Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [26]
But it was too late for second thoughts. The mist closed over him, graying his vision. The Swordwing was a dark smudge ahead. It had pulled level, skimming through the upper layers of mist where visibility was just the right side of suicidal. Harkins tried to close the distance, but they were evenly matched on speed.
Sweat began to trickle down the deep folds of his unshaven cheeks. They were going too fast, they were going way too fast. This pilot was a maniac! Was he trying to get himself killed?
Harkins pressed down on his guns, hoping for a lucky hit. The tracer fire blazed away into the gloom.
A mountain loomed out of the mist to starboard, an unending slope of snowy rock fading into view. The Swordwing swung in recklessly close to it, hugging the mountainside. The shock wave of its passage threw up clouds of loose snow, whipping them into Harkins’s path. The pilot was trying to blind him further. But the tactic was ineffective: the powdery snow dispersed too fast and did nothing to slow him. Harkins angled himself on an intercept trajectory and closed in on his target.
The mountainside ended without warning, and the Swordwing made a dangerously sharp turn, almost clipping the corner. Harkins followed out of reflex. The only safe place in this murk was where his target had already been.
An outcrop of black stone came at him like a thrown fist.
His reactions responded in place of conscious thought. He shoved the flight stick forward and the Firecrow dived, skimming under the jutting stone with barely a foot to spare. It thundered over him for a terrifying instant and was gone.
He pulled away from the mountainside, gibbering. That was too close, too close, too close! His legs had begun to tremble. This was insane! Insane! Who did that pilot think he was, anyway? Why was he putting Harkins through such torment?
But there it was: the Swordwing. Still visible through the bubble of windglass on the Firecrow’s snout. It was heading down, farther into the dull blankness, a ghostly blur.
Harkins followed. Afraid as he was, he was also afraid to face the consequences of giving up. He couldn’t take Frey’s wrath if he let the Swordwing go. Death in the cockpit was one thing, but confrontation was quite another. Confrontation was a special kind of hell for Harkins, and he’d do just about anything to avoid it.
Dense, threatening shadows came into view on either side of them: mountains, pressing in close. Harkins bit his lip to stop his teeth from chattering. The Firecrow’s engines cocooned him in warm sound, but he was acutely aware of how fragile this metal shell would be if it hit something at a hundred knots. He’d seen Firecrows shatter like eggs, some of them with his friends inside.
But that never happened to me! he told himself, firming his will, and he pushed harder on the throttle.
The mountains slid closer on either side, pushing together, and he realized they were heading into a defile. Then, suddenly, the Swordwing slowed. Harkins bore down on it. The blur took on form and shape, growing before him. He pressed down his guns just as the Swordwing went into a steep climb, and the tracers fell astern as it shot upward and disappeared into the haze.
At that moment, Harkins realized what his opponent was doing. Panic clutched at him. He yanked back on the flight stick, hauling on the throttle and stamping the pedal that opened the flaps for emergency braking. The Firecrow’s blunt nose came up; the craft squealed in protest. Harkins felt a weight like a giant’s hand shoving him down into his seat.
A wall of grim stone filled his vision. Massive, immovable, racing toward him. The end of the defile. He screamed as the Firecrow clawed at the air, scrabbling to climb. Blood pounded in his thighs and feet. His vision dimmed and narrowed as he began to brown out.
You’re not gonna faint … you’re not gonna faint …
Then everything tilted, vertical became horizontal, and the wall that had been in front of him was rushing beneath his wings. He let off