Deadly Wands
by Brent Reilly

This story tells the remarkable adventures of a special boy with incredible powers who grows up marked for death during a brutal global war started by Genghis Khan in the Dark Ages where non-magical wands project swords, shoot fireballs, and enable flight.  The non-stop action depicts frequent aerial duels and epic air battles involving thousands of fliers fighting the greatest empire in human history, led by an unlikely hero who falls in love with a wonderful girl he cannot live without.  The book was completely re-written in 2013 to incorporate reader feedback.  Mature content make it unsuitable for little kids looking for the next Harry Potter.

DEDICATION:  I dedicate this novel to my beautiful wife and our two wonderful sons, Brian and Lucas. 

Copyright © 2011 by the author, Brent Reilly.  
Published by Smashwords for Brent Reilly

This story is fiction.  Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.  All rights are reserved.  Except for book reviews, no more than four paragraphs can be reproduced without written permission from the author.  

CHAPTER 1

A wand bristling with power in each hand, Lady Elizabeth finished putting her body armor, battle helmet, and game face on.  A birthday present from her father, her new wands blew away anything she had ever used, and must have cost a bloody fortune.  Certainly she never would have attempted her plans for the day without them.  Savoring the raw energy flowing up her arms and down her spine, she forced herself to put aside all doubt, regret, and mercy.  She could not afford mercy.  Not today.
The beautiful young blond placed her old wands in slots in her boots and used them to propel her a meter into the air.  She flew around the room, careful not to impale herself on the assortment of weapons hung on the walls.  Never had she felt so powerful.  Hovering in the center of the room, she arched her back and, with a yell, flung her arms wide as flames erupted five meters out of each wand, which made them twice as strong as her old ones.  She felt strangely comforted by the terribleness of her primal scream.
Her innocence taken away by the kiss of the most horrible man she knew, she could now barely relate to the naive girl she was the day before.  She always believed people when they said there are worst fates than death.  She just never knew that marriage could be one of them.  If she could just smash the guy waiting for her in the dueling arena, then maybe she could escape her arranged marriage after all.
With a flick of her wand the thick oak doors flung open.  She flew down the hall, letting her fury feed a newfound aggressiveness.  A handsome man in expensive armor waited for her in the arena, wands in hand.
"Congratulations, niece.  I hear you're marrying the Mongolian ambassador."
Nothing could have infuriated her more.  Eager to surprise him with her new sticks, she flew at him at a 45 degree angle, firing a series of powerful fireballs that forced him to flight.  Instead of flying in a straight line -- suicidal in battle -- she alternated between her left and right boot wands to zigzag unpredictably, like she was climbing stairs made for giants.  
A combat veteran, he knew from the sound of her blasts that she upgraded her wands -- the louder the wand, the hotter the blast and the faster it traveled, which made it harder to deflect or avoid.
He went for height, using all four wands to pop straight up.  As she shot the path ahead of him, he zagged diagonally using one hand wand while firing back with the other.  She chased him up, out into the bright sunlight.  Unlike a real dueling arena, no stadium seating surrounded the high circular walls.  Aside from a castle over the hill, they were all alone as their blasts echoed over the empty green English hillside.  As she closed the distance, eager to finish the fight, strong winds from a coming storm roughly pushed them around like leaves.
One hundred meters above ground, they used their wands to extend swords, which put the girl at a disadvantage.  George overcompensated for being gay by being a badass gay -- as soon as his wand abilities kicked in a puberty, he avenged himself on every bully and gossip who ever hurt him.  Like his oldest brother, George had a talent for dueling.  Despised by his mother, the queen, he spent more time fighting in France than living in luxury in England.  Constant fighting boosted his wand power to almost ten meters.
For Elizabeth, it was like boxing someone whose arms were twice as long.
The steel weighed literally nothing, so speed mattered more than strength.  It was impossible to avoid glancing blows struck at lightning speed -- a disadvantage to the fighter with inferior armor.  Unlike sword fights on the ground, each sought to surge above or below their opponent, like cats tumbling down a hill.  Fighting while flying is inherently exhausting -- like boxing while running -- so those with greater endurance could defeat better opponents simply by out-lasting them. 
On the ground, the larger fighter has the advantage by delivering stronger blows and having more mass to absorb hits; in the air, in contrast, the lighter fighter lasts longer because wands propel lighter objects more than heavier ones.  Hence, given equal wand strength, the most common strategy of the lighter fighter was to exhaust his opponent.
The force of a strong blow knocked the girl back far enough for him to shoot her with both wands.  Instinctively she use one hand wand to propel her down in time to avoid the heat while extending flame to torch his exposed feet.  Pain from burning flesh interrupted his ability to concentrate, throwing him in an uncontrolled fall.  Elizabeth flew head-first after him to end this, once and for all.
He fought through the pain to regain control in time, so she smacked him with a steel bat with all her might, sending him sprawling in the arena dirt.  She blasted each side of him, excavating small craters and smothering him in a dust cloud.  She found him coughing and screaming, beating the flames burning the clothes under his body armor.  
Dueling without armor plates is suicidal, but that didn't make taking it off fast, easy, or simple.  With the smell of burning flesh making her nauseous, she used a wand to lift and dump his burning body into a bathtub-size container of water that every arena kept for just this purpose.  The burning stopped with an audible sizzle sound.  Her teacher's relief proved short-lived as he attacked her verbally.
"Are you trying to kill me?"
An ironic accusation since he often criticized her for lacking the killer instinct.  He’d taunt her with lines like, “you shoot like a girl.”  Not anymore, she told herself.
Burning up herself, she took a minute to take her helmet and body armor off while he did the same to inspect his burns.  
"Uncle George, that monster actually kissed me this morning.  On the lips!"
"You mean the ambassador?  Mother probably suggested it.  We just got word the Mongolian government finally approved the treaty, on the condition that you consummate the marriage and produce a male heir to the English throne.  I imagine Ambassador Tamerlane is eager to start."
Queen Margaret had three sons, Richard, John, and George.  Lady Elizabeth was the only legitimate child of the oldest son, Prince Richard, the Royal Heir.  The Queen desperately needed the leverage that an alliance with the Mongolian Empire would bring to complete the conquest of Ireland, her lifelong dream.  And to protect England from Mongolia itself.  No small consideration.
The discovery of wands in China in the 12th century completely transformed human civilization.  Or, more specifically, thousands of wands in the hands of Genghis Khan's Mongol horde completely transformed human civilization.  Handcrafted from sacred trees thousands of years old, the more powerful wands made flight possible, allowing the Mongolian Air Force to pound defenseless ground troops armed with swords, spears, and arrows.  Genghis Khan conquered Central Asia, China and Korea in his first century, India the second century, and most of Europe the third.  Only by developing their own air force did the Europeans stop the Mongols from conquering the world.  
As it was, the Mongols controlled all of Europe except the Scandinavian kingdoms, the islands of England, Ireland, and Iceland, the westernmost quarter of France, and the sliver of Spain that locals called Portugal.  A million Mongols enslaved millions of Africans to mine precious minerals throughout Africa.  Aside from the Americas, only the islands of Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Hainan, Indonesia and its neighbors remained outside of Mongolian control.
General Tamerlane, in particular, repulsed Lady Elizabeth for his history of building pyramids with the skulls of those who resisted him.  Delhi alone contributed 100,000 heads to one pile.  Genghis Khan started the tradition three hundred years ago by piling the heads of men, women, and children into separate piles.  Historians claimed General Tamerlane killed 17 million people.  Being a two hundred year old condescending jerk did not add to his personal charm.  Just the thought of him touching her made Liz physically sick.  Her first thought was to kill herself.  Her second was to flee.
"I will not give the English crown to a descendent of Genghis Khan," Liz vowed fiercely, even though that king would be her son.  "Plus, the treaty will give the Mongolian Air Force bases in England to launch a second front on Free Europe and the Americas.  For me to marry a Mongol means the destruction of Free Europe!"
Prince George dumped his chest plate on the ground, took off what remained of his shirt, and got out of the dumping pool.  Water pooling at his feet, he inspected his wands for water damage, cursing softly.
“Genghis Khan has another division ready to assault Paris.  Why do you think I'm recruiting another English battalion?   We're even risking our lives without pay.”  
A squad consisted of ten fliers, a company one hundred, a battalion one thousand, and a division ten thousand.  
“If Paris falls, France falls.  Then England has a huge hostile air force at its doorstep.  If you make this treaty impossible, then the queen will have to return every Englishman trying to conquer Ireland to man our coastline to deter the Mongols from invading us.  And if you anger them enough, then even that won’t be enough from stopping the Mongols from conquering England.”
But the girl had made up her mind.  “If we let them conquer France and Spain, then England is lost anyways.  I hope to have a child before they kill me.  I'll pray for a warrior so powerful that he will scare even the Mongols."
"The treaty guarantees that mother remains queen for life, but it does not guarantee that your father will succeed her.  The Mongols will insist that our Mongol-loving brother John replace her.  He's the force behind this odious treaty.  He has always been jealous that he never became a quad like us."
In a typical population, only 10% can use wands to light fires or move furniture.  Only 10% of those are powerful enough to kill.  Of those, only 10% can use two hand wands at once, and only 10% of them can use foot wands to fly.  Since only 1 out of 10,000 people can use four wands at once (i.e., quads), everyone wanted to mate with them.
Three centuries ago, the rich and powerful were no more likely to have wand capabilities than the poor.  After three centuries of selective breeding, quads now ruled every kingdom in the world, and every royal family sought to produce as many powerful quads as possible for self-preservation.
Genghis Khan himself, the most powerful quad in human history, able to produce a flame 12 meters long, deliberately impregnated thousands of quad women.  His offspring formed the elite troops that enabled the Empire to keep expanding.  Legend said the Great Immortal already produced a million descendents.
When Prince Richard’s powers bloomed at puberty, Queen Margaret offered a generous stipend to any English quad who reproduced with him.  The irony of Elizabeth being the Royal Heir's only legitimate heir is that she had a few hundred half-siblings -- some old enough to be her father.
But mating with a fellow quad only increased the odds of producing quad children.  It did not guarantee it.  The power so generously given Prince Richard skipped Prince John, only to bless the third son, George, who turned out to be gay, and thus ineligible to wear the crown.  Bitter with envy, John treated his brothers as enemies ever since his quad powers failed to appear.  
John tried to get the Mongols to marry one of his sons, with their offspring becoming king, but the oldest, Aidian, had already married a powerful English quad, and John's only other quad son was still a child.  The ambassador scoured the royal family, and concluded that Lady Elizabeth would produce the most acceptable heirs to the throne.
"Let me see your wands," George insisted, holding up her hands.  "Richie gave you grandfather's sticks!  No wonder your blasts are so strong.  These make you more powerful than Aidian.  Mother will demand them back once she finds out.  Regardless that grandfather gave them to Richie after he won the national dueling championship."
"I'd rather die than help the Mongols conquer the world."  She flashed her uncle big puppy eyes.  "Let me fly with you to France.  I'd rather die fighting there than live dropping Mongolian babies here."
George groaned.  And not because of his burns.  A great side effect of using a powerful wand was its ability to heal.  Quads rarely became sick, and recovered quickly when wounded.  The burns covering his body were already changing color as he sucked power out of his wands and directed them to his injuries.  Wands also extend a natural lifespan, and the more powerful the wands, the longer they extended life.  So the more powerful the quad, the longer he lived.
The catch -- and there’s always a catch -- is that wand use is literally addictive, and the better the wand, the quicker, deeper, and stronger the addiction.	  Part of the reason the Mongol Empire kept expanding is that its millions of quads needed someone to fight.  A powerful quad who stops using wands ages quickly and becomes sick more often.  
Hence, the trick to immortality is to keep killing people and sucking the power from their wands.
"I can't do that.  My volunteers will work without pay or thanks, but not if the Queen forbids it.  Even if she didn't punish them, few would risk crossing my vindictive brother.  No, the only way I can raise enough fliers is if you are not one of them."
"I'll just go alone.  The French are desperate for quads."
"Then we can’t go.  Mother will assume I am helping you, and no one will risk going with me if I'm angering the queen."
In anguish she turned and started punching blast-holes in the stone walls. 
"Well, can you at least loan me money?  I'll have to try Spain or Africa."
"Liz, I'm broke.  I'm financing this operation out of my own pocket.  If John takes my estates, then I am literally sacrificing everything.”
"But you're making tons of money making longbows!"  At ground level, most wands lose effectiveness beyond one hundred meters, while his two-meter-tall longbows offered twice the range.
"I was.  The last year was the most profitable of my life.  But then some longshoremen mistook William, my business partner, for a Mongol and tried to teach him a lesson.  He killed one and injured several others who had no idea he was a quad."
"You never told me he was a quad!"
"I never knew he was a quad.  He only used hand wands in my presence.  But it gets worse.  He fought in self-defense, so nothing should have come of it, but he projected blades six meters long.  That makes him among the most powerful in the country.  Everyone wants to know where he got his wands, and why he hid their power.  Who the hell hides their power for two years?  He must be a veteran to fight like that.
“Anyways, someone’s wand recorded the fight, and you know how these things spread from wand to wand.  Pretty soon John got a copy and ordered Will's arrest just to put me out of business.  That's why I'm free to return to France so soon.  I’m taking several thousand longbows with me.”
"I remember you speaking highly of him," she nudged him.
"Oh, he's great.  He is an engineer by nature, but he thinks of himself as an innovator.  Sure, he's secretive and paranoid, but he has enough fancy ideas to last a lifetime."
"Is he a good man?" she asked quietly.
Silence.  No longer able to concentrate on healing himself, George opened his eyes and examined his favorite niece.  
"Ah, crap.  You want to fly away with him."
"Well, I can't live in the Mongol Empire, and much of the rest of the world is a war zone.  A lone girl will not survive long.  Fleeing with him doubles my chances of survival.  Will you at least introduce us?"
George held up his hands and physically backed away from her like influenza.  
"That would jeopardize my ability to help France.  No, if you do this, I need to be seen elsewhere.  However, you can bring him his money and personal belongings.  He's hiding at my lake cabin near Edinburgh, where I took you fishing when you were just a kid."
She laughed at that since they went fishing there just last week.  Finally, she was no longer a kid.  If she could get her own stuff without raising suspicions, then they could soon be out of her grandmother's reach.
"Please tell me you haven't shagged him!" she suddenly demanded, since he often used the cabin for sex.
"Liz!" he shouted, properly scandalized.  "How can you even think such a thing?"
"Because you are handsome, charming, and persistent.  So tell me the truth."
Chuckling, he shook his head.  "No, we never had sex."
"But you tried."
Now he laughed loudly.  "His paranoia doesn't let him drink enough.  That guy never lets his guard down.  I thought I had a chance since he never visited the local prostitutes, as far as the gossipy servants could tell.  I've had more success with monks."
The strength of her relief surprised her.  She didn't even realize she had been holding her breath.
"We're not gonna get far without money, though.  I can hock my jewelry, but that takes time."
George suddenly got excited.  "I know where you can get money.  From your evil uncle.  John has been skimming off government revenues ever since he talked his way into mother's confidence.  That's how he's been able to buy all those properties at a time when the queen keeps raising taxes to fund the conquest of Ireland.  I even know where: in that old vault in his castle keep."
"But how can I get to it?"
"It was built before wands were discovered, so the vault is high in the keep tower where it could be easily defended.  Just hover near the top and loosen the mortared stones around the arrow slits."
The prospect of sticking it to that bastard John made up her mind.  She blamed him for the treaty, and therefore for her arranged marriage to that odious man.  She looked at the position of the Sun.
"I've got to go!”
She hugged him hard, tossed her armor into her backpack, then flew home to get her stuff.  The forgotten uncle she left behind cried alone, knowing he would never see her again.

CHAPTER 2

The lake reflected the last twilight of the setting sun as William finished peeing against a tree downwind of the cabin.  No one enjoys walking in the dark, so William took care of business while he had some light left.  As a cool breeze rustled the leaves above, he sensed someone land softly behind him.  Assuming a threat, he whirled around and cut the air as far as his steel could reach while he prepared to blast with his other wand.
Poor Lady Elizabeth had the wit to duck under the deadly blade while her hands held large travel bags.  Not wanting to die, today of all days, she quickly shouted out:
"George sent me!  William, I brought your stuff from his castle."
The sight of a beautiful blond, all alone, stunned William.  Never trusting, he instinctively scanned the skies.
"No one followed me," the girl assured him.  "I flew as high as possible and from cloud to cloud to avoid being seen.  And only George knows I am here.  I am sorry to surprise you, but these things weigh a ton.  George could not come himself, and I was the only one he could trust with your life," she added to give herself leverage.
He could not see anyone else, and they would have attacked while she distracted him.
"Wow!" she exclaimed, examining the distance between them.  "You put out a solid seven meters of steel.  I doubt there's a dozen quads in the country that can beat that.  You’re a damn super-quad!"
A “super” quad could extend flame or steel at least seven meters.  A quad is only as powerful as his wands, so super-quads must always beware poison or an arrow in their sleep because their wands were literally worth a fortune.  Like the chicken and the egg, even great quads didn’t become super-quads without super wands.
He tried not to let the flattery affect him.  "Hey, I know you.  George showed you my factory despite my specifically forbidding tours."
His sword disappeared back into his wand.  She took off the helmet that protected her eyes and ears when flying.
"I am his niece, Lady Elizabeth.  My father is Prince Richard.  Because I am his only legitimate child, some refer to me as the heir to the heir."  And, with that, she bowed, then threw her hair over her head because she knew guys really liked that.  She ended up with one foot forward and her hands on her hips, trying to look as sexy as possible.  He saw through it, of course.
"Nice try, lady, but that won’t work on me," he said with a smile, genuinely liking her.
"It looks like it already has," she said, gesturing towards his genitals.  "You were taking so long that I was not sure if you were peeing or masturbating.  George mentioned that you don't go out much."
Red faced, William turned around, exposing his vulnerable back to tuck himself back in.  He hid behind the tree to recover his composure.
"Thanks for bringing my stuff.  You can go now."
"Oh, because flying at night is dangerous, Uncle George made me promise to spend the night at his cabin."
Liz heard a groan from behind the tree.  She needed him before, but wanted him now, so she changed the subject by opening his bag.
"George paid what he says he owed you.  I found three other small bags hidden in your room."
"I can't believe you found three out of the four!  You are thorough."  He reset his wands in their arm sockets and walked over to rifle through his stuff.  "You brought my small tools!" he said excitedly.  "Oh, thank you.  I need these to maintain my wand launchers."
He seemed as happy as if she dropped him a ton of gold.
Making herself at home, she folded up his sleeves to examine the launchers.  Leather and small wires held each wand in place on the underside of each arm.  The wires, though, bit into his arm, scaring it.  She caressed his arms as she studied them.  "Then this must launch them," she concluded, pushing against a lever that caused the wand to spring into his open hand.  "That's bloody brilliant!"  Now virtually in his arms, Elizabeth gazed into his eyes, huge respect lighting up her face.  "No wonder George praised you so much."
Suddenly uncomfortable, William backed away.  "Won't they look for you?"
"I need to leave the country before they find me.”
"Why would the Queen’s granddaughter flee the country?" he asked, astonished.
"The Mongols finally accepted grandmother’s treaty, on the condition that I marry Ambassador Tamerlane and produce a Mongol heir to the English throne.  The treaty will grant them air bases, which they will use to attack Free Europe from the rear.  I cannot let that happen.  The Mongol Empire will hunt me down, but don't worry.  After tomorrow I won't endanger you further."
Having sized him up, she realized that she could not ask him to take care of her; he must volunteer to save the damsel from danger.
With that she used her wands to lift her bag and backpack and move them into the cabin.  Enjoying the view of her from behind, he did the same.  Inside she laid out her cards.
"My Uncle John is the one pursuing you.  Without him, you and George would still be in business.  He is also the one behind the treaty, so we both need to flee England because of him.  I’d like to strike back before I leave.
“He has been skimming tax revenues and hiding them in a vault at Castle Edinburgh.  During his son's wedding a few years ago, I got to know the area pretty well.  But it will take two fliers.  If we go late at night, no one may even notice us.  If they do, the only decent quad is my cousin Aidian, and I'll take care of him."
Will considered it.  "We can't run away together.  The Mongolian intelligence service is after me.  Being with me will only unnecessarily endanger you.  You will be safer without me."
"A lone woman is not safe anywhere.  I can shoot five-meter-long flames, but doing so will attract the very attention I need to avoid.  If I fight back and lose, I am gang-raped; if I win, my identify and cover story will be investigated.  Either way, I am screwed.  If I am returned alive, the queen will make me marry that horrible man who built pyramids of skulls, and the Mongols will complete their conquest of Europe.  If we flee together, then we can at least pass ourselves off as a married couple."
"You're just a girl.  How will you pass yourself off as my wife?"
And there is was.  The moment of truth.  Liz both looked forward to and dreaded this opportunity.  She rehearsed the script she wrote in her head and hoped it sounded natural.
"I have a related concern.  I would rather die than marry that monster and give the Mongols a plausibly heir to the English throne.  Not being a virgin would help, being with child would help even more, but being married with child would be best.  A legitimate son would have greater claim than a younger, half-Mongolian bastard brother."
Stunned, he sat on the bed, which put her wonderful breasts at eye level.  It impressed him how clearly she thought things through.  He liked smart women.
"How could you plan all this before even meeting me?  What if I was an ogre, an idiot, or a birk?"
"I saw those machines you made to mass-produce the parts for the longbow, so you're no dummy.  George likes and respects you, and no one is a better judge of character.  You could be married, but after two years here alone you are more likely a widow.   You are not gay or George would have had his way with you.  And you could not be ugly or George would not have tried to have his way with you."  They both laughed at that.  "Honestly, though, I assumed you were much older because he said you must be a veteran.  But you are not old.  In fact, I'd say you’re perfect for me."
"You've decided to marry me in just the few minutes you've known me?"  
Excessively cautious, Will couldn't imagine doing something so important so spontaneously.  Not that she had time.
“I prefer an uncertain future with you than a certain death without you.  Do you have children or a wife?”
“No.  Never.  Before you marry me, you should know that my family has dedicated itself to burning the ancient trees that the Mongol Empire needs.  The older the tree, the stronger the wand.  The Mongols don't have the largest military they can afford; they have the largest military that they can arm.  
"That's bloody brilliant!"  
And it was.  Burning those forests gave the rest of the world time to catch up.  
Liz tried to close the deal: "Two could burn twice as many trees, so we should team up."
With that, she inexpertly removed her clothing.  To not give him time to think, she undressed him as well.  Now revealed in all of their natural glory, ignorance paralyzed her.
"Now what do I do?" she asked him, bewildered.
The adorable look on her face captivated him.  He could protect Free Europe simply by marrying and impregnating the queen's delicious granddaughter.  His parents would approve.  His grandma would blast him for thinking twice about it.
“If you’re doing this to make me marry you,” he told her with a smile, “it’s working.”
Relieved, she jumped into his arms.

CHAPTER 3

The castle, built upon a high volcanic outcropping, dominated the Edinburgh skyline.  Sheer cliffs to the north and south, and a steep ascent from the west, meant the castle only had to defend itself from the east.  A six-ton siege cannon called Mons Meg, built in 1449, could hit targets two Scottish miles away. 
"I see why your uncle stores his money there," William commented dryly.
Indeed, the place looked impregnable.  It was first fortified by the legendary Briton King Ebraucus 2500 years before, who had fifty children by twenty women.  Ebraucus' father killed his brother, ruled as a tyrant for twenty years, then, like the Roman dictator Sulla, abandoned his family to pursue sodomy.
"The vault lies in David's Tower in the middle of the castle, near St. Margaret's Chapel, who died there in 1093.  John married into Scottish royalty to get the castle.  All we have to do is remove some blocks around the arrow slit where the vault lies, fill up the backpacks, then fly away."
Yes, as if anything in life is as easy to get as it should be.
They flew in from the north and knocked out several sleepy guards.  They hovered around the arrow slit, each using a blade to slice into the mortar that bound each block.  It still took several exhausting minutes to remove enough blocks to slip in.  
The wealth stunned them.  Each quickly filled up a backpack, starting with the gold and precious jewels.
All too soon they heard someone yelling.  A moment later, a uniformed guard flew to the opening and saw the wand-torches.  Liz extended steel in the shape of a hammer to smash his helmet, but he sounded an alarm as he fell down.  The high piercing noise echoed over the castle.
William assumed they would leave at once, but Liz kept filling her backpack until a quad started blasting them.  
"That's an idiot, so it must be my cousin," Liz informed him.  "He's Keeper of the Castle, so it's his hide if we get away."  She seemed remarkably calm given the partial blasts coming in, and William suddenly realized that she wanted this confrontation.  
A blast widens over time, so the farther away, the more it disperses, losing lethality.  Firing closer in would have cooked them alive.  
"Let me buy us some time."  She tapped her wand to her vocal cords to multiply the sound of her voice.  "Aidian!”
They hurried their packing as the blasts stopped.
"I know that voice.  Who are you?" Aidian shouted back.
"What's grandma gonna do when she learns how much you stole from her?" 
"Identify yourself!" he screamed.
"You even have the necklace that her grandmother left her."
Blasts from a few dozen wands now struck them, but they were too far away to hurt them.
"They're lined up along the rampart," she guessed, getting up after getting knocked down from a pressure wave.  "We'll escape south, then.  Here, help me with my backpack.  It's heavier than I thought."
Even with her back against the wall, she could barely stay upright.  
"How do fliers carry more than their weight?" she asked in disbelief.
"You can carry more flying than walking," William answered. 
"Aidian," she called out to pause the firing.  "Neither you nor yours will ever be king."
"Elizabeth?" he asked in stunned disbelief.  "What the hell are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking of blasting you to hell!" she yelled with a laugh like a drunk.  "It's time to settle things between us."
Aidian laughed, all his arrogance showing.  "This is a better gift than that trifle you gave me for my wedding."
She flew around the tower to scan the castle for warriors.  She popped up from the south to see if anyone was on the tower roof.  
"The roof is clear and I don't see anyone to the south.  They're all lining the northern ramparts.  I'll lead them north and meet you at the tree.  And don’t worry: I’m not gonna die so soon after losing my virginity!”
William was not so sure.
"Come and get me, cousin!"  
She fired two-meter-long flames so Aidian would underestimate her.  Then, with a scream, she flew high to meet him.  
From higher up he fired continuously.  She let one graze her so she could pretend to lose her balance.  Sure enough, he dived to finish her off.  Flailing a few hundred meters above ground, she almost lost her balance while pretending to lose her balance.  
Liz barely managed to avoid the next blast by maximizing thrust from all four wands.  They closed quickly.  They both extended blades, but Liz had double his range and crushed his groin with a spiked ball a second before he chopped her head off.
The pain cost him his concentration.  She risked her life to grab him before he fell to his death.  Something deep inside her screamed that he must die.  Life is precious, but lives are cheap, and not every death is a tragedy.  Instead, she dropped him into the moat alive so the guards would have to save him instead of pursue her, never knowing the great price William would pay for this mistake.
Hidden in the tower, William marveled at his new fiancée.  As he watched fliers take off after his fiancée, William found himself looking forward to their wedding with un-William-like enthusiasm.
"Holy crap," he whispered to himself as he escaped.  "I'm getting married!"

CHAPTER 4

The exhausted couple landed at dawn before the front gate of an old, secluded rural estate surrounded by grassy hills and farm animals.  Liz made her wand sound a greeting as several dogs rushed them.  Because fliers could literally drop anywhere, everyone owned guard dogs to warn them of intruders.
"You nervous?" William asked, surprised, given her steadiness robbing a freaking castle.
"When my father was a teenager, he fell for a hot dueler named Susan, but couldn’t marry her because the family didn’t find her genealogy acceptable.  So they had ten kids instead and she helped find other powerful quads to also have his children.  Because she had his children first, and because she has enough personality for several people, everyone calls her the Matriarch.  
“Unfortunately, her family has been reduced to living here for the last twenty years, when my father defied the queen by marrying an Irishwoman instead of promoting civil war among the Irish kingdoms.  His plan was to sire a strong son who could become king of both England and Ireland, like his grandparents did with Scotland.  Then my mother died giving birth to me.  
“With my father out of favor, Uncle John took back the stipends and estates given to Richard’s families.  They don't blame me personally, but I can't help but remind them of their change in fortune."
"Then you must remind them of something else," William said mysteriously.
Liz turned to stare at him when a large man holding wands burst out.  He touched a wand to one eye, closed the other, and studied them.  Then he shook his head and began yelling excitedly back to the house.  A dozen people of all ages rushed to give Liz hugs, all talking over each other and the dogs.  A little prodigy named Emily used wands to fly into William’s arms and gave him a hug that felt so good that she could have charged for it.  William could easily tell who the Matriarch was, even though she didn’t look any older than her sons.  After an eternity of greetings, the group slowly made their way inside.
"This is my fiancé, William.  William, this is Susan and her first-born son, Richard."
William shocked everyone by hugging the Matriarch, then shook the big guy's hand.  "You are younger than I expected, your majesty."
They all laughed, since the first-born son of the Royal Heir looked like his clone.
"And you don't look like an old Mongol birk," Richard replied with a smile.
"No, I am some other birk," William said to more laughter, winning them over.  "Back home in Prussia I am the Baron Wilhelm von Richthofen."
Liz looked at him in surprise.  She decided to marry a guy without even knowing his real name.
"Listen, I need help.  If I marry the Mongolian ambassador, then they will build military bases here to open another front against Free Europe.  The treaty requires me to give the Mongols a royal heir, so stopping the treaty means I must marry someone else and produce a non-Mongolian heir."
"Are you already pregnant?" the Matriarch asked sternly.
"No, but we are working on it day and night," Liz replied to knowing smiles.  "Although I am of age, father’s presence at my wedding will give it the legitimacy it needs against Uncle John’s inevitable attacks.  Yet we must flee England before John arrests us.”
Richard groaned, because only he could convince the prince to return to England.  
"He can’t afford to come now, with the potato famine collapsing the Irish economy."
"Ask him if he’d like to borrow a ton of gold for ten years at 5% simple interest," William suggested.
One benefit of the Mongols controlling the world's largest economy was their insistence on standardizing weights, measures, and distances.  A "full" coin weighed exactly 100 grams, so ten of them weighed a kilo.  A "half" coin weighs 50 grams and a “quarter” coin 25 grams.  Silver coins of equal weight were worth fifteen times less, and equally heavy bronze coins that much less.  Few people trusted non-standard coins anymore.  So a ton of gold was literal, not a metaphor.
Everyone stared hard at him, especially his soon-to-be wife.  "What?" he said to her.  "You thought I was poor?"
Her husband, as she already thought of him, was becoming a mystery before her eyes.
"If he isn't interested, I sure would be," Richard said eagerly.  “Did Liz mention that I headed the royal treasury before John fired me?  I now run Global Bank, which my great-grandfather started a century ago.”
"Make the wedding happen and help us leave England, and I will loan each of you a ton of gold."
Liz watched several of her half-siblings jump up and down in excitement.  Little Emily gave Liz two thumbs up.
"What's the catch?" Richard asked, because there is always a catch.
"You have to fly a few thousand kilometers to get it.  Just get forty quads to carry 25 kilos each.  Or eighty quads if we include your father's gold."
The room erupted as the family practically kicked Richard out of his own house to retrieve his father from Ireland.
"There's something else," William yelled over the chaos.  "Last night Elizabeth and I found treasure at Castle Edinburgh, so we can give a gold kilo, or its equivalent, to every descendent of Prince Richard who attends our wedding."
Which was a great way to win over the in-laws, legitimize the marriage,, and add protection in case a sheriff showed up at the wedding.
"We have over two hundred kilos of gold?" Liz asked in shock, since two people cannot possibly carry so much.
"Two hundred?" he asked, kicking himself.  "You said he started one hundred families."
"Before marrying my mother, yes.  Since then he has fathered many more in Ireland.  I have several hundred siblings and several thousand nieces and nephews.”
With everyone staring at him, William quickly did some math.  On every trip from the continent he brought as much gold as he could carry and deposited it all in the Bank of England.  He needed to empty that account anyways, which meant he could pay almost two hundred families, depending on how much they valued the jewels.  But, without counting the loot from the castle, he could not be sure.
The Matriarch put a friendly arm around him.  "Not that I doubt you, Baron, but it would help if we could record it to show the skeptics.  It's a long flight for most of them."
The happy couple led the family to their secret stash in the nearby woods.  What they dumped onto the grass was more than enough.
"Everyone film me," the Matriarch commanded the family as they took out their wands.  "Lady Elizabeth and her fiancé, Baron Wilhelm, offer a gold kilo or its equivalent to every family started by Prince Richard that attends their wedding the day after tomorrow.  Only one member of each family has to come, though all are welcome. But come armed in case Prince John tries to arrest them.”
The adults flew off to spread the word.  
Elizabeth chuckled, imagining Richard explaining the situation to their father.
As soon as the last one disappeared in the sky, Liz playfully slapped William.  "Why didn't you tell me you were rich?"
"I was happy you’d marry me thinking I was poor.  Whenever I travel within the Empire, I check out the local dueling champion.  If I'm confident I can beat him, then I bet heavily."
"Then why the hell did we rob my uncle?"
"We will have a hard life on the run, so I had to see how you handled adversity before swearing to spend the rest of my life with you."
"Are you really going to spend the rest of your life with me?" she asked, eyes locked on his.
"With you, only you, and with you forever.”

CHAPTER 5

His wife's anguished screams pierced William's soul.  He stopped his relentless pacing to peek into the birthing room again.  Liz, bravely practicing the breathing techniques he taught her, lay sweating on the bed.  The team of midwives urged her on, ordering her to push the baby through.  
After all the fights with bounty hunters and petty bandits since leaving England a year ago, he knew how tough she was.  And that only made her unbearable pain harder to handle.  The love of his life suffered in agony, and he could do nothing to help her.  One of the women snapped at him, and he shut the door like a boy caught watching a woman bathe.
"Maybe you should wait outside," his fake cousin suggested.
William's primary ancestor was Baron Karl von Richthofen, who Genghis Khan killed while slaughtering the inhabitants of Peking in 1215.  The Baron's children swore a blood oath of revenge.  They recruited quads from across Europe to fight the Mongols.  Genghis Khan eventually had to send super-quads to Prussia to wipe out the von Richthofens.  Luckily, a girl named Rachel escaped the slaughter, the lone survivor of a family that once ruled the Kingdom of Bohemia.  
Widowed while young and pregnant, Rachel married Taran, the Hero of Kiev, who never knew the child was not his.   Now accepted in Mongolian high society, she raised her son to continue her family's feud.  He was the first to burn the ancient trees that the Mongols needed for great wands.  As the last living descendent, William alone carried the burden of his family's long legacy.
Rachel heavily promoted a video documentary after Taran’s death to make her fake Mongolian family famously Mongolian to help protect her son.  Passed from wand to wand, videos cost nothing to copy, so she distributed it to every major library in the Empire.  The investment continued paying dividends as William, careful to model his hair and beard after a man he was not even related to, introduced himself as the great-great-great-grandson of the war hero Taran.  
He looked at the kind man who thought he was William's distant cousin.  The irony is that he personally liked his fake Mongolian relatives.  Plus, they provided a compelling cover story if the Mongols ever investigated him.  William was even able to bribe the local official to forward the baby's birth date by two years to throw off Prince John, who would see their son as a rival for the throne.
Their marriage infuriated Queen Margaret, who lost the Mongolian support she needed to crush the damn Irish.  She punished Prince Richard by replacing him with the now-impotent Aidian as the official Royal Heir.  She could not anoint Prince John because his stealing angered the country.  However, the English liked Prince Richard far more than Aidian, and the romantic elopement of Lady Elizabeth captured the hearts of the English and Irish.  Not to mention the sharp contrast between the generous newlyweds and the thieving family of Prince John.
What worried William was the ten kilo bounty on their heads.  How ironic that he feared his family's past would endanger her, when actually it was her family that endangered him.  So much so that they fled to the Mongol capital, of all places.
Although not the touchy-feely type, the emotional turmoil of the moment prompted William to hug his fake cousin.  He needed some way to burn off this stress.  He suddenly burst outside into the falling snow for some fresh air.  
Ever paranoid, William sensed movement on his far left.  He turned to see a man peering through plants at him.  
"It's him!" the guy said in terrible Mongolian.  William recognized him from his fight with the longshoremen in England the year before. 
William pressed his inner arms against his overcoat.  Even before those wands sprung into his hands, he used the wands in his boots to propel him up, out of the kill zone, even as the first volley smashed the front door.  
William flew over the house to be out of their line of sight, then circled to attack them from behind.  He killed one with his back to him, then blasted another who turned to look at him in disbelief, wands impotently in his hands.  William watched his head explode like a watermelon with great satisfaction.  At least two others returned fire behind trees.  A fireball engulfed the tree and the man behind it, igniting his clothes.  It didn't kill him immediately, but the three-degree burns took him out of the fight.  William and the fourth man traded blasts, but William -- in the air -- could dodge easier than the ambusher on the ground.
Then two more bounty hunters flew over the house at him.  William evaded the blade of one and parried the other.  Too close to blasting, William used his superior length to stab one in the chest and slice the other below the knee.  Without a foot wand, he fell on the roof, where William chopped his head off.  William grabbed his wands to retain their power, then did the same to the guy dying from a hole in his chest.  He did the same for the other ambushers, finally dispatching the guy burned alive.
In the eerie silence he heard the longshoreman cry like a baby as he ran through the woods like a bull.
Something made him pause a moment before he realized that he just heard the birth cry of his newborn son.  A son!  Swelling with pride, William sped after his last enemy, expertly weaving his way through the trees before slicing his leg muscles.  With the Englishman’s face in the snow, William landed on his back and chopped off both hands so his enemy could not use his wands.  He turned over the terrified tradesman.
"How did you find me?" William wanted to know.  Not hearing an immediate answer, his wand shot electricity to his groin, making him wail like a newborn.
"You will pay for killing my brother," he promised.  "Prince John spent the last year spreading your wanted poster around the world.  Every bounty hunter on Earth is looking for you."
"But why are you here with them?"
"To identify you.  You grew a beard and changed your hair, so they wanted to make sure before they killed a baby.  And they had plenty of time since they thought it safest to attack during the birth."
This appalled William the father, but seemed like a sound tactic to William the warrior.  "How many more are there?"
The dying man laughed weakly.  "And dilute their shares?  They only promised me one full coin, the cheap bastards.  Not bad for a month of flying, but nothing compared to ten kilos."
As he faded out from loss of blood, William transferred ownership of his wands by holding them as he died, then took his leather money sack.  The ambushers collectively had over a kilo of gold, or its equivalent in silver.
"The bastards assumed I was rich," he explained to his fake cousin, who looked at him with both terror and awe.  It’s not every day someone you think you know kills several warriors.  "I think I got them all, but you better sweep the perimeter to make sure while I check on the baby."
This time, the wet nurse did not shoo him away.  William found their beautiful baby boy suckling his mother's teat while the other ladies made silly baby noises.  
"He looks like the son of a blond Chinaman," he joked.  Liz raised her hand to hit him, but then laughed instead.
"I want to name him after his father," she proposed.
"No," William replied.  "Wang is a terrible name.  We better call him Billy."
Actually, they both already agreed to put Temujin, the birth name of Genghis Khan, on his birth certificate because it was the most popular name among the Khan's male descendents.  Society would accept their son more, he would blend in with the thousands of other Temujins, and it gave him status as a direct descendent of the Immortal through his fake ancestor, Taran the War Hero.
"I love you so much," she declared.
"I love you more," he answered, unable to tell her that they would have to flee the city soon, and ashamed he could not keep her safe.

CHAPTER 6

William, Liz, and their six-year old son Billy left their ger, the traditional portable dome-shaped hut that Mongols have lived in for centuries, careful to not step on the threshold.  Snow still covered the tips of the distant Altai Mountains.  Smoke rose from holes above the other hundred or so huts that formed this horde, one of thousands that roamed the seemingly endless Central Asia steppe.
To their joy, Billy sparked his first wand at age three, burning half of their hut.  Instead of playing with the other kids, they trained him constantly so that all three would know how to respond to any tactical situation.  
Billy’s favorite game was “tag,” but he quickly grew too quick for the other kids, then began beating the teenagers.  William and Liz together couldn’t catch him once he turned five, so they started teaching him to dodge fireballs and avoid weightless blades.
While most warriors cherish sheer power, Billy took delight in mastering subtly.  While other kids avoid a fireball by darting in the other direction at full power, Billy took delight in barely dodging the fireball.   While other kids tried to get as far away as possible, Billy tried to see how close he could come, while still avoiding it.  It was like using a hammer to tap instead of pound.
His next favorite game was catch.  His mother and father would use their wands to throw things and Billy would race to catch them.  Finally, they raced through trees until Billy could beat them both, despite a less powerful set of wands.
As Billy grew older, William put a priority on tactical sense.  He would outline a specific scenario and help Billy walk through it.  Then he would change something that forced a different strategy.  Rage and terror guided most fighters, but William wanted Billy to foresee how any given situation would play out before engaging.  William collected video montages of every battle he could, and together they analyzed who did what right and wrong.  
“Win your battles before they start,” dad would tell him.
They alternated between the hordes and Asia, India, Australia and Europe for Billy to learn different languages.  They knew they spent too much time in one place when they had trouble sleeping at night.  The hordes were the only place where bounty hunters would stand out.
Because his birth certificate said Billy was eight instead of six, he had to struggle to keep up with the other boys in mastering horseback riding, archery, and wrestling, on top of the reading, writing, math, and map-reading that his parents taught him.
Ironically, they were safest from Liz’ enemies by hiding among William’s enemies.
"Ready?" William asked his wife.
Traveling like nomads helped them burn ancient trees, taught Billy geography, and made William ridiculous amounts of money betting against dueling champions.  Through frequent flying, William not only destroyed thousands of ancient trees, but a few thousand Mongolian quads every year.  Best of all, frequent dueling increased his wand power.
With that fortune he bought most of Global Bank, giving it the capital it needed to expand internationally.  He hired quads from his wife’s family to transport the gold he won.
The catch to dueling was getting killed by a better dueler, like a millennial -- those with one thousand proven kills.  Proving a kill is easy since a wand records everything it is used for, from starting fires to moving furniture to blasting enemies, although that memory can be lost when passed to a new user.  Everyone feared millennials because their goal was not money, but longevity.  A warrior can prolong his life by sucking the power from a rival wand.  The more powerful the wand, the more time it provided.  The Empire made dueling the national sport, pastime, and obsession specifically so every kid would grow up dreaming of living forever with wealth, fame, and glory.
"Good morning," the horde's leader greeted them.  "Tomorrow we will move north along the Irtysh River for better grazing for the animals."
"We will be ready," William assured him.
The leader smiled down at Billy.  "My sixteen-year old says you almost fly faster than him.  Maybe in a few years you can represent us in the summer games.  I would love to see those arrogant fools beaten by someone half their size."
Once the leader left, William smacked the boy on the back of the head.  "You raced Beriakh?"
"What?" Billy demanded.  "I let him win!"
Mother and father exchanged knowing looks.  What really worried them was his ability to use his boot wands for more than flying.  Other than rumors and myths, only Genghis Khan himself could project flame or steel from his boot wands.  Every story of anyone else doing so ended up with them dying mysteriously, so they had to hide Billy's rare ability as if his life depended on it.  That ability was a death sentence.
Plus, the trauma of hearing her husband fighting for his life while she gave birth triggered uncontrolled bleeding that made her unable to have more babies.  Liz would never forgive her Uncle John for preventing her from having more children and made Billy swear to avenge his unborn siblings when he could.
As always, the family flew as high and fast as possible so Billy would get used to it very young.  To condition him, William made him run long distances to strengthen the heart.
Today they flew north over the vast Mongolian Plateau to the Siberian forest.  After dueling practice, Billy killed a marmot, skinned and cleaned it, then built a cooking fire under a tree with many branches to disperse the smoke.  Unfortunately, some wet leaves caused too much smoke to be seen from the air.  
Over a dozen thugs soon showed up.  These parasites lived off of the packs, obeying no laws that restricted their appetites.  Far from Mongolian authority, they could do whatever they wanted without consequences.  The family came across bandits before, but simply out-flew them.  Having already flown several hours, they were too tired to flee.  Billy wisely dived in the snow to hid himself.
William and Liz put their backs to the densest forest so the raiders would land with Billy hid behind them.  They closed on the couple, their intent clearly hostile.
"We have nothing of value," William yelled in fluent Mongolian.
"Even from far away we heard your blasts," their leader replied.  "But because sound travels so far, we couldn't locate you until we saw your smoke.  I am glad we didn't quit.  We love rich tourists on vacation."
Nomads called rich families who briefly roughed it "tourists."  Robbing tourists gave raiders the cash they needed to gorge on drink and whores.
"Go find softer targets," William suggested, burning nine-meter-long flames to let the criminals know what they faced.  He felt proud of how much his frequent dueling boosted his flame.
In return, the leader fired ten-meter-long flames, which made him among the most powerful on the planet.
"You don't become a cook without breaking a thousand eggs," the predator said, using a metaphor for millennials who must kill a thousand warriors.
Just then four fliers attacked William from the rear to distract him while the dozen in front flew straight at him.
William saw their plan clearly: to overwhelm them from all sides.  The solution was to fly fast through the trees to separate the fast from the slow to deal with just a few at a time.  
William led Liz away before becoming trapped.  They soon lost all but the fastest.  Both wore white deels, the thick fur coats Mongolians favored, so they dropped down to blend with the snow.
The leader saw them just in time and flew up, but his followers were less lucky and William and Liz blasted them.  The next three quads put up a brief fight, but William and Liz caught them in a deadly crossfire.  Four more hunkered down and exchanged fire until the leader could strike the tourists from behind.
Then Billy popped up and sank two boot blades into the two closest, and steel from hand wands into the backs of the others.  He fell on his back in the snow and rolled under cover because some of them may live long enough to fire back.  His parents charged and finished them off.
"I got several more back there," Billy whispered, unnaturally calm.  "Now you guys get the leader to show me his back."
Which seemed as good a plan as any.  It’s hard to shoot fliers because they move so fast.  Quad can avoid any blast that they can see, which makes them so much harder to kill in the air, versus on the ground.  The solution is to fix their attention up front, then shoot them in the back.
The couple flew back where they came, but over the trees instead of through them.  As expected, the head bandit chased them.  The parents then dropped below the tree line and weaved their way back to Billy, who waited patiently in a tall tree.  At the perfect moment, Billy launched himself at full speed and impaled the guy with two pikes in the back before he even knew of Billy’s existence.  He tumbled head over heels and smacked hard against a birch tree.  The blow shook the tree with such force that the snow on its leaves fell.
Billy dropped on top of the guy and strictly followed protocol.  A dying warrior has nothing to lose by fighting, so Billy sliced his arms so he could not fire back.  Then the boy took his boot wands, whose power filled Billy better than any drug.  He had transferred wand ownership before, but not with wands of this power, and the sensation overwhelmed him.  He closed his eyes and soaked up the energy.  Wands grow more powerful the more they are used, but people do not blast rocks with the same emotion that they blast people, so the more a wand has killed people, the more powerful it became.  These two wands had killed a lot of people. 
Wands generally don't transfer ownership well, and the more powerful the wand, the harder to transfer.  Weak wands, like to store videos, can be passed around without loss of power, but strong ones cannot.  Wands taken from cold dead hands lose much of their strength, which is why warriors prefer dueling, where they can take wands while the owner is dying, but not long dead.
As he came down from the high, he noticed the dying man staring viciously at him.
"You're just a damn kid," the leader whispered, growing weaker as his blood colored the snow red.
"Yes," Billy cheerfully answered.  "But your wands do not care."
"You do not even know who I am."
"I do not even care," the boy replied, as he put a boot on the guy’s chest and roughly tore the two hand wands away.  The boot wands warned him of the power of the hand wands, which spiked him with a sizzling energy that some prefer to orgasms. 
His eyes rolled up into his skull and his skin tingled deliciously.  Billy didn’t realize it yet, but he had just become addicted to what quads called “sucking wand.”  The world saw so much war because warriors went crazy from desire without regular shots of wand power.  Sucking a powerful wand dry literally added decades to one’s life.  They say that youth is wasted on the young, and virtual immortality wasted on those who must kill to stay alive.
Billy had no idea how much time had passed, but his parents had already collected the coins and wands from the other fifteen attackers when he came to.
"Let's get our stuff and go home," his mother told him.  “Anyone who can shoot flame ten meters is trouble.”
“He’s not dead yet,” Billy objected.  “I want to see him die.”
The thug gathered what little strength he had left to whisper to Billy, “My grandfather will make you die horribly, and soon.”
Billy extended flame eight meters in both directions with his new wands.  “I don’t think so.”
The boy watched his eyes go blank, something he would never tire of.  Nothing else compared to taking another’s man’s life.  He vowed right then and there to become the best quad in history.  

CHAPTER 7

Before they could pack the marmot, a visitor descended, his wand emitted a greeting, as curtsey demanded, before landing across the opening from them.  He looked ordinary, friendly, and non-threatening, but too well dressed for a common thief.  William's wand returned his greeting, but remained wary.
"I am looking for Barchuk the Bandit," the visitor said, stating his business like a good Mongol.  Mongols only had one name, so used descriptions to differentiate those who share names.  "I heard a firefight."
"And what is your business with him?" William asked, keeping his tone neutral.
"I planned on killing him," the visitor replied.  "His raids threaten the nomads."
"Then you are too late.  We killed them defending ourselves."
"You?"  The visitor found it hard to believe.  "No disrespect, but Barchuk was very good.  I trained him myself, before he turned bad, like many of my best descendents.  I even gave him his wands."
Instead of saying great-great-great-great-grandchild, old warriors simply referred to "descendents."  In turn, descendents called ancestors "grandfather" instead of "great-great-great-grandfather."
"No disrespect, but he traveled with fifteen others.  Are you hunting them alone?"
"Yes," the visitor answered, not at all insulted.
Husband and wife exchanged anxious looks.  "I am Vesak," William said, using his Mongolian name.  "I descend from Taran of Kiev."
"I knew Taran well.  Good Mongol.  We fought at Kiev together.  That movie they made of him even attributed some of my kills to him.  I don't blame him -- he was dead and his widow decided to trade off his fame, but it still feels like someone stole from me."
"And who are you?" William asked, annoyed that he had to ask.
"It's hard to believe you killed Barchuk."
"His body lies a few hundred meters over there."
"And his wands?"
"I gave them to my boy for when he gets his powers at puberty."
Sure enough, Billy held out the wands to him.  The Mongol tapped an eye with his wand to examine them from a distance.  "Yep.  That's them.  I won them two hundred years ago."
"Is that what you want?  His wands?" William asked.
Billy reset them in his arm launchers when the old man turned away.
"I wanted them, yes.  But if you gave them to the boy, then you did not transfer ownership quickly enough to retain their power.  Otherwise you would have kept them for yourself."
Which was solid reasoning, except the wands belonged to Billy, who killed Barchuk and transferred ownership.  
"We dueled so high that, when I finally got a lucky shot, I lost him in the trees.  He died before I could find him."  William waited patiently, but the visitor was in no hurry to leave.  "We have nothing more of value."
"Oh, but you do," the Mongol replied.  "You have wands powerful enough to kill a great dueler like Barchuk.  You see, it's time for me to recharge, and I dislike killing dueling champions because of the attention it brings.  Thanks to all of those damn videos, people recognize me too easily.  My challenge is finding powerful wands that I can suck dry to live longer, while not attracting a mob of parasites begging for favors.  Few people appreciate how addictive wand power can be, or how quickly it goes away.  It's nothing personal, but I need to take your wands."  He turned to Liz.  "I am sorry, but I need your wands as well."
The visitor just said he was going to kill them to suck their wands dry.  Drained of energy, their useless wands would then break like twigs.  The words chilled William, who until now had not felt the bitter cold.
Wand-sucking was as addictive as heroine, but more dangerous to maintain a steady supply.  Even those with plenty of money had to return to the arena to recharge their wands by sucking others dry.
"You have been very polite.  Please continue by telling us your name."
The old warrior hesitated, but decided he owed them at least that.  "I am Subodei."
Liz and Billy watched William turn pale.  He seemed to shrink in front of them.  
"We just killed sixteen.  What's one more?" Liz demanded.
"We can't beat him," William assured her.  "I'll fly north, you go south.  Billy, lose him in the woods."
"And why the hell can't we beat one guy?" she wanted to know.
"Show her," William begged the visitor.
"You seem like a good Mongol, so I'll tell you what.  If you and your wife promise to fight, I'll let your son live.  If either of you flee, I'll make sure he dies hard.  I'm responsible for the deaths of millions.  As your wife said, what's one more?"
"Who is he?" his wife demanded, completely irritated.
"You know him as the Third Millennial -- Genghis being first, his boyhood friend and later rival, Jamuka the Second Millennial.  He is one of the few fighters ever to have a wingspan greater than Genghis Khan."
Billy himself read about the legendary General Subodei in history class.  Known as the Khan's favorite general, Subodei won sixty-five pitched battles and defeated thirty-two nations before retiring in his prime.
When Genghis first heard of wands, he paid a fortune to find the oldest tree.  From it the legendary wand maker Torolchi crafted ten sets of the most powerful wands in the world.  Genghis promised the wands to the first warriors who scored a thousand personal kills.  So many quads were eager to prove themselves that they completed the unification of the nomad tribes, then looked south to quench their thirst.
"How many sets of Millennial Wands are still alive?"
"What am I?  A history professor?"  The visitor's patience was running low.
"Come on, or we'll take our chances at high altitude!  Genghis uses a set, with one as backup, and gave another to the head of his personal security.  Jamuka lost his when Genghis killed him over Lake Balkhash, and General Boorchu's burned in the ashes of Moscow.  You have a set.  How many others still work?"
He shrugged.  "You already know that Genghis gave sets to his brothers, Khasar and Kachiun, although I don't know which of their descendents have them now, and another to his grandson and heir, Kublai.  His descendent Batu Mongke has the tenth set, as far as I know."
William felt Billy looking at him.  In a glance he could read the boy’s mind.
"Let the child go and we promise not to run."  He then shushed his wife before she could argue with him.
"You know what I like about a fair fight?" the general asked.  "The better fighter always wins."  
Subodei “spread his wings,” shooting flames thirteen meters in both directions for a total “wingspan” of twenty-six meters.  As he geared up to attack, Billy hopped through the deep snow towards him with his palms flat out to show he was unarmed. 
"Stop!  You have to first promise to carry me home or I’ll freeze to death tonight."
The general hesitated in disbelief at the ballsy kid.  Although he had a good point since the old man didn’t know the kid was a prodigy.  Still, he didn't want to bother with that.  The father sensed it, and called him out.
"We will agree to stay only if you swear before Father Sky and Mother Earth to carry our son safely home."
The old general grunted his displeasure.  His first temptation was to kill the boy, then the father, and hope he could find the mother before dark.  They both looked prepared to flee, although the boy stupidly walked closer.  Subodei studied the couple to see if they would break their oath.  What parent wouldn't?  Still, the boy was now eight meters in front of him, memorizing his face.
"Where can I find you in ten years?" Billy demanded.
"Revenge is suicide, boy.  Not ten men in the world could beat me in a fair fight."
"That is my decision, not yours.  As a descendent of Genghis Khan, I demand honor for the killing of my parents.”
The ancient warrior looked hard at the little boy.  With snow up to his chest, Billy looked about to drown.
"In a cave on top of Mt. Burklan Khaldun.  Now get out of my way."
William and Liz popped into the air and spread out.  Subodei naturally tracked them, the boy forgotten.  Billy had already launched his wands into his unseen hands below the snow, so now he thrust twin blades into the general’s chest, who looked really surprised that a six year old had eight meter long blades.  The old warrior had no way of knowing that the boy could access wands without reaching into his coat.
Billy dived forward while slashing at the old man’s arms.  The general screamed in frustration, his hand wands now useless.  Before he could recover, the boy scrambled forward and snatched the general’s hand wands.
For a man who thought he had seen everything, the guy looked astonished.  He tried to say something, but only coughed up blood.
"You know what I like about a fair fight?" the boy asked him, triumphantly sitting on his chest plate.  "The better fighter always wins."
Delirious that he won, Billy started laughing like a lunatic, the effect of transferring the previous wands still with him.  Billy then transferred ownership of the boot wands, followed by the more powerful hand wands.  
“Watch this!” the boy told the general, torching his new wands almost eleven meters.  “You just gave the world’s best wands to the Empire’s greatest enemy.  I will now join my father in targeting Mongol super-quads until I am powerful enough to kill Genghis Khan himself.”
The old man tried to swear at him, but Billy just laughed in his face.  Literally -- he still sat on his chest plate.
General Subodei, scourge of lands from China to Russia to Hungary, watched the boy watch him die.  It seemed to take forever to bleed to death, but for Billy, it ended all too soon.
Billy savored the best damn day of his entire life and saw with crystal clarity how he would spend the rest of his years.  And his week would only get better because they would soon find thousands of wands in Subodei's mountaintop home, including a backup set of Millennial Wands that the general was long rumored to have.  It was the coup of a lifetime.
Billy left his childhood behind with hardly a backward glance.

