Page 100 of Storm to Victory
Already, the men on the next few ships over, having seen the destruction coming their way, fled even before the magic reached their ships.
Over and over again throughout this war, he and Dacha had proved that they could kill in great quantities. But today, they would show Mongavaria that they were so powerful they didn’t need to kill to win the victory. They could do it, instead, with a mere wave of their hands and a storm of magic.
Beyond the line of warships, the edge of Fieran’s expanding magic flowed into the warehouses, encountering the sense of gunpowder and metal. He closed his magic around it, blowing it up in an inferno that shook the ground and rose in a black and orange cloud high above the city. Closer to him, he sent more of his magic leaping over Dacha’s to cascade over the next warship.
More explosions roared at the edge of the city. Dacha’s magic must have found some of the gun emplacements that surrounded it.
The unrelenting explosions thundered in the air, punctuated by heaving shudders through the ground. Clouds of acrid smoke hung heavy and low over the city while the wailing screams of thousands of terrified people keened on the breeze.
At the beginning of the war, Fieran could never have marched at his dacha’s side like this, matching him magic for magic. Before, he’d been an undisciplined boy wielding his magic clumsily. Now, he was a hardened warrior, honed by war and embracing his magic in a way he never had before.
With shouted orders, the tromping of boots, and the creaking of a wheeled artillery gun, a line of Mongavarian soldiers arrayed themselves across the road in front of Dacha, Fieran, and Aaruk.
Dacha flicked a hand at them, his magic slamming into the artillery gun and tossing it backward. Fieran reached out with his magic and gripped each of the rifles in the soldiers’ hands, melting them even as the soldiers yelped and dropped them. Aaruk hung back, staying out of Fieran’s and Dacha’s way.
Most of the soldiers broke formation and ran. Only a handful pulled out knives or bayonets and dashed forward, as if they thought they could take on two elven warriors with nothing but tiny blades.
With his magic so fully unleashed, there was too much magic to drag back to confront the soldiers. Instead, Fieran stepped forward in line with Dacha, leaving plenty of space between them, and raised his swords even as his dacha raised his. Their blades already winked red in the morning light.
Just because he wasn’t setting out to cause a bloodbath this morning didn’t mean he’d avoid a fight when he was forced to it.
A soldier ran at him, and Fieran knocked the bayonet out of the way with one sword while the other swiped a red line acrossthe man’s throat. He leapt over the falling body to strike at the next soldier, almost subconsciously shifting to the side to give his dacha more room for his own whirling strike.
They were two of the warriors Laesornysh, unleashing death with the deadly dance of their elven blades. All those years of training, all those mornings spent with a sword in his hand and his dacha’s voice pushing him toward discipline, it had all been for this. The moment he fought at his dacha’s side.
Fieran stabbed his sword through the last soldier facing him and yanked it out again.
Dacha stepped over the last of the dead bodies, his jaw hard, and stalked up the cobblestone street, rising in a steep hill before them. Fieran fell into step with him, Aaruk hurrying in their wake.
With barely a thought, Fieran sent his magic through more of the warships. One by one, they exploded. A few of the ships seemed to be frantically getting underway, trying to escape before they were destroyed at their moorings like the others.
Then he and Dacha crested the hill, and there Landri Castle stood, a jewel of white stone on picturesque cliffs above the crashing waves of an ocean glittering in the rising sun.
Below the castle, the broad mouth of the harbor was clogged with warships, both those fleeing the destruction and those guarding the entrance. Two hulking shapes of gun emplacements loomed on either side of the harbor, further preventing entrance to Mongavaria’s enemies.
High above, airships drifted over the ocean, further guarding the castle and the city from intrusion from the sea. Several airships had turned, heading inland, as if they were trying to decide if they should bomb their own city in an attempt to take out Fieran and Dacha. As of yet, they hadn’t unleashed their bombs, nor did they have those magic-stealing machines.
“There it is.” Fieran gripped his bloody swords in his hands.
“Yes.” Dacha gestured with one of his swords, his magic sweeping ahead of them. “Landri Castle, and that should be the governmental offices.”
A large complex of stone buildings dominated the left side of the street, sitting just at the base of the hill from the causeway that led upward to the castle. A high wall with barbed wire at the top surrounded the buildings, and the guards at the gates lowered their guns, preparing to fire.
As fun as blowing up a bunch of stuff was, the whole point was to end the war. And they could only do that if someone with the authority to do so surrendered on Mongavaria’s behalf.
Not to mention, he needed that same someone to tell him where Pip was.
Fieran and Dacha strode down the gentle slope, Aaruk behind them, until they reached a spot directly in front of the broad gates of the government buildings. The guards on the wall opened fire, the machine guns juddering in their grips.
Dacha incinerated the bullets with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I will clear the buildings and force the occupants to face us. Do the same for the castle.”
Fieran turned slightly so that he half-faced away from Dacha, trusting that his dacha would guard his back. He blasted another wave of his magic toward the castle, and a smattering of gun emplacements around the castle boomed their attempt to defend their monarchs.
Catching the shells with his magic, he slung them into the river mouth where they exploded with gouts of water spraying high into the air. He then latched on to each of the guns, melting the metal even as he touched off the stashes of ammunition.
Then his magic swarmed over the castle walls, wreathing the shining white towers with crackling blue magic.
Somewhere in the castle’s courtyard, his magic brushed against another magic, happily leaping over the wonderfully familiar power.
