RavensDagger

  Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Four - Ack-Ack

  The four pnes formed up into a line before shooting over the Beaver. As eae approached, they’d glow a little brighter, then a beam of reddish light would strike out at the Beaver.

  My ing magic didn’t seem to do anything to slow them down. Eae cut across the ded some of the balloon, darkening the wood on the deck, fraying and cutting ropes, and tearing gashes into the outermost yer of our balloon.

  Individually, the sers seemed underpowered. They were able to burn the wood and paint a bit, but it wasn’t a strong attaot when the pnes were zipping by super fast and didn’t have time to trate their attacks.

  The first four hits still did some damage though.

  “Steve, Gordon, Scallywags, priority on the balloon and the ropes!” I called. “We ’t afford to lose too much mas.”

  The crew rushed across the deck, boots thumping and equipment being pulled all over to fix things in a hurry. It didn’t look like it would take more than a dozen mio patch everything up, but that had been one volley from the four pnes, and from the hissing roar of their rocket engines, I khey were ing back around for another pass.

  “Get ready to fire back!” I said.

  I started to prepare some fireballs. They’d likely miss, being too slow and such, but I could scatter them around and maybe I’d get lucky.

  My ing magic would be a lot faster though, and I retty sure I could make those attacks seek out some of the pnes a little.

  The problem was, even if ing spells hit, I doubted they’d do much to a pne, not uhey were held together with bubblegum and trash.

  “Twoing round the front, two are ing from the rear,” Bastion said. “We should focus our fire, take them out by the numbers.”

  Bastion, Amaryllis and I rushed to the front.

  e was sitting upright on one of the figureheads, gring her little kitty heart out at the mean cry phat had dared interrupt her naptime.

  I stared out ahead. It wasn’t hard to make out the two pnes curving up and around, the two long trails of brackish smoke behind them making it hard to miss where they’d gone.

  “Amaryllis, yic’s the fastest here,” Bastion said.

  “Oh, it would be my pleasure,” Amaryllis practically purred. She pointed her dagger-wand ahead and a bit over where the lead pne was.

  I winced back as Amaryllis’ magic shot ahead with a whip-cra, a searing slice of jagged lightning f out towards the pne and crashing into it.

  The pne wobbled, then one of its wings came apart with a splintering crack a moment before it was sent spinning out of the sky.

  I felt pretty bad. The poor pilot had to be terrified.

  But then the pne broke apart, and the cry that was aboard it came to a h halt some few hundred metres down.

  “That’s one,” Amaryllis said quite smugly. She aimed at the and fired another bolt of lightning.

  It rammed into a shield, a magical barrier shaped like a gigantiowfke that hovered before the pne.

  Amaryllis squawked. “That’s cheating!”

  Bastion chuckled. “Hardly. It’s adapting intelligently.” He brought Awen’s crossbow up and sighted down the length of it. “We’ll have to see if it does anything to stop physical blows.”

  I nodded. “How do magic shields work?” I asked Amaryllis.

  “It depeirely on the shield,” Amaryllis said. “What kind of mana-aspect is used, how the shield was crafted, and a whole host of other things.”

  Bastion fired, the bolt leaping out of the bow with a heavy twang.

  We followed its arc across the sky to where it smacked against the shield and burst apart into so many splinters.

  “So much for that,” I said.

  The pne shot past, not even firing as it moved by.

  Theher two swooped around, sers trailing across the length of the Beaver’s hull.

  Wing, I looked over the edge and took in the smoking burns they’d left behind. Not enough to start a fire, but I was afraid that if they slowed down and aimed a little better, they might just light the ship on fire, and that would be terrible.

  The pnes split apart, one going right, the other left.

  Awen’s turret thumped, gss bolts zipping through the air and bursting apart behind one of the pnes.

  Amaryllis fired a bolt after the ohat had go, but the lightning sliced past the pne, f out of its way. “Damn,” she muttered.

  The shot was intercepted by a shield.

  I ran back a little, attention on the right-most phat Awen was still firing at. She had one hand turning a wheel that was makiurret traverse around while her feet worked some levers that reloaded her bows. Then she fired again, four more bolts, oer the other.

  I shaded my eyes from the sun as I traced the trajectory of her shots. “A bit more forward!” I called out. “And higher.”

  “Right!” Awen shouted back.

  She spuraverse wheel faster, even as the parted to turn back towards us.

  Her bows tilted up with a series of meical clicks, then she racked the strings back with one press of her leg and loaded fresh bolts onto the rails with a tug at a lever. “Firing!”

  Her turret wobbled back as she fired, four bolts again, oer the other. The first missed, the sed passed so close to the pne I was sure it would hit, the third punched a little hole in a wing but kept on going.

  The fourth thumped into the wooden beam holding one wing in pce.

  And then it exploded.

  The pumbled apart, wings and wood flung across the sky, the biggest k breaking and rolling past us before it exploded a sed time.

