Falling Facades

First time you feel it, it might make you sad

Next time you feel it, it might make you mad

~ Huey Lewis

Chapter 4

A hundred-year-old revenge still has its baby teeth. ~ Italian Proverb

Sophia blinked herself awake in the medical lab, Leon watching her.

"Leon?" she asked. "What are you doing in my… this isn't my bedroom. Where's Lady Katarina?"

"I suppose no one would find it suspicious that she's the first thing on your mind," he told her. "You're in the medical room of the Dreadnought. Someone used dark magic on you."

The white-haired girl gave him a puzzled look. "What? Like Keith?"

She was at least somewhat rational. "Not exactly. More like what happened to Selena. I've got a dark magic detector, but it's rather cumbersome and I can't tell what exactly's been done, but you're not rational right now."

"But I know exactly what I'm doing," she protested. "I need to see my brother and Lady Katarina!"

"Then tell me, why did you stow away on a ship heading directly away from them?"

"They were going on an adventure and I didn't want to be left behind!"

Leon sighed. "Maybe they are, but if so they're not around here and it'll take days to get you home to see if that's the case. Can I at least look for you to behave until then?"

"Why wouldn't I?" she asked, sitting up. She seemed quite relieved to learn that she was still dressed. "How would someone use dark magic on me? Why would they do that?"

He was about to tell her that he could only guess, but Luxion cut in. "Master, you asked to be alerted on new developments. The Holfort fleet is about to reach the enemy flying island. The Fanoss fleet appears to plan on fighting above it."

Biting back a curse, Leon turned and strode out the door, heading for the navigation bridge. "The only thing that comes to mind is that they've got the entire thing rigged with some heavy cannon or the like to knock skyships out of the sky."

"Such engineering would be just barely attainable within observed magic and technology," the AI conceded. "However, the limitations would likely render it of limited tactical value."

"Wait!" Sophia called after him, scrambling out of the room. "Why are you just walking off?"

"Could be anything," Leon grumbled. "Could you just destroy the island, Luxion?"

"I regret that we don't have enough fissionable material for me to create the nuclear warhead that would be required."

Leon could live without that in play. "And without that?"

"Why are you ignoring me?" the girl panted as she trotted after him. "I'm sorry to have gotten into your adventure, but it was an accident! You never complain about the others joining in." The wind dragged at her dress and hair as they walked around the edge of the ship. The interior passages were all locked off to hide the ship's engineering from passengers.

"I am a colony vessel, not a battleship," Luxion admitted. "While destroying the island's suspension stones remains possible without them, the time taken would be impractical for a tactical scenario. The sword that you mentioned can probably breach my hull if the wielder gets close enough, and Fanoss may have other such relics in their arsenal."

Leon looked back at Sophia. "We're about to go into battle. I'll let you watch, but don't touch anything unless I tell you it's okay."

"Thank you!"

"You may not thank me when you see it." Leon entered the bridge and ushered her in, quietly closing and locking the door behind the girl as she looked around, fascinated. "Status report, Luxion?"

"Your squadron has prepared their ships for action. knight-armours have been recalled and all except for Seberg and Field have had at least an hour's rest," Luxion reported.

Leon nodded and walked to the front of the room, staring out of the windows at the two fleets up ahead.

"Leon, where are your crew?" Sophia asked curiously.

"Out of sight," he replied.

She clutched at her hair, defensively and he sighed. Right, she has a complex about that because of idiots. Sophia's albinism had left her stigmatised as a 'cursed child' because the gossip-hungry harpies of the capital's noble society had seized on it as something to criticise the Ascarts over.

"It's not your hair. Stowaways are unlucky, and dark magic is doubly so. It's easier to avoid conflict if they avoid you."

"Won't that make it harder to command your ship?"

"Not really," he said and then squinted at the sight of signal flags being raised. "Luxion, what's being signalled?"

"Signal from the flagship," the AI declared from the bridge speakers. "All ships prepare for action. Troop transports prepare to land soldiers."

"He's being aggressive," Leon noted. Landing troops before the enemy fleet was driven back would be risky, but it increased the chances of them standing and fighting for the chance to stop the enemy landing. "Alright, repeat that 'troop transports' signal along with 'maintain formation on the flagship'. And take us up to half-speed."

