His Majesty's Dragons: The Battle of Britain

[General Havoc]

To Captain Rankin's inveterate relief, and Albatros' severe disappointment, something convinced the Australian Heavy Lightweight to turn back, and maddening though it was to admit, while Albatros had inflicted more damage than he had received, he had inflicted it to a dragon more than capable of absorbing it, and to the wrong locations. Kunja's crippled foreleg, cloven flank, and slashed face would not prevent him from flying at full speed. Albatros' gouged wings did.

The reserve formations overtook Albatros as he shook his head and muttered something and finally turned away, leaving the Australian to fire impotent shots hopelessly out of range in their direction. One of the reserve Kampfritters lobbed a 37mm shell back in Kunja's direction, but did not wait around to range it in. The battle was over, and it was time to withdraw. Grumbling to himself in annoyance over the lost opportunity, Albatros and his reserves broke away south towards the Channel and France, leaving the British to savor their victory within their own skies.

*---------------------------------------------------------*

The radios were broken.

Specialist Sean Flowerdewe, a fiery-haired Irish lad who would not hesitate to beat any man or dragon who dared make fun of his name with his bare fists, was presently elbow-deep in the dismembered components of Æquitas' reserve radio, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with them. The main RAF channel, the one clogged with Dragons and men babbling military codes to one another as ground controllers vectored them back to their home coverts, was working perfectly. Spct Flowerdewe could flip the frequency over to the primary Luftwaffe channel, and hear the same sort of thing, orders and instructions broadcast to the German formations as they returned home, largely in the clear. A handful of other channels, RN Coastal Command, BBC, were also operating normally. And yet every single other frequency, military, civilian, emergency, or unused, every one was thickly choked with static and white noise.

It was not exactly a major problem. The sideband channels were for emergencies and special occasions, and the main channel was working just fine, ground control messages getting through perfectly, no problems. But as the rest of the crew busied themselves, Spct. Flowerdewe scratched his head and smacked the radio with a wrench, trying to figure out what the hell the problem was. Normally, when a radio channel was clogged up with static like that, it meant radio jamming. But the amount of jamming required to lock up ALL of those channels across the board was just ludicrous to imagine.

And besides, even if someone were to jam all of those channels, why would they steadfastly refrain from jamming the only ones that were of any military use to either side?

*-----------------------------------------------------------*

"Hallo Khartoum, Hallo Khartoum. You've deviated from your flight path. Please sound in."

The voice of the Ground Controller was harried and frazzled, sounding very much like a man who had too many demands on his attention, trying to will a response to come in over the badly jammed radio channel.

" -west by northwest heading," said the second man, the radar watch officer at the Ventnor radar station on the Isle of Wight. "I show them passing north of Alresford moving towards Hampshire at low speed."

"Well why the devil've they gone and done that?" asked the Ground Controller. "They were supposed to make best speed back to Uxbridge."

"Sightseeing for all I know," replied the radar officer, "bloody Russians get to do as they like."

"There's nothing to see up there, and I can't raise them on the sidebands."

"I can't raise the next bloody room on the sidebands. Jerries miscalibrated their jammers and filled the sideband channels with junk. Look, they're probably just lost or some damned thing. Once the Germans go home..."

"Look, are we sure there's nothing the matter over there?"

"GC, I'm looking at the radar this very instant. I show one heavyweight and a handful of lighter dragons. Jerry might be able to sneak a lightweight or two by us if they hugged the ground, but there's no way anything large enough to tackle those Russians could be anywhere near Hampshire. I bloody guarantee it. Call up the damned coastwatchers if you don't believe me."

"Ventnor, the Coastwatchers can't get through with the telephone exchange bombed out," said the Ground Controller, "but Bembridge and Hythe confirm your readings. Once the squadrons are on the ground I'll send a bloody Winchester out there to point them all in the right direction. Least as soon as I can get a signal to move past fifty yards."

"It'll clear up in an hour, GC. We've some repairs to make here. Ventnor signing off."

[Charon]

Kunja and Jake were frustrated. Even stating that was an understatement along the lines of saying that Frostfell enjoyed fighting and killing. The pair quickly closed ranks with the others and there was a silence between the captain and dragon that was only broken when Kunja shook his head to get some blood out of his eyes. Jake sighed.

"Alright, let's get a look at you. That one blow was pretty bad. Don't want you bleeding out before we get back to base." Jake scooted off of his seat, attached to a line which ran down to Kunja's chest, grabbing what little first aid supplies there were on board.

"Fuck you..." muttered the Victorian, who none-the-less complied, lifting up his injured foreleg so Jake could get at it.

Kunja's injury was really bad, it might have been a clean cut when it had gone in, but after being torn out like it was, the wound had turned jagged. Blood flowed freely from the injury.

"Fuck me, this isn't good." Jake muttered under his breath. He had enough to maybe wrap this wound once, but it was a stop-gap. It wouldn't hold long.

"Well you're a great doc. Might as well sell me a gravestone while you're at it." The great dragon sneared just slightly.

"Fuck you ya' scaly shithead." Jake hung almost freely in the air, connected to his dragon by only a carabiner as he worked on wrapping the wound, the black blood spilling onto his gloved hands and uniform as he worked diligently, his attention removed from everything else in the world.

[Cynical Cat]

Frostfell was, at the moment, flying slowly back to base at low altitude. People were bitching on the wireless about the side channels being jammed. Bloody hell. Of all the time for the Germans to jam them, why now? Their boys were already on their way home. And why the side channels?

Unless they were up to something sneaky, devious, and underhanded. The great wyrm swung his head around. He was half blind in one eye from the blood dripping shrapnel wound. What around here was worth the effort? The base? All dragons were in the air. The Russians? Even if they were still around, that would only provoke the Russian government. That wouldn't get them anything.

Unless the Germans had something else in mind. A frame job? No, wouldn't work. A hostage? A hostage might be worth something. Not worth the risk, in Frostfell's less than generous opinion, but that didn't mean they wouldn't try it. Humans were, after all, only somewhat rational and the Nazis even less so.

"Frostfell to ground control," he said. "Location of . . . Khartoum?" It took him a moment to remember the Russian's escort's code name.

He got nothing back from them but static. Wonderful. Well, he knew the direction the Russian's were supposed to be going. He could fly out that way and see what there was to see. With his one good eye and on his torn wing. He beat the air and flew faster. That hurt. If the Russian's weren't in trouble, he was going to be very, very pissed.

[Avian Obscurities]

Crew secured, Flinder sprung into the air and rose laboriously. "What's going on, Allen?" he called through the rush of air.

"I don't know, mate...." Allen had caught only fragments of the radio-operators' conversation through the static. "Something about the Russians."

Flinder banked steeply, trying to catch a wind to help lift his tired wings. "Do you think they need help?"

Allen flipped through the channels worriedly. Panic was starting to tease the edges of his consciousness, and he completely forgot that the RAF Main channel was still open. "No idea, but we shouldn't leave without orders, not knowing where to go. I can't raise the operator on my little radio, the signal's not--"

Allen stopped as Flinder's head suddenly snapped to the side, staring unseeing into the distance. "Blood on the water, blood on the wind," he intoned dreamily. "The shark's got the scent."

