Freedom Fire, page 11
The raptors leapt as one, landing directly in the thick of the trike charge, and then everything became a muddled mass of howls, musket shots, and dinosnarls.
“How can anyone make sense of this?” Magdalys asked.
Cailloux shook his head. “You can’t. War doesn’t make sense. Everyone who tries, loses. All you can do is fight as hard as you can and do your best to keep a cool head in the storm.”
Artillery bursts rumbled out nearby and then explosions shattered the melee of trikes, raptors, and men.
“Who’s shelling them?” Magdalys yelled. “They’re hitting everyone!”
“I don’t know,” Cailloux admitted. “Could be us, could be them. Could be a horrible mistake, could be some terrible strategy at play.”
Screams rose from below now as fighting seemed to fade amidst the carnage of the artillery attack, and a thick cloud of dust and smoke covered the battlefield.
“Can you tell … if anyone’s winning?”
“Not yet,” Cailloux said. “Swing further along the edge, I want to see if … ah.” The field stretched long beneath them, illuminated by the fires of many, many campsites. It seemed to cover the night, that never-ending army in the shadows, and keep going through the mountains and into the sky above.
“Is that the … the enemy?”
“Braxton Bragg must’ve consolidated his whole army. And Longstreet’s trikeriders have arrived too.”
The darkness itself seemed to writhe with them, and then Magdalys realized why. They were on the march, surging forward into battle.
“WHAT DO WE do?” Magdalys asked.
“See what they have to say,” Corporal Cailloux said, nodding to where both the mounted dactyls could be seen gliding over the treetops toward where they’d perched Stella. “And then send a message back to General Sheridan to let him know what we’ve seen. Although I’m sure he’s already heard the artillery and is rushing his men toward it.”
Magdalys glanced back at the approaching dactyls. Night had fully fallen now, the moon just barely peeking out from behind a cloud bank. Something seemed to flicker up into the sky behind where Mapper and Amaya were flying at full speed. Magdalys squinted. Their fourth, unmounted dactyl was gliding a smooth circle nearby, keeping watch, so what …
More fluttering shapes resolved and vanished in the darkness. They seemed small, or maybe one huge creature with many moving parts? Magdalys couldn’t tell. And then all at once the shapes coalesced into a single, ever-shifting snake that whipped out through the sky; the fires below illuminated a hundred flapping, feathered wings.
Magdalys gasped. The clouds cleared, and the moon revealed a sudden splash of rainbow: brilliant greens, sharp reds, hazy magentas, and stark royal blues all flashed and spun in the air, the breathtaking plumage of these crow-sized creatures on full display.
Archaeopteryx! Magdalys thought, catching sight of those long snouted reptilian heads stretching out from the feathered bodies. All those razor-sharp teeth glinted in the moonlight as nearly four dozen mouths opened at once. Although small, Dr. Barlow Sloan noted about the archaeops, and deceptively beautiful in their plumage (if not their hideous faces and wide, eager eyes), these little fellows are some of the fiercest and smartest dinos known to man! Beware!
With a hissing squawk, the snaking limb of archaeops dispersed and they seemed to cover the whole sky behind Beans and Grappler.
“FLY!” Magdalys yelled, her hoarse cry almost buried by another eruption of gunfire below.
Amaya leaned forward, urging her mount into a mad scramble, but Mapper glanced back just as the archaeops converged again, now into two whiplike shapes. Both curled up into the sky and then dove.
Someone was controlling those dinos, Magdalys realized. And whoever was doing it was really, really good. There had to be almost fifty of them, all wielded in perfect unison as a single, unstoppable weapon. But where was the wrangler? She scanned the treetops and skies, but barely had time to look before the two attacking archaeops streams bore down on Amaya and Mapper.
Shots rang out — Hannibal and Octave letting loose from each dactylback, surely. Winged shapes screeched and were flung backward and then down with each shot, but there were more than anyone could hope to take out one by one.
“What are those things?” Corporal Cailloux asked, constructing some kind of contraption on Stella’s saddle.
“Archaeops,” Magdalys said. “Hold tight to whatever you’re setting up. We’re about to fly.”
“Hang on,” Cailloux said through gritted teeth. “Let me just …” He heaved a long, fierce-looking gun with several long barrels onto his contraption.
