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Adry blasted her magic outward, nearly giving herself over to the power flowing through her veins. Her magic twined together with Dacha’s, sparking off his and yet at the same time melding to form an inferno of magic stretching along the line of the Alliance advance.

The booming of the Mongavarian guns set up a rolling thunder. Even with the moss earplugs to dampen the noise, her magic roared, the shells screamed, and the explosions reverberated through her chest until she thought she might go deaf before the day was out.

All along the line, Mongavarian shells peppered the magical shield Dacha and Adry held over the Alliance troops. These shells were coated in that foreign, repelling magic the Mongavarians had been using on their aeroplanes, making it harder to grab them and toss them back.

Still, Adry gritted her teeth and wrapped her magic around the shells, tightening her hold as she dragged them from their trajectory and slammed them into the bare ground. What had once been a cornfield stretching between the lines was now a pitted wasteland of churned earth and exploded ordnance.

She and Dacha stretched their magic outward until it brushed against the outer fringes of the Mongavarian defenses. There, the repelling foreign magic clashed against theirs, protecting the Mongavarian guns and frontline troops from being incinerated.

Dacha braced himself in the inferno of magic with his swords in hand and turned to shout over his shoulder to Uncle Iyrinder and the elite guards, who crouched behind a protected berm of earthworks. “The Mongavarian line is protected with that foreign magic. How far out is that air strike?”

At least they’d seen no sign of those magic-stealing machines. They’d shelled the Mongavarians with magic-laced bombs to see if the magic was yanked away. It hadn’t been, but would all this repelling magic have disrupted their test?

Uncle Iyrinder relayed the message to Ithronel, one of the guards. He crouched by the large radio, which had been unloaded from the army truck that had carried them here.

After a moment, Uncle Iyrinder shouted, “Less than five minutes out. We are to hold here.”

Dacha nodded and faced forward again, poised to run.

Adry flexed her fingers on the hilt of her sword, her palms sweaty with the fury of her magic. Her heart pounded in time with the concussion of the artillery guns.

The dark shapes of aeroplanes soared overhead, any noise from their propellers or engines drowned in the storm of magic and shelling. Most of the aeroplanes broke off in smaller formations, heading both north and south parallel to the front lines until only six aeroplanes remained overhead.

The smaller formation of aeroplanes looped, then dove for the section directly in front of her and Dacha. Blue magic coated each of the plummeting aeroplanes, proving that at least two of those aeroplanes held Merrik and Fieran.

Adry caught her breath at the sight of the aeroplanes seemingly nose-diving straight for the ground. How had she never appreciated just how crazy Merrik and Fieran were to be aeroplane pilots?

The aeroplanes plunged through the tempest that was her and Dacha’s magic. Fieran’s magic sparked and roiled into the furious convergence of power, furthering the roaring storm building around them.

Then the aeroplanes leveled off, far too close to the ground. Small dark shapes fell from the aeroplanes as Merrik and his squadron mates released the arm-length bombs carried beneath the wings.

Moments later, explosions rocked the ground beneath her while dirt and shrapnel blasted upward in gouts of fire.

As the aeroplanes turned their noses back to the sky once again, Adry raised her sword in a salute. She wasn’t sure if Merrik could see her, but she made the gesture anyway.

One of the aeroplanes dipped its wings back and forth before continuing its ascent.

She smiled. It was far better going into battle, knowing Merrik was flying watch overhead.

“Go.” Dacha took off at a run toward the Mongavarian line.

Adry broke into a sprint a heartbeat later, following at Dacha’s heels. The two of them dodged around the shell craters and jumped over tangled strands of barbed wire.

Then they were plunging into the chaos of what had been the Mongavarian front lines. The big guns and Mongavarian armored vehicles now lay on their sides in melted masses of metal. Loose horses screamed and bolted while men cried as they clutched bleeding wounds.

Yet she and Dacha attacked ruthlessly, efficiently, their magic-coated swords slicing through flesh and bone. The two of them moved almost as one, protecting each other’s backs as they fought their way forward, the rhythm well-honed after years of practices and the time spent on the front.

To her right and slightly behind her, she could sense the points of dwarven magic rolling forward. Bursts of elven and troll magic came from beyond that as the Alliance army advanced behind the shielded armored dwarven vehicles.

She and Dacha pressed forward on the heels of the fleeing enemy.

Even so, she glanced upward at the comforting presence of the aeroplanes circling high overhead. Merrik was there, a protective presence as she charged once more into battle.

Adry stirred the gloppy mess simmering in the shallow tin pan of her mess kit with her spoon. The suspicious substance that had come out of the ration can was supposedly beef, but she had her doubts. Hopefully it would be more palatable once cooked than it currently looked.

Not that cooking was helping that much, given that the fire made from random wooden debris and green scrub brush smoked terribly.

Nearby, Aylduin, Ithronel, and Finnea, three members of their elite guard, used their magic to carve deeper into the hillside to create a bunker of roots and earth. Beyond them, trenches, barbed wire, and earthworks stretched in both directions for as far as she could see, the elf, troll, and human soldiers camped in the provided shelter. The dwarves camped beneath their armored vehicles.