Chapter Four Hundred and Nineteen - Reckless and Wild, they Pour Through the Turns

Even as we were still shouting "Go!" a huge bronze cannon fired a blank into the air--the sound was like an echoing blast of thunder, drowning us out for long seconds.

A dozen tethers crashed to the ground, no longer holding onto the racing ships as they bucked forwards. I cheered as the racers surged ahead, though really, they had yet to build all that much momentum.

Airships were pretty fast, but they weren’t that fast, especially not from a dead start. Even with all of their engines roaring, the ships were still taking a long time to get moving.

“And they’re off!” the announcer shouted.

The start of the race was a slow left turn that would begin the circle around Smoulderglen. There was a bit of a dip in the landscape as well, so any ship that wanted to gain some early speed could trade height for momentum, and a few did just that.

The Bellowing Beast was one of the slower ships, but as it dropped to gain speed it managed to keep in the front. The Shady Lady, meanwhile, flew straight on. It was one of the smallest ships in the race, and its large, well-tuned engine combined with its lightweight build meant that it had an easier time accelerating.

That was, until the Lady made a hard turn to the side to avoid The Dawn Screecher. The harpies onboard screamed and shouted from the ship’s deck as it flew past. Probably because they were so focused on screaming at Abraham, the crew of the Screecher wasn't.

Which was probably why their port-side wings smashed into the balloon of another smaller ship that was diving to gain some speed.

The balloon ripped apart even as the crew of the Screecher tugged in the wing to the ship’s side. Then the port engine, jutting out on a gondola fixed to the airship’s side, skimmed right over the smaller ship’s balloon.

Its propeller wasn’t so lucky.

The crowd screamed in glee and panic as the Screecher’s prop tore chunks out of the smaller ship’s balloon, sending canvas and bits of lightweight wood flying all over.

The smaller ship plummeted out of the sky.

I gasped.

“The first casualty of the race and we’re barely out of the starting stretch!” the announcer exclaimed. “The Tragic Moment goes down in flames!”

Fortunately, the racers were only a dozen metres off the ground so close to the start of the race, and the ship still kept some buoyancy even as it crashed, so the crash was less an explosive disintegration and more of a hard meeting of ship and ground.

One of the crashed ship’s engines exploded into flames, and I saw the crew abandoning ship with alacrity as ship fuel spread along with the fire.

The crowd cheered even louder while a few horse-drawn carriages with large water tanks were rushed to the site of the crash.

“Oh no,” I said as I sat closer to the edge of the girder my friends and I had appropriated.

“They’re fine,” Amaryllis said. “The entire crew got out.”

“That ship’s not fine,” Awen said, which was undeniably the truth. Even with firefighters on the scene, including a few water and dirt mages dampening the fire, the ship wasn’t going to be flying for a while.

The race continued on, heedless of the accident, and it was clear that a formation of sorts was already taking shape. The Shady Lady took a spot in third place, with the Smokestack in the lead and another smaller ship wedged between them. Behind, the Bellowing Beast was rumbling ahead, leading the pack, and at the very back was the Dawn Screecher which had clearly taken some damage from the bump at the start but which was still flying after the others.

“The Smokestack is taking the lead, proving that it’s once more the fastest boat in the air. Right behind it we have the Empty Bowl, followed by the Shady Lady! The Glorious Emissary of the Transcendent Obsidian Dragon-King is leading the rest of them behind the Bellowing Beast!”

It looked like one of their crewmates was hanging off the side of the Dawn Screecher, kicking at a sail that wasn’t deploying properly so that they could manage the next turn.

My friends and I stood up as the ships gained some distance and started heading around Smoulderglen. I squinted, lowering one of my ears down to give my eyes some shade from the sun.

In the distance, the Smokestack was drawing out its lead, gaining more and more distance from the other racers. “Whoa, they’re fast!” I said.

“Very,” Awen said. “What would I give to take a look at that engine.”

I glanced at my friend, then used a bit of Cleaning magic to wipe away the drool collecting on the edge of her mouth. She didn't seem to notice, eyes focused intently into the distance. Suddenly, she gasped, and I spun to follow her gaze.

The Smokestack was wobbling to the side, more smoke than usual trailing off its sides. “What happened?” I asked.

“They were shot,” Caprica said. She pointed to the Bellowing Beast leading the pack of slightly slower ships. The front of the airship had opened up to reveal a large ballista with two drolls reloading it with bolts that were longer than they were tall.

“The Beast is showing its fangs early this year! Sniping our local champion right out of the skies! World knows if the Smokestack will be able to recover from this!”

The ballista was rearmed, then it fired, the bolt flinging ahead with enough force that the entire ship shook.

The Smokestack was falling back to deal with the damage from the first bolt, and now in an eyeblink, the second bolt was halfway to the Shady Lady--

"No!" I gasped or maybe shouted--

An unmistakable "HA-HAH!" crashed over us, knocking my ears back and setting the metal of the tower to vibrating.