“Hurry,” Magdalys said. “They’re almost on them.”
Grappler had surged ahead but the attackers were closing on Mapper.
With a click and snap, Cailloux growled, “Okay, go!” and at a signal from Magdalys, Stella unfurled her forty-foot wings to either side and launched into the air.
“Roll up on ’em and then swing her to the side,” Cailloux commanded as Grappler came barreling forward full speed. The caws of the pursuing archaeops grew louder. Amaya and Hannibal jumped off Grappler and landed on the saddle. Magdalys sent Stella directly at the approaching swarm. “Now!” Cailloux yelled, and she spun Stella off to the right. An earsplitting barrage burst out behind her: BRADAGA-DADAGA-BRADADAGA-DAGAGA!! and Magdalys found herself grasping the huge pteranodon’s neck as the bonfires and battles veered past below. For a second, she thought she’d been hit herself, the gunfire rattled so viciously through her core.
But no: Up ahead, the archaeops swarm had been decimated — limp, bullet-riddled dino bodies tumbled from the sky and a passing breeze carried hundreds of multicolored feathers out over the trees. Magdalys gasped. Sure, those creatures were bent on attacking them, but … that machine had seemed to tear apart the sky and sweep them away by the dozens in a matter of seconds. Wholesale slaughter. She should’ve been celebrating, but those creatures had clearly been wrangled — it wasn’t their fault some Confederate dinomaster snatched them up and hurled them into battle.
There wasn’t time to mourn though — Hannibal was right.
“What is that thing?” Magdalys demanded as she picked herself up.
“It’s a Gatling,” Amaya said, gazing over Cailloux’s shoulder with a glint in her eye. “I’ve never seen one in action before.”
“HELP!” Mapper’s voice carried to them over the wind. Magdalys swung Stella around just in time to see the other swarm descend on Beans, enveloping him, Mapper, and Octave in a bright and lethal rainbow.
“No!” Magdalys gasped as Stella swung into a turn so sharp it almost tipped them all over the side, and then surged forward. In a matter of seconds, she’d gone from feeling bad at the archaeops being slaughtered to wanting them all destroyed to save her friends. And even worse, now they couldn’t be without making everything worse.
The swarm screeched and cawed and three gunshots from within sent a couple archaeops spiraling away. Then a long gray beak appeared, followed by Beans’s face, his eyes narrowed with determination. One of his wings broke free, blood flowing freely from gashes the smaller dinos had torn in it, and then the other. Finally, Beans merged fully from the swarm, Mapper and Hannibal crouching with their faces covered on his back.
“Mapper!” Magdalys and Amaya cried at the same time. Beans flapped unsteadily — cuts lined his whole body, Magdalys now saw — and then fell into a wobbly glide toward them.
BRIGAAWWWW!!!! came a wretched, high-pitched screech from somewhere below.
Cailloux swung his Gatling toward the treetops a moment too late: a brilliant flash of color leapt up into the sky between Stella and Beans.
It was shaped like the other archaeops — same shimmering plumage and bare reptilian head, same wide, wild eyes and sharp pupils — but this thing was much, much larger. On its back, a pale woman — no, she was a girl — sat riding sidesaddle in a full ball gown. She didn’t look much older than Magdalys, maybe sixteen. Another swarm of smaller archaeops fluttered up into the sky around the huge one. The girl’s face curved into a triumphant grin. This was who’d been commanding those legions of archaeops?
Cailloux swung his Gatling up toward her.
“Don’t shoot,” Amaya said. “You’ll hit Mapper and Hannibal!”
“I won’t,” Octave said, lifting his rifle, but the girl had already kicked the spurs on her pink-and-white raptorskin boots, sending the giant archaeop into a swooping charge. “On, Rathbane! Attack!” she shrieked. The two swarms surged forward around her.
Even with their heavy firepower, a pteranodon and three dactyls could never best that many archaeops, especially with that huge one leading the pack. They were outnumbered and probably doomed, but trying to escape would be a disaster: The dactyls they had were already worn out and wounded, and Magdalys wasn’t sure Stella could outfly that feathered monstrosity.
