded in blue gore, and more burning bodies rained down into the forest, out of sight. From his vantage just above the tops of the trees, Shane could see the other squadrons spewing red pillars of fire in the distance.
Powerful sorcery protected each airship. Shane could feel the storm sorcerers and wind mages that protected the craft from magical attacks. A ramp deployed from the front. A hundred naked bodies poured out, clawing mindlessly forward into the militiamen. Hiding within the surge of bodies, Shane saw a single Quarian man dressed in the white uniform of the Heritage Militia. This man began to attack the starving hordes, and then slipped, unseen, into the ranks of the other militiamen. Finally, a wave of Rilnese soldiers departed the craft. They had that sharpness and grace common to professional soldiers, they wore fur armor and they were armed with pikes and crossbows.
Shane followed the infiltrator as he made his way through the Heritage Militia soldiers toward the commanders in the back. Amplifying his own voice, he cried out to the soldiers below. "Stop that man!" He shot a bolt of lightning at the man's feet, knocking him to the ground. "He is one of them! Stop him!"
Remarkably, the militiamen nearby seized the man and hoisted him to his feet. Shane drifted down with his storm sorcery. He recognized the man, another anonymous face from the streets of Needlewood. He was a civilian, not part of the Heritage Militia, and this fact must not have been lost on the soldiers nearby.
"What did they do to make you betray your own kin?" one soldier asked. He slapped the infiltrator, splitting the man's cheek and causing his nose to gush blood down over his mustache.
"For my sisters!" the man cried. He managed to free one arm, which held a small dagger, and with one mad stroke the man sliced his own throat. His skin darkened, and then a shadowy mist began to emanate from his body.
"Flee!" Shane bellowed across the battlefield. "Stay away from the shadows!"
The soldiers hesitated and then sagely followed this advice. The shadows began to coalesce into a pair of wolves, one black, and one white, huge ethereal things with sharp fangs and eyes of the opposing color. Frozen at first, they quickly became animated, darting around the battlefield, snapping their huge jaws down on soldier's heads, leaving behind unmarred but lifeless, twitching bodies.
Do not let those things touch you, Astrid warned in his mind. Their mother must be nearby. Protect yourself, and protect Felix if you can. I must flee this Plane for a little while. I will return when she has left.
The battlefield turned to pure chaos. The Heritage Militia soldiers were being routed, run through with pikes, shot full of crossbow bolts, or devoured by the shadowy wolf creatures. The starving cannibals feasted upon the fallen. Lightning lanced out from the airship at Shane, though he deflected it easily with his own storm sorcery. The brief flash of light from the exchange illuminated the sky beyond the escarpment, revealing more airships and drakes.
"It is a shame, really," a feminine voice said from behind Shane. He was floating just above the ground, but the woman standing behind him was so tall that her head was above his own. Her long white dress fluttered in the cold breeze that flowed over the escarpment, as did her long raven-black hair. Half her face was hidden behind the skull of a horned beast, fashioned into a mask. A single gold-red eye pierced his soul.
Shane was completely frozen in fear. Thankfully, the sorcerers seemed to have lost interest in attacking him, however the butchery continued unabated all around. The Heritage Militia was trying to push back, and their efforts were rewarded with overwhelming losses.
The two wolf creatures trotted up to the pale woman. She reached out with both hands and caressed each wolf behind the ear. Their inverse-color tongues rolled out in a happy pant. The pale woman spoke once more: "The Blue Dragon really is quite clever, you know. Normally, I would enjoy such a slaughter, but watching animals kill each other is something only the Queen of Life enjoys. It took me a long time to uplift your kind, it is such a shame that this continent is lost to me now." She sighed. "Tell your Purple Dragon friend that I will be watching."
She vanished in a puff of black smoke, but her many shadows lingered on the ground, slowly fading over time. The sound of aircraft screaming overhead shook Shane from his stupor. He saw enemies all around him, pushing up against the Heritage Militia. He reached out into his Realms and drew more power than he ever had before. Then, he attacked.
----------------------------------------
Huge cones of lightning blast out from the battlefield near the edge of the cliffs as Felix raced overhead. He could only assume it was Shane, though the battlefield appeared to be total chaos. He was certain that he saw completely-naked, red-haired Quarian people attacking the Heritage Militia thugs.
Those must be the people that the government abandoned in Needlewood, Felix realized. Something had caused them to turn traitor. "No time to dwell on it," he hissed through his teeth. He needed to stay focused on his flight. The flashes of blue lightning reflected off blue scales, revealing many more drakes over the side of the cliff. Felix craned around to follow them with his vision. One of them began to ascend behind Felix. It carried no bodies on its back. Lean and strong, Felix instantly recognized the signs of a skilled and experienced Draconic Paladin.
He punched the throttle fully open. The red light of his engine exhaust gave dim reflections off the blue scales of the drake in pursuit. Felix quickly realized that even with his engine he would not be able to use the vertical and get out of range in time before the drake attacked. He instantly rolled and pointed the nose down, hoping to pick up speed and transition into a head-to-tail circle. The silhouette of the drake, black against the orange flames in the forest, began to follow.
