His Majesty's Dragons: The Battle of Britain

[Cynical Cat]

Nathan watched the German dragons wheel. They were faster alright, but they had much more distance to cover since they were turning on the perimeter of the range of his 20mm and he was at the center. They were faster, but they maneuvered more slowly because they had more distance to cover. They were also reacting, not initiating. That wouldn't last forever.

It didn't. His guns had reach. "Front right," he said to Frostfell. The Germans were flying is looser, more independent patterns than the British, telling him that their leader knew his business better than Rankin did. If it was Albatross, he wouldn't be surprised. This was probably going to get him killed. Fuck it, there were worse things than death.

"If you see a chance to escape," he signaled to Kunja, "take it." He would have the opportunity to draw blood first. The 20s had the range. Frostfell angled right and turned so that his right wing was almost pointing at the sky, using his bulk to shield his crew from most of the Germans. Most of them wouldn't be able to move into position, but there were too many of them and too well dispersed to block them all.

A less experienced captain might have serious problems firing at this angle and the gun's mass made this a less than enjoyable prospect, but Nathan managed. He slid the sight into the Swabian's flight path. "Time to lose that wing Jerry," he whispered and pulled the trigger. It was nice to have company on the way to Valhalla.

[Charon]

Kunja was not in a good position right now. Two Leuchtkaffer's were above him and diving down, while Jake could spot Albatros moving to intercept them now as well. The small Victorian was faced with a difficult predicament. The Leuchtkaffer's were fast enough that they could peck at him all day and keep him from getting a good position and set him up perfectly for Albatros to drop on him and finish the fight, likely in one blow.

Kunja leveled out his dive as quickly as he could and began a slow ascent again, making what looked like an amateur mistake of leaving his top completely exposed to both enemies in a desperate attempt to gain altitude. Giving the Leuchtkaffer's more confidence in their attack.

Jake watched the Leuchtkaffers carefully, judging the distances and the timing. The Aussie carefully slid from his seat again, off to one side of his dragon's body and hooking his feet in the footholds there. The young captain lifted his gun and fired blindly at the closing dragons and as they closed for their final hit, Jake screamed. "Now!"

Wings that had been desperately beating to gain altitude now pulled in close to the dragon's body, covering Jake in a protective layer of Dragon flesh and a little bit of metal. The Victorian, roaring with all his might, executed a spin as fast as he could, turning so that now his front was to his enemies instead of his back. As he spun clockwise his left-front leg stretched out with claws fully extended hoping to catch one of the Leuchtkaffer's and deliver a devastating blow.

[General Havoc]

The Swabian did not lose its wing. Such was to be expected, as not even a 20mm cannon had that kind of power for a middleweight dragon, not at extreme range, and not without a prolonged and focused barrage. Dragons were not machines, with weld points to hit, nor were they traveling at four hundred miles per hour, such that a single breach in the steel could rely on wind sheer to rip the limb off.

Of course, that was not to say that the result was pleasant.

The dragon roared and snapped its jaws and tried to duck and maneuver out of the range of the lethal hosepipe of projectiles flung its way as armor sparked and scales broke and blood flew about like paintballs. The Swabian's machineguns fired back, but the range was too great, and the shots could not score a mark on anything vital, a few desultory rounds pinging off Frostfell's bulletproof hide and thick combat armor. The maneuverings did the Swabian little credit, for Swabians could not maneuver well, and Reynolds had no trouble painting his target, not with pinpoint accuracy, but with enough to load the damage on the target's left wing. When finally the other two dragons drew into machinegun range, the shots against Frostfell's angled back did nearly nothing, for there were almost no targets to hit there, and a few bulletholes in perspex glass harmed nobody.

On the underside, from the dragon on Frostfell's left, it was another story. There the crew had clustered, and there shots found their mark, and men fell, screaming and dangling, or clutching injured limbs. But Candian guns were there too, the bellygunner, and the midwingmen from the left flank, as well as the handheld weapons of the crew, and they returned fire at the lone Swabian, enough to prevent a massacre from taking place, and to force most of the Swabian's crew to take cover. And still the dragons approached...

The Swabian that was Reynolds' target finally could take no more, and dropped back, losing altitude and speed both, blasting away at Frostfell blindly with its guns, but unable to catch the battle as its captain guided it down towards the ground, but it had bought its two fellows enough time to reach alongside, and while Frostfell's maneuvers prevented them from enacting the head-on rams that they were so famous for, they did have another option.

As the range drew close, the machine guns opened fire on the 20mm itself, bullets pinging off the gunshield and the weapon, to try and supress the firing crew. And then suddenly, the Swabians put on a burst of speed and lunged in at Frostfell at once, pulling up alongside him from either side, and as they did so, a dozen heavily-armed Falschirmjaegarburst from their cover positions aboard each Swabian and began to hose down everything in sight with their light, fast, automatic weapons, preparatory of course to boarding the offending allied dragon, and securing it. They fired their MP-38s and MP-40s and hurled sticky bombs and grenades, joining their turretted comrades as they endeavored to establish clear fire superiority. Neither Swabian was as large as Frostfell, but even with the 20mm in play, the two Germans together deployed more than 50% more firepower than the allied dragon, and a close range slogging match would soon see most of Frostfell's crew slaughtered.

Unless of course, Frostfell had something up his draconic sleeve...

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

Below this, the Leuchtkaffers were darting in to make their attack when one of them learned the hard way what a mistake it was to spring a trap on an aware quarry twice one's size.

The Leuchtkaffer had been diving, and frantically tried to pull up as Kunja spun, but his efforts were in vain, and Kunja clobbered him across the face like a heavyweight boxer delivering a hook. The force of the blow literally spun the smaller dragon around like a top, laying open its jaw and completely knocking it out of position to strike. The Leuchtkaffer fell a thousand feet before it could recover, and found itself hurt, bleeding, and well below its fellow dragon, though it immediately began scrambling for altitude to try and reach Kunja once more.

Its partner held back, unwilling to take on Kunja alone, its captain looking for a shot, and failing to find it. What he did however find, was a red blur, as all of a sudden, something came down from above like a meteor.

The last thing the Victorian wanted to see.