CHAPTER 8

With world class wands, they practiced flying ever higher, faster, and longer.  They ran long distance and practiced meditation because the slower they could breathe, the higher they could fly.  Higher altitudes increased speed due to less air resistance.
Billy paid a lot more attention to maps and geography.  He had them criss-cross the Empire just so he could get a personal feel for the land.  William showed Billy battlefields so Billy could see how terrain affected campaigns.
Both armed with Millennial Wands, father and son dominated twice as many arenas.  Billy became so phenomenal that he would continue fighting until he ran out of opponents.  
Smaller and faster objects are harder to hit than larger and slower ones, which made blasting a really fast little boy really hard.  Speed is thrust versus weight.  Given the same wand power, a twenty-five kilo boy could maneuver twice as fast as a fifty kilo man -- it was like having twice the wand power.  Which made killing men who weighed over one hundred kilos easy.  That translated into lightning fast evasions and the ability to literally fly circles around his targets.  And the more Billy dueled, the more powerful he became.  Instead of a few thousand super-quads, Billy and his father each dueled several thousand a year.
They made so much money that William funded and armed an entire division for both Spain and France.  They gave the best wands to American University, who they paid to train a division of quads capable of reliably flying a thousand kilometers without landing.  These so-called “marathoners” were even rarer than super-quads because flying far required flying high, and only those who could breathe slowly could fly in thin air.  Quads who could slow their breathing the most could fly the highest.  Those who could fly higher than their opponents could fight with virtual impunity.
Billy celebrated his eighth birthday with the pack's other boys in the leader's ger.  His parents took advantage of having their hut to themselves.  The next morning, when they looked for Billy, they were told he went on one of his long distance exercises.  His parents wanted Billy to learn to survive on his own, so they encouraged these long trips.  
However, he did not come home.  A week later, a messenger arrived with an urgent message asking for them by name, which terrified them.  The more the Empire expanded, the more it relied on frequent communication, so Genghis Khan founded a postal service.  An urgent message could travel 24 hours a day, day after day.  But they never received a message before because nobody was suppose to know who or where they were.
The messenger closed his eyes to select the message, then tapped William's wand to transfer it.  He and Liz rushed back to their ger to watch it in private.  A recording of Billy's three-dimensional head sprung out at them.  His nose looked enormous because he was pointing his own wand at his face so they could see him.
"Mom, dad.  I just beat the dueling champion at the Peking Arena.  I am sorry I worried you, but this is what I want to do with my life.  I’ve been dueling for almost two years and I am so much better than anyone else it’s barely challenging anymore.  If you can support my decision, then please visit me, but I don't want to hear any lectures.  I love you two so much."
Liz collapsed in her husband’s arms.  William felt responsible because he taught Billy that good men are rarely great and great men are rarely good, so those with great abilities need to decide early on whether they want to be good or great.  Apparently, Billy decided at age six.
"He set us up.  We're practically in Moscow.  Even at one thousand kilometers a day, it will take us over a week to get to Peking."
Liz couldn't believe it either.  "That's why he has been practicing so hard."
"We have four hours of daylight left.  I say we leave now and fly as light as possible."
The advantage of constantly moving was everyone traveled light.  Packing took just a few minutes.  
Nine days later, they went directly to the Peking Arena, a huge open-air stadium that held one hundred thousand people, the most in the world.  They were surprised to find the stadium packed on a Tuesday afternoon.  Didn't anybody work?  William knew Peking had long been the most populated city in the world, but he still couldn't believe his eyes.  On the steppes, he could go a year without seeing a thousand people.  Now he felt like an ant on an anthill.
"Is that him?" Liz shouted over the crowd.
William put his wand to his eye, but the duelers were too far away.  Billy had left his old armor behind, so William asked a cheering fan what he had missed, only to have the mob yell "97" at the top of their lungs.
"Three more and I make a fortune," the guy told William.  "Not as much as I lost this last week betting against the boy, but enough to scab the financial wound."  The merchant pointed into the arena at the victor, who quickly slew his 98th victim.  "Yesterday he finished all one hundred before lunch!  Can you imagine killing a thousand quads in just ten days?  Much less against really good duelers?"
No one had ever beat one hundred duelers in one day.  
"Just how many duelers does this city have?" William asked.
"We will soon find out.  Did you see the huge posters outside?  They are all over the Empire.  The boy posted one ton of gold with the arena to go to the fighter who beats him.  Duelers are flying in from thousands of clicks away to win that prize.  I've never seen a feeding frenzy like this before."
The arena erupted again and the merchant held out a finger.  Someone started chanting, "one more kill, one more kill."  Soon everyone took it up, then started stomping their feet to the rhythm.  The whole stadium shook.
"Billy is about to score his 1000th kill in ten days," William yelled into Liz's ear.
Sure enough, a scared man in beat-up armor flew wildly at Billy, shooting like crazy.  The boy let him come, moving as needed to dodge his fire, acting almost bored.  He unexpectedly shot straight up firing wide blasts that unbalanced his opponent.  William could not help but feel pride since he himself taught Billy that: instead of a concentrated blast meant to kill, a more dispersed shot that struck like a hurricane wind.  The boy closed to cut him up.  Then, before an out-of-control crowd, he took ownership of the guy's wands.
Billy took off his battle helmet to show his new black hair, and his mother swore under her breath for teaching him how to die hair color.  Billy lined his face with black streaks, which started a new fad, to make identifying him harder.
Everyone now jumped to their feet to celebrate the Empire's new champion.  Fights broke out and fans spilled an unseemly amount of liquor.  Liz felt in greater danger from the crowd than she ever felt on the steppes.  She pulled on William's arm, who reluctantly followed her downstairs.
"We need to find management."  
She asked someone selling sacks of wine, who pointed out someone in a security uniform, who brought them through several doors to a woman behind a desk. 
"We are the parents of your wonder boy," Liz told her.
"Boy Wonder.  That's what they call him," the clerk replied.
"If the authorities discover you have been letting a ten year old fight a thousand quads without his parent's commission, well, I imagine some heads could roll."
"What proof do you have that you are his parents?"
William used his wand to project a video of Billy's tenth birthday party, when he actually turned eight.  The woman's face changed color and gestured for them to follow her down more stairs and corridors until they reached someone of obvious authority.  William placed a restraining hand on his wife, then spoke first.  
"Our son, your Wonder Boy, ran away and sent us this message."  He replayed the urgent video sent via the postal service.  "Here we are celebrating his tenth birthday with him,” he said, playing another video.  “I assume you do not want problems with the authorities for letting a ten year old duel a thousand quads without his parents' permission.  I also assume our son lied to you in order to duel.  However, we expect your cooperation and demand you bring our son to us."
The guy took the news well.  He sent a beauty after Billy who returned totally unsurprised to see his parents.  By now a small crowd of employees gathered, hoping to get an image taken with the champion.
"You made it!" Billy shouted, hugging them both at the same time to avoid getting screamed at.
His mother, in tears, brought herself to eye level so Billy could see her.  The boy wisely appeared suitably contrite.  Once she concluded it was contrived, she slapped him as hard as she could.  After several years living a hard, nomadic life, her wiry muscles could pack a punch.  The slap knocked the boy clear across the room to astonished silence.  The manager looked shocked at anyone striking a champion with a thousand kills to his mantle.  Liz was less impressed.
"I've been crying myself to sleep!  Did you even think of me at all?"
“Mom, if you ever hit me again, I will leave you forever.”  He then addressed his father.  "Instead of betting on each duel, I bet that I can beat one hundred quads daily.  I am only getting 10-to-1 odds, down from 100-to-1 when I started, but I'm still making ten kilos for every one I wager.  The amount of money here is unbelievable.  There are more Mongols here than in Mongolia, and they are all rich.  Putting the Mongol seat of government here has made Peking the financial capital of the world.  The Empire is the largest economy in human history, and business has been booming for three centuries.  More fans bet on dueling than every other sport combined.  Gamblers fly in from thousands of kilometers away just to watch a kid beat a hundred quads a day.  This is a dream come true, and you would have stopped me, so I decided it would be better to ask forgiveness than permission.”
The boy's argument left his parents speechless.
"Will you return tomorrow?" the arena manager gently asked the boy during the awkward silence.
"I can use an abacus faster than you.  Three days ago you agreed to give me a cut of the admission and concession sales, but I have yet to see that reflected in my totals.  Will this problem be corrected by dawn?"
William tried to teach Billy the banking business, but had no idea the kid paid so much attention.  The manager sure looked nervous, before nodding his head in agreement.
"Then I will be back tomorrow," he promised, walking out, forcing his parents to follow him.
 Once they returned to his hotel, his mother broke down and cried in his bed. 
"We need to talk," his father told him.
"What is there to talk about?  You trained me to kill Mongols, I am collecting the world’s most powerful wands, and you don't need me to burn trees.  I read better Mongolian than any kid in my class.  I've certainly read more books than the rest of the pack combined.  I don't think I should be punished for doing everything that you have asked of me."
"What we want most is for you to live.  At least until you have your own children."
"I will never be safe, so I need to do as much as possible, as fast as possible.  I am the best dueler in the world.  You once told me the most important thing you ever did was figure out how to live life on your own terms.  That is what I am doing.  Except I don't have to worry about better duelers out there.”
“Doesn’t killing people bother you?” his mother demanded.
“Mongols started this war.  One hundred million civilians have already died, and a million more die every year from starvation, disease, or homelessness.  Every Mongol millennial that I kill saves a thousand innocents.  The Empire employs the best super-quads in the world, who will assassinate me when they discover my true abilities.  Who will stop them?  You?”  Billy laughed harshly.  “Really, mom.  Grow up.  We are surrounded by death.  Enemies wanted to snuff me out literally from the moment of my birth, so I don’t understand why you don’t want me to kill those who want me dead.  All I am doing in practicing self-defense on a long time scale.”
It was a good speech.  He clearly spent some time on it.  Liz stopped crying as soon as Billy left the room.
"Well crying doesn't work, anymore," she concluded.  "Guilt, shame, threats.  What can we do?"
"He won.  He beat us at our own game.  He's been thinking of this ever since he killed the Third Millennial.  He won’t back down, even if we threaten to leave him.  Besides, he needs us.  I need to ensure his personal security and you need to keep track of the numbers so he can concentrate on fighting.”  
"He's just a child."
William gave her a tired smile.  "But we never treated him like a child.  He can never know peace, so we trained him for war.  We were so scared of failure that we never thought to fear success."
"Eventually Billy will die in the arena."
"He is more likely to die of poison or an arrow in the back.  Plus, removing twenty thousand of their best quads every year will cripple the Empire.  Billy could be the key to ending this world war.  And all he has to do is win duels in an arena, which is much safer than in battle when anyone can shoot him in the back."
Liz sighed deeply, and William knew he won her over.  "He gave up his childhood to kill people."
"Don’t go soft on me now.  You wanted this.  You said you wanted him to become a boogeyman for the Mongols that Genghis Khan was for everyone else.  You’ve told him that this war is not just worth killing for, it’s worth dying for.”
Liz did not look convinced.  “The Khan cannot let Billy kill his best quads.  We are in greater danger now than if we fought on the front lines.  The Mongols will soon launch another offensive in France.  Stopping that is more urgent than hallowing out their reserves.”
William suddenly looked sheepish.  “Genghis can’t start the offensive until after the Olympics for publicity reasons.  By then it will be too late.
“My first ten thousand American marathon quads have already started building underground bunkers on the tallest mountaintops across Central Asia.  Another one hundred thousand near-marathoners -- those who can fly at least 800 kilometers -- will arrive when it’s warmest in Siberia.  The Khan must station a lot of troops in Peking during the Olympics, so I will lead the Americans on the Mongol capital on opening day.  That will force the Mongols to station hundreds of thousands of troops across Siberia -- the Khan may actually have to take troops from Europe.”  
He paused dramatically before making his larger point: “That child of yours just stopped the conquest of France.  Not just with money for Free Europe to hire more divisions, but with those excellent wands for the marathoners.  I ordered a million bombs over a year ago and hired air mules to deliver them throughout Central Asia, so the Mongols will be too busy chasing Americans to organize the assassination of Billy.”
 
CHAPTER 9

Genghis Khan himself came to watch Billy win his unprecedented 10,000th duel in one hundred days.  At nearly 350 years old, Genghis thought he looked pretty good.  Unfortunately, that damn kid looked even better.  "He's young, but he looks even younger," went the latest joke.  Genghis killed thousands to preserve his reputation as the greatest dueler ever.  Now a kid from the steppe, of all places, with the same name, of all things, threatened that claim to fame.  What a difference one hundred days makes.
Well, the Immortal had a little surprise for the child.  He personally recruited the hundred best damn quads the world has ever known.  Multi-millennials, all.  He promised the winner a ton of gold plus a ton of favors.  Already rich, it took the personal plea from Genghis himself, usually in person in their home, in front of their astonished family, to do this favor for him.  The Khan fantasized about how easily he could crush the French Air Force with such talent.
The kid was shooting flames sixteen meters long now.  Most people saw him as the One Who Could Win The War, but Genghis instead saw only a threat to his own survival.  He had dealt with palace politics long enough to know that rival factions would gravitate to the kid once he became old enough, and every mistake and misfortune the Great Khan ever experienced would be sited as reasons for new leadership.
Few people appreciated that he was elected khan at a khuriltai, a grand meeting of the tribes, and that they could simply elect someone to replace him.  Not without bloodshed, perhaps, but it could be done.  And a fighter who could out-duel him would be a logical choice.
Genghis had never seen a crowd this excited off of the battlefield.  With tickets so expensive, these one hundred thousand represented the wealthiest members of the Empire.  The child sensation could become a cult.  He should know -- he spent three centuries building his own personal cult. 
After everyone stood up for the national anthem, which glorified conquest, Mongols, and Genghis Khan himself, the arena manager grandly introduced the boy, who flew in a circle slapping outstretched hands.  Genghis did not realized that he and his personal guard were the only ones who did not stand up.  The roaring did not die down until Billy himself stopped in the center and tapped his vocal cords to speak.
"Thank you, brothers and sisters!  I love you all.
"Today I face my greatest challenge: I will either reach ten thousand kills or die today.  It has been a long one hundred days, and I am exhausted.  I look forward to my first day off tomorrow so I can train for the Olympic Games.  I hope to make the Empire proud!"
The stadium roared again and stomped their feet.
"I wish to welcome today the greatest man who has ever lived; my hero, my role model, and my inspiration: Genghis Khan!"  More applause as the Immortal rose to bow.  "If I am strong, it is only because his blood running through me has given me strength.  His example raised my expectations.  His policies taught me Mongolian virtues hard won on the Mongolian Plateau.  I owe him a great debt of gratitude."
Genghis tapped his own throat.  "I accept both gold and silver!"
The crowd ate it up as the boy flew closer.  
"Some say I am just like him, so let me see if we share more than just a name."  The boy, hovering close, peered intently at the khan.  "They’re right.  It's like looking in a mirror!"  People laughed and Genghis wondered where the hell this was going.  "I never knew I had such pretty eyes."  With that the crowd went crazy.  No one had ever had fun with the Great Khan before.
"Let me help those of you who confuse us: the guy who has ruled half the world for centuries is the tall guy," Billy said, pointing, "while the one you never heard of one hundred days ago is the short guy.  The one who did so much for so many for so long is the tall Temujin, while the guy who has done nothing but duel to get out of school is the short Temujin."  Billy had them now.  Even the Great Khan seemed to enjoy the show.  "Everyone got it now?  The greatest man who ever lived is the tall one, while the child who still gets slapped by his mommy is the short one."
The video of Liz smacking him in the manager's office had spread like a virus because it meant that the Greatest Fighter Ever still respected his mother like a good Mongol should.  It made him human, humble, and heroic.  Having won over the men, that video conquered the women.  The sheer contrast between him beating one multi-millennial after another with his skinny mother whacking him across the room -- and everyone noticed how hard she hit him by the pain on his face -- endeared the Boy Wonder to millions.
Mongols, in particular, loved the anecdote because it meant he was a good son who obeyed his strict parents.  Without respect for authority, they couldn’t rule their empire.  They sure as hell didn't want their own children running off without consequences.  His fans found it easier to love a humble hero than an arrogant one.  And the Boy Wonder now had millions of fans.
"I point this out because too many people keep equating us.  I can't tell you how many times I'm on the crapper when some super-quad bursts in, confuses me with my twin, then knocks himself out kowtowing."  Even the khan was laughing now.  "Okay, the first thousand times were pretty funny, but now I can't take a crap without wondering who will mistake me for greatness.  And my mother is tired of moping up all that urine from millennials who piss themselves thinking they've interrupted the Great Khan doing his business."
The imagery was just too much, and fans puked from laughing too hard.
"You're just afraid of him!" someone loudly yelled from the premium stands.
"You think I'm afraid of the Great Immortal?" Billy demanded.  Now he had everyone's attention.  "Of course I'm afraid of him!  He farts fire and his penis wand can extend a blade ten meters long."  He paused to look directly at the Khan.  "Assuming all the stories are true."
The crowd went crazy.  Or crazier.
Having made his point, the boy welcomed his first opponent, who he dispatched within thirty heartbeats.  Genghis then watched in utter dismay as the child defeated the rest of his carefully recruited quads.  The kid suffered several ugly heat blasts and got thrown a bit, but no more than on any other day.  
It’s his size, Genghis realized.  He was too small and fast to hit.  It was like a baby bitch-slapping a giant.
I have just pissed off one hundred powerful families, Genghis realized, seeing his champions vanquished.  I could have conquered France with them.  More than that, the khan could not openly kill the boy after the kid went out of his way to squash any political aspirations.  The child will undoubtedly sweep the upcoming Olympics, further solidifying his fame and fortune.  That damn brat could challenge me to a duel and win, Genghis Khan thought with distaste.  And he therefore needed to die before he reached adulthood.

CHAPTER 10 

William planned his raid carefully.  Having spent a few months building mountaintop bunkers, his marathoners knew where every enemy unit was within their theater of war.  One hundred marathon companies each led a near-marathon battalion against the Mongol forces they were assigned to destroy.  One hundred American units surprised hundreds of Mongol forces the week before the Olympics started, leaving a huge area virtually defenseless.
William and one hundred ten thousand Americans shocked the world by sacking the capital of Mongolia, slaughtering its residents, and taking everything of value.  The capital received tribute from the entire empire for three centuries, so the warehouse section was actually larger than the rest of the city, which consisted mostly of homes and offices for government workers.  More importantly, William did not destroy it so that the Mongols would again use the warehouses to store tribute.
They found far more treasure than they could personally carry, so they organized every wagon and pack animal they could find and the slowest American battalion drove the wagon train north towards Alaska.  The vast collection of paintings, sculptures, and other priceless artwork from the world’s greatest artists stunned William.  He decided to start a museum in Los Angeles to display them all.
They broke into divisions to wipe out hordes, towns, and villages.  This yielded more wagons, supplies, and valuables.  The hordes, in particular, had more horses than people, which the Americans loaded down with money.  When long-distance sentries found enemy units approaching, the marathon division would bomb them while they slept, then blast them to hell.  This gave the wagon trains time to disappear in the vast empty country.
When finally chased by superior forces, the divisions would join up and surprise the enemy.  It took the Great Khan months to organize a huge force of five hundred thousand quads, only to discover that the Americans could travel farther loaded down than his troops could traveling light, since most quads can only fly a few hundred kilometers at a time.  
William would have been happy to pit his long distance quads against the Khan’s mostly short-distance ones.  An air force can only fly as far as its slowest members.
But the Americans had to reach Canada before it got freezing cold, and they were already too loaded down with valuables to dogfight, so William ordered them home long before his patrols spotted the Khan’s hastily assembled armada.  By first destroying every Mongol unit in the area, the wagon trains could safely move north before the snows began.  The Americans stored their treasure in Alaska, then returned to the wagon trains to gradually empty them, since wagons couldn’t possibly reach the Bering Strait.
Meanwhile, William and his marathon division lured the Khan’s armada away from the wagon trains while avoiding decisive confrontations.
Seemingly overnight, a mystery man changed the psychology of the global war, and the Americans finally stepped forcefully on the world stage.  Mongols certain of victory now had doubts, while those who forecast doom now speculated hopefully.  On the minds of everyone on Earth was the identity of the guy leading the Americans.  What soon became clear is that not even the Americans knew his real name or nationality.
The surprise attack killed a few million Mongols.  After he finished conquering Europe, the Great Khan publicly vowed to led an unstoppable force to exterminate everyone in the Americas.  Some Mongolian editorials, however, wondered if it might not be the Mongols who faced a greater threat of extinction.
With the Mongol leadership gone, Billy was free to duel during and after the Olympics.  But now he fought two at a time, so opponents would still volunteer, and did not limit himself to one hundred duels.  Instead, he dueled literally from dawn to dusk.  
The first assassination attempt came as soon as the Olympics ended and most tourists left.  It left seven of his hotel guards dead.  The second attempt occurred a month later, after another exhausting day in the arena, but he simply out-flew them.  In the third attempt, one hundred quads descended upon his hotel in the middle of the night.  His mother beat them by hiding a few dozen foreign super-quads nearby who pounced on the attackers from behind.  
By that time William returned, Billy was fighting one hundred teams of three in the arena, and still running out of duelers willing to face him.  So they abruptly left Peking to pop up unexpectedly throughout the Empire, William taking smaller venues while Billy exhausted duelers in larger arenas.  
Billy wanted to know just how many airmen the Khan fielded, so they systematically mapped every air unit in the Empire.  They needed to wipe out duelers in every arena anyway, so they recorded images of each air base from above, then noted as much information as they could learn, such as which buildings were munition depots versus barracks.
All three assumed something bad would catch up to them, so they would vacation frequently out of the Empire -- Japan, Taiwan, or Australia, as well as have as much fun within the Empire.  They stayed away from Europe to avoid Uncle John’s bounty hunters and were as happy as terrified people can be.
The trick was never staying anywhere long, not returning to the same places, and disappearing frequently.
But dueling at the summer games on the steppe was too good to pass up -- one hundred thousand nomads partying it up.  The Americans bombed the summer games last year, so this year they held it far away near the Ural Mountain Range.  Fighting teams of three, Billy could go through several hundred Mongols a day all summer long.  It amazed William that anyone would even challenge the boy, honor-bound or not.  Apparently they assumed a lucky shot would win them the one ton of gold that Billy offered.
As was his habit, William looked out of his ger through a slit before leaving.  The Matriarch and her granddaughter Emily, standing guard, chatted as non-threatening as possible so the enemy would not see them as threats.  The girl, a prodigy several years older than Billy, showed so much promise that William gave her some of their best wands.  Although they didn’t look it, these two ladies could each shoot a flame ten meters.
Despite their loud chattering, each focused their attention on several Mongols arguing over the sale of a horse thirty meters away.  One whipped out his wand and angrily fired in the air as soon as William’s head popped out.  William walked around the hut to scan for danger.  Given the previous assassination attempts, William assumed he could not be too careful.  He found the two other English guards alert, but apprehensive.
Just then a few dozen quads raced over the nearest hill, firing a thunderous volley.  A guard's wand shrieked a warning and the five of them flew up while shooting down.  Billy and Elizabeth, both waiting in full armor for his all-clear, quickly followed.  The men arguing over the horse flew at them in a skirmish line while more fliers closed in from other directions.  
Rotating as they flew up, William estimated nearly one hundred attackers this time.  English reinforcements piled out of nearby huts.  A detachment broke off to occupy those English while about forty chased after Billy and his family.
Billy led them low over the tribes friendliest to them.  As he hoped, hundreds of wands shot up the ambushers.  Billy turned to another friendly horde, and now thousands of wands greeted their attackers, who broke off amid heavy casualties.  The family stopped to finish them off before going after the detachment battling their backup unit.  Attacking from above and behind, the seven quads decimated them.
A handful escaped and Billy went after them.  He took them out one by one until he wounded the fastest, who he presumed was their leader.  This one he brought back alive to publicly torture before the tribal leaders.  Like the others they caught alive over the last two years, he confessed that some nameless rich guy paid them to kill the boy.  But, unlike previous confessions, this guy had completely erased his wand of all memories.  William barked an order to test the wands of the others, all of which had also been erased.  Ninety sets of wands, all virgin-clean.
"Continue questioning him while I examine his comrades," William told Billy before flying off.
Within the hour William returned.  "They all look like seasoned professionals.  Every wand they carried radiates power.  Any luck with this guy?"
"No," Billy replied, unusually frustrated, gesturing to several Mongols who seemed to enjoy the task of seeing just how much pain this guy could endure before dying.  "He's a lot tougher than I am.  They now want to finish him using four horses to tear off his limbs."
William shuddered, then shrugged.  "I should have killed you back in Peking."
Billy nodded in agreement.  They concluded long ago that the only way to stop the assassination attempts was to stage Billy's death.  Or, rather, the Boy Wonder's.  They didn’t because it meant suspending his dueling until he grew taller.
Tommy, one of Liz's half-brothers, then landed before them so hard that he tumbled.  He looked ready to cry.  
"The bastards got my sisters."
Neither William nor Billy seemed to understand him.  "What do you mean?
Tommy, still on his knees, pointed east.  Before their next heartbeat, father and son flew to the other side of the huge encampment, with Tommy close behind.  They found two of their English bodyguards tending their wounded.  Several enemy corpses surrounded them.  They landed next to the Matriarch, still bleeding, and Emily, one side of her upper body badly burned.  Trembling, Tommy led them to where the enemy dragged Elizabeth.
There, in a tree-covered gully, William and Billy found Liz's mutilated naked corpse.  Both broke down immediately.  William had not cried since his parents were killed, and Billy hadn't cried since he accidentally torched Arslan, his favorite hunting dog, when he was three.
The ten ambushers pounced on them in their moment of greatest distraction.  Billy reacted first and fastest, blasting two of them with four wands.  William, Tommy, and another English guard took to the air, forcing the attackers to show their backs to either them or Billy.  The crossfire struck two rapists before the Englishman went down in flames.
Billy went for height.  As the ambushers rose to meet him, he shot down at them while dodging their fire.  Three of them surrounded Tommy, who popped laterally to avoid their trap.
William drew swords, cutting off an arm and sticking another in the chest.  But then he faced the most intense sword fight of his life.  
His opponent not only matched his blade length, which was unnerving, but was even better at sword fighting, which William previously thought he excelled at.  His need for revenge gave him enough extra speed and endurance to hold off the superior opponent, until a blade he never saw took off his helmet and sliced his face.  Blood blinded his left eye, so he flew up at a 45 degree angle while blindly firing until he had a moment to wipe the blood away.  And just in time.  He blew off his enemy's right foot off, so he used his superior maneuverability to take him down.  
William dumped the unconscious body near two wounded rapists whose genitals Billy was electrocuting.  It no longer surprised William how Billy could kill so many so fast.  He checked Tommy, who lay alive, but unconscious.
"These guys won't talk either," a very frustrated Billy growled angrily.
"I think I recognize my guy."  William closed his eyes to search his wand for a recording.  A moment later a three dimensional image showed Genghis Khan seated with his royal guard at the Peking stadium, laughing at Billy's jokes.
"The guard standing right next to Genghis!" Billy pointed out.  "That's him."
"Which means these rapists belong to the Kashik -- Genghis Khan's own imperial guards.  Which explains why they are so good.  Well, Billy, we finally have something to spend our vast wealth on."  He addressed the wounded.  "Did you know that American Jack has your roster?  Or that it lists every member of your immediate family?  You targeted our family.  Now we will target yours.  I hope you have lots of descendents."
The Mongols enriched themselves by enslaving natives to extract resources in Africa, so the English made their own fortune doing the same in the New World.  Whereas the Mongols had a lot of competition, the English flew patrols in Iceland to protect the only route to America.  They had a monopoly over an entire continent, until Mongols started exploring from Siberia and the Spanish started sailing there.
American Jack armed, trained, and united millions of American Indians to repulse the Mongols, English, and Spanish.  The English had already been there for two centuries.  Most English and their mixed children allied with Jack's Indians in exchange for outlawing slavery and setting up representative democracies.  Together they kicked the Mongols out of Alaska and the English out of Canada.  
American Jack now had quads to fight the Mongols, the natural resources of an entire continent to fund the war, and a new form of government to contest the old forms of tyranny.  He was the oldest and strongest voice for people fighting Mongolian world conquest.  He started American University specifically to train quads eager to fight Mongol imperialism.
William started taking his body armor off.  "I am going to switch armor with a guard whose his head was blown off.  While I torture the rapists to death, I want you to carry Tommy to the camp and tell everyone that bandits killed your mother and father.  You're now an orphan.
“For the next several weeks, I want you to take our English security and duel at the largest arenas, never staying more than a day before moving on.  Not this full moon, but the dawn after the next one, return to the Peking Arena to exhaust their best champions.  It’s been two years, so Peking should have lots of new duelers.
“Meanwhile, I’m gonna try to kill the families of the Imperial Guards so that they are too preoccupied to try assassinating you again. I will personally lead the Americans against the Khan’s harem.  Not him -- I want you to kill him only after you have defeated him and his generals in battle.  If we kill him now, they will only replace him.  Defeat his military while he leads it, and they just may give up trying to conquer the world. 
“Let everyone know that you have lost your will to live.  Act as crazy as possible in Peking.  Break down emotionally during interviews.  Threaten suicide.  Set up their expectations.  And make sure you change your appearance as much as possible.  Wear face paint or a mask in public.
"When you finally run out of opponents, I will appear as a German duke that I killed a few years ago.  He also had his face slashed.  I'll stay at the same hotel you first chose when you ran away.  I will make sure I am well known before our fight so reporters can find plenty of witnesses.  After I kill you, I will take off my helmet and yell in German as I pretend to transfer ownership of your wands.  Nobody knows your father speaks fluent German.  Remember to carry several bags of blood because everyone will be recording the image of your corpse and wear several layers of fire-resistant clothing. 
"Listen.  You have nearly a thousand aunts and uncles eager to avenge the brutal deaths of their siblings.  We can trust them as much as anyone.  I will send them to city after city spreading the news that anyone can make a lot of money killing direct descendents of the khan.  We will have thousands of organized gangs, petty criminals, and professional bounty hunters working free lance for us."
Billy's eyes lost much of their glaze.  William knew he would go crazy for revenge, so he needed to propose something big to satisfy the boy's thirst.  And to keep him from going off on his own.
“I don’t expect you to think clearly right now, but I need to know that you share my need for revenge.  Are you with me?”
Billy felt himself float around in his body.  He couldn’t believe he lost his mother.  
“Dad, I want us to kill as many as we can, as fast as we can, for as long as we can.  If I cannot know peace, then I may as well embrace war.”
William hugged his son until they both broke into uncontrollable tears.  They may have continued crying until nightfall, but Tommy moaned in pain.
“Billy, one last thing.  Your mother died because we got predictable.  We should not have returned to the summer games.  If we ever get predictable again, they’ll kill us, too.”
“You warned me against coming here.  You said the enemy would expect us to duel here again.  I killed mama.”
“You didn’t kill her, but becoming predictable was a fatal error.  We thought our skill would save us.  We were wrong.  Promise me you will never let the enemy predict your next move ever again.”
“I promise, daddy.”
“Then I will see you in Peking.”

CHAPTER 11

Once Billy carried Tommy away, William cut off their heads because Mongols believed their souls will never find peace if headless.
Then William took his wife’s wands out from under his coat and reviewed their last memories.  He saw his wife descend to their hut when several wands from within stuck out and shot them at point-blank range.
The surprise was total.  Fliers need all four wands to land safely, which makes that moment the best opportunity for surprise.
William watched a few blasts strike Elizabeth hard.  Someone behind her fired back, but did little harm to those inside.   A strong arm -- William assumed the Matriarch’s -- grabbed his wife and carried her away.  The video grew weak, so Liz must have been hurt bad.  Still, he heard what must be Emily shooting at their pursuers.   Somewhere in the middle of a long firefight, his wife recovered enough to blast, but not to fly, which effectively disabled Susan, who had to carry her.  After absorbing several weaker blasts, a concentrated fireball smashed them from the sky.  Even then, Liz tried to shoot the enemy as she fell.
On the ground, they made for easy targets.  He heard a short, but intense, fight rage above them, which must have been Emily futilely fighting them off.  Then the wands switched to Emily as she lay burning on the ground.  Susan cursed someone, and the wands turned in time to see the master swordsman pulled twin blades of steel from her.  The Matriarch fell over and rolled down the hill, which probably saved her life, as the enemy didn’t have time to finish her off.
Liz now used the wands for propulsion, trying to get the Mongols away from her wounded bodyguards.  She dodged and weaved as much as she could before the enemy cut her legs.  She landed hard and, from the sound, probably broke her back.  Still, the love of his life did not cry or beg for mercy.  She extended blades and fought until overwhelmed, yelling “kill them all, my love.  Kill them all for me.”  The wands went dark once they cut into her biceps.
Mercifully, the wands did not record the rape.  William made a mental note to tell Billy how Susan and Emily fought when they could have fled, and his mother’s last wish.
The last thing William wanted to do in life was die well.  Living well is easy; dying well is hard.  He took some comfort that his wife died well.  She died like a Mongol.
Yet her death opened up a chasm so large that he knew he would never fill it.  He married someone so wonderful that she ruined him for other women.  Like Billy, he now had a death wish.
William flew to the nearest Global Bank branch, sent a message to his American raiders, and transferred a ton of gold to American Jack in return for an updated list of the locations of the Imperial Guard and their families.  Until he received it, he visited wand shops in large cities and bought them out, sending them all via courier to Peking.
He found a company of his raiders and ordered them to assemble everyone for a grand raid.  The timing worked out because the one hundred near-marathon battalions recently returned with more bombs.  
Once Jack sent him the new list, he went to Peking and threw enough gold at enough suspected gang members that he was given a meeting with the head of what the Chinese called a Triad.  Triad organizations had started with the original goal of returning control of China to Chinese.  After failing that, it had since degenerated into mostly a criminal money-making operation with an eventual goal of rebellion.  Saying American Jack sent him probably opened more doors than the gold or all the wands he offered.
A few dozen hardened street fighters, each carrying a large backpack full of mediocre wands, escorted a blindfolded William through a maze of back alleys to a small home where an old man sat, cross legged, on the floor.  After ritual tea sipping and the traditional exchange of bland pleasantries, William handed him a memory stick.  Despite looking so frail, the Triad projected a large image of William in a cave filled with Chinese cultural treasures, some millennia old.  William helpfully recorded close-ups of the items in anticipation of this day.
“The American raiders found these Chinese artifacts in a huge warehouse in the Mongol capital.  They recovered thousands of old Chinese paintings, ceramics, pottery, books and scrolls, which rot as we speak.  They have no value in America, and they don’t have the connections to sell them in China.  They don’t even have incentive to move them.  One earthquake could bury it forever.  Who knows what the intense cold in Siberia is doing to them right now?  I assume much of what you see is priceless -- why else would the Mongols hide it?  
“The Mongols took it so that the Chinese can’t appreciate their superior heritage.  They don’t want the Chinese to know that their ancestors enjoyed the most advanced society on Earth for centuries.  The ancient Romans thought they conquered the world, but the Chinese, at their height, occupied three times the land and had four times the military might.  I now offer you everything that you see in the cave.”
William could tell the guy wanted it all.  Whoever returned these items would become a hero to every Chinese.  
“Tell me why I can’t just torture you into revealing its location?” the Triad asked.
“Do you know how big Siberia is?  They took me there in blindfolds, so I’ll need help from the Americans just to find it.  The snow changes the landscape every year, so everything looks the same.  It’s not like a city where you can give someone directions.”
“And how much do you want for it all?”
“The Mongolian government tracks all benefits ever paid to members of the Imperial Guard and their relatives.  That wand has a copy of that list, complete with addresses.  I want you to bomb every property on that list, regardless of where they are, on the night of the next full moon, and cut off the heads of everyone in those homes.”
“But they will avenge their families.  This will start a war between the Triads and the Imperial Guard.”
“So you better kill them all.”
The old man looked like a ghost.  He motioned with both hands, and several other men walked in from behind curtains, where they had been recording the conversation.  They spoke rapidly in Chinese.  
“How will you know we haven’t just bombed thousands of random houses?” one of them asked William.
“The news agencies will figure out the one thing that all these bombings have in common.  You know how the Mongols love reporting facts and figures.  They will count in grisly detail how many family members of the Imperial Guard have been beheaded.  I know how many exist, so you better make sure you are thorough if you want all the things in that cave.”   
The old man had his eyes closed to read the list from the wand.  “There are too many.  The list seems endless.  What you ask is impossible.”
“Then American Jack’s people will tell the news agencies that the Triads are responsible for their heritage rotting in a Siberian cave.  Your own crews will kill you.  Triad organizations will disappear overnight because all of China will see you as pariahs.”
They didn’t even bother to disagree.  
“Even with the wands you brought, we can’t possibly raise enough funds to hire so many quads in time,” the old man argued.  “And we will have to coordinate with many other organizations who are not always friendly with us.”
“I will lend your largest legal enterprise ten tons of gold, without interest, but you have to repay it upon arrival at the cave.  The wealth from the homes will cover your expenses, so you will get thousands of priceless Chinese cultural artifacts for free.”
He could tell they would do it.  They could not afford not to.  Not that they were happy with the size of the task.  One by one, they nodded their heads.

CHAPTER 12

The night before the next full moon, William hid in the trees with a marathon battalion, using his wand to enhance his vision as they all stared at the middle of a lake.  Somewhere, far above them, a scout dressed as a Mongol hid in the clouds.  His five best marathon battalions had gone ahead to exhaust the five largest air units within a thousand kilometers.  William wanted those tough bastards bone tired before he engaged them.
Something plopped in the middle of the lake.  Even in the dark, everyone saw the tiny waves ripple towards shore.  The mood changed instantly because the scout dropped a large rock to silently signal that the high-altitude patrol just passed.  Within minutes, one hundred and five battalions flew at a steep sixty degree angle to rise to their ceiling -- the highest they could go -- to avoid lower-flying sentries.  The Americans had been tracking patrols in this area for a month and William had been delighted to learn that Genghis Khan did not have anyone patrol randomly.  He probably never dreamed anyone would attack him at his roaming tent palace, or the sixty thousand quads with him.
The Great Khan loved open space as much as he detested crowded cities, so he roamed within a few hours flight of his capital.  Ten thousand Imperial Guards protected his person, and fifty thousand quads formed a rapid reaction force that he could lead into battle on a moment’s notice to protect the capital and the vast wealth stored there in warehouses.  
In any event, he needed to live in northern Mongolia in order to deter the Americans from raiding too far south.  His people rightfully blamed him for the loss of so much life, so he needed to be seen organizing the hunt for the Americans in person.
The Khan had three pairs of patrols circling his portable palace: low altitude, mid-altitude, and high altitude.  The higher they patrolled, the larger the circle because they could see farther.
Which is why William waited for one high-altitude squad to pass overhead in the black sky, while his troops hid in a vast forest, then raced into the gap before the second squad appeared.  
Once near the Khan’s camp, they dived, with William and several of their best quads sprinting towards the other patrols from behind.  William sliced one squad up without giving them time to sound an alarm.  A minute later, however, a low-altitude patrol must have noticed the huge shadow descending upon them for a shrieking noise warned the back-up battalion on the ground.
Fortunately for the Americans, William targeted this battalion twice over.  First, his troops dropped bombs on them from high altitude, so they had only a hundred heartbeats to react to the alarm before the explosions decimated their formation.  Then more Americans, flying straight down at maximum speed, bombed the survivors before overwhelming those survivors with fireballs at close range.
Rocked out of a sound sleep, the rest of the Mongols could not possibly react fast enough.  Sure, a few thousand of the quickest got off the ground, but they could not even slow over one hundred thousand Americans.  The raiders dropped their firebombs on the felt huts when they flew low enough to be confident of hitting their targets, then dropped the shrapnel bombs upon the largest group of survivors within range.  A few hundred meters above ground, a few hundred thousand fireballs torched everything moving, including the dry summer grass.
The first alarm woke Genghis Khan, but the Dayan, the commander of the company of Imperial Guards that never left his side, was already waving at him to hurry.  The expression on his face told him that this was not an exercise.  He clearly had no idea what was going on and that thought scared the hell out of Genghis Khan, who roughly grabbed his sleeping wife, Empress Borte.  His one hundred best Imperial Guards rushed the Khan into his room of last resort -- a steel box large enough to accommodate just over one hundred people.  Although barely portable when empty, it was far too heavy to lift with people inside.  Although great protection from bombs dropped from high altitude, it became a death trap without defenders outside.
Genghis rushed to open one of the wand slits while his personal guard starting firing out other narrow openings in the steel.  What he saw stunned him.  A vast enemy force overwhelmed his own large air unit.  Easily, it seemed.  He knew his troops would not abandon him -- he’d kill their children if they did -- so they died in place, unarmored and half asleep.
The Great Khan then identified the guy who must be in charge, for he directed the slaughter of his harem.  Americans rounded up his few hundred women and children and the leader moved them within view before personally beheading them.  The cruel bastard even cheerfully waved towards the box, although the grim chore soon exhausted him.  Still, he must be really pissed because he refused to let anyone else help.  The Khan had no idea that the leader pictured his beloved wife every time he swung his sword in vengeance.
Genghis had not felt such helpless rage since his tribe abandoned him and his family at ten years old when enemies poisoned his father, the chief.  His descendents tried to pull him away from the tiny window, but he would not be moved.  He stared, stunned, as this bastard killed his entire harem, chopping off their heads because Mongols believed this split up the soul for eternity.
Although his palace moved frequently to give their farm animals fresh grazing, the permanent nature of his camp made it practical for the families of his troops to stay with them, forming a small city.  The capital was only a few hours flight away, so they could buy whatever they needed, whenever they needed it.  Since the Khan encouraged procreation with women quads, these sixty thousand troops had a few hundred thousand women and several hundred thousand children -- nearly a million people lived with the Khan.  A few hundred thousand armed female and teenage quads could have beaten back the Americans.  Unfortunately, few of the women were Mongolian.  Almost all were either slaves or coerced foreigners that the Mongols used for breeding, and therefore not trusted with wands.  Only the oldest of the children had wands to fight back, but not enough to matter.
His palace did have several thousand Mongols, but they were clerks and administrators who helped him govern.  But they were not quads because Genghis needed quads on the battlefield.
The enormity of the loss burned the Khan up inside.  His Imperial Guards descended from either him or his long-dead brothers, and so could not be replaced.
The resistance didn’t last long enough to justify calling it a battle.  The firebombs turned thousands of felt huts into funeral pyres.  As the massacre wound down, the Americans searched the huts and tents for valuables, before burning everything they could not take.  They must be hungry because some of them set up thousands of his goats, horses, and oxen on spits for cooking.  It slowly dawned on him that the Americans planned to stay long enough to make jerked meat.  That would solve their food problem, freeing them to raid without having to scour the land for something to eat.
His personal guard, the only survivors, continued shooting at the closest enemies, so the Americans started dumping beheaded bodies on his box to block the wand slits.  
Genghis watched the enemy commander pick up a bomb pack and fly over him.  “Everyone down!” he warned his bodyguards.  A moment later a big bomb blew a hole in the middle of his steel roof, followed by anti-personnel munitions which shredded dozens of his guards.  Americans then lined the rim of the hole to blast blindly inside with impunity while others dumped the heads of his harem into the box.  Genghis could tell when the enemy leader blasted because his fireballs filled up the narrow box until they smashed into his guards.  Even the best quads are just sitting ducks when they have nowhere to move.  The closest Guards soon became ambulatory torches that lit up the dark night.  Their comrades didn’t even have water to put out their burning friends.
“Genghis, are you okay?” shouted the enemy commander in perfect Mongolian.
“I will kill you!” the Khan shouted back angrily.
“You’ve been trying to kill me for years, so that doesn’t scare me.  I just wanted to make sure you survived so that I could kill you after I wipe out your air forces and exterminate your descendents.  But you could stop all that by just renouncing imperialism.”
“I will kill everyone you love!”
“You already have.  Why do you think I am doing this?  Oh, those bombs you’ve been dragging around will be dropped on your capital today, and your backup Millennial Wands are now my backup Millennial Wands.  My primary wands I took from the Third Millennial.  If you get hungry, then eat shit and die.” 
William left so his troops could start dropping bodies to block the hole.  This trapped in the smoke from the burning bodies inside.  Nearly a million corpses made a mountain of flesh and took them all day to complete.  Then they added almost a million heads.  It looked like a monster the size of a mountain.  Finally, they hovered above to piss and shit to tell the world what the Americans thought of the Mongol Empire.  Pundits would soon call it a shitty declaration of war.
Inside, Genghis pushed away his traumatized wife to help the wounded.  Few injuries were fatal, unless they became infected, which looked likely since they had little water to disinfect the wounds.  The few unwounded tried to put out the burning clothes or they would all die of smoke inhalation.  Genghis could not help but look at the faces of his women and children as he crossed back and forth, trying to be as useful as possible.  He could not cry in front of his troops, although he permitted them to grieve for the loss of their families.
The smoke irritated his eyes and gave him a hacking cough that he would have for the rest of his life.  The delicious smell of roasted meat soon reminded them that they didn’t have any food.  The next few days, as their hunger increased, the cooking outside would grow unbearable.  As more bodies buried them, they soon detected the stench of urine and feces which replaced their appetites with nausea.  Some of them would never be able to eat horse or oxen ever again.
“We may be in this shit-hole for days,” Genghis told his troops in a stunned voice.
The one thing that William made sure the Americans did not destroy were the wagons, for they carried literally tons of food, supplies, and bombs.  His slowest Americans loaded them up and drove them north, along with the million or so surviving horses, oxen, and goats so they had fresh meat in the months ahead.  As they consumed the supplies, they would load down the wagons with stolen loot.
After breakfast, they took the bombs to the capital.  Sentries warned the local air base and the militia, who chased after the lone American battalion who, upon seeing superior numbers, wisely fled.  The other one hundred thousand Americans soon dived out of cloud cover to surprise the Mongols from behind.  
They dropped their bombs on well-constructed buildings, sparing only the warehouse district which housed the tribute sent by all the kingdoms the Mongols conquered.  It surprised William that Genghis rebuilt the entire city after he burned it down a few years before.  He must have assumed the Americans would never get the chance to sack it again.
Thousands of veteran and civilian quads rose up, only for the Americans to blast them with superior height, numbers, and power.  Fireballs quickly burned the city, forcing the residents and a few hundred thousand government employees to flee.  The Americans cut them down, like conquering Mongols did to thousands of cities, then carefully hunted down those wounded or hiding.  Now they had plenty of daylight to empty the warehouses of the most valuable portable goods.
One of his marathon battalions brought the nearest large Mongol air unit to them that evening.  They dropped on it from above and annihilated it with overwhelming numbers.  Late that night the second one arrived and they wiped it out, too.  The other three they killed over the next few days.  
Now, with the region virtually defenseless, William systematically sacked the largest cities and hordes.  Raging fires killed more enemies than wands.  Each time, thousands of quads rose up to be slaughtered by well-organized Americans flying in formation.  The real challenge was catching all the fleeing two-wanders.  Each city provided another wagon train of food, treasure, and supplies.  William enjoyed so much success for so long that the Mongols had to largely abandon their homeland, millions fleeing south or west, just as they displaced tens of millions of foreigners.
The main difference between now and a few years ago is that the Khan did not field a large enough force to contest them before, while now the Americans destroyed the only forced that could contest them.  So, really, the main difference is that, this time, the Mongols did not have Genghis Khan to organize a defense.
After three days in the box, Genghis and his starving, dehydrated troops climbed through a million decapitated bodies to freedom.  William had been kind enough to leave his personal physician, who told the Khan when the Americans left, dropped water sacks to them, and helped unbury them.  Genghis would never get over the stench of feces.  For years, just a whiff of shit would make him convulse.  
It would be weeks before they were strong enough to fly farther than a nearby hiding place, and it infuriated the Khan that his troops didn’t come to his aid.  Once he had the strength, he visited his capital and the quarter-million rotting corpses just made him sick again.  And not just physically.
It took him another month flying south while avoiding American patrols, before he found a Mongol force coming north.  That’s when he learned that the Triads ambushed his Imperial Guards, which explained the delay.  Local troops were too busy fighting Triad gangs to leave their cities unprotected to fly thousands of clicks north to drive off a huge number of American marathoners.
It took the Khan a few more months before he had enough quads to beat the Americans but, by then, the raiders left to beat the coming winter.
 
CHAPTER 13

For several weeks, Billy dueled no more than one day in a city before flying to another.  The night before he dominated Peking again, the entire city shook with hundreds of explosions.  Millions of people filled the streets to find out what happened.
Except Billy.  He knew what happened, and the pain from his mother’s death finally eased.  What he couldn’t imagine is how his father pulled it off.  That man amazed him once again.  That old dog kept showing him new tricks.  Still, he argued with management in the hotel lobby to leave a memorable alibi. 
That night, kids played soccer with the heads of dead Mongols.  The next evening, after he exhausted the duelers for the day, Billy couldn’t get enough.  The more he read, the better he felt.  Soon they heard that thousands of homes had been bombed, some of them thousands of kilometers apart, which left Billy as slack-jawed as everyone else.  Every night Billy had tossed and turned imagining revenge fantasies, while his dad pulled off something bigger than he ever dreamed of.  Billy never lost his awe of his father.
Then came a video that showed Genghis Khan screaming threats from a metal box while Americans dumped headless corpses on top.  Nearly a million of them.  Then the heads, and finally it showed a huge number of Americans literally shitting and pissing on the Great Khan.
They buried the Great Immortal under a mountain of crap!
Like millions across the world, Billy could not stop laughing.  Every night, he had to take his news wands to his room so he wouldn’t be seen in public laughing at Mongols getting what they had been dishing out for three centuries.  The oppressive weight of his mother’s death finally lifted, although he would forever miss her.  All over the planet, millions of victims of Mongolian cruelty felt the same.  It was not quite a cure for depression, but it worked better than anything else for those grieving for loved ones killed by Mongols.
Billy swooned.  The symbolism alone justified the huge risk his father took.  This was so much better than anything he came up with. 
The sheer scale of the attack stunned the Empire.  No Mongol would ever feel safe again.  Many reports said a deeply traumatized Khan went stark raving mad for months, pulling out his beard and blowing craters in the grass. 
The Khan ordered massive retaliation against the Triads, but found it hard to identify them, much less punish them.  To pre-empt that punishment, the Triads attacked more Guard units as if their lives depended on it.
Before William could return the artifacts, the Triad leaders that William met were killed -- some after extensive torture.  Which also meant he was not getting his gold back.  Not that he minded because that gold was well spent.
Still, he wanted to keep his side of the bargain, so he had his ten marathon battalions transport the cultural treasures to Taiwan, in return for the government sending a battalion to the Triad in charge of fighting the Imperial Guards.  William found one of American Jack’s trainers, helping to upgrade their air force, and hired him to recruit contract killers.  William gave him access to several tons at Global Bank in Peking for the guy to use to pay the assassins according to how many royal Mongols they killed.
The Han Dynasty built a dedicated museum to showcase the heritage that the Mongols stole from the Chinese people, which multiplied tourism to the island and renewed Chinese antipathy towards their overlords.
Best of all, with this crisis distracting the leadership, Billy killed thousands more duelers before his father returned to stage the Wonder Boy’s death in the Peking Arena.  Billy won a fortune daily as he defeated a few hundred teams of three, day after day, for five months.  He woke up every day, eager to avenge his mother, and slept like a baby, knowing he would get to repeat this tomorrow.
So it was almost a shame when he finally saw his father eating at Billy’s favorite restaurant.  They shared a knowing look and Billy nodded his head, to indicate he would be ready to die the next day.  After almost half a year of daily success, William was able to bet thousands of tons of gold against the Boy Wonder.
The duel itself seemed anti-climatic.  The German got a lucky swipe that wounded the Boy Wonder, who left a trail of blood as he stumbled away.  Billy wore several layers of fire-resistant clothing so his father could torch his body.  Afterward, William substituted a Mongolian boy of Billy’s size so people could bid farewell to the legendary Boy Wonder.
No one tried to assassinate Billy since.  
Under new identities, they dueled across the Empire with a thirst that could never be quenched.  His father beat millennials that he would never have even challenged just a few years ago, as if he wanted to end his loneliness.  
The next spring, William heard that the Khan would personally lead two divisions of his longest-flying quads against the American marathon division when they crossed the Bering Strait.  To pre-empt this ambush, William and Billy infiltrated the Mongols and wounded several hundred from their best battalion in their sleep.  While William left to guide the Americans away, Billy lured most of them away on an exhausting flight, flashing his four wands when he saw Genghis Khan himself leading the chase, and yelling at the Khan that he still smelled like shit.  Billy could practically see the rage on the Immortal’s face as he toyed with the most feared man alive.  In an irony, Genghis Khan himself was the first to see the boy who would eclipse him.
William, meanwhile, took the Americans out to sea, since he knew where the enemy camp was, then hit them from behind, where they didn’t have sentries up.  They slaughtered several hundred wounded and several hundred attending the wounded.  Two battalions changed uniforms with the dead Mongols, while the rest loaded up on Mongol bombs, then rested in hiding.
As expected, Genghis kept his best quads to chase Billy once his other troops became too exhausted to continue.  As the last of those troops landed back at base, the two American battalions caught them in a lethal crossfire while the other eight dived straight down to bomb the hell out of them.  In wiping out the surprised Mongols, the Americans eliminated the only counter-force capable of keeping up with them.  
While the best American battalion could fly 1200 kilometers, the worst was lucky to manage 800 when weighted down.  These Mongols would have run them down and their defeat would have devastated recruitment by American University.
Armed with Millennial Wands, Genghis could out-fly his men, but had to stop when they had to stop.  That night, Billy woke them with a primal scream that traumatized even the Great Khan.  Genghis flew to the fight, but never found his adversary.  He returned to find his camp in flames, a few dozen of his troops burning or bleeding, and a video wand showing the Baron beheading his family the year before.  Genghis knew he should not watch, but he watched anyways until the tears dried up.
In the morning, back at their base, Genghis found the rest of his specialty troops slaughtered, their wands arming the next graduating class at American University.
While William and Billy returned to dueling, their marathoners raided Greater Mongolia.
That fall, a year after Billy faked his death, Genghis Khan sent a blocking force so the Americans could not return home across the Bering Strait, which trapped the one hundred thousand near-marathoners who started raiding that summer.  With half a million Mongols hunting them in eastern Siberia, William led the Americans west, where they sacked cities and overwhelmed enemy air bases.  The millions of Mongols who returned to the steppe had to flee again, leaving their heavy possessions for the Americans to burn.  
Billy got his first taste of large-scale formation flying and was hooked.  Leading men in battle with his father was better than fishing.  As much as he loved dueling, battles were so much better.  William called him Shorty to conceal his identify and never let anyone know they were father and son.
The Americans had left the wealth they stole in Siberia near the Bering Strait, in order to fly faster and farther.  But, in raiding across Greater Mongolia, they again accumulated more valuables than they could carry, so they buried it all in the Ural Mountains, before spending the winter raiding in the Stans.  The people of the Stans were not Mongolian, but lived a similar nomadic life and were the Empire’s closest allies.  Since so many Mongols grew fat and lazy after three centuries of luxury, the Empire relied on these nomads to fight their wars.
Forewarned, a massive force of five hundred thousand active-duty, police, militia, veteran, and civilian quads confronted them.  Instead of engaging, Billy -- taunting them with his four burning wands -- and the ten marathon battalions lured the fifty thousand most eager enemies away on an exhausting all-day flight.  William flew his one hundred thousand near-marathoners away from the main enemy force to a rendezvous point.  That night, while the marathoners rested, William and Billy led their main force against the fifty thousand sleeping enemies, wiping them out.
William took them southwest, away from the main enemy force, and destroyed everyone and everything in his way.  As the enemy learned that the Americans were sacking cities, thousands of quads left the main force to defend their homes.
An air unit can only travel as fast as its slowest members, which is why William only accepted those who could reliably fly eight hundred kilometers, day after day.  Many in the enemy force could only manage a few hundred kilometers a day.  As William hoped, the fastest left the slowest to rescue their families.  William kept just out of range to bleed them of their best quads.
While the near-marathoners sacked cities, burned crops, and destroyed infrastructure, Billy and the marathoners ambushed the river of quads flying home, the slowest that the main force left behind, and units seeking supplies.  When they found munition depots, they also bombed the enemy camp.  Billy would lure their rapid-reaction units away, only to turn on his pursuers once he had exhausted them enough.  Without a logistical network, the enemy had to feed themselves in the field, but discovered the Americans left them very little.  The commander had to send more and more teams farther away to bring back supplies, only for the marathoners to ambush them.  The Americans starved the increasingly exhausted enemy.
Having come across a bomb factory, William loaded everyone up and rested while the enemy flew within range.  That night the Americans destroyed a force still twice their size.  
For the next month, they worked unopposed until Genghis showed up with two hundred thousand quads.  By then, they had more plunder than they could carry, so William decided to leave rather than fight professional fliers.
Just in time for dinner, Billy shrieked the pass code to land without getting blasted.  After reporting to his father, William called a leadership meeting and laid out their situation.
“Since the cold weather broke, we have been flying straight to Scandinavia every day.  What worries me is that Genghis Khan is shadowing us instead of stopping us.  So I sent Shorty ahead, who found a large blocking force in St. Petersburg waiting to ambush us.  They have too many sentries for us to sneak past them.
“As all of you know, I don’t like fair fights.  I think it’s dumb to attack someone prepared to fight back.  Even worse is letting oneself get attacked.  The Khan has had all winter to plan our destruction.  To survive, we must do something unexpected.  He plans on trapping us between two air forces on our way to Scandinavia, so we must go in the opposite direction. 
“I say we leave after dinner.  I know a secluded place in Belarus where we can leave our wealth, our wounded, and our slowest ten battalions.  From there we fly as far as we can, straight south, for three days to throw them off.  I have mapped every Mongol base in Europe, so we split up and start systematically hitting them to draw the Khan’s two forces south.  We can fly loaded down farther than they can traveling light, so let’s make them chase us across southern Europe to give the division we left behind time to move our wealth to Riga, and then to safety in Stockholm in Scandinavia.”
For an exciting month they pounded the enemy in Europe, especially munition and supply depots, finally stopping for a week to decimate the Mongols attacking France.  To lighten their load, William gave his half of the plunder to the Free Europe Air Force, who promptly hired another division and paid back payroll.  
When the Khan got close, William sent his troops to England.  From northern England they flew to Scandinavia, joined their brothers in Stockholm, then crossed Russia to the Urals for their loot.  With Russia now virtually defenseless, they took as many Mongol lives and valuables as possible.
The Khan took every quad with him while chasing the Americans across Europe.  When the raiders escaped to England, he found himself with a huge force near the front line.  He figured he could crush France in under a month -- until he realized the Americans killed a few hundred thousand of his quads in France and several hundred thousand of his two-wanders, plus munitions, supplies, and infrastructure needed to pour in resources.  Quads can take territory, but he needed two-wanders to keep it, and he didn’t have nearly enough.
In any case, he got word that the Americans were now destroying every air unit in northern Russia and giving Russian rebels cash, wands, and dangerous ideas.  Furious, Genghis rushed north, only for the Americans to flee to Scandinavia once he got within range.  The Americans returned home via Iceland, Greenland, and Canada, while Genghis Khan seethed with impotence.
And what pissed him off the most is that he didn’t even know the name of his new enemy, the one with the scream and the boot wands that shot flame.
Afterwards, father and son vacationed frequently to enjoy what little time they would have together.  They especially enjoyed fishing -- flying far from the coast to spear something big near the surface.  They both knew their good times would end, and that knowledge intensified their enjoyment.  Without Elizabeth, they couldn’t be happy, but they made the best of a sad situation.
In a penthouse suite in Rome overlooking the ocean sunset, William told Billy, “I want to do this with you for the rest of my life.”
And he did.

CHAPTER 14

Tommy waited until Billy finished his final kill of the day at the Budapest Arena.  Billy, perceptive as always, became alarmed upon seeing the expression on his face and stopped applying a wand to his nasty shoulder wound.
"They ambushed your father coming out of the bank.  Your cousin Lloyd gave him up for ten lousy kilos.  Before dying under torture, Lloyd said the assassins were a special unit controlled by the English crown.  He apparently has no idea who you are or he would have sold you out for a thousand times as much to the Mongols.  Doctors and healers are doing what they can, but his wounds are severe."
"The queen herself ordered this?" the twelve-year old needed to know.
"They tricked Prince Richard into returning to England, then jailed him in his own castle.  Only the queen could authorize that."
"Why kill my father?" Billy demanded.
"To flush you out in the open.”
They arrived a few hours later at his hospital.  Billy found his father slipping in and out of consciousness.
Billy could not put his grief into words.  Billy could tell that his father knew he would die soon.  They had talked about this for two years, unsure who would be watching who die, but Billy still didn't feel prepared.
"You are the last of my line," William whispered.  "Promise me that you will have children as soon as possible, so that the Richthofens are not exterminated.  Given the life you chose, you must assume you will die young.”
“I promise.”
“You are the baron now.  Bury me in our estate in Prussia alongside Elizabeth.  Our bank -- your bank-- owns our ancestral estate."  He coughed as a broken rib scratched a lung.  "I died the day I lost your mother.  It has been so hard to live without her.  Only your company kept me going.  
“I want you to be different.  Don’t ever fall in love.  Love is not just a choice, but a decision.  At some level, you decide who you fall in love with.  So close your heart because many people near to you will die before you, and probably because of you.  Find someone worthy as your primary mate, but assume you will lose her as I lost my wife.
“You chose your life, so embrace it completely.  You are among the few who live life on their own terms.  Most people are cattle who never rise above their petty appetites and circumstances, while you are the solution to the greatest problem humanity has ever faced: never-ending world war.  To conquer China, India, Persia, and Europe, the Mongols deliberately killed several million each time to cow the rest into submission.  They burned crops, slew herds, and flattened cities.  You must do the same, except on a larger scale because the Mongols have grown so numerous.  You may have to kill ten or twenty million to end this war, but you will save a million innocents every year thereafter.  One hundred million people will never know peace unless you win.”
"Yes, father," Billy said between tears.
"You are the best damn son I could ever have asked for.  I can't imagine a better life than the one you and your mother gave me."  
He paused to sip some water.  
"You must help your grandfather become king.  Your mother would have wanted that."
"I promise, father."
“I sent ten thousand sets of super wands to our bank branch in Dublin.  Our next American marathon division should arrive soon.  Use them wisely.  If you lose too many of them to battle or disease, then no one else will ever follow you.”
“I understand.”
“Do the hard things that no one else can do.  People will either call you a hero or a murderer, but you’re just a soldier, and a soldier’s job is to kill the few to save the many.  It’s what you are good at.  Make no excuses, but don’t pretend you are something you are not.  Don’t let anyone make you weak.  Especially a woman.  Stay strong and finish the job of returning Mongols to their historical irrelevance.
"Take ownership of my Millennial Wands.  My parents would have been so proud that I developed a twenty-five meter wingspan.  I could probably beat Genghis Khan himself.  When I had him trapped in that steal box of his, I almost did.”
“Why didn’t you, dad?”
“Something held me back.  A voice inside me said you should be the one who kills Genghis Khan.  I think it is your destiny.  But wait until you are at the peak of your powers, then come to my grave and tell me you have finished that ruthless monster.  Remember: every Mongol you kill saves a dozen innocents.  Every Mongol is complicit in a crime against humanity, so take them down as you would a rabid dog.  Do to them what they have done to half the world, and wish to do to the other half.”
"I love you, dad."
"I love you, son.  You have made me the happiest father in the world.”
Exhausted, William sunk into unconsciousness, then stopped breathing.  Billy felt his soul leave the room.
Billy asked Tommy to bury his father in their ancestral home in Prussia, next to his half-sister.
“You’re not coming with me?” Tommy asked, surprised.  “What will you do?”
“I’m going to kill the bitch and bastard who murdered my father.”

CHAPTER 15

Billy dropped straight down without being seen.  He listened to them argue over money while he looked for guards. 
He did not expect to like them, but was still surprised by just how much their abrasive personalities disgusted him.  Genghis may not care if he kills millions, but even enemies regarded him as a brave, charismatic visionary -- not arrogant pigs like these two.  Whatever his faults, Genghis Khan inspired intense loyalty among those who knew him best.  Whereas Billy couldn't decide which relative he disliked more.
"Grandma," he said as he extended his blades twenty meters away.  They both turned to receive steel in their bellies.  "My mother, Lady Elizabeth and my father, Baron von Richthofen, send their regards."
John thrashed about in tears, but strangely did not draw a wand.  Queen Margaret coughed up blood.
Hey, I got a lung, Billy noted.
"Elite English airmen ambushed my father in the street.  The best man I have ever known, cut down in his prime.  I hope you both go to hell."
"It was him," the queen insisted, pointing at her son, as if this would save her.
"Yet you obviously knew about it, and did nothing to stop it."
"It took them long enough," John sneered.  "The idiots missed him last month in Frankfurt by just an hour."
Billy seethed.  "Thank you for making me feel better."
"Oh, your turn will come soon, boy.  Aidian is now twice as powerful as when your mother surprised him."
"You mean when a girl humiliated your son in front of his warriors?  You mess with the wrong boy.  I am going to exterminate your family," he said, turning steel into flame to roast them like pigs.
Their screams brought plenty of guards, so Billy flew away, easily out-racing his pursuers.
 He landed in Windsor Castle by the Thames River so suddenly that he scared the hell out of the guards when he flashed his mega-flames.  But, instead of drawing wands, they stood at attention, and Billy thanked his foresight in stealing the suit of a commander instead of a grunt.
"Who’s in charge here?" Billy demanded while trying to deepen his voice.
One soldier smacked another, who ran into the castle and came back out with an smug prig.  John must have put him in charge, but left Richard’s men here, Billy realized.
"Take me to Prince Richard," the boy barked.
"And who the hell are you?" the captain demanded.
Billy used his wand to throw him higher into the air than anyone watching could possibly believe.  The fool bounced against the ground like a dead cat.  
"Queen Margaret and Prince John are dead.  Prince Richard is king.  Long live the king!”  Surprising Billy, the news electrified the men, who cheered enthusiastically.  “Take me to him, then assemble for his inspection," he ordered the guy who smacked the soldier who retrieved the commander.
Soldiers poured out, scared silly.  Billy, used to powerful quads, could not see a threat among them, so he followed the guard to the dungeon, leaving the rest of them confused.  When they finally reached his grandfather, Billy ordered the guard out.
The prince, for his part, looked tired and hungry in his cell, but not scared.  He got off his thin cot and put his hands on his hips.
"So today's the day?  John swore he would do this himself.  Is he too busy pulling strings?"
Billy didn't know what the hell he was talking about.  "Where is George?"
Richard blinked.  "My brother or his son?"
"A son?  He's not gay?"
"The son, no.  But my brother is, definitely.  But, apparently, not always."
"Where is he?" Billy demanded again.
Which confused Richard.  "Now how the hell would I know?  I'm in my own damn dungeon, while George hasn't set foot in England in thirteen years."
"So where is he?"
"In France, you idiot!  Where else would he go after marrying the old king's niece?  Now stop making me wait!"
Billy usually saw things so clearly.  "Oh, right," he said, blasting the lock.  The door rocketed back and almost smashed into Richard, who at least had the wits to jump back.
"You're not here to kill me?" Richard asked, hope infecting his voice.
"No.  I'm here to make you king.  Sorry I waited so long.  I’ve been busy."
Richard was not sure how seriously to take the boy.  "Who the hell are you?"
"Oh, sorry," Billy answered, taking off his helmet.
The prince stared at him.  "I'm gonna need more than that.  You got a name?"
"I've a few of them, grandpa.  Your daughter Elizabeth named me Billy."
"You're alive!" Richard yelled and embraced the boy.  "Someone at the bank said your father hired ten thousand Americans to depose the queen, so he sent a special unit after you and your father.  I was so sorry to hear about what happened to your mother.”
"My father is dead, too.  John's men ambushed him in the street."
Richard pulled back to look at him.  "Those bastards."
Billy hit his forehead with his palm.  “So that’s why they killed him!  But my father never intended to use the Americans in England.  He was sending them to the Pyrenees.”
“John’s paranoia killed your father.”
"Well, I killed Queen Margaret and Prince John.  Now I'm going to Edinburgh to slay the rest of them."
"That bitch is finally dead?"  Richard said of his own mother.  "But his family will kill you!”
Billy showed him the layers of scars on his arms while igniting his forty meter wingspan.  “I’ve killed a few hundred thousand Mongols in the arena with my Millennial Wands.  I think I can handle Aidian.   Oh, I took these super-wands from a world champion,” he added, reaching into his inside coat pocket.  “Use them to claim the thrown.  And grandpa,” Billy said with a menacing tone that contrasted sharply with his innocent face, “as king, I expect you to make my mother proud.”
Richard looked slack-jawed at the twelve year old.  He could not believe what his eyes plainly told him.  While he recovered his wits, Billy led him upstairs.  In the courtyard, the men seemed more concerned about staying in formation than in preventing Richard's escape.  Billy blasted the sky to deafen them.  Terrified, they sprung to attention as one.
"The queen and Prince John are dead.  Richard is now your new king.  Kneel and swear your oath of allegiance to him."
Richard’s men did so eagerly.
"Send help when you can," Billy told his grandfather, flying off before waiting for an answer.