Fine. She narrowed her eyes and urged Stella straight ahead into the oncoming assault. Behind her, the clicks and clacks of Hannibal, Octave, and Cailloux preparing their weapons sounded. A shape rose in the sky beside them, then another. Magdalys glanced over.
Dactyls!
They weren’t the Brooklyn squad Magdalys knew, these were other ones. Was there a Union wrangler helping them out from below? More likely her own crew had somehow recruited these local ones. Either way, she didn’t have time to worry about it — they were on her side, that much was clear, and that was all that mattered. They stood a fighting chance after all.
Rifle shots sang out from behind her. Archaeops fell from the sky to either side but there were too many. And then, with a calamitous rumble and caw, the two sky giants smashed full into each other as the dactyls and archaeops clashed in the air around them. Stella went right for the archaeop’s neck, just missing it as the smaller creature dug all four of its claws into Stella’s neck. A clutch of smaller archaeops followed suit, each cutting long red gashes along her hide.
Stella let out a howl that must’ve reverberated across the valley, but the deeper one shuddered inside Magdalys. It was the first time she’d felt panic from her humongous friend. Rathbane had latched on to a part of the pteranodon’s chest that she couldn’t reach with her huge claws.
Magdalys climbed up Stella’s neck. Gunfire burst around her as Mapper, Amaya, and the soldiers fought off the attack. In the sky just ahead, a small clutch of archaeops swarmed one of the new dactyls and slashed its wings, sending the creature into a shrieking plummet toward the trees. Magdalys shuddered — the poor thing had come to save her and now …
She blinked away tears, shook her head, and peered over the pteranodon’s shoulder. The girl stared up with a defiant grin. “So you’re the Union’s new dinomaster. Just a child, I see. And a Negress at that.” She shook her head pityingly. “I guess they’re determined to prove to the world how pathetic their sham ideas about equality are.”
Magdalys had no idea what to say to that. All she knew was that people and dinos were being massacred all around her, and blood was pouring out of the creature that had saved her life. Another desperate caw rose inside Magdalys and Stella heaved suddenly to the side.
“Whoa!” Hannibal yelled behind Magdalys.
“I’m about to destroy your pitiful air cavalry,” the girl said, pulling out a chain with a grappling hook at the end and sending it into a swing over her head, “but you can be comforted in knowing you were defeated by the greatest dinomaster that ever lived, Elizabeth Crawbell. I’m sure you’ve read about my exploits.”
“I haven’t,” Magdalys said. “I have no idea who you are.” Stella had swung them away from the battlefield, and now the dark Appalachian forests filled the world below them.
Elizabeth looked a little put out, then just shrugged and sent her grappling hook flying up toward Stella’s crest. With all the others busy fighting off the archaeops, there was only one way to dislodge this arrogant girl and her beast.
Dive! Magdalys commanded. The last cohesive thought Magdalys had before the terror of a sheer plummet took hold was that she hoped the others had remembered to secure themselves to the saddle.
MAGDALYS WAS PRETTY sure she was screaming.
Someone definitely was. Or maybe many someones. Or maybe it was the wind, shrieking the sound of Magdalys’s panic as the line where the earth met the sky steepened.
Stella’s urgent caw slid into a grittier, more determined growl and the giant ptero sped at full velocity toward the treetops.
Elizabeth’s chain-hook had swung wide and then dropped uselessly to the side at the sudden change of trajectory, and now the Confederate dinomaster was clinging desperately to the neck of her mount, teeth clenched. “It won’t work, you fool!” she howled over the wind.
Magdalys glanced back. Mapper and Amaya had both grasped Hannibal and were holding each of his hands as his legs flew out in the wind behind. Cailloux and Octave had been thrown to the back of the saddle but then managed to secure themselves. Archaeops and dactyls still grappled above them.
Back on Stella’s chest, Elizabeth was peering nervously at the fast-approaching treetops. Finally, just as the dark leaves began to take shape behind her, she snarled and spurred Rathbane to release. The giant archaeop swooped away, tearing a few new gashes in Stella’s hide as he went, and Stella evened out into a smooth glide over the forest.