"Just half-speed?" asked Sophia.

"Dreadnought is the fastest ship in the fleet," he told her matter-of-factly. "One last warning, Sophia. If they don't surrender then this is going to get really ugly. You may not want to be watching."

"I'm not a child, Leon Fou Bartford," Sophia declared, hands on her hips. She was about as fearsome as a particularly yappy terrier. "I've -"

"Dark magic!" Luxion exclaimed, cutting the girl off. "Dark magic over the island."

"How can you pick it up at… Dear god!" Leon gripped the rail below the window as one look back outside answered the question without Luxion needing to clarify. There was no need for the dark magic detector down in the labs when the circle of black shadowy lines was miles across.

And more than half of Duke Redgrave's fleet was within it.

"Give me a magnified view!" Leon snapped and the front window zoomed in on the view of the ships in the ritual circle.

Sophia made a nauseated sound, perhaps disorientated. And then what was happening on the vessels became clear and she threw up for real. He couldn't really blame her, because right in view a sailor was being eaten alive by some sort of chimeric mix of a tiger and a squid.

A moment later, Sir Gilbert Rafa Redgrave cut the beast down with a flaming sword, but it was clearly too late for the sailor.

"The same is happening on other vessels," Luxion reported.

"Where are the monsters coming from?" Leon demanded. "Even if they have another flute, Fanoss shouldn't be able to pull them out of nowhere!"

The AI hesitated. "I am reviewing my recordings."

"New signal flags," the boy ordered, "No, wait. Just put me on loudspeakers. I'm not faffing around with flags, it'll take too long."

"Speakers are ready."

Leon picked a microphone up from where it was secured to the captain's chair. "This is Commodore Bartford. All ships are to turn to -" He checked the wind. "Starboard, and prepare to make more sail. Launch all knight-armours to form on the Dreadnought - the flagship will act as outer guard, the other escort ships are to remain with the transports."

It would be too much to hope that his immature knights would refrain from taking off just so they could do something. Do anything. At least giving them a plan would channel that. He released the microphone's push-to-talk button and looked at the screen. "Give me an overview, Luxion. What's going on?"

"The monsters are transformed crewmen and officers - particularly officers," the AI reported flatly. "The effect appears similar to that observed with Thomas Coleman."

"Son of a…" Leon hurled the microphone to the deck - it didn't break and the cord began spooling in, pulling it back up to it's rest.

"L-leon?" Sophia asked weakly.

"There's a mop in the closet at the back," he told the girl absently, watching ships from the main force begin to peel away rather than join those already in the circle. It was understandable, probably even correct. But it was also doing nothing for the cohesion of the fleet. And the Fanoss ships were forming two wings to attack around the column of dark magic blazing up from the island. Clearly they wanted no part in what was affecting the core of Redgrave's division.

"W-what's going on?"

"You made a mess, you get to clean it up," he told Sophia. "We're losing this battle."

The comparative handful of knight-armours under his command were in the air now, clustering around the Dreadnought.

"I'm going out," Leon decided. "Sophia, stay here. Luxion, keep me updated. You're clear to fire on any Fanoss ships that are closer to Dreadnought than the nearest ship of the Holfort main fleet." That should keep them from causing too much friendly fire… not that Luxon considered Holfort ships friendly to begin with.

"But what should I do?" she called at him as he opened the door. Fortunately he was already wearing his piloting suit.

The boy pointed at the closet door. "Mop. The. Floor." Then he slammed the door behind him. Hopefully she'd be mad enough at least to be distracted from what was going on.

It didn't take him long to get to the hangar, where his new knight-armour was waiting for him. In defiance of all anime tropes, Leon hadn't upgraded it - he'd already asked Luxion to build it to high specs to start with, and then modified to his preferences over the last few months. Since it worked pretty well for him, the only change was to remove the lock-out that had kept Luxion from overriding his control back when he was being mind-controlled. The risks of that were clearly not worth the security against the possibility of Luxion turning on him.

The new knight-armour felt very nearly the same to him as he took off. Probably it was just a new-car smell or something like that.

"Bartford!" Greg Fou Seberg called as Leon pulled up next to the biggest cluster of knights - that of Julius' group, who made up more than half their number. "The vanguard of the main fleet needs our help!"