CHAPTER 16

Billy had never been to the Matriarch’s home, so it took him a while to find it.  Dogs barked furiously as soon as he landed in the front yard.  A tall girl emerged from the granger armed with two wands, clearly willing to use force to defend her home.
“Emily?” he asked, a smile lighting up his face.
“Billy!”  
The way he ran to her with so much joy almost made her forget her badly burned face.  He lifted her in his arms and twirled her around, laughing like he had forgotten how.
“It’s so damn good to see you,” he said, nose to nose, after finally putting her down.
“Why are you here, Billy?”
He left his hands on her waist and she prayed he didn’t remove them.
“Prince John had my father murdered, so I killed him and the queen, then freed Richard so he could become king, like my mother always wanted.  Now I’m going to kill John’s family at Edinburgh since they will oppose his succession.”
Emily stared blankly at him, not believing what he said, but not doubting that it was true.
“Can I come with you?” she asked as if he was off to the store.
His face lit up.  “You’d risk your life for me?  Really?”
“Of course.  What have I to lose?”
Billy didn’t like how she said that.  
“What do you mean?  A young, beautiful, powerful quad like you has everything to look forward to.”
Emily smiled down at him, since she was taller.  “Guys don’t court stronger quads.  Much less ones whose faces have been burned off.”
“I find that hard to believe.”  
“Before the injury, I had dozens of admirers, but none since then, so I’ve been dueling constantly in Europe to vent my anger and strengthen my wand power.”
“But you’re beautiful!” the boy gushed.
Emily almost pitied him.  Scars make men look better and women look worse.  She leaned forward and turned so he could not miss her burned face.
“But that’s nothing!” he insisted.  “It didn’t even ruin your eye, nose, or mouth, and your other cheek is good as new.  Ha!  You call that a scar?  Behold!”
Billy took off his shirt and turned around so Emily could see literally thousands of scars from cuts, burns, and impacts.  It was even worse since the last time she saw him, two years ago.
“That must hurt every day,” she remarked.  “I bet you feel winter coming.”
“You can see where my armor protects me least.  To cope with the injuries, I drink herbal pain reliever and bathe myself in wand energy.”
"You’re addicted to wands now."
Billy could not make eye contact.  The hands tracing his scars felt too good.  
"Since I was six.  I get the shakes if I go too long.  Transferring ownership keeps the demons away, but nothing can match the high I get sucking a wand dry.  Yet the more wands I suck, the greater my addiction.  I swear I only suck wands to heal serious wounds, but I get seriously wounded weekly."
"Your body cannot take this punishment forever," she pointed out.
"Yeah."  He already reached that conclusion.  "So many great wands transfer their power to me that I simply have too much energy to keep still.  I need to duel or fly far just to burn off that excess energy.  It's like I over-heat.  Here's my predicament," eager to show some self-awareness.  "I must duel to feed my addiction, which generates too much energy, that I can only burn off by dueling constantly, which reinforces my addiction."
“You’re killing yourself.”
“I’m exhausting my body, so I try to do as much as I can, as fast as I can, while I can.  It's why I doubt I will ever marry.  I’d like to have kids, but marriage would only lead to a crying widow."
“I’d be happy to not die a virgin.”
That blew Billy away.  “That’s ironic because my father’s dying words were for me to procreate as soon as possible in case I die young.”
“It would be a shame if we died virgins,” she threw out there.
“Wouldn’t it, though?  Two powerful prodigies like ourselves should beget an even more powerful quad before we go.  I will have failed my parents if I let our line go extinct.”
Emily couldn’t believe their conversation.  “Then you better reproduce as soon as possible, or else fear of failing your parents will hinder your fighting.”
“Exactly!”
Now, neither knew what to say, so they started laughing.
“I guess it’s premature to talk of children when no man has even kissed me.”
“Me neither!” Billy said with a smile.  “We should get that off the table right away.”
Emily’s smile kept growing.  She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation.  “Absolutely.”
“I’m gonna kiss you just as soon as I stop smiling,” Billy promised.
“Nervous?”
“Yes, damn it!”
They laughed comfortably together.
The boy stepped up and wrapped his arms around her.  They kept looking into each other’s eyes so much that Emily wondered if he would ever kiss her.  Finally, his face closed the distance and their lips met.  Lightly they brushed, at first, since neither had ever done this before.  Then she pressed back, her urgency releasing her.  They locked lips and he felt her hands explore his body.  When she slipped her tongue in his mouth, he accidentally shot up in the air.  Billy took a long moment to absorb the new exciting emotions.
“I don’t want my kids to grow up poor.  How about I give you a ton of gold for each child, just in case I am not around to support them?”
Emily shivered.  “Your father already rewarded Susan and I so generously that we have been supporting a few hundred of our poorest relatives.”
“Nevertheless, I’ll instruct Uncle Richard to put a ton in your bank account to cover our first child.”
Emily didn’t know what to say, so she embraced him so hard she nearly crushed him.
The Matriarch prepared tea in her home when one of her many grandchildren came in.  
"A shirtless boy is kissing Emily outside, grandma."
She grunted something, lost in thought, worried about Prince Richard, the father of her children, dying in jail.  The child waited, then kicked grandma in the shin.
“Emily is kissing a half-naked boy outside.  Just thought you’d like to know.”
The child ran before grandma recovered her wits, then flew outside with two wands drawn.
"Billy?"  
He stopped kissing long enough to say, "oh hi Susan," as if everything was normal.
"What are you doing here, Billy?"
He matter-of-factly repeated the news.  He looked so tired.
"The queen is dead?  We have to help Prince Richard escape!"
"Oh, I freed him.  Now I’m gonna kill John’s family at Edinburgh.”  
The Matriarch shocked the boy by hugging him for saving the man she loved.  
“Mama wanted me to.  I’ve been looking forward to finding the bastards who ambushed my dad while my mother was giving birth to me.  That attack cost me some little brothers and sisters.”
"Well, you can't fight now, Billy.  You're exhausted.  We have plenty of empty beds here.  I'll go pass the word for the family to meet you just south of the castle at noon tomorrow.  Our male quads aren't here, but I can probably find a few dozen women and teenage quads who can help."
"You're gonna find me housewives and kids to attack Castle Edinburgh?" he asked skeptically.
"I'm gonna recruit some of the best damn quads in the country.  Emily, take care of Billy and the kids until your aunts come home.  I won't be back tonight because I have a lot of flying to do."
Susan left without ever suspecting that she gave them the opportunity to lose their virginity.

CHAPTER 17

They hid in a nearby dear park while an unusual amount of fliers entered and exited the castle.  Instead of fearing an attack, the fortress looked busy organizing something big.
When Susan arrived with the quads, Billy took off his shirt to show them his scars, then extended blades twenty meters to prevent a leadership fight.  The sight made Emily incredibly horny.
"Here's the plan," Billy said to the twenty super-quads crazy enough to storm a fortress.  "I should be able to slip in without a problem.  When you hear the first blasts, shoot the guards so that they can't leave the ramparts to overwhelm me.  Make sure you stay far enough away to not get hit.  Gang up on individual quads and avoid being ganged-up on.  Once circumstances don't favor me, I will lure them out so that you can attack them."
Billy entered through the open gates like he was one of them.
"Message for Sir Aidian," he called to a guard who ignored him.  He walked across the courtyard to where everyone gathered in the Great Hall.
The Great Hall justified its name.  The warriors gathered around several tables in the middle.  Billy walked over, taking in the high ceilings and rows of large windows.  A few dozen followers heed Aidian's call and gather behind him.  Someone big bumped Billy.  He turned to look up at a burly guy who desperately needed a bath.
Well, needed a bath more than most Englishmen.
Aidian explain his plan while gesturing to a huge map.  The foul-smelling bully behind him bumped him again, giving Billy an idea.
Billy pointed his hand wands behind him, making sure they did not slice the bully.  He then extended them, retracted, extended, and retracted sideways as the first groups yelled out in pain and fell.  He now sliced through those between him and the quads along the tables twenty meters away.  Then Billy, clutching his chest, pointed at the barbarian behind him and yelled “traitor” while collapsing among dozens of other bodies.
The bewildered mercenary stood alone, fallen bodies all around him.  An athletic quad pop into the air.  His shots flew over Billy into the bully, smashing him across the floor.  
"Help the wounded," someone yelled.  Billy slid his hand into the bloody back in front of him and smeared his cheap overcoat with blood.  He heard Aidian argue with what had to be his shrill wife.  Everyone else seemed preoccupied with the wounded, so Billy limped towards the quads.  
Once he heard his family attack the guards on the ramparts, he took advantage of the distraction to extend both blades into the mass of warriors, aiming for the best quads.  He retracted quickly and extended them again before they could identify their attacker.  Billy yelped like a girl losing her virginity and collapsed to the floor like the guys around him.  Anyone who saw his twelve year old face immediately dismissed him as unimportant.
With a firefight booming outside, his cousins looked ready to blast anything.  Aidian then cried out and comforted his youngest brother.  Aidian's son blasted at someone that Billy could not see.  A quad hurt so bad he cried at the top of his lungs like a colicky baby.  One of the women took charge, barking orders, as warriors fled the Great Hall to see who was attacking them.  
Still unnoticed on the floor, Billy suddenly blasted the best quads repeatedly with all four wands, punching large holes in the mass of warriors.  Once someone finally fired back, he took to the air to announce his presence.
"Good morning, cousins!" he called out, as smoke from people on fire spread like an English fog.  
A few hundred people still occupied the Hall, half of them dead, wounded, or helping a loved one.  Billy liked his odds as he fired volleys at the most dangerous quads.  Several rose up to duel him, but flew like they had anchors tied to their ankles.  Dueling champions spoiled him.
It took them a surprisingly long time to guess who he was.  He assumed Aidian was a combat veteran who would think quickly on his feet.  Apparently, not so much.  It was like dueling cattle.  It ended up being the last female quad who guessed correctly.
"You're that bitch's bastard!"
"Your assassins cut my father down in the street without warning," Billy shouted between blasts.  "Uncle John has been trying to kill me since my birth.  I challenge you all to a duel to the death!"
Aidian's wife and youngest son reacted far quicker than Aidian.  The kid, about his own age, failed to weave in time.  Billy's blast obliterated him and covered his mother's face with burning flesh, who screamed in horror until Billy sliced her head off.  It bounced towards Aidian’s feet, who stared at it in horror.
The three remaining brothers charged right behind them.  Billy rose to give himself enough room to dodge.  His cousins, however, had less success evading his much wider, hotter, and faster blasts.  Billy took out both two-wanders to concentrate on Aidian.  They both went to blades, their sword fight criss-crossing one end of the great hall.
"Did you know about the assassins in Budapest?" Billy demanded.
"Only if they're the same soldiers I sent to Frankfurt." Aidian answered hotly.
"It was you!"  Billy backed away and sent an ax straight to Aidian's groin that struck deep enough to reach his belly button.  
Something then hit Billy in the low back and he smelled his own burning flesh.  He instantly changed direction to avoid the next blast certainly coming and then shot a wounded quad on the floor, engulfing him in fire. 
If they all attacked en masse, they may have won, but more went on defense than offense, as if hiding behind tables and chairs would save them.  Those dragging the wounded outside only delayed death.
Billy could stab anything within forty meters, so he weaved in the middle and slashed at everyone who flew.  Someone flying can move several times faster than someone running, so he wiped the floor with them until he emptied the hall of the living.
Now Billy flew from window to window and shot at whoever in the castle had their backs to him.  The size and location of the Great Hall rendered most of the castle within range.  Even those farthest away didn't see the blasts coming.
The women and teenagers fought aggressively.  He saw Emily pop down under a quad to slice off a leg, then blast him as he fell.  The scene made Billy rock hard.
He expected a battle, but instead found a massacre.  There could be no peace as long as they lived, so he left to torch the royal palace, burning a dozen people inside.  Outside, he helped mop up anyone still fighting and saw Emily pursue those who escaped.
"Collect their wands before they grow cold," he shouted to his family. 
Billy found the Matriarch taking names.  
"Except for John's wife, who’s probably on her own estate, we got everyone important.  You burned several kids in the palace, who were probably the children of Aidian’s brothers.  Congratulations," she said, keeping her tone neutral, "you exterminated John's line like he tried to exterminate yours."
"Then no one should contest Richard for the crown, which may save thousands of lives.  Please send someone to tell the king the good news and ask him to send me a decent suit of body armor.  Then come to the vault to see if they left us any goodies."
As his family took the valuables off the dead, as was their right as victors, Billy flew to the northern face of David's Tower to find the arrow slit gone.  Instead he blew open the door in the bottom of the tower, rather than find the key, then blasted the hinges off the ancient vault.  When Susan arrived, she nearly fainted at the riches.
"John has more money than the treasury," was the Matriarch's first impression.  "Richard is going to need all this to fix the country."
"No," Billy answered.  "I'd rather lend him whatever he needs.  Instead, divide this up among everyone who fought with us today, according to how many enemies they killed.  I don’t need a share.”
This kid just made her family rich.  "Sure, Billy."
“Haul the valuables to safety and find us more quads so we can ambush other enemies as they come here.”
The Matriarch was not used to being ordered around, but wasn’t going to bite the hand that fed her family.  “You remind me of your father.”
The thought startled the boy.  “That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“You’re welcome.”

CHAPTER 18

Warriors from both sides flew to Castle Edinburgh all day.  Since they could not patrol and bury the dead at the same time, Billy's band put on the clothing of their victims.  Several hundred enemy supporters arrived, but in small groups.  
Billy blasted a long, deep trench along the edge of the forest.  He made sure the earth piled up on the side away from the forest so that the enemy would land with their backs to the trees.  Where his two-wanders hid.  Once the quads finished moving the last of the dead bodies, they pretended to cry over the richly dressed corpses whenever their scouts signaled fliers coming, who would see only boys and women.
Billy reveled in his good fortune: his enemies not only came to him piecemeal, but landed with their backs to his ambushers.
But good luck never lasts long.  Billy looked west to see one hundred fliers coming -- a small cluster of quads and a larger group of two-wanders.  But instead of stopping near the corpses, the enemy landed inside the castle and manned the ramparts.  After far too long, the quads flew over them and the forest, taking their time, before landing a safe distance from the bodies.
"What happened here, boy?" the eldest man demanded impatiently of Billy, who wore a guard uniform.
"We didn't have patrols up, so they took us by surprise.  I got knocked out.  The few of us who survived prepared the dead for burial, but wanted to give family members the opportunity to identify loved ones."
"I sent three teams here, and none came back.  What happened to them?"
Uh oh.  "The usurper's supporters ambushed them from the air, sir.  They have left us alone since we’re burying the dead."
"Come here, boy."
Ah, crap.  They know.  Billy noticed them spread out, wands in hand, eyeing the woods.  He dared not look at his three dozen women and teenagers pretending to cry.
"Yes, sir!" Billy answered, walking with a limp the long way around the trench, knowing the old man wanted him to fly closer so they could blast him when he used his wands to land.  Billy ignored the yells as he stretched their line out.  No sooner did he round the trench than four quads hopped over to take him from behind as others met him head on.  Except they had no idea they faced the world's best dueler.
Wands unexpectedly appeared in his hands, followed by unbelievably long swords that Billy used to cut down those in front of him.  He blasted the line of quads because it’s so much easier to hit them on the ground, then fired on those who hopped over the trench.  All four rose to envelope him.  Fortunately, they didn't see the shots from his two-wanders hidden behind the trees.  Caught in a crossfire, Billy took out two and the two-wanders killed two.
Now he could focus on the main group, now exchanging fire with his own quads, and the two-wanders from the forest rushing to their aid.  Billy attacked their flank.  He darted from side-to-side and up-and-down to strike down one enemy after another, rolling them up piecemeal while his team fixed their position.
The trick to killing a flying quad is getting close enough to slice him, which Billy did as fast as possible.  Able to duel just one or two enemies at a time enabled him to mow them down.  The old guy must have come to the same conclusion because his wand screamed for backup.  Three squads of two-wanders flew up from the castle.  Billy needed to intercept them, but faced two brothers who fought as a team.
Quads resort to swords at close range because wands have a lag time between shots -- wands must "breathe.”  The more powerful the wand, the faster it can re-fire, but most wands need a second to recharge.  At close range, that's enough time for an opponent to slice a quad open, so fliers fired until an enemy got too close, then drew a sword to defend against a sword.  Quads can zip away from an incoming blast easier than they can avoid two long weightless swords coming at blinding speeds.
Billy blocked a sword when a blast from his brother struck him full in the chest.  He saw it too late, moving away and turning right before it hit, saving his life.  The brothers used an old technique: one occupied an enemy with a sword while the other fired, then they switched so that the enemy faced both a sword and a blast every second.  It works well two-on-one, and even better four-on-one.
Oh, how he longed for his own armor.  His shirt burning his skin, Billy flew up with his boot wands to concentrate of removing what was left of his smoking chest plate.  Then he fired down at the closest brother, hitting him right in the face, before soaking up his wands to heal his own crispy skin.  Billy often went through a dozen sets of body armor when fighting all day in the arena.  Today, he just discarded his second.
Two-wanders can't bob and weave like a quad, so commanders used them as a group to shell an area.  Billy raced to catch the third squad.  Formation flying with the leader in front of three lines of three, Billy only needed two swings of each long sword to slice them up.  He didn't kill them, but his cuts made them tumble to the ground.  A powerful burst of speed and he matched speed and angle with the second squad.  Billy cut them quickly and raced to the first squad, now concentrating on their bombing run.
Billy got them just before their first volley, then shot down at the enemy, starting with the quad crying over his smoldering brother.  Billy's quads instinctively surged forward as the enemy turned to face the new threat behind them, while several fled back to the castle.
The problem with running away, as every defeated army learns, is not being able to see the enemy.  Just as cavalry chases down an enemy running away, so did Billy, Susan, and Emily shoot or cut them up.  The last one made it within range of those manning the ramparts, but it did him no good as Billy trusted his ability to dodge their shots long enough to slice the guy’s legs off.
Now all of Billy's quads hovered over one side of the castle to pick off the defenders, then moved to another area.  The enemy foresaw the result and hid within buildings, which limited a quad's maneuverability.  Billy's two-wanders now re-entered the fight, and with superior numbers they overwhelmed each pocket of resistance.
Not bad for a bunch of women and kids.

CHAPTER 19

At sunset Uncle Richard finally came with a few hundred quads and grim news.
"The bitch John mated with is now the center of resistance.  She comes from a large family.  Many English estate-owners lording it over the Scottish owe their land to her access to the crown.  They've been recruiting soldiers and hiring mercenaries.  The latest report says they number a couple thousand.  If true, they could move against London itself.  The king needs every warrior he can get."
"How far away are they?" Billy asked.
"About two hours southwest of here.  We don't know if they will move tomorrow morning or wait for more men."
"Then we’ll hit them late tonight.  Sound asleep is the best time to attack a man or an army.  At best we break them, and at worst we give the king more time and fewer enemies."
Richard was not alone in noticing that his twelve-year old nephew issued a command rather than make a suggestion.  Few knew he recently spent a few months leading ten thousand marathoners.  Billy's problem was that he looked his age without acting his age.
"Oh, I have something for you," Richard said excitedly.  He peeled off his backpack and took out a beautifully crafted red suit of armor.  "King Richard's grandfather gave it to him when he won the national dueling championship as a teenager, but the king quickly outgrew it.  You said you needed a suit, and he thought it may fit."
Billy stared open-mouth at the gorgeous suit like most people stare at a ton of stacked gold.  
"A famous craftsman made it.  Took him two years and cost a fortune.  It has features that minimize burn-through."
"What's the catch?" Billy asked.
"It will only fit someone skinny.  Dad got thicker when he hit adulthood."
Richard helped Billy put the armor on.  
"Oh, I needed this earlier today."  Billy walked around, popped up in the air, zigzagged over them, then landed softly.  "How can I get thousands of these?"
"We could set up a shop in London.  Through our bank branches, we can recruit the best craftsmen in the world."
"No," Billy replied.  "I want one of those new mass-production factories that England has made so famous.  Let's design a version for women, too.  Better armor will give us an edge over our enemies."
Richard, old enough to be his grandfather, had trouble getting used to having a kid for a boss.
"Put up sentries and have someone wake us at midnight," Billy said, walking away.
At midnight Billy addressed them in the courtyard.  "My cousin Aidian was a busy boy.  For weeks, his foundry made steel arrows with heavy metal tips.  They are light enough so most fliers can carry dozens of them; yet, unlike wand blasts, they fall silently from the heavens.  We can't leave them here or they may be used against us while we sleep, so I propose we give them back.  Tonight.  While the enemy sleeps in the open."
Billy blew up a three dimensional image as large as possible of the enemy campsite.  
"Our scout recorded this from five hundred meters two hours ago.  Judging by the dying fires, they probably number a couple thousand.  Most are either mercenaries or retainers.  The only ones who want to actually kill King Richard are those related to Prince John's wife.  In other words, the rich farts spending this cold night inside the various homes on her estate.
"Here's the plan: from five hundred meters we will drop into a controlled fall over the enemy camp, spaced ten meters apart, and start throwing groups of five arrows at a time at targets below.   When you run out of arrows, start blasting everyone below you.  Then, while two-wanders wipe out those inside the buildings, the quads will either defend them or attack the enemy from the air.  I will lead a team against the most important targets, the duchess and her father. 
"If we wipe out the existing owners, it will be that much easier for King Richard to reward his most important supporters with their land, so make sure the entire family dies.  Victory must be total for it to translate into lasting peace, but don't burn the buildings because we ourselves may soon own them.  After we’ve won, search every person and room for valuables.  Just because we risk our lives doesn't mean we have to do it for free," he said to great cheers.  "John's family was prepared to kill you to take what is rightfully yours.  We will play this game by their rules.
"The best time to win a fight is before it starts.  Follow me and we will end this insurrection tonight.”  
The crowd roared, eager to pump themselves up before flying to kill a bunch of strangers.
Billy pulled the Matriarch aside.  "After we remove the threats in the mansion, find the vault.  Divide whatever we find equally."
The two-wanders took off first, since quads can easily catch up.  Billy left last since he could fly the fastest.  
They dropped from a  kilometer up.  Soon, thousands of steel-tipped short spears sought out enemies.  A few hundred meters later the sky thundered with a tremendous volley of wand blasts that smashed the surface below as if the Sun farted, followed by a firestorm that sought out anyone dumb enough to fire back.  Everything flammable burned bright.  Most stared up in shocked disbelief, unable to comprehend a seemingly supernatural phenomena.  Others fled as if the devil himself attacked.  The few who fired back died quickly and survivors flew blindly into the woods, often slamming into trees in the dark.
Billy saw an old woman with a wand stick her head out the window.  He chopped off her head as he landed, then blasted at the bed and shadows inside.  He entered and kicked in the door to the next room, firing at a couple sitting up in the bed.  He heard other blasts as Richard, Emily and the Matriarch blew through the front door.  The memory of his dying father in mind, Billy blasted room after room as quickly as possible.  He came upon an unarmed boy no older than himself and engulfed him in a ball of fire, giving the enemy no more mercy than they would give him.  
He found an old lady cursing Richard in the grand entrance by the stairs.  An even older guy with two wands lay on the floor with a huge hole in his chest.  This had to be the duchess, whose family had Billy’s father killed.  The others were blasting upstairs, so Billy put a large piece of steel through the old lady's midsection to shut her up.  She fell and turned to see who stabbed her literally in the back.
"You!" she accused Billy.
"You!" he accused her back, kicking her jaw to shut her up for good.  "Go help the others," he barked at Richard, who looked strangely sluggish.  
Billy flew to the nearest fight outside and decimated the enemy.  Instead of one grand battle, dozens of fighters fought individual duels on their own.  Billy's wand signaled "attack" and his quads overwhelmed the pockets of resistance, then chased those who fled too slowly.  If the entire enemy force stopped and fought as a group, they may have won, but too many fled, so the bravest died first.  Billy chased down enemy fliers one by one until past dawn, his energy, like his rage, inexhaustible.
He found his team still celebrating their painless victory.  The Matriarch, surrounded by family, carefully counted out the vast treasure they found in the vault, each of them getting an equal share.  People he just met hugged or praised him.  Many had apparently been living on the edge of poverty and couldn’t believe their good fortune -- which was literally a fortune to them. 
While Billy ate breakfast, Richard told him the Matriarch needed to show him something in the mansion.  He entered the main bedroom to see Susan holding a baby girl.  She did not need to explain the dilemma.  If Billy wanted the baby dead, he would have to do it himself.  Billy's reaction surprised her.  He took the baby into his arms like a new father.  
"Isn't she beautiful?"  Knowing that he just had her parents killed did not bother him.  "Susan, I'll pay 1.2 kilos a year for eighteen years if you find someone to raise the baby as her own.  But she can never know who her real parents were.  Agreed?"
As if the Matriarch had an alternative.  They couldn't just leave the baby here.  And he offered more than most families make.
Susan was so moved that she shocked Billy by kissing him on the forehead.

CHAPTER 20

Much to everyone's relief, the threat of civil war passed as quickly as it came, but the prospect of fame scared Billy like influenza.  This forced him to order everyone to delete all images of him.  Billy survived the last four years through anonymity -- the distribution of his image could jolt Genghis Khan into discovering that the Wonder Boy didn't die in Peking after all. 
Billy needed to disappear.  Once again, he had to become someone else.  Ironically, fame forced him to flee the country like his parents.  Except this time he flew with his uncle Richard to Dublin to get his wand sets, then find his airmen.
They found their camp easily enough, but he only counted seven battalions.  They told him the division commander was the big guy in the dueling area.  Billy and Richard signaled a greeting, then landed far enough away to appear non-threatening.  Billy recognized him at once.
“Tiny!  It’s me, Shorty.  They elected you division leader?”
“Shorty?  Given our success in the Stans, Willy asked me to lead them this year.  What are you doing here?”
“Willy died, so I’m your employer now.”  Billy waved to his uncle.  “This guy represents Global Bank.  Anyone who doesn’t already have an account needs to sign up if they want to get paid.  I’ve already deposited your first year’s wages and I brought some great wands for you all to fight over.”
Excited now, Tiny shrieked his wand to call a leadership meeting, then searched for the best sticks before the competition showed up.  The battalion, company, and squad leaders showed up and starting testing promising wands, yelling triumphantly when they found a great one.
Billy hovered above them to let them know who gave them the sticks.  “I have a simple rule: the stronger quad gets the better wand, so if two or more fliers contest a set, he who can extend flame longer gets them.”
Billy and Richard left to get something to eat since the marathoners would not pay attention to anything else until they settled who got which wands.  When they returned, Tiny seemed pleasantly surprised.
“These are even better than the wands Willy gave us five years ago.  Where did you get them?”
“I took them from dying Mongol millennials.”
“All of them?  I’m not calling you a liar,” the division commander said carefully, “but I find that hard to believe.”
“Then you probably won’t believe this, either.”
Billy needed to impress them, so he popped into the air and blew flame out twenty meters from his hand wands and twelve meters from his boot wands, before settling down.  Since only the Great Khan himself could extend flame or steel from boot wands, he just effectively signed his own death warrant. 
He certainly caught everyone's attention, so he took off his upper armor and shirt so that they could see thousands of scars.  After much whistling, jokes, and exclamations, the barbarian apologized.  Kind of.
"I hate to tell you this, but what you just did is impossible."
Billy smiled.  "I am frequently accused of doing the impossible.  The ladies say my love making is unbelievable."
They could tell he was just kidding, so they cheered him.  Even the women, and it still surprised Billy how many women the Americans elected into leadership positions.  Like the Mongols, they valued merit over gender.
“Where is American Jack?" Billy needed to know.
"In Canada, recruiting those who didn’t make the cut for this division.  If you send American University more wands like these, Jack could probably give you another ten marathon battalions.”
That delighted Billy.  “Then send Jack a message that I’ll put another down payment into his account and will send enough super wands for another ten battalions.  So where is everyone else?”
“Hunting, whoring, and drinking.  The last battalions should arrive soon.  You’re taller than I remember.  Do you still want to go by the name, Shorty?”
Billy looked at his beautiful red suit and decided on something more impressive.  "Call me the Red Baron."
“No offense, boss, but you look like the gay baron.”
Even Billy laughed at that.  
"Aren't you going to take your helmet off?" one of the prettier ladies asked.
Naturally he couldn't show his twelve-year old face.  Who would follow a kid into battle?  
"I can't.  It's even more scarred than the rest of me.  My face has been burned too many times to heal properly.  If I show my face, I'll never get laid."
Tiny clapped him on the back, accepting him into the group.  
"Not to worry.  Guys your size don't get laid anyways.  Now, are we still going to France?"
“Without waiting for the remaining battalions, I want all of you to set up along the Pyrenees Mountain Range between Spain and France, building bunkers and storing supplies, but wait for me before you start raiding.  Avoid locals and stay hidden.
“I have the same operational doctrine as Willy: avoid engaging superior enemy forces and unfavorable circumstances -- just fly away.  If you can fly higher, faster, and farther, then you should be able to strike them with relative impunity.  Combine your strength to destroy any special units looking for you.  If more than a few of you are getting killed, then your commander is doing something wrong.  I respect that every squad elects their leader, and all ten squad leaders elect a company leader, and all ten company leaders choose the battalion leader, but any commander losing too many troops must be replaced.
"I want you to cripple their air force, rob Mongolian banks and businesses, target Mongol leaders, and pound the ground troops, equipment, and logistical supply lines.  Does anyone have a problem with that?"
They all looked pretty happy except Tiny.
"American Jack wants us to help him invade Africa.  He has been planning this huge migration of Americans to Africa to take mining operations from the Mongols.  Taking Africa from the Mongols could bankrupt the Empire."
"First we need to consolidate our supply lines by kicking the Mongols out of Spain, then we will take over the Mongolian extraction operations in Africa."
Now that excited them.  You can't take over gold mines without tripping over gold.  Billy said his goodbyes and left Richard there to sign up their bank accounts.
Now he had to find his mother's gay uncle.

CHAPTER 21

Everyone in France knew where the English quads were: on the front lines as the Mongols launched another offensive against Paris.
Dawn had barely broke when Billy signaled a greeting and asked a French officer busy barking orders.  Billy had flown over a wave of civilians fleeing west.  Driving non-combatants in front of them was a three hundred year old Mongol tactic that never got old.  The officer impatiently waved towards a large government building by the main road.  Billy discovered the building full of ill and wounded soldiers. 
"I'm looking for Captain Smith.”
A tired nurse gestured down the hall.  He soon found his great-uncle unconscious and burning with fever.  A compatriot wet his brow and adjusted his blanket.  Billy immediately noticed his uncle’s missing leg.
"Will he live?" Billy asked.
"He needs a day to break this fever, then a few more days of rest, which is probably three more days than the Mongols will give us.  A new air division just hit us.  Those who cannot fly will die here."
High-pitched warnings erupted across the Paris suburbs as friendly quads met incoming enemies.  Going just by numbers, the Mongols enjoyed air superiority.
Billy left his backpack with his uncle and flew out the window.  A skirmish line of enemy quads preceded nine hundred two-wanders formation-flying in a huge square block.  Mongols had ten times as many two-wanders as quads, and found the best way to use them was to temporarily clear the air of enemy fliers, then have them rise high over the target and blast it on their way down.  Repeated often enough, two-wanders could destroy even a city as large as Paris.
Billy rocketed up, blowing past the quads guarding the formation.  Like the two-wanders, he rose in an arch, then fell in a controlled fall in the path of the enemies.  At the angle he enjoyed, it was virtually impossible to miss the mass of men that he blasted with all four wands.  His pressure waves smacked the first fliers back into their lines, each knocking several others out of the sky.  He fell while they rose, so all too soon they collided.  The difference was the two-wanders needed both wands to control their flight -- moving one hand wand from behind to the front would throw the flyer off course.  
Since he could cut faster than blast, Billy swung back and forth to slice a giant hole in their lines.  As they rose, he worked his way down, then raced higher again, cutting a new trench in their formation.  
Halfway up their leader began their blasting run.  Billy dived with them, cutting and slicing.  Powerful wands from the ground can fire over one hundred meters up, so at two hundred meters they switched their wands to propulsion to fly away for their next run.  Billy matched angle and speed to continue cutting them up.  
Dozens of Mongol quads tried to envelope him, but Billy used his superior speed to go straight up while blasting down.  
The solution, for the enemy, was to use all four of their wands to reach him, but Billy proved faster with just his boot wands.  Billy let the fastest reach him, one or two at a time, only to take them out.  The quads understood their dilemma and tried to rise together, but Billy would suddenly bank sharply to put himself outside of their box, then shoot or cut those closest to him.
Billy slowed his breathing during his flight up, while the pissed off enemies increasingly gasped for oxygen.  Again, the boy divided his enemy and killed them piecemeal.  As he ran out of opponents at the highest levels, he descended to take on those who reached their ceiling.  However, he enjoyed the same advantage, staying above them, or darting high as needed, while killing his pursuers a few at a time.  It took a long time to rid himself of them all, but it was worth it.
Billy dived steeply to attack an enemy squad like he did outside Edinburgh Castle, cutting all ten men with just two swipes of his long blades.  The cuts were not fatal, but the falls usually were because it very hard to concentrate when in great pain.
Billy noticed another squad racing to attack him from behind.  Instead of engaging under unfavorable circumstances, he used his superior speed to fly away.  
He saw two squads chase a group of French quads, hoping to box them in.  The two squads positioned themselves so that the French would have to show their backs to one or another.  Billy poured on speed, but he could tell he wouldn't get there in time.  So Billy touched both hand wands to his throat, prayed he didn't blow out his vocal cords, and gave a primal scream that vented all the anger he accumulated in life -- while burning torches from all four wands.  
The entire city below him stared up in awe as the scream echoed across the front lines.
He sure got the enemy's attention.  They not only didn't pounce on the French, but both squads immediately turned on him.  Which meant Billy had thirty enemy quads after him.
Not even he could dogfight thirty quads, so he shot over the closest squad.  Once he had enough momentum, he used all four wands to shoot down as the enemy caught up.  Trying a levitation trick, Billy locked on to a quad in the middle and pushed him into two others.  The three who collided recovered, but not before Billy smashed them from the sky.  The remaining two tried to flank him on opposite sides, so Billy closed with one and sliced open his leg, then took on the remaining quad who, to his credit, didn't run like he should have and died falling like a burning meteor.
Billy flew up as the next closest squad closed.  A wound that high didn't have to be fatal to be fatal -- it just had to hurt bad enough to make concentration impossible.  The fall would do the rest, so Billy’s intense heat blasts cooked their skin.
By the time he wiped out his pursuers, the third squad caught him from an advantageous position.  Billy used his hand wands to propel him below, called a "pop-down."  With another burst of speed, he popped back up to shoot them from behind.  Billy then dived after the three with the fastest reactions, over-taking them before they could find a tactical solution to their problem.
Exhausted but exhilarated, Billy then flew over the enemy ground forces and fired all four wands, the flames obviously longer than even the Great Khan's.  He repeated it several times where they amassed the most, then landed in the city to a hero's welcome.  The Mongols passed the images from wand to wand and soon their advance stalled until someone got rid of the new super-quad.
Billy knew flashing four wands meant Genghis Khan would do everything possible to kill him, but he also knew it would give Free Europe hope.  And after a century of defeat, they could sure use some hope.
He flew down the main rode, blasting the wagons that supplied the Mongols, until one of them exploded with such force that it flung Billy threw the air like a typhoon.
Bomb wagons!  He took off his over-heated face mask and noticed how far apart these wagons were.  Normally, a quad must drop below one hundred meters for a fireball hot enough to detonate a bomb, but he had been firing all four wands at the same time, so the hundreds of two-wanders firing at him from the ground may as well have been shooting at the Moon.  A dozen quads flew nearby, but apparently didn’t feel confident enough to engage him, so he blew up another bomb wagon and laughed as the Mongols fled the congested road.
He dropped down and used his wands to throw the bombs after the fleeing enemy.  Some of them could not believe he could levitate bombs over one hundred meters.  He saw a French squad, probably looking for him, so he waved them down.
“Get more quads,” he ordered the squad commander, “so we can bomb the enemy with their own munitions.”
Billy then carefully put a bomb under each arm and flew down the road.  The French heard an explosion and screaming, then the Red Baron returned for more bombs.  Near hysterical, the French gleefully took up bombing with a passion as the Mongols abandoned their supply train.  A French company soon joined them and they spent the morning killing thousands of enemies and leaving the main highway into Paris literally a wreck.

CHAPTER 22

After dueling all day, sunset found Billy exhausted and irritable.  Killing quads in the air just took too much effort.  Even for him.  The thought of going through this for two more days enraged him.  He needed to find an easier, faster, and safer way to kill enemy quads so he could send his great-uncle home.  
He wondered what his dad would do as he surprised two quads returning home, and laughed as the answer became obvious.  Billy dived steeply, sliced into the calves of the younger one, then cut the neck of the older veteran.  The younger one plunged into a lake.  Billy landed and changed armor and uniforms with the dead quad, then flew to save the guy hanging onto a floating tree trunk.
"I got ya, trooper!" Billy said before dropping him on the grassy shore.  "Let me take a look at that."  As the guy howled in pain, Billy bandaged both leg wounds to stop the bleeding.  "You're not going to walk for a while, but you will probably fly again.”
"Thank you so much," the Mongol said, digging into his pockets for a bottle of liquor.  Billy didn't drink because he was usually high off his wands, and alcohol would only dull that sensitivity.
"My name is Temujin," Billy truthfully told him.
"Mutugen."
"Were you named after the Immortal's favorite grandson?"
"I descended from him, so my parents hoped it would help my advancement."
"And has it?" Billy asked.
The Mongol laughed.  "No!  I don't think the Immortal likes being reminded he lost his favorite grandson."
"Let's get you home," Billy suggested, helping him climb onto his back.
Thankfully, Mutugen belonged to an all-quad battalion.
Torches lit up the air base so returning fliers could find it after dark.  When on the offensive, the Mongol Air Force would string air battalions near the front so airmen could spend more time over the enemy and less time going to and from work.  Billy landed near the infirmary and two troopers helped his "buddy" off his back.  Then he carried the wounded quad inside and joked with him while the doctors re-bandaged his wounds and applied healing wands.  
It turns out that they knew many of the same people, so when Mutuge's commander came in, nobody thought to question Billy's allegiance.   Since they were the Second Company of the 7th Battalion, Billy claimed to be from Fourth Company of the First Battalion, and asked if he could bunk with them.  
"Hey everybody," their captain announced in the barracks.  "This is Temujin from the Fourth of the 1st.  He saved Mutugen's life, so he gets free drinks."
Not that anyone felt like partying.  Billy himself quickly ate and slept.  The need to pee thankfully work him up, and he wondered what he would have done if he slept all night.  As it was, he moved from cot to cot, silently slicing throats, starting with the captain, then busted the locks of their chests to take their wands and money.
Then he moved on to the next baracks.  This time, two guys were sitting on their cots recounting a close call.  Billy limped closer.  
"You okay?" one asked.
"Idiot doctors," Billy sullenly replied.  "What do they know?"
Then several meters away he drew swords and whacked them.  One fell pretty hard, thumping the wooden floor.  Billy quickly laid down on the nearest empty cot, but no one woke up.  Relieved, he sliced more throats and took their valuables.
The third barrack had hardly any fliers, while the fourth and fifth looked half full.  The other five barracks sat next to each other a few hundred meters away, and Billy felt too exposed just walking across, so he entered the colonel’s home through the window.  The pretty woman next to him died for sleeping with the enemy.  Opening his safe took far longer then he expected, but had more gold, silver, and wands than he could possibly carry in one trip.  Still, he had the backpacks, so he loaded everything up and left them near the open window.
Billy strolled to the latrine trench, humming a popular Mongolian song, and finally peed.   When he returned, however, he massacred the other five sleeping companies.  What surprised him is that they lost half of their battalion since the offensive started.  After the last barrack, he limped to the infirmary, killed the wounded, including Mutugen, then woke up the doctors, healers, and assistants.
"You are needed at the commander's home, right away," Billy told them.  He led the medical personnel to the window, then levitated the backpacks out and helped put them on.  "We need to deliver these supplies to a unit near the front right away."  
His request was unusual, but not implausible.  As they flew away, three quads pursued them, using their wands to signal for them to land.  Billy blasted them as soon as they caught up.
On the way to the front he told them to keep flying straight, while he dived to find his red armor hidden by the lake.  It took much too long in the darkness, but he managed to change armor and catch up with them in time.
As dawn approached, he signaled well ahead of time, descended in full view, and saw dozens of wands pointed at them when they landed on the infirmary roof.  Billy saw the same French officer.
"You have too many wounded, so I brought you more doctors."
"Where did you get them?
"I took them from a Mongolian Air Force base."  Which nobody believed.
"Prove you are who you say you are," Frenchy demanded, even though Billy never told them his name.
Billy torched his unbelievably long wands and the soldiers around him burst into applause.
"We thought we lost you.  We even sent scouts looking for you."
"I thought you could use more wands," he said, throwing his backpack forward.  "You'll find several thousand wands in there.  Arm civilian quads and pound the enemy ground troops.  I took out the closest air battalion, but you will only have air supremacy for a day or two.  If you have someone bring me breakfast, I'll kill some more Mongols after I eat.  Oh, and tell the surviving English quads to come see Captain Smith."
Below, Billy instructed the medical team to dump their backpacks around his great-uncle, which woke him up.  
"Your fever broke!  Your team can now take you home."
George dismissed the thought with a harsh laugh.  "What's with the backpacks?”
"Your bonuses."  Billy dumped the two heaviest onto him, practically burying him under one hundred gold bricks, each weighing exactly one kilo.  "For thirteen years of fighting imperialism."
In the ensuing confusion, Billy sat on his great-uncle's cot and whispered to him.  “I’m Elizabeth's son, Billy, but please call me the Red Baron."
George now examined the armor, his eyes huge with excitement.  No sooner did the Mongols leave than George's Englishmen filled up the room.  
"You called us, sir?"
"No," Billy answered in English.  "I did.  After I killed the nearest Mongolian Air Force battalion, I emptied their vault and kidnapped the unit's medical unit as air mules to deliver your bonuses.  I don't know how many of you are left, but I want the valuables divided equally in thanks for fighting for so long against so many despite numbering so few."  With that he started dumping the other backpacks on the floor.  "All this is yours.  Go back to England."
Excited cheers rang out, until one of them spoiled the mood.
"We can't," one of them said in disgust.  "Queen Margaret exiled us thirteen years ago."
"Good thing she's dead, then,"  Billy answered.  "Along with Prince John and his entire family.  Global Bank is loaning the crown one hundred tons of gold to boost the economy.  Sir Richard, the king's first-born, is setting up mass-production factories to make excellent armor like my own, and opening more bank branches overseas.  All of you have jobs waiting for you.  Prince George, your brother Richard is now king, your land has been returned, and you are again a duke.  You have some experience running a mass production factory making longbows.  Perhaps you'll consider running the armor factory."
Somebody laughed and clearly no one believed him, so Billy showed them London’s news reports.  Even the headlines failed to convince them.
"But what about the Mongolian offensive?  We can't let them succeed now after holding them back for so long."
"I employ ten thousand long-distance American quads who will soon base out of the Pyrenees Mountains."  He paused, not caring if they believed him.  "We will kick the Mongols out of the Iberian Peninsula, which will reduce defensive lines conveniently along the Pyrenees.  Free Europe will be stronger than it has been in a century."
"I'm not sure what you're selling, but I'm buying," one of the Englishwomen joked.  "Did you really take all this gold from an enemy air base?"
"Yes.  Just ask the doctors I kidnapped, or examine the wands I brought back.  The Mongols pay the first of every month, so they're loaded right now.”
An idea just hit Billy like a rock.
“Hey, would anyone like to raid with me?  Every Mongol fighter will be over the front lines, leaving only two-wanders to defend their bases.  Usually they have nothing worth taking, but tomorrow’s payday, so every air base has literally a ton of gold that's ours for the taking.  We could hit several air bases today.  Few of the Mongolian quads are actually Mongolian.  Most are foreigners who don’t work if they don’t get paid.  That alone would blunt the offensive, and give the French time to decimate the Mongolian ground forces.  The Mongols have cost all of you dearly.  I think it's time they paid.  Preferably in gold and silver."
The cheering of his team brought color back to George's face, who blessed the venture.

CHAPTER 23

The English wouldn’t return to England while the Mongols still threatened Paris, so he put them to work as golden air mules.
Billy remembered how carefully his father organized the start of his raids with his Americans in Central Asia.  The Mongols didn’t yet know about Billy’s ten thousand marathoners, so his goal was to hit them as hard as possible, as frequently as possible, for as long as possible.
George found some Europeans who helped Billy update his map of Mongolian air bases in Europe.  Billy knew he needed to make the most of whatever time the Mongols gave him.
They first bombed the Mongol High Command headquarters to decapitate resistance, then they targeted the largest air units near Scandinavia to misdirect them.  As the Mongols wondered who they were and where they lived, the division struck across Europe.  Dropping bombs they stole from munition depots, they decimated enemy forces far behind the front lines.  The Mongols didn’t have any long-distance battalions because they didn’t need them with a static front line, so the Americans simply flew away from superior forces and unfavorable circumstances.
Decimating Mongolian air units left their banks, businesses, depots, government offices, and logistical network at their mercy.  The front line collapsed as the High Command redeployed thousands of quads to guard banks and bases.  The division emptied so many vaults that “mountain” now referred to their growing treasure rather than the Pyrenees. 
It took the Mongols several expensive weeks to discover they were American marathoners based out of the Pyrenees, with a few hundred English quads transporting their gold to banks in Madrid and Paris.
In desperation, the Mongolian High Command built a large force out of many smaller ones in Vienna.  Fifty thousand quads now flew as one towards the Pyrenees.  First Billy wiped out their high-altitude units, then bombed the rest with impunity.  Each battalion rotated hourly so that the Mongols enjoyed no peace, much less sleep.
A day before they reached the Pyrenees, Billy smashed them after sunset.  But, instead of bombing from high altitude, they hugged the terrain at full speed.  Striking from all sides, the Americans made one pass, shooting those on or near the ground.  That night, one company bombed every hour to keep the Mongols awake.  The more exhausted the quad, the weaker their blasts.
Before dawn, nine thousand Americans hit them from their rear, but stayed to roll them up.  The Mongols had spread out their camp over a vast area to reduce the odds of getting hit by bombs.  Units responding to the attack ran into a nine thousand quad wall half a kilometer high that chewed them up.  The Mongols still had three times as many quads, but the Americans outnumbered the Mongols who fought at any given moment.  In the dark, the exhausted Mongols had no way of knowing how many enemies they faced, and the commander assumed they would be attacked from other directions.  The Americans slowly swept over the camp.   At daylight, they hunted down those who escaped.
Billy set up accounts to fund ten new Free Europe divisions, with wands and armor.  The news that Free Europe was recruiting one hundred thousand more quads turned the war upside down.  Many of the Europeans fighting for the Mongolian Air Force promptly switched sides after payday, killing Mongols on their way out.
Billy heard that American Jack was recruiting an African division, so he transferred enough gold and wands to train them -- some super, some high altitude, and some long-distance units.
The Great Khan couldn’t let the American marathon division raid Europe with impunity, so he loaned the European High Command one hundred of his best long-distance/high-altitude battalions.  It took him years to find so many, and they were finally enjoying success against the elusive raiders in Central Asia.  But the prospect of losing Europe trumped all that.  
These new troops negated the advantages that the Americans enjoyed, so Billy went for surprise.  As soon as he heard, he took his raiders across Europe and, a week later, ambushed the Mongolian marathoners outside Warsaw.  
Billy’s division overwhelmed Warsaw’s largest munitions supply depot after sunset, then bombed the sleeping marathoners from ten directions at low altitude at midnight.  The Mongols didn’t expect to get hit so far from the Pyrenees.
One hundred thousand quads need a lot of room, so each of Billy’s battalions attacked in a kilometer-long skirmish line at treetop level.  They bombed the bastards before they could fly, then used swords or fireballs.  The Mongols in the center of the vast camp enjoyed the longest reaction time, but they also got hit from every direction at about the same time.
Maximizing surprise minimized reaction times, while it maximized enemy casualties and minimized friendly ones.
One hundred thousand marathoners woke up to thunderous explosions from around their perimeter.  Shadows overhead swept over them too fast to identify.  Furious, the survivors soared into the air, unable to wait for their units to form up.
Every Mongol camp designates certain units to patrol high when under attack.  Usually 10% of the force.  Those ten battalions, or what was left of them, rose immediately to seek out enemies or assume defensive positions over the camp.  That meant that they flew as units, which made them more effective.
Billy’s ten battalions used their momentum to rise steeply after sweeping the camp and pounced on the nearest enemy unit just getting off the ground.  It was easy to distinguish between orderly formations and thousands of airmen flying individually.  The Mongols, rudely awakened and confused about the tactical situation, did not have time to put on armor.  Moreover, the Americans hit them even as they rose and continued engaging until the formation broke into tiny pieces.
Once they each destroyed a battalion, the Americans swept over the mob rising towards them, firing down into the mass of men.  Nine of Billy’s units slowly rose while shooting volleys, and the tenth broke into squads to clear the skies above them.  Without large units, they faced an angry mob.  It was like fighting a bunch of drunks.
Not all Mongols rose at once, since many helped the wounded, so the Mongols didn’t even enjoy overwhelming numerical superiority.  While the American battalions covered each other, the enemy didn’t attack at the same time or the same place.
At dawn, the Americans slaughtered the wounded, chased down survivors, packed the valuables, and burned what they could not take with them.
Billy called a leadership meeting after lunch.
“First, I want to thank these dead Mongols for leaving us so much food, wands, and gold.  Unfortunately, we have twelve enemy battalions within five hundred kilometers of us and we can safely assume they are preparing to attack us as I speak. 
“The enemy now knows where we are and how we must get back home, so they will throw everything that have in our way.  News of our victory will motivate them to assign every quad in Europe to us.  They’ll destroy our bunkers in our absence and will post sentries across Europe.  If we fly as a division, they will spot us.  If we break up into companies, they will kill many of us.  So we cannot stay here and we cannot go home.  What do you want to do?”
Atop a boulder, Billy heard more curses than suggestions.  “Tiny, got any ideas?”  
“I hear Madagascar is nice this time of year.”
“They will mobilize every resource, but for how long?  Every quad assigned to us is not killing Frenchmen or guarding gold.  How long can they afford to wait until those men are needed back at their old jobs?  The Americans in Central Asia stretched them thin in Europe, which is why we have been so successful. 
“How long will they wait for us?  The French will endanger their lines.  Bandits will rob banks.  Rebels will raid supply depots.  Can they afford to maintain their mobilization for one month?  Two?”
Billy examined their faces to see who saw where he was heading.
“You are not my only employees in a pickle.  Tiny told me that our brothers and sisters in Central Asia can’t go home because a huge Mongol force blocks the Bering Strait, and kept the near-marathoners from entering Siberia.  The Khan cannot afford a repeat of the last few years.  We just killed one hundred thousand marathoners, but they have another fifty thousand high altitude quads, fifty thousand long distance quads, fifty thousand medium range quads, and fifty thousand short range quads.  Plus half a million two-wanders for logistics, communication, and sentry duty.
“Tiny said they had to break up into companies to hide and forage better.  They will starve this winter.  Imagine them dying of hunger beside the huge fortune they have accumulated.  Jack trained many of you alongside them at American University.  These are comrades, not strangers.  
“By spring, they will be dead and their plunder lost.  Many of you will have to replace them or else the Khan will send those Mongols to France.  Genghis will finally conquer Europe and then exterminate everyone in the Americas.”
Billy now hovered over their gloomy faces, thousands of eyes glued to him.  He theatrically raised his arms to the heavens.
“Oh, if only those heroes had friends with a few months to kill!”
The dark mood lightened instantly and their laughter thundered across the grassy hills.
“We double our combat strength if we join our sister division.  The Mongols broke up into battalion units to chase the American companies.  Instead of killing one hundred thousand quads at once, like last night, we could kill one battalion a night over one hundred nights.  Which is safer and easier.  And nobody knows the steppe better than I do.
“Even the force blocking the Bering Strait we can kill piece meal.  We let one of their divisions chase one of ours, then ambush them with two divisions.  Rinse, wipe, repeat.  You spend the winter with your family and return by spring via Greenland to the Pyrenees, to once again kill enemies and take their gold.  Are we agreed?”
The thunderous applause elated him.  He could feel his father smiling down at him.  
It ended up taking five months, but they wiped out both the Khan’s long-distance and high-altitude units, which are really hard to replace.  Although most super-quads could fly a thousand kilometers straight, less than half can fly really high.  
Mongolian editorials ripped The Great Khan.  The emperor no longer wore clothes.  A new giant walked the earth, and he barely stood five feet tall.
With the Mongols no longer threatening Paris, Billy could finally take his uncle home.

CHAPTER 24

Billy sent a greeting as he descended to his great-uncle’s estate outside Paris.  A few hundred English quads, from an original battalion of one thousand, occupied the barn.  With Europe safe, they would finally return home as a group.  George came out to meet him, while his wife and thirteen year old son waited outside their home.  They hugged comfortably.
"You've done well for yourself, uncle," Billy whispered.  "Not many gay men have beautiful wives."
"She developed a crush on me after our first great victory saving Paris.  A thousand quads can really influence a battlefield.  The French had no idea we were coming."  He laughed.  "Neither did the Mongols!   When the French discovered we were all unpaid volunteers, well, the appreciation was overwhelming.  The king's young niece seemed infatuated with me, and I needed some protection against the inevitable rumors, so I let the king marry us and grant us this estate.  I never dreamed I would have a son that looks like me.  Until he turned four, I assumed he was not mine."
“You were willing to raise someone else’s child?”
“Well, I never expected to have kids, yet I cannot deny my wife children.  It’s bad enough her husband is gay.  I’m shocked she’s stayed faithful.  I’ve told her to find someone discreet.  She is, after all, French.  She has been wonderful to me, and I would do anything to make her happy.”
“Would another child make her happy?” Billy asked quietly.
George gripped Billy with a surprising strength that really hurt.
“Sorry, uncle.  That was out of line.”
“You’re too young to think of such things.”
“Actually, I’ve already impregnated Emily.  My dad ordered me to have as many children as possible, as soon as possible, so the Mongols cannot exterminate our line.”
George groaned sadly.  “Marie actually told me to give her more children, or she will return to the front lines.  They both got wounded when that Mongol division attacked.  I can’t sleep when she fights.  Somehow, her death scares me where my own death does not.”
“Ask her, then.  No one else need ever know.”
“Then why do I want to shove my wooden leg up your ass?”
“I don’t know, uncle.  Maybe you’re gay.”
Marie and George Jr. embraced him together.  His wife cried rivers of joy.  
"Wow!  The Red Baron!"  Junior couldn’t believe the Baron would spend the night in their home.  His neck looked burned and he held his arm funny from combat wounds.  "All of Europe is talking about you.  Can I see?  Please!"
Billy laughed, popped into the air, and showed his four burning wands.
"I know some ladies who would like to meet you, Mr. Baron," Marie said with a knowing smile.
"I am flying with you to England tomorrow, but if they are quads who look anything like you, then I'd love to meet them tonight."
Marie laughed, hugging her gay husband.  She still loves him, Billy realized.
Once inside, George gathered them close.  "We have a secret to share with you, but if you tell anyone, the Mongols will kill us.  Do you remember the stories of my niece, Elizabeth?  This is her only child, Billy.  The queen and my brother John murdered his father.  He was the one who killed them and put my brother Richard on the thrown."
The Red Baron took off his helmet to reveal a thirteen year old orphan.  They both looked disappointed, and once again it pained Billy to look his age.
"How can you be the Red Baron?" Junior demanded.  “You’re no older than me.”
“You’re a week older, actually.”  Billy removed his armor and shirt.  "I killed my first millennial at age six.  I took these four Millennial Wands from him.  I have been dueling ever since.  Five years ago I won a dozen gold medals at the Peking Olympics and killed ten thousand quads in just one hundred days."  He projected an image wearing his medals with Genghis Khan.  "If the Mongols learn my identify, they will punish me by killing everyone in my family -- so you must keep my identify secret as if your lives depend on it."
"You are the Red Baron?"  George junior still didn’t believe him.
"Yes, cousin.  I have provided your father with a ton of gold because he helped my parents meet.  The rest of his team split several tons so they won’t return home broke."
"You are a prince, again, father?"
"Yes.  My brother is king, my lands have been restored, and I am a duke again."
“Try these,” Billy said to Junior, handing him a set of powerful wands.
The boy popped up in the air and fired his hand wands five meters out. 
“These are amazing.  Where did you get them?” 
“I took them from a dying Mongol millennial.  They are yours on the condition that you practice every day.  The lives of your family may depend on it.”
Marie cried at the great news.  “A ton of gold?”  
She couldn’t believe it, so George showed her the bank receipt.
"I fought without pay, so we've accumulated a bit of debt," George informed Billy.
"Marie, I’ve started a body armor factory and shipyard to make steam-fired gunships in England.  Uncle George has agreed to operate them for ten gold kilos a year or 10% of the profits, if you are willing to move to London.”  She squeezed him so hard he could barely breathe.  "You are now Lady Marie, King Richard's sister-in-law, while you, cousin, are Sir George, the king's grandson."
"The grandson of two kings," George corrected, "although the French one is dead."
“How can I ever repay you, Billy?” a joyous Marie asked.
“I’m sure you and Uncle George will think of something,” Billy answered cryptically, looking hard at the gay husband.

