Five
BLAINE
Lore hunched her shoulders, trying to make herself small in the tight quarters of the flight deck, holding the airship’s radio receiver in one hand. “Air traffic control is rescinding our landing orders. We’re not to land while the horde of revenants is in the vicinity of the airfield. Even the automatons aren’t allowed to shoot.”
Blaine watched Honovi yank on a lever before glancing at the pressure gauge for the ballonets as the auxiliary blowers reversed themselves. The airship juddered through its entire frame at the sudden change in pressure, dropping quickly enough that Blaine needed to brace himself against the metal wall by the engine readouts. The swooping sensation in his stomach faded in moments as they leveled out, flying lower despite the order they’d been given.
“What do youmeanthe automatons can’t shoot the damn things? Isn’t that what your town’s defenses are for?” Honovi growled.
Lore glared at him. “That horde is too close to the airfield. The town’s defense team can’t direct the automatons to shoot into a space filled with gaseous balloons and engines liable to explode. They risk causing an explosion and destroying property. I would think you, of all people, would recognize the precaution for what it was.”
Honovi’s lips curled. “That just means their automatons and wall crews have terrible aim. Blaine? We’ll need to clear the way so the wall defenses have room to shoot.”
“Deck master told me there’s about thirty of the damned things near the outlier piers and moving toward the wall. Everyone in the airfield seems to be holed up in hangars. I don’t know if anyone’s been hurt by the revenants,” Blaine said.
If they were, they’d be left outside the wall and given either a pistol or a potion to ease their way into death. The only people who could survive a revenant’s bite were wardens, and even then, it was dangerous. Although any bite from an undead bison would lend itself toward loss of limb first, followed by a quick, painfully bloody death.
“We’ve picked off worse numbers in tighter space while flying through the Eastern Spine.” Honovi glanced over at Lore. “Have any wardens been called?”
“I’ll ask.” She returned her attention to the radio, handling their contact on the ground. Typically, a crew member would be the one on communications duty, but this was Lore’s bloodline’s territory. If anyone could override local law and get them clearance to land in the midst of a revenant attack, it would be her.
Blaine went to stand beside Honovi, peering out the front viewport. Listening to his husband bark out orders was soothing in a way, despite the situation. It’d been years since they’d worked together like this, but old habits came back easily enough.
“Thirty bison revenants is more than is typically found together,” Blaine said, pitching his voice low. The hum of the engines belowdecks helped hide his words. “I’d expect one, maybe even a handful of revenants like this, but not a horde. That’s not natural.”
Animals died, like everything else on Maricol. That didn’t mean every corpse would become a revenant. The wardens had cleansed much of the land over the centuries, with the borders of the poison fields ever changing. Spores drifted, that was inevitable, but this was outside what anyone could expect since the civil war that cleaved Ashion into two countries.
“Nothing about the dead rising has ever been natural.” Honovi flicked a couple of toggles, his attention dancing from the control panel to the sky outside where they stood. “You think it’s the death-defying machine?”
“There’s been more revenant sightings and incursions the last couple of years in Ashion than the decade prior. I’d wager yes before I’d wager no.”
“Fantastic.”
“The town is hosting only half a dozen wardens at this moment. They’re on the way to the walls, but we’re closer,” Lore finally reported. “I’ve been told the wardens are restricted from using heavy ordnances because of the revenants’ location.”
Blaine returned to his station to check the engine gauges, finding them all within typical range. “Tell them if they do, to steer clear of our field of fire.”
Lore bit her lip, too well-bred to fidget, but the tell was atypical of her. “Shouldn’t you leave the revenants to the wardens? We can’t risk getting close to a horde like that.”
“What makes you think we’re leaving the airship to deal with them?” Blaine waved a hand at her. “I left Caris in the crew cabin. Go keep her company so she doesn’t fling herself into the fray like she did during the train raid.”
Lore scowled at him but didn’t argue his order. She’d tried in the beginning during those first few hours on the airship after they’d fled Amari. Eventually, Lore came to understand that while it might still be Ashion skies, she had no claim to the airship and its crew. She’d held her tongue when it came to orders since then. Now, she slipped out of the flight deck with nary a retort, hopefully off to find Caris and keep her from using starfire.
“We’ll need to draw them away from the airfield. The engines will hold if you want the crew to play bait,” Blaine said.
Honovi moved another lever up a notch before getting his hands back on the wheel. “Tell the crew we need four volunteers to strap themselves into harnesses. We’re low enough without needing to worry about wind shear that I’d—”
“You won’t.” Blaine jerked his head around to glare at his husband. “Youwill keep your feet on the deck.”
The thought of Honovi strapping into a harness to rappel over the side of the airship to hunt revenants from the air with a still healing wound in his side was enough to make Blaine want to lock him belowdecks.
Honovi tipped his head in Blaine’s direction. “I’ll bring us about. We’ll spear one of the revenants to get the attention of the rest and get them focused on our lures.”
They’d learned in the Eastern Spine, with the beasts who called the peaks and valleys home, how to kill from a distance. Even revenants couldn’t rise again if they were in so many pieces. If they could draw the horde away from the airfield, they could let off the Zip gun with little risk of damage to people or property and leave the rest to the wardens.
But first, they needed to get low enough to do so.
This airship wasn’t theSkyborne, but theKatabaticwas more than capable of their needs. Built along specifications for E’ridia’s air force rather than a commercial airship, it excelled in speed and maneuverability. It was why Honovi had chosen it for their escape out of Amari, prescient in a way Blaine was thankful for.