Leon glanced across the sky at the battle and grimaced. The centre was continuing to disintegrate, which was blocking Count Seberg's division from easily retreating, since simply taking the easiest route and following the wind would take them right into the ritual or the path of the Duke's main force.

As such, they couldn't move as fast as the Fanoss ships swarming over them - unlike Roseblade's rearguard who were sensibly using their engines and the wind to get them as far as possible from the larger number of Fanoss ships trying to catch them. They'd be cut off soon, but they had a good chance of escaping.

"The vice admiral's division is doing their job," he told Greg. "They're buying the time for the main fleet to get as clear as they can."

"Signal from the Duke's flagship," Luxion warned. "He's ordering his division to protect the convoy."

Greg's red knight-armour waved his spear aggressively. "My father won't lose, Bartford."

"The battle is already lost," he told the other boy flatly. "I hope your dad survives, but right now we need to avoid a rout. You swore you'd take my orders, so do so - or do you want your father's shame to be complete?"

"We can't just watch!" protested Brad.

Leon pointed at the main fleet, more and more ships peeling away and heading for them. "You should be able to read those signals as well as I can, Field. We're the anchor that those ships need to rally around. Now get ready to play messenger. A lot of those ships have lost officers and knights. Spread out, check who's in charge on each ship and decide that for them if they don't know. Julius, you're in charge of this lot - figure out who's sending ships port, starboard, above and below. If there's another commodore, let me know."

Redgrave told me I was junior to all the other Commodores, Leon thought. But right now what matters is that I'm the only one here. At least the wind's behind our transports. Otherwise Fanoss would be sure to run them down.

Leon was arguing with Viscount Warren when Dreadnought fired for the first time. Both he and the viscount - who felt that his age, his noble title and his household's seniority (in terms of his viscounty having been passed down since the first generation or so of the kingdom) over the Bartfords meant more than Leon's broad pennant - looked up sharply first at the massive skyship and then down range towards the rest of the fleet.

A Fanoss warship was spiralling out of the sky, indicating that it had taken a hard enough hit to the suspension stone that it was - while not shattered completely - too damaged to hold the ship up completely. It wasn't the largest of the enemy skyships, but it was big enough.

"If you don't think my commodore's pennant is enough authority," Leon asked the Viscount. "How about the ship that's flying it?"

The Viscount looked at Dreadnought and then back to Leon. "Are you threatening me?" he asked conversationally.

"Goodness no. If I was threatening you I'd be dangling you off the side of the ship. Is it mutineers that walk the plank or pirates? I haven't covered that yet at the academy."

The man swallowed. "I accept that we need a clear rank structure," he managed to say with a straight face. "And as we are in the face of the enemy, this is no time for an extended argument. I accept your authority as commodore until a more senior officer arrives or we're out of sight of that damned island."

"I'm glad we've had this conversation," Leon told him and took off in his armour. Time wasted arguing, but at least there was something of a wall of ships forming up around the Dreadnought.

There had been close to two hundred skyships in Duke Redgrave's three divisions, roughly half of them in the centre. Barely two score of them were forming up, but the left-most of the two divisions formed by the Fanoss fleet had split, with most of the ships chasing after Count Estian Fou Roseblade's division and only a few sweeping in upon the shattered wreck of the central divisions.

That and the truly heroic defiance of Count Seberg was all that was buying them time though. A handful of battered and broken ships that had somehow broken free of the ritual were still struggling to reach the Dreadnought and her fleet, but most of the enemy ships were converging on what remained of the vanguard.

"Turn south-east," Leon ordered Luxion. "And bring your speed up gradually until the other ships start having trouble keeping up."

"Does that include the cripples that haven't joined your command yet?" Luxion enquired.

Leon shook his head. "No." Some of those half-wrecked ships were just too slow. The men on them were dead unless they could get more speed out of them…

Unfortunately, one of them was the three gun-decked battleship serving as Duke Redgrave's flagship. Its one mast still flew the admiral's banner, but Leon knew from Luxion's drone aboard it that the Duke himself was unconscious among the wounded men who'd been treated by the surgeon and must now struggle to survive the shock of an amputated limb - a leg in his case.