Allen turned where he was looking and saw the blood-streaked form of Frostfell fighting for altitude. The young captain shifted uncomfortably. He suspected he should wait for orders from Captain Rankin, but with the radios buggered and their leader nowhere in sight, they could be circling aimlessly for an hour, if not more. And Flinder’s reactions—on top of the jammed radios—made him suspect that something somewhere was seriously, seriously wrong.

He didn’t like the Wendigo. The great dragon’s attitude reminded him not so much of a wild animal as a feral one, like the half-dingo crossbreeds that would viciously attack young cattle even when they weren’t hungry. Allen had practiced sharpshooting starting at a young age while hunting these vermin, and even as a kid he had noticed that both the wild dingos and the cattle dogs avoided the vicious half-breeds.

Bennett had warned Allen not to risk himself trying to protect the bastard’s suicidal hide, but he did seem to be the only one in the air with a lead.

Allen turned to review his sparse crew and armaments, sighed, then directed Flinder to gain height and follow.

[LadyTevar]

"JUDITH! YOU"RE OK!!" Jebediah squawled, breaking the game. He at least had seen it wasn't working. Turning off his radio, he looked back at her, still coated in black blood. "He's comin' this-a-way, but he's lookin' mightly rough. Ah'm thinkin' we shoul' jis help 'em in an' not worry 'bout it."

"Right," Judith answered, although she kept up the 'is hurt' game by holding her head. "Catch up ta 'em, see how bad t'is. Ah'll jis' pr'tend ta be worn out n' tired."

"Ya list'ned ta th' radio?" Jebediah asked as he changed course, flying towards Kunja. When he caught up he would drop in formation beside the Victorian so they could talk easier. "Som'thin's gone an' jigger'd it."

"What?" Judith reached for the radio and heard the RAF channel clearly, filled with people asking why the other channels were scrambled. "Ah don' like this, Jeb."

"Ah don' eyther... but Ah'm bout done in, lil'girl." Jebediah did not have the stamina of larger dragons, and he'd been fighting and running hard. Escorting Kunja back to base was about all he really wanted to do.

Judith frowned, trying to decide what to do while Jebediah caught up to and feel in alongside Kunja. She could hear Frostfell asking about the Russians, but getting no answer.

"Damn boy!" Jebediah's voice brought Judith's attention to Kunja, and her eyes went wide at the damage. "Ya'll din't need ta hit Albatros iffen tha' brown one cut ya up lik' that!" Jebediah finished, honestly worried about his friend. He could see Jake hanging from under Kunja, trying to do something about the leg.

"Ooooo-weee..." Judith's eyes searched for Jake, before also seeing him trying to stop the leg from bleeding. "Wha's th' other guy look like?"

[General Havoc]

The first stage of the Tangmere squadron's return home took them in the same direction as Hampshire anyway, and so Captain Rankin and Æquitas did not immediately notice that several of his dragons were bearing away on an entirely different heading. It wasn't until their return course shifted due to headwinds that anyone aboard the Flagdragon realized something was amiss.

"Sir," said one of the midwingmen, "Frostfell's bearing away Starboard.

Rankin turned to look. Not just Frostfell but Flinder were both moving off north-northwest, rather than turning southwest as the squadron was meant to.

Frostfell was captainless, and had not endeared himself to Rankin's sensibilities regardless, and so he immediately suspected the worst. Picking up a radio, he nodded at Æquitas' turned head, and Æquitas slowly came about to follow the larger Wendigo.

"Frostfell, this is Æquitas," he said into the radio. "Is there something the matter?"

[Cynical Cat]

"Only reason to jam the secondary bands now, when the raid's over," growled Frostfell, "is so no one hears what's going on on the secondaries while everyone's distracted with the big show. The only target around here worth sneaking in spec ops dragons to hit is the Russians and they're on the secondary bands."

[Charon]

Jake didn't even seem to realize that Jebediah and Judith were there. Kunja only growled at them at first. It was clear that the pair were neither friendly nor happy at the moment.

"That was Albatros." The miniature Victorian growled, not saying anything else for a long time. "Almost had 'im..." he finally muttered under his breath. Then his eyes spotted two dragons off in the distance pulling away in the wrong direction. It was easy to tell who they were just from their coloration. He studied the situation for awhile before glancing at Jake. "Flinder's caught wind o' somethin'."

Jake looked up from his work only then, still not actually looking at Judith yet. "That can't be good..." The Australian was covered now in black blood and it barely seemed to phase him, but the wound was bandaged as well as it could for now.

[LadyTevar]

Judiith could actually understand why Jake wasn't looking her way -- Dragon came first. Instead she replied to Kunja. "That was Albatros?"

Jebediah snorted. "Playin' decoy wit' another dragon, was he? Damn smart.. you hit th' red one, an then he gets ya blindsided."

[General Havoc]

Captain Rankin, attending to his scattered squadron, had not overheard the offhand conversation of the Ventnor Radar operator and the Sussex GC, and while his Master Artificer and Radioman had both reported to him the difficulty with the sidebands, it had not seemed a subject worth investigating when there were dead and wounded to convey back to Tangmere. Something however in Frostfell's manner, perhaps the actual lack of braggart's insults, gave him the impression that something indeed might be up.

And if Æquitas agreed, then it was worth an investigation.

They flew on in silence, radio and otherwise, bearing further north than their path was to take, and if the ground controllers protested, they did so to deaf radios, for the prime RAF channel was clogged with messages from returning dragons, and the others were filled with static.

The weather, shining blue over Sussex, began to turn as they flew on, north by northeast. Clouds appeared, then multiplied, and soon the sky was pockmarked only with remnants of blue, the remaining area filled in with white and Grey cloud, into which the other dragons of the squadrons became ghostly outlines, and Frostfell vanished entirely. The wind whistled and moaned through the cables of the dragons' harnesses, giving the area and erie, ethereal feel to it

And then suddenly, just as Rankin was about to call all of the others back to Tangmere with a firmer order, the clouds parted, and all was revealed.

The Allied dragons burst into a massive open cauldron in the center of the thick cloud, and there, before them, lay the Russian dragons, and about them, living nightmares. Vinoslivijia, the Crimson Angel at the center of the Russian formation, flew on still, roaring and screaming oaths of battle and death in Russian that the treacherous winds had dampened and silenced, to the point where flying into the cauldron of cloud was like stepping into a room. Her glittering barding was destroyed, her harness in ruins, her flanks and wings and face marred by horrendous slashes and gouges. Dead men hung from limp carabiners, dangling like crystals on a wrecked chandelier. Yet despite the horrendous battery she had clearly sustained, the mighty Crimson Angel was neither cowed nor hesitant. Her claws and muzzle dripped with black blood, her tail was smeared with the red gore of mutilated human bodies, and atop her back, men wrestled and fought one another with pistol and sword and bare hands if necessary. Next to Vinoslivijia flew what was left of her escorts, two Zaporozhnian Cossacks spinning and twisting through the air like hummingbirds in a hurricane, as bullets and shells rained down upon them and their charge. Of the two St. Nevski's midweights, one yet remained aloft, its entrails ripped open, and falling fast, yet still desperately clawing for altitude as it fought to rejoin its compatriots. The other St. Nevski was nowhere to be seen, save for those with the clearest vision. It had been literally torn to pieces, and bits of its carcass lay scattered all over eastern Hampshire.

