Attila Falling

The observation port spread out the landscape like an embroidered quilt. There were no clear lines any more, just waves of ants and flame. It seemed the offensive was a complete success. Wireless messages came in from all along the front. Enemy defences were overwhelmed, targets taken, fortifications breached. The armies of the Vaterland rolled on.

'We shall be in Paris by tomorrow's sunset,' Strasser opined to his commander-in-chief.

Dracula said nothing.

The Attila descended gently. As enemy gun positions were taken or destroyed, it became safer for the aerial warship to approach the ground. With each confirmation, Strasser authorised a downward shift. The view through the port enlarged, showing more detail. The crawling ants became men, identifiable as things that fought and suffered and died.

The smell of battle seeped into the gondola. Stalhein was affected. His nose flattened into a snout. Vampire teeth thrust from his gums. The beginnings of a pelt pricked under his tunic. As his ears flared into bat-points, he heard more acutely.

Strasser, a new-born, was plainly alarmed by Stalhein's tentative shape-shift. Stalhein knew the type. Like all dirigible men, Strasser deemed aeroplanes trespassers in the sky. He was discomforted further by the idea of men who grew their own wings. His dream, inherited from the likes of the Graf von Zeppelin and Engineer Robur, was mastery of the world attained by floating serenely in an unassailable gasbag, making doughnut holes in clouds, occasionally deigning to drop a bomb or two. Creatures who buzzed and tussled at lower altitudes were insect nuisances.

All this, Stalhein knew from meeting the kapitan's gaze for a moment. In his changed form, he acquired the ability to read the surface of a man's mind. He had to hold himself in, to prevent his spine swelling. If he were to transform completely, he would burst out of his uniform.

Through the side-ports, Stalhein saw his comrades of JG1. They fell into formation around the Attila, an honour guard of demon princes. Fear boiled up from the ground. To the Entente, the coming of the Attila and its attendants must be the Day of Judgement. Many would be converted to the cause of Dracula by the magnificence of the spectacle. And many more would become helplessly insane.

They were beyond the trenches now, sailing over territory that had been the enemy's less than an hour ago. The Attila kept level with the first wave of trundling tanks. Wherever the shadow of the dirigible fell was Germany's.

A young airman snapped a salute at his superiors and reported the sighting of hostile aircraft. Attention moved from the floor-port to the panoramic nose-window. A great bat-shape hung in front of the Attila. In his rightful place at the head of his formation, Baron von Richthofen held the air like a kite.

The night sky was warmed by ground fires. Stalhein saw the advancing specks that were enemy aircraft. Condor Squadron, the enemy's closest equivalent to JG1. Richthofen would appreciate the chance of a rematch with the men who had killed his brother.

'Now we shall see the invincibility of the airship,' said Engineer Robur, rubbing his hands. 'These English lords are fools to get into a fight with us. The pests will be swatted from the sky.'

Dracula nodded gravely.

'Take us down closer to the battle,' he ordered.

Winthrop's mouth was full of blood and pain. His teeth split his jaw. The vampire in him rose, reddening his field of vision. He tore off goggles and mask, eyes open against the wind. He drank smoky, icy air, swallowing the taste of war. His night vision was perfect. The Ball and Kate voices whispered in his brain, urging him on to the arena.

The Attila was monstrously large. Its presence over France was an insult, but Winthrop didn't care about the Zeppelin or its passenger. His sights were on the creature that flew ahead of the airship, the Bloody Red Baron. Tonight, Richthofen would be destroyed.

The battle passed swiftly beneath the observation port. Stalhein saw fire dots as guns were fired at the Attila. The picture enlarged so that individual skirmishes could be seen. A tank rumbling through a farmhouse, rising to get over the hump of smashed brickwork. Infantry creeping up on a gun position, stick grenades falling closer to the target.

Dracula stood at the nose of the gondola, hands linked in the small of his back, surveying the scene, unsmiling as Camel fighters swarmed closer, spreading out to speckle the entire panorama of the sky.

The kapitan spoke urgently with Robur, who leaned on his sticks and impatiently shook his head. There was a disagreement between the airship men. Strasser, reluctant and concerned, relayed more orders to his crew.

Stalhein's constricting sleeves split at the seams as his forearms swelled with sinew.

The first of the Camels fired. Tiny flashes popped around propellers. They were well out of range but the English liked to get a man's attention before engaging in combat. Stalhein respected that, though he thought it foolish.

Fliers came up from the sides of the Zeppelin and joined Richthofen in the forward position.

There was a loud cracking rip. Airmen looked around. Stalhein's tunic had burst up the back. He shrugged out of the ruin and allowed himself a deep breath. His wings were forming, membranous folds blossoming in his armpits, running along the undersides of his arms.

