Deadly Wands by Brent Reilly Page A

Mongols turned around, so William attacked, mauling
them. Once the Mongols started flanking them, William retreated
once more, but by flying higher so they could still shoot the
Mongols, but the Mongols couldn’t shoot the Americans. At first,
the angry Mongols kept attacking those above their ceiling, until
finally the commander saw the futility and signaled retreat. But he
waited too long. The American marathoners flew down the exhausted
Mongols, picking them off like sharks on a beach.
    Billy found his father’s munitions ship, so
William could resume bombing the armada as it crossed Canada. When
it ran out of bombs, William sent it to San Francisco, where he had
a shipload of food waiting. William had hired the entire local
fishing fleet to fish off the Siberian coast, and hoped they got
there in time to feed his own armada.
    By the time the armada reached California,
Mongol scouts reported several million quads waiting for them in
San Francisco. What they didn’t know is that most of those quads
were untrained, short-range, and low-altitude. Exactly the quads
that William refused to employ. Because the Mongols faced
high-altitude, long-range quads ever since the invasion began,
Genghis had to assume those protecting San Francisco were also
trouble.
    William put himself in the Khan’s boots and
foresaw his next move. He sent a messenger to San Francisco to warn
them, sent others to get his battalions, then flew at night to hide
his divisions between the enemy and the city. He grounded them and
forbid fires. The next morning William called a leadership
meeting.
    “Genghis cannot go home without bombing San
Francisco. Yet most of his armada lacks the strength to fly that
far, so he’s probably gonna send his best quads at night and hope
to surprise us. Given the distance, he must leave before midnight,
so that’s when we’ll double the sentries. Until then, eat and
sleep.”
    Genghis actually spent another two days
moving south, mostly fishing, making William wonder if he meant to
attack with his entire armada. Or what was left of it. Then Billy
pointed out the diminishing moon, and it all made sense. Genghis
would attack when there was no moonlight to highlight his guys.
    Fifty thousand Mongols, dressed like
Americans, left that night, but few returned. They flew
individually, rather than in units, to help them blend in with the
incredible mob that awaited them. This allowed enough Mongols to
sneak through to fireball half the city. Most non-quad residents
fled weeks before. The rest stayed to put out fires. It’s hard to
kill someone faster than an eagle, but several million defenders
somehow managed it.
    Stocked up on fish, the armada now flew north
with a purpose. The American battalions still shot them up, but now
several million angry quads chased them as well. They lost their
fear once Genghis Khan fled. William had paid a tribe to turn an
entire buffalo herd into beef jerky, so they had plenty to eat on
the run. The Mongols, however, had to stay near the coast to find
enough fish to feed a few hundred thousand mouths every day. Better
preparations let the Americans fly faster than the Mongols, and
that made all the difference.
    While William’s three divisions targeted
Mongols fishing, and the battalions rotated turns blasting the
enemy from above, waves of angry quads crashed into the armada
without coordination or organization. Without the battalions
running interference, the Mongols would have destroyed them with
professional formation flying. But the battalions could fly higher,
longer, and faster, and didn’t worry about being chased down by
superior forces. Attacked day and night, the Mongols couldn’t
sleep, rest, or eat. William had turned the world’s greatest
military into zombies -- dead, but still hungry.
    Genghis apparently did the math and concluded
his armada wouldn’t make it. So he divided the whale they just
caught among the healthier half of his troops, clarified their
tactical