Around the Russians flew a maelstrom of darkness and pain. A living, breathing cauldron of death in the form of dragons black as pitch and silent as the gave. Large midweights in size, the dragons were less scaled in black than they were negations of light, holes in the fabric of space and time in the shape of dragons, save for bright blood-red eyes that glared daggers at their targets. Their claws were shod in razorsteel, their fangs dripped with blood human and draconic, and in and in again they lanced, striking like automatons commanded only to kill, carrying off anything they could seize, ripping and tearing and slashing like predatory sharks. Some of the dragons bore wounds, though the pure darkness of their scales made them hard to detect, yet not one of the six dragons present so much as uttered a word in pain or rage or anger. The men atop them were a different story, tall, powerfully built men in uniforms of black, not Luftwaffe airmen, not even the fearsome commandos of the Falschirmjaegar. The Lightning Bolts on their collars and the Death's Head of their caps indicated that these could be none other that the Schutzstaffel. The SS.

And that made the identity of their dragons all the clearer.

Vinoslivijia raged as only Russian Heavyweights could rage, spinning and twisting and lashing out with all four claws at once, catching one enemy dragon in the face with a blow so hard that she nearly folded it in half. Yet the Stukas swept around her like vultures around a carcass, like piranha devouring a wayward cow, and the dragon she had struck did not so much as hiss in pain, but spun back around to rejoin the frenzied attack. SS stormtroopers fired pneumatic grappling hooks and latched onto her harness, climbing hand over hand to join their comrades already aboard. Despite the best that the remaining Russians could do, it was clearly a fight that would be over soon.

And yet... what of the mightiest of the Russians? The Imperial Guardsdragon, the Greater Ironwing whose very gaze was death, whose breath was the unmaking of the world for those nearby, and whose size was no smaller than Vinoslivijia herself? Any who wished to ask the question needed only to incline their eyes downward for the final, ultimate indication of the power of the Stukas...

The Greater Ironwing lay where it had fallen on the ground below, like a burst balloon. Twisted in agony, broken in every conceivable manner, it lay lifeless in the fields, every single turret detonated like a bomb, the men aboard crushed and shattered into red paste or dismembered like rag dolls. No parachutes were visible, no survivors stumbling for aid from the nearest village. To the best of the Allied dragons' capabilities to discern, not a single soul had escaped the mighty Greater Ironwing alive.

And despite its legendary lethality, not one Stuka had fallen before it.

[Cynical Cat]

Frostfell's confidence had taken a battering in the struggle for his life with Ragnarok. Oh the great wyrm still had a high opinion of his worth, but his belief that his strength, speed, and cunning would be enough to triumph in any situation had come out bloodied and broken. He was still the mighty Frostfell and his captain was still one of the best living, but no longer thought himself invincible. And he was alone. Nathan wasn't with him. And even Nathan could be defeated. Be wounded. Maimed. Killed.

He saw the dead Ironwing and part of him, hot blooded and wrathful, sneered. The Russian had been an arrogant fool and would have been easy to bait into a fatal mistake. The other part of him, the deadly calculating part of his mind that was as cold and cruel as arctic winds, noted that the Ironwing had been a powerful dragon nonetheless. Frostfell was wounded, half blind in one eye, and lacked a crew and his cunning and deadly captain. Death could come here so easily and it would not spare him merely because he was greater than those around him wished to believe.

Pain racked his wing as he lunged out of the clouds. The Stukas were focused on the Crimson Angel and well they should, but that meant that it would take precious seconds for a look out's report to be received, comprehended, and acted upon. If he had been healthy that wouldn't be enough time, but he was injured.

His prey was the closest Stuka, the easiest to reach and the furthest from help. One would have to be enough for now. Ragnarok had left him too battered to try and savage several at the same time. He swooped in for the pounce and the kill.

[Charon]

Jake and Kunja had followed after the rest, catching up to the others without saying anything. Both were still seething at the fact that Albatros had gotten away from them. Nor did they seem likely to let the fight go. It was quite possible that they had been the first singular dragon to fight Albatros to a stand-still in a very long time, but even that knowledge wasn't enough for the duo. They had craved victory and it had been taken from them. That would not happen again.

Then the fight came into view and the pair paused for only a moment as they took everything in. Then without another word, the blood covered duo launched forward without so much as a roar. The pair swept forward like the dust colored machine of death they were, passing up the opportunity to strike at a Stuka to instead strike at something that could be far more important, the boarders.

Kunja flew easily to Vinoslivijia's side where the new boarders were quickly climbing to join their fellows. Kunja aimed himself well and ran along the side of the Russian beast, aiming his wingblade to slice through the ropes that served as the German's lifelines.

Then Kunja turned and dove underneath the Crimson Angel, spinning as he did so. The Victorian circled around to the Russian's other side and then did something that might have been a bit unexpected.

A German Trooper had been engaged in vicious hand-to-hand fighting with an exhausted Russian guardsman. He had finally managed to knock the guard down and was about to deliver the final blow when a dragon appeared almost out of nowhere. One hind leg came straight down on the German, crushing him to a paste.

Suddenly, within the melee of Russians and Germans, there was a lightweight dragon. It went down to all fours, though it did not put any weight on it's right foreleg and it's huge maw launched out, biting a German cleanly in two before he turned and spat the severed torso at another pair of Germans. The miniature Victorian let out a roar.

[General Havoc]

The closest Stuka to Frostfell was not all that close, but the Stukas were not expecting to be interrupted. Observing both radio and physical silence, the Stuka, its crew depleted by the boarding operations, did not notice Frostfell advancing like a white ghost. One of the lookouts spotted the oncoming Light Heavyweight moments before it struck, screaming out a warning to the Stuka, who neither froze nor hesitated, but jacknifed and tried to dive. Too late. Frostfell collided with him like an avalanche, slicing the unfortunate lookout in half as he did so, and smashing the Stuka's topgun turret like a balloon crushed by a tank.

The Stuka wore no armor, merely a combat harness and battery pack, studded with guns, and Frostfell's claws bit, and bit deep. Yet the Stuka neither panicked nor reacted improperly. Its bladed tail swung up, digging into the armor Frostfell wore over his chest, twisting and ripping off a section of it, which flew down to meet the ground. This damage was barely cosmetic however, as was the light bruising from the Stuka's crew firing rifles and pistols up at Frostfell, and the light slashes that the Stuka inflicted as it twisted and struggled to free itself.

If Stukas were mortal, then Frostfell could not possibly fail to beat this one to death in the position he had taken. Unfortunately, their mortality was not to be put to the test, for as Frostfell struck and rent and struck again at the unarmored German, all of a sudden he was blindsided by a dragon that had dropped silently out of the cauldron of clouds behind him and to his left, and smashed into him like a pouncing cat in the same manner that he had jumped atop the Stuka.

But that wasn't the surprise.

