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The Chariot, like a human calculator, kept count of each rocket. He’d programmed them to seek a helicopter, but Richter’s heat signature might distract them. Either way, an Arcana on the other end would feel the pressure.
Soon we were up to a dozen. Then two. Evie used her vines to dispense more rockets as we continued our steady barrage.
Efficient. Meticulous.
I briefly lifted my visor to share a look with her—we’ve got this. She nodded confidently.
In a monotone, Kentarch called, “Thirty-eight.”
Zara was close enough that we saw lightning striking the rockets. But her luck would only hold for so long, and then the environment would cease protecting her.
Before us, the river was now a liquid sheen. Circe called out, “Thank you, Sun. I’m ready.” She raised her hands and churned the water, her eyes shimmering. Soon a pair of large whirlpools appeared, a modern-day Charybdis, times two. “Spare some light for the Empress.”
“Will do, Priestess.” Though fatigued from his efforts, Sol gamely lifted the last launcher and fired.
Kentarch’s count: “Forty-five.”
Lark called, “Richter’s hanging back behind the copter. Coward!”
A good deal for us. “He’s going to allow us to fight her,” I told Evie. “He has to. Even a brute like him has figured out he can’t defeat Lady Luck.”
Evie grinned with satisfaction. “Splintering.”
“And even though the Emperor’s idling, he’s still burning fuel.” Maintaining that much lava in weather like this made for a fearsome sight but would eat through his reserves. “Fauna, deploy your bats.”
“On it.” Her eyes glowed red as she directed a sky-blotting swarm of bats toward the copter.
Lark would order her wolves to attack once Fortune had sustained a glancing hit. They growled with aggression from the cover of the oaks, hungering for action.
But the bats spiraled down to their deaths. “Gusting winds are shearing them away!” Lark shouted.
“It’s still weakening Fortune. Keep them going.”
A different pitch of whistle sounded. Kentarch yelled, “Incoming missile.”
Zara had fired on us. I turned to the Tower. “You’re up.”
He put down the launcher and readied a javelin.
I intoned, “Wait for it.”
“I got this, Reaper.”
“Now.”
He threw . . . and struck it in the distance. An explosion detonated across the river. The metallic scent of lightning and our rocket smoke filled the air.
“Good show, Tower.”
Joules puffed up his chest. “Do this all day long—”
Kentarch cut him off: “Incoming.”
Fortune had fired another missile on the tail of the first. Joules hurled a javelin too soon. Then another miss. He began to sweat as he produced a third spear in his palm.
I collected one of my own, throwing with all my might. Even with my aim and strength, I couldn’t hit something moving at Mach speed. “Easy, Tower. Concentrate.”
Joules missed another one. “Feck me, it’s bearin’ down!”
The missile was visible now. Kentarch ordered, “Take cover!”
I’d just tensed to collect Evie, when she said, “I’ve got it!” With a determined look, she waved her hands, and her vines shot to the river’s edge and upward. In midair, they caught the missile in a wall of green, closing around the projectile. The vines spun like an unmanned fire hose, but she gritted her teeth and somehow kept hold of it. “Circe, drag it all down!”
Circe directed one of her whirlpools to spin upward into a spout. It funneled toward the missile and vines, swamping them. Together, she and Evie managed to force the mass beneath the surface. A muffled explosion underwater sent up a gigantic plume.
Circe tottered on her feet. “Ow.” Now one with the river, she’d felt that percussion. As had Evie through her plants.
Between breaths, Evie asked me, “How many more of those does Zara have?”
“Fourteen.” And possibly seventy-six rockets. Not to mention twelve hundred rounds of bullets.
I raced over to Joules, taking the rattled young man by his shoulders. “You are the godsdamned Lord of Lightning. You were rightly dreaded over all the games—because you are a foe to be reckoned with. Now protect this alliance, Tower.”
“Yeah. Okay!” Joules lifted his chin. “All right, all right, I’m back in it.”
Whistles sounded. Kentarch called, “Three incoming.”
Instead of appearing panicked by this news, Joules’s mien grew dogged.
Evie muttered, “I know that look. He’s about to prickly them to death.”
Joules deflected the first. The second. The third.
Kentarch: “And again. Three incoming.”
With unerring accuracy and focus, Joules continued to shoot them down. Electricity crackled in the air, adrenaline surging in us all. I imagined Zara in her cockpit yelling with frustration as she fired again. Rashness, indeed.
Soon the Tower had burned out all but one of her missiles, yet for some reason, Fortune continued closing in, even as Richter held back, his presence a constant glowing menace. A failure of strategy for her? I would have continued firing from afar. What was her plan?
She’d flown within even my striking distance. Finally, my own target to aim for! I called to the Tower, “If I hit her before you do, I’ll never let you live it down.” I launched my first javelin at her.
