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Chapter 112

In a matter of milliseconds, the number of enemy airships rockets from zero to sixty, and the air is filled with the ugly, sleek black machines. Servants surge across the ground, meeting the Beasts halfway to the Palace, and clashing in the middle like two powerful waves breaking against the other.
I grip Blarg's horns tighter, turning his nose down, dodging a beam of incinerating light from a Servant aircraft. The air is filled with explosions and heat, cries and shouts and the drum of the engines.
Boom. One of our airships is blown out of the air, and it falls to the ground in a mass of warped metal.
Bang. The enemy airships zoom overhead, faster than ours, and machine guns fire rounds from above, hitting soldiers and Servants and Beasts alike, leaving trails of broken bodies and dented armor.
Still more Servants pour from all directions, from buildings and tunnels and stations, from above and below. They turn the tide of the battle, trapping our army inside the City.
But more and more Beasts stream in from the Wold. They roar in outrage, and trample Servants, ignoring the soldiers of the Old City. Claws rip through metal and shatter ceramic, swords slice hide and fur and scales.
My mother once told me that an evenly matched war is the worst of all. Both sides are equally fierce and dangerous, and neither one will cave until they're completely wiped out, with no chance at all of success.
Top-heavy buildings fall left and right, shattering and banging against one another, crushing Servants and soldiers beneath their weight as they come crashing down. The first dark clouds appear overhead, the thunder rumbling closer than ever over the roaring of blood in my ears, the clash and clang of the battle.
It's all out war.
Blarg dives to avoid the blades of an enemy chopper, and I leap up into the air, ignoring the protesting of my wound. I fling myself into a full frontal flip, my head just clearing the sharp blades, and I slice downwards with the swords.
Sparks fly as metal slices through metal, and the chopper spins out of control with half-length propellors, and crashes into a larger enemy airship in an explosion of flames.
I tumble through the air, and land lightly again on Blarg's back, still heading for the palace.
Blarg streaks forwards, dodging missiles and aircraft and Beasts alike, like he knows my goal. Because the real battle happens inside the Palace, because the reason for this war is an ancient, preserved piece of parchment somewhere within those golden walls, along with the Rulers and the Prince.
I grit my teeth and take a deep breath, feeling the wind rushing through my hair and across my skin, my dress billowing in the breeze, and accept the fact that this is the end.
Blarg comes even with the top of the Palace, and before I can doubt myself I leap from his back and hurtle through the air.