The final four strikes of Boundary Pylon Three didn’t strike the shattered shale floor. They struck the sky.
The leftover two Flying Crane assault skiffs were attempting to dive into the low pine canopy of Raven’s Hollow, their helmsmen desperately seeking the magnetic shielding of the dense mountain forest.
Lin Tao shifted the plumb-point of his steel land-mapper metal pen three tiny fractions of an inch to the south.
BOOM-BOOM!
Four timed together pillars of blinding violet star-fire arced from the gimbal crystal, crossing two miles of midnight air in less than a tenth of a second.
The first two strikes snapped the spirit-sails from both skiffs, melting the wooden masts into smoking charcoal. The final two strikes struck the stern engine housings, exploding the high-pressure wind-essence reservoirs in twin fiery fireballs that lit up the entire mountain range in brilliant, daylight-bright orange.
The burning wreckage of the two vessels tumbled out of the clouds, crashing through the tops of hundred-foot mountain pines before slamming into the rocky stream-bed of the ravine with ear-splitting, rolling thuds.
Then, at last, the master charge bank banks reached depletion.