An explosion rocked the sky for a moment - not the first.

Leon looked for the source and found it among what remained of Count Seberg's vanguard. A skyship, most probably struck in the magazine by fire magic, had been blown in two. One half, no longer connected to the suspension stone, was tumbling away towards the ocean. The other half was still in the sky but at an angle that made it clear that it could no longer fight.

"...that was my father."

Leon turned and saw Greg's knight-armour, hanging in the air looking in that direction. Checking again, he didn't see the vice admiral's flag anywhere among the score of ships still fighting - and as he watched, the skyships began to scatter. More evidence that their leader was gone, rather than it just being the man's flagship.

"He held them long enough," he said simply, but sincerely. As an epitaph, it lacked drama, but he had more respect for the competence shown than for any dramatic flair.

"This had better be worth it," the redhead demanded in a choked voice.

"No." Another voice, full of rage and grief cut across their conversation. Brad's purple knight-armour hadn't been far away, but now the mage broke forwards. "No! Damn you, no!"

"What the hell!?" snarled Leon. "Get back here!" he shouted. Dammit, he was wasting his breath giving an order that wouldn't be obeyed.

Greg's armour turned like a hunting dog, looking for the cause. "Look!" he cried, and pointed at where a wedge of knight-armours had broken away from the forces chasing the fleeing remnants of the Holfort left flank.

For a moment, Leon wasn't sure what he was seeing, but then it came into focus. Black knight-armours with heraldry that any knight of Holfort was taught: that of Baronet Vandel Him Zenden. And the knight at the tip of that wedge held a black sword in one fist and a raised banner in the other.

It wasn't a Fanoss banner, not one that was carried in pride. It was a trophy, a boast. It was the banner of House Field and it was a challenge. I killed this lord, Sir Vandel was bragging. I will do the same to you.

"Brad!" That shout marked Julius driving his own knight-armour after his friend - a streak of black against the sky. Light blue followed him, then green. Chris and Jilk. Whatever good judgement they might have had was banished by loyalty to their friend.

Greg flared his knight-armour's thrusters, but only far enough to block Leon from having a clear line of sight. "Please," he begged.

Leon gritted his teeth. "Go," he ordered. Vandel's knight-armours would get in among the cripples still trying to join the fleet. It was an excuse, but he wasn't - pushed to it - going to shoot the young fools. "But just you five."

"You mean it?" Greg hesitated one moment more.

"I'm ordering the five of you to cover Duke Redgrave's flagship," Leon ordered flatly. "Take whatever glory in it you can. It'll probably mean your deaths."

But he was speaking to empty air, for that last validation had sent the young man chasing his friends into battle.

"Damn it." Leon looked again. Vandel's sword was the same infamous weapon he'd hoped would be destroyed by the sabotaged bio-armour arm that had been granted to Hertrude by Marquis Frampton. Sabotaging it had been worth a try, since he was fairly sure only Vandel Him Zenden was bloody-minded enough to survive having it implanted. But clearly that plan had failed.

"Luxion, you're clear to fire within normal cannon's optimistic range," he ordered. Right now, his orders not to fire at the Fanoss warships further than the nearest fleeing vessels were meaningless - the only targets they had were the remnants of Seberg's division and the little cluster about Redgrave. Dreadnought's main guns were capable of accurate fire within that range and he'd still have the option for longer ranges if he needed them. "Go for ships not knight-armours."

Cripple or kill enough warships and the Fanoss offensive would be stalled - and ships took longer to replace than knight-armours.

"If their knight-armours close in numbers, they may overwhelm even the Dreadnought's guns," warned the AI.

"That's what the rest of the fleet's for," Leon pointed out. "I'm going in too. Keep the fleet moving away - the longer the range, the more you can punish them for trying to pursue."

In the time it took for Leon to cross the distance to the handful of skyships left to Redgrave, two of them were already aflame and knight-armours were battling amid them. He saw cannon firing, reckless of the fact that a shot that missed the agile knight-armour might hit another Holfort ship in the close quarters.

Thundering down into the melee, Leon picked out one of the black knight-armours and confirmed it wasn't Julius before he rammed into it, moving too fast for the Fanoss knight to register his presence before Leon had driven his sword through the man's cockpit from behind.