What would I do, if I was that fellow? Felix thought. The enemy Paladin could see Felix clearly because of the contrast between the crimson trails and the night sky. If the roles were switched, Felix would wait until shrouded in darkness, where there was little risk of being spotted. Then, he would cheat, breaking his momentum in the circle by flapping his wings violently and reversing directions, turning the head-to-tail circle into a surprise head-to-head circle. But Felix would not risk being spotted by breathing fire, instead he would rip the wings off the airplane with his claws, in total darkness. The best time to reverse the circle would be... when he was out over the escarpment.
This entire sequence of events played out in his mind almost instantly because of his years of experience fighting against enemy drakes. How he would respond to this situation came more slowly, because he did not have the same years of experience. Felix did what felt right. He continued his circle, staying slightly out of the enemy cone, until he passed over the battlefield once again. At that moment, the enemy drake should be out beyond the edge of the cliff, in the darkness. He yanked back violently on the stick while pressing slightly on the rudder opposite to his current roll. He continued pulling back on the stick until the propeller disk darkened the stars straight above. The aircraft rattled and twisted as it fought against gravity.
Felix glanced out at where the other Draconic Paladins had been flying. Two of them were still ascending, receding far away into the night sky. The other two, however, were completely missing. Blasts of azure flame chased after Felix, but at a safe distance. His gambit worked, and the enemy drake would have needed to flap his wings frantically in order to correct for the airspeed he lost trying to reverse the circle. Felix used the rudder as he ascended vertically, twisting and dodging, providing a difficult target to strike. A sudden red light filled the sky as red draconic flame blasted a pillar across the sky overhead. This light was enough to illuminate the blue drake, as well as the dark aircraft pointing straight at it in a near nose dive. A second plume of flames lanced out, incinerating the drake's chest and extinguishing the blue fire in his throat.
Red flames appeared from where the airplane had been heading, revealing the Paladin that had turned back and saved Felix. But then Felix saw, with a tinge of horror, that the very light of those engines reflected off the scales of more drakes below. Instinctively, Felix pulled hard on the stick again, pulling the nose into a loop overhead. He brought the drakes into his propeller disk as a second blast of flame illuminated them from far overhead. One of the Paladins was simply using fire to create light at a safe altitude. The light was just enough. Felix cast draconic breath at the two drakes as they scrambled after the retreating airplane. The first one lost his head, while the second lost a wing and plummeted into the darkness.
The two airplanes formed up and began to ascend once again, chasing the rest of their squadron. Felix began to follow, flying back over the forest at an angle upward, glancing around in every direction for the blue reflection of drake scales. He did not see anything until a flash of lightning on the ground reflected off the hidden drake that was chasing him.
Felix violently rolled out of the way just as a plume of azure flame lanced forward exactly where he had been. Now he was descending again, and the drake was immediately behind him. A massive flash of lightning from the ground arced up into the drake, incinerating his tail and causing him to pitch up violently. With one final brave attack, the blue drake breathed out. The flames caught Felix on one wing, causing it to rip away in an explosion of ash and burning splinters. The aircraft immediately began to spin, falling out of the sky. Felix listed to one side, desperately trying to prevent his head from smashing into the glass canopy as he tumbled out of the sky.
He was high above the forest, but falling fast. The coppery light of the camped armies overhead periodically as he fell, but then the airplane must have inverted because even this light was lost. Felix did not know how high he was, and the forest below was shrouded in absolute darkness. His only thought was to escape the cabin. Maybe, he reasoned, he could grab onto a tree as he fell, maybe break both his arms but survive to fight another day. Unlikely, he thought, but I need to try. I need to do something, anything!
Lightning struck his craft, and it exploded. Cold wind blasted his face as the canopy, the walls of the cabin, the wings, the tail boom, everything exploded out and away from him in a perfect orb of lightning centered just around his body. Lightning crackled all around him, and he felt the unmistakable feeling of an upward acceleration, slow and deliberate but not unwelcome. Shane, glowing blue and green and white, floated just below, gently carrying Felix down toward the treetops.
"I caught you!" Shane said.
Felix suddenly began to appreciate the skill required to destroy an airplane without harming the pilot and then catch that pilot.
"You," Felix rasped, coughing in the cold air. "You have my thanks sir."
Shane gently lowered them both through the forest and rested them onto the dark forest floor. The flames of the battle nearby just barely penetrated into the woods. Those flames appeared to flicker stars. All around was mostly dark, except for the glow of Shane's storm sorcery.
"What are you going to do now?" Shane asked. "Will you help with the battle?"
"No, take me back to the runway. I need to go back up."
"Your airplane was just destroyed!"
"There is one more, in storage."
"That's just a prototype, it doesn't even have a windshield!"
"It flies," Felix replied, "and that's all that matters tonight."