CHAPTER 25

English quads returning from war after fourteen years sparked a national celebration.  They deposited their money at Global Bank's London branch.  A crowd naturally gathered to welcome them.
Billy yelled to the mob.  "Prince George and his victorious quads have saved Free Europe again!  And, ladies, all too many of these rich heroes are still single.  King Richard will soon hold a celebration in their honor at Buckingham Palace.  Everyone rich and beautiful is invited."
Instead of meeting the king somewhere convenient, like in his palace, Billy insisted they meet at George's lakeside cabin, which pissed the king off even more.  Elated at seeing his brother again, he was furious to learn that he had to plan a huge festival.
Billy wasn’t sympathetic: "Just assign it to the leading rich socialite and give her a kilo to cover expenses.  George, Marie, and Junior need to be introduced to those who matter.  This will help stabilize the country, legitimize your rule, and give the gossips something to talk about besides me."
“Then you better not attend.  I’ve convinced most of the country that you’re a figment of over zealous imaginations.”
As if the Red Baron could afford to be seen in public.
“Emily and I plan to visit mama’s family in Ireland.  Anything you want us to tell them?”
“Tell them to stop fighting or I’ll invade like my mother always wanted.  The Irish bicker over such petty grievances!  I will not tolerate my kids killing each other!”   
Except briefly under Emperor Brian Boru over five centuries before, no one government ever controlled the entire island.  Instead, dozens of tribes, peoples, and kingdoms fought each other, each striving to be recognized as the High King of Ireland.  Waves of Norse, Danes, Normans, Vikings, Welsh, Scottish, and English washed upon Irish shores, only to assimilate over generations.  And for centuries before that the Irish interbred with waves of Celts.
Queen Margaret’s father, King John, was the most successful in retaining power over most of the island.  If the Mongols didn’t sweep across Europe to quickly -- forcing him to redeploy his best troops -- Margaret may have finished what he started.
In his thirty years of virtual exile in Ireland, Richard spurned his mother’s desire for conquest to build his own native power base.  Instead of fighting the so-called New Irish, Old Irish, New English, and Old English, much less the Scottish earls and lords his mother and grandfather installed, Richard formed alliances across the island.  He bred with the most powerful, regardless of beauty, status, or tribe, so today his children were the best quads on the island.  Unfortunately, that also meant any fighting would inevitably involve them.
The irony must have hurt.  If he had but done as his mama asked, his children may now be governing a united Ireland instead of perpetuating the endless violence.
"Speaking of children, who will succeed you when you die?  Your illegitimate children, your gay crippled brother, his French son who can't speak English, or me -- the only legitimate son of your only legitimate daughter?”
“What’s your point, boy?”
"My great-uncle tried to kill me because of succession worries.  I’d rather not go through that again.  You have thousands of descendents.  Give the top contenders high office.  The fastest way to see someone’s true character is to give them great power.  When you find the one with the experience, temperament, and judgment to make the best ruler, then marry his mother or grandmother, so he becomes legitimate.”
“You wanted this meeting to tell me to get married?  Bugger off, boy!”
Billy reached into his pocket and handed his grandfather a gold brick.  “I have twenty thousand marathoners on the payroll, with twice as many coming soon, yet I still have more money than I can spend.  So I am giving every blood relative a gold kilo.  I wanted to give you yours in person.”
Billy had at least several thousand English and Irish relatives, which meant giving away several tons.
The king stared at the gold in his hands.  Something so small should not weigh so much.  Elizabeth used to give her father the best damn hugs in the world -- her elopement left him inconsolable -- yet Billy chilled him.  Then he does something like this.  And he never met anyone who gave off so much energy.  The air practically crackled around him.
“England could sure use the money.”
“And you’re welcome.  I can lend you however much you want, or simply buy whatever land you don’t need, but I do have a favor to ask: American Jack wants to settle a million Americans in Africa once he takes extraction operations from the Mongols.  I’ll cover your expenses if you help them through.
"Oh, Uncle George will manage my new armor factories and steamship shipyards.  I want to make a million suits equal to the red one you gave me.  If you give him the government help that he needs, we will give your air force discounts if you buy in bulk."
“I will not have a damn boy tell me what to do!” 
Billy just laughed, slapped his beefy arm, and got up to leave.
"That's the spirit, grandpa!  I employ more quads than you do; I’ve killed more quads this past year than exist in England; I will be your country’s largest private employer; I employ most of your family; I own your largest bank; you owe me a thousand tons of gold; and your island will soon depend upon my new fleet of steel-hulled steamships that cannot be sunk by fireballs.”  He laughed literally out the door.  “But I’m just a boy you don’t have to listen to.”
In Ireland, Billy organized a summit of his grandfather’s descendents at the legendary Hill of Tara, the historic seat of the High King.  The man-made mound, 318 by 264 meters, was built three thousand years before by the only people that everyone agrees was true Irish.  On top stood the Stone of Destiny -- which resembled an impressive rock-hard penis -- by which the High King was crowned.  Given the constant historical infighting, the Hill of Tara represented the political and spiritual capital of Ireland.  While the king who controlled Tara never controlled the island, no one could claim Ireland without Tara.
Everyone wanted to see the kid who wiped out Prince John’s entire family, so reporters from around the country flew in.  
A very pregnant Emily had them surround the mound.  Billy dropped from above and, at optimum height, used four wands as one to blow a massive crater in the top that exploded the Stone of Destiny into a million pebbles.  Tons of dirt smacked his appalled relatives who surged forward to see the result.
What they saw defied imagination.  They each recorded it as the more daring backslid to the bottom before rain turned it into a pond.  It was many times larger than what they assumed was humanly possible.  Once their bodies filled the crater, Billy hovered over them and introduced himself.
“As the only legitimate heir to the English thrown, and as the grandson of a mighty Irish queen, King Richard has sent me to halt the fighting between those seeking to become the High King of Ireland.  Without the Stone of Destiny, no High King can be crowned.  Since no one can be crowned High King, I hope the ambitious will stop killing their neighbors trying to fulfill a position that no longer exists.”
If he wanted to shock the nation, destroying the only thing they fought over worked.
“If the pointless warfare does not end, my grandfather has sworn to invade Ireland like Queen Margaret always wanted.
“The alternative is to change the system of 150 petty kings to something grander.  Legal scholars sent by American Jack have worked with Irish experts for years to educate the Irish on how American representative democracy works.  You can either unite Ireland under native Irish rule, or watch Richard forcibly unite Ireland under English rule.  Ten thousand American marathoners will arrive soon.  Please choose before then.
“Since you are here, I can assume that you have heard that I am giving away a gold brick to every blood relative.  That gift is contingent upon your support for a new democratically elected government.
“I am also here to offer employment: a half kilo a year for twenty years for powerful quads willing to fight for an Irish Republic governed with the consent of the governed.  I will deposit a ton of gold into a special account for the new government while it sets up a legislature, judicial system, and executive branch.  Kings today could become governors tomorrow if they earn the votes of their people.  I will also spend a ton of gold in each kingdom -- Muster, Leinster, Connacht, Meath, and Ulster -- to build roads, bridges and ports, creating jobs and facilitating commerce -- if those kings support the Republic.
“I also wish to mate with powerful Irish women so that our children can prolong the peace I hope to foster.  Every mother will receive 1.2 kilos a year for eighteen years for every child they have with me.  Anyone interested should contact Emily.”
With his troops vacationing in the Americas, Billy and Emily ended up spending several months touring Ireland, meeting leaders, and giving speeches.  His long term employment contract quickly gave Billy a battalion of the best quads in the country to punish aggressors.  Since the Irish knew ten thousand Americans had been there recently, they had no doubt that another division would soon grace their shores, which kept the warring parties in check while the government slowly got off the ground.  
Best of all, Emily soon gave him a beautiful son that he named William.  Before they left the island, he got her pregnant again, along with dozens of Ireland’s most powerful quads.
Unfortunately, leaders from across the country banded together to oppose the new national government under Ruaidhrí Ó Conchobhair, who descended from the last guy claiming to be the High King.
They met at the Hill of Tara to settle their differences and Billy could tell that nothing he could say would sway them.  They were enemies for life, which produced only one solution: death.
“We have reached an impasse, so I propose we settle this in the old way: I challenge all of you to a duel to the death.  Kill me and opposing the new government gets safer.”
The offer stunned them.  “Was this your plan all along?  To bring us here under false promises so your battalion can murder us?”
The more Billy studied their reactions, the more comfortable he became.  “I, alone, will fight all of you who cannot live with representative democracy.”  They did not look like they believed him.  “Come on.  All of you against just me and the winner gets to be King of the Hill.”
Billy flew away before they could cut him down at close range and landed on the rim of the crater he created.  He watched them huddle together.  Some, apparently, were not ready to die for the old ways.  After several arguments, one hundred or so quads fanned out around the mound.  Billy foresaw how this would likely play out.
They charged as one.  The strongest faced him to fix his position.  The largest group attacked him from behind, so Billy flew towards the weakest group and chopped them down with long swords as they crested the rim.  He raced down and around the hill, where the least eager dragged their feet, stabbing as he went.  
Those on the summit rallied and charged him.  Once they committed themselves, he raced away at speeds they couldn’t match and hunted down other quads, finally popping up above the crater.  The attackers split up, each going around the base of the hill, so he pounced from behind on the closer group.  
The remaining thirty rushed him, so Billy shot straight up.  Instead of swarming him as a group, the fastest left behind the slowest.  Billy stretched them out, then used his larger, hotter, faster fireballs to swat them out of the sky, one at a time, until the very slowest fled in terror.  The leader, whose name he couldn’t even pronounce, was burnt beyond recognition.  His family had to take Billy’s word as to which smoking corpse was his.
 Billy dived low enough to gesture to Emily, who ordered the battalion to surround the remaining several thousand opposition members, few of whom were quads.  He landed before the provisional government leaders and offered a suggestion:
“To avoid civil war, I propose these agitators be held hostage among the families of our biggest supporters within each of the major kingdoms until their families no longer threaten the peace.”
The Irish had long used hostages to enforce peace agreements.  They lived as guests with families, rather than being locked up as criminals.  
When Billy returned to London, his grandfather still wasn’t happy.
“If the Irish make democracy work, then the English will want to import it here,” King Richard angrily complained.
Billy was not sympathetic.  “If England had democracy, my father would still be alive.”

CHAPTER 26

His one hundred near-marathon battalions only entered Siberia in late spring because until then they couldn’t find enough animals to feed themselves.  The rest of the year they delivered bombs and supplies to the ten marathon battalions and brought valuables back home.  Aside from overwhelming whatever blocking forces the Khan sent to the Bering Strait, the only action they saw was in the summer.
So, that spring, Billy sent them a message via the bank’s network for them to meet him at the southern end of the Ural Mountain Range, far from where the Mongols would be expecting them.  For three months Billy sacked cities in the Stans, until they simply had too much loot to transport.  The Khan led a huge force west to confront him but, instead of fighting with weighted down fliers, Billy passed the Khan far to the north, in Siberia.  Flying in opposite directions opened the distance enough for Billy to divert south into Greater Mongolia to fireball cities behind the Khan’s back.
While his troops flew to the Bering Strait, Billy went south to Manchuria, Korea, and China, dueling or hunting down Mongolian super-quads.  He deposited gold and wands at the nearest Global Bank in anticipation of better days.
Billy landed in Siam with his senses on fire.  Armed with a set of Millennial Wands, the great-grandson of the Khan’s brother Khasar established his own autonomous kingdom, marrying into the Siamese royal family.  His descendents aggressively mated with the world’s most powerful women to produce the world’s most dangerous family, outside of the Khan’s.   William considered them too dangerous to fight, but Billy wanted the Millennial Wands.  Although, technically, part of the Mongol Empire, Genghis wisely left them alone and didn’t even require tribute.  In return, the ruler called himself a governor instead of a king.  For two hundred years, this tiny kingdom over-powered its neighbors to become far bigger than its nearest Mongol provinces.
Billy rented an expensive luxury suite and toured the kingdom to rest up.   He stored food and supplies wherever he found a good hiding spot in the jungles.  After a pleasant few days, he approached the palace and asked the guard to record images of his death sticks.
“Now ask the governor if he would like to duel for Millennial Wands.”
The guard didn’t know what to make of the nice polite boy, so Billy drew blades and slew the other guards.  With a wave, he sent the guard running inside, even as more quads poured out.  Seeing a lone boy, they attacked upon sight, instead of waiting to attack en masse.  Billy happily dueled several a time, killing them as fast as they poured out, until a company flew over him and blasted the entire area, destroying the northern wall.
With no other choice, Billy flew into the palace and killed everyone he met.  Fortunately, most of the palace had high ceilings so he could pop over fireballs.  He moved as fast as possible to avoid getting trapped, but it happened anyways, forcing him to blast a hole through a wall, then escape out the next window as fireballs sought him out.  His left leg got burned, but not enough to stop him.
Billy landed down the road, within sight of the palace, and yelled out his challenge.  Several angry veterans stormed out.  Billy could tell each of them was very good, and wondered if he finally reached more than he could grab.  The warriors attacked without even trying to surround or flank him.  They should, at least, have positioned the company to block his escape.  
Billy popped up as soon as they took to the air.  As expected, they saturated the area above him with fireballs, so he flew at them in an arc and got off two volleys with all four wands before extending four blades and slashing at the survivors.  Clearly, they did not anticipate the width of his fireballs or the length of his blades.  
Billy quickly snatched up the wands -- he had no doubt they were all great -- and barely avoided the company that now flew over him.  He flew in the direction they came from, then came up above and behind them with swords drawn.  In a block of ten by ten, Billy’s challenge was slashing two lines at a time before those in the front turned to blast him at point blank range.  He finished his second set of swipes before the commander led the company up enough for the first line to turn in place.  Billy couldn’t avoid ten blasts from so close, so he popped down, then continued slicing.  When the commander signed his troops to halt, Billy popped up and away to hit them from superior height.  The company broke into squads to swarm him, so he flew up, just out of their range, but kept the fastest within his range until he ran out of pursuers. 
Returning to earth, he found the palace swarming with quads, who couldn’t believe one guy beat an entire elite company.  Billy landed on the road again and called out his challenge to the governor, who he could see at the gate.  The guy used his Millennial Wands to establish quite a reputation as a dueler over the last two hundred years, so he could either throw away more troops, or face an unknown challenger.
Billy drank from a water sack while the governor considered his options.  Super-quads lined the palace wall facing him, and Billy had no doubt that a few companies waited out of sight, in formation, while others circled behind him.  Satisfied with his dispositions, the governor walked away from the outer wall and asked the stranger to identify himself.  Billy did so by popping up, flashing his four wands, and doing a half-hearted version of his scream.  The governor stopped to stay within the protection of those on the wall, so Billy limped closer, favoring the leg whose pants were burned off.  The old man made an expression of disgust when he smelled Billy’s roasted flesh.  The governor didn’t even draw his wands, so Billy set his back in their wand launchers.
“What does the Red Baron want with me?”  The governor sounded astonished, while flattering Billy with recognition.
 “I want your Millennial Wands.”
“Well, you’re not gonna get them.  I already gave them to my best descendent, who isn’t here.”
“Then I guess you’re gonna die using inferior wands.”  
The two eyed each other warily, their fingers twitching.  Billy knew that the governor thought he had a quick-draw advantage, plus the quads on the wall behind him and others circling to surprise Billy from behind.
What worried Billy wasn’t the governor, but his wand launchers.  They had been acting up lately.  He worked hard at it, but he wasn’t a natural tinkerer like his father.  One bad spring and he was a dead man.
The governor obviously didn’t expect Billy to out-draw him.  Billy got as close as he dared, then threw a fast fireball at him, which the surprised veteran barely dodged.  But now Billy shot two very wide bursts, which forced him to flight.  The governor fired back.  Billy normally would get closer while dodging, but had no doubt that those on the wall would rain fire on him, so he backed up in the air.  He alternated between boot wands, which made him look like he was climbing giant stairs backwards, and used his hand hands to keep him vertical as he traded shots.  A volley from nearly one hundred super-quads threatened to scorch his path.  They were fired too far away to kill, but close enough to burn.
So Billy pretended the wand in his burnt boot faltered.  With a cry of disbelief, Billy fell to the ground and scrambled to replace his left boot wand.  Seeing his chance, the governor closed the distance -- by leaving the protection of his troops.  Billy avoided his next shot by using a wand to push himself across the ground towards his opponent, while firing with his right boot wand.  Since Billy’s hands pointed away, the old man didn’t expect a fireball to intercept his leap.  He rolled in place to shield his face and Billy pierced his back from sixteen meters away.  The boy would never forget the incredulous look on the governor’s face as he tackled him before he landed and flew away.
As Billy expected, several companies were ready to chase him, others hiding in the clouds, plus the super-quads on the palace wall, who were probably his descendents.  Billy raced away from the units above him and slowed his breathing so he could rise higher than his pursuers.  Once he had enough distance, Billy disappeared in the thickest cloud to give himself time to transfer the governor’s wands.
Rising ever higher while humming a popular Mongol song, Billy circled over the palace and dived.  Once he felt confident of his aim, he let the general go, then recorded the man splatter on the roof of his palace.  The video would soon become a local hit.  He did his scream and flaming dance again, knowing many would be recording him, then flew higher and faster than they dreamed possible.
The kingdom had so many good quads that it took Billy five months to exhaust them.  He soon learned that the governor really did give his Millennials to a young descendent named Jirko.  
Day after day he beat dozens of them, then would surprise others at night.  He gave rebels in nearby conquered kingdoms money, wands, and armor, and soon had his own growing air force to properly battle the Siamese Air Force.  But his big break came when a Siamese general who descended from the last king executed a palace coup, slaughtering the governor’s extensive family.  As Billy’s urging, the natives killed Mongols and their descendents so they wouldn’t be ruled by foreigners again.
Billy spent a month dueling in Vietnam, Burma, India, Persia, Arabia, Turkey, and the northern African coast before visiting England and Ireland to impregnate the mothers of his newborns again.
In London, George presented him with his first suit.  “The engineers haven’t perfected it yet, but it’s ten times better than your last one.  It weighs several kilos less, although the new fire-resistant clothes we designed are heavier and less comfortable.  We made it a common color so it wouldn’t make you stand out.”  George pointed all the featured that strengthened the steel and minimized burn through.  “The helmet weighs less, but protects you better.   We’re still refining the manufacturing process for when we perfect the design.”
Billy -- normally a distant boy -- hugged his uncle.  “You have just saved my life one hundred times over.”
Overwhelmed by the affection, George hugged him back.  “When you die, I don’t want it to be my fault.  I sometimes can’t sleep at night when the news wands retells your latest adventure.”
Billy pulled back to look his uncle in the eye.  “My life has already been worth it.  When I die, celebrate me, for I have lived life on my own terms.  How many people get to choose how they die?”
“We’re constantly making little improvements.  Do you want to come here, or should I send them to a Global Bank branch overseas?”
“Send the next few, with the new clothes, to our bank in Madrid.  I’ll be back in a year to tell you where to send more.  I have a feeling I will be going through a lot of them.”
“Tell me about it.”

CHAPTER 27

Two years before, Mongols controlled all of the Iberian peninsula except what locals called Portugal.  With the help of the American marathoners, the Spanish pushed them back to the eastern coastline.  Once his new American and African divisions arrived, Billy hoped to kick the enemy out of Spain.  To make that easier, he planned to kill their best quads in the arena.
As Billy entered the Barcelona arena under a nom de guerre, a lone girl cheered him by name.  He called himself "Hideously Ugly" because an ugly mood helped him duel.  So he turned to her screams and saw the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.  Long black hair, brown skin, and enough energy to rival the Sun.
“Hideously Beautiful," she yelled in Mongolian, "kill these pretenders!  Show them the real deal!  Teach them who the true master is!"  Then she would lead cheers like "2, 4, 6, 8, I can't wait to pro-create."  
She appeared alone, super confident, and totally out of place.
Billy had never dueled in Spain before, or ever used this pseudonym, so being called out scared him.  His first instinct was to run like hell, but he needed to hallow out the enemy.
Billy hated staying more than one day in the same city after dueling, so he had stadium management give him teams of three opponents at a time.  At Billy’s request, the manager personally passed on Billy’s challenge to the local Mongolian battalion.
Billy fought teams of three from dawn to dusk and loved the new suit and clothes.  One side dug into his hip, but that was a small price to pay for being able to tolerate twice the heat.  He could brush past fireballs without worrying about burns now, which gave him another big advantage.  George gave him ten extra glass faceplates, so he could just fly through weaker blasts, knowing he could replace any melted glass afterwards.
This was better than fighting with a fifty wand.  Billy knew his father would go ape exploring the technical improvements.
The girl cheered every victory, rejoiced in every wand he took, and flirted with him at every opportunity.  He had fans before, but none so enthusiastic.  
Which must have pissed off the battalion commander because Billy didn’t run out of opponents.  He usually exhausted volunteers by lunch, but by mid-afternoon it dawned on him that he may have to duel the entire battalion.
So he killed them as effortlessly as possible in order to have the strength to go literally all day.  He found himself flying less, to conserve energy, while absorbing more heat.  Still, sweating was better than burning.  Billy looked forward to bathing in his dressing room afterwards.  The crazy girl who declared herself his biggest fan kept sending him food, drink, and painkillers, so he held out until nightfall when the arena closed to record crowds.  No way could he have survived the day without George’s new suit.
His final score? 1005 kills in 335 duels.  The most ever.  Which was pretty good since he had to restrain himself from extending his wands more than ten meters or using his boot wands for anything but flight.  Still, his blasts clearly reflected twice the power than a mere ten-meter wand could produce.
After his last duel, he waited as long as possible after making sure his winnings were deposited under guard into his bank account.  He felt strangely vulnerable after he killed the last of his day's opponents.  Just as he chided himself for paranoia, he heard a huge explosion, followed by a massive barrage of blasts.  Terrified, the world’s best dueler huddled in a corner, all alone, wishing his mommy and daddy protected him.
Finally, he ran out of excuses and disguised himself as a peasant boy.  He waited for a family to leave, then tagged along to blend in.  It had always worked in the past.  Not ten paces into the busy street the girl dropped down on him with the flying skill of a master.
"Are you kidding me?  Hideously Ugly?" she asked with a laugh upon seeing his face.  "You are gorgeous!"
“Go away!  It’s not safe.”
She smiled.  “Oh, the battalion commander assumed only the Red Baron would challenge three at a time all day, so he volunteered his troops while sending for the nearest super-quad companies assigned to kill you.  You finished his under-strength battalion by mid-afternoon.  The commander and his two best duelers didn’t last any longer than the rest of them.  He looked surprised that you still had enough energy to lift your wand.  My friends emptied their camp of valuables and killed their support staff.  After that you destroyed two super-quad companies and part of a third, before it got too dark.  The rest we bombed in an ally while they waited to ambush you.  The other seven companies are probably flying here now.”
“They sent a battalion of super-quads after the Red Baron?”  Billy felt sick.
“That’s how much Warsaw scared Genghis Khan.  My twin brother is the best dueler in Europe.  Well, except for you.  The super-quads almost mistook him for you.”  She laughed.  “They had no idea he had so many super-quad friends.”
“I look forward to meeting your twin.”
“No you don’t.  He’s not gonna like you being with me and you being a better dueler.  Thank goodness he’s up north dueling.”
He wanted to flee, but she got into his personal space to examine his face like a ruby.  He had never met a woman so direct.
"You are perfect for me."  For the first time, he had no idea what to do as she took his head into her hands and smiled into his eyes.  "It's okay," she reassured him.  "Your secret is safe with me."
"You mistake me for someone else."
"Oh no, my champion.  I could spot your aura from a kilometer up.  You have the most powerful energy I have ever seen, and I have spent my life around the world’s most powerful quads.  Like you, I have been dueling since I was a child, but I am also a healer.  You favor your left leg, you can’t raise your right hand over your head, and your back hurts like hell.  I can help you with that.  Here, let me show you."
With that she backed him into the shadows of the building and slowly kissed him until he enthusiastically kissed her back.  And then they continued until he lost track of time.  He felt high, like sucking wands, but lighter and warmer.  And instead of thinking clearer, his head shut down.  He felt her hands on his body, and the warmth she applied to his wounds, but mostly he attached himself to her lips like his wands sucked dry countless enemy sticks.
"I don't know about you," she finally said, smiling, "but I feel better."  She was probably eight years older.  "Come," she commanded, taking his hand and walking through several streets until they reached a crowded restaurant where they could whisper in private over dinner.  He remained in a daze, but still noticed that her eyes searched for threats.
"My name is Princess and my brother Prince.  Our father wasn't even a chief, but the local shaman suggested the names.  Mongols killed our parents in battle when we were ten, so we have been killing their dueling champions ever since.  I became a millennial before puberty.”
She rambled on until it dawned on him that she was doing it to make him comfortable.  Still, he wouldn't even tell her his name.  Or why he dueled.  Or where his parents were.  
"Come with me," she insisted.  "You need to meet the people I am with."
"Only if I can keep a mask on.  I will not answer questions or show my face.  The Mongols will kill me if my image or identify become known."
And it would be the death of him if the Mongols knew the Red Baron was just a kid.

CHAPTER 28

Princess led him high, darting from cloud to cloud, then dropped down in a forest in the middle of nowhere.  Billy couldn’t spot the campfire.  Her wand emitted a soft greeting, so it would not travel far, then she landed in the open.  A burly guy greeted them, hands empty to signal peace.
"You almost missed dinner, Princess.  I’m Bear,” he said to Billy.
"Oh, we already ate."
"Dating already?"  He chuckled.  "Better meet Grandma before you get your hopes up," he advised Billy.  "Some of the guys call Princess the Universal Target because everyone has taken a shot at her.  Unsuccessfully," he added.
"He won't show his face or answer questions," Princess warned.
"I wouldn't either if I dueled over a thousand quads in one day.  They thought they could just tire you out, so they went from least to most powerful.  The last three you beat were brothers, led by a vicious multi-millennial named Buri who was probably the best the Mongols had in Europe.  He killed some good buddies of mine.  Thank you for killing him.  I have a twenty meter wingspan, yet I couldn't beat him in a fair fight.  Yet, completely exhausted, you flayed him within thirty heartbeats.  What harsh shit did you tell him while you watched the life drain out of him?”
“Just something the Third Millennial said right before I killed him.”
The big guy lit up in joy.  “Oh, you’re gonna be real popular here.”
“Would you like Buri’s wand set, Bear?”
The big guy looked stunned.  Wands that powerful were worth a fortune.  “How much?”
“You have to always watch my back.  That is the price you must pay.”
“But I’d do that anyways, for someone who can duel a thousand Mongols a day.”
“Then we have a deal?” Billy asked, holding out the four wands.
Bear snatched them up before the kid changed his mind and they shook hands.
"You can call me Red."
"Red?"  Bear thought that funny.  "We believe that warriors should be called whatever they want to be called.  I knew a guy who insisted we call him Shit For Brains because he kept enlisting for the most dangerous duty.  Brave bastard."  And apparently dead.  "Well, come on.  Everyone wants to meet the guy who has enough energy to kill a thousand duelers, back to back.  Just the thought tires me out.  Don't pull a wand or some of them might pee themselves."
His chuckle echoed against the trees.
"Look who accepted our invitation," Bear announced, gesturing grandly to Billy, who looked uncomfortable with two hundred eyes sizing him up.  "He wants to be called Red.  I know, I know.  I thought he would be taller, too.  He only came on the condition that he would not show his face or answer questions.  When I asked if he had a pleasant flight, he refused to tell me."
No one drew a wand, so Billy stepped forward.  He noticed that they built a roof of branches over their cooking fires so they could not be spotted from the air.  They all looked like tough veterans.
“Hey, grandpa!” Bear called out.  “Want to shake the hand of the guy who killed the Third Millennial?”
An old man ran out, as excited as a boy on his birthday.  "I am American Jack."
Stunned, Billy gave him a thorough look-over, because he sure didn’t look like the longtime leader of the resistance.  "You?  You're kidding!"
Everyone laughed, but he didn't mean to insult the poor man.  American Jack was a legend.  Like Genghis, he mated with thousands of quads around the world to continue the fight.  He just didn't look like a legend.
"I get that a lot," he replied with a smile, apparently hard to offend.  “What’s with the red suit?  Most veterans want to blend in, not stand out.”
“For three centuries, Genghis Khan used his terrifying reputation as the best dueler in the world to build an empire.   I hope to build my own terrifying reputation to tear that empire down.  Genghis became a legend to take people’s freedom; I shall become a legend to give it back.”
“You’re a damn relief, is what you are.  You took ten thousand inexperienced marathoners and beat everything in Europe.  Including an experienced armada ten times your size.  The videos of that campaign lifted many of us out of depression.  That victory flooded American University with high-quality recruits.”
“My father said I must decide between being either a good man or a great man.  I’ve made my choice.  Genghis Khan is a boogeyman to the world.  I want to become a boogeyman to Mongols.  Justice requires that what they did to others be done to them.”
If they liked him before, they absolutely loved him now.  He could see it in their eyes, like a doctor telling a patient he can cure him.
"Everyone has wondered what became of the Third Millennial,” Jack said.  “No one believed he could be killed, so even Genghis Khan assumes the old bastard is just avoiding him.”
“I’ve survived several hundred thousand duels because I use his Millennial Wands.”
Jack studied the hand wands closely.  
“That bastard led the raid that killed my wife and family.  I loved my wife so much that I never re-married.  Not even after three hundred years.”
“I got him because he tried to kill my parents.  Hey, wanna see the look on his face when I stuck steel into his chest?”
The audience reacted as if he threw gold at them.  They instantly mobbed him, while some hovered a few meters in the air to see.  
Billy flew up to sit on a tree branch and projected an unbelievably large 3D image.  They remained silent as they watched, from his perspective, the blades shoot out of the snow and into the one warrior they feared the most.  The look on Subodei’s incredulous face was priceless.  They gasped as Billy sliced his arms and cheered wildly while the bastard slowly died.
Finally, Billy played the clip of him saying, “You know what I like most about a fair fight?  The better fighter always wins.”
The applause deafened him.  The pats on his back fell so hard they knocked him around.  He had never seen so many exhilarated faces.  Several of these hardened warriors openly wept.  A tough-looking Russian hugged him, tears falling uncontrollably.
“Can I have a copy?” someone asked.
He tapped wand after wand.  The videos quickly became fixtures at wand libraries around the world.  Jack would soon send Billy’s wand memories to specialists who produced a series of professional best-of clips that highlighted the Baron’s most famous opponents.  A different clip went through image after image of everyone he killed, usually while he watched their life drain out of them, and was narrated by the meanest man they could find to play the Red Baron.
It struck the Mongols like a spiritual version of the thirteenth century black plague.
“Let the man breathe,” Bear insisted, roughly pushing them back.  “He obviously can take a blast, but your damn crying is unmanning him.”
And it was.  He bonded with them before he even knew their names.
“Sorry, Red.  You see, pretty much everyone here loved someone killed by Subodei.  Yet not even Prince could beat him in a fair fight.”
Their tears were making even Billy cry, so Bear helped him out.
“Ay!  Now look what you’ve done to poor Jack.”  The old man sat in the dirt, cradling his head in his hands, bawling like a baby.  “I’ve known the man for two hundred years and I’ve never seen him cry like that.  Not even that time he thought I shoved his beloved wands up a Mongol’s anus.”
It surprised Billy how many non-Caucasians he shook hands with.  Several from Africa and a hell of a lot from Asia.  Three hundred years breeding with the world's best quads resulted in some fascinating company.  A lady, and almost half of them were ladies, passed him a plate and cup as everyone gathered around to hear the interview.
"This is delicious.  What is it?" Billy asked.
"Fried bull testicles basted in saffron paste with coriander sprinkle," Bear lied with a straight face.
"Damn it," Billy replied, not missing a beat.  "I just had that for breakfast."
“Tell us your story, Red,” a beautiful redhead asked.  
"Mongols have killed ten generations of my ancestors,” Billy explained simply.  "My father and I beat almost a million of them in arenas all over the Empire."  He took off his body armor and shirt and walked around the fire so they could get a good look.  Like all warriors, burns and cuts covered his hands and arms because armor on the arms weighed too much.  Yet the multiple levels of scars on his chest, neck, and back must have resulted from a hell of a lot of fights.
"They cooked you more than the boar we're roasting," Bear commented.
"Pink is a more accurate name than Red.  And the Pink Baron has a nice ring to it.”
"Have you tried wearing armor?"
"No offense, but you look better with a shirt."
"Did they give you a free scar after you earned the first million?"
"I can see why you enjoy dueling.  Do you also punch yourself in the nuts?"
"Were you aware you still have a little untouched skin?  I can scorch that for you if you want."
The jokes kept coming, but he could tell it impressed them.  Despite his youth, he had worked the trenches and paid his dues.
Then he reached Grandma.  The tiny old lady projected gravitas that Julius Caesar would envy.  She ran her hands over his body, exploring his scars like a lover.  "How come you aren't dead?"
"I'll show you after dinner."
"Over my dead body!" Princess joked to general laughter.
"So you're all vacationing behind enemy lines?" Billy asked.
"Yeah," Jack answered.  "We're just killing time and Mongols until some Americans we trained arrive.  We lost contact with the guy paying their salary, so I don’t know what will happen now.”
"The guy who contracted you for the ten thousand Americans is dead," Billy said.
Jack jumped up.  "Willy died?  This guy was a visionary.  He changed everything.
“Three centuries ago, I needed to disappear, so I fled to the Americas, but I didn’t give up on the war.  Instead I founded American University so the natives wouldn’t be at such a technical, cultural, and educational disadvantage against the European immigrants.  I started businesses to make the university free, and we taught them English, reading, writing, math, history, geography, etc.  We established such a reputation in agriculture that every native leader sent their best farmers and ranchers to us.  But the biggest effect we had was on politics because we promoted representative democracy and free trade as a replacement for war as a means towards prosperity, stability, and security.  My super-quad allies and I reproduced with the most powerful natives.  Our first generation of children gave us the only air force in the Americas, which we used to promote peace and deter war.  I would simply challenge any leader bent on promoting violence.   
“Our quad descendents eventually led almost every major tribe, which made educating on a larger scale possible.  These leaders formalized tribal confederations into nations, which established official ties with their neighbors.  Representatives from these nations met to reach consensus on political, legal, judicial, military, economic, taxation, and other issues.
“The natives didn’t mine precious metals, which basically gave me a monopoly.  Most of the metal tools and equipment in the Americas are mine.  I started the first fishing and cargo fleets.  Famine leads to conflict, so I started huge farms and ranches across the Americas.  When crops failed in one area, I flew food in from another.
“As my businesses made me richer, I expanded university branches across the Americas and started buying wand sets in bulk.  The native Americans had no idea who had wand abilities because they didn’t have wands, so I sent teams to visit literally every village, town, and city, going systematically from north to south.  But many were too busy to bother getting their abilities tested.  But I still recruited thousands of volunteers every year to help the Europeans slow the Mongol advance.
“Then your father started sending me thousands of really good wands, with which we armed the first American raiders, who brought back over a million wand sets.  I saved the best for the most powerful university graduates, and had my agents give sets to every quad in the Americas worthy of the name.  Now everyone saw the value of getting their abilities tested because those who could fly got wealth, mates, and status.  Suddenly everyone wanted wands.  Every winter our raiders brought back a million or more sets, so I kept sending most of them south.  Genghis kept promising to exterminate the Americas, so we put those threats on every wand so everyone knew the danger he posed to their loved ones.
“The marathoners gave us several million wands, but we never could have fielded them without your father’s super-wands.  What I could never figure out is how he got so many great wands, or why he just gave them away.  Each set was worth a fortune.”
"Willy was my father.  We got them from the Mongols we killed in the arena,” Billy explained simply.
“Well, we share your loss.  Without him, we cannot pay the American and African divisions that we’re waiting for.  Took us years to find and train so many.  I was hoping to use them to retake Africa, which would bankrupt the Empire.”
“Oh, my dad died two years ago.  I have been making their payroll and I funded those new divisions that Spain and France fielded.  I want the Africans to roll up the Mongols in Spain from the south while the new Americans do the same from the north.
“Before we re-take Africa, we’re gonna kick the Mongols out of Spain because that will simplify a defensive line along the Pyrenees Mountains, which blocks the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe.  Without Mongols in Spain, we have a safe corridor via Canada-Greenland-England-Spain to pour resources into taking Africa.”
Billy didn’t mean to sound like he was now in charge, but that’s how it came across.  The silence only grew louder since he basically cut off Jack at the knees.  Jack gave his speech to get well-deserved respect.  He didn’t expect to be humbled right away.
“Grandma?” Bear asked their best general
“Without Mongols in Spain, taking Africa will be much easier, cheaper, and safer since we won’t have to guard those in route, so I’m going with the guy who killed a million quads with those rookies we trained.  Can you really fund forty thousand quads for several years?” she asked Billy.
“I already put ten years salary in special accounts at Global Bank, just in case something happens to me.  Plus I’d like to fund another American and African division as soon as you can train them.”
Bear started laughing.  "I'm beginning to see what Princess sees in this guy.  I never liked kids.  Not even my own.  But, I’ve got to tell you, I really like this boy.”
He picked up Billy and gave him one of his world famous bear hugs. Billy had not been hugged since his mother died and it made him feel very uncomfortable.  A warrior cannot plan on killing millions of enemies without shutting down certain emotions.
Their campfire had gone out, so Billy thought he’d give them a show.
"You folks look like you’ve seen everything.  I bet I can show you something new."  They answered with a cheerful roar.  All except Princess.  "What about you, little girl?  You don't want to bet?"
Billy regretted taunting her as soon as the words left his lips.  She stood up and stared him down.  
"I will never, ever, bet against you.  I want to have your children and take care of you for the rest of my life."
Billy was hovering over them, but her words turned off his wands, something that had never happened before.  He crashed into several warriors who roughly pushed him off into the dirt.  
"I think I just fell in love," he mumbled in a daze, not able to even get up.
Princess looked frozen, but Grandma, next to her, screamed like a Banshee.
"Not with you, Grandma!" Billy joked.  "With the young, beautiful one."
"I'm sorry," Bear spoke up, "but I am already taken."
Billy and Princess shared a long look, then he smiled as he popped up above them, releasing a raw primal scream and lighting up all four wands.  His forty meter-long wingspan gave them chills.  They stared at him in utter silence.  Even the birds stopped chirping.  Sure, they saw the videos of the Red Baron in France, but those didn’t do him justice.  The entire camp cheered him.  Never had Billy felt so much like he belonged.
"Jack, you got any clean underwear I can borrow?" Bear asked.  
Diva, a beautiful Irish redhead, got so excited she flew over them and performed an incredible aerial fire dance that expressed her joy better than words could convey.
Princess flew up to tackle him in the air.  They landed in the brush and she started undressing him.
Bear admonished her:  "Not here!  Some of us are sensitive.  Not me, but Jack is kind of squeamish.”
"I am taking him, Grandma," she said, challenging the old veteran.  “I have saved my virginity long enough.”
Indeed, at a time of low life expectancy, most girls married soon after puberty, yet Princess waited several years longer until she found the right man.
"You were right, my dear.  He is the one," Grandma agreed.
Princess grabbed him by the front of his pants and led him away.  When Ox, a young beefy warrior, didn't move out of her way fast enough, her wand threw him into the bushes.
Billy had not felt this happy since he was orphaned.

CHAPTER 29

Billy and Princess took a week off in Madrid to enjoy a pseudo-honeymoon.  They certainly partied like newlyweds.  His fifteenth birthday was coming up, so he showed her his birth certificate that claimed he was turning seventeen.  He bought her expensive jewelry and transferred a ton of gold into her account in anticipation of their first child.  The prospect of deliberately having a child, then not being alive to support it, horrified Billy.  
Ultimately, however, they had to return to war.
Flying high, they spotted a company of Spanish airmen chasing two squads of Mongols.  But then two companies of Mongols sprang up on both sides as soon as the Spanish passed them.  Each group of Mongols split into three groups: ten rose highest, forty flew just above the Spanish, while another forty on each side flew just below the Spanish.  No matter which way they fled, the Spanish were screwed.  
Billy gestured to Princess to follow, then dived steeply.  Billy silently sliced the ten quads guarding the ceiling, killing none of them but wounding them all.  They all fell like rocks, having no idea what hit them.
Then he sped after the next forty,  cutting them from behind until survivors noticed and shot back.  Billy continued with blades as long as possible, shielding himself even as they banked left towards their comrades.  Billy popped up and fired all four wands.  Princess, having circled around, fired at them from their rear.
Discovering the imminent trap shocked the Spanish, who abandoned the two squads ahead to turn on those fighting Billy and Princess.  The two groups quickly closed.  At the last moment, Billy appeared above the Mongols and distracted them with his famous scream.  Princess then shot from above to target the enemy from three places.  
The Spanish rose so they all faced the Mongols and, like a ship's broadside, released the first of many volleys.  Blasts travel farther from height, so the Mongols had to gain speed and altitude before the Spanish got into range.  They had little choice but to ignore the two quads above them to concentrate on the company in front of them.  The Spanish, however, pulled off an old Mongol trick by flying backwards at a 30 degree angle -- extending their broadside.  The Mongols tried to close, but broke off when they took too many casualties.  Billy and Princess chased them down.
The other Mongol company positioned themselves favorably against the Spanish while the two Mongol squads raced back.  Billy used himself as bait to delay their attack.  The reward for killing the Red Baron would set them up for life, so they attacked him instead.  He zoomed away at unbelievable speed.  Once they committed themselves to diving after him, he led them in front of the Spanish, who devastated them.  The honeymooners joined in to finish them off.  When the two Mongol squads fled, Billy and Princess hunted them down.
They returned to find the Spanish taking the Mongols’ valuables.  One of the Spanish squad leaders had an impressive fireball, so Billy sought him out.  And he turned out to be young, beautiful, and female.
“Maria, this is my wife, Princess,” Billy said when she landed.  He handed Maria a set of wands.  “Show us your new wingspan.”
Awed at meeting the infamous Red Baron, Maria blew out flame nine meters from each hand wand in disbelief.
“She’s a keeper,” Princess said contently.
“You can keep those wands if you agree to follow me until the end of the war.”
“I cannot quit the Spanish Air Force now.  They need me.”
Billy laughed.  “I guarantee you will kill more Mongols with me.  Take us to your division commander and I’ll get you temporarily transferred to Team Red.”

CHAPTER 30

Billy, Princess, and Maria found their camp much larger now.
“Bear, has Jack been recruiting?” Billy asked.
“Jack gave everyone the week off if they brought back at least one other super-quad.  We may have a thousand supers soon.  You’re like a super-quad magnet.”
Princess cursed.  “Damn!  My brother is back.”
“He’s not gonna duel me, is he?” Billy asked, surprised, as a skinny American Indian marched angrily towards them.
Princess drew wand and fired off a verbal barrage in their native tongue.  Prince didn’t even slow down.  He walked up to Billy and swung a fist.
Billy didn’t need several years of Asian martial arts training to avoid the round-house punch.  He avoid several more while a crowd formed.  Frustrated, Prince tried to tackle him, since Indians grow up wrestling.  Billy grabbed his upper body, twisted, and sent him flying into the dirt.
“Prince!” Jack yelled.
“It’s okay,” Billy said.  “I can do this all day.”
Princess, however, took no chances.  Her wand threw her brother into a nearby stream.  A wall of friends formed between them.  Prince couldn’t believe his friends chose the new guy over him.
Eager to win them over, Billy emptied his backpack onto the grass.  Hundreds of wand sets spilled out, each wrapped in water-resistant leather pouches.  
  "Jack," Billy confessed, "My father and I held back on you.  The most powerful wands were too valuable to give away.  And these are not ‘dead’ wands.  I took them from dying multi-millennials, so they retain their full power.  I sent them to Madrid to reward the best American quads, but instead I’ll give them out now on the condition that those who accept them swear to follow me until we win this war."
Some of them laughed at the thought of them winning the war.
They dived in because quads obsess over wands like a man does his penis.  There is no such thing as too powerful a wand.  Everyone was soon torching new sticks.  Some wands favored certain users over others, so everyone fired up hundreds to find which worked best for them.  Billy may as well have dropped naked women on them, given their excitement.
Billy hovered over them and augmented his voice.  "The most powerful quads get the most powerful wands.  If more than one quad wants a wand, the warrior who can extend a flame the longest gets it.  But no one may take more than one set.”
Better wands let them fly faster and blast stronger.  It could literally make the difference between life and death.  
The twins, after a decade constantly dueling using their parent’s wands, beat everyone, but a few long time veterans came close.  But one his own age stood out, torching eleven meters.
“Who’s the kid?” Billy asked Princess.  Their group had a few dozen Africans, apparently all descendents of Jack, but this one seemed the darkest of them all.
“Pretty, isn’t she?”
“I can’t tell beneath all that hair, but look at those flames!  What’s her story?”
“An orphan, like so many of us.  The Mongols wiped out her entire family and most of her tribe, while ruled an empire in northwest Africa.  She goes by Mali, the name of her kingdom.  We found her several years ago dueling constantly to boost her power.”
Billy had a few special sets of wands tucked in his jacket, so he walked over and offered her one.
“Try these.”
She looked at him hard, trying to guess his motive.  “I cannot promise to follow you.  I’m just here to earn enough money to hire enough quads to kill the Mongols who wiped out my family.”
“Then these may help.”
She reluctantly took them and her face lit up when she fired twelve meter long fire.
“What do you want for them?” she asked, hating herself for asking.
“I’ll let my wife tell you,” Billy answered as he walked off, wondering what their children would look like.  Mali could earn a ton of gold a year just having his babies, plus her share of the spoils.  In just a few years she could afford her own air force.
 Billy asked American Jack if his group had any experts in sword fighting to teach him.  Jack called over someone still wearing a full suit of armor.
"Blade, Red here wants to improve his sword fighting skills.  Make him show us what he's got."
Blade gave him no time.  Billy ducked a swipe, then popped over another to give him time to extend his own.  Very long blades are great in the air, but they smack the ground when fighting on the surface.  Billy rose ten meters and Blade went after him.  
He found himself completely outmatched.  He thought he was an excellent flier, but she danced around him despite his superior power.  Not wanting to get his ass kicked in front of his new friends, his wand pushed Blade hard into a tree.  
Furious, Blade rose again, clearly going to beat him to a pulp, so Billy used his superior wand to levitate a rock and smack his opponent from the side.  Again, Blade went down.  Fuming, Blade made a more cautious approach, using superior skill to unfairly smack Billy again and again on his legs, sides, and head.  Desperate, Billy extended a leg blade that flipped Blade in the air, then struck his opponent hard into the ground with a steel bat.  For the third time, Billy humiliated Blade in front of everybody.
He landed a safe distance away to praise him, but Blade's helmet fell off and she looked about to cry.  Billy, like most teenagers, had more hormones than neurons.  Stunned at her beauty, he reacted slowly and got punched in the face.
Prince howled in laughter.
"Stay out of my way, you cruel son-of-a-bitch," she said before stomping away.
"Damn it, Red!"  Instead of helping him up, Princess hit him while he was down.  "Blade has the best rack in the outfit.  I should have mentioned this before, especially when I said I was a virgin, but I also play for that team, and Blade is my favorite player.  I was hoping to include you, but now you messed it all up.  Now she'll never give you any, even though she wants kids from a powerful father."
His head already hurt really bad, but now it hurt worse.  Did his fiancée just say she slept with other women?  Is that how she stayed a virgin so long?  If that counted as virginity?
“How was I suppose to know?” he protested.
Princess squatted in front of him.  “Blade is the only surviving child of the last king of Sweden.  The Mongols raped her and her mother when she was a teenager, two decades ago.  She wants to reclaim her kingdom, but she needs a powerful son to proclaim as king.  A prodigy with you would have been perfect.  Nobody would dare mess with the son of the Red Baron.”
Mongols thought nothing of raping civilians.  They raped so many in Peking in 1215 that tens of thousands of women threw themselves to death off the battlements.  
Rape had a long Mongol history: Genghis’ father stole his mother from her original husband and, in revenge years later, the mother's tribe kidnapped, raped, and impregnated Genghis' new wife.  Genghis named the boy "guest" or "visitor."  To avoid the oldest son from becoming head of the family, the second-oldest had his older half-brother poisoned in 1227.  Just as Genghis killed his own older half-brother to become the head of the family when he was a teenager.
"I thought she was a guy," was Billy's weak excuse, watching Princess go after Blade.
"I need to talk to you," Jack suddenly said, very perturbed.  "Now!"  Jack never struck Billy as the aggressive type, but he dragged Billy by the arm like he was just a skinny kid.  "Where did you get these?" he demanded once trees shielded them, holding up a matching pair of wands. 
"They’re my father's," Billy answered.
"And where did he get them?"
"From his father.  They go back like ten generations.  Always to the strongest, and only on the condition that they’re used against Mongols."
Jack turned pale in front of him, clutched his chest, and slid to the ground.  Oh, great, Billy thought.  The guy survives three centuries fighting humanity’s greatest empire, then I kill him without even trying.
"Von Richthofen," the old man whispered.
Now Billy freaked out.  He popped a wand and crouched down.  "How the hell do you know my name?"
Jack tried to smile, but failed.  "It's my name.  I am the Baron Karl von Richthofen.  My mother Hildred put my initials on it.  I gave this wand to my son when I thought I was going to die in Peking in 1215.  I thought they wiped you out.  You are from my only legitimate line."
Billy suddenly felt equally old.  He collapsed next to his ancestor.  “Your great granddaughter Rachel escaped.  Later, her husband was killed while she was pregnant, so she married Taran of Kiev and encouraged him to duel until he died.  Since then we’ve burned ancient trees.  My grandfather believed we cost the Khan several million wands.”
Jack got all excited.  “Oh, but I met some of them!  I just never knew they were family.”
“I am not the last of my line.  Just ask the brother of the king of England, if you need to find them.”
"Are you going to marry Princess?  She's mine, too, but several times removed from you.  I'm shocked how well she's turned out, given all the fawning over her."
"We’re trying to have kids, but I can't marry for a few years," Billy said.
"Why not?  That girl's a great catch."
Sighing deeply, Billy took off the mask he wore when not wearing his helmet.  
"Because I just turned fifteen years old.  Don't say anything because the birth certificate I showed Princess gives me two extra years to throw off bounty hunters."
"Does Princess know she has to wait three years to properly marry you?"
"Not yet.  I'm hoping I can make excuses for a few years like other men."
The old man laughed.  "Good luck with that," said a guy who started thousands of families.  “But I think I can help you with the bounty hunters.  Let me introduce you to someone special.  Stay here.”  
Jack returned with the vicious-looking  veteran about his size.  He looked like he had not smiled in centuries.  “Red, meet John.  Mongols have killed three of his families so far.  John, Red descended from my great granddaughter Rachel.  He even has the wands I thought I lost in Peking.”
“I’m calling myself Jim this time, old man.  Try to get it right.”
Billy examined his face, then looked closer at Jack’s face.  “Is Jim your son or grandson?”
That really upset the new guy.  “Jack, this is why I don’t like to fly with you.”
“Red won’t tell anyone.  He’s got his own secrets.  Show him your face.”  Billy took off the cloth that protected his head from the helmet and the guy’s eyes bugged out.  “Jim, we need someone to be the face and voice of the Red Baron, and this boy can’t be it.  You could impersonate him better than anyone I know.”
“Why don’t I just blast myself and save myself the trouble?  If people think I’m the Red Baron, my head would be worth tons of gold.”
Billy knew he needed to bring out the big guns.  “Jim, I’ll give you the Great Khan’s backup Millennial Wands, taken when we buried him under a million headless corpses, if you do me this favor.”  Billy knew he had him when his nostrils flared.  “But first I need to know why Jack thinks you’d make a better Red Baron than, say, Bear.”
Billy took out the Khan’s wands and watched the new guy salivate over them.  “This will be your only opportunity to own your own Millennial Wands.  See how long a wingspan they’ll give you.”
The new guy burst flame eleven meters in both directions, nearly burning down the trees around them.  Billy could tell that he would have to kill Jim to get the wands back.
“Show him, son.”
Jim carefully scanned for witnesses, then popped up and poured flame from all four wands.  Billy coughed so hard he nearly choked.  “Do we have a deal?”
“Nobody else can know about my boot wands,” Jim told Billy sternly.
“And nobody can know the Baron is just a teenager.”
The three of them shook hands and the new guy almost smiled.  Billy spent the night passing all relevant wand memories to a video wand, which Jim would take to experts who would make a series of propaganda videos that Jim would narrate in his deep, angry voice.  Everyone would now look for a Red Baron older, bigger, and meaner than Billy.  Jim’s job was to appear and disappear across the Empire to cloud reports of the Baron’s location.  He would exhaust duelers in big arena, flash his four wands and do the Baron’s scream, then fly off.  With the new wands, nobody could catch him.
Billy had some last words for Jim.  “Make sure you, as the Red Baron, take credit for burying the Khan under a million corpses and for using Chinese cultural art to motivate the Triads to attack the homes of Imperial Guards.  Release new video footage and show your wands as proof.  That will convince the Khan that you are me.”
Billy saved the best for last.  After breakfast the following morning, he called them together.
“Prince, you could extend your wands a meter for every ten thousand wands you take possession of.  You could become the most powerful quad who ever lived.  I will loan you a ton of gold for you to bet, on the condition that 90% of your winnings go into my general war fund."
"50%"
"85%, since you can't win without my wands, can't bet without my money, and can't survive without quad protection.  But let's sweeten the deal by assigning female bodyguards willing to mate with you, and the 1.2 kilos a year for eighteen years for each child comes out of the 85%.  Jack will rotate the female bodyguards as yours become pregnant.  But you have to duel at least 10,000 times a year."
"60% and I'll duel 15,000 times a year," Prince countered.
"80%, 15,000, and you get to keep these beautiful Millennial Wands that I took from the Third Millennial.  My father dueled with these babies."  The crowd gasped as Billy took wands from his arm launchers and boots.  "You've seen what I can do with these beauties."
Actually, he held up Subodei’s backup that his father used.  The more powerful Millennials that he really used he hid under his shirt.
"Let me see those," demanded Jack, the oldest of them.  He held them to the sunlight, peered closely, even sniffed them.  As the final test, he lit up two of them, pushing out flame twelve meters to enthusiastic clapping.  Poor Jack looked like he got laid.
“Jack, you’re too famous to duel, so you can’t have them.  Prince, we can only beat the Empire by first killing their best quads, yet they are looking for me.  As an American Indian, no one will mistake you for me, which lets you continue the job.
“You will kill more and better enemies in the arena than you ever could on the battlefield.  The more super-quads that you kill in the arena, the easier, faster, and safer it will be to defeat the Mongols in battle.
"My mother once asked me how I could kill so many and still sleep at night.  I told her that I assumed every victory would save the lives of one hundred non-Mongolians.  As we push the Mongols back into Mongolia, the lives we save by dueling could very well be our own children."
The athletic Indian took the wands from Jack, felt their power surge in him, then shot thirteen-meter long flames into the air.  He will have no problem killing a million people for those wands, Billy concluded.
"You have yourself a deal, Baron," he said, shaking Billy's hand, his animosity buried.
Billy found Blade off by herself, still seething mad.
“I’ve been an ass, so you can hit me again if you want.”
“Okay,” she immediately agreed.
“Oh, crap!”  
Luckily he wore his helmet this time because she smacked him hard enough to knock his head off.  He held out a set of wands, even as she began kicking him mercilessly until she exhausted herself.  Then she snatched the bundle and tried them out.
She changed from fire to steel to flying through trees.  Satisfied, she landed and accepted his apology.  Sort of.
“Okay, Baron.  What do you want for them?”
The question confused him.  “I want you to make me a better swordsman.”
“And what else?”
“What else is there?”
“Princess said you gave her a ton of gold for having your child, and that you’d do the same for me.”
“I sure don’t want my children growing up poor.  Life is too short to live poor.”
“I sure hope you bathe first,” she said, no longer angry.
Billy ran for the stream.

CHAPTER 31

After several weeks of targeting Mongol air bases, another of Jack’s messengers arrived.  He built up a vast network of spies to keep him informed.  Poor Jack turned white when he reviewed the news.  Everyone gathered around.  Jack tapped his throat so everyone could hear. 
“The Khan has only raised two marathon divisions in Central Asia since Red killed the rest.  He sent one of them here under General Tamerlane.”  
Bear whistled.  “Red, you must scare the hell out of them.”    
“Someone needs to hurry the American and African divisions up.  Most of the old Americans moved from the Pyrenees to mountaintops across Europe.  Their raids tie up ten times their number.  If we remove them, then the Mongols will have more troops to reinforce Spain.”
“We need more super-quads,” Bear concluded.  “We should all recruit every great quad we know.”
Nobody could argue with that, so most of the camp took off to convince old war comrades to join Team Red.  Jack flew to get the new Americans, who were already late.
Vemana and Sarvanja, two ancient cousins from India who looked like sisters, sought out Billy.  Two centuries ago, Jack led ten thousand against Tamerlane.  The bastard sacked Delhi and stacked one hundred thousand skulls into a giant pyramid.  Jack lost his force and the cousins lost much of their extended family, but at least they stayed loyal to Jack after all these long years.
Billy always saw them as very tough birds, but now they looked scared to death.  
“Sorry, ladies,” he greeted them, “but Tamerlane is mine.  I have a personal grudge against him that I don’t care to explain.” 
“You will kill him for sure?” one of them asked.  
Billy still couldn’t tell them apart.  “Of course.  I must be the one who kills him.  I owe it to my mama.”
Their vast relief made them look like they just finished a giant dump.  Their lips turned in what Billy assumed must be smiles.  They hugged each other excitedly and, for a moment, Billy feared they would hug him, too.
“Can you bring me some premium quads from India?” he asked them.  “I may need help with the other ten thousand Mongols.”
They raced home excited.
“No way they get back in time,” Billy predicted.
“Maybe not,” Bear said, “but those ladies know every super-quad in India.  If you kill that bastard Tamerlane, you will have the gratitude of all of India.”
“We don’t even know when the new bad guys will get here,” Billy complained.
“I’ll go find them,” Prince offered.
“You just don’t like seeing me with your sister,” Billy taunted him with a smile.
Prince playfully stuck out his tongue.
Billy returned to his little tent, only to find Mali waiting for him with his wife.
“I don’t think I’m pregnant yet,” Mali complained angrily, as if it was his fault.  
Billy took Princess with him to Madrid to deliver more wands, armor, and money to the Spanish Air Force, but what he really wanted was a new suit.  It surprised him how quickly he banged up and burned his armor out.  George -- bless him -- sent two.  With roughly the same build, Billy presented Princess with one, who somehow interpreted the gift as romantic.  Billy felt a burden fall from his shoulders when she swore she would always wear it in battle.
Over the next week, Billy re-organized those who stayed according to how high they could fly.   Wand strength didn’t matter so much as ability to breathe slowly.  When quads returned, he placed them in ten under-strength companies according to their “ceiling.”  Company #1 could fly the highest, while quads with the lowest ceiling made up Company #10.  Billy put them through the usual formation maneuvers to get a better feel for them.
It surprised everyone when Prince returned just a week later to tell them that the Mongol marathoners landed in Valencia after dark and haven’t been seen since.
“From the French coast they flew south to an island near Spain.  I would have drown if I didn’t find a sympathetic Spanish fisherman.  In the middle of the night, they flew to Valencia and disappeared, so I found the nearest Spanish base to alert them.  They didn’t attack at dawn, like I expected, and the Spanish still had not seen them.  I’m not even sure the Spanish still believe me.”
“Valencia?” Maria asked.  “That’s right in the middle of their coastal territory.  They could fly out to sea, then surprise us anywhere along the front line, from the French border to the southern tip near Africa.  Oh, and Valencia is their main bomb factory.  How the hell are we going to counter that?”
“But why didn’t they attack the Spanish near Valencia when they had surprise?” Billy asked.  
Something bothered Billy, so he crossed his legs and fell into his usual meditative state.  Meditation helped reduce his “fever,” as he called it -- the excess energy that he needed to burn off through fighting or flying.  Everyone tried to come up with a counter-tactic.  Instead, Billy thought of his dad.  He would know what to do.  He always did.
“Put yourself in their shoes,” dad would say.  “What would you do in their place?”
Billy chuckled to himself because, if he commanded the Mongols in Spain, he would be pissed.  Three centuries of victories convinced the Mongols of their own superiority.  The only reason they had not yet finished the Spanish is that they first concentrated on the French.  They saw the Spanish as more of a nuisance than a challenge.
I would use these ten new battalions to buy time, inflict crushing blows, and teach the damn Spanish a lesson they wouldn’t ever forget.  Yeah, punish them.  Demonstrate Mongol superiority.
“Oh, crap!” Billy yelled before opening his eyes.  “Prepare to fly right away.  I’m calling a leadership meeting.”  He popped over their camp and his wands called the commanders together.  “Prince, how long did the new Mongols fly to reach that island?”
“Twelve really long hours.”
“Did they wear armor?”
“Of course not.”
It was simple physics: the less they carried, the farther they flew; the more they carry, the lower and slower.
“Maria, if they can fly twelve hours light, could they get to Madrid from Valencia carrying fire bombs, and still return to Mongolian lines?”
Everything immediately became obvious to everyone.  They cursed as one.
“It’s why they didn’t attack the Spanish near Valencia -- bombing Madrid requires total surprise.  They need a day to rest up.  They flew so long from France specifically to lose anyone tracking them.”
Maria’s face turned red with anger.  “They’re gonna fire bomb the capital!”
“What are we going to do?” Bear asked.  “Half of us can’t even fly high enough to blast them.”
“Bear, get the Americans on the Pyrenees.  Maria, take your Spaniards and warn every city and military unit between Valencia and Madrid. It’s almost sunset.  Weighed down by bombs, they probably can’t get to Madrid before midnight.  Every company will fly separately so the slower companies don’t hold back the faster ones.  If you can’t get to Madrid in time, then hit them on their way back.  Any questions?”
“What are you going to do, Red?”
Billy smiled at them.  “I’m gonna ambush them!”

CHAPTER 32

The Mongols assault the Spanish near Valencia after sunset.  An hour later, the ten new battalions flew out to sea, rose to maximum height, and crossed inland unseen.
The first two hours passed uneventfully.  They enjoyed great weather and scouts didn’t even spot any spies trailing them.
The first sign of trouble came when a squad shielding them from above shrieked a warning.  The closest battalion commander could not see most of the squads suppose to be covering them, so he sent ten squads to find them.  He’d rather over-react that under-react.
That’s when the blasting started.  The Mongol commander heard brief firefights that told him nothing.  His ten squads had fanned out.  Those closest now investigated the firefights.  Again, more blasting.  Those furthest away closed warily and then disappeared.
General Tamerlane always broke up one battalion into one hundred squads to screen their advance and protect them like a cocoon.  So whatever lurked behind him must have already destroyed several squads, plus the ten squads he sent after them.  The nine battalions flew in a line, with him on the far right, so the only direction he didn’t have to worry about was to his left.
He flew to the rear and ordered the last company to drop their bombs and deal with the problem.  He followed to identify the threat.  There could not be too many enemies or they would be visible.  
His company spread out in a line with him supervising.  Maybe the enemy went south to pick on another battalion.  
His danger bells suddenly rang louder, although he didn’t know why.  The commander turned around and raced for the protection of his battalion.
Not a minute later he felt something falling at him.  He pulled up and scanned the sky.  Part of the problem were all the damn clouds.  And, at night, it was so hard to see someone dressed in black.
Just then something blotted out the light from a star, and descended straight down at incredible speed.  This wasn’t something falling, but someone flying at full wand power.  He shot, but the meteor dodged and fired back.  Because he hovered immobile, he had no momentum going in any direction, which made evading the impossibly fast fireball impossible.  He foresaw his own doom and his last thoughts, before falling from the sky as a burning ball, were for the safety of his men.
Once Billy took out the commander, he sped for the battalion.  The company sent after him were now a full kilometer away and still flying in the wrong direction. 
Billy descended upon the rear two lines, each slice of his blades cutting through tendons and calves.  Flying requires using the foot wands to propel one forward, while the hand wands pointed down to support one’s altitude.  In the panic that comes from suddenly plummeting to Earth, a flier can either use his hand wands to control his fall or risk a quick shot at the guy who sliced him.  Most chose self-preservation.
But finally someone shot at Billy, which alerted the rest.  Since he no longer enjoyed surprise, he rose one hundred meters and began targeting bomb packs.  
Fire balls expand as they travel, losing potency.  But there’s a sweet spot between the size and intensity of the fire.  He could have fired from farther away to engulf more enemies, but he needed greater heat to explode the bombs.  He fired twice every second, detonating a bomb every third shot.
Every squad leader saw the obvious threat.  Some ordered their men to drop the bombs, which took a minute, while others ordered their men to simply attack.  If they all did one or the other, fewer would have died.  As it was, Billy could deal with them one group at a time, dodging laterally, varying his speed, or rising when the enemy got too close.  They needed to swarm him to fire from many directions, or get enough quads to fire volleys that couldn’t be avoided.
But they didn’t.  True, they still had no idea they fought the Red Baron, but that was the correct tactic for the threat they faced.  To counter, Billy popped away from fireballs and towards whoever looked vulnerable.  Until the company he lured away finally returned, and not even Billy could evade one hundred fireballs.
But, then, neither could the Mongols below him, so he made himself an easy target and the returning company fired as one.  With the thunderous volley, Billy blasted a path through the formation and popped down, using the enemy to absorb the fireballs.  He still had to dodge and shield himself, but popping down took him one hundred meters farther away so he didn’t even get badly burned.
He couldn’t stay there because the survivors above him could hit him at point blank range, so he flew in the opposite direction to lure the battalion after him, away from the main group.
Once they chased him far away from the main body, Billy disappeared in a cloud, flying ever higher.  Eventually they would rejoin, but not in time to prevent him from blowing up more Mongols.
Noticing the battle on his northern wing, General Tamerlane avoided an ambush by abruptly changing direction at a 90 degree angle to the south.  He had to assume that large units now raced to block his path. 
He heard his airmen shooting over his head.  Alarmed, he turned over to fly on his back just in time to spot a dark object barreling right at him.  He didn’t feel the blades enter his chest, but the impact from the guy crashing into him dropped him like a stone.  It felt like he flew into a cliff.
The stranger wrapped his legs around him as they spun head over heels like an asteroid as the enemy tore the general’s wands from his grasp and transferred ownership -- no easy task in freefall.  
Tamerlane caught glimpses of his personal bodyguard racing after him, but afraid to blast without a clear shot. The life draining out of him, he watched his assassin stabilize their fall and use the general’s body as a shield while the killer shot at his pursuers.  Thousands of troops descended to either rescue or avenge him.  This pleased the general until he saw the bastard smile, still falling back-first and firing with four wands.
Which only the Red Baron could do.
Oh, crap.  The general saw everything clearly now: no one was going to catch the Red Baron.  He deliberately took out the division commander in front of the division in order to lure those without bombs into pursuit.
Damn!  The Baron would drag his escorts down and behind as far as possible, then out-race them back.  Then he could detonate bomb backpacks with near impunity.  And with his second in command chasing them, there was no one to correct their course.  
They were counting on an uneventful trip because airmen not expecting trouble can fly much farther and faster than those expecting an ambush.  The stress of imminent combat would quicken their pulses, costing them speed and altitude.  His troops would now wonder why they should continue to Madrid where the enemy prepared to ambush them.
“Do you remember your brief engagement to Lady Elizabeth, the daughter of Prince Richard of England?”  It shocked Tamerlane that his killer spoke to him in such personal terms.  He shook his head clear to examine his assassin.  “I am her son,” Billy yelled into his ear.  The shock on Tamerlane’s face thrilled him.  “The Red Baron would have never been born if my mother didn’t find you so odious.  You are the indirect cause of the collapse of the Mongol Empire.”
He didn’t use his wands during this monologue because he didn’t want a record of it.  But now he recorded Tamerlane as his face expressed a wave of emotions, mostly reflecting physical and psychic pain.  Billy made sure the last thing Tamerlane saw and heard was the Red Baron laughing as he breathed his last tortured breath.  
This clip would soon become the year’s best selling video.