  The ball of fire rocked the Beaver a a few of us crashing onto our bums.

  I jumped bay feet, then raised both arms in a cheer. “Well done, Awen!” I said.

  “T-thank you,“ Awen said as she adjusted herself on her seat. “Where are the other two?”

  I had to look around for a bit before I could spot the final pnes. One was cirg around us, quite a ways away, a small snowfke shield h between it and us. The other was flying towards us from above, engine r and a set of four shields h around it.

  “Above!” I said.

  I started to form some fireballs, but realized I’d never have time to make a bunch of them before the pne passed, so I unched what I had, then jumped aside as a red beam sliced across the deck where I was.

  The fireballs I’d fired all went wide or spshed uselessly against the pne’s shields.

  Awen turned her turret around as quickly as it would go. “It’s too far ahead!”

  “Clive!” I shouted as I got bay feet. “Hard to starboard!”

  “Aye aye!”

  The Beaver tilted to the side as Clive threw the wheel around. Some of the tools the crew were using to cut and fix up bits of balloon tarp flew off the edge with a ctter, and I had to stumble to the rails and hang on until we evened out.

  “There!” Amaryllis screamed.

  Lightning fshed out, first one crack, then ahey rammed into the shields around the pne, making it glow and spark, but aking it down.

  “More!” Bastion called out as he levelled Awen’s bow and fired. The bolt didn’t do much to help.

  Then Awen fired. Her first two shots hit the shield, oer the other, each exploding and sending a wave of fire burning around the phe wo went a little wide, but still exploded just past the shield.

  The pne nosed up and turned, getting out of e for a moment before its shields lowered to reveal tattered wings and an ehat was on fire. Or at least, more on fire than usual.

  “We hit it?” I asked.

  “Had to be some of the shrapnel,” Amaryllis said.

  The sed pne flew around and formed up o it, both levelling off a little ways away. The path they were taking would be bringing them closer soon, if they tio turn.

  I set my feet and raised both arms, then trated. Obviously, they had some sort of magic to fire sers. I didn’t know if that was Light-aspect mana or something else, but if they could do beams of magic, there was no reason I couldn’t too!

  Ping my toween my teeth, I brought my hands together before me, w hard to shape my ing magito a long, narrow form, then I fired it.

  It wasn’t so much a beam as a sort of glowing hat darted out and pletely missed both pnes. Still, it got both of them to juke out of the way, and they both raised their shields.

  I narrowed my eyes, then g my mana.

  Mana: 124/145

  “Amaryllis! What happens when things hit a shield? Does it use up mana?”

  “It does,” she said. “It depends on the sort of shield, but most that move like that will be lio the caster, and will use their mana to mitigate damage. What are you thinking?”

  “That I should go all out,” I said. “Clive! Hold him steady!”

  The pnes both started to turn our way. Awen’s volley flew out, but all four bolts missed, flying through where they would have been had they not started to turn.

  I created another nce of ing magic, then ahen another, eae liogether by a thin fiment of magic. They thrummed and hummed, glowing bars that were filled with gently swirling magic.

  I made three, then five, then seven, then ten. Soured down my forehead and into my eyes as I reached twelve.

  Mana: 4/145

  That would have to do!

  I fired all of them at once, each imbued with my desire to wash away the enemy’s shields. They darted through the air, a dozen ets that glowed bright enough thten the midday sky.

  The pried to dodge, but I reached out and twisted and the rods of ing goodness veered around and smashed into their hastily raised shields.

  I was hoping for a big explosion, or at least some sort of loud noise, but all I got were big, bun-sized holes torn into and through the shields.

  Then the shields cracked and burst apart, like gss being smashed by a wayward baseball.

  “F-fire!” I called out.

  I stumbled a bit, suddenly really tired, as if I’d just broken a fever, or run for a long time.

  Awen fired another volley, with Amaryllis and Bastion joining in.

  The purned, both of them diving down and around so that they were rag away from the Beaver even as Clive brought us around so that we were still fag them from the side.

  “Are you okay?” Amaryllis asked as she came closer. She pced the bit of her hand that wasn’t all talons on my forehead. “How much mana did you just use?”

  “All of it?”

  “You... moron,” she said. “Uandable, but moronie on, sit down for a bit. You don’t need a fainting spell while we’re doing maneuvers.”

  “I have a bit left,” I said. “Four points!”

  “That’s not the problem! You don’t usually do big spells like that, it’s taxing. Stressful. I... really should sit you down a an education into that stubborn head of yours.”

  “But the pnes?”

  “They’re running,” she said.

  I blinked and gnced over to see that she was right: both pnes were rushing off, dark smoke trailing after them. “Oh,” I said. “We won!”

  “Yes, now we o deal with the damage and hope it wasn’t too bad,” Amaryllis said. “And now you o expin the reason for all this trouble.”

  ***

  RavensDagger

  Are You Eained?

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