The bolt collided with something too small to see and exploded in mid-air only a dozen metres from the Lady’s rear.

The crowd roared in shock and awe.

“What was that?” Calamity asked.

“Uncle must have shot down the bolt,” Awen said.

“With what? I didn’t even see him carrying a weapon,” Calamity said.

“His favourite weapons are pebbles,” Awen said. “He just... picks them up.”

“Your uncle’s kinda scary,” Calamity said.

The race didn’t stop for us to chit-chat. It was actually actively changing moment by moment. The Bellowing Beast was catching up to the lead the others had gotten near the start, especially since the leaders had to duck and weave to avoid its attacks. The Shady Lady slipped into first as the other ship in the lead got hit by a glancing blow that poked a hole through its gasbag.

The racers slalomed through the maze of chimneys and smokestacks near the industrial side of the city. I held my breath as those in the lead were forced to slow down to make it through, letting the others behind them catch up.

By the time they were through, the Shady Lady was back in the midst of the pack, with the Bellowing Beast surging out ahead and the Smokestack falling behind a little.

The Dawn Screecher was at the rear, but it looked like it had fixed itself up and was speeding along to try and catch up with the rest.

“And they’re coming around! Watch your ears kids, this is going to be loud!” the announcer shouted above.

The first lap soon came to an end, the ships racing around the final stretch of the lap before roaring past.

I tugged down on my ears as the overpowering wall of noise battered us. The growling engines and howling propellers combined with the frenzied cheering of the crowd to produce utter pandemonium, which was further enhanced by thick waves of dust that smothered us in the airships' wake.

The crowd, at least, had a few wind mages pushing against the dust. We got blasted for a split second before I thought to push against the dust with Cleaning magic.

The ships continued to shoot past until the last one had entered the second lap. The flags from the balloons marking out the first lap had dropped, and a new set rose along the route for the second lap. This time, they’d loop around the second track for the final lap, which meant going even further out and around, across forests and craggy hillsides.

The Shady Lady was gaining, and the racers were starting to spread out a lot more. It was clear that a number of them just weren’t all that fast. The Bellowing Beast still kept in the lead though.

Then I noticed a sort of heat-haze radiating up out of the forest that I was pretty sure hadn’t been there before. “What’s that?” I asked.

Before anyone could respond, a brace of large fireballs flashed out of the woods and slammed into the Bellowing Beast’s underside, at least, the first few did. A shimmering shield appeared, covering the airship’s hull, but it was too late for the first few strikes which had already struck.

“Oh! The cheaters aren’t even being subtle this year! Are they targeting the Beast because it’s in the lead, or is it the main target of their ire! Recall that the Ember Hounds took out the Red Wing’s racer last year in this very same lap!” the announcer said.

The crowd cheered and booed in equal measure, so I wasn’t sure if they didn’t like the cheating or not.

The Bellowing Beast continued its flight, but it had to move with its shields up. Squinting, I could just make out the form of a person hanging off the side of the ship with a wand in hand holding the shield up. That couldn’t be cheap on mana.

With the lead ship distracted, a few of those behind it made a run for first place, they zipped past the Bellowing Beast and there were too many of them moving past for its ballista to do anything about it.

Then more fire came from the forest in great big gouts that curved towards the ships above.

The solution, it looked like, was to gain altitude to make it harder for the fire to reach them. The fireballs could only move so quickly and the ships were moving targets at a distance. It did make for a cool show, seeing the airships flying through columns of quickly dissipating fire.

“They can’t keep that up for long,” Caprica said. “anti-airship magic attacks are notoriously mana-expensive.”

The racers spread out, and I was happy to see the Shady Lady roaring ahead. Surprisingly, the Smokestack and the Dawn Screecher were both making comebacks in this section.

Then they reached the crags.

“This is where the real challenge begins!” the announcer said.

“Oh no,” I said. That couldn’t be good.

Just as the first ship crossed the start of the crags, a balloon shot upwards from the ground, rising rapidly into the sky and trailing a long cable beneath it. Then another rose, and another, each spread out from the rest until there were some two dozen balloons in the sky blocking the racer’s paths and rising up much higher than they could.

“What are those?” I asked.

“They’re barrage balloons,” Caprica said. “They have steel cables under them, to catch flyers. At the speeds they’re all moving at, a collision could be trouble.”

I winced as one of the lead ships must have caught one of those cables because the balloon above it jerked down and the ship was sent spinning sideways as if struck, then some parts went flying as they were ripped off.

The balloons were joined by more underhanded cheating. There must have been catapults or something hiding in the crags because large flaming rocks were soon tossed up and into the air on high arcs that could easily reach the belly of the airships above.

The Bellowing Beast, struggling to regain its momentum after the fireball attacks, crashed into a cable, its shield having expired. The large ship lurched as the cable slashed its balloon, and it plummeted towards the crags below. It was too far for me to see clearly, but I thought I saw parachutes blooming from the falling ship. The crew escaped!

The crowd gasped collectively as one of the front-runners disappeared from the race.

***