The trip north was mostly uneventful. I say mostly because, holy shit, had the land changed. We flew near a lake that looked like blood. Massive tentacles squirmed within the liquid, just below the surface. Thankfully, I had spotted it before we flew directly overhead, who knew what creatures waited within.

Another problem was a bright flash in the distance. Normally, I would have avoided that completely but the ominous mushroom cloud after made me decide to detour near the area. We needed to make sure it wasn’t something we had to worry about. Turns out someone had gotten ahold of a tactical nuke, leveling some small town on the east side of what was once northern Arkansas. After seeing what lay beyond, I couldn’t blame the people for setting the weapon off.

The land for as far as you could see was dead. The radiation detector was blipping away and I chose to turn back toward the west. Fiona returned from scouting with news of what was on the ground.

“Entarior locusts,” she said, looking grim.

“Are those bad?”

She nodded, “They are magical creatures that can strip an entire world if left alone long enough.”

“Do we need to worry?”

“No, whatever weapon was activated, seemed to have destroyed the colony. If it hadn’t they would already be consuming the vegetation around us and probably the fortress as they are drawn to magic.”

“What kind of sick world produces creatures like this?”

“Not a world, it’s a spell, well, more a summoning, like Martin’s but way worse.”

“I don’t know if that’s any better. So, you’re saying someone summoned these creatures, for what purpose?”

“Most likely to kill off mages or a group of mages. When they get out of control like this though, it usually means the mage that summoned them was either killed or lost control, which would result in him being killed by the locusts anyway.”

“Well, whoever it was it serves them right. Let's keep moving.”

We traveled three or four hundred miles a day, setting down in the evenings to rest and recuperate. I could push harder since we had sleeping accommodations but I didn’t want us burned out when we reached our target.

At the moment we were landed in what first appeared to be a strange forest. It turned out to be made of mushrooms of all types. The mushrooms pushed up to the height of trees. Some of the mushrooms glowed in wild bioluminescent colors after the sun went down. It was eerily beautiful to watch, but deadly. Clouds of spores drifted in the air like fog and I had to cleanse everyone as soon as we reentered the fortress from a quick but ill-advised trip outside.

Even activating the fire-based defense on the fortress only kept the spores away temporarily, though it did clear out a large area around us and set the massive mushrooms ablaze. Deciding not to risk spreading these toxic spores we rose out of the mushroom forest and kept flying as I burned away any remnants clinging to the fortress.

Fiona said she spotted someone in the forest, screaming in rage and throwing invectives our way but I thought she might have been seeing things. If she wasn’t I didn’t want to meet any man human or otherwise, that could survive in that sort of environment.

Eventually, we reached southern Illinois. When I activated my reaper title, I finally got a faint hit. The direction it came from was mainly north. That meant I had been accurate in my assumption that Randy had headed straight back to his base of operations.

I could barely see the tip of the spine in the distance, the haze of early morning shrouding most of the mountain range.

Now that we were sure of where our quarry resided, it was time to prepare. I still had the weird feeling in the back of my mind urging me onward but being this close I was able to ignore it for the most part.

I set the fortress down in a small town that appeared abandoned. There was a quarry on the east side that allowed for long sightlines and no real way for anyone to get to us without being spotted.

“Why are we setting down early?” Martin asked.

“It’s time to prepare, tomorrow we will reach our target and we need to be ready for anything.”

Ska growled in anticipation for the events to come and Fiona looked worried.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be ok. We have the fortress to soften them up.”

She gave me the look that said she wasn’t buying my bullshit but nodded anyway, choosing to keep her thoughts on the subject to herself.

After setting the fortress down I got to work. My workshop was a mess, I hadn’t had time to clean it since our previous battle with the Black Dragon. Dried blood still coated some surfaces from where I brushed up against them with my clothing. Tools and bits of metal were scattered haphazardly across the space, and I cursed my laziness.

I didn’t have time to clean now so I swept the workbench clear, All the junk fell to the floor with a clatter as Martin walked in.

“Did a tornado come through here?”

“I wish, at least then I could explain away the mess,” I grumbled.

“Need any help cleaning?”

“No, It will have to wait until we finish this mission. I have a ton of work to complete before tomorrow.”

“Oh, is this that mystery object you bought at the Bazaar?”

“Yup,” I replied pulling out a lacquered black box with gold inlay. I told the smith it wasn’t necessary but he insisted.

“Do I get a peek at it?”

“Nope,” I smiled, pushing him out of the room as he complained loudly.

I shut and locked the door, this was going to be hard enough with one hand, I didn’t need any other distractions. I activated the rune on the wall that muffled sound. I also took my prosthetic off, it would only get in the way of this delicate work.

***

My eyes were red from staying up until the early morning but I had completed the runes. The item was safely stashed in my ring, ready to be attached at a moment's notice.