Frostfell was a veteran fighter, no doubt accustomed to being suddenly assaulted by dragons in a combat zone. But what no doubt struck him even harder than the other astonished Allies was what struck him in a pouncing lunge. Far, far larger than any Stuka or midweight, with a body long and serpentine and claws that bit as deep as drill bits, sharpened to daggers, a dragon that, unlike the Stukas, emitted a triumphant roar at the last possible second as it smashed into its target, whose weight hurled Frostfell off his Stuka prey, and whose raw power was greater by far than anything a Stuka could make manifest. Frostfell had only instants to realize all this, before he caught sight of the scales of his adversary, not black but white, brilliant white, gleaming like pearls in the chequered sunlight, scales of ivory frost, as familiar to him as his own name. The realization hit like a hammer blow. His assailant was not a Stuka.

His assailant was a Wendigo.

Screaming like a banshee, roaring like a hurricaine, the Wendigo, a female by the horn configuration, tore into Frostfell like a wolverine, her great wings battering at Frostfell's, her claws rending armor and scale. The Wendigo, like the Stukas, wore no armor, yet she seemed to care nothing for what defence or counterattack Frostfell might use in retaliation, and her crew rained stick-grenades down onto Frostfell's back as she tore his armor apart and lay blows like lightning bolts down on Frostfell's back and shoulders and wings. And even as she did these things, two of the Stukas came about to support her, and assist in tearing the impudent Canadian Heavyweight to ribbons. The one Frostfell had released took time to right itself and regain altitude, even as the remaining three continued their assault on Vinoslivijia, intending to finish with her, and then deal with the Allied interlopers.

[LadyTevar]

Jebediah had flown in side-by-side with Kunja, but where the Victorian flew in immediately, the Smoke Devil hesitated, taking in the whole scene. On his back, Judith stiffened, the sight chilling her bones. These were the dragon in her nightmares, the Stuka that had nearly made her walk down it's throat. She couldn't help freezing at the sight of an entire flock of the black monstrousities.

Jebediah, on the other hand, was using his head. The Ironwing on the ground had been literally flattened, like an apple smashed by a mallet. Jebediah's head jerked up and he searched around for what else might be there .. just in time to see the other Wendigo snake out of the sky at Frostfell. The SmokeDevil didn't have a chance to warn the White Bastard, but he did get an odd amusement out of the horn configuration on the German dragon. Only one thing made horns change that way amongst dragons.

"Frostfell's foun' a girlfriend," Jebediah muttered, which broke Judith out of her spell.

"Wha'?"

"Frostfell's go' a she-Windy-Go on 'em, wit' two Stuka. Kunja's helpin' th' Duchess. But tha' ain'tin' wha kilt th' IronWing. He wasna touch'd a'tall afore he hit ground." Jebediah said, flying not into the melee just yet, but scouting for the best place to hit. "Call Æquitas, tell him quick."

Judith did what she was told, opening the RAF radio to Tangmere squad and relaying Jebediah's words as he dictated. "Jebediah ta Æquitas. Ah'm seein' 1 Windy-go female an' 6 Stuka. They're Ess-Esss, not Laugh-waffler, same as wha' hit us on th' train."

Jebediah glanced again at the Ironwing, then to the swarming Stukas, remembering the nearly hypnotic gaze Tottenkoph had. "Tell 'em th' Stuka's took down th' Ironwing... they're som' kinda Special." It was all the warning he could give his companions

[Cynical Cat]

Frostfell's claws tore through the Stuka's scales and rent deep into flesh. He tore muscle in a spray of blood and and ripped, preparing to tear bone. It's struggles were futile, the damage to minor to be worthy of note.

Then the Wendigo hit him.

It was a surprise, but not a shock. His kind were not unknown in Greenland and Scandinavia and the Germans had allies and interests in that region. She wasn't wearing armour, but she wasn't injured either. She had the advantage.

Every child has dreams of what he or she'll be when they grow up. So did Frostfell. He was going to be like Trajan and be the biggest and strongest and smartest Wendigo and thus the greatest dragon in the whole wide world. He had played games with cats and polar bears and whales as he grew older and always, always he had imagined himself as a great and mighty dragon.

If he was honest, which he mostly was, Frostfell would never be Trajan. He was smart, but not as clever or as subtle as Trajan. He was good sized, but Trajan was huge by Wendigo standards. Frostfell was very strong and very quick for his size and that made him very, very dangerous but he would never be the undisputed king of the Wendigo. Most of the time that didn't bother him much. Being Frostfell was good enough. Sometime, the lack ate at him, like the nagging feeling of inferiority he felt towards heavyweights with wits and breath weapons like the Greater Ironwing. It fueled his anger and his hate.

This female had made a mistake. He was not Trajan and he was no match for Trajan, but he was Frostfell and he was faster and stronger than he appeared. Even battered and bloody and crewless he was a killer and she had closed the distance to where the lack of guns was a minor weakness and her lack of armour was crucial. He proceeded to educate her on why although he was not Trajan or Ragnarok or Temeraire, he was a dragon to be respected. Respected or feared.

She was concentrating her attacks on tearing apart his armour and then raining blows down on his flesh, a tactic that in other situations might be wise. Instead it gave Frostfell time. If she had hooked in to him instead of tearing, maneuvering would have been harder and he needed to maneuver. He twisted as she tore off his armour, twisted to face her.

Twisted and bit. His jaws closed on her left forelimb, crushing down in a spray of blood. His hind legs dug into her blubber and flesh and held as he ceased to fly, dragging them both down. Let the Stukas abandon their pursuit of the Russian if they wished to follow them down. He didn't think they would. Not these dragons.

With his right claw he feinted, flailing ineffectually at her crew while waiting for her to commit for a strike with her jaws. He would return the love tap that Ragnarok had given him, with interest. His left, weakened, limb shredded a soldier as his tail struck like a giant steel whip at the crew on her back and flanks. Blood dripped from his jaws.

She should have torn him up at range with cannon. That she had crew but no cannon was her first mistake. She should have grappled and held, hindering his ability to move and counter strike. That was her second.

Two mistakes was a bad way to start a fight with Frostfell.

[Avian Obscurities]

As they flew through the gathering storm, Flinder had gotten steadily more unsettled. He muttered nervously to himself and glanced around at empty air in fear. Allen was worried, but hesitated about radioing Captain Rankin to ask to go back.

And then it was too late, as they burst through the cloud and saw the battle raging ahead of them. Allen stared in horror and awe at the writhing squadron of Stuka, twisting through the air like a flock of crows around a carcass. Despite the battle and rising wind, they moved through the air as smooth as snakes, unnaturally elegant in the air.

Allen was only able to take in the scene for a few seconds, though, before finding himself with an even bigger problem to deal with.

Flinder screamed, a shockingly high pitched sound, and backwinged out of formation. Allen’s stomach lurched from gravity and panic as they suddenly dropped a dozen feet or more. Flinder’s wings snapped open again instinctively to halt their fall, but his subsequent flight was labored and erratic. Mouth agape, his head whipped around to show eyes rolled back in terror. He screamed again and twisted in the air, lashing at empty air and reaching up to dig at his face and eyes.

The remaining crew started screaming as well, grabbing and lashing themselves to the harness even tighter as Flinder fought and screamed against nothing. Through the wind and the noise, Allen realized that Flinder was babbling in panic, most of it an incomprehensible stream of syllables he had never heard from Flinder before. What he was able to understand was frightening enough, senseless ramblings about darkness, holes, and hate, punctuated by shuddering maneuvers in the air and screams.