The Attila was ahead of the German advance. The roads below were thronged with retreating British and American troops.

Strasser was briefly engaged in conversation with Reitberg, the master bombardier. Vital gun positions were to be destroyed. Such actions would transform the Entente's retreat into a rout. Reitberg tottered along a walkway to the bomb bay, muttering to himself.

A Camel, ahead of its pack as forlorn hope, swooped at the Zeppelin. Two fliers converged on it from above and below, firing Spandaus. The aeroplane's engine burst in a fireball that scorched Stalhein's eyes. Fliers flapped backwards away from the explosion and the burning machine spiralled towards the ground.

Strasser's men gave a hearty cheer which was frozen by Robur's glower. It did not do for an airshipman to hail the achievements of mere wing-jockeys. Strasser went to Robur again, grabbing his sleeve and insisting.

'We are too low,' Strasser said, 'too close to the ground.'

The engineer shook the kapitan off but could not rid himself of dawning doubts. Robur, another Zeppelin fanatic, knew the limitations of the vessel he had designed.

Dracula half-turned, motioned with his hand. Lower still. Strasser almost protested but it was unthinkable that an order from the Graf be questioned. He stood back, unable to think, so Robur issued instructions, effectively usurping command. Airmen snapped to, pulling levers and wires that released pockets of gas, allowing the Attila to settle nearer the ground. Strasser threw up his hands.

Stalhein stepped forwards, round the observation port. Though only a little taller than in his man-shape, he was transformed into a flying beast, a man-bat. He spread his wings to steady himself.

He stood beside Dracula, watching his comrades engage the Camels in a dog-fight. Several more fighters blew to pieces, raining fiery debris on to the countryside.

Robur settled into his chair by the organ, enjoying his authority. Airshipmen, awed by this legend of their calling, deferred to him. Strasser was cut entirely from the chain of command.

There was a rap at the window. A crack ran through the thick glass. A bullet-lump was lodged close to Dracula's head, tip sparkling silver. The Graf shrugged but Stalhein was close enough to notice the slight shiver of his shoulders. The commander-in-chief interlaced his fingers tighter behind him, quelling shaking hands.

Something was wrong. Dracula was not afraid. Dracula was fear.

Strasser was with them, awaiting the order to take the ship up. It was clearly time to withdraw to frozen heights and observe inevitable victory.

Dracula turned his face to the fire-blotched darkness.

'We go down more,' he said.

Winthrop had expected the Attila to begin ascent as soon as Condor Squadron hove into view. Allard had prepared them for an attack on the Zeppelin's belly, warning of the thinning air and gathering cold that would form a ceiling beyond which an airship was safe and an aeroplane was doomed.

Instead the Attila hugged close to the crowded ground, bombing retreating troops. It was insane. Something as dangerous as a million gallons of flammable gas should never be allowed this close to a firefight. Dracula, of course, was insane.

Winthrop's Camel climbed on the first pass, breaking formation. Allard's plan, to concentrate fire from below at the engine and fuel supplies, would have to be abandoned.

He passed over the gasbag, wheels almost brushing an acre of stiffened silk. One bomb could destroy the whole leviathan. But the Camel was not a bomber.

Knowing the terrible strain that would be put upon his upper plane, Winthrop angled the Camel nose down and pressed his thumbs on the firing buttons. His Lewis guns strafed the top of the Attila, ripping parallel lines of tiny holes in the gasbag. It was about as effective as sticking hatpins into Moby-Dick. Incendiary bullets must strike something solid to explode. The tiny charges spent uselessly in the empty bloat.

Winthrop overshot the Attila and ceased fire. He wheeled in the air for another assault. A batwinged thing had been on his tail. Now he faced it. Guns fired. He flew into a swarm of bullets.

Stalhein saw the faces of the Entente soldiers who fired up as bombs burst among them. The gondola rattled with direct hits.

Rifle fire would do little harm. The gondola was armoured and the gasbag big enough to sustain a million fleabite wounds before it was seriously ruptured.

But one explosive shell. One mortar bomb ...

Reitberg, staggering back along the bucking walkway, tripped and fell, clinging to rigging. Blood burst from his collar. A stray bullet had sunk in his neck. The bombardier pitched off the walkway on to the observation port. The glass jarred in its frame but did not break. Trickles of blood ran across the circle, spreading over the scene below.

'We must climb,' Strasser shouted, looking urgently at Dracula, torn apart. The kapitan could not question an order, only wait for it to be rescinded. Dracula watched the dog-fight, rigid as a statue. Strasser looked to Robur. The engineer was too delighted to have control of his creation to heed his subordinate's qualms.

