Their group wasn’t the only one laying down cover fire. Honovi watched as the truck transporting the armored crawler slowed down. The soldier sitting in the protected seat threw the machine into reverse as soon as the truck’s ramp folded down. Honovi slowed their own speed to stay behind the armored crawler as it got into position.
The solid steel plates of the armored crawler’s continuous track ate up ground as it rumbled toward the damaged gate. Caoimhe’s bomb had definitely eradicated the gate itself and a large section of the wall, but some rubble remained. The armored crawler’s U-shaped blade—partially lifted while it got into position—was maneuvered down once it reached the road and was within range of debris.
Sparks skittered up from the edge of the blade as it ran over the asphalt before coming across the first chunk of debris. The rubble was gathered against the blade as the armored crawler drove forward, clearing a path into the city.
“Steady on,” Ksenia said.
The reverberating roar of velocycle engines erupted in the air as nearly two dozen wardens came riding from the north and south out of the dark. The wardens astride their two-wheeled vehicles fell in around their group as they entered Foxborough behind the armored crawler. One pulled up right alongside their racing carriage, the rider’s head turned toward Ksenia. “We’ve kept watch on the city gates. No one has left Foxborough since we blew the rail stations and airfield.”
Which meant Blaine was hopefully still somewhere in Foxborough.
“Follow us,” Ksenia ordered, raising her voice to be heard over the thunder of engines. “We’re pushing deeper into the city.”
The wardens weaved into a different formation, allowing the two racing carriages to pull ahead while the troops stayed behind to secure the area. The cobblestone street made Honovi’s teeth clack together as they put distance between their group and the city gate. He pressed his foot down harder on the gas pedal. “Where to?”
Ksenia gripped the leather cord the clarion crystal hung from, dangling the shard over neatly drawn lines depicting Foxborough on paper. Honovi kept his eyes on the road, but when Ksenia said, “Turn left,” he obeyed without question.
The outer section of any city tended to house poorer citizens. It was the least safe area in the event revenants somehow got past the outer wall. The air raid sirens and the attack on the wall seemed to have been warning enough for everyone to stay inside their homes. Honovi didn’t see anyone on the streets they drove down.
According to the map, Foxborough had four inner-city walls, delineating the city’s expansions over the centuries. They didn’t come across anyone until they reached the tunnel through the inner wall leading to the next area of the city. Honovi expected the gates there to be closed, that they’d have to fight their way through to the other side. As they approached, he saw the gates to the tunnel were open, with bodies lying scattered on the street. If Honovi had to guess, he’d say the Clockwork Brigade had cleared the way.
Lore’s racing carriage took the lead, and Honovi moved into position behind them. The wardens smoothly drew in close, riding two abreast through the short tunnel until they reached the other side of the inner wall. The moment they exited the tunnel, Lore started shooting. The warden driving her racing carriage turned suddenly, and the vehicle skidded across the intersection at an angle, providing Lore with a better shot.
The reason for the defensive shooting scuttled down the street. Two spiderlike automatons exploded after taking bullets from the Zip gun. Then Lore’s driver spun the wheel to reorient their vehicle. She stopped shooting so several velocycles could drive past, weaving in and out as wardens went to dispatch the threat.
“Keep driving,” Ksenia said.
“Which way?” Honovi snapped, turning the wheel quickly with both hands to steer around Lore’s vehicle.
Ksenia pointed right, toward a well-lit street whose buildings were all locked up tight, windows shuttered. “We need to get farther into the city. The map is showing Blaine’s location within the second city ring.”
“Once we have Blaine, I’ll send a flare into the sky to mark our position. We’re too deep to try to drive back out. Caoimhe will be on the lookout for it.”
“She risks being shot down by any remaining anti-airship guns.”
Honovi bared his teeth, engine thrumming as he picked up speed again. “Not if the anti-airship guns are taken out first.”
Any city’s major defense was almost always consolidated on the outer wall in deference to the threat of revenants. Ashion was the only country to have suffered a civil war, and its major cities still had defenses built into their walls from that time period. The airships would target the anti-airship guns first. Until those were taken out, flying low was a risk, but he knew it would be one Caoimhe would take.
He also knew E’ridia’s war airships were very, very good at hitting their targets.
Five blocks later, an explosion echoed in the air. From their position on the ground, weaving through streets, Honovi couldn’t see where the bomb had been dropped, but he knew his people had taken out yet another anti-airship stand. If Caoimhe’s luck held, the airships wouldn’t need to target any other part of the city.
Honovi’s luck didn’t.
A pair of wardens were ahead of them and had crossed an intersection when gunfire sounded, and one of the wardens went down, velocycle skidding out from under them. Honovi swerved so as to not hit them while Lore’s racing carriage braked to a halt so she could fire down the street at the peacekeepers who’d finally shown up.
Another warden drove to their fallen brethren and stopped only long enough to haul the downed warden onto the back of their own velocycle and get out of the line of fire. They didn’t retreat the way they’d come, though, and the warden who’d had their velocycle shot out from beneath them seemed conscious enough. When Honovi pulled up alongside them on the other side of the intersection, he could see the man bleeding from a gunshot wound in his calf, boot a mangled mess.
“Tie it off and keep riding,” Ksenia said.
Neither warden protested the order. Honovi hit the gas pedal again and drove forward, the wardens again taking up position around them. Less than a minute later, Lore’s modified racing carriage came roaring up beside theirs in the street. When Honovi glanced over at her, she looked washed out in the gas lamp light but still grimly determined and having not let go of the Zip gun.
The deeper they drove into Foxborough, the more detours they had to take after that first attempted pushback. The peacekeepers were coming out in force, as were Daijalan soldiers. The city wasn’t under any formal occupation order, and no street barricades had yet been erected throughout the city to stall incoming forces. The velocycles and racing carriages Honovi’s group drove could outrun the motor carriages used by peacekeepers.
They couldn’t outrun an entrapment spell.
They were past another inner wall, barreling down a twisting sort of street, when Lore’s racing carriage turned the corner and what looked like lightning crackled through the air, crawling all over the vehicle. Honovi slammed his foot on the brake pedal, the safety belt digging into his shoulder, but they’d been going too fast to stop in time.