Allen started pounding his fists against the dragon’s neck. “FLINDER!â€

[Dark Silver]

Hermeticus and crew burst through the clouds, and into the fight. Still bloodthirsty, wanting German blood, HErmeticus only let out a low, dangerous growl.

And upon that growl meant death for who he would come across next. Thomas and his spotters had seen, and chosen one of the german SS dragons, and launched themselves at it. With the same lethal, dangerous quiet they assaulted the German lightweight - there was no roar, there was no cry of challenge, there was simply the beat of massive tapered wings, the dropping of the trophy of the last kill to the ground below, and a climbing into the air.

All of HErmeticus' gunners had their weapons ready, and when the HEavyweight dragon had enough height, and the appropriate angel, let himself speed downward at one of the Stuka's, guns only opening fire when they were within optimal range, and Hermeticus' own flencing claws spread out - much like he had with the German Lightweight...the dragon was intending to pounce and shred, rather than ram and gore.

[General Havoc]

Kunja's landing came as a complete surprise, both to the Russians and the Germans who fought like devils possessed atop the back of the Crimson Angel. Vinoslivijia, feeling only the impact of a dragon, bucked hard enough that Kunja had to seize the remains of the harness to hold on. Everyone on Vinoslivijia's back fell, again, but the nearest German had no chance to capitalize on the matter before Kunja' who alone had kept his feet, bit the SS trooper in half.

The Russian he was about to skewer, the old man from before who had been the Grand Duchess' personal escort on her tour. At least 70 years old, the man nevertheless held a sword in one hand, dripping with red blood, and a Tokarev pistol in the other whose barrel smoked with recent discharges. Face flushed, uniform smeared with blood black and red, the Guard commander was slow in rising once again, yet before he could say a word to Kunja, in whatever language he commanded, one of the Stuka's flew past in a strafing run alongside Vinoslivijia, the MG-34 machine guns mounted in its turrets blasting away like Spitfires.

Half a dozen shots hit Kunja in the flank, punching holes through the armor, but failing to penetrate his dragonscale, save that the Stuka had caught Kunja just as he was roaring, and one round hit the miniature Victorian in his open mouth, slicing his tongue open and blowing a hole right through his muzzle and out the other side. Kunja's mouth began to fill with his own blood as the Stuka bore away, ragged shots from what was left of the Russian crew flying in its wake.

*---------------------------------------------------------------------*

Before Judith or Jebediah could relay any more warnings, something nightmarish appeared.

All Stukas were horrifying abominations of nature, but even within the realm of Stukas, this one stood out. Not for any particular feature, for it, like the others, was practically a negation of light, but the shape of the body, the slow beat of its wings, and the manner in which the dragon's red eyes locked with Jebediah and Judith revealed its identity for any who could make the requisite connection, as one of the Stukas attacking Vinoslivijia broke off and came about towards Jebediah.

"Gutten tag," whispered Totenkopf, "Fraulein..."

The whisper was like a whip made of steel, and the Stuka opened its mouth and broke into a wide grin revealing teeth that gleamed in the afternoon sun. And with a powerful thrust of its wings, the Stuka flew towards Judith and Jeb, plainly intent on devouring the both of them alive.

*--------------------------------------------------------------*

The other Wendigo plainly did not share Frostfell's assessment of the tactical situation...

Frostfell rolled over in midair and managed to grab the other Wendigo's foreleg with his teeth, which bit (literally) deep into the unarmored White Devil, but could not crush bone nor rip tendon, not without leverage. Light Heavyweights though Wendigo were, they remained Heavyweight dragons, and as Frostfell latched on, he locked his head into position, and the other Wendigo took the opportunity.

She did not strike with her own jaws, for she was (slightly) smaller than Frostfell, which, given that female Wendigo tended to be larger than the males, probably indicated youth. There was however nothing youthful and innocent about her next strike, for she brought down her right foreclaw and slashed at Frostfell's remaining good eye. Her aim was imperfect, the dragons were gyrating too much to be extremely precise, but she drew blood deeply, and while she did not actually tear open Frostfell's eye, she tore the eyelid, ripped open his face, and filled his eye with blood. And having done so, she pulled up with her left foreleg, the one pinned and bleeding in Frostfell's maw, forcing up Frostfell's head as she beat at it with her other foreclaw, while shrapnel rained down upon Frostfell like a hailstorm.

Yet all this Frostfell might have been able to manage, had it not been for the Stuka.

One of the Stukas pursuing Frostfell gave the chase up and lifted off to attack Flinder. The other did not. It kept pace with them, following and closing on the two flailing Wendigo, before moving in to take aim at one of Frostfell's wings, or perhaps the back of his neck, to rip out his spinal column. Who could tell what kind of devilry this dragon had in mind after all.

Likely they would have found out, but then something hit both Wendigo like a meteor, and suddenly Frostfell was free.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------*

The Stuka who had intended on hitting Frostfell had found a better target, and teaming up with one of those peeling off from Vinoslivijia, moved on Flinder. One circled well outside gun range, but the other dove down onto Flinder like a cat pounding on a downed canary, slamming into the slightly larger midweight and grabbing hold. Gunsmoke cloaked both dragons as they jostled and spun for position, but as the Stuka bit at Allan, believing the dragon to be too panicked to react, Flinder threw his own head around. Both dragon's skulls collided with a loud "WHAM", but the heavier Flinder had an advantage, and drove the Stuka's head and maw down the side of his shoulder.

And then something very strange happened. The Stuka gave a wheezing gasp, and suddenly released Flinder.

The SS stormtroopers aboard the Stuka had been preparing their grappling hooks to board when their dragon fell away, jackknifing and slashing at the air with tail and claws, as though it had suddenly had an epileptic fit. Given that dragons did not suffer from epilepsy, the sight was strange to say the least, yet neither the surprised shouts of the crew, nor the commands of the captain could convince the dragon to steady itself. It seemed to have lost sight of Flinder completely, roaring and snapping its jaws at the bare air, its red eyes spread wide and bloodshot. It was not however having a fit, for its muscles remained under control, and it remained airborne.

The second Stuka, the one above, seemed to take this all in stride as it winged over to dive. A 37mm shell exploded five feet in front of its nose as it did so, and quickly it aborted the attack and pulled into a shallow dive as Hermecritus emerged from the clouds above, his horns aimed straight down the second Stuka's throat. Nightmarish though the Stukas were, this one had no intention of being clawed apart by whatever Hermecritus was, and so it dove, and ran towards its fellows, to regroup and counterattack.

Even with the Wendigo, the Stukas were now, between Vinoslivijia and the Allied formations, badly outnumbered and outweighted. Even elite dragons would have fallen back from a fight like this in almost any case. A perceptive onlooker might have asked why these Stuka did not, for terrifying though they were, they were still plainly mortal, from the blood that they had shed.

But that perceptive onlooker was not to be left in doubt for long, for a moment later, the last, terrible secret of the Stuka was revealed for all to see...

*----------------------------------------------------------------*

Galileo was right.

A heavy body did not fall any faster or slower than a light body. The force of gravity was a constant in any case. What was not a constant was the behavior of the falling body. And in this case, Æquitas was behaving quite specifically.