Miraculously, Winthrop's engine was not hit. There were whistling holes in his fuselage, but he had come through. The shape-shifter he faced was not the Red Baron, but some smaller Prey-

Winthrop turned the Camel on its side and fired. He sliced past the flier, ripping into his wings with an accurate burst. The creature tumbled in the air, shoulders dislocated as wind caught his wings wrong. Winthrop did not see him recover, so he assumed the German fell.

He flew fast, darting around the huge shape of the Attila, and kept losing sight of the battle. For a moment, as he replaced his ammunition drums, he thought he was alone in the air with the Zeppelin. Then he rounded the bulk of the gasbag, and saw Condor Squadron mixing with JG1 in a scramble of flame and wings. Aeroplanes exploded like comets.

A huge flapping fire-shape fell out of the path of a Camel. From the size, Stalhein knew it was Emmelmann. Flames spread across the vast lump of his body and scattered across the canopies of his wings. Strasser gasped as Emmelman loomed close. If he were to plunge into the gasbag, the balloon would be burst.

A Camel zoomed down on Emmelman, who changed course, diving towards ground. The pilot pursuing the flier had unknowingly saved the Attila.

'Madness, madness,' Strasser screamed, tottering towards the wall of levers. 'We must climb.'

Dracula looked sideways, eyes flaming.

Hardt, the Graf's man, levelled a pistol and shot the kapitan in the leg. Strasser screamed and stumbled, falling forwards, hands outreached.

'We shall keep to our course,' Hardt said. 'We are all brave men, are we not?'

Robur, mind gone, ordered his crew to hold the course. He turned to the keyboard and wrung chords from the pipes.

Strasser curled into a ball. Airmen closed around the kapitan, and helped him up. He was fainting on his feet.

Emmelman hit the ground and exploded.

Something big burst in the trees below. Winthrop climbed, looking around. Just now, he was a monster. But it would take a monster to destroy the Bloody Red Baron.

Though outnumbered, the shape-shifters knocked down more Camels than they sustained casualties.

Brandberg passed. A bat-thing had claws sunk into the tail of his Camel and ripped towards the pilot with tin-opener jaws. The Camel went into a spin, taking the shape-shifter down. Another fire-burst on the ground. One for one.

There was no Archie. The offensive had swept past the lines. They were deep into what had been home ground. Winthrop could not think of the big picture. He had prey to find and kill.

'Gentlemen,' Hardt said, 'you have done your Kaiser a service which will never be forgotten.'

Dracula was turned away. Robur's mad music filled the gondola.

'Our lives will have brought victory.'

A scatter of bullets smashed across the windows. Glass burst inwards with a rush of wind. Stalhein's wings shrugged involuntarily. He was ready to take to the air. Hardt saluted the company.

Winthrop sought Richthofen, slipping through the dog-fight in the shadow of the Attila. He swooped upwards and looked down on the battle.

A tiny scrawl of flame clung to the Zeppelin's gondola. It was whipped to extinction by cold winds.

A Camel rose to join Winthrop. From the streamers, he knew it was Allard. A shape-shifter pursued the flight commander. Winthrop caught its chest with a burst of fire, and it sank, recovering balance. Wounded, the thing would be an easy target for another pilot. Only one victory counted. Confirmation didn't matter. Winthrop just had to know he had done it.

Allard flew away from the Attila and turned in a wide circle. Then he swooped back, closing upon the airship as if the length of its gasbag were a landing strip. He fired a Verey pistol over the side. The flare fell on to the skin of the gasbag, burning purple, lighting up Allard's path. Seeing what the flight commander intended, Winthrop pulled up on the stick, gaining height. Allard's Camel scraped the silk with its wheels, ran into the spreading flame of the flare, then flipped up and over, prop shredding through the silk skin, wings buckling. A rent appeared in the top of the gasbag and Allard tumbled in. Gas belched out of the ruptured compartment.

Winthrop heard Allard's engine stall and buzz. There was gunfire inside the gasbag. Flashes showed through the silk as Allard emptied his Lewis guns. Then a spark of purple, as the flight commander, swamped by an atmosphere of flammable gas, fired another flare.

The Attila shuddered as something slammed down on to it. Robur screamed at the violation of his beautiful ship, jamming his hands against the keys. Tortured wind roared through the organ pipes, accompanied by the creaking and cracking of metal struts.

Hardt stood over the observation port, where Reitberg still lay, and kicked down with a heavy heel. The port fell out in pieces, dropping Reitberg like a loose-limbed tumbling bomb.

Stalhein was confined by the broken walls of the gondola. He should fly free.