CHAPTER 33

Billy dragged thousands of enemy escorts far behind the main body, then out-raced them back.  He attacked the battalion in the middle since they had no escort protection.  It felt like dueling: dodging blasts while targeting bomb packs.  Eventually enough bombers dropped their bombs in order to drive him off.  He simply flew up, then hit the next battalion, whose escorts had not yet returned.  When they finally swarmed him too much, he hit the next formation.
Except this battalion dropped their bombs at once to envelop him.  The commander must have figured out what was going on and planned accordingly.  Billy barely escaped with a few minor cuts and burns.  A lucky swipe cut through his heavy chest plate.  The wound didn’t bleed much, but its sting made it harder to concentrate.  
Billy rose above their ceiling, lost them in a cloud, and went north, humming a catchy song from his childhood to help him relax.  Exhausted, he spotted a dark shadow on the horizon and saw tiny fireballs on their right wing.
Prince and Princess arrived!  That energized him.  Soon, more of their fastest fliers would get here and they would have a real fight on their hands.
An entire battalion drove the twins back, so Billy hit them from behind.  Falling in an arc, Billy started firing all four wands at the same object from five hundred meters.  Any one fireball wouldn’t hurt much, but all four hitting the same target at the same time packed a punch.  Although not hot enough to burn flesh, the pressure wave that accompanied the fire swatted them down like flies.  He first targeted the battalion commander, then aimed for company commanders.  As he fell closer, his volleys burned smaller groups of airmen until his fireballs finally ignited the bombs on their backs.
At that distance, he shot as many as he could while alternating his wands to maintain speed, angle, and position.  Fire!  Adjust position.  Fire!  Adjust position.  Mongols exploded in the sky like Chinese New Years.
Nearly as one, the sergeants commanding the squads shrieked the signal for dropping their bombs.  Billy made the most of the minute this gave him, then he swerved left or right, or adjusted speed and altitude, to avoid the most aggressive as he shot those slowest to rid themselves of their backpacks.  The explosions certainly rang his ears from one hundred meters away.  It must be hell for the survivors nearby.
They drove him off just as he ran out of easy targets.  Just as he starting considering his next move, a wall of quads dropped in front of the battalion tangling with the twins and fired in volleys from a position of height.  
Company #1 arrived!
While it’s easy to evade one hundred blasts fired one at a time, it’s nearly impossible to avoid one hundred fireballs that blanket one hundred square meters.  This is what happened to the Mongol front lines.  The best tactic is to pop out of the way.  Instead, the battalion did what they were trained to do when they had superior numbers -- fly at maximum speed to close with the attackers.
Which would have worked if Billy and the twins had not spread them out so much.  Now the air unit lacked the mass to effect a decent punch.  But still they tried, reverting to their training.  And this may still have worked except the super-quads had twice their power, so their blasts flew faster, farther, and hotter.
Billy realized the rest of the flight would be like this: this super-quad company using their higher ceiling to blast Mongols with impunity.  Oh, hell.  Billy suddenly realized that the division commander would also see this, and therefore take them home.  There was no way several thousand quads could continue a long bombing run when one hundred enemies could pick them off from an unreachable height. 
And they were so close to Madrid!  Billy just needed them to fly a little farther so his team could ambush them. 
Billy groaned when he realized what he must do: kill the new unit commander.  Crap.  It’s hard to fool an enemy with the same trick twice.
Since he didn’t see a better option, he raced over the remaining battalions until he found the guy in charge.  Billy dived as fast as possible.  Some wary escorts shrieked warnings of an attack.  The entire battalion rose up so they could fire.
Oh, this was going to hurt.  Now bone tired, Billy had less time and speed than when he took out the general.  Now committed, he didn’t have any choice but to expend his dwindling energy reserves to dive as fast as possible.  He remembered doing this once as a kid and smacked right into a damn bird.  His arms folded back against his legs, he squeezed his four wands of all available juice.
The commander, however, didn’t even bother wasting time looking up.  He could guess what was happening, which was why this trick seldom worked twice.  He dropped down, then reversed thrust to put the battalion that was flying behind him squarely between him and the Red Baron.
Billy blanched.  He turned his body to fire all four wands in freefall at the commander blindly fleeing him.  The trick was how much of a lead Billy should give him.  It’s why hitting a deer in motion is so hard with a bow and arrow.  Any variation in speed or direction by the deer foiled the shot.  
If Billy waited just a few more seconds, this tactic would not have worked.  He would still have to blast a hole in their formation, then pass through that hole without turning into a living fireball.  Sure, he had to fly through a wall of fire, but at least he would pass through it quickly.  And since he had to make a hole through the enemy quad formation, he might as well make it where he hoped the commander would be.
Billy adjusted his descent to align it with the commander, then fired a final volley.  He closed his eyes, held his breath, and covered his face with his arms as dozens of fireballs converged on him at point blank range.  Waves of heat engulfed him as he punched through their formation.  It felt like running through a burning home.  Flame tried to open his mouth and suck out his breath.  Terror seized him as he realized his burning clothes were cooking his skin.  The stench of burning flesh nauseated him.  
Hell, his eyebrows were on fire!
Frantic, Billy tore off his armor and clothes while plunging in an uncontrolled fall even as his skin melted.  Still smoking, Billy found it hard to concentrate while his muscles twitched on their own.  He felt like he flew in a giant oven.
The leather straps that held his hand wand sockets, weakened by fire, broke loose.  Billy hoped his foot wands, protected by thicker leather, didn’t burn too badly.  If he lost even one wand, he would splatter on the ground like a giant tomato.
So this is how his enemies spent their last moments, a rogue part of him ruefully realized.
He dived as quickly as possible towards a stream, only to use all four wands at the last moment to slow his crash. In an epic belly flop, Billy hit the water much too fast.  He only had half a meter of cold water, so he kissed a riverbed of smooth rocks and his groin hit something hard that curdled his blood.  He rolled over to cool his burning back and the abrupt change in temperature sent him into shock.
A shadow fell from the heavens.  Belatedly he realized the enemy followed him down, so he waddled like an beaver to the thickest brush and submerged everything but his face while holding his wands in his teeth.  
And discovered that he enjoyed being scared.  The threat of imminent death thrilled him.  The realization terrified Billy.
The enemy scoured the land around him, so they must have lost him in the shadows.  Every moment they looked, their division left them farther behind.  
With nothing better to do, Billy directed power from his wands to his wounds while gulping water for his dehydration.  The conflicting sensations put him in a weird trance.
Then the shaking started.  This wasn’t the first time he got the shakes, after barely escaping death, but this was the worst.  His whole body shook as if a demon wanted to get out.  A rabbit could have nibbled him to death, Billy had so little control over his body.  
William liked to take Billy to the beach on their vacations.  One time, Billy tried to take a wave in, only for the damn thing to tumbled him head over heels, smashing him into the sharp rocks.  Thankfully, his dad had told him what to do.  Billy relaxed his breathing to avoid panic and assured himself it would be over soon.  The more he slowed his breathing, the sooner the shakes subsided.
Billy laid there, not asleep, but not really awake.  Exhaustion took a new form.  He had no energy, but the cold stream running over his body numbed his burnt nerves.  His eyes mostly closed, he drifted in and out of consciousness, as unconcerned as those Buddhist monks he liked to meditate with.
“Thank you for getting Tamerlane for me, Billy.”
He looked up and saw his parents, floating above him, appearing radiant.  
“Mama?”
“You have been such a good son, Billy.  You put my father on the thrown, like I asked, helped my family through the dark years, and avenged our deaths.  I am so proud of you.”
The boy started crying.  “I miss you, mama.”
“We miss you, too, Billy.  One day we will be together again.  It won’t be the same as before, but it will still be wonderful.  But please don’t rush it.  I know you’ve been trying to get killed since my death, but I want you to promise me that you will live for centuries.”
“I promise, mama!”
“I could not have asked for a better son,” William said, smiling down upon him.  “You have made me the proudest dad ever.  Every day you honor us more.  Few children do what they’re told, but you have done even more than we have asked.”
“I will never be half the man you are, papa.”
“Son, you are everything I have ever wanted in a son.  You even gave us grandchildren.  My soul can now rest in peace, knowing those bastards have not exterminated our line.”
“Papa, I thought I was gonna die.  I don’t know how I survived.”
“You have a destiny, Billy.  One day you will kill the Great Immortal and bring peace to the world.  By then everyone will have allied against the Mongols and it will be up to you to stop their extinction as a people.”
“I thought I was suppose to kill all Mongols, papa.”
“Their defeat does not require total extermination.  Just kill enough so they give up this quest to conquer the world.”
“So I am not dead?  Because I don’t feel so good.”
His mommy and daddy laughed.  “No, Billy.  In fact, you have to go now.  The Mongols are energized and your team demoralized because they believe you’re dead.  That girl you like is gonna get herself killed unless she sees you soon.”
“I love you both so much.”
“We love you, son.  Now wake up and go!”
Billy’s eyes were already open, but he had to blink again to see.  Like a drunk after a hangover, he struggled to lift his weighty bones from the water.  He ached everywhere.
He felt a cord around his neck and discovered that he did not lose his mask, after all.  The glass goggles that protected his eyes were gone, but he didn’t have far to fly.  He took to the air, naked as a bird.

CHAPTER 34

Billy flew towards Madrid, but soon noticed a small firefight below him.  It took him a while to figure it out because it made no sense.  Quads were blasting a Spanish military base, although fireballs were not effective against stone buildings.  Then he noticed how few flew over the base, and how powerful their blasts echoed.  Maybe they weren’t Mongols after all.  Well, he better find out before he started killing people in the dark.
Billy screamed to get their attention, then burst flames from his hand wands to give the code to entering the camp.  The harassment stopped immediately as the fliers shot straight up.
I hope I didn’t just bite off more than I can chew, Billy told himself.  Then Princess flashed her signal and his relief nearly choked his wands.  He followed her to a tall hill overlooking the air base.  She hugged him fiercely as soon as his feet touched the ground and he yelped like a kicked puppy.  Somewhere behind him he could hear Prince laughing at him.
“Where the hell have you been?” his girlfriend demanded.  “We saw them dive after you an hour ago.”
“It took a long time before the shaking stopped.”
“They burn your clothes off or are you messing around on me?” she asked, looking him over from head to toe.  “About time you shaved your pubes.”
“Very funny.  I thought I was a dead man.  My entire body feels both numb and super-sensitive.  What the hell is going on?”
“I think we exhausted them.  Company #1 started harassing them above their ceiling, so they suddenly descended here and shot up the Spanish airmen.  We sent for our super-quads near Madrid, in case the bastards run.  They certainly can’t stay or every militiaman in the country will be here by noon.”
“They’re probably resting, choosing a new commander, re-organizing to place their highest-flying quads in the same units, and deciding whether to raid Madrid or the next largest city on the way home.”
“What would you do?” she asked.
“They can safely assume we have defenses between them and Madrid, so I’d turn back.  Spain would collapse if they lost the reinforcements sent to rescue them.  Desertions alone would multiply.  Most of the Mongol forces are not even Mongolian.  They’re just foreign allies fighting for a paycheck.  They are more interested in surviving than conquering Spain.  They’ll just bomb the first major city they fly over on their way home and call that a partial victory.”
Something hit him in the back of the head.  He picked up a very smelly shirt.
“You’re welcome,” Prince shouted.
Billy put on the shirt and walked to his team, hoping the shirt covered his privates.  
“They’re gonna fly home, so let’s leave them alone and hope they rest a little longer so our troops have more time to catch up.  We’ll hide ourselves to the east and hit them when they’ve gotten their hopes up.  
“Princess, your brother has flown a lot since yesterday, and you’re the next fastest, so you get the job of bringing our super-quads near Valencia westward to even out the odds.  Several hundred super-quads versus several thousand marathoners is a good match.”
Team Red left, which must have bewildered the Mongols.  Billy sent another messenger to find the super-quads coming from Madrid to give them new instructions.  Then they rested under trees on the tallest hill east while Mali covered his body in lotion and creams.  A part of Billy hoped he didn’t read the Mongols wrong.  Minutes ticked by slowly as his company laid down in a semi-sleep.  An eternity later, Blade landed.
“They’re flying east at maximum altitude, still carrying what bombs they brought, but in a stacked formation.”
Billy smiled, because he would have done the same thing.  Bombers spread out in order to drop their munitions, but most of their troops no longer had bombs to drop, so they put the few thousand with bombs under them, while everyone else flew around or over them in a protective cocoon.
Now Billy stopped smiling, because that was a tough nut to crack.  Seven battalions flying on top of each other.  He had to hit the bombers, or else they would firebomb an innocent city.  The entire country would then fear the same thing happening to them, and demand the government pull front line troops back in useless static defense lines. 
He must stop them, but Billy only had one hundred warriors.  They openly discussed their options as Billy cleared his mind.  No one saw any great solutions.  
“What are we going to do, genius?” Prince asked sarcastically.  “They expect us to whittle them down from the top.  They’ve probably put their highest fliers in the second row to surprise us when we descend upon the top layer.  We just don’t have enough time to get to the actual bombers.  If the Spanish blame us, we’ll look like pariahs instead of heroes.”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Think faster.”
“What’s the next big city along their path?” he asked Blade.
“Cuenca.”
“How long until they get there?”
“About two hours.”
“Then we will attack them when they re-deploy to bomb Cuenca.  Mali, sprint to our guys to the east and lead them to Cuenca.  Prince, warn the militia in Cuenca.  Blade, do the same for our troops coming from Madrid.  If neither group gets there in time, this company will launch a surprise attack.”
“How are you going to hit them?” Prince wanted to know.
“I can’t tell you.  It’s a surprise.”
  
CHAPTER 35

As military historians later noted, speed decided the Battle of Cuenca.  The super-quads from the east and west simply got there first, giving Billy the time he needed to set everything up.
Billy, who didn’t wear Prince’s shirt to make a scarier impression, dropped buck naked from the sky in front of the several thousand Mongols.  He flashed his four wands and gave his world-famous signature primal scream so they’d know who they faced.  
They thought I was dead, Billy remembered.  I bet some of them are now pissing their underwear.
Ten squads broke off to intercept him.  He let them come, before sprinting over them in an arc, which gave him a controlled freefall to fire four-wand volleys into the mass of enemies below him.  As expected, more squads tried to drive him away.  He made the most of every second: fire, adjust position, fire, pop laterally or vertically, fire.  He tore big holes in their top layer as he avoided a few dozen squads chasing him.
The problem with squads is their volleys occupy ten times the space.  Not only did he not have armor, he didn’t even have clothes.  Which, hopefully, unsettled the Mongols even more.
But it sure felt liberating to fly nude.  His burnt skin barely felt the night cold.
A company leader broke off from his battalion and positioned his hundred fliers to fire down upon him.  Billy adjusted position to ready his escape, but waited a few crucial seconds for the company to leave their battalion formation.   Then, right before they fired, he popped down into the relative safety between the top battalion and the one below it.
As far as he knew, this had never been done before.  Nine hundred quads, less than one hundred meters above him, fired at him as one.  Expecting their fire, he popped unexpectedly literally every second using one wand while he shot or cut up enemies with his other wands.  The top battalion thus shot up the battalion below them which, if Prince guessed right, were their highest-flying ones.  He did this for as long as he could, which turned out to be only thirty heartbeats, but it felt like a lifetime.  It was like dancing on hot coals.  But he had to get out before the battalion above him fell upon him.
Company #1 flew straight down fast, then fired their first volley while the top enemy battalion focused on the Red Baron.  His distraction worked beautifully.  His team not only surprised the enemy, but the second battalion was in no shape to assist the top battalion.  And probably not highly motivated to rescue the comrades who shot up their wingmen.
Billy flew out the opposite side of where he entered since the squads who chased him would not fly between the battalions.  He popped out of the fire zone and helped his team shoot up the top battalion, who broke formation to deal with the threat.  Pressure waves swatted the quads in the top battalion into the guys below them as if the super-quads swung giant hammers.  As Team Red closed the range, they turned Mongols into flaming balls that smashed into those beneath them as if it was raining meteors.
The next two battalions, in the middle of the stack, exited on either side and pulled up to confront this threat.  Billy’s company would soon face four battalions.
Company #10 now flew up from the trees at the bombers in the lowest level.  The problem with attacking someone from below is that their hand wands already point down.  Sure, alternating between propulsion and shooting messes up the formation, but that’s a small price to pay for killing enemies who fly in front of a wand.  If the best place to attack someone is from behind, the worst is from the front.  Which is what Company #10 did now.
The other two battalions carrying bombs now banked to position themselves on either side of the lowest bombing battalion to triple their firepower and because they would soon over-fly their target anyways.  Usually, they would not spread out until moments from dropping their bombs, but the enemies below them looked like such easy targets.  Fewer than one hundred idiots attacking three thousand from below.  The Mongols didn’t even have to change speed, angle, or position to neuter this attack.  Plus, shooting down gave their fireballs greater punch and range, while doing the opposite to the enemy shooting up.
Except Company #10 spread out and stayed two hundred meters below, dodging incoming blasts while focusing their fire on the middle of each battalion.  Those quads could not dodge laterally without running into their wingmen, so they had to drop down or pull up.  Or fail to decide in time.  
While shooting up did weaken their blasts a little, the super-quads still shot with twice the power, so their fireballs were still hotter, faster, and wider.  Better yet, one hundred fliers had three hundred times as much room to evade fireballs than their three thousand enemies.
The textbook counter-move was for the three battalions to drop fast, enveloping the enemy below, so their superior numbers could finish them off quickly.  But that would ruin their bombing formation right before they expected to drop their bombs.  The battalion commanders didn’t see one hundred enemies as a mortal threat, given their relative positions, and so continued the bombing run.  Then they would drop down and wipe out the brave fools below them.
The other super-quads now attacked from all sides.  Four companies attacked the four Mongol escort battalions above from four directions, while the other four companies descended upon the three thousand bombers below.  Most of the Mongols had their backs to the attackers.
Billy’s gamble paid off.  How he used several hundred quads to decimate seven thousand would appear in battle textbooks around the world.
Billy and Company #1 rained down hell from above with relative impunity, while four under-strength companies swarmed the four escort battalions from all sides.  Their more powerful wands recharged faster, shot farther, and burned greater.  What the Mongols needed to do was break off, re-group, then take on relatively few super-quads at a time.  But they couldn’t break off since their job was to protect the bombers below.
The bombers below now found themselves besieged on all sides, and sniped from below.  Now they couldn’t even drop on the bastards beneath them because that would just invite the other super-quads to fire at their exposed backs.  Still, they had superior numbers, so they fought it out for several minutes until their leaders gave up, called for their men to drop the bombs, and attack.  
Of the three battalions flying in a line abreast, the left wing turned on the super-quads to their left, the right wing fought off those on their right, and the middle battalion fell on those below.  The idea is to wipe out one group quickly, then turn to deal with the next.
But the super-quads already anticipated their next move.  Billy predicted it at their meeting.  So the super-quads lured them away, while staying within lethal range.
Except Company #10, who ran at the first sign of the enemy dropping.  They dived down to lure this battalion towards Cuenca.  The battalion couldn’t stop once they started diving.  Turning up to attack different super-quads, even if everyone could hear or see the commander, would have cost them valuable time, speed, and altitude.  So they chased after Company #10, who stayed just out of range while firing back at their pursuers.  Lower and lower they flew, until they saw the city.
Mongols had terrified Spain for a century.  Genghis Kahn famously regretted in public expanding the war into Spain before first finishing off the French.  So the Mongols did what they always did to intimidate people -- they annihilated entire cities to scare the rest.  Which is why William instructed the American marathoners in Central Asia to wipe out every horde, village, and city -- so that the Mongols could know what it felt like.
So when Prince shrieked the attack warning an hour ago, everyone who could fly hopped out of bed.  Their leaders quickly found Prince, who explained the tactical situation.  Later, the Red Baron himself showed up to tell them what to do.
And now they followed his instructions with glee.  Several thousand militia fell upon the battalion following Company #10 from all sides, cutting off escape while maximizing surprise.  The Mongols had no chance. 
Soon Companies #8 and #9 led the other two bomber battalions low enough for the citizens to reach.  The whole point of training quads to fly really high is to put them out of reach so they can drop bombs with impunity.  Billy used the attack to lure the bastards low.  Three battalions attacking at once would have decimated Cuenca.  But the citizens surprising one battalion at a time had the opposite result.
Now these super-quads flew higher to attack what was left of the four escort battalions.
By dawn, the only visible Mongols were the deserters desperately flying home.

CHAPTER 36

Jack found them in Cuenca after noon and had his own tall tale to tell. 
“On the Pyrenees I found the next ten battalions.  I led them into a blocking position near the front lines by Valencia.  The battle raged for so long that few quads could still fly.  So imagine everyone’s surprise when we showed up in the middle of the night.
“The Mongols assumed we were their troops returning home after a successful bombing run, and I can’t blame them -- as far as they knew, they had the only high altitude division in the country.  So they flew up to greet us.  
“We arrived in ten blocks of battalions flying in a line, but when I saw the battle I signaled for them to break into a line of one hundred companies.  So when thousands of ecstatic Mongols flew in front of us, their wands singing -- well, you just don’t get targets like that very often.  I held off for as long as I could so more enemies could get into range, but once our guys started shooting, I shrieked the order and we swatted them from the sky.  It looked like a giant meteor shower.  Picture ten thousand quads in an ideal position shooting fireballs across ten kilometers of night sky.  The video is stunning.
“Well, we couldn’t stop there.  The surviving Mongols naturally fled back to their bases around Valencia, so we followed them.  The Spanish, convinced of their imminent defeat, couldn’t wait to take advantage of their change in fortune.  They swamped the air bases, their two-wanders going building-to-building and room-to-room.  The long-suffering residents of Valencia finally saw an opportunity to strike back against their oppressors and joined in.  It wasn’t a battle so much as a massacre.
“The Americans found the Mongol vaults, seized ten tons of gold, then took over the stone barracks that the Mongols built for their long distance fliers.  They’ll now use the Valencia bomb factories to hit the nearest Mongol air units while we still enjoy surprise.”
Billy patted him on the back.  “Great job, Jack.  I think a thousand or so Mongols from the bombing run escaped, so we should spend a few days hunting them down.  They’ll be easier to kill now while they’re scattered and scared than if they make it back to join another unit.  Let’s break into squads to cover more territory and meet back in Valencia in three days.  And could someone please find me some clothes and armor?”
Princess applied more lotion and creams every hour while Billy napped naked.  He drank enough pain-relieving tea to cure a battalion.
Usually they flew as high as possible because that was the fastest and safest way to travel, but hunting Mongols who did not want to be found forced them to fly low.  
After killing a dozen deserters, they spotted a squad of Mongols flying oblivious below them.  It surprised Billy that they flew low and slow.  That’s a good way to get killed.  Their steep dive increased their speed, quickly catching up to the sitting ducks.  Then they slowed to match speed and flight path to collectively blast them to hell.
Except the Mongols did something new.  
A flash of reflected light caught Billy's attention, something he later recognized as a mirror, and the squad rose slightly while turning around to fire point blank at them.  Billy heard someone yell out in pain as he dodged and shot back.  The blasts from these guys implied twice normal strength.  
That’s when it hit them: the Mongol super-quads sent to kill him!  
Which meant this Mongol squad was not alone.  Billy turned and saw the rest of their company fly out of cumulus cloud cover and dive at them from behind.  The irony of the same attack being used against them would not register until later.  
"Bear!  Lead them to the forest," Billy commanded.  “Princess, get help!”
They say a good super-quad is worth ten conventional quads, which meant they faced the equivalent of a battalion.  Or worse since only really good super-quads would even join a unit dedicated to killing the infamous Red Baron.  But what the enemy didn’t know is that the Baron flew with several world-class quads.
Billy rose at maximum speed to fire four wands into the back of the enemy company.  A squad broke off to follow the two they shot and another squad turned to attack Billy.  He saw Ox falling uncontrollably, but the one frantically taking off her smoking armor was clearly Blade.  Billy shot at the squad diving at him, then popped up to avoid their volleys.  For a long minute they exchanged shots in a nasty dogfight, with Billy picking them off one at a time.
Billy turned his head to see the quads capture Blade instead of just killing her outright.  And, of course, he knew why: her beautiful face took a man’s breath away.   Plus, her burned shirt exposed her fantastic breasts.  Enraged that she would be raped again, he watched the Mongols knock her out and take her away.
In the forest, Bear waved them down behind a boulder to organize a response.
"Hotshot," he said to Prince.  "Go north until you find enemies, then blast some to distract them.  The rest of you, find cover before they shoot us from above."
 Billy raced after the remaining seventy quads.  Four enemy squads landed like a square in the trees, while the others hovered above, shooting down at every shadow.  They had their backs to him, so he cut them up.  The fourth one screamed really loud, which drew the attention of the others.  He now had a serious firefight on his hands as some moved to flank him while others fixed his position by attacking him frontally.  Those thousands of duels against teams of three now paid off as Billy juggled multiple opponents.
Then another firefight broke out below the tree line to the northeast and the enemy split up.  Afraid of those soon to attack him from behind, Billy pressed forward.  Then Prince fried one quad hovering above him, popped up above the forest to nail another and wing a third.  He fled, luring several after him.  The other six super-quads popped up and found themselves behind the skirmish line facing Billy.  Quick blasts took out a dozen Mongols, then the seven fought those flanking Billy.  
"They captured Blade.  Let's go after her!" Billy yelled.
But just as they rose in the air, the remaining thirty enemies moved to block their way.
"Go get her!" Bear told Billy, who raced away, taking several enemies with him as his team disappeared back into the forest.
Billy ignored his pursuers to catch up before they reached a fort.  He flew higher until he spotted them on the horizon.  He caught up with the slower ones before they knew he was there.  Six flew together, so he pierced the body armor of two using steel from his boot wands, while cutting at the legs of the rest.  The leader, holding the terrified hostage, shrieked a warning and a patrol from his fortress responded.  Billy cursed his lousy luck at having another squad blocking him.  He flew low to draw them down, then swung around rather than engage.
Billy saw the castle and realized he was near Barcelona.  He dropped near the ground to use the terrain to get closer unseen.  He hid in woodlands, quickly making his way forward as more Mongols flew south in a blocking position.  He hopped over the fortress rim, slashed at two enemies near him, then used his boot wands to propel him forward along the battlement while cutting down defenders with swords.  Not shooting gave him several extra seconds before somebody noticed and fired.  He then fell upon troops rushing out of their barracks and slashed furiously until the defenders along the battlements fired as one.  Fittingly, Billy was much better with steel because of Blade.  He popped sideways and a dozen blasts struck those trying to exit the building.
"Everyone get down!" he yelled in Mongol, then ran in and cut those foolish enough to follow his order.  As more blasts struck the entrance, he rounded a corner and extended both blades to pierce several enemies each, then jumped up to fire his boot wands into the survivors, landing painfully on his lower back.  Billy used a wand to push himself sideways and another wand to blast two guys standing too close together.  Then he opened a door that led to a narrow corridor, fired at those in it, and ran deeper into the fortress.
As long as he had surprise, it worked.  But he heard people running and blasting behind him and knew he was dead if they caught him inside where he had nowhere to maneuver.  He found a doorway into the courtyard and peaked out to see a lot of troops on the battlements and perhaps one hundred more flying overhead. 
Billy returned to the last narrow corridor and waited until the group behind him filled it up.  Then he stuck two wands in and blasted blindly, before risking an eye to stab survivors.  Those at the other end also shot at him blindly, so he closed and locked the door, fuming that he did not find Blade.  He waited a minute then opened the door enough to fire blindly again, catching several more in the open.  Dense smoke consumed the hallway.
He changed clothes and armor to blend in.  With no other choice, he marched arrogantly into the courtyard, swearing in Mongol.
"The bastard escaped!" he shouted to call attention to himself, then kicked a water barrel for the hell of it. Blasts from inside alerted him that the door he locked had been blown open.  From the battlements, it must have sounded like those inside battled the Baron.
"Let’s get him!" Billy yelled.
He led them through the same entrance he entered originally, knelt down next to someone wounded, waited until they passed, slit the wounded guy's throat, then caught up with the group.  He carefully positioned himself to extend both blades into as many as possible, then cut the rest of them down with swords.
Now he ran the other way.  He soon encountered two "golden mules" guarding an open steel door.  
Great, Billy thought.  More elite troops.
He couldn't just turn around without raising suspicion, so he said, "have you guys heard the news?"  Then he thrust two blades into their chests from twenty meters away and ran past them down some stairs to what must be a dungeon.  There he found ten more looking at him suspiciously.  He let his helmet hang from a strap, put his wands away, and held out his hands to show he was unarmed.
"I was never that young," one of them remarked after getting a good look at Billy's innocent face.  Their leader stepped into his way.
"The captive is wanted for questioning," Billy tried.
They just laughed.  "I'm sure she is getting questioned vigorously as we speak."
"Exactly who wants the girl for questioning?" their leader asked.
"The general."
From their reaction, he knew he screwed up.  The general must be the one vigorously questioning her downstairs.  He pressed his arms against his body which launch his wands into his hands.  
He fell back blasting them with even his boot wands.  Once again he hurt his lower back, then used his boot wands to propel him farther away, shooting like crazy.  The door behind them opened and more golden mules poured out, so Billy rolled past a corner, out of their fire.  They were not far behind, so he squatted, pointed one wand near the floor around the corner and blasted blindly.  Enormous volleys fired back, smashing the walls into rubble and causing a cloud of dust.  Hovering near the ceiling, he pointed a wand around the corner and blasted blindly again.
With that he ran like hell, panting like a dog.  He heard voices coming from upstairs so he retracted his wands and yelled out, "Help!  Help!  The damn mules killed the general!"  
Hoping his obvious youth would protect him, he collapsed under one of the torches that poorly illuminated the otherwise dark corridor.  Then he cried like a scared little boy.  It was not hard.
Everyone demanded answers at once, but the smell of burning flesh trumped everything.  Billy screamed in pain and begged them to remove his smoldering chest plate.  He had no idea he had even been hit, though he was not surprised.  Most of them dismissed the crying boy and raced down to see what the hell was going on.  Billy cried out for someone to help him to the infirmary.  Not a moment later a firefight broke out downstairs.
With an arm around an old veteran and a young kid, he limped to the infirmary for medical attention.  He made sure to groan in pain whenever someone got a good look at him.  At least one hundred quads still patrolled the skies as they entered the courtyard.  As they passed a water barrel, he stopped to slosh water onto his chest.  The relief felt better than sex.
In the infirmary, he killed his helpers, then the staff and the wounded, before stalking the hallways in a killer mood.
The good news is Billy learned where Blade was.  The bad news is nearly one hundred elite troops blocked his passage.  

CHAPTER 37

Blade stopped struggling once she realized it did no good.  The big sergeant followed the general past the golden mules into the dungeon.  They paused when they heard blasting in the courtyard, which soon moved inside.  The firefights sounded much too loud and continued for much too long.
"It's him," the sergeant confidently said.  "The Red Baron."
"All that cannot come from just one guy," the general assured him.  "Fix it," he ordered the sergeant, making Blade walk in front of him, her upper body exposed to the disgusting stares of one hundred golden mules.  The sergeant resented the general for cutting him out of the action, but couldn’t counter it.
"Halt!" the leader of the money transport company ordered.  "Take that woman somewhere else."  His job was to guard the gold they delivered until they could leave in the morning.
The general naturally blew past him.  "The Red Baron has invaded the castle.  The captive has vital information on him, and the dungeon is the safest place to question her."
He didn't fool anyone.  Everyone knew he was going to rape her.  They could see it in the old bastard's eyes.  
When they reached the bottom, he enjoyed forcing her out of her pants.  But then another firefight broke out, this one just up the stairs.  Blade heard the leader order some troops to follow him up.  Instead of abating, the firefight intensified.
The general could not concentrate with all that blasting going on.  Maybe it was a major attack.  He wished that battalion of super-quads returned.  Once he decided it was over, another intense battle would begin, with more screaming from the golden mules.  Swearing fiercely, he opened the vault and pushed her inside before running up the stairs to take control.
Blade found herself surrounded by tons of gold and silver carefully stacked for easy counting.  Wearing nothing but her remaining dignity, she couldn't even pocket any.  Just as suicidal thoughts returned after so many years, she heard more blasting, even through the thick steel vault door.  And that's when it hit her: that crazy bastard isn't going to leave without her.  He not only invaded an enemy fortress alone, but apparently had more lives than a cat.
Despite everything bad that happened to her, and would probably soon happen to her, she smiled.

CHAPTER 38

Slaughtering the general’s support staff didn’t take long or attract attention.  He found the key to the armory and crossed the courtyard, no one giving his youthful face a second glance.  High above the fort he heard the echoes of firefights.  It reassured him to know he didn’t fight alone.  He killed the two guards -- or maybe two quads just chatting near the doors -- and entered.  
Inside, he pictured what lay next to the armory.  He walked to the back and blasted a hole in the wall, which led to an eating area.  He killed the four guys staring at him like a ghost.  He prepared a time-delay explosion, carried as many bombs as he could, then crossed the eating area to a barracks until he found his way back to the dungeon.
With so many men crowding the hallway and stairs, he knew he could not rescue Blade, but he could at least end her suffering.  He owed her that much.
He hid in a closet with his bombs until the massive explosion rocked the castle.  He hurried out, flew down the hallway, and stabbed or blasted everyone alive.
Billy went back for the anti-personnel bombs filled with shrapnel, rolled them down the stairs, then fired until one exploded.  He rolled around the corner and shielded his face as rock fragments rained down on him like hail.
Now he could finally shut the steel door where he killed the first two golden mules.  He produced flame to weld the door to its metal frame, then melted the key lock, just to be sure.
Angry fists soon pounded on the door, demanding he open it.  Instead, he knelt, stuck his hand wands under the door and maximized their flame, incinerating them and forcing the survivors to inhale smoke.  He took their screams for payback for what they were doing to Blade.  
Upon hearing voices, he laid down next to the corpses, his innocent face and burnt chest plainly visible.  Eyes closed, he slowed his breathing down as much as possible.  A squad of frustrated quads came in and tried opening the door.  Well, Billy couldn’t let that happen, so he extended four blades, each killing two, his legs up like a woman giving birth, then changed to swords to cut the rest down.
Instead of waiting for more quads, Billy repeated his earlier exploration of the castle, slaying all he met.  Billy peaked out a door and was surprised it was night already.  He had no idea so much time had passed.  Guards still manned the battlements, and small firefights still raged above, while terrified non-combatants fled through the open gate to the nearby village.  Billy could almost see Prince, Bear, and the others picking off their patrols.
He watched another exhausted squad land, wondering out loud why their super-quads had not yet returned.  Once they had their backs to him, Billy ran out and cut them down as soon as they left the courtyard.  
On the battlements, the greatest concentration of guards looked to the west, so he walked there, placed himself in the middle, then extended wands in both directions to maximize how many warriors he pierced, like two human kabobs.  Then he reverted to swords to cut more down before taking too much fire.  He rose into the air and fired back -- not at those shooting at him, but at those not looking at him.  Fliers rose to meet him and he blasted the first several easily enough, but once the volume of fire grew too much, he descended below the outer wall and flew away hugging the ground.  Several chased him, so he hid high in a tree and cut them down as they passed.
Having alerted the entire fortress, he disappeared into the nearby woods to lose anyone tracking him from above, later heading towards the small village that serviced the castle.  He walked to a restaurant in the village and enjoyed a huge dinner to get his strength back.

CHAPTER 39

After dinner, the battle resumed.  He flew up and saw at least two companies of Americans wipe out the patrols above and then descend on the castle itself.  He joined in and soon they controlled the battlements.  Princess hugged him with tears in her eyes, which really hurt his burnt skin.  He was glad he sent her away because she would have killed herself attacking the castle out of fear for him.  Squad leaders entered the castle to clear it out without waiting for his command, so he called over Prince and Bear.  Tiny, who would soon join his super-quads, came over as well.
Red almost hugged him.  “I could have used you earlier.”
“You sure?  Looks like you’ve killed a few hundred topside all by yourself.”
“There’s a few hundred more inside, but it may not have been fast enough to save Blade.”
“We’ve been busy hunting down super-quad companies since yesterday,” he helpfully explained.  “They keep flying low, so we keep ambushing them.  I don’t know how many our other units have destroyed, but my two companies alone have wiped out three.”
“Tiny, take charge of hunting down survivors while I find out what they did to Blade.”
He led them to the dungeon, killing the few remaining support staff who had not fled in time.  Billy found the steel door pried open from the outside, smoke still floating out, but apparently not in time to save the few hundred fighters inside.
"What happened?" Prince asked at the odd sight.
"They were in my way, so I locked them in and smoked them to death."
“You roasted them today for roasting you yesterday?” Prince asked. 
They walked on top of bodies, and had to climb over partial cave-ins, until they came upon a pile of corpses at the bottom.  Frantic, they tossed the corpses towards the stairs looking for Blade.  The thud of falling bodies must have carried because they heard someone inside the vault knock rapidly on the door with something metallic.
"It's Blade!"
They blasted away where the mortared stone held the door hinges.  They stopped briefly to cheer when they finally smashed through the upper part and heard Blade tell them she was okay.  They wearily resumed to attack the lower stone.  Eventually this, too, broke into pieces.
Billy’s squeezed through and took in Blade's relieved face.  "Did they hurt you?"
She knew what he meant.  
"No," she assured him.  "You didn't give them time to hurt me."  
Blade flipped Billy’s mask up to give him the kiss he deserved, but his baby face shocked her.  She had never seen his face before, even during sex, because he was so paranoid about concealing his identity.  Even with all the blasted rock chips stuck to his face, he obviously was just a child.  She remembered the thousands of scars on his upper body and assumed he was an old cruel jerk.  Now, she could see, he was instead a kid without a childhood.  
Behind Billy, Princess strained her neck to check out all the gold in the vault, while Prince actually hovered just to take in Blade's naked body in all its natural glory.  In contrast, Billy's eyes never left hers.  Never once did they veer towards her impressive tits or the stacks of gold bricks behind her.  The realization struck her like a frying pan.
"I was so afraid for you," Billy whispered, throat dry and near tears.  Death or the pain from a thousand scars didn't seem to deter him, but fear for a lady who disliked him motivated him to unheard of feats.  She remembered the general's exasperation when the sergeant explained that just one guy was rolling over his forces.  "I was just ten when my father and I found my mother's raped, naked corpse.  I wanted to improve my sword fighting skills because the only guy who ever beat my father with swords led the rape.  I miss her so much it hurts, and the only thing that eases the pain in punishing her rapist.  The thought of them doing the same to you..."
The traumatized fifteen year old broke down as his eyes burst into tears.  Years of rage poured out as Blade took him into her arms to comfort him.  And to block Prince's view of her.  
“I’m pregnant,” Blade confessed.
It took a moment before the news broke through his exhaustion, but Princess shrieked and gave them a group hug.  
“Our kids will be siblings!”
“It’s mine?” Billy asked in disbelief.
“You are the only man I have ever voluntarily been with.  I still can’t believe you put a ton of gold into my bank account before its birth.”
“It felt right,” was all he could think to say.
“The Khan must have promised those super-quads a fortune.  I counted just over eleven tons of gold and seventeen and a half tons of silver.  We need a lot of backpacks and I could use some clothes.  Who else is here?"
The thought of having so much wealth, but not the means of actually taking it, would depress even the toughest of warriors.
"Tiny brought two companies.  Prince, please ask them to start packing.”
While the rest of them worked, Blade took the clothes off a corpse.  She climbed over the piles of bodies and cave-ins until she found the general.  Footsteps warned her of people coming.  She transferred his wands, kicked the general until she tired, then peed into his open mouth, since she didn’t have underwear, not stopping even when the new crowd appeared.
"Hey, Blade," their leader said.  "Heard you were dead."
"Just dead inside, Tiny," she replied, carefully aiming her last drops.  "No, the Baron stormed a fortress alone all afternoon rather than let them rape me."
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll do that for me, too.  Friend of yours?" Tiny asked, gesturing to the dead general, while pushing his people down the stairs.
"He tried to get friendly with me.  He had to stop when Red refused to die."
“He owns us now,” Tiny concluded.  “After this, the guys will follow him into Hell and the gals will throw themselves into fireballs to spare him the heat.”
Blade looked up at the giant Indian.  “I’m going to make myself pretty and do a video telling the world what that brave hero did for me.  I want everyone to know how the Red Baron feels about rape.”
Each American climbing over corpses looked stunned at what the Red Baron would do to protect a member of his team.  What a hell of a story to tell the folks back home!  His heroism multiplied the intensity of their loyalty.
She walked past burnt corpses before she found the steel door and realized how many Billy killed.  I wouldn't have thought of smoking them to death, she realized.  Then she saw the other guy she was looking for.  Across the corridor, past the main entrance, she found the sergeant, stuck like a pig with a dozen others.  She took back the incredible wands she got from Billy, then strolled into the courtyard to let the clear night air cleanse her.  She could not believe she was still alive and un-raped.  The few hundred bodies within view left her speechless.  She stared at the stars.  
I'm going to become a mother, Blade said to herself in joyous disbelief.

CHAPTER 40

Jawbone, the company commander, finished breakfast and noticed a break in the snowfall.  
"Come on, everyone.  Let's get out while we can.  Mongols don't kill themselves, you know."  
A well-liked veteran, he had a tendency to "jaw-bone" his team.  The usual suspects made the usual groans, but most of them quickly got ready for another day on top of the 500 kilometer-long Pyrenees Mountain Range.  
"Wake up, Dreamy," he said, kicking a super-quad who slept a lot, and handing him warm tea to clear his head.  "Last one out makes dinner."
With the collapse of the Mongol Air Force in Spain, the Americans had to fly ever deeper into Europe to raid.  They would have relocated to central Europe except Genghis Khan publicly promised his people that the Empire would re-take Spain.  Which meant taking the Pyrenees.
They built the cabin into the lee of a small cliff to minimize wind shear.  Vulnerable from above, they installed large rocks on the roof, then poured water to freeze the boulders into place.  A naturally-looking snowdrift hid frozen earth piled up against the two exposed sides of the bunker as Jawbone peeked out a narrow slit before stepping outside.
The extreme cold made the interior feel like an oven.  It got so cold that a guy could see his pee freeze before it landed.  
The trick to surviving extremely cold weather is layers of clothing, to add or subtract as needed.  Jawbone decided to go back inside to take off a shirt now that the storm passed, but something made him pause.  On impulse, he stretched, like many do before flying, then popped up to check out the roof.  Unfortunately, a few dozen freezing enemies blasted him for his sudden appearance.
With that, hundreds of Mongols shot at the cabin from concealed positions.  The company rushed to open wand slits to fire back.  Dreamy, now wide awake, noticed the white masks, gloves, and the expensive coats.
"It's the special team we heard about!" he warned the others.  "Let's hope this works," Dreamy said as he and several others stuck their hands out narrow holes in the back near the roof, then raised their wands to blast blindly at anyone on top of them.  Ten others climbed onto the roof and took positions.  The boulders on the roof gave them cover, while the curve of the cliff protected them from above.  A stalemate started, but with the Americans more comfortable. 
"Pass the shields up and prepare for a mass attack," Dreamy yelled into the cabin.
Several hundred quads soon flew from every angle.  The defenders built their bunker so everyone could shoot out, which crushed the attack.  
The Mongols had to destroy the Americans to re-take Spain.  Since Jawbone's company guarded the much-traveled Somport Pass in Aspe Valley, it came as no surprise that Mongols hit them. 
The blasts echoed far, so the other companies would hear and counter-attack in force.  All Jawbone’s unit had to do was wait.
When the counter-attack finally came at sunset, the Mongols were stiff, frustrated, and very cold.  The Americans wiped out the remaining Mongols, but not before torturing some to learn where they trained.
“Oh, boy,” Dreamy concluded sadly after the third Mongol gave the same information.  “We have to get the Baron.  Maybe he will know what to do.”

CHAPTER 41

Everyone looked up when Billy finally arrived at the country estate outside Madrid.  They couldn’t start without him.  The crowd greeted him like high royalty, which left American Jack deeply conflicted.  He spent three centuries establishing himself, only to see some teenager replace him.  More insulting is that a third of the quads following Billy descended from Jack.
Jack’s real talent lay in business.  Without the thousands of tons of gold he poured into the war over three hundred years, the Mongols would have conquered everyone long ago.  But that didn’t inspire warriors like spectacular victories.
Jack's wand called everyone's attention as he tapped his throat to boost his voice.  
"We have the leaders of every company here to share their insights on how we should respond to our newest threat.  Those of you who already heard Dreamy's report know that the Mongol European High Command is training high-altitude quads to take the Pyrenees from us.”
“So much for re-taking Africa,” Mali remarked bitterly.
“No, since we now have a safe path to Africa, a few hundred thousand American civilian quads and their families plan on moving there to take over Mongolian extraction enterprises.  Many more will follow if our initial efforts are successful.  With Red’s money, I am recruiting more African quads to add to our African division.  
“Genghis Khan has given Jebe, the general training the new high-altitude force in the Alps, new powers to take veterans from any unit in Europe.  Remember how Jebe trounced us outside Geneva a century ago?  If Jebe can take the Pyrenees, the Mongols could finally conquer France and Spain.
"One idea is to force them to fight us at a place of our choosing -- say, on top of the highest peak in the Pyrenees -- and hit them with our newly grateful Spanish and French allies.  We could thin them out on their way here and destroy their supply depots and logistical lines.  Feeding and housing thirty thousand troops will give us plenty of opportunities to undermine them."
"Red, what do you think?" Bear asked, not noticing the pained look on Grandma’s face when she was not asked first.
"First of all, sorry I am late.  I would have been here earlier, but I was too busy killing my enemies and taking their treasure."  
Everyone leaned forward.  What was coming must be good because he just paraphrased an old Genghis Khan quote.  
"As you probably know, I led the 1st Battalion of super-quads to gather more intel.  We followed the golden mules from the Alps to their regional headquarters in Vienna.  Since Jebe is basically robbing Europe of quads, we found it surprisingly easy to wipe out the headquarters."  
Oh, he had them now, like kids at bedtime soaking up their favorite story.  
"There we found more gold than the thousand of us could carry, much less the silver."  Billy coughed and took a very long time drinking some wine.  Everyone knew he was stringing them along.  He, of all people, wouldn't leave gold behind.  “Genghis promised Jebe one hundred thousand troops, which obviously costs a lot.  Here, take a look,” as he projected a recording of massive wealth.
"However, they also had a lot of currency," meaning paper money used in intra-government transactions.  "We had a long flight home, so we took all the bills we could carry.  I felt like Santa Claus because fifty kilos of paper turned out to be several times my size.  The guys are now arguing over what country to buy."  He pretended his story ended, but everyone knew different.  "Jack, this is excellent wine!"
"What did you do with the damn gold?" Bear demanded.
"Oh, that?  We dropped it, actually.  Every one of us.  I blame the humidity.  Funny thing is, we went back to get some more, and dropped it again.  In the same place.  In fact, on every trip, the thousand of us dropped all that gold and silver in the same hole.  Which should just about cover the bonuses of those warriors who will join me in beating Jebe.”
The applause rose to the heavens.  Jack could see that the damn kid beat him again.  Billy suddenly started laughing too hard to continue.  He tried to drink some wine, but coughed in that, too.  
"The problem, of course, with Mongolian cash is only Mongolians accept it, and only the government or government contractors accept it in large quantities.  Because Mongolian law requires them to.
"You all know those child-size gunpowder bombs that Genghis used to such great effect bombarding walled cities two centuries before Europeans woke up to their potential?  Yeah, funny story.  
“Anyways, we found the main logistical officer at headquarters who buys them for the 
European High Command and, instead of dying, he decided to retire rich.  It turns out that General Jebe has not yet ordered the bombs he will obviously want to drop on us, so I left Blade to help the logistical officer buy as many as possible and send them to private warehouses across Eurasia.  Private third-party contractors are transporting a million bombs to warehouses near Siberia where my American raiders in Central Asia can access them.  And skeptics say Mongolian currency is worthless!”
Billy paused to laugh at the reaction of the Mongol leaders when they discover millions of bombs missing.
"Now, I've always said the best time to kill quads is in their sleep.  Preferably drunk.  But we cannot kill them at all without knowing where they are.  The High Command is making our task easier by sending them to the Alps.  So I say, let’s use Jebe to bleed Europe of Mongol strength.
"Let's fortify camps on the south face near the summit of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe.  At four thousand eight hundred meters, it stands nearly one and a half kilometers higher than the highest peak on the Pyrenees.  The Mongols put their secret training camp at three thousand meters, which may be enough for the Pyrenees, but fighting at five thousand meters will leave them literally breathless, while American University trained our guys at great heights.  And the Mongols can't go to Spain without first eliminating the threat to their rear.
"Meanwhile, since they are leaving Europe relatively defenseless, I say the rest of you should raid their banks and businesses.  No one robs the Bank of Mongolia now because the nearest air base will run them down, but now those airmen are acclimating at three thousand meters.  Twenty thousand of you could wipe out a major air base, empty nearby Mongolian vaults, then fly home.  
“We all agree that the Mongols should pay for three centuries of imperialist war.  I say we make them pay in gold and silver!”
Through the thunderous applause, Jack felt the weight of responsibility for the global war finally slip off his shoulders.  Over the centuries, many rebel leaders briefly eclipsed him, but none survived long.  So it always came back to him to do the heavy lifting.
He looked at the Red Baron in wonder.  After believing for so long that his original family died, the rebellion finds the leader it needs in his last legitimate descendent, of all people.  And just a boy, at that.  
Jack examined the faces of the embittered veterans who had fought for two centuries or more and saw hope in their eyes.  Even Grandma believed the boy could beat Genghis freaking Khan.
As he watched the teenager absorb their applause, Jack discovered that he, too, believed that the Red Baron would prevail.  He couldn’t put a finger on it, and he couldn’t imagine how, but something deep inside told him the boy would win.  Despite all the odds.
Unbelievable.

CHAPTER 42

Of course, while most of them raided Mongolian Europe, someone had to keep Jebe’s new air force busy.  Billy chose the two thousand Americans with the highest ceiling.  Those survivors would split the bullion the 1st Battalion dropped in a lake near Vienna.
Meanwhile, Red’s growing super-quad force and Jack’s ten thousand Africans entered Africa from Spain to destroy Mongols along the northern African coastline.  The Africans would eventually station themselves in Egypt to block Mongolians from entering or leaving the continent, while Red’s super-quads would return for the Baron’s next campaign. 
To minimize cold-related illness, Billy alternated them weekly.  On their week off the mountaintop, the battalion would deliver food, supplies, and bombs.  Rotating companies attacked the enemy every three hours.  Many of Jebe’s air units could only fly a few hundred kilometers before resting.  Which is why Billy located his closest base five hundred kilometers away on Mont Blanc.  
General Jebe re-organized his quads so that those who could fly farthest or highest flew together, but those units suffered the first and largest casualties.  The rest of the Mongols were more targets than threats.  The more Billy killed, the more quads that Jebe demanded from the European High Command.
Jebe, naturally, attacked Team Red on Mont Blanc, but they had to rest halfway there.  Billy kept a company on stand-by in a hidden bunker halfway between them specifically to ambush units when they rested.  Jebe eventually took that small bunker, but Billy had planted explosives to blow them up.
Jebe now had to establish less protected camps close to Mont Blanc.  Ger huts were warm and portable, but not bomb or fire proof.  Billy didn't mind because it meant fighting on the highest possible point in Western Europe.  The Mongols looked almost comical when they dropped out of the sky when the intensity of fighting required more oxygen than they received.
Every time Billy’s battalions switched, they interviewed the Red Baron and pooled their videos to distribute to news agencies.  The extreme cold deepened Billy’s voice and made it raspier.  Ironically, Billy had to impersonate Jim, who periodically released threatening videos.  Soon all of Europe waited impatiently for the weekly updates, which pitted the Red Baron against the Empire’s best general.  Everyone understood that all of western Europe was at stake.  Rumor even had it that the Great Khan himself was their most dedicated viewer.
Jebe had to house and feed thirty thousand troops while Billy only needed a camp big enough for a thousand, with a few hidden alternate camps farther away for when Jebe destroyed the main camp.
Billy wanted to play this out all winter because he had a surprise in mind for the spring.  He never took a day off.  But he knew the Khan could not afford to let this narrative continue.  He lost his entire force in Spain, effectively lost all of Africa, Free Europe kept rolling back his forces there, while American marathoners ambushed air units across Europe.
Hell, news reports suggested that the Free Europe air forces now fielded more foreign quads than the Mongolian High Command in Europe.  Meaning, they were winning the so-called Battle of the Mercenaries.
All thanks to the Red Baron’s victories.  But his death would reverse this.  Already, rumors grew that the Great Khan was raising another major unstoppable air force to stop this nonsense, once and for all.
In his weekly interviews, the Baron sounded like he fell deep into the crazy pool.  He acted suicidal, paranoid, and delusional, claiming his men would fight to the last man.  He complained of American Jack and the super-quads abandoning him, of sell-outs and mass desertions.  He ranted and raved and cursed his former comrades. 
He clearly had a death wish.  Everyone knew the Red Baron was going to die, and everyone wanted to see it.  The lucky bastard who recorded the Baron’s last fight could sell it for a fortune.

CHAPTER 43

American Jack cautiously crawled deeper into the freezing underground bunker on the Alps.  He had never known such cold.  He saw Red under several blankets and searched his face for signs of a suicidal lunatic.  The boy didn’t look like a raving madman.
"Jack, you're suppose to be in Africa.  At least, that's what we tell everyone," Billy greeted him in the last surviving mountaintop lodge. 
"Your interviews are pretty convincing.  I had to look around me to make sure I wasn't living in luxury in Africa.  Even our own guys are worried you have a death wish.  You said some pretty nasty things about us greedy sell-outs.  Some wonder if you forgot that you sent them to Africa to clear the northern coastline.”
“Grandpa, did you come all this way just to make sure I’m not as crazy as I seem in the news videos?  You, of all people, should know not to believe my propaganda.”
"You've aged, boy."
"Look who's talking, old man," Billy shot back, a bit prickly after two months of fighting constantly in sub-zero temperatures.
“Not losing your nerve, are you?" Jack needled him.  He needed to know how close Red was to the edge.
"You're enjoying yourself, aren't you, grandpa?  Ever been on the receiving end of those big bombs before?  It's pretty unnerving.  At least our bunker was covered with several meters of frozen earth.  The damn things still bounced me a meter in the air.  When they finally collapse the roof -- boy, I thought I would never dig myself out.  Those Mongols must have balls the size of bulls to sleep in felt huts.”
Jack pretended to be sympathetic.  “You’re killing them as fast as Jebe gets reinforcements.  Soon you’ll be the only Mongol in Europe.  News reports said you killed twenty thousand quads off the mountain.  What was that about?”
The memory animated the boy.  “Before I brought my guys on top of the Alps in the winter, I consulted experts who got us the best damn clothes and equipment.  We were experts in cold-weather fighting before we even got here.  The Mongols, in contrast, arrive wearing whatever they wore back in Europe, which usually doesn’t even include gloves.  Many of them couldn’t even use their wands against us.  The cold has probably caused them more casualties than direct action.  Jebe naturally sent the frostbitten off the mountain, so we wiped them out, which forced Jebe to move his support base and infirmary that much farther away.”
Jack nodded his head.  “How’d you deal with the ten thousand marathoners that Genghis lent Jebe?”
“We never knew about them until they showed up.  I nearly shat myself, seeing ten thousand quads carrying those big munitions.  I thought I bought them all up.  They destroyed our primary base.  While one company exhausted them, I sent the other nine companies to ambush them on their way home to Jebe’s base camp.”
“But you got the bastards,” Jack wanted to know.
“Oh, yeah.  The nine companies jumped them right before they reached Jebe’s camp, when they were most tired.  They thought they were home free!  Celebrating, their wands singing in unison, already collecting their bonuses in their minds.  Those nine companies got half of them before Jebe drove them off.”
“But what happened to your first alternate base?” Jack wondered.
“Well, they eventually found it.  I expected them to.  But this time I had my other battalion ready.
“Jebe sent twenty thousand conventional troops, plus the surviving marathoners.  His original quads screened the bombers as far as they could, then landed to screen their return so we couldn’t harass them all the way back to base.  
“But they never suspected that I had another battalion because I never attacked with more than a thousand fliers.  My other guys found literally thousands of exhausted Mongols, panting like dogs in the snow, unable to fly another meter.  They say it was like shooting fish in a stream.  
“Then, right before the bastards arrived at our alternate camp, my other battalion hit them from above and just tore them up.  Remember, those new bombs weigh forty kilos, so those long-distance quads exhausted themselves on the way over.  They were in no shape to dogfight.  A thousand broke off to drive us off while the rest absorbed losses until they could bomb our camp, which they assumed would drive us off the mountaintop.  They destroy our bunkers, but our two battalions harassed them all the way home.  
“Since then, from our last alternate camp six hundred kilometers away, rotating companies raid their base every hour.  I don’t know how they can sleep through hourly raid alarms.”
Jack felt so relieved that Red could speak rationally.  His weekly ravings to the news agencies scared the hell out of him.  Everyone in the world fighting the Mongol Empire now appreciated how much they depended on this one guy to win the war.
“What’s with all the Mongol uniforms?” Jack asked, pointing to a pile of them in an adjacent room.
“Since we have to search their corpses for valuables, we may as well take their uniforms.  We send them weekly to this ingenious Italian matron who has some special laundry soap for removing blood stains.  They even smell good.”    
“Yeah, I can even smell it over the body odor.”
“Jack, what else is going on that you are reluctant to tell me?”
Jack paused, surprised Billy could read him so well.  “Since we exterminated the Mongols in Spain and pushed them mostly out of France, I have recruited thirty thousand European veterans to add to your twenty American and five super-quads battalions.  A thousand of the most powerful Americans formed their own super-quad battalion, but I’ve received replacements from American University, so you still have twenty American marathon battalions.”
Billy whistled.  “Five thousand supers?  Can they fly far?”
“They can’t go raiding with us unless they can fly a thousand kilometers straight.  Your victories have them coming from all over the world.  Those cousins from India alone came back with a full battalion.  Our side has never had so many super-quads.  Grandma is using them to sweep the northern African coast of Mongolian air units.”
“Well, make sure you organize the Europeans according to how far they can fly.  I need as many marathoners as possible.  I’d sure appreciate it if you could loan me those African marathoners.  After all, I am paying their salaries.”
“I wish I had more of them myself -- in Egypt.  They’re needed to chase down those who try to run our blockade.”
Displeased, Billy sipped his hot soup.  He lost a lot of weight because the cold sapped his appetite.  Maybe it was the thin air, but he could no longer taste anything.  Worse yet, he had trouble sleeping.  He sometimes trembled uncontrollably for hours, reliving himself crawling through several meters of frozen earth to un-bury himself.  It’s hard to sleep when dreaming of being buried alive.
“Make up an excuse to send the Americans to Africa.  Put Grandma in charge and have them return here covertly with the super-quads.  Then lead your Europeans here slowly to relieve us.  While the Mongols focus on you, I’ll smash Jebe with Team Red before you even get here.”
Billy leaned forward and gently patted his ancestor on the shoulder.  “Now tell me why you’re really here.  What could possibly scare you so bad?”  
Jack had no idea his fear was so visible.  “We finally know how much your return has scared Genghis Khan.  As soon as you beat Tamerlane, the Mongols started raising a huge new force in Kiev.  They’ll train all winter, then move against Europe when the weather warms.”  
Billy brought two more sets of armor to the Alps, but already went through them.  He needed a replacement, and now knew where to ask his uncle to send it.
“Kiev?  Why not train them somewhere warmer?”
Jack shrugged.  “I assume to get them good at cold-weather fighting, which worries Scandinavia.  They’ve angered Genghis for refusing to prohibit your forces in, since you deposit so much money there to lend their governments and businesses.  The Khan has sent them threatening wand videos accusing them of colluding with you.  Plus, since you like mountaintops, they probably assume they will have to fight you somewhere cold.  Other than that, that area is the Empire’s breadbasket, they just had a huge grain harvest, it sits on many trade routes, and the Dnieper River is the fourth largest in Europe, which makes supplying the armada easier.  I assume, after they take Spain, they will sweep north until they finally overwhelm the Scandinavians.”  
“How many graduates will American University have by then?” Billy asked.  Half of what his American raiders brought home went into his general war fund, yet it was impractical to transport that gold half way around the world to Europe, so Billy poured it into recruiting and training more and more marathoners, near-marathoners, and half-marathoners (those who can fly at least 500 kilometers straight).
“Apart from another marathon division we have over one hundred thousand near-marathoners and about one hundred fifty thousand who can fly between 500-700 kilometers, for a total force of around 250,000 quads.  But so many can’t cross until the late Siberian spring, when food is most abundant.  In contrast, the Khan’s new force will start sweeping into Europe from Kiev in early spring.  By the time the Americans arrive to help, the Mongols will be sipping tea in Paris.”
“Have the Americans wait for me in Alaska, and have the marathoners stop all non-Americans crossing the Bering Strait.  I don’t want the Mongols to know the force next year will be so much bigger.  How large a force is the Khan raising?” Billy needed to know.
“A decade ago the Khan could snap his fingers and a million veterans would show up.  Now my network is telling me that relatively few non-Mongols are signing up. My spies say half a million quads, because Genghis is paying twice the usual rate, with an equal number of two-wanders to carry supplies.  I’ve sent Prince to find out what he can.”
Billy leaned back against his rock wall, smiling contently.
“A million enemies makes you happy?” Jack sneered.
“I don’t want to kill quads that I don’t have to, so the Khan is making victory easier by recruiting everyone willing to shoot us.  That means those who don’t join him, despite a history of fighting for the Empire, may not be our enemies.  To win this war, we only need to eliminate those still working to kill for the Empire.  Anyone we can persuade to not fight against us is someone we don’t have to kill.  And we should let them know that.  Let’s call for a general amnesty.”
Actually, that wasn’t bad, Jack thought.  They don’t have to fight for us, just not against us.  This damn kid keeps coming up with great ideas.
“Foreigners make up most of the quads in the Mongol Air Force.  We could cut the Khan’s remaining warrior reserve in half!  An amnesty may save us from having to kill a million or more quads.”
They quickly did a video together promising a general amnesty to anyone who stopped fighting them, but warning that anyone in Greater Mongolia, the Stans, Siberia, and Manchuria would be shot on sight.  Critics would soon argue that only the kings fighting the Empire could issue a blanket amnesty, but no one really doubted that they would honor it because the Red Baron was now the face and voice of the resistance.
“Jack,” Billy said before his ancestor left.  “I need to give you something.”  The boy tapped his wand to transfer something.  “I just gave you authorization for an account with over one thousand tons of gold, or its equivalent, in Global Bank in Paris.”
Jack’s face went slack.  “Why would you give me so much money?”
“Listen, if we destroy Jebe and the Khan’s new air armada in Kiev, all of Europe will declare independence, but they will fight each other instead of prepare for the Khan’s next move against them.  I want you to spend that money to unite them against the Mongol threat.  Bribe them into signing mutual defense treaties, non-aggressive packs, and free trade agreements.  Offer to fund massive infrastructure projects to those nations and kingdoms that do joint military exercises under a united European Air Command.  Offer to cover payroll for any air force that participates.  And hire as many quads as you can, because Genghis Khan will be pissed when he gets to Europe.  He will burn all of Europe if he can.  I need you to field a huge force to deter him.”
“Me?  Where the hell are you going to be when Genghis Khan invades Europe?”
Maybe it was just the freezing weather, but Billy flashed him a cold-as-ice smile that chilled American Jack to the bone.

