A few minutes later, Tishna was packed kicking and screaming into the passenger seat, and secured in place with the seat belt. All around her, threads of scarlet aurons twinkled like stars.
“Fiarca Jeva Argenteia! You cannot be serious!”
“Hey, don’t blame me. Aren’t you the one who said you always wanted to ride a Chasseur?”
“This is not what I had in mind!”
She and Fiarca were riding the Lescar in tandem. Or perhaps it was more precise to say Fiarca was riding the Lescar, while Tishna was unwillingly brought along for the ride. Fiarca had seized her unawares and crammed her into the back seat before the royal princess even had a chance to react. Now Fiarca, her mask removed, had already started the unit’s boot-up sequence.
“Well, the Lescar sure seems happy to see you,” she said. “Maybe that’s because you’re a member of the Charlgian royal family?”
“D-do Chasseurs really know that sort of thing?”
While it was true her current predicament was unwanted, Tishna had always looked up to Chasseur jockeys and idolized their way of life. To imagine the royal family’s custom model recognized and accepted her was a great honor. Unfortunately…
“Sort of. In a manner of speaking. Okay, no.”
“No?! You lied to me?!”
“Only slightly. The Chasseur does know you’re here. It wouldn’t boot up otherwise. Those sorts of security systems are standard practice for Chasseurs like these.”
“That’s why you’re bringing me along into the midst of battle?! Couldn’t you have just started it up and then let me out afterward?”
Fiarca didn’t deign to answer the royal princess’s totally reasonable question. Instead, she gripped the controls and made the Lescar stand.
There were no Chasseur stables at Tishna’s villa, so instead, the Lescar was being housed inside the carriage barn. It didn’t take a keen eye to realize that a standing Chasseur stood little to no chance of making it through the relatively narrow doorway.
Fiarca, however, showed no hesitation in maneuvering the unit upward, breaking through the roof and landing in the villa courtyard. Tishna probably would have had something to say about that, had she not been busy clinging to her armrests for dear life.
“It looks like Elmira’s already gotten to work,” said Fiarca, spying the signal flares going up all across the city. Confused townsfolk were already coming out into the streets, and it wouldn’t be long before the city watch was on high alert. Even if the fiends struck now, Barlama at least stood a fighting chance.
“I see what you’re trying to do,” said Tishna, “but you do realize the city guard are not nearly well equipped enough to battle fiends of this class?”
“I didn’t think they were,” replied Fiarca. “But I’m hoping they’re at least competent enough to guide the citizens to safety. I don’t want to worry about stepping on any of your subjects.”
“That’s…kind of you.”
Tishna wore a dissatisfied smile. Not a few minutes later, the sky over Barlama turned red. A fire had started outside the city walls. Given the timing, it couldn’t be a coincidence.
“It’s coming from the city garrison,” cried Tishna, staring at the plume of smoke rising into the night sky.
The city garrison was a unit of the royal army deployed to protect the city, primarily against fiend incursions from the outer wastes, although in practice they frequently carried out inspections of foreign merchants and mercenaries coming in at the land port, too.
All this was to say that it was undoubtedly the only source of Chasseurs this close to Barlama. There was little surprise that Registan would want to see it taken out first.
“Sabotage, I’d wager,” said Fiarca. “They’re trying to prevent the royal Chasseurs from booting up.”
“Can you stop explaining and just stop them?!”
“Now why would I do that? Isn’t it your people’s job to look after your own military assets?”
Tishna grumbled but said no more.
The only reason Fiarca was helping was because Registan’s invasion posed a grave threat to the Shrumland Alliance. She had neither right nor reason to interfere with the affairs of the royal army.
“I have my hands full as it is, trying to protect the city from these fiends. Now, where are they going to come from…?”
Fiarca enabled the Chasseur’s search functions and scanned the city below.
“They were smuggled into the city under the guise of frozen food,” said Tishna. “There are not many places you can keep a giant block of ice without drawing attention, and the old buildings of Barlama aren’t that large, either. Perhaps they borrowed the stores of one of the large trading houses along the canal…”
Contrary to the luxurious grounds of Tishna’s private villa, the streets below were rather tight, and there weren’t many buildings of the same size as her pantry. But on the other hand, if any ordinary trading house had come into possession of a dragon encased in ice, there was no way the Silver Fangs wouldn’t have picked up on it.
So, where on earth have those frozen fiends gone off to?
“Of course! The canals!”
When she said it, Tishna suddenly jolted her head upright.
“Those beasts haven’t been hidden anywhere; they’re still being carried in! The empire must have smuggled them in on ferries, which means they’ve got to still be there!”
“That’s it!”
Fiarca energized the Lescar’s auron core, immediately readying it for battle. Its pure-white casing became wreathed in flickering flame, and several overlaid auramancy circles appeared in midair.
Those circles unleashed a blinding light, and a searing heat—the sixth-level technique, Fiery Flash, which converted fire into spears of superheated plasma that ripped through the predawn sky.
Fiarca’s targets were the small transport ships floating in the city’s canals. When concentrated on one target, this auramancy was enough to take down a large fiend, and so each individual spear was more than capable of turning the unmanned ships to splinters.
“F-Fiarca?!”
Watching the silver-haired imperial princess take aim and fire at civilian ships without a moment’s hesitation, Tishna was lost for words. Wondering if perhaps she’d hitched a ride with the wrong person, she tentatively looked out the viewing port at the damage below.
When she did, she got another big surprise. Swimming in the canal was another enormous fiend, clad in black scales, and surrounded by fragments of its icy prison.
“An alligator, I see,” said Fiarca, smiling to herself. “So even the great Registan isn’t capable of capturing that many dragons.”