Sophie finished her spell smoothly, if a little nervously, and Aubrey immediately felt the pulse of magic about them. ‘Well done, Sophie.’
George grasped her trembling hand. ‘I’m always impressed by impressive women, and believe me – I’m very impressed now.’
She sighed, then smiled. ‘I’m glad I could help.’
Aubrey could see how much casting the spell had affected her. Her face had blanched with the effort and her shoulders sagged.
‘You’ve done well,’ he said to her.
‘Is it always like this?’ She put a hand to her chest. ‘I feel drained, but also as if a string had been plucked inside me.’
‘Nicely put. It affects different people in different ways, but that tension and release is a common report.’
‘I’m not sure if I like it.’
‘Some people hate the sensation so much they give up magic altogether. Others find that they crave it.’
Sophie peered from the window. ‘So now we cannot be seen?’
‘Anyone who looks in this direction will see a bird. If he doesn’t look for too long, he should simply go about his business. Since you’ve done such a fine job, he should even fail to notice the sound we’re making. Most likely, he’ll ignore it or assume it’s coming from something else nearby.’
Caroline caught his eye. ‘Are we ready?’
‘Can you take us alongside the flagship?’
‘Port or starboard?’
‘Whatever is easier.’
‘Port, I think. Hold on.’
Before Aubrey could respond, guns on the warships about them erupted, firing in the direction of the Albion shores. The ornithopter jolted and Aubrey banged his head on the bulkhead, but Caroline soon had the aircraft steady and level again.
The guns on the battleships continued to fire, flame and smoke lancing from the massive barrels. The sound was all-encompassing; the ornithopter shook as if it were possessed. Tiny metallic sounds came from all around them – rattles, pings and creaks, all of which were designed to create panic in ornithopter passengers.
‘What are they firing at?’ Sophie asked.
‘I can’t see…’ Caroline said.
‘There!’ George pointed.
Some miles ahead, to the west, a hapless weathership was the target of the skyfleet’s guns. Huge eruptions of spray marked where the shells had missed, but Aubrey knew it was only a matter of time. The weathership could cut its anchor and run, but with the massed barrage mustered by the skyfleet, such a course of action would be hopeless.
‘Why?’ Sophie asked in a tiny voice. ‘It’s defenceless.’
‘It could send warning to Albion.’ George’s face was set. ‘Cowardly dogs.’
Any doubts about the intention of the barrage or of the efficacy of the cloud-made weapons disappeared when the weathership erupted in twin gouts of flame. The explosion shook the ornithopter, but Caroline held it steady through the buffeting.
‘Two shells struck at once,’ Aubrey murmured, but he was relieved to see lifeboats pulling away. The crew must have abandoned ship, not that he blamed them.
Aubrey had no way of knowing if a message had been transmitted before the crew fled – or, indeed, if a telegraph operator was gamely tapping away when the shells finally landed. Weathership operators were tough customers – they had to be, moored far from land for months at a time, charting and recording weather patterns – and he could imagine at least one of them doing his duty.
The guns rained shells on the smoking ruins of the weathership, far beyond any need. Aubrey supposed that it was simply target practice.
‘We’re coming up fast.’ Caroline’s voice was strained.
Their circuit high above the perimeter of the flagship was an education, and a grim one at that. The flagship was immense. It was as if Dr Tremaine had taken the latest battleship plans and simply doubled everything. As they whipped past, a shadow in what was fast becoming night, Aubrey estimated that she must be at least a thousand feet long from stern to bow, and she’d displace fifty or sixty thousand tons. If she were in water, he reminded himself. Six gun turrets, three forward, three aft, with twin fifteen-inch guns in each, superfiring. If this ship were on the high seas, it would be more than a match for anything in the Albion fleet, but the amount of steel required to build something like this – not to mention the time it would take – would make such a construction impossible.
Unless it were made of cloudstuff.
Wings clattering with the effort – and with an unsettling grating noise coming from the starboard pinion – Caroline performed a feat of aviation that Aubrey would have stood and applauded, if not for the fact that he was flailing for a handhold to steady himself.
From their lofty position, she sent the ornithopter in a manic dive, slicing between the flagship and the battleship a few hundred yards away. Then she dragged the protesting craft around, under the hull of the flagship, and then up past its stern – where Aubrey was startled to see that its name was Sylvia – and into a rush along the vast grey flank.
Aubrey was assaulted by magic. It poured from the Sylvia, but as they hurtled by he was buffeted by concentrations, hard nodes of magical intensity, in specific zones, and he had the flavour in his ears that suggested the presence of the magical artefacts.
They swung alongside the massive superstructure, the towering construction amidships that housed the command deck. They sped along the flank of the giant ship, passing at the level of the bridge, far above the deck level, and Aubrey spied a lone figure on the walkway.
Instantly, every part of him wanted to cry out a warning, to seize the controls and spiral them away, to put the mass of the flagship between them and the man who was gripping the rail and slowly turning his head, scanning the skies before settling his ferocious gaze on them.
Dr Mordecai Tremaine bared his teeth, drew back, and flung a handful of nothing at them.