Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 1392: Coordinated Combat

The climate at the summit of the Impassable Mountain Range always ran a season behind the lowlands — Cat’s Claw had heard the phrase before and never thought much of it. Now he understood.

Below, the end of the Months of Demons had turned the world loose: rain, snowmelt, the soft sound of ice fracturing, green shoots pushing up through damp roadside soil. Up here, everything was as it had been in the deep of winter. The slopes stayed white, the ice stalactites hanging from cliff faces were taller than a man, and the travelers moving along the narrow paths beneath them kept one eye permanently skyward, waiting for a needle to fall.

Without Hummingbird and the God’s Punishment Witches, getting the heavy weapons up here in time would have been impossible. That much was plain.

What unnerved Cat’s Claw was not the cold, nor the terrain.

It was the target.

The demons’ mobile fortress was simply too large.

Even at a separation of over twenty kilometers, you did not need a telescope to find it. It occupied half the northern sky — its outline a dissonance against everything else, its presence pressing down on the landscape the way storm systems press down on open water. The exposed stone of the island’s underside was pitch black, shot through with ridges and blade-like protrusions that caught the light at wrong angles. Below it, the Fertile Plains were beginning to wake up from winter. Above it, nothing was right.

Red Mist hung thickest at the island’s center and thinned toward the edges, where stray wisps spilled over the rim and cascaded down along the terrain — from a distance they looked like red ribbons draped around the whole vast structure, trailing downward as though it were slowly bleeding into the continent.

Cat’s Claw retracted his gaze to the concealed sentry point and breathed out a slow cloud of frost.

Deep, unhurried breaths. His Majesty had said it repeatedly. They helped.

“What’s wrong? You afraid?” Jop leaned in, bent at the waist to keep his profile low.

“Bullshit.” Cat’s Claw glared at him. “How could I ever be afraid?”

“Nothing to be embarrassed about.” Jop pressed his telescope to the observation slot and looked north. “Honestly? This reminds me of when the Artillery Squad faced Longsong Stronghold’s cavalry charge.”

Cat’s Claw went still.

That first war — he would never forget it. It had also come just after the Months of Demons, and the enemy had also been aggressive and overbearing, and he had nearly dropped artillery shells on his own feet multiple times in the scramble of transport. He had never expected, before joining the army, that he would ever stand his ground against a cavalry charge — not kneeling, not running, not begging, but standing upright and returning fire. His legs had been shaking the entire time. He had been certain he was about to die.

Now the cavalry had become a floating island.

When the memory settled over the present, something in his chest steadied. His pulse moderated back toward normal.

“I remember that day,” he said. “You were stammering so badly you could barely call commands.”

“Don’t point fingers — Van’er wasn’t any better.” Jop kept his eye to the telescope. “But we didn’t forget to fire. And that was enough.”

Cat’s Claw nodded.

There was nothing wrong with being afraid. There was nothing wrong with failing. The only thing required was to do the job. Cavalry or floating island, the requirement was identical — point the cannons and fire them.

“Wait.” Jop’s voice dropped to almost nothing. “Movement on the fortress. Devilbeasts — the demons are moving.”

“Already?” Cat’s Claw’s chest tightened. They hadn’t reached effective firing range yet. If the demons spotted them now, the entire operation collapsed.

“Large numbers.” Jop swallowed audibly. “I count — heavens. More than a hundred.”

Cat’s Claw raised his own telescope. Through the glass, countless black dots emerged from the Red Mist and assembled into formation along the island’s edge — a shape he knew from other battles: forces massing before a strike. He scanned the formation’s orientation, trying to fix its direction of movement.

He and Jop looked at each other.

“They found the decoy camp.” They said it at the same moment.

The false position — set closer to the fortress, with log cannons painted to resemble real weapons and deliberately left without camouflage netting — was working. The plan was producing results.

The real work would fall to the Aerial Knights. According to the operation’s design, anything the enemy sent through the sky was the Knights’ responsibility. Their combat ability was not in question; they had kept the assault force’s concealment intact for exactly this reason, giving the cannons a fighting chance.

“I wonder if they’ve spotted the movement yet.” Cat’s Claw muttered it mostly to himself. There were no Witches attached to the assault force — the Red Mist made that impossible. Without Lightning and Maggie overhead, their field of vision had narrowed to what they could see from a crack in a mountain sentry post. He would get used to it. He would have to.

“Relax.” Jop clenched his fist around the telescope. “Remember who’s leading the Aerial Knights.”

“This is Maggie — strange maneuvers from the demons, coo!” The Exploration Group’s report sounded in Tilly’s cockpit. “Direction: three o’clock east. Quantity: 103. Large Devilbeasts in the formation, more than one, coo!”

“Roger that.” Tilly redirected magic power to the second Sigil of Listening. “Enemies are moving. Do not discount the possibility of Eye Demons. Seagull: continue holding your pattern and await further instructions.”

“Understood.” Andrea’s voice. “Are you engaging?”

“Uh-huh.” Tilly kept her tone light. “Ask Shavi for me — controlling a plane feels good, doesn’t she think?”

“Your Highness—” Shavi’s voice came through faint with distress. “When are you coming back? I keep feeling like it’s about to drop — ”

“Focus!” Wendy’s voice cut across her. “Control the stick like in training. I’ll handle the rest.”

After receiving the Phoenix, Tilly had immediately begun looking for a successor. She had no desire to run logistics from behind the lines while there was a war to fly. What she wanted was to be in the air — to settle, for herself, what had happened to Ashes. Shavi had accepted the responsibility and proceeded to set a new record for the shortest transition from training to live flight. Wendy’s exceptional command over wind had made the impossible merely difficult; so long as the glider wasn’t operated recklessly, it wouldn’t have problems.

“A few issues on Hill’s side, but otherwise as expected,” Andrea said. “The others are normal.”

“Good. Then I’m going.”

“Tilly.” Andrea’s voice shifted — something underneath it, careful.

“I’m listening.”

“Be careful.”

Tilly smiled inside her cockpit. “You as well.”

She reached for the transmitter-receiver, switched to the public channel, and picked up the radio.

“All units: the Devilbeasts have appeared. We proceed according to plan and intercept. The sky belongs to us.”

Two sets of transmitter-receivers, split among three squadrons — enough for scissor-pattern coordination.

“Second Team Captain, Good — copy that.”

“Third Team Captain, Hinds — copy that.”

“Now attack!” Tilly stepped on the throttle and pulled the Phoenix clear of the Seagull’s trajectory, the twenty-five Fire of Heavens forming up behind her as they banked hard and drove northwest at speed.

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