Albatros had finally elected to engage, and dove like a falcon, wings folded, before pulling them out just enough to make it look like he was about to tackle the Victorian without actually doing so. His wings caught a side-current as he dove, and he twisted in mid-air in a fraction of a second, adjusting his course ever-so-slightly, such that he would miss the Victorian, and fly right past him. And as he did this thing, his right wing, the one that would pass closest to Kunja, shot out suddenly like an extendible baton, a razor-sharp wingblade slicing into Kunja's upturned right side. Kunja could not maneuver or avoid the slash, for he had comitted to his spinning strike, and so the blade found a mark, parting the combat armor and tearing a deep gash through Kunja's right flank and wing-webbing, though the blow was not solid enough to break the bone or penetrate the ribs. It barely grazed Jake's flight jacket, not deeply enough to cut him, but enough to slice open the down-coat and send goose feathers flying about like a chaff bomb. And then a split-second later, Albatros was gone, out of reach and pulling up sharply, to come about for another strike.

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

Veritas' threat might have worked better had the Bluejacket spoken English.

He threw himself flat on the ground as the Bluejacket dove, spitting fire and lead like a living, flying, armored train. Veritas' ruse did not cause the Bluejacket to slam into the trees, though it did force him to pull up early, and abort his dive. He soared over and above Veritas, his crew raining sticky grenades down, and then came about for another pass, this time intending (it appeared) to pounce on the heavyweight from straight above.

But the Stuka ignored all this.

Jeb dodged and rushed towards the cover of the wrecked train, but the Stuka was on his tail, silent as a ghost but hot in pursuit, having been cheated of its intended prey, and intent on making up for that with both of them. Fulminatus was too far behind to overtake the Stuka in time, and it burst ahead with surprising speed, performing an aerial leap over Jebediah before crushing the train car he had been heading towards with a resounding crash.

The Stuka, now in front of Jeb and Judith, glared down at them like insects. It hissed, not spoke but hissed a single word at them, in german, cold enough to make any dragon's blood turn to ice.

"Verglühen-sie..."

Nobody needed to ask what it meant...

And then like a sprung trap, the Stuka pounced at Jebediah, an eagle leaping upon a field mouse.

[LadyTevar]

The field mouse was a bit cannier than the eagle thought. Tottenkopf had the size and power. Jebediah had generations of (mostly wild) breeding a dragon that could damn near turn on a dime amid tall trees and brambles, and four decades of practice. He also had the warning of the Stuka's flying leap and stupid pose atop the train car.

The Stuka could hiss all he wanted, Jebediah had made one of his nearly impossible left turns and was flying/fleeing for all he was worth. This mouse was going to zig-zag as much as he could to keep that Eagle from touching him and his Captain. The train was a bulk of safety still, if Jeb could get around or over it he might be able to buy enough time to get Judith to safety.

+++

Judith was even more confused than ever, mostly due to the knock on her head from the train wreck. She had been walking down by the train tracks... then she was grabbed and carried by Jebediah. Tha's not rite... Ah should be ridin' him.... came the fuzzy thought, as well as a slight pain in her chest where Jebediah held her solidly. The speed they were moving made everything dizzying and unreal.

But the Stuka, when it leapt, was not. That she saw very well, and her concussion only made Tottenkopf more horrendously frightening. "Jeb... run...." she whispered, and never knew if he heard.

+++

None of them saw Fulminatus.

[General Havoc]

Jebediah turned abruptly, like he was possessed of automotive brakes, and the Stuka's lunge missed wide right, its teeth and claws snapping through empty air and carving furrows in the dirt. The Stuka's tail alone was fast enough to keep up with Jebediah, and it snapped like a whip, staving in the side of a boxcar and showering Jebediah with splinters. Quick as as flash, the dragon whirled about and charged, faster than Jeb in a straightaway, particularly in a pounce, and it lunged at the smaller American in such a way as to ensure a kill.

Or rather it would have, had Fulminatus not tackled Totenkopf in mid-air.

Not quite as fast as his namesake, Fulminatus nevertheless hit the Stuka like a bolt out of the blue, for the Stuka had fixated on its target along with his captain, and it carried no lookouts to give it pause. Fulminatus' leap was not pretty, but the midweight American posessed nearly the same mass as the Stuka it was diving at, and the collision resonated like a clap of thunder before both dragons fell, crashing straight through the ruined prisoner train, sending debris and dust flying about as though a meteor had struck the ground. Totenkopf landed on his side and rolled, twice, smashing a small shepherd's hut to kindling, even as Fulminatus came down facefirst into the dirt. Totenopf sprang up first though, alert and awake and unfazed by the blow, and whirled about to face his new adversary with a predatory grin.

No such grin was on Fulminatus. The American Reaper snarled and spat clods of earth from its mouth as it stood up slowly, growling and raising its tail into a scorpion-like position, wings splayed out and angled low like armored sheets. The Stuka's tail cracked and whipped back and forth as it slowly eyed Fulminatus, its harness covered in dirt and grime, but its hide as uniformly dark as ever, as though the dirt touching it had been sucked into some kind of seamless void.

"Unterdraken..." whispered the Stuka in a voice as sharp as death's own scythe, a voice raspy and quiet and so chilling that even Fulminatus froze for a bare instant, before recovering himself.

"I'll show you a goddamn subdrake, you inbred kraut mother - "

Both dragons lunged at once.

The collision of fifty tons combined mass sent peals of thunder echoing across the landscape, and both dragons vanished into a dust cloud that roared and screamed with oaths human and draconic. An instant later and Fulminatus had grabbed his foe by the throat and pivotted to throw him to the ground, an instant before the Stuka jackknifed in a manner wholly incommensurate with draconic physiology, and hurled Fulminatus over its shoulder onto the ground, springing upon him like a grasshopper, iron-sheathed claws and razor-sharp teeth tearing and rending. Biting back his own cries, Fulminatus rolled with the fall, scrambling out from under the Stuka's assault and slashing the Nazi dragon across the face with his tail, using the momentum of the strike to spin around and deliver a bone-shattering blow with his foreclaws to Totenkopf's face, sending blood flying and prompting a hiss of pain from the red-eyed Stuka. And then Fulminatus was gone, backed out of reach to the edge of the gorge that the railtracks had run alongside, his back and flanks covered in his own blood, staring down the Stuka whose face dripped a viscous black ichor to the ground.

They stared at one another for only a moment before they charged once more, and this time the Stuka's superior mass told, as both dragons hesitated for a moment on the brink, and then plunged in a writhing, roaring mass, over the edge of the gorge and down towards the river below.

[Charon]

Kunja roared in fury as the red blur passed by, and it turned to fear as he saw the goose feathers flow into the sky. The young Victorian's attention went to his captain's fate as he slowly opened his wing.