CHAPTER 44

Grandma sent Princess to bring him and his battalion off the mountain to their hidden bomb warehouse on the Italian side, within easy striking distance of Jebe’s base.  They stopped first to bring Mongol uniforms for the new guys.  Billy wept with joy upon seeing his super-quad friends.  In contrast, Billy’s scrawny frame and overly emotional weeping scared the hell out of them.
“You look half-dead already,” Grandma said by way of greeting.  
“It’s great to see you, too, Grandma.  I expected you earlier.”
“A storm delayed us three days.  What’s the plan?”
“Well, I may smell like roses, but my troops need a bath.  We should turn in early, wake up around midnight, then bomb Jebe into the tenth century.”
“Okay.”
Billy knew Grandma didn’t like taking orders from someone two hundred years her junior, but she really did appreciate the world-class wands he gave her.
At midnight, he gave his final orders to the battalion and company commanders: 
“Jebe knows Jack is coming, so he will have something dangerous planned.  Expect the unexpected.  I want everyone to wear these great-smelling Mongol uniforms to confuse them.  We will attack from the west instead of the east so they mistake us for reinforcements.  The super-quads will take out the sky patrols, but hidden sentries will still sound the alarm before we are in position to bomb.  Our true surprise will be our numbers. 
“I want the first battalion to bomb the Mer de Glace glacier because a lot of Mongols are hiding under the snow in front of it.  The next four battalions will drop their shrapnel bombs on the structures.  The other battalions should blanket the camp and drop your bombs wherever Mongols pop up out of the snow.  Shoot or stab them before they get off the ground.  
“Grandma, circle high with the super-quads, broken into companies flying figure eights around the perimeter.  I would not be surprised if Jebe has hidden a battalion or two over a ridge to take us by surprise.  
“Company commanders, take the initiative when something unusual comes up.  Because it will.  Blade, take your company and form a wide picket line to the west to stop any trying to warn their support camp off the mountain.  Diva, do the same with your company, but to the north.  Make sure nobody escapes.”
Hyper-sensitive to their reactions, Billy breathed a sign of relief that neither of the pregnant ladies argued with him for keeping them from the battle.
A few minutes later, as the commanders briefed their teams, Billy took Princess aside.
"I think I'm farthest along," she said proudly, caressing her bulging belly.  He had not yet told her about his children with Emily and Marie.
"If it's a boy I want to name him Wilhelm, and if it's a girl, Elizabeth," Billy said, knowing he better state his preference now, as she would obsess over her own choices.
"Then I get to name the next two!"
"Then I get to name the three after that!" he retorted with a smile.
"Then I get to name the four after that!"  They laughed together, so comfortable with each other.
“Battle is no place for a pregnant woman,” he said softly, scared for her.  “What if we have a prodigy that shoots flame out of your you-know-what?”
She instantly hardened.  “I’m going.”
And that, was that.
The Mongols scattered their ger huts as widely as possible to minimize the hits from bombs, but the sheer volume of bombs canceled out that strategy as the whole valley vaporized, sending up snow geysers.  Warned by dozens of alert sentries, Billy watched thousands of quads exit hidden huts buried in snow, and thousands more defend themselves from the relative safety of huts and rocks.  The Americans gleefully fell on them.
Team Red had an advantage, other than surprise.  Flying requires wand use, which warms and heals, so his troops were relatively limber and awake, despite the bitter cold night.  The Mongols, on the other hand, woke up abruptly, could not know the tactical situation, while cold, sleepy, and scared. 
Billy had no doubt that Jebe prepared them for just this moment, but several weeks had passed since then.  Billy had accustomed them to hourly raids that shot up some quads, but left the vast majority of them unscathed.  After so many raids that set off sentry alarms, most sleepy quads could not appreciate the gravity of the situation until too late.  Which is exactly what Billy wanted.
Circling above the battle, Billy searched for the nasty surprises that the Mongols were famous for.  And he didn’t see them.  Instead of making him feel better, it bothered him immensely.  Things looked contained below, so he rose higher to see beyond the vast camp.
And not a moment too soon.  An aerial battle broke out to the north.  Billy used all four wands to scream a warning, then sprinted across the sky, confident his super-quad companies would follow.  By then another fight started to the south.  
It now hit him that Jebe hid his long-distance quads a few minutes from the base.  They probably slept ready to fly at a moment’s notice.  He sped up to overtake one of his companies, signaling the commander to follow him.  They cut across another company and they raced up to the fight.  Far to the east he heard the echoes of another battle.
Just a click ahead, one of his companies jumped a larger group of enemies, judging by the fireballs illuminating the night sky.  His two companies banked sharply left to attack from the rear.  He noticed a third company rushing to follow him, so he slowed down so it could catch up.
The three companies flew in a line, descending at an optimum angle to fire in a fall stabilized by their boot wands.  The angle made all the difference.  Because they flew in a 10 X 10 formation, instead of just the front ten quads firing, all one hundred could shoot.  Four enemy companies saw them and rose to attack, but Team Red had the better position and devastated them with continuous volleys.  Better wands and greater height gave them over twice the range.
The super-quad company that had intercepted these Mongols spread out since super-quads can better dodge blasts individually.  Each flier now harassed a squad.  Billy counted two Mongol battalions at half strength.  This suggested that the other three enemy rapid reaction units also had two under strength battalions.  As long-distance quads, they could fight much longer than their low-range comrades.
His three hundred descended enough, so Billy signaled them to rise in an arc over the enemy.  At least one enemy company anticipated this, so Billy raced ahead to cut them off.  He flashed his wands so they would concentrate on him.  The tactic worked.  Now all he had to do was survive the next minute, dodging and shielding rather than shooting, until his troops were in position to destroy them.
Other enemy units followed, but would need a minute to catch them, so Billy moved his quads away, over as many enemies as possible, making it take longer for those enemies behind them to catch up.  Because his super-quads could fly faster, he just needed to stay out of range of those behind him while his team shot up other enemies who didn’t see him.  
He saw other super-quad companies coming, so he dived towards these reinforcements.  His pursuers started to dive, too, but then their commander must have seen the new super-quads approaching.  Billy played the devil by turning and rising, which proved too tempting a target.  Once the enemy committed itself, Billy banked sharply away, under his reinforcements, who had increased speed to shoot the bastards up.
Things looked good here so he passed off command and raced to the next closest fight.  He saw an enemy unit chasing a friendly one, so he did his infamous scream and, sure enough, the dummies turned to face him, although he was still too far away.  He let the enemy come, but instead of engaging, he blew past them.  When every minute counts, those dumb Mongols just lost several minutes.  Billy saw a Mongol company descending on his troopers, so he popped up and fired down.  The fireball had to travel too far to hurt, much less kill, but the heat wave made them break off their attack to identify the unseen threat.  
Closer now, Billy’s mere presence energized his guys and demoralized the opponents.  He led another enemy company away from the fight, then rushed back to blast holes in another.  
Genghis had promised a ton of gold to whoever killed him, so company commanders wasted time positioning their units to fire volleys so wide he could not escape, rather than shoot easier targets.  And if he didn’t pay attention, it would have worked.  But they kept underestimating his speed -- understandably, since no one in the world could fly anywhere near as fast.  His recent weight loss actually sped him up because velocity is determined by thrust versus mass: the lighter he weighed, the faster he flew.  Billy probably got more enemies killed as a distraction than as a shooter.
What began as an even fight turned increasingly lopsided, so he landed in the camp.  Someone raced to tell Billy they got the general.  They had removed his armor and chained him to a boulder.  Heat severely burned his left side, from his hip to his face.
"The famous Red Baron," Jebe said, not at all afraid.  "You should be congratulated.  I haven't been beaten this badly since I last argued with my father."
Billy shut him up by breaking his jaw with his fist, which really hurt his hand.  
“Who got him?"
Champa, the hot Vietnamese he impregnated, waddled forward.  She resembled an angry Asian version of Princess.  Their bulging bellies made them look like snakes who swallowed a pig.
"The new wands you gave me saved my life."
"Give him back his wands," he ordered her.
She blinked, and he could tell she wanted to argue, but then did as he asked.  Billy sliced into the muscles of both arms so Jebe couldn’t use the wands.  Billy then ordered Champa to slowly kill him.  She started slicing Jebe up to inflict maximum pain all over his body, enjoying every minute of it -- therapy for finding one’s family massacred.  His body now knew death was imminent, so Champa transfer his wands while watching life drain out of him.
Billy always suspected that Champa had a lot of reasons to feel vindictive towards the Mongols, but never asked.  Now, however, he could tell that she satiated some of that thirst.  Something seemed to fall off her shoulders.  She turned to Billy and bowed very low, in a gesture of deep respect.
"On behalf of my ancestors, I thank you."
“When you give Jebe’s wands to our child, he or she will always remember your victory that restored the family honor.  May your anger die with Jebe.”
Billy noticed Bear staring at him strangely, and knew instantly that something was wrong.
"She'll live," was the first thing Bear told him, "but she's burned up bad."  
He didn't need to give a name.
Billy followed him to a hut that managed to survive and roughly pushed the healers out of the way.  Princess lay hurt, but conscious.  A thick lotion eased the burning that cooked her skin from the upper back to the back of her head.   She lost most of her beautiful hair and it looked like a vampire nibbled on her left ear.
"I never saw it coming" was all the explanation he needed.  That's how he foresaw his own doom.  The blast must have hit between her helmet and her back armor.  “The suit you gave me saved my life.”
"Bear caught her as she fell and used snow to minimize the damage," one of the healers told him.  "The third-degree burns will heal, but leave scars.  The baby should not be effected if she has a normal recovery, but her state of mind will determine if the baby lives or dies.”
Billy could see that Princess feared how this would change their relationship.  The scars on her neck may never go away.  He knelt to kiss her lips.  
"A few more burns and you'll be better looking than me."  She tried not to laugh because it hurt so much.  "This changes nothing between us, you know.  Don't make me enforce our contract: you still have to marry me and have my babies.   If your hair doesn't grow back, I'll cut off your brother's while he sleeps.  He doesn't like me anyways."
Her face beamed gratitude.  "I know you have to go.  When will I see you again?"
"Not soon.  I need to destroy the Khan’s new million-strong air armada."
"Please take someone with you," she joked.
Billy got up.  “Bear, my next trip to the bank, I am going to transfer a ton of gold into your account for saving my fiancée.  If it’s a boy, I’m going to name him after you.”
“Bear?” he asked skeptically.
“No.  Harry, because you are so hairy that your body doesn’t need soap so much as shampoo.”
Princess smiled.  “I now know my son’s name.”
Billy just gave Princess something to look forward to during her weeks of recuperation.  Outside the hut, Bear set him straight.  
“Keep your damn money.  I did what anyone would do for a comrade in arms.”
Bill placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.  “I didn’t give you the gold to reward you.  I did it to remind Princess how much I value her.  Save it in case I am not around to support her or the child.”
That left Bear speechless.  He had never known anyone who could see so far ahead.  After Billy left, Bear told everybody the story and their adoration for their leader intensified.
They didn’t have time to bury the dead.  After dawn, some would fly the wounded to their infirmary, but everyone else left in the dark to attack the Mongolian logistical camp off the mountain.  Then they could eat, rest, and thaw out.
But they found the support base virtually deserted.  Locals washed clothes and tended kitchens, but nobody shot at them, so they didn’t shoot at anybody.  While they ate, the locals told them the Mongols abruptly left a few days before.
“They went after Jack,” Grandma predicted.  “If that storm didn’t cost us three days, we would have surprised them.”
“Stay here,” Billy ordered them, since they were too tired to do anything else but rest.  “Why waste so nice a camp?  We have beds, kitchens, and even servants.  Have scouts explore the area and set up a wide perimeter defense.  I’ll find out what happened to Jack and return soon.”
Food and warmth revived him, although he expected the worst.  He flew all day and found Jack’s camp right after sunset.  Billy saw thousands of corpses as he descended.
Jack didn’t even get up.  Once he got closer, Billy could see why: his right leg was severely burned.
“You let them ambush you?” Billy asked in astonishment.
“I didn’t let them do anything,” the old man shot back angrily.  “This is war.  They had weeks to plan their ambush.  I doubled the usual sentries and patrols.  I had everyone sleep in their armor.  I kept a third on standby during the night.  What would you have done?”
“You knew they knew you were coming, so you should have ambushed their ambush.  Put your highest fliers in the same units and rotate them to protect you from high-altitude bombers.  Establish layers of sentries far away from camp who can signal each other without letting the Mongols know.  Arrange dummies to lure the enemy in while your best quads wait in hiding.  You invaded Mongolian territory.  What did you expect?  Didn’t you put yourself in their shoes?  How much of your force did you lose?”
“Over half.  But their losses were just as heavy.”
“How many marathoners are left?”
“Battalions #1 and #2 can fly the farthest and suffered the least.  Most of Battalion #3 can also fly a thousand clicks.  Four and five got hit hard.”
Billy hoped for more help.  “Word of their victory over you will spread like herpes.”
“How did you do?” Jack demanded. 
“We killed them all, including Jebe.  Princess got burned bad, but will be okay.”
“You got them all?”  Jack could not believe so few destroyed so many.
“I made sure none escaped to spread word of our victory.  Tomorrow night we’ll go north to find this new armada.  Please send every marathon flier you have, right away, to the Mongol support camp.”
“We should spread the word of your victory over Jebe,” Jake argued.
“No!”  Billy didn’t mean to yell, but can’t this man ever think ahead?  “The Mongols must think they’ve won so I can surprise them.  I score so many victories because I know where they are, but they don’t know where I am.  Otherwise, they would be surprising me.
“I want you to record me laying on my back, dying.  I’ll remove my shirt so everyone sees how deathly I look.  Pretend that you have found me on the mountaintop, my forces slaughtered.  I can slow my breathing down so much that my mother could not even detect it.  I need you to zoom in on my chest and act scared when you realize that I have stopped breathing.  Are you up for it?”
“That will be the easiest thing I’ve done all day.”
Jack recorded for ten minutes while Billy recounted in detail how famously clever Jebe tricked him, and how he will never forgive himself for sending his super-quads to their doom.  He said it so convincingly that Jack almost believed it.  When the Baron started crying over the loss of his team, Jack -- still traumatized by the death of his troops -- joined in.  It looked either moving or pathetic.  They ended it with Jack pronouncing the Red Baron dead and weeping over the corpse.
“Let me review it,” Billy demanded.
“Geez, Red.  I can’t see your chest rise,” Jack said as the video ended.  “No one will mistake your disgusting chest for someone else’s.”
Billy let Jack get a close-up of the Millennial Wands he took from Subodei to convince Genghis Khan it really was the Red Baron. 
“Tell your commanders you’re gonna visit me on the mountaintop and bring all your marathoners.  Then return tomorrow without the marathoners, tell everyone Jebe beat me, then transfer the video to the commanders.  Mongol spies will do the rest.”
“You’re going up against a million Mongols?  I shall mourn you as if you were already dead.”
“Good.  If you can fool those closest to you, then you will fool the Khan himself.  Just imagine his reaction when he sees that video, and contrast it with when he learns I’m not really dead.”
American Jack smiled at the image, the pain in his leg temporarily forgotten.

CHAPTER 45

Jack had over three thousand marathoners eager to join Team Red.  When those who carried the wounded to the infirmary arrived, Team Red numbered about twenty-five thousand.  Flying to attack a million.
Billy entered Global Bank in Warsaw, checked his messages, found the armor his uncle sent him, and transferred some gold.  One of the messages gave him an update of the steel-hull warship his great-uncle George was building in London.  The latest message from Prince gave him directions to a secluded valley a few hundred kilometers from Kiev.
The Mongols apparently did not appreciate how useful a communications network would be to the Red Baron.  His father wanted England to remain a staunch Mongol ally because that made it easier to expand their English bank across the Empire.  Which they used to send and receive messages.  It’s how they communicated with American Jack, the bounty hunters who killed the Khan’s descendents for money, and how he kept in touch with the Americans he fielded in Central Asia.
Billy flew them over a thousand kilometers a day to out-run even the Khan’s famous postal service.  They traveled as light as possible in order to fly as high, as fast, and as far as possible.  None of them ever felt safe staying in the same place for more than five hours.  Even putting up sentries could bring disastrous attention.
After a week of constant flight, someone dropped in front of them and gave the coded signal.  Billy shot forward until he saw Prince’s relieved face.  Prince led them to his valley, where several hundred men looked up as twenty-five thousand strangers landed among them.
“How did you know it was us?” Billy asked Prince.
“Mongols do not fly in a defensive stacked-diamond formation several thousand kilometers from the nearest enemy.  Much less so damn high.”
Billy laughed at his foolishness.  He stacked his battalions five deep, five stacks total, in the shape of a diamond.
A big bearded guy marched forward.
“Red, this is Ivan the Terrible.”
“You don’t look so bad,” Billy joked.
“Ivan,” Prince said, “it is my pleasure to introduce you to the Red Baron.”
They shook hands and the big guy nearly broke his bones with his tight grip.  
“You’re tiny,” the guy concluded, studying Billy for flaws.
“That’s not what the ladies say.  I hope you made good use of the money, armor, and wands my American marathoners left you when they decimated Mongolian air units in Russia.”  Ivan merely grunted, so Billy tried something else.  “Hey, you’ve been rebelling for years.  Do you know the difference between a rebellion and a revolution?”  Ivan just stared hard at him.  “Success.  I’m here to turn you from a rebel into a revolutionary.”
“Have you come to get your money or wands back?” the Russian asked.  
“No.  As a matter of fact, we have a few hundred thousand more wand sets to give you if you have the quads to use them.”
“Why would you just give us so many wands?” the Russian asked suspiciously.
“So you tie down as many Mongols as possible.  And you’re welcome.”
The bastard never did thank him.
“No offense, but could you flash your wands for us.  I, of course, believe you are who Prince says you are, but it would reassure my quads.”
“Then record it so you can distribute the video to the local news agencies.  Otherwise, no one will believe the Red Baron is in Russia.”
Billy noticed where a stream passed closest to the nearest building, so he popped over it at optimum height and did his primal scream -- which, while it did wonders in combat, felt silly otherwise.  He burst flame from all four wands, did a pretty dance he developed with Diva, then shot all four wands into a spot near the stream.  
Literally tons of dirt blasted his audience.  His own men knew enough to back up, and smile in anticipation.  The dust cloud smacked the Russians like a sandstorm which -- being Russians -- was probably a first.
Billy could tell that none of the Russians had ever heard blasts so loud.  He apparently deafened those without ear protectors.  He landed in the crater and waited for them to surround the rim, looking down at him.  Every time they went for water from the stream, they would have to walk around his immense hole.  The image of this crater would soon become a local legend.
Even Ivan looked impressed.  “I believe you now.”
The Russians cheered -- they had the Red Baron!  And a bunch of other guys.
Ivan wanted to impress upon the Baron how dire the situation was.  “Those bastards took all the food we had stored up for the winter to feed this new armada.  A million Russians may starve by spring.  They’ve gone house to house to take whatever they can use.”
“How many men do you have to help us kill them all?”
Ivan straightened up.  “Several thousand quads have joined me so far, but many more will come in exchange for free wands.  Are you really going to attack a million Mongols?”
“That’s why we’re here.  But we’re now really tired, hungry, and sleepy.”
Ivan wasted no time.  His men showed the newcomers where they could sleep while others prepared a giant feast.  Soon, over roasted pig, Prince brought the commanders up to date.
"Under the legendary general Moqali,  Genghis has ordered a massive call-up of retired veterans and opened the treasury to hire mercenaries.  They have been flying to Kiev from across the Empire for several weeks.  They say they have half a million quads and half a million two-wanders, organized into a thousand battalions in neat little rows.  They certainly have one hundred thousand huts, each occupied by a squad, plus those around the camp occupied by their families, support staff, and camp followers.  The Russians know Moqali was the general who sacked Kiev in 1240, so few Russian women are willing to service them, forcing the Mongols to import their cooks, whores, and laundry maids from the Stans.
“Moqali is separating the strongest, those who can fly the farthest, and those who can fly the highest.  The general wants ten super-quad divisions, ten long-distance divisions, and ten high-altitude divisions.  I don’t envy our task if he can field such a force against us.”
“I’ve heard that the military vault has more coin than the Mongolian Central Bank in Peking,” Ivan added knowingly.
“Everything in the camp is ours by right of conquest,” Billy said sternly.  “But you can have everything in the city.  Were you able to get the bombs?” Billy asked.
Prince laughed.  “With that leftover Mongolian currency, I had them moved to warehouses that Ivan controls.  We now have well over one hundred thousand firebombs.”
“So what’s the plan?” Billy asked Prince.  Some of the commanders looked surprised that the Baron asked him.  Even Prince seemed shocked.
“They don’t have airborne sentries or patrols because the fighting is so far away, and who the hell attacks a million troops?  So I say we fall straight down tonight from maximum altitude.  At three hundred meters, we drop a firebomb on every hut, then blast everything that moves.  The Russians follow us down and target the huts that we miss.  Our troops on the perimeter will need to focus on keeping survivors from escaping.  Once resistance fades, half of us should wipe out their supporters camped around them.”
“Twenty-five thousand quads, holding four firebombs each, targeting one hundred thousand huts.  It sounds like providence,” Billy said.  “But some of us will either miss or target the same huts, leaving other huts untouched, so it’s up to your men to hit them, Ivan, before they attack the Mongolian militia in the city.”
Ivan replied, “I will make sure my men understand.”
“Ivan, everything in those Mongolian-owned banks and businesses is yours -- not just here, but in all of Russia.”  
“Why such generosity, Mr. Baron?”
“Because a credible government and air force will suck up Mongolian resources that otherwise would be used against me.”
Billy thought he detected a smile under all those whiskers.  “I now see why so many follow you.  If you are successful, we will go after the Mongolian forces within the city.  We have compiled an extensive list of those who must die.”
“Are the Scandinavians in?” Billy asked Prince.
“They will be if we win.  I saw the dread in their faces.  They know they will be next if Genghis finishes Europe.  The kingdoms mobilized even their civilian quads.  If you beat the armada, I’m confident they will loan you a few dozen marathon battalions because an independent Russia would act as a buffer zone between them and the Empire.”  
“Ivan, among the first things you must do is sign a mutual defense and free trade treaty with the Scandinavian kingdoms.  Make them your friends because you will need them when the Mongols return.”
“They know me well,” Ivan assured him.  “And I have let them know how much I know I need them.”
“If I help you free your country, then you will owe me a debt of gratitude that you cannot possibly repay, but which you will try to repay whenever possible.  Is this understood?”
Ivan sat back in his wooden chair.  “Spoken like a Russian.  I accept your terms.”
While Russians recorded them, the Red Baron and Ivan the Terrible issued a joint video urging Russians to kill all Mongols and proclaiming the independent nation of Russia.

CHAPTER 46

Billy went over the plan with his commanders.  He preferred simple plans, and this one could not get simpler.  The obvious drawback is any enemy units away from the camp could surprise the hell out of them, so he broke his five thousand super-quads into companies.  After the initial attack, most would search out pockets of resistance near the ground while others patrolled overhead along their perimeter.
“Remember to close your eyes or one hundred thousand bombs will render you a blind target.  And make sure you use your ear protectors if you don’t want to go deaf.  We don’t have cloud cover to conceal our approach, but at least we will have star light to see their huts.
"They will assume we number more than twenty-five thousand, so some will flee.  Most initial survivors will rise up to attack us like a giant mob.  Those of you on the perimeter, strike down those fleeing because those who get away today will try to avenge themselves tomorrow.  
“After we wipe out their support camp, finish off the wounded and strip the camps and corpses of valuables.  Tomorrow we’ll move on Moscow, then St. Petersburg, before they learn of us.
“Grandma, I want you in charge of the super-quads.  Moqali surrounds himself with his best quads, so they are yours.  If things turn to shit, this base will be our rally point.
“I am sorry, Prince, but I need you to record the battle and its aftermath from above, then race to Scandinavia to convince their kings to loan us their marathoners.  Some will argue that the destruction of a million Mongols has eliminated the threat, so you need to convince them that a strong Russia is their best defense against future Mongolian invasions.  In the video I gave you, I tell them that we plan to wipe out Mongols and their allies in the Stans between Europe-Persia and Mongolia-China-India, but we can only do that with their marathoners.  I also swear that I will not defend them later unless they help us now.”
“He doesn’t even look nervous,” Bear muttered afterward to Blade.  
Billy feared sentries waking up a million troops in time to swamp them, but the Mongols seemed oblivious to them as they formed a “blanket” at maximum altitude, then dropped in a controlled freefall to the enemy camp.  
The advantage of taking the time to spread themselves out in a “blanket” was that they fell uniformly onto the enemy below.  They could not afford to hit some areas twice and other areas not at all.  The valley was shaped like a banana, so they shaped the blanket accordingly.  Instead of faster fliers arriving sooner, and getting slower units blasted badly, everyone fell at the same speed since they only used their wands to control their spacing.  
From maximum height, Billy could gleam the first beams of light coming over the far horizon.  The farther they dropped, the darker it became.  Fortunately, it took several minutes to fall that far, with their arms and legs spread out in an X-shape.  Their eyes adjusted to the star light in time to spot the round dots below where the enemy slept.  The huts stood out against the white snow like zits on a pale tit.
Billy dropped with the other five thousand super-quads over the enemy headquarters.  He spotted a messenger about to leave, looking up at them more confused than alarmed.  As he fell farther, he saw several other Mongols, wide awake, and staring up in disbelief.  A few wands below started shrieking, but much too little and much too late.
Then, at three hundred meters above ground, Billy vented his famous scream to begin the bombardment.

CHAPTER 47

Benes the Brave came out of retirement because his Khan said he needed him.  He didn’t even need the pay.  Now nearing his one hundredth birthday, the pressure to empty his bladder got him up in this freezing cold.  He cursed himself for drinking so much again, but he kept bumping into old war buddies who wanted to celebrate.  Otherwise he would have been able to wait until light.  As it was, he had to maneuver past countless obstacles to find the damn sanitation trench, his old bones feeling the cold as he stumbled in the dark.  
As he stood peeing over the edge, something drew his eye up.  He looked at the sky for the longest time before he shook himself awake enough to really try to see.  It looked like a shadow falling -- a really big shadow.  Yet even as some stars twinkled, others continued to shine uninterrupted.  It made no damn sense, and again he cursed his weakness for fermented horse milk.  
No self-respecting quad goes anywhere without wands, so he took one out to record whatever the hell was happening.
Finally he thought he saw men.  Not flying, but rather, falling.  Not shooting or making a sound.  It looked like a massive group suicide.  His gut reaction went from bad to worse.  He tried to pee faster, but his bladder took forever to empty.  
So he still had a hand on his freezing penis when someone screamed and flashed four wands right above him.  The sight was so unexpected that he would have peed himself if he were not already urinating.  It couldn’t be the Red Baron, here in Kiev -- but, then, it couldn’t be anyone else.  He turned to continue recording the Baron and fell into the narrow trench.
As he splashed into urine-soaked feces, an enormous explosion shook the world around him.  A brilliant light illuminated every detail of the crap he fell into.  His hands covered his ears even as his ear drums painfully burst.  He couldn’t imagine what could produce something so loud.  Maybe Father Sky wanted to punish Mother Earth with a thousand rounds of thunder.   A pressure wave swept over the “shit slit” and sucked out all of the oxygen.  He buried his face in mud to survive, then discovered it was not mud.  On the one hand, it tasted like shit, but on the other, it was the best shit he had ever had.  A detached part of him realized he judged his mother’s mutton too harshly.  
After the terrifying moment passed, his chest heaved, desperate for air.  He stood on the lip of the trench.  Although his ears heard nothing but ringing, his brain would not accept what his eyes saw.  He instinctively got out his second wand to record both sides.
He had never seen so many fireballs!  Thousands flying up and shooting down.  He turned slowly to capture everything around him because if he didn’t believe it, why would anyone else?  He panned his wands to cover as much of the camp as possible.
He stood there like a shitty statue for far too long.  Numb by more than the freezing temperature, a desperate need to survive gripped him.  The sanitation trench emptied into the Dnieper River, so he flew as fast as he could within the slit, not caring how many times he bumped the sides, the excrement of a million warriors fouling his senses and traumatizing his appetite.   Once he crossed the river, he stopped behind some bushes and recorded the unbelievable scene behind him.  Apparently, the sky really was punishing the ground.  Only now he could make out thousands of quads firing upon his comrades.  He swept his wands from left to right, then hugged the ground while hoping that trees obscured him.
An obsessive need to share the news consumed him.

CHAPTER 48

Billy didn’t appreciate how many ear drums he would be exploding.  Even with ear protectors and flying three hundred meters above, the detonations rang his head like a bell.  It was like falling into a room of exploding Chinese firecrackers, except one hundred times louder.  He couldn’t imagine how much it hurt within the confines of a small hut.  He hoped his guys shut their eyes as the ground suddenly shined as bright as the sun because a volley of fifty thousand fireballs struck about the same time as the one hundred thousand bombs detonated.  Later, when Billy reviewed Prince’s recording, not even he could believe it.
His team got off several volleys at whatever moved below them before the first of a few hundred thousand angry quads soared up in vengeance.  But the enemy did not strike with one blow.  Instead, they flowed up like water in a stream, which Team Red gulped down easily.
After explosions and pressure waves that damaged their eyes, ears, and throats, Billy was surprised so many Mongols could stand, much less fly.  They obviously did not have time to form into units, so they rose individually, in their tens of thousands -- but over several minutes, as they recovered their wits, rather than all at once.
But Team Red could hit them with lethal blasts from above, while those on or near the ground could only warm them up with defused blasts on a freezing cold night.  The Mongols practically did them a favor.  Plus, the bombs and fireballs ignited everything flammable within the camp, including people, which roasted the enemy yet took the chill out of the air three hundred meters above.
By the time they annihilated the few hundred thousand Mongols who flew up to attack them, Team Red found another few hundred thousand shooting futilely at them from the ground, hiding behind whatever they could.  As they descended to eliminate this resistance, they discovered perhaps a few hundred thousand more people clutching their bleeding ears or blinded eyes.    
Billy’s dad often described the life of a soldier as work, not unlike a butcher.  Work marked not so much by heroics as doing grim deems that needed doing.  Nobody likes carving up cattle or digging graves or killing people, but somebody must do it.  That’s how Billy felt, as he shot everything that  moved: just another guy doing his job.  He felt neither heroic nor sadistic as half of his troops moved to annihilate the support camps of families, maids, and whores that surrounded the military base.
Many people would consider killing a million warriors and a million civilians as unconscionable, but Billy saw it as a great day’s work.  Those million warriors would have killed several million Europeans, and those million civilians would have helped them, so Billy was actually saving several million people.  As Genghis Khan liked to say, there are no innocents in total war.  Billy thought civilization sounded like a great idea, and hoped someday humanity gave it a try.
Of course, the crucial difference between the two groups is that Team Red killed to give people freedom while the Mongols killed to take it away.
After slaughtering those flying up at him, Billy dropped through a hole in the headquarters roof and shot or stabbed everyone inside.  He kicked in doors until he found the grizzled old man in charge.  Billy gave the guy credit, he knew what was coming and fought with his last breath.  Moqali swung long swords as soon as his doors burst open and Billy dropped to the floor just in time.  He blasted the general’s knees off, then flew on the floor to get close enough to carefully slice his biceps.  Like the Third Millennial, Billy sat on the guy’s chest as he transferred his wands and watched him die.
“You know what I like most about a fair fight?” he asked, even though he hated fair fights.  “The better fighter always wins.”
“Who are you?” Moqali asked, defenseless.
“I am the Red Baron.  And you killed my great-great-great-great-great grandfather.   And one day I will take your Immortal Khan’s Millennial Wands as I watch him die.”
“A messenger just woke me up to show me video of American Jack watching you die.”
“Oh, that.  Yeah, I faked that in order to destroy your mighty armada.  Ten days of flying for ten minutes of fighting.”
“You got Jebe?”  
“And Subodei, Tamerlane, and you.”
After transferring the boot wands, he found a small fortune in the general’s war chest.  By the time he found the main vault, Grandma had already blasted it open.  Billy knew they struck the mother load by the stunned expressions of his team.  He leaned in and whistled in shock.  He knew taking care of a million warriors took a lot of money, but he never imagined what it would look like.  He started laughing hysterically.  This was even better than the vault in Vienna.
“It’s more than we can possibly carry,” the ever practical Grandma commented dryly.  “But they have a lot of wands we can distribute.”
“Let’s take one hundred thousand sets to give to the Scandinavians.”
If the average Mongol outside had a backup set, then these wands were in addition to the few million sets his troops were collecting off dead bodies.  He had been sending the best wands to American University, and the rest to Free Europe; they both had enough.  So who was he going to give a few million wands sets to?
The Mongols prevented rebellions by restricting who could own wands.  To legally own wands usually required fighting for the Empire, large bribes, or good political connections.  Of course, many quads acquired wands illegally, but many more never had the opportunity.  Thousands of Russian quads lacked wands to fight the Mongols.
He added the bags of gold he took from the general.  “I’ll ask Ivan for air mules.”
As dawn broke, Billy took a battalion of super-quads and headed for the city, where he could hear thousands of small firefights.  Thousands of Russians hunted down the enemies among them.  Knowing this would take a while, Billy put up sentries and patrols while he and a battalion of super-quads chased down larger units getting away.  He asked everyone else to eat and sleep because they had another long flight ahead of them.  
That afternoon, after his own nap, Billy found Ivan waiting patiently for him.  He had blood on his coat and a smile on his face.  He hugged Billy despite Billy trying to stiff-arm him.
“You have saved us!  The Russian people owe you their chance at freedom.”
“We want to fly to Moscow after breakfast tomorrow.  Please get us as many air mules as possible to help us carry our plunder.  Please spread the word that the Red Baron needs every Russian marathoner to exterminate the enemy in the Stans.  And I highly recommend you bury the dead as soon as possible.  Hey, you wanna watch the Sacker of Kiev slowly die?”  Billy tapped his wand.  
Ivan left excitedly to distribute the video and find quads willing to fly to Moscow, a long flight to the north.
With twenty thousand Russians, they overwhelmed the small Mongolian units near Moscow, then spent a week hitting every everything in the area before going west to attack the enemy in St. Petersburg.  By the time they arrived at Global Bank in Helsinki, they had over one hundred thousand Russians flying with them, all loaded down with loot.

CHAPTER 49

The scale of the wealth and the destruction of the armada turned everything upside down in the Scandinavian kingdoms.  For a ton of gold a year, they loaned Billy seventeen marathon battalions, with the promise of several more.  Eight thousand of the Russians could also fly a thousand kilometers, so Billy had replacements for the Americans, who wanted to return home when it got warm enough.
They returned to Russia to discover a force of one hundred thousand Mongol quads stalking them -- about half of them out of uniform, meaning they were civilians or retired veterans.  They probably represented all the enemy quads within a thousand clicks since the Russians were killing Mongols and Mongol supporters on sight.
Billy sent Battalion #1 to tire out the division they sent after them, then the rest of his super-quads exhausted three more of their best divisions, leaving the least capable quads behind.  The newly enlarged Team Red chased the terrified main enemy force towards Kiev, where Moqali stored a few million bombs.  It took a few days for the short-range quads to get there, so Team Red had time to ambush the divisions following his super-quads.  Then they flew ahead to Kiev, loaded up on bombs, and hit the main enemy force right before dawn.  While his marathoners hunted down those who fled, the Russians finished off survivors.
Back in Kiev, Billy found a new government trying to get off its feet.  Instead of bombs, Ivan kept his quads busy transporting grain and other food confiscated by Moqali so Russians didn’t starve this winter. 
Billy took Ivan aside and let him try out Moqali’s excellent wands.  The big guy extended flame for ten meters, screaming like he was having an orgasm.
“These can be yours if you help me reproduce with your most powerful quads.  Preferably prodigies, but I don’t care about looks, bloodlines, or personalities.”  
Ivan studied him for a long time, unsure whether to be flattered or offended.  “You want to have sex with our daughters?”
“I don’t care who they are related to, as long as they hate Mongols.  But wouldn’t you like to be a grandfather to a quad like me to ensure your dynasty continues?”
Powerful families always bred with the most powerful quads, so he accepted the logic with a nod of his head.  Soon, a few dozen young ladies flew with him until he impregnated them.
“Ivan, I want you to send someone you trust with the authority to sign mutual defense pacts and trade agreements with Prussia, the Turks, and the Persians.  Meanwhile, I’ll leave someone behind to train those who can fly the highest so you can base units on top of the Ural Mountains.  Together, we will form a wall against future Mongolian intrusion.”  
Ivan told Billy that his victories in the Pyrenees, Alps, and Kiev inspired the Chinese to rebel from the island of Hainan, Indians from the island of Ceylon, and the Koreans from Kanghwa Island, opposite Seoul.  So Billy loaded up his five thousand super-quads with two million wand sets and sent them to the rebels in India, China, and Korea, along with a video of the Baron urging them to kill every Mongol they met.  Grandma naturally raided Mongolian banks on the way so the rebels could fund a credible government.  
Prussia was just a few days away, so Billy took his air force to threaten Barbarossa, the Prussian Kaiser, into declaring independence.  On the way, Billy divided his battalions into groups of five and sent each group after enemy military bases, banks, and businesses.  Having so many marathoners helped Billy annihilate Mongol battalions across a thousand kilometer front.
Jack met him in Berlin with his equally large air force and together they watched the German people publicly side with them, against their own deeply unpopular Kaiser.
The former Holy Roman Emperor was one of the few people in the world older than Genghis Khan.  His unsuccessful wars against his neighbors led him to ally himself with the Mongols in the first place.  Centuries of intermarriage made his line more Mongolian than German.  But he was still the most powerful non-Mongol in Europe, so freeing Europe required killing or turning Barbarossa against the Mongols.  The Kaiser made it clear he preferred independence to death.
Billy urged the fawning crowds to kill every pro-Mongolian they knew and take their stuff.  When he and Jack met Barbarossa, they made a deal: the Prussian would join Free Europe, not make war with his neighbors, loan the Red Baron all of his marathoners, and loan the rest to Jack to present a united front against Genghis Khan.  In return, the Red Baron would not kill his very large family.  To seal the deal, the Kaiser permitted the female quads in his family to reproduce with Billy.
In a video that all of Europe would soon see, the Red Baron, American Jack, and the Kaiser -- with one hundred thousand quads in the background -- declared independence on behalf of all of Europe, urged Europeans to kill Mongols and take their valuables, and called on quads to join Jack’s European Air Force.  Billy gave Jack a few hundred thousand more wand sets to make sure he didn’t run out.
Next, Billy took his marathoners to Turkey to convince the Ottoman Empire to also declare independence, despite several generations of intermarriage with the Khan’s female descendents.  Rather than face extermination, they agreed.  On the flight there, Billy destroyed Mongolian air units and emptied more Mongolian banks, and gave that wealth, plus one hundred thousand wand sets, in return for Turkish marathoners.  Billy agreed to reproduce with the royal family’s most powerful women and Billy left trainers to upgrade the Turkish Air Force.
Billy took his growing marathon force to Arabia where he made a similar deal, which was accepted more enthusiastically.  The Arab leaders got freedom, independence, gold, wands, and the prospect of offspring with the world’s most powerful quad.  In return, all they had to do was loan the Baron several marathon battalions, recently purged of pro-Mongolian quads.
The Persian leadership, however, were more Mongolian than Persian because the Mongols wiped out a third of all Persians a few centuries before.  Since the government did not represent the people, Billy wiped it out clean and formed a new one based upon the most powerful anti-Mongolian Persian family he could find.  While his commanders recruited and trained a new Mongol-free Persian Air Force, Billy used his huge marathon force to hunt down Mongolian air units in the area.  Of the few million wand sets they recently acquired, Billy saved the best for his multi-national marathoners.
Through cash, political support, military might, reproduction, treaties, and trade agreements, Billy built a military wall that prevented several million Mongolians from escaping east, and deterred Mongolian air unit from intruding west.  If warfare is politics by another means, then Billy just consolidated the victories paid for in blood on the battlefield.
When Grandma and his super-quads returned, they found him with Jack in Damascus, trying to teach the new government how to govern.  Billy held a leadership meeting with just his most trusted super-quads.
“Grandma, train up the marathon battalions, then exterminate everyone in the Stans.  Genghis wouldn’t have his empire without those nomads, so they are just as guilty for the one hundred million civilian deaths as the Mongols themselves.  Most of the bastards we killed in Kiev came from the Stans.  They may not have many quads left, but they will breed more quads if we let them.  Kill them as if they were Mongols.  The more you kill, the sooner we’ll end this war.  A few million Mongols and Europeans of mixed Mongol descent may soon flee Europe, so kill them, too.  Take as many pro-Mongolian lives and valuables as possible.  If you finish depopulating the Stans, start raiding northern India, the Tibetan Plateau, and Greater Mongolia.
“After you depopulated the region, I want to re-populate it with anti-Mongolian quads, so don’t kill the farm animals except to feed your airmen.  Hence, I have promised the best land for our super-quads and marathoners, including the new ones, after we win the war, but you will have to sort out who gets what.  Russia, Turkey, and Persia have agreed to give citizenship to whoever we settle within their new territory.  I myself have claimed the best farm and grazing land -- I’ll give you the maps later -- to produce as much food as possible to ease our periodic famines.  I’ve asked Jack to help us populate the area.  I urge you to find something nice for yourself for risking your life for a few centuries, even if you don’t live there.
“Exterminating his allies will force the Khan to raise enough quads to stop you, but this will take him months since he lost so many in Kiev.  He will train his new quads in formation flying at that huge facility in western Mongolia.  
“I asked Jack to buy or forcibly take over the largest bomb factories in Europe.  He will deliver millions of bombs to Kiev for you.  Hire Russian munition mules to stockpile them in the Stans.  
“Genghis will strip his Empire of battalions, which he will place between you and him.  Their job will be to protect him, not attack you.  They will stay far away from you to not provoke an attack.  Once that force has one hundred thousand quads, I want you to surprise, bomb, and exterminate them.  Then quickly do the same for the Khan’s new recruits.  That will hopefully reduce his force by a few hundred thousand quads.  This is why I asked Jack to send you literally millions of bombs, despite already having so many, thanks to Moqali.
“Genghis will then have to train new recruits farther east and use his marathoners as a shield to detect your presence.  Use your super-quads to pick off his marathoners since he will be forced to spread them out over a huge area.  He will be half-blind without marathoners for scouts.  
 “Your raids will make your troops so rich that they will want to abandon the fight to return home and live lavishly.  Make them commit now to stay with you until the Khan moves his armada into the Stans.  They’re not gonna fight an armada personally led by Genghis Khan when they have so much money to spend, so send them home and harass the Khan with the super-quads.  Destroy the roads right before he needs them to slow him down as much as possible.  I want him far from home for as long as possible.”
His friends stared at him in stunned silence before Bear asked the obvious question: “Red, you want five thousand of us to take on Genghis Khan and a million of his friends?”
“I just want you to slow him down and intercept his communications with the homeland while keeping your force intact.  To reward you, I will deliver five thousand super-suits, equal to my own, to Global Bank in Kiev.  You’ve all begged me for your own armor.  This is what you must do to earn it.”
Grandma asked the next obvious question.  “Where the hell are you going to be during all this?” 
“I’ll join you, if I survive my next mission, but I can’t tell you when.  I just wanted to share how I foresee this playing out in case I can’t be with you.”
“What are you up to now, Red?” Bear admonished him.  “I can tell it’s big.”
Billy felt flattered.  “It’s so preposterous that you’d laugh in my face.”
“Then I like it,” Bear grandly declared.
“But how will we stop Genghis Khan when he seeks his revenge on Europe?” Grandma wanted to know.
“Stop him?” Billy asked, surprised.  “I don’t want you to stop him.  In fact, I want all of Europe to know that Team Red cannot stop him.  I need you to send the marathoners home filthy rich so the Europeans know Team Red cannot save them from Genghis Khan in a killer mood.  I told Jack when he visited me on the Alps that I was sending Genghis to Europe.  I even gave him a thousand tons of gold to prepare the Europeans.”
“Wait!”  Grandma needed a moment to take all this in, and everyone else looked equally stunned.  “You knew before beating Jebe that Genghis Khan was personally going to Europe?”
Billy shrugged.  “Well, yeah.”
“Just how far do you plan ahead, Red?”
“Oh, my father explained what I must do almost a decade ago.”
“You’ve known for a decade how to win a global war that has been going on for three centuries?”
Billy didn’t know what the big deal was.  “Yes.”
“Well, that explains why Jack’s messages,” Grandma concluded.  “But I still can’t believe you have been planning this for years.”
“Jack means well, and really has a flair for politics, but one hundred new governments can’t spring up almost overnight and just get along.  Without a compelling reason, it will take Europe a generation or two to settle its borders, affairs, and policies.  Civil, criminal, and international wars will consume Europe for decades, and I can’t wait that long.  Since I believe in self-representation, I cannot conquer Europe for its own good.  Instead, they must settle this themselves.  Which is why I need Genghis.
“The only thing that can unite Europe is a common enemy threatening to exterminate them all.  Jack and I cannot prevent the Europeans from fighting each other.  But Genghis Khan can.”  Billy paused to let the enormity of his message sink in.  “We will use that boogeyman to unite Europe for us.”

CHAPTER 50

One of his newest sons climbed on Genghis Khan as if he were a tree, planting his baby feet in his face as he strived to lay his belly on the Khan’s head.   The Khan, watching the Red Baron die in front of American Jack for the millionth time, hardly noticed.  The sight of that sickly, emasculated corpse revived him like jumping in the freezing depths of Lake Baikal.  He had more bone than meat.  Genghis heard of the phrase “death warmed over,” but had never seen it until now.  
He laughed every time he saw American Jack frantically searching for a heart beat.  The Great Khan thought Jack stupid for recording the Baron’s pale chest as it stopped rising.  Now they couldn’t even pretend he still lived.  That damn Baron imposter led his assassination squads astray countless times.  Only the layers of scars and Subodei’s death sticks convinced him.  This was definitely the same guy who spent months on the Alps.
The bastard’s dead.  Jebe finally finished the Red Baron.  His long nightmare was over.  Genghis Khan had not felt this alive since he lost his virginity.
He remembered his shock when the Red Baron thumped his forces outside Paris just a few years ago.  He recognized the scream from near the Bering Strait and how the bastard toyed with him -- him!  Genghis Khan!  The sight of someone with flames that long nearly gave him a heart attack.  He could only imagine what the average line troops thought.  Every defeat since then cost him thousands of recruits as more and more quads concluded that the Red Baron could actually beat Genghis Khan.  The hardest blow was when the Baron somehow ambushed his best one hundred marathon battalions at Warsaw.  They were worth a million medium-range quads.
After Paris, the Khan put the president of Mongolian University in charge of identifying him.  Given the thousands of wounds the Baron suffered, he must be ancient, so they started with the oldies.  Right away they could eliminate big guys and those who didn’t speak Mongolian fluently, which made it easier to match faces.  Now with him dead, hopefully he could finally find out who the Baron really was.
Then Hulagu flew in as if his clothes were on fire, yelling incoherently.
“Really, grandson, we do have doors.”
“Have can you leave your windows open?” Hulagu demanded angrily.  “You must weld them shut.  He could have come in just as easily and gutted you like a fish.”
“That’s it!  No more fermented milk for you.”
His grandson studied him for a long moment.  “You don’t know.”  It didn’t sound like a question, so Genghis didn’t answer.  Hulagu closed his eyes to search his wand for a memory.  “The Baron somehow destroyed Moqali’s entire force in Kiev.  No one in the camp survived unscathed.  He even killed the cooks, whores, and laundry maids.  Russia has officially declared independence and we have no one there even fighting them.”
  “What the hell are you talking about?  The Red Baron died on the Alps.”
Hulagu looked ready to cry.  
“No, grandpa.  That’s just what he wanted you to think.  When I got the video from Kiev, I searched for the latest dispatches from the Alps, and there aren’t any.  Not even any messengers or survivors.  We haven’t heard from anyone on the Alps in three weeks.”
“That’s not possible!” Genghis said.
“It’s possible if they’re all dead.  You won’t understand until you see the video.”
Hulagu projected a 3D movie that started with a dark sky that gradually filled with growing dots.  Genghis squinted to discern just what he was watching.  When one of the dots did that famous scream, the Great Khan’s head jerked back like someone punched his forehead.  Unknowingly, he started mumbling to himself, not unlike Hulagu when he flew in.  When the warrior fell into the ditch, he continued recording, so they saw and heard it all: the incredible explosion, the blinding light, the pressure wave that knocked over entire huts.  Hulagu opened another stick to project a second wand peeking over the rim.  Tens of thousands of quads in the air, wearing Mongolian uniforms, blasted hundreds of thousands of deaf, blind, and stunned Mongolians on the ground.  It was more a slaughter than a battle.
The Khan was speechless, but his grandson was not.
“A veteran super-quad from a good Mongol family recorded this as he peed just before dawn.  Falling into the sanitation trench saved his life.  He arrived deaf and yelled so loudly that everyone thought he was crazy.  So he pulled wands and almost got burned alive before he projected this video.  They sent it here by the fastest couriers.  The guy who transferred me a copy looked ready to vomit.  I’ve sent marathoners I trust both to the Alps and to Kiev, but it will take a few weeks to travel there and back.  In the meantime, we must assume the worst.”
“But he only had a thousand quads on the Alps!” Genghis protested, still in denial.
“I’m guessing a lot more covertly arrived if he got Jebe.  You saw the news reports: the Baron beat Jebe week after week with a fraction of the force and while suffering one hundredth of the casualties.”
“But we destroyed the reinforcements that American Jack brought him.”
Hulagu shrugged.  He didn’t have any answers.  Only lots of questions.
“We need to do something about Europe.  I couldn’t take those reports seriously until now.  But if we lost Jebe’s airmen, after he stripped Europe of talent, then we could lose the entire region.”
“We are not going to lose Europe,” the Khan insisted, still in denial.  “Not after the price we paid.”
“If the Baron destroyed Moqali’s armada as well, then we may have already lost Europe.  American Jack told the Paris News Bureau that it was the Baron who sent Free Europe huge amounts of cash, armor, and wands these last several years -- taken by the American raiders from Mongols.”
The Great Immortal hugged his baby son, who giggled while playing with his beard.  “Send everyone we have available to find out what happened.  I can’t make decisions without accurate information.”
“Grandfather, we need another armada.”
“For the Baron to destroy like the last two?”
“Perhaps we will be more successful if you lead it.  If anyone is a better general than Jebe or Moqali, it’s you.”
While flattering, it was probably also true.
“One last thing,” the Khan instructed, his voice hard.  “Send our best men to assassinate the Red Baron and everyone he loves.”
Finally, Hulagu smiled.
Every week dragged on like a century.  After three hundred years of success, Genghis Khan had never known so much interrupted bad news.  He got more bad reports than sleep.  He regretted not flying there himself.
First came confirmation of the massacres on the Alps and at Kiev.  No one could even explain how the Baron killed a million fliers.  With that they lost Russia, and with Russia, they lost Europe, which turned into a feeding frenzy that devoured a few million Mongols living there.  Europeans were killing Mongols, Mongol descendents, and their supporters on sight.  Pro-Mongolian governments started falling like dominos.
Genghis needed to know not just what happened, but how, so his team interviewed every survivor, and the Khan forced himself to watch every video.  It felt like plucking out his own teeth.  What seemed unanimous was that their side got destroyed utterly, while the Baron suffered insignificant losses.  Again.
Most Mongols lived in denial.  Imagining the scale of their loss proved too much.  The central government moved so slow it seemed paralyzed.  
Then came news that the Baron was training new native air forces in Persia, Prussia, Russia, Scandinavia, and Turkey.  The Baron loaned enormous amounts to anti-Mongolian governments.  
Genghis Khan never lost an entire region like Europe before.  It was unprecedented.  And the more his government put the best face on recent events, the more credibility it lost with Mongolians.  What he needed was a victory.  A big victory.  Even a symbolic one like the Baron’s head on a spike.  Oh, yeah, that would help enormously.
It seemed like just several months ago that his best marathoners arrived in Spain to turn the tide until Jebe could take the Pyrenees.  
Wait!  That was just several months ago.
Genghis Khan led thirty thousand nomads at just nineteen years old.  He had some very bad years in his twenties, but this was the worst year of his entire life.
The Russians fortified bases across the Ural Mountains to the Caspian Sea, while the Persians built up defenses from the ocean to the southern tip of the Caspian Sea.  And both apparently flew joint military exercises with Turkey.  
This Great Wall, as many referred to it, cut the Empire off from Africa, where the Arabs apparently helped Jack’s Africans blockade Mongolian trade.  He still had a few hundred thousand Mongols in Africa, but now they couldn’t fly home.  Even worse, the Empire relied on the natural resources extracted there.
He understood that many people hated him, but he had never hated anyone like he hated the Red Baron.  And nothing would satisfy him until he could spit on the Baron’s corpse.

CHAPTER 51

Despite his reputation for fearlessness, Billy feared births because his own almost went so horribly.  Watching someone he cared about scream in agony for hours while he could do nothing to help drove him crazy.  He had too much stress in his life to add this as well, so instead of returning to Princess in Venice before she gave birth to their first child, Billy flew to England and Ireland to see his babies and impregnate the mothers again.  Many of the English ladies wanted to meet their Irish counterparts, and so joined him as he held a grand party for his families at one of the vast estates he bought in the middle of the island.  Puppies and kittens played with the twenty or so or so newborns among lush grass as the mothers gossiped.
Then five hundred quads suddenly flew over a hill and attacked them.  Billy would later learn they wanted to kill him and his families to undermine the new democratic government -- with Billy dead, maybe his battalion of relatives would break up.
Billy had never been so scared.  To lose someone special was bad enough, but to lose fifty mothers and a few dozen innocent babies turned him into a berserker.  Although always angry inside, he had never let rage control him before, much less turn him into a lunatic.  
Several provincial kings led the charge.  Billy reacted instantly, did his scream, and burst four incredibly long flames to slow their rush.  He fell among their leaders, spinning like a cyclone, four swords swinging blindly at more targets than he could see.  Bodies flew into other bodies.  Susan and Emily fought on either side of him to protect his flanks.  Still, he sensed, rather than felt, the blows taking their toll on him.  He would not last another minute fighting so many at such close quarters.  
Billy knew he was their priority target, not the women.  Once the mothers regained their wits and joined the fight, he lured a few hundred of their best enemy quads away on an exhausting chase that strung them out over many kilometers.  This gave him enough time to quickly bandage the worst wounds.  He weeded out their fastest when he only had to face a few at a time, then raced away when too many threatened to swarm him.  He slowed his breathing before abruptly rising above their ceiling, which made killing gasping quads so much easier.  He got almost half of them before the weakest landed to rest.  Delighted, he dived steeply to surprise them from behind, even while nearly one hundred still chased him.  He felt like a kite with a kilometer-long tail.  Killing quads too tired to fly is so much easier than fresh ones in the air. 
The fifty ladies had to face almost three hundred mediocre quads who apparently didn’t see a bunch of young mothers as dangerous.  Thankfully, the Englishwomen left their children at home.  
When Billy left, each Irishman had to take a moment to decide whether to stay or leave.  Susan took advantage of their indecision by shrieking her wand in the universal sign for “attack” and led the ladies against the group of men farthest away.  Those guys now knew how an angry bear reacts when her cub is threatened.  The desperate women flew over their newborns to smash the ambushers with no regard to their own safety.  Susan knew they had to finish this group before the rest of the men caught up.
Without waiting to finish off the enemy wounded, Susan yelled “wall formation” and hovered above them.  The ladies spread themselves out in a 100 X 100 meter vertical square just in time to launch a broadside against the fastest of the men.  All fifty ladies targeted the narrow stream of men flowing towards them, like a pipeline thirty meters in the air.  They chewed half of the men before the rest -- the weakest -- stopped to discuss their options.  Rather than let them attack the mothers from all sides -- the obvious tactic -- Susan shrieked “attack” again and fifty super-quad ladies battled three times as many weak leaderless quads.
Threw hours later, Billy signaled his approach by shrieking his four wands and Susan led the ladies into the nearest cloud.  Billy led his pursuers below the cloud and the women surprised them from behind.
“Finish off any survivors,” Billy yelled to Susan before collapsing by the front door.
Billy couldn’t afford any witnesses to his four flames and twenty-meter blades.  If just one of these Irishmen escaped, the world would learn the identify of the Red Baron, and bounty hunters would kill his Irish and English families for the Khan’s gold.
One of the Irishwomen returned after sunset with his battalion of Irish relatives.  After collecting videos to document their identities, the Irish mothers led them across the island to avenge themselves on the friends, family, and supporters of the ambushers.
Billy woke up the next morning, heavily bandaged, weak as the babies crawling on him.  Emily, also wrapped like a mummy, snored beside him.
“I passed out?” he asked Susan.
“You lost too much blood,” Susan explained.  “You got cut badly when you threw yourselves at them.”
“I’ve never been surprised like this in battle before.  I have always been the one doing the surprising.  I was on vacation, having a picnic with my family, far from the war.  Should I have put up sentries and patrols?”
“Our Irish sisters should have warned you this may happen,” Susan answered.  “Five paid for this mistake with their lives, plus two Englishwomen.  Most of us got hurt, and ten of the ladies have serious wounds.   Luring so many away was brilliant on your part.  They should have slaughtered us, then assassinated you later.  Just imagine your reputation if people thought you abandoned your women and newborns.  Instead of them, people would have called you a Baby Killer.”
“I always assumed I would be killed by Mongols.  Every time I kill a Mongol, I feel one less threat to my life.  I’ve never been injured this badly before.  I can’t even get up.”
Susan had a patch over her left eye and a scar across her face.  “You’ll live, but you won’t be able to move much for another month.  The ladies will have to mount you if they want another baby.  I hope someone recorded Emily because she fought like a lion to protect your flank.  She must love you very much to throw away her life like that.”
Billy’s love for Emily was deep, but not intense like for Princess.  And he sure didn’t want to discuss his feeling with her great-grandmother.
“You lost an eye because of me.”
“I lost an eye defending my family.  Almost all the ladies who came with us are relatives.  I’d rather die fighting than let their babies become orphans.”
“Please have Richard double their monthly payments.”
The rebels not only lost the battle, but the war.  Their surprise attack on young women and newborns horrified the rest of Ireland, forcing even those who agitated for the old ways to denounce the ambushers for fear of becoming called a Baby Killer.  It didn’t help that five hundred men couldn’t defeat fifty women with surprise on their side.  It became hard to oppose the new government without being associated with the Baby Killers.
The ambush gave his relatives the excuse they needed to kill off those who proposed the violent overthrow of the democratic government, which didn’t have its own air force yet.  Opposition to the new government ceased and the fight for power through the democratic process started anew.
Billy responded by buying up as much land as possible, for himself and his relatives, while helping his family start new businesses.  Most importantly, he funded a political party dominated by his relatives to protect his interests, the government, and the nation.