The others hadn’t been idle, we had discussed what needed to happen beforehand. They had taken all but four of the cannons and moved them to the forward section of the fortress. I had never designed the fortress to be a weapon so we were having to improvise a bit. All of the cannons were charged and could be quickly swapped out. That gave each gunner four shots before having to recharge.

Ska had ten charged mana hearts, so he would run out before Martin did but it would have to do. The blasts were powerful enough to shear through steel but unlike wood, steel was solid enough to cause the blast of mana to explode, similar to how the blasts exploded when they impacted the ground that time we fought the elves. It would take powerful shields to absorb the damage, even the fortress shields could only take a dozen direct impacts before failing.

I rested until noon and then we got back into the air.

***

Slowly we crept closer to Chicago, cloak engaged as we crawled through the dimming daylight. Every hour or so I would activate my title to determine the location of our target. It hadn’t moved much in that time but I could tell it was close to the downtown area. That was going to be a problem, the tall buildings prevented me from getting the fortress close enough to strike at him directly.

“Incoming!” Fiona yelled.

I immediately turned off the cloak and engaged the shield as something impacted its surface causing a ripple. Fiona was on the roof as I had to keep track of the buildings. Thankfully she was able to get inside before the shield went up. More flashes of light blasted from hidden areas within the surrounding buildings. The shells slammed into our shield, shaking the fortress but only reducing the shield by two hundred points.

“Prepare to return fire!” I yelled over the radio, rotating the front of the fortress to face one of the buildings. “Fire!”

Two white streams of condensed mana burst forth from our cannons, obliterating the bottom floor of a three-story building. Glass and bricks flew in every direction as the building collapsed in on itself.

Martin and Ska swapped out the cannons for fresh ones as I rotated the fortress to the next target and tried to make it hard for the enemy to strike back. If it wasn’t for the remote viewer, I don’t think I would even know what was going on. The front of the fortress was wreathed in explosions as more and more artillery shells exploded against the shield. The enemy had quickly switched to incendiary rounds to try and blind us. Turns out these were also far more damaging to the shield as it dropped another six hundred points. I shunted the power of the cloak crystal to the shields to keep it going. This was going to be a battle of attrition.

***

We had been forced to retreat after twenty minutes of intense fighting. Entire blocks had been leveled in the ensuing battle but still there seemed to be an endless supply of tanks and artillery at the Black Dragons disposal. I had no idea where they had gotten the heavy armament, it wasn’t here before. I knew that Randy was some head honcho for a private military firm but I didn’t realize the man had a whole army. I guess he would have to if he subdued New York.

The fortress was not unscathed. The shields had failed on a few occasions, letting rounds through. If they had been using armor penetrating rounds instead of the incendiary ones we would have likely died. But the condensed stone had absorbed most of the damage. One room was a total loss, a round blowing through a weak portion and turning everything inside to melted slag. Thankfully, no critical damage impacted our ability to fight, fly, or maneuver. The rest could be fixed in time.

Ska and Martin had been singed by the fires but Elemental Defense saved them from the worst of it. We did have a few sketchy moments when the power dropped out and an agent of Randy’s managed to teleport aboard. Fiona was able to deal with him while the rest of us were occupied.

I dumped his corpse out of the exit after we landed. We had retreated twenty miles outside of Chicago. While Martin was recharging the cannons, Ska and Fiona were patrolling, making sure nobody snuck up on us while I did my best to fix the gaping hole in the fortress. I could only seal it closed, not having the time to source additional rock to bring it back to one hundred percent.

Ska and Fiona came running a few minutes later.

“There are dozens coming!” she yelled.

I swore, using my wings to fly around to the entrance. The two rushed up the ramp and I slammed the door closed. The fortress was already airborne before I got the second door closed. Martin must have heard.

Magic spells and ranged weapons pelted the shield as we rose into the sky. I ran past Martin and got on one of the cannons. The people below weren’t dumb though, they scattered as soon as they saw the weapon move. That didn’t save all of them though as I blasted a group of five with the cannon.

“Move us east,” I said over the radio, tired from the day's battle.

We finally moved out of range of the attackers and I swapped out for Martin in the command chair. I wanted to go back in and lay waste to everything that Randy Cotton cared about but we still hadn’t recharged the shields and everyone was exhausted. We moved around, not staying on one heading until we came across a massive lake. It had to easily be the size of one of the great lakes. But we were far too south for it to be one of those lakes. There were a few scattered islands far enough out that it would be safe to touch down for the night.

The muddy ground of the small island seemed to suck in the landing gear of the fortress. I had to have Martin lift it back up so I could compress the Earth below with my magic enough for it to support us.

I got back to work patching the hole and Martin got back to recharging the mana hearts. My work was done after another twenty minutes. Ska and Fiona patrolled the island but there wasn’t anything to see and it was all visible from the ship. I walked back aboard and helped Martin to refill the crystals, it was going to be another long day tomorrow.