Jake saw the opening and quickly climbed back up to his saddle. "I'm fine Jack. Just cut the coat. I'm ok." The Australian turned his head and looked down at the injured Leuchtkaffer, then he brought his head around to look at the swiftly rising Albatros. "How're you Jack?"

"Not too bad, but I don't think we can keep up with him."

"Alright, dive. Let's wing that Leucht if we can. Keep close to the ground, give Albatros fewer chances to hit us."

Jake kept his eyes on the other Leucht and Albatros, prepared to warn Kunja if either of them made a move, while the small Victorian turned into a death-defying dive, feeling the wind on his wings well enough to swerve back and forth enough to make it unclear to their targeted Leuchtkaffer if this was an attack run or just plain running until it was too late. The young Victorian fumbled some between his injured wing and his unfamiliarity with wingblades, but as the range closed the Victorian pulled his wings in close, trying to emulate Albatros's move of a few moments before and turn his blow to cut through one of the German dragon's wings and put him out of commission.

Kunja did not stop his fall afterwords however, but kept his dive, leveling out almost suicidally close to ground.

[Cynical Cat]

"Up and over," shouted Nathan as the two German dragons closed on either side and gun fire drove him back from the twenty. Bracketing a heavyweight was good tactics, but a fast heavyweight had options. The most ludicrous of which was difficult to anticipate or counter.

"Grenade Duel!" he shouted over the mike as Frostfell rose up and banked left, turning upside down over the Swabian as he passed over the surprised Germans. The tactic wasn't exactly conventional, but it was effective.

Nathan pulled the pins on a pair of grenades and dropped them. So did every other man on Frostfell, creating a hail of high explosives. Most of them missed cleanly, but a hand grenade that misses is still dangerous and there were a lot of them. Explosions and shrapnel surrounded the German crew, causing psychological as well as physical damage.

There is an old saying about if you send enough lead in one direction some of it will end up where you don't want it. This applied. Two grenades where the Germans most definitely did not want them, one near the back of the harness and the other in the middle. Blast and shrapnel scythed through the crew and the near misses added to the carnage. The Swabian's crew was hurting bad.

Nathan ignored the ache in his side as he unslung the Thompson as Frostfell finished his roll on the other side of the Swabian, using it as a shield against the fire from the other Swabian's crew. The Germans on the middle weight were in sad shape and Nathan was a believer in never giving a sucker a break. He burned the drum at the German's crew and reloaded with practiced motions. His crew did the same, although none of them had their captain's skill when it came to trying to hit any God damn thing from dragon back. They were, however, putting out enough God damn lead.

The Germans managed to get off some shots before the grenades landed and they were decimated and a few after that, but the affair was grossly one sided. The fire at the twenty had dropped off to practically nil, which allowed Nathan to take it back as he burned a second drum into the Swabian's crew. Which sounded a lot better than it was, because the Germans could afford to lose most of a Swabian's crew and win this engagement and because that minor pain in Nathan's side was from a nine millimeter bullet wound that was bleeding freely.

[General Havoc]

The Leuchtkaffer Kunja pounced on had no idea whether or not the Victorian Reaper was merely feigning or actually intended to strike it. And it did not wait around to find out. Bleeding and half-stunned, the dragon obeyed its captain's commands, and executed a jackknife dive as Kunja came spinning in towards it. Too late.

The good news for the German was that Kunja's maneuver was well-suited for a Speckled Bavarian, not a miniature Victorian that outweighed it by half again as much mass. What should have been a very precise blow at the Leuchtkaffer's wing joint ended up being anything but, due primarily to the unfamiliarity of the striker with his weapons, and the unsuitability of the strike for a 7-ton dragon.

The bad news was that all that mattered very little.

Instead of lopping off the Leuchtkaffer's wing, Kunja merely landed bodily upon it. What effects this might have had in time turned out to be immaterial, as the low altitude resulted in Kunja simply spiking the Leuchtkaffer straight into the ground like an American football. The lightweight German hit in a cloud of dust and earth, and an instant later, Kunja was gone, hundreds of yards past the German, who was screaming in pain from a shattered foreleg and broken wingbone, his captain too distracted by the massive concussion he had just sustained to try and fire back.

Kunja now was at treetop level, lower than the other Leuchtkaffer dared to go, and it was waved off by Albatros, who pursued the Australian down to ground level, ducking around large trees, his captain firing in pursuit of the larger quarry. Incrementally faster, Albatros slowly closed the distance, inching up on the wounded Kunja, planning to pull alongside and strike. It was a technique that might have worked and might have not...

... except a moment later, the skies opened, and the air exploded with the fury of God's own thunder, and everything changed.

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

"Ludicrous" was probably the best word for what Frostfell next did.

He banked, he rose, and he performed an enormous slow roll, right over the heads of the stupefied Swabian. A shower of sticky-grenades was the reward the midweight German reaped for having failed to anticipate this most absurd of tactics, and while most of them flew as wide as they could possibly fly, a pair did strike home. One went off among the packed German crew and slew seven men in the blink of an eye. A young Falschirmjaegar officer leapt onto the second one, sacrificing his own life to spare those of his comrades, earning himself a posthumous Iron Cross with Oak Leaves.

A hail of lead flung in both directions ensued. Germans and Canadians died amidst the wreckage of their dragons' gear, screaming as they fell dangling from their carabineers, or silently as bullets took their heads off. Nathan's judgment that the fire from the German dragon had fallen off was correct, but the further Swabian pulled up, giving its own crew a line of fire as well, and their shots made up for the decimated crew of the second Swabian. The crew servicing the 20mm was forced away for a second time, one with his arm shattered, as another lay dying with his throat punctured by German steel.

The Swabian itself however was still entirely intact, the minor lacerations from grenade strikes notwithstanding, and while its captain remained inviolate, both he and the dragon were enraged by the slaughter of much of their crew. In a flash, it winged over and struck at the Wendigo, giving no more thought to a simultaneous strike, lashing with its claws and goring with its horns as it tried to burrow into Frostfell's left side, tearing at his wing, generally trying to slow it up. No chance had a single Swabian of taking Frostfell down alone, but the other Swabian was banking to assist as best it could, and would be in position in moments.

Still, the fight to come was to be one of technique and poise, and was certainly winnable, or so it appeared until a lookout aboard Frostfell chanced to gaze in the right direction, and saw a thing that turned his face pale, prior to letting out a frenzied scream.

"Oh FUCK!" screamed the young lookout. "BOGEY DEAD AHEAD! ANGELS NINE! ANGELS NINE!"