CHAPTER 52

By the time he found Princess, she had already given birth a few months before and was eager to start the second one.
What surprised him was how much Princess looked like a new woman.  Literally, her short hair and scarred neck made her appear older, with a harder beauty.  No one would mistake her for a girl now.  Knowing she would scrutinize his reaction, Billy greeted her like nothing had changed and swept her off to the bedroom.
"Wow," she said afterwards.  "You really missed me!"
"Just wait until I'm rested," he warned her.  
“Blade, Diva, Mali, and a few dozen other mothers have been waiting for you at the Palace Hotel to show you their babies and for you to give them another.  You haven’t been going without, have you?” she asked sternly.
“No, your majesty.  Your prized stud has been rotating them as you arranged.”
Princess never told Billy this, but she didn’t expect either of them to live long.  Few who lead forces against the Empire last long.  Her parents sure didn’t.  So she needed rich, powerful quads to take care of their children.   The more powerful half-siblings that Billy sired, the more likely her children would survive.  
Some of those pregnant quads, and those hoping to get pregnant, now served as their bodyguards, babysitters, and midwives.  They needed bodyguards anyways, so this killed two birds with one blast.  Princess listened in horror as Billy told her what happen in Ireland. 
“Are you still going to marry me?” Princess asked, afraid the ambush changed his mind.
“You and only you!”
Which was actually true.  He now appreciated what his father had.  Although he was not crazy enough to turn down sex with women that his wife insisted upon, he would have been content with Princess as his only lover.  He certainly didn’t want to spend his free time with anyone else but Princess and his children.
What he didn’t pick up is that Princess wanted them to get married.  Like, now.  She thought he was two years older, and thus nearly of age, but a wedding never crossed his mind because he was just turning sixteen.
For the next month he showed Princess the great time he could not give her on the battlefield.  Which is why he chose Venice.  Away from everyone who knew him, he didn’t need to wear a mask or helmet as he wined and dined the woman he planned to marry.
Unfortunately, while Billy left the war, the war didn’t leave him.
Late at night, Princess got up again to nurse the crying baby, singing softly to put the beauty to sleep.  She opened the patio door overlooking a canal to catch a nice breeze.  Often she would pace on the patio late at night until baby Elizabeth fell asleep. 
But good thing she didn’t because she clearly heard her bedroom door shut and lock.  Alarmed, she dropped Elizabeth in a crib and ran while taking out her wands.  She blasted the door lock and extended steel because she always assumed the worst.  
Princess burst through the door as it swung off its hinges and she impaled a beautiful pregnant super-quad they called Blondie right through the gut.  A thick blanket covered Billy from head to toe in his sleep, but Blondie, with both wands drawn, looked like she was searching for his heart or neck to finish him off without waking him.
He sure woke up now, as Princess levitated Blonde into the ceiling.  By the time she hit the floor with a loud thud, they both sliced her arms before she could use her wands.  Billy kicked the bitch in the face, then sent electricity into her head, while Princess called the others:
"Southie, Unibrow, Babysitter -- wake up!" she yelled downstairs.  "Shorty, Sunshine, Smiley." She couldn't remember what the last one called herself.  Something long and hard to pronounce.  "Dumbass!  Take the babies to the basement."
"Why?" Billy asked the assassin.  "You must be six months pregnant by now.  You were about to get a ton of gold and the offspring of the Red Baron.  Why would you kill the father of your child?”
"The Mongols took my entire family, including my other children," Blondie explained matter-of-factly.  "A bastard named Stinky from my village sold me out when he heard I was pregnant with the Baron’s baby.  He made me volunteer as a midwife."  She turned to Billy.  "Sorry, Red.  It was nothing personal."
"How many are out there?" Billy demanded.  "And what signal are they waiting for?"
"I don't know how many, but I assume a lot.  I have to give a thumbs up when I leave, then fly north.  Oh, and whoever is on guard duty is probably dead."
That would be Ivan’s granddaughter.  They called her Bones because she was so skinny.  Every day she patted her flat tummy, looking for a growing bump.  Her heroics at Moscow impressed him.  Ugly, but powerful.
"Who's behind this?" Billy asked.
"Ask Stinky.  He must be out there because he doesn't get paid unless I deliver.  Please don’t kill me until I give birth.  Think of our baby!”
Billy stepped on her bleeding belly to let her know what he thought of that.  “I cannot afford to let you live.  Killing me would result in the deaths of millions since only I can defeat the Mongol Empire.  If I find your family, I will torture them like I would like to torture you.  An example must be made to discourage future assassination attempts."
Just as Blondie started to warn those outside, Princess put a thick blade through her throat.
"Put her clothes on over your armor," Billy told Sunshine, a really fast blond who could pass for Blondie.  "Go out the back door, give a thumbs up, then fly north.  Once they follow you, we will hit them from behind.  Avoid any screening force waiting for you so that we can take them from behind.  Does anyone know what Stinky looks like?"
Unibrow raised her hand.  "I do.  We voted him ugliest in the battalion, a contest which had a lot of competition.  He always wanted Blondie, but she had plenty of better offers than that pig."
Billy covertly watched the ever-cheerful Sunshine fly north, then a few dozen quads from around their house quickly followed.  
Billy systematically cut the slowest Mongols.  Sunshine's speed made them follow as fast as they could, but some inevitably flew faster than others, stringing them out.  The fastest flier must have heard something because he suddenly turned around and dived away at maximum speed.  Billy waved Princess onward and followed after him, soon spitting him like a roasted pig near the Piazza San Marco.
He didn't need to ask who they were, though.  Under their deel overcoats he recognized the uniform of the Kashik, the imperial guard who gang-raped his mother.  Since Genghis obviously wanted him to know who was after him, Billy resolved to rape someone that Genghis really cared about.  Preferably female.
Sunshine slowed as a shadow rose before her and pretended to panic.  She sped east into the Adriatic to put their backs to her team.  Billy sought cloud cover since he had time before the rest of his team overtook the imperial guards.  And there were a lot of them.  Maybe too many.
So the sight of the ladies from the Palace Hotel shocked the Mongols almost as much as Billy.  Blade, Champa, Diva, Mali, and others pounced on the tail of the Mongol threat, slicing up several each.  The Mongols had to break off three squads just to deal with the angry mothers.
Just as Princess attacked, Billy dived.  His ladies carved up a few each before one of their wounded fired back, warning the others.  Billy now fired four wands into those who kept their backs to him, picking off several.  Those in the front continued after Sunshine while the back half turned to fight.  With Billy a few hundred meters above his team, the enemy had to split again to meet both threats, while absorbing losses.  The two dozen who rose to meet Billy had to fly into four wands pouring shots at them.  Then Billy crossed over them at full speed, turned, and attacked again.  As they followed, he rose and blasted down at them.
With much of the city watching, the ladies attacked in a line, like a ship firing broadside, concentrating fire on those closest to them.  As the two groups closed, one of the pregnant ladies fell from the sky.  Princess, at the center, spent a few intense minutes dodging heavy fire before finishing off the last two with long swords.  The years she spent dueling in arenas paid off since her victims assumed they were out of range.
Sunshine had circled around and skimmed the Grand Canal to shake off her pursuers.  Or to keep them focused on her rather than the sky above them.  The ladies dived and Sunshine banked towards them at the perfect moment for them to pounce on the enemy without them knowing it.  Sunshine executed an upward U-turn and popped the two Mongols closest to her before a blast from a third sent her spiraling out of control into the water.  
Billy just lost his fourth unborn baby.
Another ten, apparently flying a patrol over their home, dived at Billy so he flew past his ladies.  The Mongols could either attack the ladies or show their backs to them.  With just a split second to decide, they split up evenly.  Princess led them straight up to take them out of the Mongol's arc, while Billy let them come out of their dive, then rose sharply after slowing their momentum.  He knew he could out-fly them, so used his superior speed to position himself above them to fire all wands in a controlled fall.  Worried about his ladies, he even took a weak blast from the last survivor, using one wand to shield him while the other spliced the guy open.
His team rose and fired at the Mongols rising after them.  Billy was way out of range, but he released his primal scream to make them turn and look.  Hundreds of Venetians below recorded it.  The ladies instantly closed the distance to wipe them out over the island of San Giorgio Maggiore.
"Find Stinky and our missing ladies," he yelled while he searched for someone to torture.  While Smiley carried Sunshine back to the house, Princess raced back to find Bones with her head cracked open and her facial expression full of pain.  She recorded it to show her grandfather, who would seek revenge.  Blade and the others turned up, ready for blood, Mali alone looking happy at having killed so many.
Billy, meanwhile, cut the arms of the Mongol least wounded and electrocuted his genitals until he learned the name of the guy in charge of hunting him: Hulagu, the Khan's favorite grandson.
I will kill him, Billy vowed, his whole body tingling with rage.

CHAPTER 53

Wearing an imperial guard commander uniform, Billy flew to the recently rebuilt Mongol capital of Karakorum, cursing himself for becoming predictable.  Like his father warned, predictability killed people he loved.  They should have left Venice immediately.  His mistake burned him like a fireball.  His need to lash out at his enemies drove him like a bull seeing red.
Genghis called Karakorum his capital, but it was really mostly warehouses that stored the tribute sent by conquered kingdoms.  The thousands of clerks and administrators who actually governed the empire worked in Peking.  Placing the capital in the steppe, between two rivers, and away from roads and cities reduced theft.  Billy noted with deep satisfaction that the Khan had not yet repaired most of the buildings damaged by his father’s American raiders several years before.
The Khan hated buildings and famously never stayed in one long.  Since the Americans again destroyed the sira-ordo (Golden Residence), his famous "felt palace," one hundred thousand quads guarded it and the capital.  This was the core of the Khan’s rapid reaction force to counter the American raiders.
But they couldn’t deter one lone flier.  From the capital he learned where Hulagu lived, a short flight away.
Billy shrieked a greeting before landing in the huge rural estate. 
"We got him!" Billy yelled excitedly, holding up a box.  “The Red Baron is a dead baron.”
A dozen quads stood outside.  Buddies instead of guards, one of them shouted for Hulagu like an old friend.  The conqueror of Persia and Arabia emerged from the huge home with a drink in his hand to see what everyone was yelling about.
"What the hell is that stench?" he demanded.
Billy held up the box.  "Proof!  The Red Baron is now deathly white!"
Hulagu took in Billy's imperial uniform, the size of the box, then yelled in joy.  As the men gathered around, Billy set down the box and took off the top for Hulagu.  The Khan’s grandson reached in past the melting snow and pulled out a head by the braided hair, examining it closely.  Billy sidestepped to position himself while launching his wands and impaled nine of them with four blades, then cut down the rest as they drew their death sticks.  Hulagu himself died with steel projected from Billy’s boot wand piercing his chest.  All without firing a blast.
“Yes,” Billy told Hulagu, as he died, while transferring his powerful wands.  “I’m the Red Baron.  And now I’m going to rape your women and kill your children.”	
Nobody came out of the house, so Billy transferred the wands of the other guys since they seemed very powerful.  He only had two sets left when a kid his age stepped outside, screamed, and drew his wand.  Instinctively, Billy thrust a steel rod through his chest from twenty meters away.
Billy flew into the mansion to find several adults and children running towards him.  His fireballs engulfed them and set the home on fire.  He ran the other way and shot into every room.  Someone fired at him from behind a door, so he thrust a blade with such force that it penetrated the door and pierced the woman through the gut.  
He flew outside and blasted every window and doorway.  He circled the house and shot at two women getting out.  A woman carrying a small child flew out, but he easily caught up and swallowed them in a fireball, thinking of the four unborn babies he lost.  Another woman fled in the opposite direction, but he overtook her as well.
Two women and five teenagers blew open a wall and escaped the fire, but not Billy.  Their numbers didn’t win the fight, despite their obvious wand power.  An older lady took longer to kill than the rest of them combined, so he transferred her wands as she died.  He stopped her cursing by kicking in her teeth, then flayed her alive until life drained out of her.
His fury not yet satiated, Billy cut off Hulagu's head, packed it in snow in the box, and flew to the Khan's tent city where he told the guards that they finally got the Red Baron.  Hundreds of guards cheered him on as he held up the box that he said contained the Baron’s head.  A dozen escorted him in, only for Empress Borte, surrounded by more imperial guards, to inform Billy that he would have to wait because the Immortal was unavailable.  Apparently the old man was in another of his bad moods.
Well, that screwed everything up.
“Would you like it see it, Empress?” Billy asked, placing the box within twenty meters of her.  Everyone, naturally, wanted to see the Baron’s head.  The lead guard, at a gesture from her, approached and everyone waited excitedly as the warrior reached inside to pull out a severed head.
With the box distracting everyone, Billy plunged a blade into Borte’s gut while hitting the guards with three fireballs.  He flew towards the empress, turned in mid air, and shot to explode the bomb in the bottom of the box.  Shrapnel flew everywhere.  He cut down his nearest threats, while guards farther away hesitated before shooting at the empress.  Billy burned a hole in the tent roof, slung Borte over his shoulder, and yelled “Genghis!  I’m gonna rape her!”  He popped up over the camp and fired at every tent within range before soaring higher.
Alarms soon beget other alarms.  With thousands rising towards him, he showed them his primal scream, burned all four wands, then shot at more tents.
His guards covered Genghis Khan in shields while carrying him to a nearby steel room used as a bomb shelter.  Somebody shouted that the Red Baron was attacking and Genghis pushed aside his great-grandson guarding an arrow slit to look up at the Red Baron in the sky shooting fireballs at his royal palace.  As thousands rose, so did hope that they would capture him.  Oh, would that be satisfying!  To get his hands on the guy who caused him so much pain.  Then his heart sank when he heard the powerful primal scream and the four burning wands, obviously much longer than anything anyone else has ever produced.  He must have dueled a million times, he whispered under his breath, to power his wands that much.
They won't catch him, Genghis realized.  Nobody, not even himself, could catch him.  Which is why the arrogant bastard took the time to show off while elite troops chased him.  The arrogant pig certainly recorded the royal tent city burning for the propaganda value.  Now no Mongol would trust Genghis Khan to keep them safe.
Somebody pointed to the incoming balls of fire, but Genghis shrugged off their hands, watching them strike where he had been sleeping a moment ago.
Some days he really felt his age.
He heard someone yell that the Baron took the Empress and ran to see for himself.  He questioned a wounded guard who cried out, “he said he was going to rape her.”
The enormity of losing the love of his life struck him down.  He collapsed, hardly able to breathe.  Denial and reality fought, neither winning, yet neither losing.  Much later, one of her maids would show him the video so he could see for himself. 
Genghis was now on the receiving end of the implacable rage that he inspired in so many others.  For him, war was total.  Life is precious, but lives are not.  If his men caught the Baron's wife, he knew what they would do to her.  Any kids they caught would naturally die.  That is just how things had to be.  The Baron showed he played by Mongol rules.  
And with Borte he lost his backup Millennial Wands.
All four of his sons -- drunks all -- died before him.  Then most of his grandchildren.  He now outlived everyone who knew him before he ever touched a wand.  While everyone held up Genghis as the oldest person alive, he failed to point out that Borte was actually a year older.  Women hate to be reminded of their age and, really, she didn't look more than seventy.
Of course, keeping her alive meant she had to kill and drain the wands of dozens of jailed enemy quads every year, but that seemed a small price to pay for immortality.
Long after the doctors, healers, and shamans took away the wounded, he noticed the box smelling up what was left of the burning tent.
"What the hell is that?"
A guard held up the head so Genghis could see it.  Genghis grabbed his chest at the sight of his favorite grandson.  “Why couldn't it be that fat bastard, Kublai?” was his first reaction.  
After regaining his composure, he told his guards they were flying to his grandson's estate.  There he found Hulagu's dead family and burned home.  The dead kids meant the Baron was serious.  Hulagu’s imperial guards must have killed someone the Baron loved for him to risk walking by hundreds of Imperial Guards.
Unable to think and too able to feel, Genghis Khan walked the grassy steppe until late at night, nursing his vengeance til his fingers twitched.

CHAPTER 54

Nobody could fly higher or faster than Billy, so he lost them quickly enough and landed in a wooded ravine to examine the empress.  Gut wounds can take hours to kill.
He transferred the Millennial Wands as blood loss slowly took her.  Given his rage, rape was the last thing he was capable of.
“You’re just a boy,” she said surprised.
He opened his eyes to see her watching him.  He had taken off his helmet.  How odd that the Empress Borte would know his face before virtually anyone else.
He started recording their conversation.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“He must have hurt someone close to you.”
“He had my mother gang-raped so I would be too distracted to defend myself, then last week his guards killed four of my babies.”
She nodded her head in sympathy.  “War is such a terrible thing.  Will you be the one who stops him?”
“To stop this never-ending global war, I will kill everyone who fights for the Mongol Empire.  Mongols who want to survive should live peacefully outside of Greater Mongolia, Siberia, and the Stans.  No one kingdom should rule the world.  Every distinct people should choose who governs them.  Mongols should not be able to live by a different set of rules.  No one who practices genocide as public policy should control all of humanity.”
“I wish this war ended centuries ago,” she whispered.
“You killed hundreds of quads in order to live so long, so you are not innocent.  You could have saved one hundred million lives by simply cutting his throat in his sleep.”
“I loved him too much.”
Billy had not anticipated liking her.  He felt his rage melt as her breathing grew ragged, patiently recording her last hour alive.  His father would have approved of how well she died.  Many who live strong, die weak.
But he still chopped off her head and dumped her corpse among a pack of wolves.  He hovered over them, recording, as they literally tore her apart.  He imagined the Khan’s face when he sees the video.  Revenge helped ease his grief.
Every Mongol within several thousand kilometers would be looking for him, so the next day he went where they least expected him: the nearby capital.  A one-industry town, four types of people occupied it: the ruling elite, an army of clerks, traders who brought tribute, and guards.  Billy arrived after nightfall and chose a restaurant full of merchants to eat in peace.  After dinner, he followed a Mongol merchant to a hotel, killed him, and got a good nights sleep.  He had an entire year’s worth of sleep to catch up on, so he rested for a week, visited the tourist sites, and planned his grand exit.   This gave the Khan’s quads more time to fly farther away, looking for him.
He started by passing the recent wand memories to several news agencies just as they closed, so they wouldn’t see them until morning.  The video of the Red Baron taking the Khan’s empress from her tent would shock the Empire and cement his image as a boogeyman.  The propaganda value of telling the empress her husband killed his babies was worth at least as much.
He napped until midnight, then snuck into the local air base to slice the throats of the few dozen quads too sick or wounded to search for the Baron.  He took a battalion’s worth of wands and money and then killed everyone in the capital’s police department.  Next he visited the bars.  Mongols loved to drink, so he went from one to another, cutting them down.  When he ran out of taverns, he killed everyone he could in the streets.  When the government offices opened in the morning, he rampaged through them so Mongols could get a taste of their own medicine.
As expected, the Khan emptied the capital of all healthy active duty airmen, so Billy spent the morning whittling down the several hundred civilian quads chasing him.  By then he had started thousands of fires across the city.
Billy made sure to record the capital burning because the story of one guy beating everyone in the Mongol capital all day would spread like wildfire.
They still didn’t know he was the Baron, so he led them ever higher to have a more manageable number of enemies at one time.  The more retired veterans joined in, the higher he would have to fly.  The more he killed, the lower he would go to attract more prey.  All the while humming the latest Mongolian pop song like it was just another day at work.
The capital must have thousands of civilian quads, but most of them didn’t fight him, which let him concentrate on the rest.  He packed plenty of food and water, so he replenished himself during breaks in the action.  He had hidden a lot of food in the woods, so he knew he would eat well for days.
Billy wanted to prove that he could fight all day, so he did.  He could not land in the city, so he waited until nightfall, flashed his wands, did his silly scream, then disappeared in the night.  
Now he had to find his employees.

CHAPTER 55

Few people appreciate just how vast Siberia is.  Although larger than Europe, it’s entire population was less than Peking, so Billy had to figure out an easier way to find his Americans.  Even if he saw them, they would just fly away.
So when he came across one of the Mongolian divisions looking for Americans, he killed a sentry and put on his uniform as they settled in for the night.  
After dinner and a refreshing nap, Billy noticed sleeping Mongols as far as the eye could see.  Because it had few trees and less shade, the steppe resembled a grassy ocean that never seemed to end.  It was why the Mongols worshiped Father Sky and Mother Earth, since they both seemed infinite, powerful, and capricious.  Billy walked among them, stabbing as he went.
He didn’t need to kill them, either.  He could simply cut deep into an arm or leg so they could no longer operate four wands.  Better yet, they would forever burden their families.  
But he had to walk quickly in case one of the wounded got off a shot at him.  Most of them yelled in anger, so Billy tried to get out of their line of sight before they shot him.  Such were the advantages of twenty-meter long blades.  Whenever someone shot at him, he just flew ahead to lose them in the dark.  A camp of ten thousand men takes up a lot of space, so if he woke up one area, he’d fly to another.
After all, he had several hours to kill.  Stabbing sleeping quads certainly beat fighting them in the air when they shot back.  
He heard someone blasting to his right, so he headed in the opposite direction.  A squad flew close, so he dropped to the ground and pretended to sleep until they passed by.  More and more quads now looked for whoever was stabbing their buddies, so he flew a kilometer away to start with a fresh battalion.
Things went well for an hour before a wounded company commander got his men looking for him.  He didn’t want to engage one hundred quads in the dark on the ground, so he fled again, landing on the opposite side of the camp.
All too soon, however, someone shot him in the back.  He dived to one side as soon as he heard the blast, but they shot at close range and burned his stolen armor.  Laying on his belly in the grass, he used his boot wands to propel himself down a gentle slope while his hand wands helped him avoid obstacles.  Once out of sight, he started again, working his way farther away.
He cut deep into a commander’s bicep and the bastard’s wand shrieked “attack.”  Billy immediately popped up and flew away as dozens of blasts sought him out.  He maneuvered through some trees, over a hill, until he lost them.  He landed in a secluded pocket and hid under some dense bushes until they looked for him elsewhere.
The meat he saved tasted delicious.  He rested for an hour so the hunt would die down.  Hundreds of hunters left to search the woods around the camp, so he went to their bomber battalion.  Sleeping next to a bomb is nerve-wracking; sleeping near a thousand bombs even more so.  
Billy landed at the end and sliced those within range.  He knew sentries above would soon see him, so he used both hand wands to fling the bombs as far as possible among the rest of the bombers.  Each one detonated other bombs.  He worked as fast as possible.  As bombers woke up and saw him, he sliced the closest and blasted the bombs of those farther away.  And kept throwing bombs around.  Shrieks overhead told him he had just another minute left.  It’s hard to sleep in armor, so he knew they were screwed when so much shrapnel struck his metal suit.  A sentry above started shooting at him, but he moved too fast and unpredictably.  His range made him so lethal.  He would levitate bombs within his wingspan and throw them at the most threatening enemies on the ground.  As more quads shot at him from above, he finally had to leave the party, racing through the dark faster than they could follow.
Thousands chased him, so he rose over the camp, did his scream, and flashed his wands to taunt them.  Flying straight up, he lost them in clouds, confident he cost them a night’s sleep.
At dawn, Billy thought where he would be if he wanted to track this division.  A distant ridge looked promising, so he flew over and flashed his wands.  Sure enough, an American flashed him back.  Oh, the advantage of being unique!  A few hours later, the scout let him to his company.  
They already heard about the Alps and Kiev, but what they had been up to was news to him.
“We thought it would take us all winter to transport our plunder home, but we came upon a fishing fleet that offered to help us.  Once we got it all aboard, we held a meeting to discuss our next opportunity.
“Last fall you helped us destroy most air units stationed in Central Asia and the Mongols couldn’t replace them.  The Khan wouldn’t expect us back until spring, and he can’t live off snow either, so the Mongols returned to Mongolia.  Since we didn’t need to carry our treasure ourselves, we decided to exploit this temporary advantage.  
“There’s not enough game to hunt during the Siberian winter, so we kept to the coast and lived off of fish.  The Khan always drives us north and west, away from Mongolia, so we had never raided the coastline before.  We wiped out every settlement we found in Manchuria and accumulated a lot of valuables.  Since they didn’t field a unit strong enough to stop us, we continued raiding into northern China.  By the time the Khan showed up with one battalions, we had stolen far more than we could transport, so five of our battalions lured him away while the others moved our stuff north.
“We got used to a million Mongols hunting us, so avoiding one air unit was easy.  With every available enemy quad in Kiev, we never felt safer in Siberia.  Then we heard that you somehow destroyed the new armada in Kiev.  The Khan soon had to take his force to kick Grandma off the Tibetan Plateau, so we sent a message to the new division training in Canada to join us while the pickings were ripe.”
The commander paused to sigh.  
“Knowing you had to leave before winter, Genghis blocked the Bering Strait again,” Billy guessed.
That made them laugh.  “Yeah.  He sent his best troops from India.  We can’t stay during winter, and we can’t go home.  So now what do we do?”
“Well, I killed Borte, so you can’t stay.”  Billy summarized his past year.  They found it hard to believe he got the empress, so he showed them the videos.
“Even before Kiev, the Khan mobilized the Empire to get every possible quad,” the company leader pointed out.  “Instead of sending them after Grandma, he will use them to personally hunt you down.”
"Yes.  That was the whole point.”  Billy closed his eyes and checked his wand: “With currency from their European headquarters, I bought a lot of bombs.  Let’s see where the closest ones are.”  He kept tapping the wand, searching for the information.  “Ah, here it is.  We could start with Dornod, then go west to Ulan Bator, Bulgan, Erdenet, and Bayan.”
“But Genghis Khan will personally come after us with everything he’s got!” one of them complained.
“And how is that any different?” Billy argued.  “You need to convince him that you’ve gone west so he stops blocking the Bering Strait.  What better way than to leave a trail of destruction?  Or, you can return home safely via Europe.  Sure, it’s a lot of flying, but nobody will be shooting at you.
“Unless anyone has a better plan.”
He saw in their faces that the tactical situation stumped them.  Their lives were, again, in his hands.  Now all he had to do was convince the other ninety-nine companies.

CHAPTER 56

With so many scouts looking for them, the Americans had to spend several weeks moving their stolen treasure from dozens of locations across a vast area to near the Bering Strait.  Meanwhile, Billy took the best battalion raiding in Manchuria to draw Mongol forces away from the rest.  
With all their loot finally safely stored near Alaska, they could now have fun.  They flew at night to their target as high as possible while hiding during the day to avoid detection.  The Khan had more quads in Siberia than in Mongolia.
Billy scouted the city and got directions to the warehouse.  He presented images of the paperwork to their office to prove ownership, and the manager helpfully showed him the munitions depot.  They walked past dozens of warehouses before they reached the depot.
“For safety reasons,” the manager explained, “we placed it in a large depression, then threw up berms of earth around it in case of a mass explosion.  We divided it into sections.  You occupy all of Section 8.”
He opened the hanger door and led Billy to his storage unit.  Billy couldn’t believe how many bombs it contained.  He could destroy the entire city with so many.
Gleeful, Billy paid for the company to put the bombs in their special packs, then flew to his division, hiding nearby.  Before sunset, he took those who spoke the best Mongolian to the munitions place, waited for most of the employees to leave, then killed the rest.  
Now came the tricky part.  The city’s air base operated continuous patrols -- high and low altitude, plus near, medium, and far away.  Worst still, they naturally located the depot close to the base.  Billy had to get ten thousand fliers to the depot without alerting the enemy.  They didn’t have time to walk, and they’d be spotted if they dropped in from high altitude.
So Billy found himself in a cloud at very high altitude soon after sunset.  He tracked a patrol, closed the distance, and dived.  He matched speed and angle, then sliced the squad without giving them time to sound an alarm.
Now he moved out to the medium patrol and managed to repeat this.  He rose to the east and made an “X” with his hand wands -- two twenty meter flames can be seen from far away.  The Americans waited for the outer perimeter patrol to pass by, then hugged the terrain. 
The first company reached the depot by flying in small, odd-numbers groups.  Since they didn’t get caught, the second company tried it, too.  Then a third.
The problem was that he could not sneak in ten thousand Americans this way.
Meanwhile, Billy snuck up on the other patrols, took them out silently, and replaced them with Americans flying the same pattern.  Now, at least, he could bring his troops in faster.  Every fifteen minutes he got another hundred bombers.
What he didn’t know was how much time he had.  
On the tallest building with a view of both the base and the depot, Billy waited for the next patrols to leave.  This bought him three more hours.  He now had fourteen hundred bombers ready.  He signaled the bombers hiding at the depot, then flew to lead the rest of the division.  
Now he raced against time.
From a kilometer high he gave the signal and up they flew in formation.  They reached the edge of the city where one of the new patrols got ambushed by one of his American patrols.  
His bombers had been waiting for the first firefight.  They had positioned themselves as close as possible to the base.  Now they bombed the barracks before they could respond to the distant firefight.  
The resulting explosion woke the entire city.  Now the fun would start.
Billy knew the base could accommodate an entire division, but bet the lives of his troops that the base no longer housed that many.  Most would be out in the fields searching for the Americans.  Or so he hoped.
Now he would find out.
His fourteen hundred blanketed the air base and took out every survivor who flew up at them.  Then they descended enough to shoot at everything that moved on the ground, deliberately starting as many fires as possible.
As Billy predicted, every quad in the city flew up to find out what was going on.  Every city had a militia -- after three centuries of war, the Empire had plenty of veterans.  These were now the threat.
His eighty-six companies fanned out over the city and shot everything that flew.  Billy led ten of them to the rescue of his bombers, who would otherwise be overwhelmed by a mob of veterans attacking from all sides and from above.  His bombers returned to the depot for more bombs while Billy’s companies fought off the militia.
The Mongols had an old adage: “Bombs don’t destroy cities.  Fires destroy cities.”  Which is why they loved incendiary bombs.  The bombers dropped gunpowder bombs on the barracks, but now they threw incendiaries on the most flammable buildings.  Meanwhile, the Americans’ fireballs started thousands of fires as they battled the citizens.
As the Mongols proved over three centuries, organized militaries beat unorganized mobs, despite inferior numbers.  Billy proved that again as his companies criss-crossed the skies, protecting each other, as they destroyed several times their number.
The city burned and Billy let everyone go who left on foot.  Most of the fires burned out by dawn, by which time they all wore their maximum weight in bombs.  Except Billy, who may need to intercept enemies for them.  But, because they had so many extra bombs that they couldn’t take with them, they placed them strategically around the city to crumble the sturdiest buildings, bridges, and roads.  Like the Mongols did to countless cities, they left it in ruins.
And, like the Mongols, Billy ordered his Americans to annihilate the civilians that flooded the roads out of the city.  The more Mongols they killed, the sooner they’d end the war.  It felt good to force the Mongols to taste their own medicine.  In particular, he wanted Genghis Khan to know what it felt like to lose an entire city.  
As his father repeatedly explained, the enemy wasn’t any particular leader like Genghis Khan.  Not even the military, but the people who support the leader and military.  Defeating the Mongol Empire meant killing enough Mongols.  That’s why William sent his Americans to Central Asia: to wipe out Mongols.  Not the Mongolian Air Force, but the Mongolian people.  Which is why Billy had Grandma exterminate Mongol allies in the Stans.  
At eight years old, Billy understood what he needed to do.  No boy in history ever shouldered so heavy a burden.  And every day since then he thought through how to best achieve that goal.  Just like most battles are won before they start, so, too, did Billy figure out how to win the war before he started.
Among the smoldering corpses, they took the light valuables and burned everything else.  His patrols had not signaled an alarm, so they took the time to dump most of the bodies in the local rivers and lakes to foul them.
The next city was only a three hour flight, so they blew past the patrols and bombed the hell out of the air base.  Everyone who could fly rose to fight and Billy let them come: his one hundred companies formed a wall against a mob of angry Mongols eager for revenge.
The beauty of pissing enemies off is that their rage impedes their ability to think tactically.  Today, for example, instead of attacking from above, they just rushed his Americans frontally in small groups -- the fastest didn’t even wait for the slowest to catch up.  Still, Billy had the center of his line pretend to panic and flee at the huge mob flying up to them.  Who then turned in the classic Buffalo Horn tactic, used countless times by the Mongol Air Force.  This caught the majority of the militia in a pincer movement whereby the Americans could strike them from three sides.  Once they broke and fled, the raiders chased them down.  While one company secured the munitions depot, the rest firebombed the city.  Again, Billy let the survivors flee before destroying them like a good Mongol.
One of the things that his parents drilled into Billy was the true history of the Mongolian victories.  They would drive hundreds of thousands of terrified civilians into the fortresses of their enemies so they would run out of food that much sooner, or to spread disease that much faster.  If the enemy didn’t open their doors, they would use the bodies of the civilians to fill up the trenches around their fortifications.  The Mongols would slaughter the old, children, and anyone unable to do hard labor, then enslave everyone else to do their hard work for them.  Until they died of exhaustion.  The Mongols would burn crops specifically so the civilian population would starve to death.  They called it the Dark Ages for a reason.
Mongols won so much so fast for so long because they terrified the people they wished to conquer.  Any tiny rebellion resulted in a disproportionate reprisal to deter future rebellions.  They believed that slaughtering and enslaving one city would deter one hundred from opposing them.  And they were right.
The Americans stocked up on more bombs and found a forest five hours away to hid in.  Mongol trackers would soon make sure they got no rest.  They would be harassed constantly until they left the area.
The next city lay two hours away, so they bombed it just before dawn.  Patrols actually saw them from far away but did not signal an alarm because they wore the uniforms of the Mongol Air Force.  Billy met their first patrol and bought time by demanding an escort to the air base for his tired troops.  The lead patrolman naturally asked for the images of the normal paperwork authorizing their deployment, so Billy passed him a huge number of images and rejoiced in every extra heartbeat this gave them.  When the patrolman didn’t find the authorization he needed, Billy started arguing with him, telling him to search a third time, and demanding to speak with his superior.  The Mongol, in return, demanded they land immediately.
It worked, in that Billy got his force that much closer to the air base.  Unfortunately, from his altitude, Billy could see a battalion forming in the parade ground at the air base.  They would not launch until dawn, but enough of them stood around, setting up their gear or finishing their breakfast, to alarm Billy.  If a patrol shrieked, that battalion would have time to position themselves favorably against his weighted down bombers.
“I am going to report your insolence to your commander!” Billy shouted with the perfect tone of arrogance that descendents of Genghis Khan enjoyed.  He blew past his force without looking back.
He signaled a greeting and landed at the base looking pissed.  He asked the closest Mongolian where he could find the general.  The patrolman landed a moment later and started arguing with him.  Billy looked up to see several patrols now surrounding his division.  If those seventy patrolmen detonated the bombs his Americans carried, they could hurt a lot of his fliers.  His Americans knew that too, but the equation changed once they dropped their bombs.
A general and several lesser commanders came out to sort out all the shouting.  Billy positioned them where the building blocked the view of his force.  Billy threw an imperial tantrum like so many privileged rich kids did, who didn’t think the rules should apply to them, and as the general started chewing him out, Billy spied the giant shadow approaching.
Ignoring the general, he sidestepped a bit to line up the commanders.  He pressed his arms against his body to launch his wands, then impaled several Mongols with each blade.  Dozens of Mongols stood within twenty meters, so he twirled and sliced them up, not worrying if the cuts were fatal.  Knowing he had just a moment before someone blasted him, he popped into the air and shot every wand into the greatest mass of men.  This focused their attention on him instead of the battalion now flying over him, even as he drifted out of the way of the bombs now dropping on the base.
He cut the timing a little too close, but managed to save his eardrums.  He didn’t even bother to look at what damage they did.  Instead, he took off after the closest patrol and hit them from below as they attacked Americans trying to release their bombs.  After cutting them with two swipes, he popped up and did his famous scream to draw the attention of the other six patrols now attacking his troops.  He only paused the fighting for a moment, but that moment saved a lot of lives as his presence shocked the Mongols.
Billy chased the nearest patrol, who promptly flew away, so he darted towards the next nearest, who chose to fight.  As his bombers dropped their bombs, they broke off into squads to eliminate the patrols harassing the battalion.
The other nine battalions bombed the city, then formed a giant blanket to shoot the thousands of armed civilians who flew up to attack them.
By noon they had wiped out another Mongolian city.  After sunset they overwhelmed a large town that had only a company and small militia to defend it, took a long nap, before surprising another city at midnight.  Maybe the Mongols would consider peace if they suffered enough in war.

CHAPTER 57

Having lured the Mongol forces to Manchuria, it took them a few months before they finally cornered Billy farther west.  Despite flying a thousand kilometers every day in unpredictable directions, Billy knew the enemy would eventually stumble upon them.  But, on the other hand, Billy couldn’t leave until he drew the Mongol forces away from their homeland.  That was the whole point.  But it also became increasingly dangerous.  They had several close calls as more and more enemy units hunted them down.
Caught out in the open since they didn’t find a ravine or forest to hide in, a sentry flashed a warning upon seeing a Mongolian scout.
“Fly as far as you can towards Grandma,” Billy told the division commander.  “Keep your bombs, but avoid the enemy.  I’ll catch up with you later.”
Billy overtook the fleeing Mongolian scout, but not before he warned another scout on the horizon, who raced back to his unit.
Crap.  Billy hoped to point them in the wrong direction, but that second scout surely saw his division rising north.  After killing the first scout, he overtook the second one.  A third scout, however, would reach the unit before him.
It was only a battalion, but Billy didn’t want to take the time to fight them.  Certainly not loaded down with bombs.  Even with ten times their number, the enemy would kill a lot of his troops.  So he had his ten battalions run away from one lone battalion.
Except this battalion might just catch up.  Weighted down with bombs, his division could not fly as high, as fast, or as far as they could otherwise.  It was like trying to run while shouldering a child.  Which meant Billy would have to intervene.  
He swapped outer coats in the air with the second scout he killed, then raced to the enemy, which rose on an intercept course.  Billy knew his division would turn ninety degrees west once they lost their pursuers, but they may not lose them at all.
Billy turned, but maintained his altitude, even as the enemy battalion flew higher.  He had to judge their relative positions carefully.  Confident of their course, Billy popped up in an arc that positioned him at the very front of the battalion.  He watched the battalion commander turn his head to see what the hell he was doing.  Billy sensed disapproval, rather than danger, so he continued until he rose above the battalion, but falling at an angle towards them.
Now, in a controlled fall, Billy pointed his hands and feet at the battalion leader and fired all four wands.  The fireballs not only struck the front line, but continued to burn a dozen rows deep.  Billy turned and sent his next volley at the nearest company commander, then turned the other way to fire at the second closest.
Now he fell below a thousand angry quads -- not a safe place to be.  He popped sideways to avoid dozens of balls certainly coming at him, then popped again, positioning himself under the second half of the battalion.  He changed position every second, then allowed himself to fall to earth, back first, so he could fire even his boot wands at the bastards descending to get him.
Normally, this is exactly what a lone quad should not do, but Billy needed to give his division time, and costing the enemy altitude did that.  Sure enough, dozens of squad leaders broke off to pursue the famous Red Baron.
They flew down faster than he fell, so his blasts hit them hotter as they closed the distance.  Billy adjusted his position to avoid the inevitable fireballs for as long as he could, before finally popping down to avoid getting swarmed by a few hundred enemies.
But he couldn’t afford to escape just yet, so he fell on his back and fired back at them again.  He must have looked like such an easy target.  Which is what he wanted.  Sure enough, the battalion broke into squads to swarm him.  He let them come, popping down as needed.  A mouse playing with a few hundred hungry cats, Billy continued the game as long as possible, until he saw the ground coming up rapidly at him.
He moved away from those closest to him, yet closer to those farthest away to lure them down.  They probably didn’t even realize he was leading them south.  He adjusted his speed, height, and path to stay just out of their reach as he flew through the rolling hillside.
Having abandoned attacking a much larger force, the Mongols had little choice but to commit to getting the Baron, so he let them chase him for three more hours until exhaustion forced some of them to land.  Billy drew away those with greater endurance, then disappeared in the terrain before racing back to attack the few hundred quads resting on the ground.  
Billy wore one of their uniforms, so they didn’t know he was the Baron until he landed among a cluster of them and started cutting them down with long blades.  He rose in the air and exchanged fire.  They landed over a few square kilometers, which allowed Billy to attack them in small groups.  They preferred to hide rather than band together, although a few dozen had enough strength to fly away.
Billy disappeared over the northern horizon when the rest of the battalion returned an hour later.  As Billy expected, they landed to help the wounded.  Once again, he circled around and managed to infiltrate a small group of thirty busy digging graves for the dead.  Billy sliced them up, then hovered over the nearest enemies who looked the most exhausted.  He blasted a few dozen more before the strongest in the battalion chased him off.
Except he didn’t go far.  He lured his pursuers away, then raced them back to attack the enemy from the opposite side, again surprising them.  
He had no idea how long they flew before they spotted his division that morning, but Billy had just woken up after a good nights sleep, and the difference in energy showed.  With a few hundred of their strongest quads in pursuit, Billy hunted down their most exhausted for several hours.
Having decimated an entire battalion by himself, Billy left to catch up to his division.  He found them after sunset, still flying high after resting for lunch.  He led them for a few more hours before he sensed their exhaustion.  
They landed at the first dense forest they could find to sleep.  Billy sent several of them who knew Grandma to ask her to participate in their next attack.  They had plenty of food from the cities they sacked, and preferred to eat it than carry it.  
That night Billy located the enemy camp and found a hiding spot large enough for the entire division.  That day they rested to give Grandma time to respond to his invitation.  Billy figured other enemy units would find them within a few days.
It took five hours of flying in the dark to get to the new hiding place, but at least it was only an hour from the enemy.  The Mongols put their long range patrols north, south, and west, not behind them.  
They napped until two hours before dawn, formed up, and flew to battle.  Without the Baron, they never would have dreamed of attacking one hundred thousand quads, but Billy gave them confidence.  Even though they didn’t know if Grandma’s force would participate.
They flew close to the ground in a long line as fast as possible.  Sentries sounded warnings, which other patrols repeated, but apparently the commanders didn’t realized from which direction the warnings originated.  Instead, they just assumed.  The Mongol patrols fanned out west, away from the Americans, but towards where they assumed the threat came from.
By attacking from behind, the Americans got much closer than they should have, even in the dark.  A few squads descended upon them, but lacked the numbers to do much damage.
His line slowed to minimum speed and dropped their bombs into the mass of sleepy men scrambling into formation.  If sentries warned the Mongols just a few minutes before, their units would have been airborne and could have decimated the low-flying Americans.
Instead, the marathoners dropped their bombs and got off several volleys into grounded targets with nowhere to run.  The Mongols were within lethal range of the Americans, but the Americans were not within lethal range of the Mongols.  In less than a minute they crossed the camp and rose steeply since they enjoyed momentum, while the Mongols did not.
Billy, however, rose in an arc back over the camp.  As thousands of Mongols rose to chase the Americans, Billy screamed, showed them his four flaming wands, and shot volleys.  He waited for them to get close, then led several thousand of them east, away from his escaping division.  
As planned, the Americans waited until the fastest enemies nearly caught up, several kilometers from camp, then formed a one square kilometer wall in the sky to launch volleys down at the thousands of angry quads chasing them.  Stretched out in a long pipeline, the Mongols threw themselves away against the American broadside.  Even when an entire battalion charged as one, volleys from ten thousand with stronger wands fired at greater altitude chewed them up easily.  Once the Mongolians stopped the blind charge in order to form into units, the Americans closed the distance to hit them before they got organized. 
After mauling these Mongols, enemy reinforcements arrived.  Twenty battalions formed a line to encircle the Americans, who fled west towards Grandma.
Except Grandma was no longer west of them.  On Billy’s instructions, she hid her one hundred battalions as close as possible.  When her spies reported twenty battalions chasing the American division, Grandma ordered her slowest twenty battalion towards the enemy camp, while she led her fastest to hit them from the other three sides.
In the dark, the Mongol camp simply assumed the dark shadows were simply their battalions returning since Grandma’s group camped two thousand kilometers away.  The Americans caused about fifty thousand casualties, although most of them were only minor wounds that would soon heal.  But those wounded needed immediate attention.
Striking from all sides is difficult, especially in the dark, but her commanders adjusted speed to hit as one.  As the twenty battalions descended as if they were friendlies, the other battalions raced over the terrain to maximize surprise.
Their surprise was total, as Team Red shot up the camp from every direction.  Only a rapid reaction battalion stayed in formation, and Grandma’s super-quads made it a priority.  The rest amounted to shooting a lot of disorganized individuals, or torching felt huts with wounded inside.  
By an hour after dawn, when Billy returned, Grandma’s force had eliminated the enemy and was collecting their valuables.  Billy signaled “enemy attacking” and Grandma led the five thousand super-quads to ambush the quads chasing the Baron.  Grandma let them reach the camp before striking them from above, while marathoners cut off their escape.
Now they had to clean up the camp before the remaining twenty thousand enemies returned.  The American division, still dressed in Mongolian uniforms, arrived first from very high altitude.  They gave the code and were given a hero’s welcome.  Then Billy set up patrols and sentries just like the camp originally had.  While Grandma’s force hid, the Americans pretended to be Mongolian.
The returning battalions looked relieved to be almost home again.  Billy stole the uniform of a battalion commander so that his battalion could escort them to base.  Billy led them to an open parade ground where they buried the munitions they found.  
Naturally, they hit the Mongols as they landed.  Grandma’s force dropped bombs on their heads as they touched down.  Everyone else rushed to blast them from all sides and above.  The good guys had every advantage over the twenty thousand bad guys.
Billy and his friends caught each other up on recent events as the troops celebrated.  
“The royal palace?  The empress?  The capital?”  Grandma laughed so hard, watching the videos, that she nearly fell over.   “I got to tell you, Red.  When the messengers said you were going to attack those hundred thousand Mongols, with or without us, I took a long time deciding.  Yet it fell out just as you said it would.”  
“Mongols are so predictable.”
One of the older women pushed her way through and collapsed at Billy’s feet, crying out of control.  Billy, still wearing his normal mask, didn’t know what to do.
“Oh, Geneva must have heard that you sacked cities in Mongolia,” Bear helpfully explained.  “We’ve been sacking every village, town, and city in the Stans to clear the way for the Russians and Persians to settle, but you’re still the only one who has ever sacked a city in Mongolia.”
Billy understood.  For the Baron to inflict the same pain upon Mongols that they inflicted on everyone else helped release the agony the victims have harbored for centuries.  The Asians and Europeans saw it as justice delayed, but finally delivered.  Veterans clapped him on the back and thanked him profusely for doing things that civilized people should rightfully abhor as barbaric.
“Just don’t call me a hero because I know exactly what I am.”
Grandma suddenly looked sad.  “When he learns we destroyed this air force, the Khan will have to move against us, whether his troops are ready or not.  My spies say he has almost half a million quads and over half a million two-wanders, including those chasing you.  Which means we need to bomb the hell out of his camp before he leaves it.  Which means before he learns of our victory.”
“Yep.  I hoped you moved enough bombs near him.”
“We have a million not far from him, another million hidden along his most likely route west, and a few million more in Kiev.”
“The sooner you strike, the safer it will be,” Billy pointed out, looking up.  “You have great weather for flying.”
“Crap,” Bear said.  “He wants us to leave today.”
“If you leave after breakfast, you can bomb him tomorrow night.  I’ll infiltrate his camp to find out where his super-quads, high altitude troops, and marathoners sleep, then I’ll try to find a path through his patrols.”
Grandma sighed in resignation and the other super-quads knew Billy won again.  It’s hard to argue with someone willing to do so much more.
The next afternoon, Billy met them at the rendezvous point.  He projected a huge overhead image of the camp and pointed out the barracks of the specialty quads.
“Genghis spread them out around the camp to make targeting them harder.  The paranoid bastard has too many patrols up to his west, so the only way in is from the east.  And, even then, we’ll have to slice up a few patrols and fly in so high that sentries on the ground don’t see us.  So the bad news is that we have another day of flying into enemy territory.  The good news is that cloud cover should continue to build up to cloak our approach and retreat.  
“Instead of bombing the whole camp, I want to divide our force into four groups, three targeting his specialty quads and the fourth to destroy his supplies and empty his armory.  Let’s dive straight down, bomb when we get close, hover and blast at two hundred meters, then let them come up at us.  Each group will need a rapid-reaction battalion, broken down into squads, flying overhead to intercept the enemy.  Each group leader should stay above their troops and signal retreat as soon as circumstances turn unfavorable.  Tell your troops to take as many wands as they safely can.  Act independently of the other three groups.  I’ll be flashing my wands and doing my scream to distract them.  Afterwards, I’m going to visit my wife, before I start my next mission.”
Billy put a hand on Grandma’s shoulder to emphasize his next point.  “Keep the bastard away from home and don’t let any messengers through.  Okay?”
“Just what do you plan to do, Red?  Raid Peking?” Grandma asked, alarmed.
“I’m gonna kill as many as I can, as fast as I can, for as long as I can.”

CHAPTER 58 

Genghis Khan stewed as another messenger reported in, this time to tell him the Baron -- alone -- devastated an entire battalion.  The only survivors were those who hid.
“But we know where his division was four days ago,” the messenger pointed out.
The problem with hunting down quads who can fly a thousand kilometers a day is that, by the time he was told of their location, they were too far away for him to do anything about it.  Those Americans could be four thousand kilometers farther away by now.  By the time he reached them with a large force, they could be on the other side of the world.  No, he wouldn’t be seeing them until they wanted him to.
Which infuriated him as the Baron sacked cities despite dozens of air units and thousands of sentries looking for him.  His troops always arrived late.
What he could do was instruct every air unit in Siberia and Greater Mongolia to fly towards the Baron’s last known location in the hope that they got lucky and surprised the bastard.  He planned on taking everyone with him anyways, so he needed them near in any case.
One by one he considered and dismissed his options.  What he wanted to do was take his marathoners after the Baron’s marathoners.  But he didn’t have nearly enough, and they could not fly as far, as fast, or as high.  The Americans could just rise over his ceiling and fire down with impunity.  As the Baron proved over and over again, the trick to killing lots of quads was surprising them on the ground.  His troops kept losing because they had no idea the Baron was around until he attacked.  
At that very moment, he thought he heard a distant alarm warning of an attack.  He shook his head, assuming it must be his paranoia, but then he heard it again, but coming from a different direction.  He stormed out of his stone bunker and flew onto the roof to hear better.  His eyes faced west, searching the skies, when another alarm from behind him sent a chill down his spine.  He turned around to see his troops stumble out of bunkers, frantically putting on armor, so he wasn’t imagining it.  He looked up and saw something.  Several sentries with better eyes sounded the alarm.  At first it pleased the Khan how fast his men assembled into formation, but then he saw it through the eyes of the enemy, who probably smiled as the enemy massed together in time for their shrapnel bombs.  Genghis knew he should withdraw to the protection of his underground bunker, but his thirst for vengeance ran too deep.  All he wanted was someone to strike.
Twenty or thirty thousand enemies dropped out of the sky to throw bombs at the marathoners forming into companies.  Every detonation made him wince inside because it represented another dead Mongol.  So many had bunkers made of mortared stone that they would have been better off inside.  A huge, long explosion to his east turned him around -- ah, the bastards got his super-quads!  Then a closer explosion -- or thousands of explosions -- created a pressure wave that knocked him clear off the roof and sucked the air out of his stomach.
He rolled in the dirt, desperate to inhale oxygen, his whole body aching.  His ears rang so loud it gave him a migraine headache.  He found himself on his feet and running to his bunker.  He gulped a sack of milk to pop his ears, like when changing altitude too suddenly, watching the enemy a few hundred meters away, blasting down at his surviving marathoners.  Thousands of two-wanders bravely rushed out of the safety of their bunkers to futilely shoot up at enemies beyond their range, doing little more than warm the enemy on a cold night.
Genghis collected his wits and waved the quads around him to follow him.  They rose to attack the Americans from above.  No sooner did they get off their first volley when a squad of enemies attacked him from above.  They exchanged fireballs for a few precious minutes before the Khan realized that he should just dodge the blasts from above while striking the bastards below who had their backs to him.  Or, better yet, slice them with blades.
Then a familiar scream hit him like a bad dream.  He squinted to see the Baron, flashing four wands, divert one of his rapid-reaction battalions that was about to pounce on the Americans from above.  He lured them away and a part of the Khan followed.  Genghis realized with disgust that the Baron just saved a few thousand of his precious marathoners.  Then a fireball smacked Genghis from the sky for not maintaining constant situational awareness.  He hit a rooftop with a loud thud before smacking into the ground.  Concentrating through the pain of burning flesh, he flew into the nearest pond to cool his third degree burns in freezing water.
The Americans left by the time he got out, dripping cold water.  He stared at them as they disappeared into the cumulous clouds and realized that he didn’t kill a single enemy.  Near tears, the Khan swore he would piss on the Baron’s corpse if it was the last thing he ever did.
The next morning over one hundred thousand dead and another one hundred thousand seriously wounded mocked him with their silence.  He had not even left his training camp and already the Red Baron made a fool of him.  Genghis Khan seethed so much his ears popped.  Worst still, the attack delayed his departure by another month since now he had to bring in more supplies and train up replacements for his specialty quads.
He also soon discovered that the Baron emptied his armory of wands, plus the few hundred thousand taken from dead or dying Mongols.
Every day he woke up, since the Baron toyed with him near the Bering Strait several years ago, Genghis felt like the cosmos was bitch-slapping him.
Genghis expected constant harassment, but instead the Baron hunted down the battalions and divisions that had been chasing his American division.  Better to kill these Mongol units separately than have to face them together.
This took the Baron across Greater Mongolia, so he destroyed whatever populations, farms, and ranches within range while the Khan trained his quads as fast as possible.

CHAPTER 59

While some of his Asian super-quads delivered a few million wand sets to his bank branches in Hainan, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, Billy crossed Siberia -- now empty of Mongol air forces -- to the Bering Strait, where he noted the line of enemy camps.  It surprised him that they wore the uniforms of the Mongol Air Force in India since he saw battalions of marathoners, high-altitude quads, and super-quads wearing Indian uniforms in the Khan’s new armada.  Genghis must be desperate to take so many quads from India during a rebellion.  
Every spring, for the last several years, one hundred near-marathoners crossed Alaska into Siberia to raid Mongolia, so Genghis put one hundred thousand quads from India to keep them out and to trap the raiders in Siberia, where the cold and inability to forage would kill them better than his quads.  Since he kept the best quads for his armada, these must be mediocre ones.
After a good nights sleep and a big breakfast, Billy called up the maps his father made years ago that showed every island -- including those far out to sea.  He found the one he wanted and flew out to it.  After killing and eating a fish, he spent the night, left his sleeping gear, and flew to Alaska to find his troops.
He assembled his 250 battalions and had video taken of him flashing his four wands over the entire force to later show his future allies.  Because he took so many great wands from dead Mongols, he had twelve marathon battalions, rather than ten.  Instead of bombs, he had the near- and half-marathoners load up on food instead of bombs since the cold forced them to carry heavy tents, blankets, and clothes like Marius’ Mules in ancient Roman times.  
While the rest broke camp, Billy led his marathoners to his little islet, where they left their heavy sleeping gear and hundreds of pots and cups to melt snow for drinking.  He left a company there to hunt enough fish to feed ten thousand that night.  They returned to the main camp, borrowed more sleeping gear, and camped as close to the enemy as they safely could.  
They ate breakfast before dawn, then they shot up the enemy camps to lure all ten divisions after them.  The enemy had not yet eaten, and saw no reason to bring tents, blankets, or cups on a chase.  The Americans flew as light as possible in order to fly as far as possible.    
After the enemy left camp, his remaining two marathon battalions killed the enemy quads suffering from colds, wounds, and frostbite so that the near- and half-marathoners had a friendly camp complete with shelter, food, and blankets waiting for them.
Billy led the Mongols along a chain of islands to get them used to seeing land after nothing but open ocean.  After the last island in the chain, he led them away from land, careful to let the Mongols get close, but not within range.  After an hour, a few exhausted Mongols dived back towards that last island.  A few hundred more soon followed.  Over the next hour, several thousand addition Mongols dropped out of formation and prayed they had the strength to reach land.
Crap.  They tired out sooner than Billy expected.  He signaled his strongest company and led them higher, into some clouds so the Mongols wouldn’t follow.  On that last island, Billy found a few thousand Mongols too tired to even fish for food, although they must have been starving.  His Americans had plenty of jerked beef and other snacks to keep their energy up.  Most of those Mongols who dropped out apparently didn’t make it back, and this was the closest land.  His company easily wiped out the exhausted Mongols.  Billy had them set up camp on the far side of the island while he stabbed enough fish to feed them.  After eating, they returned to wipe out several hundred more Mongols who just arrived.  Back at camp, they took a nap while Billy stood watch.  They needed daylight to find his islet, so he woke them up a few hours later.  They killed a few hundred more Mongols before flying away.  Frigid temperatures would probably kill any more Mongols who made it there.
At sunset Billy spotted an American patrol who led them to the islet.  Even his last two marathon battalions beat him to it.  His troops celebrated over fresh fish before bedding down early in warm tents to get a well deserved sleep.
They just killed one hundred thousand Mongol quads and few of them even fired a shot.  The elegant irony was that they saved a week of flying by taking this shortcut, and got to kill one hundred enemy battalions for free, just going to work.  For a soldier, it doesn’t get any better.
If Genghis took every decent quad from India, then defeating the Mongols there just became that much easier.
As Billy hoped, Genghis left the homeland virtually unprotected.  While Billy’s main force entering Siberia spread out in a huge skirmish line to destroy everything in its path, Billy flew his marathoners to the Manchurian coast, a thousand clicks from the islet, then south to Korea, hitting banks along the way until they had all that they could physically transport.  In Seoul, Billy found the bright red suit that he asked George to send him.   
Wearing a red suit for the first time since Paris, Billy introduced himself to the Koreans by pouncing on the main Mongolian unit opposing the rebels.  After destroying a force several times his size, Billy then thrilled the rebel leaders with his video showing a quarter million Americans coming to their aide.  Then it got better.  The Americans arranged all the loot that they stole en route such that it surrounded the Red Baron as he gave a speech to hundreds of leaders and news reporters.  Billy kept it short so it would spread faster.
“After just 25,000 of us destroyed his million man armada in Kiev, Genghis Khan took every possible quad from his homeland west with him to Europe to battle my super-quads.  He will be there for months.  This leaves his homeland defenseless, so I propose we raid Mongolian banks and businesses during his absence.  It’s easy.  Just look at what my friends and I took on our way here.  I plan on spending everything you see behind me to compensate marathoners who help me destroy Mongolian air units, militia, and police so that the rest of you can kill Mongolians and take their valuables.  I need a few weeks to invite the Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and others, so the Grand Raid will start several weeks from now on the next full moon.  Everyone who can fly should take this opportunity to fund their retirement.”
Billy then flew to Japan to repeat this and his proposal electrified the nation.  Genghis started an economic blockade of Japan over two centuries ago after typhoons destroyed his third attempt to invade them, so they really needed the money.  Billy paid the emperor for several Japanese marathon battalions who returned with him to Korea, who had organized three battalions of marathoners.
Billy now had twenty-two marathon battalions to take down the Chinese coast before island hopping to Taiwan, also known as Formosa.  There Billy repeated his proposal and reminded the Taiwanese that his Americans saved China’s cultural treasures.  With another six marathon battalions, they flew down the Chinese coast to Hainan, a mountainous island a five minute flight from the southern Chinese mainland.  
Billy met with the leader of the Chinese rebellion, and former governor of the island, Kung-ti.  Most well educated Mongolians spoke passable Chinese, and Billy spoke better Chinese than most Mongolians.  So, with the governor at his side, the Red Baron spoke before the island’s news reporters, giving them the video of his two hundred fifty battalions, and pointing out the marathoners sent by friendly governments.
Like in India, the Chinese rebelling against the Empire also had some of Jack’s trainers, but because they could draw from a much larger population, especially Chinese eager to leave the Mongolian Air Force, they had trained up twelve marathon battalions with the gold and wands that Billy sent them.
While the rebel government organized quads eager to get rich quick, Billy led his troops to Hanoi, where he easily defeated the Mongolian air units in every major kingdom in Indochina: Annam in Vietnam, the Khmer in Cambodia, Chiangmai and Sukhotai in Thailand, the Majapahit Empire in Java, and the Burmese Empire.  By then, everyone in Asia knew of his proposal and Billy wondered how many would actually join him.

CHAPTER 60

The Mongolian commanders along the five thousand kilometer-long border naturally heard of the Red Baron’s intent to lead a vast mob into their cities, but the few mediocre units that the Khan didn’t take with him had already been sent to oppose the American armada sacking cities in Mongolia.  
A video of the Baron urging Chinese to kill every Mongol spread like fire in the days before the raid.  But instead of attacking on the next full moon, the nearly one hundred marathon and short-range battalions from several countries struck Mongolian air bases the night before.   
The crowds massing for the invasion saw the videos of burning air bases before they even left home.  Mobs from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, southern China, and its neighbors poured over the border in a killing frenzy that overwhelmed the local militias foolish enough to stay and fight.
As expected, after the initial surprise, the Mongols who could fly carried their families inland to safety.  They joined militias and attacked the invaders, throwing their lives away piecemeal when they should have waited until they had larger, more organized forces.  
Several million ordinary Chinese took the opportunity to kill Mongols and take their stuff.  Chaos and anarchy ruled the streets.  Criminal gangs and ex-military raided on a larger scale in front of the invasion forces.  Triads finally got their revenge on Imperial Guards.  Foreigners serving in Mongol units killed their comrades and looted their barracks to start their own raiding.  The richer the Mongol, the sooner he was targeted.
As the raiders moved inland, more Mongol units banded together to push them back.  But what they didn’t do was wait until they have sufficient force.  Instead, they made themselves targets for the foreign battalions.  The invading mobs got bombed a lot, but the battalions behind them then wiped out the Mongol bombers.
Billy led over two hundred thousand Americans and an equal number of Koreans across Greater Mongolia because he knew the area intimately.  Billy let the Koreans burn the newly rebuilt Mongol capital and slaughter its government workers.
His slowest fifty battalions targeted Peking, the port city of Tianjin, 120 kilometers away, and the neighboring areas because that’s where the wealth was.  Billy warned his partners that he wanted this corridor exclusively.  It also had the most enemy quads, both active duty, retired, and civilian.  After beating dozens of militias and a few hundred thousand quads who attacked individually or in mobs, the Americans systematically robbed the richest area on Earth.  They hit every bank and military vault on the north China plateau before someone else beat them to it.  The Americans captured every seaworthy ship in the harbor to transport their loot.  
In Mongolia, time was Billy’s enemy, not the Mongols.  Billy wanted to sack as many cities, towns, villages, and hordes as possible before either Genghis Khan or cold weather returned, so when scouts found a large, organized force protecting a city, he would instead attack the next nearest population.  Billy fought the Mongol people, not the quads protecting their cities.  
He had his marathon divisions operate independently to fireball as many distant Mongol cities as possible.  This occupied millions of Mongols and tied down local militias, who chased his marathoners instead of joining forces with those units opposing his armada.
For the first week, Billy divided his force into twenty divisions to sack twenty times as many cities.  Soon, lightly guarded wagon trains full of stolen valuables flowed like rivers towards Tianjin to board ships.    
The Koreans could not keep up with the Americans, and so raided on their own.  Billy helpfully left them the cities closest to Korea.  Being weaker targets, the Mongol militias chose to attack the Koreans rather than the Americans.  Initially, small Mongol militias just threw themselves at the invaders, but after a week wisely pulled back to form larger units.  Millions of Mongols fled their cities in panic at the Red Baron.
Billy avoided large enemy forces, who wisely avoided the Baron.  But he still wanted to destroy them.  Just not when they were prepared.  So Billy monitored the quarter-million Korean force, led by its new king.  When an equally large militia surprised the Koreans, Billy had positioned the Americans to surprise the militia from behind.  The militia crumbled between two rocks and enabled the Koreans to sack more cities.
After a month, the tide turned.  The Korean king could not control his civilians, who got annihilated by a small, but well-organized militia.  With reports of ever larger Mongol forces coming to confront them, the king wisely turned back, escorting his wagon trains to Korea.
Billy finally faced superior forces.  Despite the quads they killed, half a million now drove him back and a quarter million tried to surprise his marathon divisions.  Instead of Mongols slowing him down, Billy had to slow the Mongols down.  Billy employed his marathoner’s mobility advantage fully, flying literal circles around them to attack them from their rear.  Unfortunately, Mongols joined this force faster than he could kill them.
When his fleet finally sailed, Billy sent his armada to Alaska.  On the way they picked up whatever valuables they could carry until they were too weighted down to fight.  The Mongol force followed, but Billy knew his troops would fly farther when heavy than the Mongols flying light.  He kept five marathon battalions and instructed the rest to protect the armada, which met up with the Americans who had been with Grandma.
And good thing he kept some because long range scouts warned Billy that fifty thousand Mongols would soon cross the Gobi Desert into China.  The Japanese, Koreans, and Taiwanese took the news of a large Mongolian force as a good opportunity to leave, and invited Chinese quads to join them.  A few million Chinese took so much wealth that they had little choice but to flee to Korea.  As agreed, the Taiwanese and Japanese battalions returned to Korea (after delivering the loot home) to deter Mongolian retribution.  The Koreans, after rebelling so recently, hosted a few million foreign quads desperate to defend them.  Genghis Khan could only wish he still had so many quads.
Everyone else was so far away and so busy plundering that Billy didn’t even ask for their help.  Most of the battalions in China no longer even plundered together.  A free-for-all atmosphere ruled, with women and teenage fliers carrying valuables for their families.
Billy and just five American battalions flew north to Mongolian warehouses, where they stocked up on shrapnel-filled, anti-personnel bombs.  Then they waited for the enemy to spend the night at one of the few watering holes in the Gobi capable of sustaining so many.  Until then Billy felt guilty for poisoning the main sources of potable water within the Gobi.  That desert is huge, and most fliers need several days to cross it.
Finally scouts reported the main force landed at a watering hole two days into the Gobi, obviously headed for Peking.  His advance team poisoned every water source behind the Mongols for when they retreated.  The Mongols wore civilian clothes or old uniforms.  Billy wondered if they would come all at once and risk water shortages, or come in stages and risk getting picked off piecemeal.  
He rotated scouts to watch them, just as the Mongols sent hundreds of fliers south to search for the nearest enemy.  Except Billy was not south of them.  Instead, they hid east of them, north of the Gobi in the Manchurian woodlands.  
The five thousand left an hour after sunset for the long flight.  Sometime after midnight they landed at the oasis along the northern Gobi that the Mongols used before entering the desert, and killed the Mongol women there acting as water mules.
Billy flew before dawn to see how the Mongols fared.  He assumed they brought as much water as possible with them, which would last them a day or two.  But, once they discovered their watering hole was poisoned, they couldn't go on.  They would have no choice but to retreat north.  Except Billy poisoned that water, too.  The Mongols now had to fly at least two days before they found more water.
Billy flew alone because no one else could match his speed and endurance.  He reached the Mongols that night, attacked them for an hour to wake them up, then slept far away under a blanket that resembled sand.  At dawn, midday, and sunset he repeated his attack to exhaust and anger them.
The next day he noticed that a quarter of them had flown away during the night, and a lot more bodies didn't move in the hot sun.  Since he brought plenty of water, he messed with them throughout the day, causing thousands of them to chase him around while he blasted anyone on the ground.  At sunset it looked like they were finally leaving. 
Apparently the Mongols didn't know that their last watering hole was now also poisoned, because that's where they went.  Not that they had much choice.  Billy, naturally, blasted them the entire trip.  It surprised him how often they had to land to rest.  When they finally reached the poisoned well the next night, they found thousands of their buddies begging them for water.
Billy could sympathize.  If they gave what little water they had left, they may not make it themselves.  Their only chance was to fly now, at night, and hope they had enough water.  But they just spent eighteen hours flying from their last watering hole.  So exhaustion prevented them from leaving, yet dwindling water compelled them to go.
Mongols were tough bastards, though.  Surviving the steppe requires it.  Instead of giving water to the dying, they rested for an hour, then flew like their lives depended upon it.  All while enduring Billy's blasts.  They didn't even chase him now, and most lacked the energy to track him, so Billy shot whoever lost sight of him.  Many fired back at him, but dodging shots at that distance is easy.  He could feel their anger and frustration from a few hundred meters above them.  
Even worse, since blasts grow wider the farther they travel, Billy knocked the weary from the sky, burning their skin but otherwise not harming them.  The advantage is he could knock several from the sky with each shot.  Not all of them splattered on the hard dunes -- maybe half stabilized their fall enough to land without hurting themselves badly.  Yet now they had to take off again, which takes more energy than maintaining a flight.  Those with enough wit flew several meters away from any comrades since Billy obviously targeted those in clumps.  He didn't mind -- he had plenty of weary targets to keep him occupied.
This trip they rested in much smaller groups, and more frequently, even though Billy targeted the biggest clumps of men on the ground.  In flight, he concentrated on the strongest, since they were most likely to endure the longest.  
None of them ever reached the oasis.  His five battalions easily blew them out of the sky.  They stayed for three more days, until stranglers stopped showing up.  They used that time to strip the corpses of valuables and dump the bodies in water sources.  
Turns out, they didn’t need those bombs after all.