BRADAGA-BRAGADA-BRAGADA-BRAGADA Cailloux’s Gatling sang, but when Magdalys turned, it was Amaya behind the turret. Out in the sky behind them, Elizabeth swung Rathbane into a dazzling series of evasive maneuvers and then, when Amaya’s barrage didn’t let up, simply turned tail and sped off into the night followed by what was left of the fluttering archaeop swarm.
Magdalys exhaled, then glanced over Stella’s shoulder at the still bleeding gashes.
Come on, girl, she thought, let’s get you on the ground.
“What … was that?” Mapper gasped once they’d found a clearing and brought Stella down for a bumpy, lopsided landing.
Magdalys, already on the ground and approaching Stella’s wounded hide with caution, shook her head. She’d been thinking the same thing, over and over, since the wrangler behind that impressive archaeops swarm had revealed herself. There had to be at least thirty dinos flying in perfect coordination at one time, Magdalys thought. People were impressed with Magdalys summoning a dactyl here or there, but that was all cute parlor games next to what this girl could do. “Elizabeth Crawbell, she said her name was.”
“Ugh,” Hannibal said. “The one and only. If I hadn’t been busy fighting off her little beasties, I’d have gotten a shot off and Abe Lincoln himself woulda pinned me with the Medal of Honor for ridding the world of that traitor.”
Six large claw cuts formed a spiraling bright red crescent from Stella’s jaw to the top of her wide chest. They didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore, so that was good, and hopefully meant they weren’t too deep. The pteranodon, settled into a precarious squat that reminded Magdalys of a nesting hen, gave a feeble caw and shook her massive head. “I know, baby girl,” Magdalys said, rubbing small circles on her smooth hide. “She seemed to think I should’ve heard of her — Elizabeth, that is.”
“Yeah, the papers have been covering some of her so-called exploits,” Octave said, sliding down from the saddle. “Oop, hang on.” He stepped a few feet away and then ralphed a full day’s worth of hardtack into some bushes. “Man … I gotta get used to this flying thing.”
Hannibal chuckled. “You good, Private Rey?”
Octave waved him off. “I’ll be alright. That was some fast shooting, Amaya.”
Amaya nodded her head, conceding the compliment without a word, and went over to stand beside Magdalys.
“She got you for your Gatling, Corp,” Hannibal laughed.
“She did indeed,” Cailloux acknowledged. “Where’d you learn to do that, young lady?”
Mapper piped up, “Her dad’s a super-famous commander in the a —”
“Mapper!” Magdalys snapped as Amaya’s hand wrapped around hers and squeezed. “Shut it.”
Mapper’s eyes went wide. “Oh. I thought —”
“You thought wrong,” Magdalys said.
The soldiers traded glances, then shrugged and went back to checking their equipment.
“You okay?”
Amaya shrugged, still holding Magdalys’s hand in a death grip. “Let’s get these wounds cleaned up.”
“Anyway,” Hannibal said, “the young Miss Crawbell ain’t even a Southerner. She from Connecticut or something.”
“DC,” Octave corrected him.
“Whatever,” Hannibal said. “Ain’t the South. But she wanna be Southern so bad. Well, Confederate Southern, that is. Not us Southern, obviously.”
“And her daddy’s a big-deal secessionist politician,” Octave added. “The Pinkertons arrested him for aiding and abetting the enemy a couple times but the charges never stick.”
“She’s part of the reason General Sheridan’s so pressed about having an air cavalry of our own,” Cailloux explained.
“And he ain’t wrong,” Hannibal said, with a pointed look at Magdalys.
A familiar cawing cut the night, and then Beans, Grappler, and Dizz flapped out of the sky followed by a handful of those new dactyls. Magdalys caught her breath. “You guys alright?” she called, running over as they landed.
The three from Brooklyn seemed to be, besides some cuts and bruises (Beans had been slashed pretty badly when they’d surrounded him, and he looked extra ready to get back out there and whup more archaeops). But one of the Tennessee dactyls came in for a calamitous landing and then just lay there, barely breathing. The others gathered around, nudging him with their beaks.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched. For a few moments, they kept murmuring to each other and poking their fallen brethren; then a quiet understanding seemed to descend on them. The wounded dactyl’s body stopped rising and falling; he lay still. The others bowed their heads; one swept a single wing over the body and then they all turned away sadly.
