Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air Read Free Page A

touching his face beneath the brim of his hat. “Which is what I think it is.”
    He couldn’t say why. It simply felt right, right in his bones. This was an east/west street north of the Canopic Way and south of the Brucheum, the first city walls that enclosed only the Royal Quarter in Roman times. But where did that put the Pylon of Isis? Orienting to the old grid of city streets was all very well, but that didn’t find the landmark they sought. Was the Pylon of Isis north or south of this street? Was this the street that ran in front of it or behind it?
    The sun winked, dipping behind the roof of a neighboring building. Scents of food cooking rose in the evening air, women preparing the meals that would break the fast after nightfall. It was almost time to stop work for the day.
    Mohammad stood up. “We won’t get this clear before sunset,” he said. “Shall I pay the finder and tell the men to cease?”
    “Yes,” Jerry said. “And tomorrow we’ll get the next trench to the same depth.”
    Willi jumped down into the trench with a roll of oiled cloth to spread over the exposed stones on the bottom though the chances of rain looked nil. This was not like the dig in Hawaii where they’d dealt with torrential rains.
    “Tomorrow we’ll see where we are.”

Palermo, Italy
    December 27, 1935
    I t had been months since Lewis had been in Henry Kershaw’s new Dart, and then the fighter had been unnamed, a raw duralumin fuselage shaped around the nose-mounted cannon and the latest generation of Henry’s Wizard engines, the cockpit full of rough edges and awkward angles. This latest prototype was better finished, and better painted, red nose and tail and wingtips against bright white, designed to be visible against the brilliant Mediterranean skies, but it felt the same in his hands, raw power trembling on the edge of balance. He’d only had a couple of hours to talk to Henry the night before about the changes – more power from the new inverted-v Warlock, re-ballasting to move the center of gravity forward, retractable landing gear and a few small changes to the ailerons – but he’d read through the latest test results, and was confident he understood what he was feeling.
    Static crackled in his headphones, and Boccadifalco Tower spoke in his ear. “Dart, this is Boccadifalco. You are cleared for maneuvers. Please inform when you are ready for acrobatics.”
    “Tower, this is Dart.” Lewis did his best to speak slowly and distinctly: English was not the tower’s first language, though so far they were all managing to make themselves understood. “Roger that. I am cleared for maneuvers.”
    He tipped the Dart into a shallow bank, west toward the mountains rather than toward the city and the harbor. The flying boats were making their pre-show runs in that direction, and he had no desire to get in anyone’s way. That was where he was supposed to be — Gilchrist Aviation had been hired to show off Floyd Odlum’s Catalina flying boat in its civilian configuration — but when Henry’s pilot had come down with a bad case of food poisoning, Henry had come asking for help, and Alma had figured the Cat outclassed everything else in its category by enough that they could afford to help Odlum’s sometime rival. Lewis still felt guiltily grateful: he’d be the first to admit that the Catalina was a clever piece of engineering, but it was big and slow and handled like a pig in mud. The Dart was fast and skittish and had a tendency to nose up if you weren’t paying attention, but once those wrinkles were ironed out, it was going to be one hell of a fighter.
    “Tower, this is Dart,” he said again. He didn’t really have to let them know everything he was going to do, but he figured it was probably safer that way. “I’m coming around for a south-to-north pass along the main runway.”
    “Roger, Dart. South-to-north along the main runway,” the tower repeated, and Lewis dipped the wings again, reversing onto