Page 30 of Stalk the Sky

Pip saved several more aeroplanes from crashing before Merrik, then Fieran landed without incident. She finally took a breath, her hands shaking.

Fieran strode through the hangar, slapping each of his pilots on the back and letting them know they’d done well, despite their rough landings. After the mostly smooth landings of the elven half of the squadron, Flight B had looked like a fumbling mess.

But it wasn’t their fault. The wind had picked up, and they’d never landed in rough conditions like that before. Frankly, he was just thankful they were alive and all the aeroplanes were in more or less one piece. Or, at the very least, in few enough pieces that it wouldn’t take Pip and the mechanics that long to repair them.

“Lt. Laesornysh.” Lt. Rothilion’s strident tone forced Fieran to halt, even though all he wanted to do was keep walking.

Lt. Rothilion stepped in front of Fieran, a few of the elves from Flight A trailing him as they always did. Lt. Rothilion’s gaze swept first over Fieran, then past him to the pilots and slightly damaged flyers of Flight B. “Disgraceful performance this morning. Though one could not expect much better from such a rabble.”

As much as Fieran wanted to retort, he gritted his teeth and forced his words back. He could point out that the elves of Flight A had had their full training—two weeks more of training than Fieran’s men—plus an additional two weeks of flying experience here at Dar Goranth.

But saying such a thing would only invite Lt. Rothilion to remark on how sloppy the Escarlish Flying Corps must be, if they sent such inexperienced, under-trained pilots to an important base like Dar Goranth.

Worse, it was generally known that elves, as a whole, made the best pilots. They did have slightly superior reflexes and a better head for heights than the average human.

But that didn’t make humans inferior. There was a heart—a fire—in many humans that Fieran had rarely seen in the elves. That was not to be underestimated.

Having delivered his set down, Lt. Rothilion sniffed, turned on his heel, and marched away.

As he walked away, Merrik joined Fieran, crossing his arms and speaking in a low tone that wouldn’t carry even to the elves with more sensitive hearing. “The insults were unnecessary, but it is difficult to refute him when our showing today was poor.”

“Our lack of training definitely showed.” Fieran grimaced, also keeping his voice barely above a whisper.

“What are you going to do about it?” Merrik raised an eyebrow.

Fieran sighed, already wishing he didn’t have to say it out loud. “Put together better practice routines and figure out how to add them to our schedule on top of the patrol rotation.”

“Now you sound like your dacha.” Merrik’s mouth curved with just a hint of a smile.

“I know. Don’t remind me.” Fieran heaved another sigh. Growing up, he’d chafed under such rigid practice all the time, both with his swords and with his magic.

He could better understand the necessity of them now. Perhaps his dacha, who had spent his formative years living in an army camp, didn’t know any way to go about teaching his children except to fall back on his military-style training.

Then again, Dacha had known for the past seventy years that war was coming. Maybe he didn’t know any other way to teach than by military discipline. But he also knew that Fieran and his siblings would need that military discipline once war broke out.

Dacha had spent years preparing Fieran for this. It was time Fieran stepped up and fully took on the mantle of Laesornysh.

But did that mean he had to become as hard and dour as his dacha? Or could he still retain some of his more carefree, easygoing personality?

Chapter

Ten

After climbing down the flights upon flights of stairs—no one took the lifts for going down—Pip strode out of the mountain into the bustling port of the Dar Goranth base. She hadn’t had the chance to search out the dwarves working on the base in the first few weeks she’d been there, thanks to the long hours of testing the aeroplane guns, then the scramble to build the Escarlish aeroplanes.

Now that Fieran and the flyboys were out on another patrol—thankfully with good, calm weather—she had a few moments to explore the base.

She dodged around the various human and troll seamen—as well as a few seawomen—and naval base workers as they hauled freight and bustled between various buildings.

Most of the trolls, standing a foot or more taller than her, didn’t even seem to see her. Several almost ran into her, and one nearly clocked her in the face with an elbow as he swung to say something to the person next to him as she was wiggling her way by.

But she was used to dodging elbows, so she rocked back on her heels, the elbow missing her nose by a mere inch, before she ducked around the troll and squirmed through a tiny gap in the crowd.

Surrounded by tall trolls and even taller buildings, she might have gotten lost in the sprawling base if the pounding beat of hammers and the earthy, metallic taste of dwarf magic hadn’t provided an unerring guide through the streets.

Finally, she popped out of the general bustle before the giant dry docks—large concrete structures built stretching out into the bay. Most of the dry docks were, well, dry with their large doors at the end sealed shut against the water. The ships in these were resting on large bracings, keeping them upright and steady as dwarf, troll, and human workers swarmed over them.

In the nearby harbor, the nearly complete ships floated on the water while work crews of mostly humans with only a few trolls and dwarves labored over the finishing touches.