Anyone who could, looked, and their jaws dropped.

The clouds ahead were patchy, but as they parted, they revealed the sea beyond the confines of the Contentin Peninsula, and above the cliffs overlooking the English Channel, there sat a Jotunmeister.

Enormous it was, outlined against the rising sun, its wings of argent and snow-blue, its body of granite-Grey. Cloud whistled about its head as it beat its enormous wings, its fifty-man crew running to battle positions, dozens of Falschirmjaegar readying their weapons to destroy the interlopers. And now it was that Albatros' strategem was made manifest, the reasons why he had permitted Frostfell to run north at all. The Jotunmeister was based, not in Bayeux like the others, but in Cherbourg, and it had been a trivial matter to position it across Frostfell's line of escape. Thousands of feet below, Albatros permitted himself a smirk as he keyed his radio-headset and spoke a sharp, simple command into it.

"Angriff."

Attack.

The Jotunmeister's wings began to beat harder, and it moved in, above Frostfell but directly between him and England, and the Swabians took new heart, racing to corral their prey and bring the largest dragon in France into the fight against him. And as the thick clouds above the Jotunmeister gathered together like an augury of the storm to come, the enormous, Nordic monster of a dragon threw back its head and let loose a thunderous roar...

And was instantly answered by one ten times worse.

The air itself seemed to shatter, even at the distance that the allied dragons were at, and the clouds shimmered and were cast aside like bedclothes as the heavens opened up, and another dragon materialized above and behind the enormous Jotunmeister. Gigantic in its own right, it was smaller than the Jotun, but pitch black, longer, and more serpentine, the marks on its face and feet of Chinese pedigree. And as the lookout on Frostfell stood amazed, and Albatros' grin turned to the frozen horror of recognition, Temeraire's Divine Wind struck the Jotunmeister like the hammer of Thor himself. Every single turret aboard the Jotunmeister shattered at once, every electronic exploded, its crew screamed and clutched at their heads, and vomited blood over the side. And the dragon, the enormous, invincible dragon that moments ago had been poised to sound the death-knell of the two beleaguered dragons, screamed and twisted and writhed in mid-air, moments before Temeraire dove down and delivered a single, bone-shattering blow with both forelegs onto the Jotunmeister's shoulder, hard enough that even this monster felt it. And then Temeraire flew on, snapping his tail through the air, contemptuously ignoring the German monster as it plunged down out of range to continue the battle, its crew in tatters, its weapons destroyed, and drove head-on towards the two Swabians besieging Frostfell.

Albatros, as it turned out, had not been the only one with a plan...

And at that moment, not one German dragon, not the Swabians, not the Leuchtkaffers, not even Albatros himself, could stop themselves from freezing instinctively in surprise.

Given that one of them was within melee range of an angry Wendigo, that may have been an error...

[General Havoc]

The Bluejacket was outmatched, and knew it, and the practiced crew it was facing of Hermecritus', black or otherwise, was A: Larger than its own, and B: quite capable of putting up a most "spirited defence". Moreover, the light-heavyweight monster was accompanied by a dragon even more ferocious, a Crimson Angel, which was scarcely credible to find in France of all places, but there it was. That the Angel in question was badly injured was not something the Bluejacket had the slightest way of knowing, and it pulled up and off of Hermecritus after only a few half-hearted slashes, barely enough to draw blood even from an unarmored dragon. One American was wounded, one German killed, and then the rival dragons were out of range.

The other Bluejacket had intended to pounce on Veritas, but Veritas' sheer size worked against such plans. Even if assaulting Veritas would have been trivial due to his injury (which it would not), the Bluejacket saw only a Crimson Angel, and upon second thought, opted to allow the accompanying Kampfritter to deal with this one. That said Kampfritter had been lured out of sight by Æquitas was not relevant to the Bluejacket's manner of thinking. As they saw it, they were two midweights outclassed by a light-heavyweight and a line heavyweight both. They did what any sane dragons would have done. They took to the skies and retreated.

A calm fell over the scene of the train wreck as they did so, broken only by the sounds of Fulminatus and TotenKopf far far below at the base of the canyon. Of Æquitas there was no sign. He had taken the Kampfritter on and dragged the thick-headed beast away from the battle, enabling the others to handle the lighter escorts. Soon enough the Germans would be back, no doubt in greater numbers, but for the time being, Jebediah, Veritas, and Hermecritus had a moment to recover and act.

One they would do well not to squander.


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

But down below, things were very different.

The two dragons fought like angry gods, twisting and wrestling and slashing and beating at one another in the time-honored tradition of dragon combat, an art that had not changed in hundreds and thousands of years. If anything, this bout was even more savage, for neither dragon had crews to protect, and one had no captain. There was no restraint, no hesitation, nothing holding them back. Fulminatus was the elder, and had more experience in this sort of battle, but Totenkopf was larger, more agile, and seemed immune to the pain of the blows the enraged American Reaper laid upon his night-black form.

Such perhaps was to be expected.

Cloaked in a shower of scraped-off rock, the two dragons smashed into the shallow river at the base of the canyon. Instantly, Totenkopf was on his feet, snarling and growling and pacing in a semicircle as Fulminatus slowly shook off the shock of his impact and rose to his feet. Covered in blood, his own and the Stuka's, the veteran Reaper spat out yet more blood and crouched low, facing the Stuka with a low snarl like a blast furnace, letting the German creep closer... closer... closer yet... and then struck.

He leapt up like a coiled snake, aiming for the Stuka's head, his claws cocked back to strike, and his teeth bared. The Stuka's reaction was just a moment too slow, and Fulminatus smashed one foreclaw into Totenkopf's cheek, snapping the German's head around, before batting it back with the other. Yet Totenkopf was not stunned. He reared up, striking upwards and catching Fulminatus in the throat and thorax with his own claws, tearing through scale and scoring deep into the Reaper's chest with his razor-sharp steel-shrouded claws. Fulminatus' follow-up strike was aborted, and he fell backwards, but as he did, his right foreclaw lashed out again and missed high, failing to strike Totenkopf's head... but instead disemboweling the German dragon's captain, who gave only a soft cry, before slumping forward and to the right, and sliding off Totenkopf's neck to fall down into the shallow river, where he landed with a splash in a spreading red pool.

And then a truly horrible thing happened.