The sword jammed, rather than breaking, but embedded in the weight of the knight-armour as it fell, it was lost anyway. If Leon had tried hanging onto it, he'd have been dragged down as well.

He was able to snatch a lance from the slain knight's back before it fell away, so at least he wasn't technically down by a weapon in terms of numbers.

Boosting free of the battle again, he took a hit from one of the deck guns on one of the skyships. Presumably the gunners hadn't identified him correctly. It wasn't as if his knight-armour was well known outside of the academy. Fortunately it was a very light gun and the damage was only cosmetic.

Looping around and up, he spotted a black knight-armour grappling with Greg's red one, on the deck of the duke's flagship. Setting the lance, Leon was in mid-dive before he realised that the black knight-armour was Julius and he was dragging his comrade's damaged suit aboard the ship. Twisting aside, Leon shot over the deck and ran almost face-first into a second black knight, this time one of Vandel's men.

Fortunately he had his lance out, so rather than striking the enemy knight with his knight-armour's head, Leon instead drove the lance through the knight-armour's shoulder, destroying the joint and sending its right arm tumbling away.

The collision had slowed him to the point that he wouldn't be getting away, so Leon spun to come up short of the ship that the knight had been attacking and drew his axe. The lance had snapped under the impact, but the other knight was competent enough to turn Leon's first two axe-blows aside.

Then someone on the ship got a cannon aimed the right way and blew a leg off the knight-armour. Left off-balance, the man was open enough for Leon to seize the shield and rip it away, then embed his axe in the left shoulder.

Stripped of three limbs, the knight-armour was no real threat anymore. Leon heaved it over the side to fall.

A shadow fell upon him and he looked up to see another knight in the same style… but the black sword identified the man inside it.

"Damn it," Leon muttered.

Vandel Him Zenden had lost the Field banner somewhere. That wasn't a consideration now though.

"Red and black," the knight called. "Is that you, Redgrave? Or perhaps the young lord? I heard that Gilbert Rafa Redgrave fancied himself a knight."

Did he want to talk? It might be better than fighting, at least for buying time. Taking off, Leon flew up to face the man. He considered drawing his rifle… but that would probably provoke an attack.

"I'm not a Redgrave," he called back. "But you need no introduction, Sir Vandel."

"I have enough pride as a knight to be proud of that," the old man replied coldly. "But don't expect me to remember your name, whatever it is. I've killed so many of Holfort's knights that you all blend into one for me."

"It doesn't matter how many of us you kill though."

Vandel raised his sword in salute. "There will always be more of you?"

"No. But not one of those deaths has brought you any peace." He looked around and saw that Greg wasn't the only one who'd been crippled. Jilk's limbless knight was buried in the side of a burning Holfort frigate. A familiar head of green hair was among the men abandoning the ship in an airskiff. Leon hoped that they weren't the only survivors of the crew, but he didn't see anyone else.

"You say that as if I want peace, boy! What I crave is revenge!"

Leon laughed. "What a futile waste."

The black knight-armour shifted to a high guard. "If peace is what you want, then prepare for the peace of the grave."

And then he lunged in. Leon twisted away from the sword, wary that the blade was probably able to penetrate the plating of his knight-armour even if most weapons wouldn't. It made him feel nastily vulnerable. He cut back with the axe, not really trying to do anything more than keep the old knight clear until he had his rifle out.

Vandel avoided the axe with contemptuous ease and lunged in. Leon almost, but not quite, avoided it - the tip of the black sword carved a shallow gash in the armour plating of his right leg. Not enough to penetrate but it would certainly weaken the plating.

On the other hand, now Leon had a weapon he could use without getting into the reach of that sword. He kept flying backwards and away, trying not to hit anything with his knight-armour while, trying to hit Vandel with his rifle rounds.

One. Two. Three shots. None hit. The black knight-armour was devilishly evasive, even while he kept on the pressure, constantly closing in with the sword.

Leon barrel-rolled around the burning frigate and almost met Vandel coming the other way. A twist to the side just barely mitigated a cut that could have opened up his cockpit - instead it sheared away half the side of his knight-armour's head.

In return though, he finally landed a round on the other knight, a rifle round punching through one of the feet of the knight-armour. The damage wasn't severe, but to be fair nor was that which Leon had taken.

