Chapters (51)
- Dedication
- Contents
- PREVIOUSLY …
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- PART II
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- PART III
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- PART IV
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- About the Author
- ALSO BY DAVID WRAGG
- About the Publisher
He realized he had no idea how to aim. Calculations formed in his head, the speed he was travelling, his height and rate of climb, the speed of the wind, the likely arc of the falling munitions. He had absolutely no idea what to do with any of it. He yanked the kite straight, straining and sweating from the effort of fighting the wind, and lined up on the building. The sun was in no danger of cresting the mountains any time soon, but already the plateau was distinctly clearer. Guessing at how far a cluster might travel, he squinted, and pulled one of the cords.
His finger didn’t move, frozen stiff. After a moment, he bent forward, gripped the cord with his teeth, and yanked. The kite lurched immediately sideways as one of the bundles loosed, falling away in the corner of his eye as the cord whipped through the little metal rings along the kite’s structure. A moment later, it was gone and falling, a shrinking blob of dark metal. Chel dragged the kite back on track as the cluster fell away, fighting the kite’s listing inclination now it was unevenly weighted. The bundle fell far straighter than he’d expected, each of the oblongs separating, spinning as they fell, nose-down and picking up speed. He could already tell they would drop short, their paths almost direct, far less than the arc he’d imagined. Half in correction, half to make the kite easier to steer, he counted to three then loosed a second bundle, this time from the other side of the kite.
The first cluster hit, one at a time, along a row of tents that preceded his target. The first did nothing, whumping into a canvas structure and disappearing from view, but the second ignited on impact, spraying fire outwards in a fierce orange halo. The ring of flame caught the others, and suddenly a fireball was ripping through the tents, blasting outward and upward in a crescendo of explosions. Chel felt the kite buck as the shockwave travelled upward through the air, followed by a wash of pleasantly warm air over his frigid skin. Shouts and cries spread through the camp, lit orange as the flames took hold.
Off to Chel’s right, another flare billowed, this time in the midst of a row of wagons. Lemon had scored a direct hit. He could make out her kite, somewhere over the oily smoke and roaring flame, a small, pale box in the violet sky.