Fulminatus, who knew what he had done the instant he had done it, rolled backwards and got back to his feet, his mind already racing as he tried to determine what he would do with an enraged Stuka. But the Stuka seemed, momentarily, to forget that Fulminatus was there, its head hanging down as it stared at its fallen captain, eyes unblinking, expression unreadable. And then, slowly, carefully, with infinite poise and intent, the Stuka raised its head once again, its coal-red eyes boring into Fulminatus, and rather than scream or roar or charge wildly towards its foe, the Stuka simply smirked, slowly shaking its head back and forth, as it whispered a simple statement with a voice that could freeze blood.

"Das war ein Fehler," said the Stuka, "unterdrake..."

And despite his 96 years of active service, his thirty wars, his record of nonstop fighting, despite having battled every dragon breed of every nation across the world, having seen all that one could possibly see in all the annals of warfare, the sight of the Stuka standing over the body of his dead captain, and calmly issuing what amounted to a death threat, was horrifying enough to cause Fulminatus' heart to skip a beat. Unvarnished astonishment, surprise, even fear appeared on the American Reaper's face, and he could only whisper a reply in a voice thick with disbelief.

"... no!"

And then the Stuka pounced.

[Cynical Cat]

The enraged Swabian moved to strike at Frostfell with all the wrath and fury that it could command. The move took Nathan by surprise as he dropped an ammunition drum and slammed a new one home. For a medium weight to tangle with Frostfell was an invitation to an early grave. The German's gutsy gamble had succeeded in taking the Canadian veteran by surprise.

Nathan wasn't the one they needed to surprise.

Frostfell hadn't anticipated the attack, he had all but prayed for it. As a dragon whose fury and killer instinct would drive him to attack larger, more massive dragons if he saw an opening where his quickness and disproportionate strength would allow him to rend and tear and maim the way a weasel or a wolverine would, he did not discount that the Swabian might do the same. If Frostfell lunged the German dragon and crew would probably retreat, costing them their bullet shield. On the other hand if they attacked, then they would become one hard to distinguish target while Frostfell rent and teared.

The Swabian lunged to tear into Frostfell's side and wing only to find the Wendigo was already turning into the strike. The impact jostled the Canadian and the German crews, throwing Nathan's Thompson out of line as Nathan cursed and threw back the bolt. Frostfell's claw closed on the Swabian's neck, holding the smaller dragon for the instant he needed. The Wendigo's jaws closed on the Swabian's head.

Nathan swayed in his saddle, more so than the impact should have required. He had targets. The Thompson was so god damn heavy in his hands, but he had targets and the strength. There would be no Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. There would be no one alive to report it. Nathan's finger tightened on the trigger. Frostfell's jaws closed with pressure an hyena would have envied. The Canadian survivors opened up.

Bullets raked the decimated German crew. Nathan's slugs ripped through the captain and into the surviving crew. Bullets flew back in the few moments the Germans had before the last of them died. The Thompson fell limply in Nathan's right hand and pain shot through his left arm. He looked down and saw bone peaking out of his left forearm and blood leaking from his side. "Oh fuck," he muttered and slid back. Strong hands gripped him and the world spun and then there was nothing but chaos.

Blood and brains spilled into Frostfell's mouth from the Swabian's punctured skull. Frostfell spit out the German dragon's mangled head and for a moment watched the German dragon fall. He had sustained several minor wounds from the Swabian's frantic struggles, but combined with the unhealed injuries from the previous engagement and it was taking a serious toll on him. Then he looked up. "Schiesse," he cursed. He was in no shape to tangle with the Jotunmeister, even if it had been alone.

Then Tremeraire swatted the Jotunmeister down. Frostfell envied few creatures in existence. He was one of the fastest Wendigo's alive and damn strong for his size. He envied Trajan, the giant and cunning Wendigo with his endless bag of cruel tricks and superior brute force and he envied the dragons that possessed breath weapons as well as strength and intellect. To be given more gifts that Frostfell, was in his narcissistic universe view, unfair. Today, however, he would let it slide.

He opened his maw, stained black and grey with blood and brains. "What's up Doc?" he roared at Tremeraire as the English dragon closed, matching his skull crushing to the famous cartoon rabbit's carrot chewing. The Germans were in disarray. Now was the time to strike while they were weak. The quad twenty could inflict terrible damage on mediums and Frostfell himself was still a nightmare to medium weight and smaller dragons.

"Which one Nathan?" he asked as he beat higher, ready to choose targets. "Nathan?" The silence was deafening. Then came a roar from his throat that if not as potent as that of the mighty Tremeraire, was almost as terrible.

[LadyTevar]

Jebediah's heart was beating like a scart deer, but he was very thankful that Stuka wasn't after him anymore. Part of him wished Fulminatus luck as the Smoke Devil gently opened his claw to look down at his Captain. He could smell the blood on her now, and it made his wings tremble. Not 'gain... please dear Lord, not 'gain....

"Judith...? Jud-honey... ya hear me?"
Judith blinked, trying to focus on the draconic face before her. "Jeb...?" she said, reaching up to try to wipe the blood from her eyes, and winced as her battered ribs protested. "Th' Stuka... where...?"

"He's gone, Judith, don' worry... Fulminatus got 'em," Jeb said and prayed silently that it was true. He could hear the sounds of the massive fight drifting up from below, but doubted Judith would. Lord, bless an' protect Fulminatus 'gainst th' Powers of Darkness, amen.

Judith wiggled in Jeb's grasp, and gasped in pain, making Jeb twitch in worry. He raised his head and looked around frantically. "VERTITAS!" he roared. "HELP ME!" Cradling Judith in his upturned claw the Smoke Devil limped over towards the larger dragon, hoping the Crimson Angel's crew could doctor his lil girl.

[rhoenix]

Jebediah, strictly speaking, wasn't a large dragon. However, despite being considered a "lightweight," he still had strong lungs.

For the moment, Veritas was glad the bluff worked, though not quite as well as he'd intended. He was in no shape to face down German light- or mid-weights right now. But if he were at his best, he thought as he quietly ground his teeth, oh, the damage he could wreak.

For the moment however, Jebediah's cry was enough to get Veritas' mind working in the proper direction again. Getting to all four paws, he suddenly galloped toward Jebediah, with Captain Braithwaite assisting his medic in climbing down to look at Judith once there. Veritas for the moment said nothing, but he was observing his surroundings carefully. At last, he spoke, and not very loudly - but it still rumbled in a deep bass around the others. "We don't have much time. We need to get Judith stable, save Fulminatus and then leave, soon."

