Author's Note: I know you're all expecting an update for Fell Falls and Hellfire. You'll get it. I've hit a road block in one and a hitch in the other so I'm posting this to tide you over until I can update those… If you're still with me after the end of the last chapter let me just say when I wrote that I cried for half an hour. Please review.
2. Fight
Merlin was in shock, steering the Hawk was natural to her almost instinctual. Will made his way to the two way vid-com between the cockpit and the passenger seats. He clicked the call button.
"Merlin?" No response.
"Merlin, I know you can hear me." The screen flickered to life and Will's heart broke. Merlin was pale as a ghost with tear tracks etched down her cheeks. Her eyes were bloodshot and the package her mother had given her was nestled in her lap.
"Yeah?"
"You alright?" Merlin laughed humorlessly.
"No. No, alright is not a word I would use. It was my fault Will. If I wasn't, then she wouldn't..." Merlin couldn't finish her thought as fresh tears tracked down her face.
"No! This was not your fault Merlin. This was Cenred's fault. Your mother would not blame you for this. Cenred pulled the trigger, not you. This is not your fault, never say that." Merlin sniffed and nodded, a watery smile momentarily lighting her face. Then a panel to the left of the vid-com beeped.
"Shit! Strap in Will, Giaus, we've got company." Will made it to his seat and strapped in before the aerial acrobatics began but only just.
Merlin maneuvered the Hawk like it was a living bird. She swooped low above the trees of the darkling woods. She ducked and dove behind the slower bulkier fliers and, a need for revenge driving her, clipped it with the saw like edge of her gliders wing. The com piped back up.
"Merlin! What are you doing?" Will sounded unnerved.
"Getting rid of our tail. What do you think?"
"I think you're trying to cut up their ship, you never perfected that feature. Just lose them!" The hawk shook as a cannonball flew over the left wing. Merlin swore again and the com went dead.
Merlin abandoned her vengeance Merlin swooped and dove, avoiding the weapons fired with obvious intent to kill, apparently if Cenred couldn't have her no one could. The chase went over the woods and soon the sun was beginning to rise. Still the flyers, clearly marked as King Cenred's, cased the metal bird. Merlin had almost given up when a voice blared over her external p.a. system from an unknown ship.
"This is Golden Dragon, you are flying in restricted airspace. State your business, over." Merlin almost cried with relief.
"This is Falconer; I have Giaus the court physician of Camelot on board and am being pursued by hostiles. Request assistance, over."
"Very well Falconer. We're authorized to intervene. Which vessel is yours? Over." Merlin scoffed into the p.a. in absolutely no mood for this.
"I don't know, maybe the large metal falcon!?" A new voice laughed over the com.
"Your sass is unnecessary Falconer."
"I've been chased by these bastards all night, I saw my mother die and I am currently flying not only for my life but the lives of my passengers, not to mention the pointless argument I'm having with a prat I don't know over a radio! So yes, my sass is totally necessary!" Merlin swore as one of the cannonballs grazed her left wing sending her into a spin. For most pilots this would be an irreversible death sentence, but Merlin wasn't most pilots.
Pressing down on the throttle as hard as she could she turned into the spiral as she felt her eyes glow gold boosting her speed as she shot upward. Several switches flipped of their own accord, her machine and her magic working in perfect tandem as they both bent to her will lowering her only weapon. It was a set of talon like razor sharp landing hooks. She didn't look like a weapon but she had no choice.
"This is for my mother you bastard!" She shouted and across one of the wings of Cenred's ships effectively shredding it. It spiraled and smoked crashing soon after hundreds of feet below.
"Yes!" She cheered and her com system cleared its throat.
"Falconer we have arrived at your location, please stay back." At that moment six gliders swooped in-between Merlin's Hawk and the remaining three of Cenred's ships. Each had a different crest painted on the left side, the Camelot dragon on the right. A lion, a griffon, an apple tree behind crossed swords, a smith's hammer and anvil, a bear, and a slightly larger more detailed dragon adorned one of each of the shining gliders. Merlin's vid-com beeped and she answered. Will looked shaken.
"What the hell are you doing up there!?"Merlin laughed a tiny breathless laugh.
"Well the cavalry seems to have arrived." And she described the scene before her as the fighters engaged Cenred's men.
"Those are the knights of Camelot, the best fighters around." Giaus called from his seat. Merlin hovered uncertainly until one of the three that had been chasing her broke away and turned to fire on the fighter baring the golden dragon.
"No!" She shouted and swooped in, raking her landing gear across the engine block of the enemy craft. It shredded like paper and the Hawk rocked with the explosion. The damage was minor to her craft, mechanically speaking but a shredded set of landing gear was going to make landing rather difficult. The enemy craft fell, a fatal spin inevitable with no working engine. But it got off one last shot before it went down in flames. The cannonball clipped the Hawk's right wing taking off several metal panels. She swore as she raced to compensate, she could do it but not for long. A new voice came over her intercom.
"Falconer, this is Appletree. You alright? I saw you take that hit."
"I'm fine for now. Appletree. Really?" She giggled a bit involuntarily as the last of Cenred's men went down.
"Yep. Sword arm was too intimidating, no sense scaring the ladies. Gwaine's my real name, you got a real name or should I just call you Falconer. Cute haul by the way goes with the ship."
"Merlin." There was silence.
"No really."
"That's not a joke Appletree. Name's Merlin, my haul is Falconer." Raucous laughter echoed over her com.
"Oh that's clever! I like you already! Alright Falconer Merlin, we're going to escort you to the landing bay."
"Small problem Appletree Gwaine."
"What's that?"
"I shredded my landing gear saving Golden Dragon. I'd stay five feet away during landing." The voice from before cut across Gwaine's reply.
"This is Golden Dragon, are you going to be ok to land?" Merlin nodded and shrugged. Then remembered that they were not in fact on a video call.
"Yeah, I've landed with less. But the faster we get there the better, I can only compensate for the hole in my wing so long."
"Right follow Appletree. We'll follow in case of another attack."
"10-4. Over and out." True to form not ten minutes later they were hovering over the landing strip of the city of Camelot, the aptly named floating city of Camelot. The city itself never moved from where it was anchored to the forest below. There was an age old legend that it had once been flown across the sky by a powerful sorcerer to help avoid the destruction of the city, but the legend also held that the man had died from overuse of magic when he stopped the city. And what a city it was, gleaming metal and polished stone, burnished bronze and green corroded copper. A city of contradictions that floated its entire length above the forest beneath it at each cardinal direction. No one could truly unwind the mechanisms that kept the city floating but it was truly a marvel of mechanisms.