As Frostfell and the mystery Wendigo tore at one another and began to fall, Æquitas folded his wings and entered what was commonly called a "Scream Dive", though the origin of the term was somewhat conjectural. Scream Dives were the fastest possible type of dive, a dive where the dragon in question actively sought to aid gravity by propelling itself downwards as fast as it could. How this was accomplished varied by breed. Some breeds simply folded their wings tightly and dropped like torpedos. Some had wings of sufficient shape that they actually beat them, aiming not for lift but thrust, shoving themselves through the air like a skin diver aiming at the bottom of the ocean. Whatever the method, a scream dive was considerably faster than any two dragons merely jostling with one another, especially when only one was trying to fall.

And while Æquitas was smaller than either Wendigo, he still weighed twenty tons.

Frostfell, pinned in place by the enemy Wendigo, with another Stuka about to assault him, was the most immediate target in need of support, though no doubt the arrogant white bastard would insist after the fact that he had had everything under control. Neither Rankin nor Æquitas cared to debate him, but the battle was on, and such concerns were secondary. Folding his wings at the last second, Æquitas dove down on top of the two dragons as they spun.

It was a well-aimed dive. Æquitas hit like a meteor in re-entry precisely between the two dragons, neither of whom were expecting him, and despite his smaller size, the speed and momentum with which he hit burst the two apart like a watermelon cut in half with an axe. Frostfell's teeth tore loose, ripping free from the other Wendigo's foreleg in a font of blood. The grips that both dragons held with their claws were shattered, leaving behind only light scratches to mar pure white scale. And then an instant later, Æquitas was gone, pulling up as hard as he could, before either Wendigo could take a swing at him.

He rated them equally likely to try.

As Æquitas pulled up, the Stuka who had been preparing to attack Frostfell, now cheated of his target as Frostfell had been knocked out of position, turned to deal with Æquitas. The dragons were of similar size, but reputation aside, Æquitas was not intimidated. Monsters though Stukas might have been, they were still midweight dragons, of the sort Æquitas had faced many times in both wars. With Frostfell now free of the other Wendigo's claws, and therefore able to engage on his own terms either the Stuka or the other Wendigo, Æquitas was confident he could either handle the Stuka alone, or keep it occupied until Frostfell dealt with the other Wendigo. Either way, he would fight this dragon, and beat it, for whatever color it was, whatever distorted trick of the light gave it such a fearsome appearance, it was nothing but another German dragon, and he would deal with it as such. And so it was that Æquitas came about, wings unfurled, guns spitting fire, a roar primed in his throat, and advanced on the Stuka.

And the Stuka, facing the oncoming Malachite Reaper, simply opened its mouth, and blotted him out of the sky.

A sound like nothing any of the dragons present, save two, had ever heard before, burst out of the Stuka as it opened its mouth as though to roar. A low, cavernous, roiling sound, like rolling thunder, but a thunder roll that never stopped, building and building until in seconds it tore the air apart and blew the clouds of gunsmoke to shreds like a hurricaine wind. The air itself shimmered, distorted, and seemed to shatter as the Stuka's roar hit some sort of discordant note of the damned, and produced a cone of pure force and sound that tore across the empty sky towards Æquitas. A seagull, happening to be between Stuka and Malachite, was struck by the wave of sound, and literally blew up as though it had swallowed a hand grenade. The clouds, the haze, the very wind died before this horrid roar, and Æquitas, who never in his life had seen anything like this, and who had not anticipated the Stuka using it, was struck head on.

Every single gun turret aboard Æquitas exploded at once, shattering perspex masking the sounds of screaming men as the turret gunners fell to the ground and rolled about, clutching their hands to their ears as blood leaked through their fingers. The harness links groaned, some gave way, carabineers snapped and whipped through the air like high tension wires, and boxes of machine gun bullets began to explode on their own accord, sending hot lead flying in every direction. Æquitas himself pulled up short like he'd struck an invisible wall, thrashing his head back and forth, his tail lashing at the air like a flail, not roaring but screaming, screaming in unmistakable agony, jacknifing and rolling over and over in mid-air. And then as the Stuka's terrible roar ended, and the dark dragon closed its mouth, Æquitas hung in the air for a moment, rolled over onto one side, and plunged like a lifeless corpse towards the ground some two thousand feet below.

[Cynical Cat]

Frostfell was torn free of the female Wendigo by Aequitas, his claws and fangs taking streamers of muscle and blubber with them as the British dragon knocked them apart. Frostfell raged. She had opened a wound around his other eye and his tough nictating membranes on both sides were now slimed with his own blood. He could barely see. When he had been grappled, he could have triumphed by brute force. Now he was crewless and more than half blind. How the fuck was he supposed to find a target like this? Fucking useless Brit with delusions of competency. If he wanted to lead, why the fuck didn't he start with putting a leash on the suicidal Russian moron Veritas? That Crimson Angel needed a leash, or at least a target selector, almost as bad as the Venomspitter.

Then came the shriek. He knew that shriek. It had crippled the Jotun and now the blur that had to be Aequitas was falling from the air and Frostfell knew how the Greater Ironwing had been taken out. No lurking specials. The Stukas were specials.

The Stuka was dead. It's pouncing dive had taken it past Frostfell when Aequitas had broken them up and the shriek had identified him. Frostfell's ears worked just fine, even if he could barely see. Three swift beats of his aching wings and then he folded them against his body.

He hit the Stuka like the Spear of Odin. The impact knocked them through the air and Frostfell's claws scrabbled to hold and then tear the unarmoured medium weight. Nightmare jaws closed on the smaller dragon's throat.

[Dark Silver]

With the Stuka fleeing from Flinder and himself, Hermeticus continued his pursuit - up until it winged about and met with it's fellows. Pulling himself up, angling his wings, Hermeticus brought himself back up high.

Just in time to hear the horrid roar of the Divine Wind.

Thomas' eyes were wide as the sound - one he heard in a recording countless times during his childhood back in Louisiana, and at the possible revelation the fact the German dragons was.

But Hermeticus didn't wait, when Æquitas was caught in the roar, and before he even started to fall, the half-breed was moving towards the flag dragon, then snapping wings closed to get below.

Even if he couldn't stop the fall, perhaps he could slow it by getting under him and breaking the fall...

[Charon]

Kunja spat up blood and turned his head, intending to chase after the Stuka that had dared to strike at him. Jake reigned in his dragon's attention, and the Victorian brought his red glare back to the Germans who were getting to their feet. The Victorian turned and his wing shot out, the sharp blade was overkill, as the force of the blow alone would have been enough to shatter bones to powder. Two more Germans fell to the blow, the first cut cleanly in two and the second having his spine shattered into tiny fragments. That would be more than enough for the battle upon the Russian dragon to turn in the Russian's favor.

Jake's eyes caught the fight that Frostfell and the Wendigo had been in just as Æquitas broke the grip and he noticed something odd. Instead of a rear turret, the female Wendigo had a large number of electronics in it's place. It didn't take long for Jake to put two and two together.

It did take long enough for the Stuka's to show that they were Special weapons. As Æquitas fell from the sky, Jake and Kunja paused briefly.

