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he molten body of one automata creaked and then tumbled over, taking one of his fellow mechanicals with him. Hara held onto the saddle with one hand as Gideon spun in the air away from the hot sparks coming from the thermite mine.

If Hara was even a little bit affected by motion sickness, she would have found this intolerable. But since the erratic movement meant they could avoid the last catapult, Hara wasn’t going to complain.

As they straightened out, Hara could see the battlefield a bit better. The Blazing Blunderbuss was behind the west tower and was engaged with the soldiers on the wall. Hara could hear the rat-a-tat of the guns as Murphy returned their fire. Though she doubted he actually hit anything. The gunfire alone meant that the soldiers were forced to take cover. The front of the castle was another thing.

The Blazing Blunderbuss had thrown a steel net over one automata and it was still wriggling and trying to break free. Hara doubted there was a punch card that had the instructions to do that and the man trapped inside would have to wait until later to be freed.

There was a small huddle of automata which they had hit early on. Their heads and shoulders melted from the thermite.

There were others like this but they were mostly singular as the automata had gotten wise to their attacks and avoided most of them. Lysander was on the wall now and Hara could hear him yelling.

The gates surged open and other creatures shaped more like ants and spiders came scuttling out. They had soldiers riding on their backs in metal cages. Hara shook her head. They would have been an advantage against foot soldiers but not against a dragon. They were too exposed in the cages to avoid Gideon’s fire. It was going to be a slaughter. But Hara didn’t feel sorry for the soldiers. They were the ones who had signed on with a Duke who was clearly mad. If she had been one of those soldiers, she would have ducked off somewhere no matter how much she was called a coward. Fighting for crazy was never good for the health.