They settled on opposite sides of the ship, looking at each other again, trying to catch their breath. Watching for another opportunity. Leon didn't dare break focus to reload. He had two rounds left in the rifle.

"You're good at running away," Vandel taunted him. "I suppose that's a virtue among Holforts knights."

"Careful, that almost sounded like a compliment. You might rupture something, saying something like that to me."

"Hah. Maybe I will remember you. Just on the off-chance, what is your name?"

Leon spun his axe lightly in his hand, trying to provoke a reaction. Nothing - the old man had seen through him. "Leon Fou Bartford. Your princess will remember me, I think."

"Bartford…" The Fanoss knight shook his head. "If so, she did not mention you."

"Well," Leon saw something out of the corner of his eye. Was that… well, if so then best to move. If not, he might as well anyway. This standoff wouldn't last forever. "She'd hardly confide in the knight who betrayed her father."

That did it. Vandel lunged at him like lightning.

Leon fired his last two shots as he retreated. His knight-armour smashed through the forward rigging of the frigate as if it wasn't even there, as he tried to keep the distance open.

And as Vandel crossed the deck, Redgrave's flagship reared up beside the frigate, shedding tonnes of rigging as two knight-armours went at masts and ropes with axes.

As it rose, the battleship opened up on the frigate with its broadside guns. Not all fired - there were gaping ports in the side where cannon had once been - but more than thirty cannon balls smashed into the side of the frigate in a brutal rolling broadside - and each gun was aiming at one precise spot inside the hull. Even at point-blank range, cannon accuracy was a chancy prospect. But only one needed to hit their target.

Not Vandel - he might not have seen the battleship until the last minute, but he was canny enough to have opened up his thrusters the instant he did see it coming. But the battleship's gunners weren't aiming for the black knight. And he was nearer to the frigate than Leon was when at least one cannon blew open the munitions still aboard it.

The explosion made Leon's ears ring. It almost knocked the two knights - Julius and Chris - off the deck of the battleship. Vandel Him Zenden was flung away as if by the hand of god.

Leon ejected the magazine of his rifle, reloaded and pumped rounds after the knight-armour. He wasn't sure any of them hit, but the black knight-armour didn't try to come back.

Looking around as he replaced the rifle's magazine again, Leon didn't see any sign that any of Sir Vandel's companions were with him. He supposed that the man wouldn't have survived his obsessive need to avenge his family if he had no patience at all.

The battleship was the last remnant of Redgrave's division to retreat. Leon saw Sir Gilbert still on deck, so at least Angelica hadn't lost her brother. The skyship was moving faster than it had before, but it was still a lame duck compared to the rest of the fleet - who were beginning to open the distance between them.

Leon saw the airskiff had unloaded its passengers; but a pair of men were still aboard it, securing it to the battleship and, as he watched, they opened up their engines - pulling the rope taut.

One little airskiff wouldn't add much… Leon thought. He flew to the stern of the ship and looked for something solid to grip onto that wouldn't break. The side of the flat stern seemed best, and a moment later, the prince's knight-armour was on the opposite side to him.

The pair of them pressed their knight-armour's shoulders against the battleship and spooled up their thrusters gradually. Leon felt like he was helping but it wasn't until he checked his instruments that he confirmed that.

"Master, you cannot push the new human's ship all the way back to Holfort," Luxion warned. "Your fuel has limits."

"Signal the rest of the fleet to continue," he ordered. "And bring the Dreadnought back to tow this hulk." None of the Fanoss ships seemed inclined to pursue now - they'd won and none of them seemed as driven as Vandel to try to make this a total victory.

Chris was also now at the back, pushing lightly against the lower keel of the ship.

"I know Greg and Jilk got hammered," Leon asked the two. "What about Brad?" He couldn't have been lucky enough not to lose even one of them, could he?

Neither boy said anything at first and then Julius choked out: "Vandel drove the banner pole right through his cockpit."

Well, apparently he could not be that lucky. Leon took a deep breath, and kept pushing. The closer they were to Dreadnought, the less time it would be with the two ships exposed and away from the rest of the fleet. It was technically still possible for Fanoss to swarm them if they were willing to pay that price.