Dracula was still turned away from the panic.

Hardt saluted, smiled and stepped out of the hole. He fell like a weight. Others of Dracula's guard followed. Some prayed, most were stone silent.

Strasser, conscious and intent despite the pain, pulled useless levers. Too many connections were broken. The organ pipes groaned.

The first of the big explosions came, discharging a foul smell through the gondola. Then the second.

A ball of fire burst out of the side of the Attila, ripping through the gasbag as if it were a paper lantern.

Winthrop felt the hot air rising.

He should look away but could not. The airship kinked in the middle. One compartment turned inside out in a gust of fire. Crumpling tail-planes angled up. The firelight showed a dozen flying shapes desperately trying to burst free of the gravity of the huge, doomed ship.

Another compartment, near the nose, exploded. Winthrop saw Camels and shape-shifters outlined black in the flames that consumed them entirely. He was calm. Richthofen would not be destroyed so easily, so stupidly. The Red Baron would be saved for him. Another compartment blew.

Through the hole in the gondola floor, the forests were as brightly lit as by day. The Attila was a burning red sun. Fires spread around, running along walkways, climbing ropes, chasing airmen.

Some of the crew had followed Hardt. Stalhein saw them break against treetops five hundred feet below. Some, by a miracle, might survive. He waited for his own last duty.

Strasser, almost calm, stood away from the controls and smoothed his hair, then replaced his cap. He made no move to the hole. He would go down with his ship.

Robur turned away from his keyboard and looked at his disciple. He said 'we should have won. If it were not for the insects.' He did not mean the war between the Entente and Germany, but the war between airships and aeroplanes.

Dracula stood. Knowing it was time, Stalhein rose from the floor, struggling with hot air under his wings, and took the Graf from behind, wrapping his legs around the commander. He surged forwards, dragging his burden, and burst through the last of the nose-port.

Something was ejected from the burning airship. A winged figure, something wrapped in its legs.

Winthrop let the thing pass through his sights without firing. He had more important prey.

He stalked the skies.

Above, as Dracula's weight pulled Stalhein down, the black canopy of the gasbag dissolved into a sky of fire. The organ, attacked in a final frenzy by the engineer, produced insane music.

His wingspan grew and Dracula was less heavy. They flew straight, descending towards the trees.

The Attila was lost, a string of burning balloons falling from the skies. The gondola crunched into treetops a hundred yards behind them.

Stalhein put on speed, outracing fingers of flame.

The dog-fight, scattered by the fall of the Attila, regrouped. The last of both sides forgot the possibility of surviving this battle and mixed in for death. He looked for a place to set down. Once duty was discharged, he should join his comrades in the sky.

An aeroplane was above him, closing. Though unarmed, he'd have a chance in a skirmish. He could drop Dracula and rip off the pilot's head. But he would not give up his commander.

At a glance, he realised he was spared. The aircraft was German, a two-man Junkers J1 spotter. It would give him cover.

They were past the burning forest. A straight road extended ahead. Glassy lakes reflected the fire. Stalhein spread his wings, letting wind slow him rather than speed him on, and settled towards the ground. They hit hard and he lost his grip on the Graf, sprawling in a mess of wings and limbs as he rolled across a field.

Thinking he was broken, he turned, trying to get the horizon level. After the even air, the ground was unsteady, rising and falling like the deck of a ship in a storm.

The Junkers, still aloft, circled like a protective spirit.

Stalhein saw Dracula rise from the field and brush off his uniform. He still did not understand why the Attila had been wasted, why an airship had committed suicide. The Graf walked over to Stalhein and looked down at him. His flat face was inexpressive, but Stalhein recognised the daze. In a lesser man, it might be called shell-shock. In Dracula, such weakness was unthinkable.

The field was not empty. Men shouted, in English. Shots were fired. Stalhein cringed.

Looking up, he saw Dracula was wounded. Blood soaked his chest.

'To die,' he announced, theatrically, 'to be really dead ...'

Shadow-men gathered around in a circle. The Junkers uselessly strafed the field, hundreds of feet out of range. Silver caught light. Fixed bayonets neared.

The Graf still tried to speak.

'Poor Bela,' he said, incomprehensibly. 'The curtain falls.'

Blades moved, stabbed into the standing vampire, carving through his ribs and neck. Stalhein could not help his master. His wings were snapped. One of his legs was broken. Given minutes, he would heal and be well. He did not have minutes.

The enemy tore Dracula apart, spreading him across the field. Then they noticed the fallen flier. Gasping in revulsion at his changed shape, they closed in. Silver points pressed to his chest. Almost with pity, the British soldiers pierced his heart.