[LadyTevar]

Jebediah continued to hold Judith in hand, although he had lowered it for the doctor to look her over. The prognosis was better than Jeb had feared; concussion, injured ribs. The medic, used to dealing with dragons, was firm with his decision, suggesting immediate evacuation to get Judith to England. He thought the ribs weren't broken, but he couldn't be sure.

Judith, dazed, simply nodded and asked Jeb to help her onto his harness, forgetting that the harness had been destroyed.

[Charon]

Kunja had his opening as Albatros was momentarily stunned by the arrival of Tremeraire. "Jake, scaredy cat." The Aussie captain grinned and let loose from his saddle again, clipping into one of the many cables that still hung from the dragon.

The small Victorian began to waggle in the air, loosing speed and falling back towards Albatros. Jake meanwhile slid down to the underbelly of his dragon where he held on tight, only a dozen or so feet from the treetops. The young dragon then tilted his wings and began a rollover, loosing more speed, pitching into the air as he came around above Albatros, his belly to open air, keeping both Germans from a clear shot of his captain.

As the rollover completed, Kunja and Jake could only hope that they'd caught Albatros enough in surprise that he hadn't managed to slow down as well and keep behind them. Jake started climbing back into his saddle, readying his gun for combat.

[General Havoc]

Terms like "exterminated", "wiped out", and "slaughtered" were thrown around a lot in war, but the base fact was that to slay every one of 26 armed men aboard a dragon was simply not that easy, not with a Thompson .45 automatic. Not with a 20 milimeter cannon. Not even with all the firepower a heavyweight could bring to bear. Captain Nathan Reynolds might have thought that he'd wiped out the crew of the Swabian, but he had not done so, for some Germans had taken cover behind their dragon, and some had fallen for reasons other than perforation. So it was with the German Captain, who received a shot through the arm and rolled off his dragon's neck, more to avoid Frostfell's maw than Reynolds' gun. In the chaos of battle, such mistakes were commonplace.

In the end it didn't matter.

Similarly, Frostfell struck at the Swabian's skull intending to crush it like a grape. This he could not do. Even had Frostfell been a line-heavyweight, with enough bite strength to make a credible go of it, Swabians were possessed of extremely strong skull and neck structures, as was to be expected of dragons whose primary means of attack was a head-on ram. Frostfell bit and clawed, and received for his trouble two nasty gouges across his cheek and muzzle, courtesy of the Swabian's horns, while the smaller dragon slashed and hacked with its claws, trying to do damage. It largely failed, for the angles were wrong, and Frostfell was large and agile and evaded the worst of the other blows, but not with one bite, nor with two, could he penetrate the skull of the Swabian Lightning Bolt.

In the end, that did not matter either.

One solid bite, the fourth or fifth perhaps, it was too hard to tell, was too many, and Frostfell's jaws closed with a crunch as his canines punched through the armored skull like a pair of enormous pickaxes. The Swabian did not even have time to scream. Its life force was extinguished like a switch being thrown, and it instantly went limp. Blood fonted into the air and splattered all over Frostfell's face, mingling with his own from the slashes the Swabian had dealt him. And then Frostfell released his slain quarry, and the dragon fell, twisting in the wind, tumbling end over end. Parachutes, a pitiful three parachutes opened, as what remained of the dragon's crew abandoned their dragon. None of them belonged to the captain. Perhaps he had succumbed to his wound, and lost consciousness, perhaps his parachute was broken, or perhaps the captain, his dragon slain between one moment and the next, simply opted not to leave.

He would not be the first.

Thousands of feet below, Albatros did indeed slow his pursuit of Kunja, but not because of Kunja's maneuver. Indeed he was barely watching the Victorian, instead making calculations of his own. As Kunja swung over him, Albatros banked to the right, away from the northward run he had been undertaking, for the Jotunmeister's fall had undone all his plans, and he had no illusions that the Swabian Frostfell had just undone would slow the Canadian for long at all.

The old warhorse knew what must come next.

"Alle Drachen," he whispered into his microphone, "Ruckzug".

The last Swabian above needed no encouragement. With a final barrage of gunfire, it turned away from Frostfell and from the oncoming form of Temeraire, and screened by the remaining Leuchtkaffers, it turned southeast, and began to power out of range. Albatros himself could only shake his head as the other Swabian crashed to earth with a sickening thud, flattening most of a small copse of trees as it did so, and slowly turned away from his own heading, relying on his captain to let him know if Kunja was following or not. If he was not, Albatros largely had no choice at this point but to let him go.

And if he was... well... Albatros had no compunctions about a Parthian shot.

[Cynical Cat]

The German dragons were leaving as Frostfell let loose with a wail of rage and loss. Nathan was dead. Joy was dead. There was only murder left in his heart, a monstrous rage to rend and kill and destroy, to see the world painted red and to drink in the pain and suffering of all his enemies. Enemies which were now out of reach. Mostly.

But not Nathan's killers. The Canadians had wrecked terrible havoc on the Swabian's crew with grenades and automatic weapons fire, but a few had survived. Perhaps they had only been wounded or they had played dead or they had been shielded by the body of their dragon or their comrades. It didn't matter. Three parachutes opened. Three of Nathan's killers lived.

Not for long. Frostfell dived. On his back three men struggled with Nathan's limp body and their own harnesses. "Aw bloody hell!" shouted Donaldson. "He's bleeding all over the place."

"Just get the bandages on him!" shouted McKenzie.

"Easier said than done with this crazy dive!"

"Frostfell!" McKenzie shouted. "Ease up! We've got to see to the boss!" No response. McKenzie looked around. The radio had taken hits. "Bloody hell! See to the captain!" The White Devil had been a lucky dragon, up to tonight. Even the casualties they suffered in the ground attack hadn't been while they were riding Frostfell. Now he was going killing mad and there was no radio to talk him down with. He headed to the front of the saddle.

Frostfell swooped down on the lazily floating humans. Time for them to pay. He opened the belly of the first one, spilling his bowels into the air. He passed the seconds, missing him by inches. Let his fear grow. The third's legs he bit off at the knees. He swooped around to fly at the second. The German saw him coming. He released his harness and fell.

Frostfell roared, savoring the dying men's terror. Then McKenzie shouted. "Nathan's hurt! Hospital ASAP!" Nathan was alive. For a moment he was stunned. Then he hurled north with all the speed he could muster. The world might not have ended. Nathan might live.

[Charon]

Kunja and Jake watched as Albatros turned and made his retreat. With a snarl the dragon turned to follow the fleeing Bavarian.

