[How did it feel?]
Six thousand meters above the ground, Ola took off his frost-covered goggles and hastily wiped his face.
Stuka's voice rang out in his mind. The great bird was gliding steadily through the air currents, its white feathers pressed so tightly against its body by the rushing air that they formed something like a white shell, outlining muscles swollen with blood and bulging like rock.
[Couldn't be better!]
Ola grinned, baring a mouthful of stark white teeth. His eyes had no whites left, only a roiling sea of blood-red.
The Icarus Potion was taking effect. Even if the gates of hell stood before him now, he would dare kick them open.
Although he couldn't see them, he couldn't help imagining the new toys hanging beneath Stuka's belly.
Four slender black iron tubes hung there, their tails fitted with special fins.
These were the new toys Veylin had developed specifically for this suicidal dive-the "Screamers."
[That big block down there is Hector's granary?]
Stuka tilted slightly, its golden pupils narrowing to pinpoints as it locked onto the matchbox-sized black speck beneath a gap in the clouds.
Ox Fortress.
It was an inland fortress built against a mountainside. One of the largest grain distribution hubs in Hector's domain, it was also the stomach of the entire coastal defensive line.
[That's right.]
Ola put his goggles back on, pressed himself tightly against the saddle, and secured the safety clasp.
[It's packed with wheat and dried meat. Veylin said that since Hector enjoyed hiding like a turtle so much, we'd smash open his shell and kick away his food bowl!]
[Smash his food bowl? I like it.]
Stuka gave a short cry.
[Boys, perk up!]
Ola's voice, trembling slightly with excitement, traveled through the Hive Terminal into every knight's mind.
[Follow