Hard Magic

THOOM.

The explosion was muted as the officer committed suicide, but whatever device he'd touched off had been incendiary, intended to take everyone with him. Sudden fire licked around the curve of the bag, bright hideous orange, and it just consumed everything. The canvas began disappearing like dry grass, leaving a hideous skeleton of aluminum in its wake, and the fireball was coming right at them.

"Ax," Sullivan said as he yanked the little hatchet from Parker's belt. He ran down the grating, toward the fire, and slid to a halt at the end of the catwalk. The bridge was attached by rope running through several steel grommets. He started chopping, slicing through the rope with such fury that sparks rose from the plate. Wouldn't that be funny if a spark blew up this blimp while I was trying to-damn it-cut faster. He kept swinging with speed born of desperation.

The wall of heat struck him, sucked the moisture from his eyes, burned his skin. The lead dirigible was curling into itself, forming a U, as the heaviest bit was in the center. Flames washed over his body as the last rope snapped free. He stumbled back with his shirt on fire, dropped the ax, and beat out the flames. The burning blimp spun downward, falling slowly, like the bright petals of a flower falling from a tree, and Sullivan swore as he realized his hair was on fire too.

He made it back to Parker just as he saw that the skin on the nose of his dirigible was smoking. "Aw hell…" Simultaneously tiny bits of hissing fire appeared all down the visible seams. They were at the wrong damn end to make it off this one. The entire nose instantly disintegrated in a jet of orange flame.

And then it just stopped.

Sullivan looked around in disbelief, somehow still alive. Parker was slowly uncovering his eyes. The fore section of the blimp was hanging in ragged tatters, beating in the breeze, and he could feel them tilting as they lost altitude. The Japanese Torch dame was coming down the railing toward them, her eyes glowing and hair whipping in the wind.

"Fire good!" she exclaimed, lowering her hands. The lights died and her eyes returned to normal.

"No, sweetheart, you're good," Parker shouted.

Sullivan couldn't agree more.

The crew of the Bulldog Marauder was efficient. They quickly searched the damaged dirigible's cargo hold, found a few chained slaves and some valuables, loaded them into the less damaged remaining blimps, and cut away the damaged blimp so that it could sink in the ocean. Southunder left five men to drive the remains of the train south to be sold in one of the Free Cities of New Guinea, where the resistance would surely appreciate the supplies. The slaves, mostly Chinese, were put to work with the promise they'd be set free as soon as they landed.

Sullivan joined Southunder in his stateroom, which was little more than a closet with a table sandwiched between armored bulkheads. He was getting tired of always having to duck to avoid hitting his head. There was a map on the table.

"I buried the piece on this atoll." Southunder stabbed his finger into the map. "It's in a chest, wrapped in enough cold iron to give any Finder fits, then sealed in wax. I put every ward and glyph in the Rune Arcanium on it, then I booby trapped it the old fashioned way with spike traps and a bunch of dynamite that's probably unstable as hell by now."

Sullivan studied the map. The atoll wasn't that far from Banish Island. They'd probably flown over it to catch the train. "We should've went there first."

"Not if we wanted to catch that train ahead of the storm front. I can steer the weather some, but I can't board dirigibles in a hurricane, and I wasn't about to let that cargo get away. I've been keeping watch over that blasted thing for twenty years, and unescorted trains are rare. Tesla could wait a few hours… No need to risk the traps, so we'll just stand off and blast it with the pom-pom guns until the dynamite goes off. Then we'll go down and pick up the pieces."

"So you decided to believe me then?"

He shrugged. "You strike me as an honest man."

There was a sudden pounding on the bulkhead. "Captain! Come quick!"

Southunder was surprisingly nimble. Sullivan had a hard time catching up as the captain ran down the passage and slid down a ladder to the command deck. By the time he got up to the control bubble he could see exactly what the commotion was about. To the north was a wall of black clouds, crackling with lightning, but more terrifying was what was to their west, several large Imperium airships, and even to Sullivan's untrained eye, those did not look like cargo ships.

"There shouldn't have been any navy in this area," Barns said. "Could they have gotten here already from the train's distress call?"

"Damn it. Kagas." Southunder muttered. There was a large brass telescope mounted at the front of the cockpit and he swiveled it toward the ocean. Sullivan followed the direction it was aiming and noticed more black specks on the ocean, surface ships. "That's not why they're here."

There was a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Is that the atoll?"

Southunder pulled away from the telescope, his face ashen. "Well, looks like you were right."

"Hate to say I told you so," Sullivan muttered.

The black ships were getting closer. Tiny dots dropped from their bellies as they released their parasitic fighters. "Orders, Captain?" Barns asked.

Southunder steadied himself against the telescope. Pushing for the atoll would mean certain death. If the fighters didn't get them, the heavy antiaircraft guns on the surface ships would. "Run for the storm."