The arcane hum of my flying machine thrummed through every nerve as we circled high above Brussels, raining enchanted death on the city below. My company—twenty strong—dived and wheeled in perfect formation, Lena Schmitt glued to my left wing like a loyal shadow. Explosive rounds from our rifles slammed into anti-air nests and barricades, detonating in brilliant orange blooms that shredded sandbags, twisted machine-gun barrels into scrap, and turned entire crews into charred meat and bone fragments. Buildings along the outer districts crumbled under tracking bullets that burrowed through walls like living serpents before erupting inside, sending masonry, furniture, and screaming civilians flying in sprays of dust, blood, and splintered wood.
"Defenses collapsing fast, Captain!" Klaus called over the wind, his voice steady despite the chaos.
Lena's sharper tone cut through next, laced with raw excitement. "Sir—look east! Something's coming!"
I banked hard, the crystal lens strapped to my eye snapping into focus. There they were: a full squadron of crude biplanes, the Republic's and Commonwealth's first-generation fighters, lumbering toward us like clumsy, angry birds of prey. Canvas wings stretched taut over wooden frames, twin machine guns mounted forward on the nose and in open rear cockpits. Propellers blurred in the morning light, engines snarling as they climbed desperately to meet us. This was it—the first true clash of sky and sorcery, the moment enchanted wings met mechanical wings in open battle.
"Break formation! Engage at will!" I roared, heart pounding with the thrill of the unknown.
The air battle erupted in an instant of pure, violent chaos. Their engines screamed as they closed the distance, propellers whipping the wind while tracers spat upward in frantic, glowing arcs. My mages scattered like hawks on the hunt, ethereal wings slicing through the air with impossible grace while our enchanted rifles hummed with lethal power. I lined up on the lead biplane and fired—my tracking round curved sharply after it, punched clean through the fuselage, and detonated inside the cockpit in a fireball of splintered wood, shredded canvas, and human flesh. The pilot and gunner vanished in a wet explosion of red mist and bone shards; the wreckage spiraled downward trailing thick black smoke and trailing ribbons of gore.
But the enemy fought back with surprising fury. Lead stitched the sky around us; one of my mages took a burst square to the chest, his arcane construct flickering and bleeding raw aether as he plummeted, screaming all the way until he smashed into the rooftops far below in a spray of blood and twisted metal. Another enemy plane raked Klaus's wing—sparks of disrupted magic flew, forcing him into a steep dive to stabilize.
Then Lena did something utterly mad.
She peeled away from the formation without warning, dove straight at a biplane that had overshot our line, and—mid-air—leaped from her own construct. The shimmering wings dissolved into wisps behind her as she landed cat-like on the enemy's upper wing. The pilot and rear gunner twisted in shock, mouths open in silent screams. Before either could swing their guns around, Lena's enchanted dagger flashed in her hand. She drove it into the gunner's throat with a sickening crunch, arterial blood spraying across the cockpit in a hot red arc. The man gurgled horribly, clawing at the blade as she ripped it free and rammed it twice into the pilot's side—twisting viciously until blood bubbled from his mouth and his eyes rolled back. The biplane lurched wildly out of control; Lena kicked the dying pilot overboard, seized the stick for a few desperate seconds to steady it, then bailed—summoning her own ethereal machine beneath her in a brilliant flare of aether just before the enemy plane corkscrewed into a warehouse below, erupting in a massive fireball.
"Schmitt!" I shouted, half furious, half awed at the sheer recklessness. "Back in line, now!"
She rejoined us moments later, grinning like a wolf beneath her blood-spattered goggles, crimson flecks dotting her cheek. "One less for the Republic, sir! They never saw it coming!"
The remaining biplanes broke and fled after that slaughter—three more spiraling down in fiery corkscrews, their crews shrieking as enchanted rounds found fuel tanks or soft flesh. The sky was ours once more.
"Resume the bombardment!" I ordered, voice raw. "Flatten every visible defense and building—leave nothing standing!"
We swept back over Brussels like avenging spirits. What defenses had survived the first pass now vanished utterly: machine-gun pits collapsed into smoking craters filled with mangled corpses; barricades were reduced to scattered rubble and twisted iron; entire blocks of buildings were hammered until walls buckled inward and roofs caved, burying soldiers and civilians alike under tons of stone and timber. We did not stop until the first gray columns of our ground forces appeared on the outskirts, marching triumphantly into the ruined city under the cover of our lingering fire.
Only then did we descend, our machines dissolving into wisps of aether as boots hit the cracked pavement of a shattered square. The air was thick with the choking reek of smoke, cordite, burnt flesh, and fresh death. I walked the rubble with my company, assessing the carnage for the after-action report. In one collapsed alley I froze: a small boy, no older than eight, lay crushed beneath a fallen roof beam. His tiny body was flattened like a discarded doll—ribs caved inward, blood and organs squeezed out in a dark, glistening puddle beneath the wood, lifeless eyes staring blankly at the smoke-filled sky. A few paces away, a French soldier—both legs sheared clean off at the thighs by shrapnel—crawled desperately through the debris, leaving twin thick red trails behind him. He whimpered hoarsely for his mother, face gray with shock and pain, until one of my men ended it with a single merciful bullet to the head.
I turned away, bile rising in my throat. "Enough gawking," I said quietly, voice tight. "Back to base. We've done our part here."
At headquarters the colonel barely glanced up from his maps, cigar smoke curling around his head. "Excellent work, Muller. Brussels is secured. But new orders have come down from high command: the entire battalion is being pulled east immediately. The push on Warsaw is stalling against Russian and Polish resistance—your mages are needed to break the lines and help capture the Polish capital before winter sets in."
We loaded onto the waiting troop train within the hour, arcane crates and flying-machine components secured in freight cars. Lena sat across from me in the officers' compartment, her eyes bright with almost feverish excitement as the Belgian countryside rolled past the windows. "The eastern front at last, sir! Open country, real advances, a chance to strike at the heart of the Slavs and claim what rightfully belongs to the Empire. I can't wait to see it—to prove myself again."
She hung on every word I spoke, leaning forward attentively when I explained eastern-front tactics or shared fragments of past battles, her voice softer now, warmer, almost eager to please in ways that went beyond simple military respect. "Whatever you need, Captain—anything at all. I'll follow you anywhere." There was something oddly intimate in the way she watched me, a strange, almost personal devotion beneath the nationalism. In the smoke and roar of this endless war, it felt strangely comforting… and just a little unsettling. The train rattled onward toward the east, Warsaw waiting on the horizon like a prize drenched in blood.