"Kunja..."

The Victorian did not seem to pay him heed. He wanted his aerial spar. This wasn't about victory, this wasn't about revenge. It was the lust for challenge, to push just a little bit further to see what you could do.

"Kunja!"

Albatros was going slow, he was in no particular hurry to make his escape, he could still be caught. Still be challenged.

"Jack!"

Kunja's chase slowed as the dragon glanced to his captain.

"Let him go Kunja." Jake spoke with an air of authority.

"But we've got him, we can fight him."

"I know, I know. But the White Bastard is bugging out. And we still don't know if the plan worked. Let's just go home. We know where he is now."

Kunja stayed on his path towards Albatros for a few more seconds before he finally turned away with a snort. The Victorian quickly gained altitude as he followed after Frostfell back towards England.

[General Havoc]

One by one, Frostfell dove upon the Germans who had dove off of their stricken beast, and one by one, he tore them to bits. Temeraire was shouting something at the Wendigo, but in the throes of a berserk rage, Frostfell neither knew nor cared what it was that Temeraire had to say to him. The other Germans in the air saw what was happening, and it only hastened their urge to escape, but one German in particular did not. A berserk Wendigo, to say nothing of the Chinese Celestial that now accompanied him, was well beyond the provenance of anything but the most mighty dragon to undertake. But despite this, Albatros, paying no mind whatsoever to Kunja, despite his Captain's ever more insistent requests to the contrary, still remained down at treetop level, well out of range of whatever weapons Frostfell or Temeraire still had to bring to bear, moving perpendicular to the two heavyweights. And so it was that when the last German parachutist panicked and released his harness, plunging out of the air a fraction of a second before Frostfell would have bitten him in half, Albatros acted instantly, banking left as hard as he could and putting on a burst of speed that would have put even a Leuchtkaffer to shame. For the second time in as many days, Albatros raced to beat gravity, dodging around trees and scything through foliage to try and catch the falling German crewman.

In doing so however, Albatros had to pass within bare yards of Kunja, who was already turning in a similar direction to make his escape, and while the red-painted Speckled Bavarian made no attempt to strike the Australian lightweight on the way, nor even glanced in his direction, if Kunja wished to, he could, with trivial ease, interpose himself between the falling German and the Bavarian dragon racing to his rescue.

Assuming of course, that the results of such an action were to the Australian's liking.

[Charon]

Jake looked up at the ravening beast that had once been Frostfell and cringed. He didn't necessarily like Nathan, but he didn't want to think he was dead. And he didn't want to think of what Frostfell was going through.

As the beast closed in on the last surviving German, the terrified man let loose his parachute.

"Oh Jesus... Kunja."

The Victorian looked up at the screaming German.

"Nothin' for it Jake, he-" the young Victorian and his captain looked back at Albatros who had shifted position, almost coming right for them, but it was clear the dragon's objective was the falling German.

The young Victorian turned his head back and put on the speed. His captain only grinned. "Looks like we have us a race."

The Australian pair put every ounce of energy they had into it. Weaving around the larger trees, and trusting on their mass to smash through the younger saplings. Jake was pressed down completely against his seat, offering no resistance to his dragon's flight, occasionally glancing back towards the ever closing Albatros. The Australian looked back to the falling German. "Jack, this is gonna be close."

"For him or for us?" replied the dragon, not taking his eyes off his target.

Jake sat back up in his saddle and took his carabiner off, hooking it up to the line that went up his dragon's neck to the head. "Both. Pulling a header."

"You got it." Kunja put on more speed now, eeking out everything he had as he pulled his feet in as high as he could, still practically scraping on the ground. Jake meanwhile began a steady climb up his dragon's neck until he reached the head, in a knelt position for more stability.

"Just like old times, maybe a little closer though." Jake watched the falling man, his attention no longer on Albatros. They were close. "Kunja, tosser right!"

Kunja turned his head to the right, keeping it so low that the occasional bush would be torn straight from it's roots. Jake meanwhile leaped to his feet and stretched his arm out towards the falling man and, mere feet from the ground, catching him around the waist and pulling hard. The man collided with Jake and both toppled over on top of the dragon as Kunja himself continued his turn, shunting off velocity as slowly as he could so as to not kill either captain or German.

A blink of an eye later a red blur appeared, and, apparently more surprised by Kunja's appearance than they were by his, crashed heavily into the Australian dragon, bouncing off and forcing both dragons into crash landings.

Jake almost lost his grip on the German as Kunja landed heavily on all four feet, but managed to hold on. Finally, as the ground and their hearts settled, Jake began to laugh in glee, shortly thereafter followed by the hearty laughs of Kunja.

[rhoenix]

Some German dragons were leaving already, and Fulminatus' battle was hard to mistake. Veritas' great eye-ridges furrowed - this was no time to get complacent. In fact, if he wasn't missing the timing, they needed to leave. Now.

His rumbling bass voice made itself heard again, though he spoke directly and plainly. Captain Braithwaite was already assisting the rest of the crew in getting Veritas ready to leave as he heard his great red friend speak. "We've run out of time. Jebediah, I can carry Judith back, but I can't carry both of you. If you can fly, give me a situation report on Fulminatus, and then we need to go. They fell over that cliff behind you, still fighting. Please check them, and then fall into formation alongside me."

Internally, Veritas sighed. With his shoulder still very raw and damaged the way it was, he couldn't simply lift off strongly, like he normally would. The number of crew had been chosen deliberately to keep the weight light. Judith was a small slip of a girl, but she added a little very real weight to his total load. He knew he'd have to dive off the cliff himself to get airborne at this point.

But, the Allied dragons had done what they had come to do. All they needed to do was account for Fulminatus, and make sure Frostfell went in generally the right direction home, and they'd be alright. Taciturn though he was, Veritas clung to that hope as he unfurled his great wings, with his natural red color beginning to show beneath the black paint.

It was time. He hoped within the depths of his being that all would make it home alive, if not whole.

[General Havoc]

Despite his fame, veterancy, and professionalism, Albatros was not a particularly old dragon, not certainly when compared to living legends like Temeraire or old warhorses like Fulminatus, and his speed was, for a Bavarian at least, blistering. Still, the distance was vast, and the obstacles many, and it was not clear if he would be able to catch the falling German or not. He spared not a glance at Kunja, and less forgivably, neither did his captain, for both were fixated on their target. They might make it, they might not, but Albatros threw every bit of speed he had into the effort.

