Free Lincoln's Wizard by Tracy Hickman, Dan Willis Page B

spittle seared him as it flew by, extinguishing instantly as it fell down to the ground far below. Black eyes gleamed malice in the dragon’s pale head, and as it passed Braxton saw the rider astride its back. He wore the gray coat of a dragon rider with silver buttons on his coat and silver spurs on his boots. The rider clung low to the massive saddle as the pair climbed above the curve of the airship’s gasbag and disappeared. It was like no machine Braxton had ever imagined, much less seen; man and beast mastering the sky in perfect harmony. It set Braxton’s mind whirling. If this pair could work like a machine, could a machine do as they did? Visions of faster propellers and mechanical wings fired his imagination.
    “Captain!” Sergeant Young called from nearby.
    The sound startled Braxton back to reality. The lifeboat was only a few yards away down the catwalk. Braxton pried his hands loose from the railing and ran.
    O O O
    Genevieve roared in frustration. Marcus couldn’t blame her. She could only spit Hellfire a half dozen times before running dry, then it would be two days at least before she’d be ready to fight again.
    They needed to make her shots count.
    As Genevieve turned back for another run at the airship, two more materialized from the darkness. Mortars burst all around them and Marcus leaned close to Genevieve’s back as fragments of white-hot shrapnel whizzed by. He heard several pieces hit Genevieve’s body and she roared in anger. The mortar fire didn’t have much chance to penetrate her tough hide, but that didn’t stop them from hurting.
    “Easy girl,” Marcus said, tugging the control collar to the right.
    Of the two ships that faced them, one was clearly a supply transport, taller than its companion with walkways and cranes along its bottom. The other ship was a warship, bristling with mortars and rapid-fire Gatling guns. Marcus had standing orders to take down warships whenever he saw them, but outnumbered and in the dark, he chose discretion over valor.
    Genevieve swept by the transport, spitting fire along its side that sizzled and clung to the wet canvas that covered the airship. Crews scrambled to work, cutting the lines that held the canvas in place, trying to drop the great sheets before the fire burned through.
    Marcus lost sight of the transport as Genevieve turned, banking wide, to come around for another pass. Through the darkness he saw the burning canvas flutter and fall away; the transport crew had managed to cut it free.
    “At ’em again, girl,” he spurred Genevieve on. “One more pass will do it.”
    They flew right at the spot where the burning canvas had vanished, but this time they found the warship looming out of the darkness, cutting across their path to protect the transport.
    Marcus jerked sideways on Genevieve’s collar and she banked hard as a fresh round of mortars lit up the darkness with glittering bursts. Something hit him in the face, hard. He grappled for the collar in an effort to stay upright. Genevieve roared and dived away, ducking under the warship and straight up again at the transport. She rolled, coming up on the far side, away from the warship, and spraying the body of the transport with Hellfire. At this range, the Hellfire would be spread all over the surface of the airship; there would be no stopping it now.
    Marcus released his grip on the collar and touched his face. It burned and his white glove came away stained red. Taking his glove in his teeth he pulled it off and checked again with his bare hand. A thin cut ran from the edge of his mustache almost to his ear. A mortar fragment had grazed him.
    He’d been lucky. An inch more left and it would have taken off his head.
    A sound like the noise of pulling one’s boot out of a mire assaulted him, and a rush of hot air enveloped them. Genevieve wheeled in time for him to see the burning wreck of the airship plummet to the rain swept trees below. Some of the crew had escaped in lifeboats