Page 76

The fall breeze was chilly as it swept along the battlelines, carrying with it the smell of gunpowder, churned earth, and the green, earthy scent of the ripening pumpkins in the field behind them. At least any dead bodies were far enough behind them that they weren’t subjected to the stench.

Her padded leather and armor itched from her drying sweat, even if the leather kept her from growing too cold in the descending chill of the night. While the fighting leathers were designed for easy movement, they still poked and prodded in uncomfortable places when she crouched like this. Hopefully the bunker would be ready soon, and she could take off at least the outer layer for sleep.

A faint blue glow lit the ground immediately around where she, Dacha, and their guards were camped. Yes, it would show their location to any enemy scout airship or aeroplane. But all a scout would have to do would be to drop a bomb, and her and Dacha’s reaction would give away their position anyway. Keeping their bunker safe from sneak attacks was more important.

Besides, the Half-Breed Squadron was still well within striking range if Mongavaria’s aeroplanes made an appearance. A cordon of Alliance airships drifted along the front lines, keeping watch for an attack from the air.

Funny how things had changed. Aeroplanes were originally thought to be only good for scouting and the airships were the ones to conduct the battles. But the war had proven the worth of the aeroplanes, and it was now the airship relegated to a scouting platform.

Or so she’d heard. She’d been stuck in Estyra for the large airship battles, merely hearing about them from Merrik or the newspapers.

At least for tonight, the guns were quiet. The Mongavarians didn’t seem to have moved up more guns after Adry, Dacha, and the Half-Breed Squadron had destroyed so many that day. And the Alliance advance had gone so well that they had outdistanced the range of their own railcar-mounted artillery guns and outpaced their own supply lines by a few miles. The engineer teams would be hard at work during the night, repairing or building railroads so that the big guns and other equipment could be moved up by morning.

Uncle Iyrinder crouched beside her, placing his mess kit tin on a free spot on the logs. “You did well today.”

“Linshi.” She gave the dubious food one last poke with her spoon. More cooking wouldn’t make this taste any better. She withdrew the tin from the fire. “It was nice to have Merrik in the skies overhead.”

“Yes.” Uncle Iyrinder gave her a smile that was edged more with a tight, fatherly worry than anything else.

Merrik. Her heart ached. How she missed him already. He might have been flying over her head that day, but she wouldn’t actually see him again until she returned to their allotted townhouse in the forward headquarters base.

She gave Uncle Iyrinder a smile in return before she stood and crossed the small space to sit next to her dacha on a large stone spread with a tarpaulin from a bedroll. She held up her steaming tin of food. “Please tell me this tastes better than it looks.”

“It does not.” Dacha grimaced and stirred the questionable food in his tin with his spoon. Based on how full the plate was, he hadn’t managed to eat much of it. “Eat it warm. It does not improve when cold.”

Adry scooped a large spoonful and blew on it. “It probably does not change the texture to reheat it.”

Dacha’s nose wrinkled even more, and he poked at the suspect substance on his mess kit’s pan-plate. It had cooled to the point that it was more gelatinous than gloppy. “It likely does not.”

Adry popped the bite into her mouth, trying to chew and swallow before the taste could fully register. The chalky, bland-and-yet-too-salty taste coated her tongue anyway. Some basic spices or even some beans would have done the meat a world of good.

But for tonight, they had to make do with whatever supplies could be hauled by truck or mule to their location, and all they had been given was a crate of mystery meat masquerading as beef.

She gulped down the meat as quickly as she could. Dacha reheated his before he took his seat again, setting to work on his food with a grim determination.

When she couldn’t gag down another bite, she set her tin aside, a quarter of the meat uneaten. The week of rest at Fort Defense had reminded her that food was supposed to have a taste and that taste was supposed to be good. Tonight, she wasn’t hungry enough to eat more. That would change before this week was out.

Dacha, too, set his tin aside, even more of his mystery meat remaining than on hers. The silence between them stretched for a long moment before he looked at her, his gaze searching. “How are you holding up, sena?”

“I’m all right.” She shrugged, tilting her head toward the sky for a moment. The clouds had purpled with the dusk, stripes of orange and pink still blazing across the sky to the west.

“I am here, sena, if you are ever not all right.” Dacha’s voice was low, weighted.

“I know, Dacha. Linshi.” She briefly leaned against him, but her gaze strayed to the western horizon once again.

She tilted her head. Was that the whirring of an aeroplane’s propeller she heard? Straightening, she peered into the orange of the sunset, locating the black silhouette of a biplane growing larger on the horizon. “An aeroplane is coming.”

“It is one of ours.” At her look, Dacha shrugged. “The Mongavarian aeroplanes are much louder.”

Right. With the Mongavarian air power dwindling, she had yet to actually see or hear a Mongavarian aeroplane at a close enough distance to register the difference. But the Mongavarian gasoline engines would sound vastly different from the magic-powered Alliance engines.

“A scouting run?” She climbed to her feet and peered at the aeroplane. It must be from the Half-Breed Squadron. They were the only squadron close enough to be running a scouting mission at this time of night.

“It is late for reconnaissance. The pictures will not show up well.” Dacha, too, stood, his posture wary, though he did not reach for his swords.

The aeroplane grew larger, but it also dropped lower into the sky until it was lining up on the pumpkin patch directly to the west of their camp.

Merrik. It had to be. She wasn’t sure how she knew for sure, but she dashed toward the field even before the aeroplane’s wheels touched down.