Zed led them to a gnome who was handing out various pieces of equipment. Zed gestured to the gnome with two raised fingers and was promptly handed two circlets. “Here, put this around your neck! Pull it apart in the back.”
Gastropé took the circlet — really, a solid neckband that was open at the back, but which appeared to have some sort of clasping mechanism. It was made out of gold and silver-colored metal with various rings of different colored stones embedded in the band. It was a tight fit, but he got it around his neck.
Zed had his on already. He came up to Gastropé and snapped the back into place so it was locked. He began twisting the colored gem bands on the circlet. “There, I’ve tuned it to the same linkage that we will use on our carpet.”
“What is this?” Gastropé asked.
“It serves two purposes: first, it’s a life support system. It will keep you warm and supplied with air on the carpet. We are way too high up to breathe otherwise, and it’s colder than a lich’s teat out there. Or almost.” Zed shrugged, realizing they would soon have to fight liches and discover how cold that might be. “It also has links to allow us to send and receive communications with others. I just set the default link to the one we’ll be using on Peter’s carpet.” He added, “There is also the general command frequency that we can all hear messages on. We try to not use it except for priority orders and instructions.”
Zed was now leading them over towards a carpet where the human boy, Peter, was adjusting straps and talking to others about to board. Peter was the combat pilot they had met on the trip up to the carpet.
“Understand,” said Zed, looking Gastropé in the eye, “this is going to be trial by fire for you — or rather, freezing in this case. Normally, we don’t fight at this altitude. Storm liches and ice dragons are about the only thing that can attack us this high. It is just below freezing out there, and the air is too thin for even the aetós to fly. Spell casting is going to be very tricky and dangerous. They appear to have sent almost all the storm liches against us; they had to know we were leaving about now and where we were going and therefore exiting.” He shook his head. “That’s why we are sending everyone, including new people, out to fight.”
Gastropé swallowed hard and nodded, knowing his face had to be showing his terror. He had to try to suck it up. Be brave and not look like a complete imbecile. They were counting on him. He only hoped he could count on himself.
“Gastropé!” Peter called with a smile. “In the fight! Hah! No better way to learn than to jump into the nastiest battle we’ve had in centuries!”
“You are nuts, Peter!” a young woman in an extremely tight-fitting suit of stretchy material said. She glanced at Gastropé. “I am Penelope and yes, I am a nymph and yes, I can do something besides make wild passionate love for hours on end.”
“But she’s very good at that!” Zed exclaimed with a leer. She glared at the satyr. “She’s also a combat geomancer, which is something we are going to really need today!”
“Why? We are so high up that — ” Gastropé began.
“Gravity sucks!” Penelope shouted and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. She then strode to a cushion on the carpet and began strapping herself in.
“She’s right. The force of gravity is still quite potent up here, and neither liches nor dragons have any real defense against it.” Peter smiled as he pointed to a cushion for Gastropé.
Zed took the very back center cushion; Peter moved towards the front center cushion. He and Penelope were in the two side-by-side cushions. “This is one of the older, smaller carpets. We are using nearly everyone today, so we’ve put some heavy hitters that don’t normally fly combat on the newer six-person carpets,” Zed told him. That explained why it had fewer seats.
“On the bright side,” Peter said, grinning as he strapped himself in, “this is the carpet I used to set my speed record. It’s a lean, mean flying machine!”
Gastropé got himself situated and strapped in; Zed double-checked from behind him. “Strapped in!” the satyr called.
Gastropé quickly began trying to shove his component bag into the pouch before him. He wished he had been able to wizardize his staff; that would have been really useful. As it was, he had a wand of fire bolts he had been barely able to afford in Freehold. It was one that was wizard-powered, meaning it had no mana of its own, but worked as a catalyst so he didn’t need the regular material components. Just some key phrases, will power and mana. Unfortunately, he hadn’t realized he’d be fighting creatures nearly impervious to fire, or he might have gotten something else. Nevertheless, what did he have that might be useful? He could do lightning bolts, but that would have to be done the traditional way and on a high-speed carpet, he’d likely fumble the spell and kill them all.
The carpet seemed to lurch as it came alive. Peter grinned. “We all good?” Everyone nodded. He smiled and turned around. “Up, up and away!”
The carpet began moving upward rapidly. Gastropé looked up to see the stormy cloud ceiling approaching quickly. He was sure they were going to crash into the roof when the clouds suddenly parted and they were up and out.
“Peter on carpet 69, we are cloud free!” Peter shouted. The link channel to the command center came online as someone, Gastropé could not tell whom, gave Peter some instructions. Gastropé, however, was lost staring up above them. The observation deck and view lenses had mainly been looking down or to the sides. He could now stare straight up into the darkest blue-black that he could imagine.
Nearly overhead and a bit to the east, mighty Fierd was a giant, angry ball of fire. However, off beside Fierd the sky was not the normal blue, but rather the inky blackness of the night sky. Only as one’s eyes dove towards the horizon did the sky turn blue. Gastropé gulped at the overwhelming majesty of the sight.
“We have our target!” Peter shouted as the carpet banked heavily to starboard. Gastropé grabbed onto the rope handle beside his seat as the carpet tilted. He had never felt this degree of motion on a carpet before.
They came out of the bank and raced over the roiling, angry cloudship, then suddenly there was open air below them, and they were diving at a terrifying speed. Up ahead he could see the small forms of the dragon-borne liches towards which they raced, below and aft of the ship.
Gastropé furrowed his brow as he watched the rapidly approaching dragons. “Zed, you said that the air was too thin for the aetós to fly?”
“Yep,” came the satyr’s reply over the linked circlets.
“So how are the ice dragons able to fly up here?” Gastropé asked.
ZZzzssstttt! Gastropé jumped as a giant bolt of lightning arced overhead towards the lich and dragon. It appeared to only briefly hit the dragon’s wing, but he could not be sure. The odd part was that the thunder was very mild and subdued compared to the size and proximity of the bolt. Clearly the air was too thin for loud thunder, just a zapping noise.
Peter ignored the lightning and laughed, as did Penelope.
“That is an excellent question!” Zed replied in answer to how ice dragons could fly at this altitude... “One that we carpet warriors have often debated.”
“Fortunately,” Peter said, “we have come up with the only possible explanation!”
“Which is?” Gastropé asked.
“It’s magic!” The other three all shouted in unison before bursting into laughter. ZZzzssstttt! Went another quiet lightning.