TWENTY-FIVE - THE FLIGHT OF THE OLD CROW

The sea was gray, the sky was pale, dear blue and all was quiet. Too quiet.

I shoulda had the wizard do something about engine noise, Charlie thought as the plane hissed through the air. The AN-2 was as rugged as a steel I-beam, but her Russian designers hadn't spared any attention for non-essentials like soundproofing. Flying a Colt and being able to hear himself think was a new experience for Charlie. He wasn't sure he liked it.

He flicked the intercom switch.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,

And wee'lll alllll stayyy freeee.

None of the demons could sing worth a damn and that wasn't stopping any of them. In fact they'd been singing constantly since they launched out of the aerie several hours before. They'd started with “Remember Pearl Harbor” and worked their way through a medley of World War II patriotic songs, including a rousing number called “Bomben auf England” that Charlie was sure never graced the messes of the Eighth Air Force. When again. It wasn't such a large repertoire and Charlie had decided long ago he preferred the unnatural silence of the cockpit to the racket in the intercom.

Gilligan leaned over the map and put his fists on the table. “Okay, their forces are deploying. We've got six, eight, it looks like about ten squadrons of dragons moving into range of Charlie.”

“What is Dushmann doing?” asked Kuznetsov.

Gilligan looked puzzled.

“The enemy,” the Russian explained. “ 'Dushmann' means the Enemy.”

“In the air over the city, not much. There are only scattered indications from the City of Night. It looks as if they only have a few sentries up.” He looked over at Bal-Simba. “I'd bet he's got forces still on the ground and ready to launch. But the ones that are homing in on Charlie are probably out, of the battle. They can't get back in time.”

Moira thrust her scaly head between Gilligan and Kuznetsov. “Has Charlie been warned?”

“He knows they're there,” the American said dryly.

Everyone watched silently as the waves of red acts swept toward the lone green diamond.

“Six o'clock high,” Tailgunner Joe sang out over the intercom. “Bogies. Multiple. They're going for a beam pass.”

“I got “em,” Sparks shouted. “Here they come.”

Charlie twisted in the seat to catch sight of the attackers. The undead dragons weren't as smooth as the ones he had seen at the castle. Their formation was ragged, they tended to slew in the turn and their flight was stiff. But all that only made them more menacing. He counted at least six as they swept around in a flat turn to come in on the Colt broadside. On they came, rising and falling slightly in the air currents, growing larger and more sinister as they bored in for the kill. Charlie saw the skeletal riders rise in their saddles to draw their great iron bows.

Just when it seemed they were too close to matter, Sparks opened up with the waist gun. The undead riders and their zombie mounts were immune to death arrows and hard to stop with dragon fire. They would have laughed at .50 caliber machine gun bullets. Energy bolts were another matter.

Lances of lightning stabbed toward the attackers. The afterimage burned purple in Charlie's vision of a dragon arcing its neck back almost on top of its rider in a lambent nimbus of brilliance. Then Tex joined in from the top turret and the brightness became too much to bear. Charlie blinked and shook his head, trying to see. The instrument panel was lost in the dark spots swirling across his vision. He drew a gasping breath and nearly choked on the ozone. The flat crack-crack-crack of the lightning bolts told him Sparks was still firing.

Suddenly it was quiet again. “Eight in, eight down,” Sparks yelled into the intercom. Charlie looked out the side window and saw two splashes in the ocean below. One of them had a burnt relic that might once have been a wine disappearing at its center.

Back in the cockpit Gerry O'Demon, his copilot, was holding the controls straight and level as if nothing had happened.

“Good work, son,” Charlie said into the mike.

“Don't get cocky,” came Joe's growl from the tail position. “We got two more groups on our six.”

Gerry leaned forward and squinted out the windshield. Twelve o'clock high!” the demon called. “Multiples. Three squadrons at least. I think more behind those.”

Charlie's eyes weren't as good as the demon's but when he looked hard he saw them too. He craned his neck left and right seeking more bogies. He didn't see any but there was an ugly looking thunderhead boiling up a couple of miles off to the left.

Normally Charlie would have avoided a storm cell like a temperance lecture. But the three squadrons of zombies were coming straight at them. He heard the crack-crack-crack as the squadrons behind them came within range of Tailgunner Joe's weapon.

“Really sporty, huh?” chirped his co-pilot.

Tu madre,” Charlie muttered. Then he kicked the rudder hard, shoved the throttle to the firewall and ran for the clouds for all he was worth.

Far above, the watching demons scanned everything that came within their purview. They were without emotion or even intelligence. They simply collected sense impressions and transmitted the information through intermediary demons back to the Wizards' Keep, where it was processed and displayed on the magic map in the war room.

Moira thrust her scaly head over Gilligan's shoulders. “It appears that Charlie has destroyed some of his attackers.”

“He's got firepower in that plane,” Jerry said.

“Every one he takes out is one less we have to worry about,” Kuznetsov added.

Gilligan peered deeper into the tank. There were a lot of red dots closing in on the lone green diamond. “From the looks of it I'd say we're going to have plenty to worry about anyway.”

“Are we ready for the next phase?” asked Bal-Simba.

Gilligan looked at Kuznetsov and both men shook their heads. “We want them committed as fully as possible before we spring our next little surprise on them.”

“A while more,” Kuznetsov said.

Gilligan watched the battle develop and tried not to think about Karin and what she was doing.