"Ah helh." Kunja managed to sputter between the blood in his mouth and his ruined tongue. The heavy lightweight spat out the blood again as Jake turned to look at the old man who's life he saved, he recognized him... sort of. He was important to the Duchess and the Russian Empire.

Jake pulled down his scarf to speak more clearly "Old man! That Wendigo has equipment on its back that's blocking our radios!" He jabbed violently at the Wendigo. "We need to take that out or we're all as good as dead! We'll do what we can to keep those Stuka off of you, but you've got to smash that thing now!"

Once the Russian gave some sort of signal that he had understood, the pair were off again, simply leaning back and unclenching their claws until they fell off of the Crimson Angel, they fell a few dozen yards before the Victorian opened his wings again and caught the wind, immediately going into a tight spin to make certain that anything that had decided to follow him wouldn't get a clean shot at them. When he came out of it, Kunja was flying with the Crimson Angel and was ready to run distraction against the Germans.

[LadyTevar]

A warm wetness soaked into the diaper-like underclothes of the flightsuit as Judith recognized Tottenkoph. She'd had this nightmare, the huge black dragon bearing down on her, the red eyes glowing, the mouth open to swallow her. She froze once again, a bird before a snake, unable to look away or run.

Jebediah, on the other hand, was not in a cage this time, and he roared a primal challenge to the unholy black dragon before winging over into his own Scream Dive.

The dive threw Judith flat in her harness, breaking her out of her frozen terror. She didn't ask what Jebediah was doing, she merely pulled herself as tight as she could against his neck as the Smoke Devil stooped like a falcon out of the air.

It was a risk. The dive to the deck would take Jebediah past the larger Stuka, who could try his own dive to intercept. However, Jebediah knew the Stuka had not seen him in combat, and could not know the little Smoke Devil could match a Swabian for speed this way.

What Jeb was hoping was the dive would put enough distance between himself and the Stuka for Jebediah to come up with a better plan. Who knows, maybe Tot-n-cough might be dumb enough to follow Jebediah down. On the ground, Jeb's agility and smaller size would be an advantage. Up here, there wern't nothing that could....

Or was there... Jebediah's mouth turned up in a very feral grin, as did Judith's as she saw the same thing. They didn't have to speak to communicate their shared thought: All that training diving and striking at Frostfell was about to pay off in spades. The female Wendigo was below and in line with Jebediah's dive, and there was something on the White Bitch's back that looked perfect for hooking.

Time to see if the "uberdrake" could match a Devil's Reverse.

[General Havoc]

Both Frostfell and the Stuka were sent careening through the air by the force of Frostfell's impact. Half-blind and navigating only by sound, Frostfell had simply hurled himself in the general direction of the enemy and smashed into it without even the little restraint that Frostfell normally used. Not able to gauge exactly when he would strike, Frostfell had been forced to simply fly headlong into the Stuka, which made for a hell of a wallop, but made it reasonably difficult to attain his normal control of the battle.

Still, Frostfell was close to twice the weight of the Stuka, as well as twice the size, and size, in a case like this, did matter. Armed with nothing but machine guns, the Stuka's crew dove out of the way or were crushed to paste, Frostfell couldn't quite tell, but his claws found dragonhide, and bit deep, the warm splash of blood on his talons and the smell of it in his nostrils told him that much, even if the Stuka refused to scream.

Frostfell was less successful with his jaws. The Stuka was throwing its weight about left and right almost randomly, and Frostfell had no visual cues to use when pinning the damned thing in place. Lighter than Frostfell, it still had quite a bit of mass to use, and it used it skillfully, as Frostfell's claws had not sufficient grip to force him in place, and his jaws bit into empty air again and again.

But in assailing first one Stuka and then another, interluded by his bout with the other Wendigo, Frostfell had made quite a spectacle of himself. And when Stukas were in the air, to draw attention was to risk a response unsought for. The Stuka that had retreated before Hermecritus now turned and moved straight for Frostfell, who could not see him coming. Flying down to Frostfell's level and moving in towards his flank, the Stuka braked and reared its head up, its chest expanding as it plainly prepared to do to Frostfell what its fellow had done to Æquitas.

*------------------------------------------------------------*

Hermecritus dove like an eagle, sheering down through the air to get under the Tangmere flagdragon. There was not room for Hermecritus to do this in a pleasant way, and the crew on his back scrambled out of the way as the enormous Longhorn Reaper darted in at the last second underneath Æquitas, and the two collided.

Smaller than Hermecritus, Æquitas still weighed twenty tons or more laden, and his weight drove Hermecritus down onto the ground in a crash landing. A tidal wave of earth was plowed up as Hermecritus' horns gored into the dirt, his wings straining to support the twenty tons of extra dead weight he had suddenly taken on. Try as he might, Hermecritus could not lift himself back off with Æquitas still on his back, but he would, and did, manage to drag himself to a halt, using his tail as an anchor and smashing a hole through a large hedgerow as he did so.

As Hermecritus finally ground to a halt, Æquitas simply slid off of the larger dragon onto the ground on his side. Black blood ran from his eyes, nostrils, and the corners of his mouth, and heaped around him, his crew and Captain lay motionless, most with similar hemorages from the focused power of the Divine Wind.

*----------------------------------------------------------------*

Totenkopf, for all his size, moved with the speed of a springing panther, though he was too slow by a hair to intercept Jeb as he streaked by. Instantly the Stuka followed, its curved wing spawing at the air as it raced downwards towards Jebediah. When Jeb re-oriented himself to aim for the Wendigo, Totenkopf pulled up, having no desire to crash into the Nazi Wendigo, but shouted a wordless warning, prompting the Wendigo to raise her head and turn to receive Jeb's dive.

Too late.

Jeb's wing hooked a piece of funny-looking equipment that neither he nor Judith could identify, and with all the power of the diving Smoke Devil, turned a Devil's Reverse. Or at least half of one. The Devil's Reverse transfered all of the force in the dive into a new velocity by mechanism of whatever the wingclaw had hooked onto. Most of the time, it was advised to ensure that the target of the claw was strong enough to sustain such a force.

Occasionally it was not.

The object was a radio transceiver, and a powerful one, ten feet tall and serviced by cables and current from a battery pack on the Wendigo's belly, and radio equipment scattered over her back. The transceiver was sheathed in iron and built into a welded frame, but Jeb's Reverse shattered it like pottery. The entire transceiver disintegrated into a cloud of vaccuum tubes and sparking wires, and Jeb's anchor vanished mid-Reverse, catapulting him off obliquely to both the angle he had come from and the angle he had intended to go. That alone saved his life, for the Wendigo was thus unable to catch him in time to prevent him from cartwheeling off into the air, temporarily out of range of both Stuka and Wendigo.

As the Wendigo was recovering its equilibrium, Totenkopf screamed past her, adjusting his heading mid-flight to take him towards the spinning Smoke Devil, and he opened his jaws wide as he aimed at him like an arrow shot from a bow, intent on simply biting the unfortunate lightweight in half.

*-----------------------------------------------------------------------*

The old man turned to face the Wendigo that Kunja had pointed out, just in time to see the radio transceiver mounted on its back explode into a million pieces as a lightweight dragon apparently crashed right through it.

And then, all of a sudden, the radios were clear.