And so, when Kunja got there first by virtue of better positioning, they collided like a pair of racing cars.

Kunja, though slower, had had better position, and cut in at what appeared to Albatros to be the last instant. Albatros had no time even to blink before he slammed into Kunja at full speed, and by complete surprise. Fortunately, they hit at a fairly sharp angle, and as Albatros was not expecting the impact, and had made no provisions for ramming whatsoever, the effect was less damaging than it might have been. Kunja, who outmassed Albatros by some two and a half tons, was knocked into a semi-crash landing, but came out of it standing up. Albatros, lighter and moving faster, was simply blindsided, and bounced off of the heavier Australian dragon, turning a complete barrel roll in half a second before slamming into a tree. Despite the surprise, he managed to snag the tree with one foreleg, pivotting off it and shoving himself back to land on the ground on all four legs, swinging both wings out widely and slicing a pair of saplings in half, and using his tail to maintain balance as he skidded and slid for a moment, and then finally stabilized, like a human gymnast making a landing. The ostentatious red paint along his left side had been scraped off, and a good bit of it now adorned Kunja's flank and harness, revealing the brown speckled scales underneath his combat rig.

Albatros took a second to recollect himself, and to check wordlessly that his captain was all right, and only then did he turn slowly about, still on the ground, to Kunja, who was laughing his head off alongside his captain. The German they had just rescued was doing nothing of the sort, indeed he was shaking like a leaf, barely able to credit the fact that he was still alive. And for the first time in what was probably quite a while, Albatros clearly wasn't sure quite what to say or do. Kunja's black blood was still splattered over one of Albatros' wingblades, but for the moment, he was not starting anything. Not that Albatros wasn't confident he couldn't handle it if he did, but there was still Temeraire hovering about overhead...

[Charon]

Jake and Kunja couldn't help but witness Albatros's ground acrobatics and that got both of the crazy Aussies laughing even harder for several seconds.

"Oh man, did you just see that? That was fucking incredible!"

"I didn't even know a dragon could pivot off of a tree!"

"Oh man he'd have totally kicked our asses!"

"Pfft, maybe. Just remember that he bounced off of us."

"Yeah yeah alright I'll give you that. But come on, he just got blindsided at ground level and landed on all four feet. Not even Jocasta could have pulled that move."

"Ok yeah, he probably would have kicked our asses."

Both dragon and captain then seemed to realize that Albatros was looking at them. Captain looked at dragon and dragon at captain. "Oh jeez, what the hell do I say?" muttered Jake. The dragon shrugged for all of a response and slowly set his head on the ground to let his captain and the German they'd caught off. Jake hopped down, still holding onto the German and took a few steps towards Albatros, still obviously in awe that he was walking towards the famous German dragon.

"Uhhh... Wow. I, uh. It's an honor to meet you sir. I uhh... Wow." Jake realized that he was holding onto a German, a German that would be a prisoner. "Oh uhh... we kinda found something you lost." Jake let the German go and pushed him towards Albatros. "Good race, uhhh. Sir. You almost had us."

Kunja had meanwhile realized that some of Albatros's paint was splattered across his side and was grinning like an idiot.

[LadyTevar]

"Ah'm much'n ablied'ged ta you n' yer crew," Jebediah told the far bigger dragon. "Jis... be car'ful with her?" There was a definite quiver in the Smoke Devil's voice as he asked, then he whirled towards the cliff and leapt into the air to tell Fulminatus it was time to skedaddle.

The rush of his leaving didn't hide how hard it was for him to separate from Judith, even for that long. It made Jeb frantic, even as he knew it was needed. She'll be a'right. He'll tak' good care o' her. Get Fulminatus, an' get out.... an' Judith will be back with me soon.

The fight below had paused for a mere moment, and Jeb flew over the cliff in time to see the Stuka pounce on Fulminatus, both dragons captainless. "Ohhhhh shee-it."

Jebediah turned back to Vertitas, winging over him. "Stuka's lost his captain!" That the battle below was silent of roars only made that statement scarier.

[rhoenix]

Oh, hell. This wasn't going to end well.

Captain Braithwaite lost no time in opening up the radio as Veritas was about to dive over the cliffs to gain the skies once more. "Rankin, this is Braithwaite. Jebediah and Judith are freed. Fulminatus and the Suka are going at it hammer and tongs in the ground below the cliffs - the Suka's captain appears dead. Advice or assistance both would be appreciated."

As Captain Braithwaite finished, they caught sight of the brutal battle going on below. He felt, rather than heard, a low growl from within Veritas, and he sympathized. He wished Veritas was in fighting-shape too, but now, they were a small escapee-transport.

[General Havoc]

Atop Albatros, Lothar von Richtoffen looked like he could scarcely believe his eyes as the Australian captain dismounted from his dragon and actually walked a few paces towards them. He reached almost automatically for his MP-40, still slung over and around his shoulder, but even before he had moved, he felt Albatros' wings twitch, a silent signal to hold, one that the young captain obeyed.

It wasn't mere chivalry, it was also pragmatism. Overhead loomed the black form of Temeraire, descending towards the two lightweights, and somewhere presently out of sight, was the Wendigo he had been chasing, who, last Albatros had seen, was endeavoring to end all life, in the throes of a berserk rage. Even had Albatros had a mind to, pouncing upon and seizing this captain would do him much ill and little good, as he could not, under any circumstances, deal with Temeraire, Frostfell, and Kunja all at once. That was hardly a shameful admission, as likely no single dragon living or dead could either.

Besides. Enough men and dragons had died this morning.

Albatros masked his surprise as the Australian captain released his German prisoner, who proceeded to rush over to Albatros' side and collapse in a quivering heap. Albatros paid him little mind. After what had just happened...

"My apologies," said Albatros, folding his wings back just slightly, and inclining his head slightly in a nod of recognition. When he spoke, us used a formal, civil tone, like that of a baron or duke, tinged as always with a German accent. "I vas... not avare zat ve vere racing. If I had known, I might have er... 'pulled up' sooner?" English was not Albatros' first language, nor his second or third, but he thought that was the right term.

The dragon behind the Australian captain was surely a Queen Victoria's Reaper, but barely half the size of the ones Albatros remembered from the Great War. He narrowed his eyes for a moment, in recollection.

"You... vere at Tangmere yesterday, ja? You and zat... "Schneedämon"... er... Vendigo?" He remembered that the young Captain of the Smoke Devil they had captured had asked about him.

"Vhat is your name, Australier?"