Where there had been nothing but jamming before, every single channel on the Allied and Russian dragons' radios, save of course for the RAF main band, was suddenly filled with pure, blissful nothingness. The Germans realized it too, for their radios also picked up the sudden clarit, and a handful of orders in truncated battle-German sang out. The Germans turned back to their work with a desperate ferocity, and the gloves, such as they were, came off.

A Stuka lunged at Kunja, swatting one of the Cossacks aside with one wing, its teeth bared and glistening in the sun. Kunja might have dove, or twisted, or tried to cut inside the attack, or perhaps some other strange thing. As it happened however, he did none of those things, for he found momentarily that they were un-necessary.

The Stukas were not the only ones to remove their gloves.

A roar loud enough to wake the dead exploded like a volcano above his head, and for a brief, horrible second, both Kunja and Jake could only have imagined that another Stuka had crept up on them unseen and used the Divine Wind. But the roar was not as tenorous, not as focused as the Wind was, it was not an instrument of death, but a herald thereof. Not a weapon, but a war cry. And besides all that, it was several times louder than anything a Stuka could produce, for the Divine Wind produced death not from volume, but from resonance.

As it turned out, Crimson Angels used a third method.

The Stuka was smashed out of the air as though it had been hit by a falling skyscraper as Vinoslivijia, now freed largely from the depredations of the German boarders, literally dove upon it with her mouth open and roaring oaths of blood in tongues human and draconic. She hit the Stuka in the small of its back, tore its topgun off with her teeth and ate it, before seizing the Stuka's foreleg with her own and tearing into it like a raging grizzly bear. A second Stuka cut in to strike her flank, but she smashed through its attack like a locomotive crashing through a wooden fence. Its claws darted over her scales and harness without purchase, unable to inflict any damage that an enraged Crimson Angel would consider worthwhile, and as she passed him, Vinoslivijia wrapped her enormous tail around the Stuka's neck, gave one hard tug, and pulled the Stuka's face straight into her hind claws as she kicked it in the head like a mule. The force of the blow was enough that a peal of thunder rolled across the battlefield, and the Stuka was knocked into a complete backflip and sent pinwheeling away from the blood-red Heavyweight, who continued to tear into the first Stuka with unbridled ferocity.

Vinoslivijia had cleared the air momentarily, dragging one Stuka out of the sky while the other struggled to recover a sense of which direction was "up". One of the Cossacks had followed Vinoslivijia down, but the other, the one the Stuka had swatted aside, now flew down towards Kunja, the dragon babbling angrily in Russian to nobody in particular as she no-doubt threatened all kinds of terrible doom on the remaining Stukas. The Cossack dragon wore no harness, saddle, or other armor, but did, Kunja and Jake could see, sport a pair of razor-sharp wingblades, already splashed with black blood.

"Australijski!" shouted Ivan Nikitovich Kozhedub, as Obrazheyevka snarled and spat blood and looked around for a Stuka ten times her size to tackle. "These things are the Devil's Children! How do we kill them?!"

[Charon]

Kunja spat out a fresh gob of blood and spittle , sparing the Russians a glance before something else got his attention. Jake, realizing the radios were now working grabbed up his set and started yelling into it. "This is Tangmere Squadron! Russian envoy under heavy German assault! I repeat! Russian envoy under heavy German assault! This is Tangmere squadron we require immediate assistance!" Jake rattled off the coordinates two or three times before repeating his message just as two things occurred.

The first, was that Ivan arrived, asking his question. The second was that Kunja noticed the Stuka preparing to take out Frostfell. The Australian looked to the Russian, grinning under his flight scarf. "Like this!"

Kunja shot forward at best speed, directly for the Stuka. Jake lowered down in his seat and hooked himself up to a set of cables as they closed. The great black beast was distracted, and it was not carrying any gun heavy enough to kill Kunja outright, so while the punishment could, and likely would, be brutal, the Australian could take it for now. Kunja dove straight at the devil given form, crashing directly into him with little apparent concern for his own safety. Whether the blow would be enough to stop the attack altogether was up to question. But it would certainly be delayed, which was what Jake and Kunja wanted.

Even in top form, Kunja would have been in for a near impossible fight against a Stuka. As it was now, his right foreleg was nearly useless and his face had been chewed and shot to ribbons. The Australian dragon looked like shit, and with the amount of blood he'd likely lost the only thing keeping him in the air was his breed and sheer Australian bullheaded determination. There was no way he could actually fight a Stuka. As such, a few seconds after contact Kunja shoved off into the air again, then dropped like a stone to get some distance from the Stuka as quickly as he could as Jake slipped back in his seat.

There are many weapons a person on a dragon can use against an enemy dragon. The most popular is a gun. Flamethrowers have their place as well for clearing away crew. Occasionally used is the sticky bomb, usually dropped from a great distance in mass quantities to help clear the back of a large dragon, as armor reduced the effectiveness of the explosion. The sticky bomb is a tricky thing, and a dangerous thing, rarely used in direct combat for numerous and very sensible reasons.

One thing that could not be said of Kunja and Jake was that they were sensible. As the pair made their escape attempt, it was not only to get away from a much larger, much more powerful dragon. It was also to get away from the pair of sticky bombs that Jake had stuck to the Stuka during the brief struggle.

[Cynical Cat]

Frostfell couldn't see the Stuka close on tangled melee nor could he see Jake and Kunja swing down on their daredevil attack, but he had anticipated the possibility of such attacks. It was one of the reasons he had been so eager to hook his claws into another German dragon.

On a good day Frostfell's powerful wings made him a formidable flyer. Speed and raw power was what made light heavyweights so dangerous to other dragons, just as maneuverability allowed lightweights to be dangerous to be a threat to light heavyweights. The Jotunmeister had ended that. Flying was agony. To retake the heights were the Crimson Angel and the Russians tried to fend off their German attackers would require a high cost in time and pain. For a crewless, gunless, half blind dragon to attempt it against dragons armed with the Divine Wind was to court death.

So Frostfell had pounced instead. The Stuka was not only half of his mass, but they were unarmoured. Frostfell's jaws closed on the Stuka's throat as the dragon jerked away and the medium weight escaped with a nip instead of a death grip on his throat.

Claws tore. Frostfell wasn't going for pin. Even blind he could have found the other's neck with his jaws and while his vision was obscured, he could still partially see out of both eyes. He struck again for the Stuka's throat as he raked his claws through its scales and tearing up muscle. He could have dug in, going for vitals or tried for a hold, but instead he ripped. Healthy, this fight would have made his contest against Ragnarok look close. Even with his wounds sapping his strength and limiting his strikes, he was still a Wendigo. An unarmoured medium weight couldn't take the punishment he could dish out. His slicing strikes cut muscles and tendons, a brutal method of subduing an enemy with crippling strikes.

As they did so they continued to lose altitude. To get at him an enemy would have to abandon the attack on the Grand Duchess, leave themselves open to attack from above, and then face the difficulty of targeting a foe who was grappling with an ally. It was in, in Frostfell's mind, the best protection he could muster and fairly good protection at that. In the meantime he would maim the Stuka with his claws, close his jaws on a death grip on its throat, and drift drown away from the fight with his victim/living shield while ripping the bloody hell out of it.