CHAPTER 61

Because they could not cross the Gobi, Billy sent his troops west, around the desert, while he took a few dozen canteens and crossed it high and fast, leaving his iconic red suit with his troops.  
He learned that his massive coalition had largely dissipated.  Most had broken into their own groups, leaping ahead of the competition to rob new banks and temporarily enslave new civilian fliers.  More and more fliers returned home, then stayed home to guard their treasure.  The foreigners had all left, with all that they could carry, and with all the air mules they could force to carry for them.  Some returned to China with thousands of two-wanders, but the distances only grew as the plundering moved farther inland.  More and more groups fought each other rather than travel in search of new plunder. 
But, inevitably, larger Mongolian air units arrived from the west to fight back.  With Billy gone so long, Kung-ti sent his own Hainan Air Force to protect the mob.  The governor himself returned to Hainan Island to exploit new commercial opportunities while his grandson, Zhu Ching, commanded the air force fighting the Mongols.
Billy sounded a greeting as he descended upon the Chinese camp and flashed his four wands to identify himself.  Zhu, a powerful quad in his 40's, now looked a decade older.
"Where have you been?" he greeted the Baron, not hiding his fear.
"I am well, thank you, general," Billy answered.  "Yes, we destroyed the fifty thousand Mongols invading from the north without a single casualty other than heat stroke.  How are you?"
"The foreigners left!  They all went home with their treasure.  Some say a few million Chinese quads have left their own damn country, with all the stolen wealth they could carry.  That money was suppose to stay here."
"I'm sure you took your share."  Billy did not feel sympathetic.  If that wealth stayed here, the Mongols would obviously take it back.
"But they left!  Now who will stop Genghis Khan?"
"How many do you still command?" Billy asked.
"Fighting?  One hundred thousand once traveled with us, but now I only have ten under-strength battalions after recent desertions.  I am here all alone."  
Other than ten thousand troops.
"Well, you are not alone now," Billy assured him.  "What about the enemy?"
"Until recently, the mob always looted ahead of us, so when they got hit, we struck whoever hit them.  It worked out well for us.  The greediest criminals gave us a trip wire.
“We smashed many battalions, and even larger civilians groups.  But then entire divisions starting hitting us -- not retirees, but active duty troops good at formation flying under Kublai.
“A division now surrounds us on three sides, plus maybe fifty thousand civilians and retired veterans.  We have to move really far every day just to stay alive.  
“What are we going to do?  We heard that Genghis Khan himself is racing back with one hundred thousand of his best quads.  My guys are rich now, for the first time in their lives.  They want to live long enough to spend those riches.  They will not stay and fight Genghis Khan.  He could show up alone and say, boo, and I'd lose half my force."
“Then run.”
“Can’t you beat them?  They say you are the best.”
Billy felt tired.  “My wands are not magical.  They cannot make the enemy disappear.  If I have highly motivated super-quads who can fly higher, faster, and farther, then I attack if I have surprise.  Otherwise, I run.”
The general looked about to cry.  “I don’t know what to do.”
"Show me on a map where these enemy units are," Billy asked.
Billy could tell that these quads didn't want to fight.  And these were the commanders!  They may have been fierce warriors a month ago, but now they felt like rich teenagers eager for a night out on the town.  The officers clearly shared the commander's dread.
"They are boxing you in," Billy concluded after just a glance at the map.  "Once you stay in one place long enough for them to position themselves, they will attack you from three directions.
“You need to run like hell.  I suggest you leave as much as possible behind, go tonight, and fly as far as you can.  Then have everyone disperse so they don't know who to follow.  Those who can fly the farthest will survive at the expense of the slowest."
"But who will protect China?" one of the officers asked.
"They're after blood, while your guys want to keep their riches.  Your men are worthless until they can safely store that wealth at home.  Then they will fight for their homes, gold, and families.  Once the Mongols destroy their first city, fliers will rally around you for protection.  The quads will be scared, so tell them the Red Baron told you what to do.  Make a stand south of the Yangtze River and, when the Mongols exhaust themselves driving deep into your territory, bombard them from behind while they're sleeping.  Maximize casualties because you won’t get a second chance."
“But the Khan still has half a million fliers!”
“Not anymore.  And over half of them are two-wanders in support positions.  My marathoners in the Stans have greatly reduced their numbers these past few months.  I will try to get rid of his follow-up forces.  With me in his rear, he will have to redeploy entire divisions to protect himself.  Plus, five thousand American marathoners will soon raid his territories from the north.  He has enough quads to punish southern China, but he lacks the troops to keep southern China.  Stand your ground because he can’t garrison what he has, much less what he wants to take.  We’ve killed several million Mongols and drive off several million more, so the Khan has never been weaker.”
Billy never served in anyone’s air force, so he never saw the sheer terror that the Khan inspired.  One of the colonels looked like he had to take a dump.  Billy wanted to inspire that depth of fear in his enemies.
“How many marathoners do you have?” Billy asked.
“Just one battalion.”
“Have everyone else leave now while the marathoners bomb the enemy an hour before dawn.  Nothing fancy -- just drop them where the enemy is most concentrated.  When they chase you, I will flash my four wands and do my silly scream to distract them.  That will slow them down enough for your marathoners to get away clean.  Then use your marathoners to lure the Mongols away from your main force.”
“Oh thank you, Mr. Baron!”
The general looked tempted to hug him, so Billy stepped back.  Having their decision made for them energized the staff.  The officers rushed out to spread the good news.
"You impregnated my sister and daughter," Zhu told him once they had privacy.  He seemed both proud and offended.
"They don't even tell me who they are," Billy replied.  "Some tough looking grandma tells them to come and go.  Or, rather, tells me to come and them to go.  You have no idea how awkward it is, someone entering a dark room to have sex, then leaving without saying a word.  I call it Ninja Sex because I never see or hear them.  If stress, exhaustion, or sleepiness inhibits my ability to participate, the matron scolds me like a child.  Everyone thinks the Red Baron is powerful, yet procreating with nameless, faceless silent quads makes me feel impotent even as I impregnate them.”
“So why do it?”
Billy sighed.  “Who knows how long it will take to beat the damn Mongols?  And the more royal families I mate with, hopefully the fewer wars they will start.  After three centuries of global war, I’m do anything for world peace.”
"That was my grandmother scolding you.  I remember what it feels like.  Just last month she made my blood boil.  I look forward to seeing if your kids will resemble the father."
"I'm trying to create a legend, so I hope my kids don't compare themselves to me.  My father was a greater man than I will ever be, and you can tell my children that."
Crap, he thought to himself as he left the tent to get something to eat.  He consoled himself with the thought that Genghis Khan will need a lot of time to destroy the new China, which means his Mongols will be thousands of kilometers away from Europe, which will need a decade or more to settle their new borders.
A few hours later he killed a Mongol sentry and changed clothes.  He infiltrated the enemy camp and the level of disorganization surprised him.  Probably from all the veterans expecting special treatment, yet refusing to organize into units.  Having cowed the Chinese, they slept soundly, so Billy walked among them, stabbing silently as he went.
Around midnight, he came across their munitions depot and smiled.  He continued cutting them up, occasionally flying away when someone shot at him, while at the same time searching for the tent of that fat bastard Kublai.  It took him another hour -- and three brief firefights -- before he stumbled upon it.  And he only recognized it because of the numerous guards surrounding it.
A battalion was pre-loaded with bombs -- probably to react quickly to opportunities, so he worked his way there.  He sliced and diced while looking for a rock to hide under.  He just finished putting on a pack he took off of a bomber that he just killed when three quads -- all sergeants -- unexpectedly surrounded him with wands drawn.  He popped up and shot down before they struck, terrified they would detonate his bomb and blow him into tiny pieces.  Except he aimed for a cluster of bomb packs near them.  The explosion triggered other bombs and Billy was glad he flew a few hundred meters above them.
He quickly went to ground and walked through the trees, slicing whenever he could do so safely.  It shocked him how much the damn bomb weighed -- he really did lose a lot of strength on the Alps.  He needed to eat more.
Those who investigated the explosion apparently could not determine what happened, so soon after the battalion returned to sleep, Zhu arrived to bomb the camp.  Several lucky ones hit the bombing battalion and the place lit up like New Years.  
Anti-personnel bombs explode on contact, so quads were safer in the air.  As one, thousands of Mongols flew up.  This little ruse would tire them too much to catch the Chinese marathoners.  
Billy, in contrast, raced to Kublai’s tent from the opposite direction of the Chinese.  He popped up into an arc and threw the bomb at three hundred meters.  Now in a controlled fall, he shot all four wands at Kublai and his senior staffers.  Just as his bodyguards fixed their aim on him, the bomb exploded, shrapnel flying everywhere.  Billy adjusted his fall, continued firing, then went to blades to cut the rest of them down.  He faced so many that he feared losing.
He dragged Kublai into his burning felt tent to transfer his Millennial Wands while hiding behind the fat bastard. Blood bubbling from his lips, Kublai looked him in the eyes and told him something stunning.  
Billy now had six of the remaining nine sets of Millennial Wands.  The power coursed through his arms like bolts of lightning.  His skin tingled, his head soared, and his senses became acute.
He burned a hole in the ceiling and flew to the bombing battalion, while a few dozen enemy quads chased him.  The smarter bombers wisely fled at the sight of him, but Billy still had plenty to keep him busy.  The other Mongols hesitated to get too close to the explosions, giving Billy enough time and space to really get some work done before dawn.  Suddenly he saw the munitions depot, so he sliced a bomber and dropped his pack on it while flying straight up to avoid the pressure wave.  The enormous explosion felt like an earthquake.
It looked like a volcano erupted, without the lava.  The blast stunned thousands of enemies, so he flew down to shot and stab them, while avoiding getting shot himself.
When dawn came, he gave his primal scream and showed them his four flaming wands so Genghis Khan would know who killed his successor and took his Millennial Wands.  War is terrible for many reasons, but it also has its moments.  He just wished he could see the Khan’s face when he heard the Red Baron killed his last grandson.

CHAPTER 62

Genghis Khan impatiently paced around his portable headquarters outside the smoldering ruins of Krakow like a cat waiting for a mouse to come out of its hole.  A few dozen generals nervously stood nearby, each with an expert opinion he didn't dare share.  The Khan reduced the entire city to rubble to show his displeasure.  Yet even massacring half a million people barely improved his mood.
This entire expedition had been a disaster.  Flying west was like marching in mud because he needed a long logistical train of wagons pulled by mules, oxen, and horses to feed, pay, and supply half a million people.  He had to set wide perimeters three thousand kilometers out, with layers of security and redundant sentries.  The problem with enemy quads who can fly fifteen hundred kilometers is that they can enter and leave the battlefield with virtual impunity, and are almost impossible to find.
Genghis was tempted just to take his specialty quads to travel light and fast, but fighting like the Baron’s force meant sometimes going a day or two without food, always dependent upon potable water, no protection from the weather, going weeks between bathing, eating the same damn food for months on end, always wearing the same stinking clothes, and skinning their own food.  Every little infection became life threatening.  Just the thought of using leaves or grass to clean his backside after crapping for month after month made Genghis shudder.
Anyone who could not fly as far as everyone else had to make it on their own.  The wounded, sick, and frostbitten had to persuade a buddy to risk their lives nursing them back to health.  They could only carry so much, and the more valuables they stole, the less food, clothes, or blankets they could take.  Genghis was sufficiently motivated to endure it, but knew his troops were not.  His Imperial Guards, sure, but the damn Baron wiped out most of them years ago.  Sometimes the enormity of his losses would stun him into a horrifying trance.  It felt like a bad dream that wouldn’t end.
Or a metal box he couldn’t escape.
If only he had quads like the Baron’s!
Every night for a month they bombed him, then ganged up on the special units he sent after them.  Genghis lost a few hundred thousand quads and a few hundred thousand two-wanders without ever engaging in a proper battle.  They attacked and he defended.  Never once had he been able to strike them, much less with surprise.
Not until he crossed the Stans did he realize how big an area the Baron depopulated.  After several generations, the nomads herding across the Stans were as much Mongolian as not.  Millions used to live across the vast area between Persia-Turkey-Russia and India-China-Mongolia.  His force found nobody who spoke Mongolian in the weeks it took his armada to cross the territory.
Since then, his troops never saw more than five battalions.  Five thousand quads were beating a force of five hundred thousand.  His hatred of the Baron kept him from sleeping at night, which made dealing with him dangerous.  His staff walked around like the ground was full of eggs they didn’t dare break.
His head jerked up when wands sang out.  Another scout came in to give the latest.
"Nothing to the north, sir, although an enemy company was seen a few days ago escorting a large number of civilian air mules to Finland."
The khan cursed softly.  He felt like pulling his damn beard out.  
"Then where the hell is he?  One hundred thousand marathoners don't just beat everything around them for months, then disappear when they run out of resistance.  He murdered my wife, sacked my cities, and slaughtered half of my armada because he wanted a fight.  Why won’t he fight?"
Russia, Scandinavia, Prussia, Persian, and Turkish air forces tracked him, and American Jack organized what the news reports called a European Air Force numbering several hundred thousand, but he heard nothing of the Red Baron.  Nor this Grandma that everyone thought so highly of.
Despite reinforcements, the Khan only had two hundred thousand quads and three hundred thousand two-wanders left.  The Baron never shied away from larger numbers before.  The Khan gave interviews calling him a coward afraid to fight him, but the Baron never responded.
Where the hell did the Baron get one hundred thousand marathons?  He spent months in Spain and the Alps, so when did he have the time?  Then they disappeared as mysteriously as the Baron himself.  Worse yet, no one had seen or heard of the Baron, despite all the spies he sent out.  He employed an army of two-wanders simply to get him news wands from across the Stans and Europe.
The Great Khan couldn't figure it out, yet the truth would not have surprised him: Grandma ran out of bombs, and they had too much loot to transport home.  They agreed to bomb the Khan in exchange for being released from further duty.  The thirty thousand Americans flew home.  Since the Khan no longer blocked the Bering Strait, the Americans made multiple trips to transport the vast plunder they hid in Siberia.
The super-quads already had more money than they could ever spend.  They fought because they lost someone they loved and wanted revenge.  They did as the Baron asked because he got them the most revenge.  Red asked them to harass the Khan and intercept his messengers, so that’s what they did.
Any minute now he expected one hundred thousand long-distance bombers to drop on him and laugh all the way home.
Instead, a warning from the sky shrieked and Genghis rushed outside.  A single exhausted Mongol descended, dozens of wands tracking him.  He landed well away from the Khan, tapped his vocal cords, then gave the bad news as soon as he could catch a breath.
"The Baron somehow raised a huge force of foreigner quads," he yelled so everyone could hear him.  "The Americans and Koreans wiped out Mongolia, my lord, while half a million foreign quads swept China with several million Chinese."
The Immortal walked closer.  "Jirko?"  
Jirko was fortunate to grow up in Siam under the protection of seven generations of the Khan’s brother Khasar, because otherwise Genghis would have killed him because Jirko could project fire and steel from his boot wands.  Khasar’s best grandson conquered Siam and built up a very powerful air force.  Genghis had many enemies, but this was his only rival.
In two hundred years, Jirko was the only descendent more powerful than the governor, so he gave Jirko his precious Millennial Wands and had him duel thousands of political prisoners a year to boost his wand power.  When Genghis learned of Jirko, the governor told Genghis that he would go to war if Jirko inexplicably suffered a fatal accident.  Genghis agreed to let him duel the Khan’s political prisoners so that he could dominate the upcoming Olympics.
Jirko set a new world record for one thousand kilometers at the Olympics several years ago, only to be beaten by a kid half his age.  Who the hell sets a new record, only to get the silver?  Genghis remembered inviting Jirko to a private dinner where he showered the depressed champion with praise and riches to cushion the bad jokes.  His brother's descendent sure aged a lot in the last several years.  Or maybe in the last six weeks, because it's about ten thousand kilometers from Korea to Krakow.
While drinking a water sack, Jirko played the video of the Baron doing his scream and fire dance.  Genghis had learned to distinguish between the true Baron and the imposters, and knew this was the real one.
Ironic that it was Jirko, of all people, to bring him the terrible news since it was Genghis who informed Jirko, a few years ago, that the Red Baron killed all seven generations of his family in Siam.
"Some angry Koreans reportedly raped the ladies of your tent to death, but the Baron forced them to give him the baby girl from the Empress Orghanna, which he said he would raise as his own to make up for his babies that you have killed.  I’ve heard they’ve killed several million Mongols and have driven several million more from their homes.”
Genghis Khan lived a hard life.  Tatars poisoned his father to death, then his clan left him, his mother, and siblings to starve on the freezing steppe when he was just ten.  He had to kill his older brother because he stole food while they starved.  His former clan enslaved him for the murder.  After eking out a meager existence with his family for several years, he finally married the girl he fell in love with at age nine, only for a rival clan to later kidnap and impregnate her because Genghis' father did the same to a woman of their clan years before (Genghis’ own mother).  Genghis, following tradition, intended to name Jochi, the child born of the rape, his heir because he publicly accepted him as his oldest son.  Except no one else would accept Jochi since he didn't descend from the Great Khan.  This caused an irreparable rift between them, forcing Genghis to secretly poison him in 1227 before their personal conflict devolved into a civil war.  
He fought for twenty-five years to unite the clans, only to have his childhood friend and blood brother Jamuka become his greatest rival.  When he lost his favorite grandson to an enemy arrow, he stacked the heads of the city residents into piles of men, women, and children.  He even killed the dogs and cats.  When Samarkand fell, he killed or enslaved its half a million residents, and slaughtered the children.
If you can’t stand the bloodshed, then stay out of the conquering business.
So he hardened his heart long ago.  But to have failed to protect millions of people who counted on him threatened his sanity.   
Without saying another word, he walked to his personal tent where no one could witness his uncontrollable rage.  To be out-witted at the peak of his power infuriated him.  The Baron humiliated him repeatedly so the rest of the world would stop fearing him.  He had never felt impotent before, and it ate him up like a cancer.
But rage did not stop his mind from working.  For months he felt like he was being set up.  And now he realized he was.  The Baron lured him thousands of kilometers away, along with every pro-Mongolian quad he could recruit, so he could destroy the heart of his empire.  Or, better yet, to show the world that he could. 
Genghis could now see that the Baron killed his Empress to make the Great Khan personally lead the chase away from the real target.  The Baron suckered him.  He never planned on battling him.  He just wanted time and space to depopulate Mongolia.  While his heart ached and his emotions raged, his mind recognized brilliance when he saw it.  Despite all his efforts, Genghis fell into the Baron's trap after all.  
As Jirko’s words sunk in, he foresaw the results: millions of non-Mongols suddenly cutting down every Mongol they recognized.  After being slaughtered in their homes, businesses, and in the streets, no Mongol would ever feel safe again.  As khan, Genghis failed in his most fundamental duty.
He felt like such a tool.  Now he understood why he had not received messages from home for so long.  He stuck his head out of his tent and barked his smartest order in weeks: “Let’s go home.”
Not that he saw any other option.  His destruction of Krakow scared the Europeans into uniting against him, and the Russians, Scandinavians, Prussians, Turks, Persians, and even the Arabs looked like they were just waiting for him to lock horns with the Europeans so they could rape him from behind.  Genghis didn’t fear American Jack or the European battalions he led, but this Grandma somehow stayed a step ahead of him for months and he suspected that she could beat him if given the quads.
As soon as his men started breaking camp, those five thousand super-quads bombed them again, with one of them doing the Baron’s scream and dance.  Tired of feeling impotent, Genghis chased them himself, but they disappeared before he could get close.  It unnerved him how fast the enemy flew.  He used to be the fastest, yet he couldn’t even close the distance.   It never occurred to him that those five thousand all had the best wands ever produced.
Now he understood what returning home would be like: exactly like the damn trip here.  Those bastards would slow him down as much as they could, because that’s what the Baron told them to do months ago.
He had to get home as soon as possible to salvage what he could, so he separated his one hundred thousand best quads, even though this meant re-forming every battalion, company, and squad.
A week later, in the Stans, millions of Mongol refugees shared their stories and he finally appreciated the scale of the disaster when they beseeched him to feed, house, and clothe them.  Then he learned that the Red Baron himself killed his last grandson and prevented the destruction of the main Chinese force.  Several thousand kilometers from where the Khan was hunting him.
He resolved to kill the Baron and everyone he cared about.

CHAPTER 63

When Billy found his five American battalions, they came with a surprise: his wife!  Princess didn't fly here alone.  She flew with five thousand super-quads outfitted in world-class armor suits.
Princess hugged him before he even landed, sending them tumbling on the grassy steppe.  Fortunately they landed in some bushes where they kissed for the first time in months.  Afterwards she showed him new images of their firstborn, Elizabeth, and now their second girl, Rachel.
"She's just like you," Princess claimed, "except with my dark hair, eyes, and skin."
"Yet she's just like me?  What, she's small and skinny?" Billy asked jokingly.
"No, because she's demanding, cries a lot, and tries to pee on me," Prince joked.
"Brother," Billy replied, "I don't care how far you've flown or how much you look like my beautiful wife, I am not having sex with you.  Anymore."
Prince must have had a good year since he didn't get all prickly on him.  Since Kiev, he had been dueling across the Empire to build up his flame and had been costing Billy a custom suit every month.  The one he wore looked in better shape than Billy’s.
"You're lucky fatherhood has mellowed me.  I have a few dozen babies on the way.  Dear sister has them milk me like a cow."
"And me like an elephant," Bear boasted.  "Those magnificent wands you gave me have somehow overcome my great looks, charismatic personality, and elephantine penis.  I don't have as many babies as Prince Charming here but, then again, I don't have his inferiority complex.  And don't get me started on Tiny," he said, gesturing to the huge American Indian.  "We're saving the biggest ladies for him because this world doesn't have enough giants."
"Both of our boys look exactly like you," a radiant Blade pointed out, showing images of their sons.  "Because of the imperial guard attack in Venice, we sent the babies to relatives back home for safety."
Billy would spend the entire day watching proud mothers show him videos of his beautiful babies.  But the thought of impregnating them again both tired and excited him.
"You look different without all the pent-up anger," Billy observed.
"Better or worse?" Blade demanded, an edge to her voice.
"Oh, better.  Much better.  Did you want to give our son a little sister?"
"I didn't fly several thousand kilometers to hear your jokes," she said with a smile.
Billy turned to Prince.  "Struck out again?"
"Nah, just too busy.  And no one wants to confuse the kids.  If I had kids with Blade, what would their relationship be with your kids with Princess?  Siblings of half-siblings?"
“Yes, I turned him down,” Blade confirmed.	 “I still prefer women, so Princess gets all that she wants.  And then some.”
For reasons he had not yet cleared up, it bothered Billy that his wife -- that’s how he saw her -- slept with another woman.  A lot.  A woman who stopped having sex with him as soon as she became pregnant. 
"If you're not getting any, Grandma, maybe you can convince Princess to fit you into my schedule," Billy joked.
"Two hundred years ago that may have sounded tempting," Grandma answered.  "But then I out-grew little boys.  No, a woman with my passion would break you like a twig.  Tiny, however," she said looking up at him, "doesn’t look too fragile."
Tiny, to his credit, didn't bat an eye.  "Just don't uncork this wine unless you finish the bottle."
Pleasantries over, they gleefully recounted how they flew rings around the Great Khan, and how he returned home rather than ravage Europe.  Billy blanched when they told him of the half a million dead when Genghis sacked Krakow.  The super-quads harassed him all the way home, until they found five thousand Americans about to run into one hundred thousand Mongols.
“Is Jack still trying to persuade the Europeans to re-draw borders around distinct peoples who share the same language, culture, and history?” Billy asked.  “I made him a video praising him and his ideas, but I don’t envy him.  And is he still pushing them to try representative democracy?”
“He’s a better politician than general.”
"Alright, Red," Prince interrupted.  "How did you lose a million Asian quads?  And how did you get them in the first place?  They would have been handy right now."
"Same way you lost yours -- they took their money and went home.  I had to go north of the Gobi with five American battalions to kill fifty thousand Mongolian airmen, so I wasn't even there when they dispersed.  Now powerful neighbors surround the Empire.  I hope they keep Genghis busy for many years.
"You're not going to lead their defense?"
"I prefer offense.  Waiting for half a million fliers to attack doesn't appeal to me."
"But we're still going to kill Mongols, right?" Prince needed to know.
"As many as we can, as fast as we can, for as long as we can," Billy answered.  "All we did these last few years was drain the swamp.  Now we have to turn it into desert.
“Genghis will probably fly to China along the Silk Road as fast as possible, bringing only the quads with the greatest endurance.  We need Genghis to unite his neighbors.  After they pass by, I'd love to bomb his other quads.  The Tian Shan Mountains would be perfect for ambushes and the Americans have twenty thousand bombs."
"But ten thousand quads can only drop so many.  Where can we get more fliers and bombs?" Grandma asked.
"Jack sent trainers to India when they rebelled after our victory at Kiev.  Maybe we can find some recruits there.”  
Later that night, Billy took Grandma aside into a grove for privacy and showed her the new Millennial Wands.
“I took these from a dying Mongol, but he didn’t introduce himself.  Can you tell me who he was?”
She stared at them like a ghost, turning them over in a weird trance.  It was the only time Billy ever saw her unguarded.  Several conflicting emotions crossed her face.
“Were these your father’s?” he asked gently.
Shocked, she looked up a little scared.  “But how could you possibly know that?”
“Kublai asked me to give his wands to his daughter, who was a better general than her father.  Said she earned them.  It took me this long to figure out who she was.  And you can have them, too.  But first, I want to know why the great granddaughter of Genghis Khan has fought the Empire for two centuries.”
Grandma looked around to make sure they were alone.  “Kublai mated with my Chinese prodigy mother to breed ever more powerful quads, yet when I shot flame from my boot wands at five years old, he had my mother take me and flee.  He had so many illegitimate daughters nobody ever counted them.  I later gave the guy you call American Jack ten children, and they mated with the best quads fighting imperialism.”
“Well, that explains why they call you Grandma.  What’s the story between you and Jack?”
“He was still married, so it was mostly transactional.  We both were desperate for super-quad children.  He mated with hundreds of women during the decade I bred with him.”
“Do you know his real name?”
“He speaks so many languages, I don’t even know his original nationality.”
“Who knows you can use your boot wands for something other than flight?” Billy asked.
“Only Jack and the son who impersonates you.”
“You can have your father’s wands, but first you must show me your true power.”
“What do you mean?” she asked angrily.  She didn’t like being challenged.
“I think you hold back.  You project ten meter long flames, but your blasts are as powerful as the twins.”
They held a staring contest, but he was right, so he won.  Smiling sheepishly, she blew flame thirteen meters from the new Millennial Wands and he jumped up and down like a kid.
“Now show me your face,” she demanded. 
Billy took off his mask, hopeful no one could record it in the darkness.
"I knew it!  You're just a damn kid with deadly wands!”
“No one would follow me if they knew my true age,” he pointed out.  “Hey, can you scream like me?”
The idea startled her.  “Why?”
Billy smiled as an idea developed.
“Red, stop smiling.  You’re scaring me.”
“Make sure you bring Jim to Anchorage.  I have something special planned for the Olympics.”
“Are you gonna kill Genghis Khan?  And don’t you dare lie to me.”
Billy chuckled.  “Oh, Grandma.  We’re gonna kill them all.”
“You swear?”
“I swear on my life.”

CHAPTER 64

They left a few super-quads with one battalion of Americans to build mountaintop bunkers while the rest looked for bombs and bombers in India.
Prince saw them first.  A squad on the horizon suddenly turned around and fled at maximum speed.  Billy's vanguard, consisting of the very best quads, raced after them.  Billy, the fastest, overtook the squad first.  They banked away in a steep dive, but Billy not only kept up, but flew ahead to sound off a friendly greeting.  Since neither wore Mongolian uniforms, Billy carefully closed the distance and gestured for them to land.  The rest of his vanguard soon surrounded them, so they landed in a meadow.
"Birdy!" Grandma yelled once their leader took off his flying helmet.  Billy saw the relief on the guy's face.  The others looked Indian.  "Birdy, this is the Red Baron.  Birdy is one of our trainers."
Birdy looked over his team.  “I’ve never seen so many super-quads in one place before.”
“We were looking for your team.  How many are you?"
"We’ve trained seven high-altitude marathon battalions.  I have the best battalion to slow the Mongolians down if they divert to crush the rebellion in Ceylon, while the rest are on the island, defending the rebels.”
“We need those battalions to bomb the slower Mongolians on the Silk Road as they pass through the Tian Shan Mountains.”
“Good luck with that.  The Mongolian High Command in India is throwing everything they have against the rebels so that they can later send troops to help retake China.
“Instead of founding another kingdom, the Indians started a representative democracy, which is why they've attracted so many quads willing to fight for free.  The Khan apparently sees this new type of government as a special threat.  Jack sent them a bunch of legal experts who helped them avoid mistakes other countries have made.  Tirumala Raya, the guy they elected president, is an impressive leader rather than just another greedy monster.  He has included potential rivals from around southern India into his leadership team."
“Well, crap!”  Billy sounded pissed.  “I guess we have to help them, then.  Maybe if we crush the Mongols attacking them, their marathoners will help us bomb the Khan’s troops on the Silk Road.”
“It’s a few thousand kilometers away,” Birdy warned.
“Just try to keep up.”

CHAPTER 65

Billy called a leadership meeting to go over their options.  Below them a ring of torches marked the northernmost fortifications that blocked Ceylon from the rest of India.
“By morning they’ll know we’re here and we lose surprise.  I say we break into companies and hit one hundred of their barracks while they sleep, grab their bombs, and drop them on the next row of fortifications.  Once the situation starts to go against us, we fly high and fast to the island.  Company commanders, don’t expect orders from me.  Use your best judgment to hurt them while preserving your unit.  Unless anyone has any better ideas?”
Billy looked straight at Prince, who threw up his hands.  “Hey, I ran out of great ideas in Kiev.”
“Well, we ran out of food, so I guess we eat Mongolian tonight.”  
The barracks sat in a line a few hundred kilometers long, which meant they would attack across a very long and very thin front.  Few companies would even fight within sight of each other.  Since the enemy did not mass their troops, they did not have any better option.  But at least they could bomb the enemy in their sleep, since they picked up bombs that Birdy stocked up on the Himalayas.  
Billy flew with Birdy to get a sense of his tactical abilities.  His company flew low and fast, utilizing terrain to mask their approach.  It bothered Billy that the Mongols didn’t seem to have any patrols or sentries behind them.  They dropped their bombs, just pulverizing the fortifications in general and the barracks in particular, then dropped to one hundred meters to shoot at everything that moved.
It was over before the smoke cleared.
“That’s it?” Billy asked.
“Something’s wrong,” Birdy answered.  They discovered the problem as soon as the smoke cleared.  “They’re gone!  The company manning this post isn’t here.  We only killed the administrative and logistical support staff.”  He turned to Billy.  “They must be bombing Ceylon before the monsoons start.  We have to warn them!”
Formation flying is near impossible during monsoon winds.
Billy took off at maximum speed.  A few hours later, he flew over several large shadows before finding the island.  Those on the ground could not hear his wands, so he dropped in a controlled fall and blasted down.  From that great height, his blasts would spread out too far to hurt anyone, but would hit hard enough to wake people up.  Once he saw Ceylon patrols coming at him, he flashed four wands to identify himself and sounded a friendly greeting.  He tapped his throat to say hello in Hindu, then struggled to remember a language he had not spoken in years.
"One hundred thousand bombers are coming," he yelled at them, guessing about the number attacking.
Their leader sounded the alarm and Billy immediately mimicked it, but with all four powerful wands.  The patrol seemed shocked that his alarm was so much louder than all of theirs combined.  
On the surface they heard their warning repeated and soon dozens of sentries flew up.  Other patrols flew in and Billy tapped his ears to hear them report that many battalions were forming up on all sides of the island.  The leaders huddled in a hover to figure out how to respond to the threat.  Billy suddenly saw what the Mongols were up to.  To interrupt the arguing Indians and to introduce himself to the hundreds of fliers now joining them, Billy released his terrifying primal scream and flashed his four wands.  In the stunned silence that followed, Billy yelled his orders:
"Their two-wanders need to rise in an arc to drop their bombs in a controlled fall, so form a circle to shoot them in the back as they rise."  No one reacted, but neither did they argue with him.  Damn, doesn't anyone understand Mongolian anymore?  "I am the Red Baron and I say, form a damn circle!"
This time, with large shadows approaching on their horizons, they did as he said.
Over the next few minutes, thousands of Ceylons joined them.  Eyeing the bombers, Billy flew around the circle to order them to back up.  A group of quads soon intercepted him and demanded to know what was going on.
“Mongol battalions surround the island.  The two-wanders must rise up in an arc to drop their bombs and shoot their wands in a controlled fall, so we must form a circle outside of that arc to shoot them in the back as they rise."
Billy then resumed ordering the circle back because if the defenders stayed within the arc of the attackers, they would be shot to pieces like fish in a barrel.  To their credit, the quads spread out to do the same.  The flow of Ceylons that continued to rise from the island joined the circle instead of becoming targets in the middle.
As the battalions closed, Billy noticed the ones coming directly from the mainland were much closer than those who had to circle around to hit them from the open ocean.  As he well knew, timing is everything in a surprise attack.  If everyone doesn't strike at the same time, then enough defenders survive to fight back.  
As the closest battalions climbed in their square-shaped formation, Billy raced over to release his famous scream.  Human nature being what it is, many in that first formation could not help but turn around to look.  Instead of keeping their spacing to the fliers a few meters in front, behind, and on either side, dozens collided with their comrades, deforming the formation and sending several surprised fliers tumbling out of the sky.  Squadrons of quads formed the corner of each formation square.  Those closest to him broke off to attack.  Billy responded by popping up in his own arc and shooting four wands at the same target.
As the exhilaration of battle consumed him, a tiny part laughed at the Khan’s reaction when he saw his forces in India destroyed because he stripped them of every decent quad.  Just ten thousand more quads would have swept the defenders from the sky and cleared the way for the two-wanders to safely drop their bombs and blast survivors.  Even a thousand quads might have made a big difference, and the one hundred thousand quads who drowned off of Alaska would have guaranteed victory.  The dominos now all fell against the Khan.
The circle of defenders now sent volleys into the backs of the rising attackers.  The closest battalion was still too far below them for fatal shots from an average wand, but the better wands knocked holes in their formation, which must have unnerved their neighbors.
Then the battle changed.  Billy's four blasts detonated a backpack on the closest quad and the entire squad disappeared faster than the eye could track their falling body parts in the night sky.  The defenders cheered as one and intensified the shooting.  Many more backpacks exploded and the battle turned into a massacre.  Billy poured fire into the second group of quads attacking him until they, too, blew into tiny pieces.
The Mongolian troops now felt like suicide bombers, yet they realized they had no good tactical options: instead of continuing to rise in their bombing arc, they could just fly over the island to release their bombs, but their backpacks would invite blasts from the defenders above.  Turning around also left them exposed.  Every one of them wanted to simply jettison their backpacks, but that took more time than they had, although many dropped out of formation to try.  The other battalions released their quads while the rest adjusted their arc to put distance between them and the circle of defenders, but the Ceylons simply flew closer to stay within lethal range as the enemies rose.
Every detonation energized the Indians and deflated the Mongols.  Or, rather, the Indians working for the Mongolian Air Force who made their living suppressing their compatriots.  A crescendo of explosions rose to a deafening roar as the squares of bombers flew into range of the ring of defenders.  Entire battalion formations disintegrated as terrified Indians serving in the Mongol Air Force turned and fled.
With the battle turning into a massacre on this end, Billy raced directly across the island towards the attackers coming from the ocean.  Upon seeing the other battalions get shot up from behind, they adjusted their arc to rise behind the circle of defenders.  This much thinner section of Ceylons had to back up to get a decent angle of attack, which cost them precious time.  The downside of rising so steeply was the attackers were now only in the position of bombing the beaches rather than the populous interior -- which was the whole point.  When the planners talked of bombing the island, they meant the people, not the land.  Still, it increased the likelihood that they would survive, and losing the element of surprise defanged the whole operation anyway.  The quad sections broke off since they could fly faster and attacked the defenders.  Shooting straight up made it much easier for the two-wanders to turn in place to face -- and hopefully blast -- the defenders.  It negated their bombing run, but that was ruined when they lost the element of surprise.
At this moment Billy distracted them with his primal scream.  The Mongolian quads, attacking the circle of defenders, had their back to him and could not help but turn to look.  Half of the two-wanders flying straight up impotently watched Billy fire at them since they needed both wands to fly.  Billy's distraction cost the Mongolian troops several crucial seconds.
Then the first backpack exploded on this side of the island, soon followed by many others, like echoes from the landward side.  As the detonations quickly multiplied over several kilometers of airspace, the bombers wisely broke formation and ran for their lives, diving to give themselves time to cut the straps of their backpacks.  The elated Ceylons raced to kill them.  All around the island, the massive air force disappeared -- either literally from explosions, or from members diving to lose themselves just above the wave tops.  Thousands of fliers from the island chased them down.
"Kill the quads!" Billy shouted repeatedly to groups of joyous Indians as he took his own advice and blasted quads who had no choice but to show their backs to him.  As the fastest left the slowest behind, Billy focused on the swiftest since they had the best wands.  By dawn, a few hours later, the herd had thinned out considerably and made it easier for the hunters to take down the hunted.
Finally the first Mongolian fortresses came into view and gave new speed to the terrified prey.  Billy, exhausted, tapped his last reserve to blast as many quads as possible before the fortress could protect them.  Hundreds of them landed and the thought of flying all the way back to the island sucked the life out of Billy.  Until, as more enemies landed, a few of them popped back up firing down.  Some managed to escape their own fortress, but others got overwhelmed by guards.  
Then Billy's heart sank when squads dropped from the clouds.  But, instead of attacking Billy or the few Indians who kept up with him, they attacked those Mongols trying to get away.  Just as his tired brain tried to make sense of it, the fortress ejected more of his troops.  They formed a skirmish line and chased down the Mongolian troops, who suddenly had nowhere to run.  Billy found enough energy to flash his wands to identify himself, then land in the fortress, starving and seriously dehydrated.

CHAPTER 66	

His quads, spread out over a few hundred kilometers, naturally killed everyone in the fortifications and took everything valuable.  Then they moved on to the next line of fortifications.  And the next.  In a beautiful irony, his quads were perfectly positioned to mow down tens of thousands of exhausted Mongols by occupying the southernmost line of fortifications built by the very men they killed.  Team Red got to kill several times their number in the fortifications, then kill several times their number who arrived exhausted and expecting sanctuary.
But all this loot loaded them down, so Billy invited them to deposit it at his bank.  Several months before, when he heard that Indians based out of Ceylon rebelled, he ordered Global Bank to open a branch there so that he could loan them tons of gold.  There he found armor super-suit, which he really needed.
With the other Indian marathoners that Birdy trained, Billy now commanded seventeen battalions.  With the enemy in disarray, the Indians consolidated their gains to take control over southern India.  Team Red, in contrast, systematically emptied banks and businesses, which multiplied recruitment.  Everyone wanted to join the Red Baron.  To the disappointment of many, he only accepted those who could fly a thousand kilometers.  To the bitter disappointment of the new government, many of those joining Team Red came from the new Indian Air Force because it was so lucrative.
“But the wealth we take from the Mongols we deposit in the bank, which loans it to the government to fund more air units,” Billy argued in interviews.  “So it all works out.”
Indeed, all of India lay prostrate at their feet.  The Khan had taken far too many troops from India, then lost the rest trying to overwhelm the rebels.
Things couldn’t be better.  Until Blade flew in from the Tian Shan Mountains to report the horrible news.
"They wiped out half of our companies," she said, looking like she either just flew several thousand kilometers, was pregnant again, or both.  "Genghis raced back with one hundred thousand of his best quads.  They sterilized the Silk Road so the follow up forces could travel faster.  They rewarded locals to give information on foreigners, which is how they learned that one thousand Americans built fortified camps on the top of the Tian Shan Mountains.  They posted observers on the highest peaks and sent messengers to lead battalions on nighttime raids.  
“I was tracking the main group far to the west, but survivors told me they were hit before they even knew the enemy was near.  Sound familiar?  Despite crawling over the mountains like ants, they only found half of the ten companies, but now occupy the bunkers we built.”
Well, that made Billy feel like shit because they were suppose to return over a week ago.  And they were still a week away.
"Get some food and rest," Billy told her.  He turned to his team leaders.  "Cancel all raids and prepare the battalions for the long trip north.  We need to organize our new marathoners.  I want everyone carrying bombs.  
“Prince, Grandma is escorting ten thousand air mules north.  Update her so she doesn’t fly into an ambush and ask her to store the bombs well south of the Tian Shan Mountains.”
He paused to consider his options.  The sight of Birdy gave him an idea.  
"Our victories have multiplied the number of air bandits -- quads who’ve turned criminal.  Birdy, spread the word that the Red Baron secretly moved the plunder your troops accumulated when based out of the Himalayas.”
“What plunder?” Birdy asked surprised.
“The huge fortune you guys stole from Mongolians north of the Himalayas,” Billy said with a wink.  “Yeah, reassure the new guys that I had the treasure moved to the northern side of the western-most Himalayas to put it out of reach of the Mongols in India.  I want those bandits to become our blocking force in case the Mongols from the Silk Road decide to intervene in India.
"Genghis and his best quads are back in northern China by now.  Or possibly contesting southern China.  But they need those follow-on forces and all the payroll they carry.
“That force still has another one hundred thousand quads.  I’m gonna lure their vanguard to the Himalayas to give the rest of you time to reach the Tian Shan Mountains before them.  The five super-quad battalions will follow me as fast as they can.  The Mongols will assume the criminals are our troops, and the criminals will assume the Mongols want to take the gold that they think we’ve buried.  
"Unless anyone has any better ideas.”

CHAPTER 67	

Billy sat in the lotus position on the floor trying to slow his breathing when Princess started up again.
"I know you can hear me," she said, needlessly.  He was trying to meditate, not sleep.  "I just think it's ridiculous that you won't wait for us.  We may not be able to fly as fast as you, but we can fly pretty damn fast.  Isn't that the point of putting all the super-quads in their own unit?  But no, you want to play the hero and attack them alone like in Barcelona.  I saw the Mongol uniform you have under your overcoat.  That means you intend on infiltrating their camp."
Billy did not care about money, fame, glory, or power.  He just wanted to stop a never-end world war that killed a million civilians every year.  Ten generations of his ancestors died for that mission.  As the world's most powerful quad, he owed it to them.  Everyone has to decide what they want to make their life about -- stopping a corrupt, oppressive empire from subjugating the entire human race seemed a pretty good way to spend one's life.  It was not just worth killing for, but worth dying for.  But Princess knew all this.  
Billy got up and inspected his backpack while silently thanking his father for his advice.  
"I wanted to wait until dark, but you won't let me meditate, even though you know that the more I slow my breathing, the higher I can fly, and therefore the faster and longer.  I can get there early to find the enemy vanguard, slow their advance, and piss them off so they don't think clearly.  But not with you filling my head with your fears.  You want me with you, but you drive me away.  I am what I do.  I will spend the rest of my life killing Mongols -- as many as I can, as quickly as I can, for as long as I can.  If you help me, then we can be together.  If not, not.  But right now you are costing me my edge.  I need peace of mind in order to do what I do, so you are jeopardizing my survival."
Princess broke into tears -- a woman's cruelest tool.  He packed some leftover food and filled his canteen.
"Listen to me," he said, raising her chin with his hand.  "Like my father, my name is William von Richthofen, but my parents called me Billy.  I am a Baron in Prussia, and my mother was the only legitimate child of King Richard of England.  If something happens to me, let my grandfather meet our children."
She cleared her eyes since the tears were backfiring.  "My real name is not Princess.  My real name sounds great in my native Iroquois, but translates into Running Turtle."
Billy laughed, then hugged her until she laughed, too.  "Did your parents know that turtles can't run?"
"They said I'm full of contradictions.  And they were right: although I’m a great healer, I’ve been dueling since Mongol super-quads killed my parents when I was ten.  And, like you, I kill some people to save other people.”
"Look, I am not trying to get myself killed.  This is my job, and I am very good at it, which saves the lives of other people who can't do what I do as well.  But I can't promise you I will survive.  Some day I will die, but please don't make my job harder than it already is.  I cannot be with you if you make scenes like this."
Drawing a line in the sand of their relationship, he walked out the door and flew away.
He stopped in a forest to meditate until he minimized his heartbeat.  He ascended as high as possible, acclimated to the thin air, then slowly rose higher and higher, while falling into a meditative trance that allowed him to fire all wands at maximum thrust for many hours.
Billy loved to fly, especially alone so he could clear his mind and just soak in the amazing experience of shooting through the sky.  Flying high, far, and fast relaxed him like nothing else.  It gave him peace.  It made him feel like part of the universe.  And the longer he flew, the more he merged with the cosmos.  No drug, no wand, not even sex beat the experience.  He heard that marathon runners experienced a kind of natural high, but this was so much deeper, more spiritual.  Long distance flying tired everyone out.  Not him.  The longer he flew -- if in his meditative trance -- the better he felt.  The flight would still exhaust his body, but the rest of him felt great.  It was like sleepwalking when you need to get somewhere really far away.  
Best of all, it emptied his head, purified his spirit, and drained his rage.  Plus, like lifting weights, the longer he flew, the more he increased his wand power.  
He had no idea how many hours he flew, but it was daylight again and his body needed to sleep.  He landed at a small town, checked into a hotel, and ate in his room.  He slept until dark, checked his compass, and repeated his flight, going directly north.  At his next stop, he finally made it out of India.  A day after that he passed the Tarkestan Desert and slept in a gully.  Billy reached the Tian Shan Mountain Range the next day and helped the surviving Americans wipe out the Mongolian patrols stationed on the mountaintop.
Next he flew west until he spotted the closest enemy outside of Samarkand.  Because they needed to fly light, large units prefer to camp near cities for easy food and necessities.  Hunting enough deer to feed ten thousand takes too long when they need to fly as far as possible every day.
Billy landed in the ancient city and bought a news wand to learn the latest.  The vanguard broke into five divisions to form an arrow around the tip of the supply train.  Each division would dedicate an entire battalion to long range patrols in order to catch large enemy forces before they pounced.  Each division commander would rotate the battalion flying patrols to share the burden evenly.  The other fifty thousand quads would stick with the thousands of horses, mules, and oxen slowly pulling the bombs, gold, and supplies.  Billy ate, checked into a nice hotel, then slept until nightfall.    
Instead of attacking the quads just outside Samarkand, Billy flew to the division farthest to the north.  He started targeting those least visible to others.  Due to the rolling nature of the terrain, he left the most visible alone, often walking past hundreds of sleeping troops, just to find another dip, gully, crevice, ravine, or sloping wooded hill where other troops fatally chose to sleep.  And so he spent the night, wounding a thousand sleeping soldiers, getting chased, luring them away before starting over again.  By midnight, with much of the division either awake or actively looking for him, Billy landed among the bombers to throw bomb packs at other bombers.  Now he had everyone’s attention, so he rose high above them, flashed his wands, and did his scream to freak them out.  They would spend the next day both searching for him and preparing for an attack.
Billy slept at his hotel in Samarkand the next day, then killed quads in the second division that night.  He got driven away early, so he flew to the town nearest the next battalion and slept all day.  That night he repeated his attack, but this time in the rain, which helped him kill more Mongols.
Now he flew to the unit near Kabul, slept during the day, and started work as soon as the troops fell asleep.  On his fifth night he hit the Mongols camping by Kandahar.  Except he didn't stop at dawn.  With greater visibility, the number of pursuers grew to alarming levels, but Billy kept weaving through the trees until they caught up or boxed him in.  Dozens of squads now patrolled overhead, but he knew he could evade them.  He only hoped his contempt for mediocre quads didn’t get him killed by a lucky shot.
He assumed the divisions stayed in constant contact, which meant they all knew where he was.  By luring the southernmost division south, he brought the rest as well.
Which is why he left India alone.  This was a one man job.  Another person would have only slowed him down and put his life at risk.
Billy lured them towards the Himalayas.  Now all he had to do was let them believe they could actually catch him.  To keep them motivated, he would frequently turn around, pop up and fire down at his fastest targets.  The sight of several thousand quads blotting out the sky in pursuit of a lone flier would probably have horrified Princess, but he was truly having a lot of fun.  He loved to test his tactical instincts.  How else would he improve?
After just a few hours most of the enemy tired out.  Several hours later, even their best gave up.  Billy, who brought jerked mutton and a fresh canteen of water, had already eaten lunch in the air, so now he pummeled the best troops while they were too tired to fly.  They ran, they hid, they flew into trees or behind boulders, but Billy still had plenty to fire at.  Billy then spent a wonderful afternoon shooting fish in a pond, or its Mongolian equivalent.
Just when he thought it couldn't get any better, a large group of fliers in a skirmish line appeared on the horizon. blasting Mongols on the ground or those trying to fly away.  They didn't actually meet until sunset, when Princess broke their line to greet him with a flying kiss.  Side by side they hunted Mongols until it grew too dark to see.
They camped far in the woods and roasted several deer for dinner in a ravine.  Only the first battalion of super-quads arrived yet, but the others would arrive soon.  
"When we saw the sky darken, we couldn't figure out why," Bear told Billy.  "They didn't fly in a normal formation, but they were shooting at someone we couldn’t see, so we figured only you could drive people so crazy.  Instead of helping you, Princess suggested backtracking the enemy to their camp to steal their bombs.  We found several hundred Mongols still there, mostly packing up, tending the wounded, or burying the dead.  After eliminating them, we ate their food, took their bombs, then raced after the main body.  An hour or two later we started finding the enemy in small groups.  These one-side engagements hardly qualified as fights.
"Several hours later we found a larger force with patrols airborne.  We sliced up two patrols, dumped all our bombs on their camp, then blasted the survivors.  Again we ate their food.  After that the groups got smaller, and we found most of them on the ground, which made it easier to shoot them up.
"Spoiled by super-quads, I forgot just how little good most quads are.  No wonder Genghis left them behind.  They are only good attacking in large numbers over short distances.  Most were too tired to even fly over the horizon.  Pathetic!"
"What happens now?" Princess asked.
"The survivors of this division will tell the other divisions.  They cannot continue their journey without first removing the threat of the Red Baron.  This is the value of being a boogeyman.”  They laughed.  “So each division will leave one or two battalions to clear a thousand kilometers of airspace around the logistical train, but the rest will come south to kill me.  These are not marathoners, so those flying patrols will soon exhaust themselves.  
“How about I draw them to the Himalayas while the rest of you kill the battalions they left behind?  Follow their patrols to hit the main units while they sleep.”
The next day, Billy showed himself to the next closest division, so they could tell the others.  He played cat and mouse with them, causing a few hundred casualties, but really he was just killing time and Mongols until his next battalion got here.
Because they flew so high and moved from cloud to cloud like a ninja using shadows, Billy didn’t even see them until they struck the division from above and behind.  His second battalion was more than a match for several thousand tired mediocre quads.  His troops broke into companies to rain down volleys.  Slow units cannot hit fast units, so the battle quickly grew ever more one-sided.  If they had just a few more hours of daylight, Team Red would have destroyed them all.
After sunset they helped themselves to the division’s supplies, eating well and sharing the gold evenly.  The division didn’t have a lot of bombs, but they shared the weight evenly and looked for the next closest enemy camp.  They found them around midnight, coming south just as Billy predicted, and bombed them good.  The super-quads shot them up until they stopped coming out to fight, instead wisely hiding behind trees and rocks.  That left Team Red no choice but to fly far away to get a good night’s sleep.
Now Billy feared the other divisions wouldn’t come because of what happened to the first ones, so the next day he sent this battalion to harass the baggage train while he alone lured the other divisions to the Himalayas.  Soon he had the remains of five divisions afraid of a skinny boy with deadly wands.
Instead of terrifying them, Billy pretended to be wounded so that they would chase him.  Before he tore them down; now he wanted them over-confident as they approached the Indus River.
His other super-quads arrived, but the one led by the Indian cousins were now two: each cousin now led one.  With the collapse of the Mongol Air Force in India, Indian super-quads needed a new leader.  While his other four battalions were actually a little under-strength because of illness, death, and the need to return home, his two Indian battalions were over-manned, so he weeded out the fastest for placement in the other units.  Since he didn’t need any of them yet, he had the old fliers teach the thousand-plus new quads their trick formation flying.
Still acting wounded in plain sight, Billy led them to the Himalayas, where tens of thousands of air bandits searched for the gold that they think he hid.  He had dropped plenty of shiny coins when he flew over this slope on his way out of India, so they had reason to believe in buried treasure.
The next day finally yielded fruit.  Mongol scouts assumed the air bandits were the Baron’s super-quads, so they positioned their units to attack as one the next morning.  
Billy wanted the air bandits to wipe out the Mongols, not the other way around, so he alerted them with the universal shrieking sound of an incoming attack.  That’s when he discovered that only about half of them belonged to organized gangs because the free lancers fled until the outcome was decided.
The Mongols closed the noose.  The criminals, at first seeing only a few battalions, chose to fight them off, only to get hit from both flanks after they engaged.  
The battle raged for all day -- the bandits must have assumed the Mongols wanted to take the buried gold from them.  The Mongols, poor as their quads were, at least could do formation flying, while the criminals usually charged as a mob.
The Mongols finally exterminated the bandits, and must have believed they beat the Baron’s super-quads, judging by how they celebrated that night.  So Billy took his four thousand troops and hit them while they slept.  By dawn they formed a line to catch the survivors trying to return to their main unit.  By nightfall Billy felt confident they got every Mongol willing to continue fighting.

CHAPTER 68

Billy now commanded six battalions of super-quads, fourteen battalions of marathoners, and ten battalions of two-wanders.  They faced fifty under-strength quad battalions and three hundred thousand two-wanders.  Billy looked for doubt in their faces, but his commanders assumed they would triumph like they always did with him.  
At least they didn’t have to confront fifty quad battalions at the same time.  Twenty battalions flew ahead in an arrow formation, while ten protected their rear.  Leaving just twenty flying patrols or babysitting the supply wagons.
Billy hid the high-altitude quads in the Victory Pass.  At 7500 meters in altitude, it was too high for the Mongols to breathe easily.  The rest concealed themselves in a forest an hour away.  Billy watched several patrols fly high over them and waited until one inspected the trees.  Then he sliced that squad up and led the two-wanders to battle.
He expected to be seen, and was surprised just how close they got, given how slow the two-wanders flew.
Lone sentries hiding in clouds sounded the alarm when they were just fifteen minutes out, and others quickly echoed it.  The mountain pass went from east-to-west, and an enemy battalion each occupied the northern and southern rim. 
Billy watched the rapid reaction battalion rise to position themselves to attack his two-wanders and could almost hear their glee in having such a big, fat, easy target.  Although Billy couldn’t see him at this distance, the group general almost certainly popped up to personally assess the threat, and broke up a reserve battalion into one hundred squads to fan out to find other threats.  The general was probably laughing at the sight of a bunch of weighted down two-wanded Indians flying low and slow in broad daylight with no quad cover.  
As the rapid reaction battalion moved above and behind them, three more enemy battalions confronted them head on.  Four coming after him, two on the mountaintop, and two flying patrols, that left just twelve on the ground guarding the wagons.
Excellent!  This attack certainly would not have worked if the enemy had another fifty thousand quads.
During this distraction, his best super-quads slew the sentries and patrols above the battleground and through this hole Team Red flew down at maximum speed to minimize reaction time.  As soon as an alert sentry shrieked a warning, Billy did his primal scream and flashed his fiery wands to fix their attention for another, crucial minute.  
His troops launched their first volley at the four battalion hunting him, although, at four hundred meters away, it would only would hit them like a really hot hurricane wind.  It did, however, smack them down and mess up their formation.  While they struggled to stabilize their flight, the second and third volleys massacred them.   
His Americans flew out of their bunkers to attack the two battalions on the mountaintop while the rest rushed to bomb the quads on the ground eating lunch.  Within the pass, they had no idea what was happening.  As he hoped, Prince and Princess must have blasted the general before he could sound the general alarm.  Soldiers obey commands.  The general didn’t send for them, so they continued eating.  Until too late.
Which is why Billy attacked at lunch time, with the bulk of the logistical train stuck in the pass.
His troops destroyed the enemies in the air and dropped their bombs as soon as they over-flew enemy quads.  Quads flying up were met by volleys from Billy’s companies.  Then his ten thousand two-wanders lined up to do their bombing run, which terrified the rest of the quads to flee.
Except they had nowhere to go.  Hence the efficacy of attacking men in a tall mountain pass.  Team Red blocked the sky, so they could either fly east or west.  
The two-wanders dumped their bombs, then landed on the rim to fire down at anyone flying up, which freed up the Americans to grab more bombs that they stored nearby.  From their vantage, it was hard to miss a few hundred thousand men on or near the ground.
The wisdom of striking in the narrow Torugart Pass became obvious as the enemy smashed into each other trying to escape.  Taking the high ground turned the battle into a rout as bombs fell like hail.  
Billy’s team divided into super-quads pursuing the enemy fleeing east and marathoners attacking those fleeing west.
Billy expected the battalions who already exited the mountains to counter-attack.  All too soon, his sentries sounded their warnings.  Billy led his fliers south over the mountains to get out of sight, only to climb high and circle back.
By anticipating the enemy’s obvious move, Billy was able to attack the enemy’s counter-attack from above and behind.  But by the time they annihilated the first wave of four thousand, the next four thousand showed up above and behind them, with another twelve thousand sprinting towards the fight.
Billy hated being in unfavorable circumstances so he sounded his wands to break off the attack, fleeing south.  He hoped they would pursue him, but instead they dove into the main battle.  Billy rose to position them, waited for the next four thousand to arrive, then shot them up before racing for the unit that tried to attack them from behind.
Billy found them overwhelming some Americans and the Indian two-wanders, which meant they exposed their backs to him.  His super-quads devastated them in the time it took for the next part of the vanguard to arrive.  Billy signaled for Bear to take the super-quads up while he confronted this enemy alone.  He popped up and flashed his four flames and knew the enemy feared him when they slowed.  This gave their commander a minute to analyze the battle situation.  
Billy could almost read his mind.  He didn’t want to fight the Red Baron, even with four thousand buddies but, at the same time, thousands of fellow Mongols needed time to escape.  So the bastard did the right thing and ordered his formation to form a square -- well, technically, four squares that looked like one big square.  Then he led them at a thirty degree angle to fire a huge volley that would cover everything within a kilometer of the Red Baron.
Billy respected it.  The leader made the correct tactical call.  He attacked instead of retreated or even act as just a blocking force.  And he forced Billy to run like hell because not even the Baron could dodge or shield himself from four thousand fireballs.  He therefore rose fast so they couldn’t blast his people off the mountaintop, wondering what was taking Bear so long.
A withering volley exploded behind the four thousand and Billy -- as well as the enemy commander -- realized that Team Red ambushed the last block of four thousand.  And that they were next.  But he couldn’t turn around 180 degrees in time, so he escaped north, with some of his super-quads pursuing.
It took the rest of the day to eliminate the survivors but, by supper, could again ate the enemy's food.  Billy posted plenty of sentries, but didn’t expect any night raids because his faster quads could chase them down.  In the morning, they met at the scenic Lake Chatyr-Kul to discuss their options.  
Grandma landed to let them know that the Mongols at her end abandoned the heavy supplies, including most of the gold, and fled to the relative safety of the ten thousand quads guarding their rear.  She now had ten kilometers of wagons to guard.  None of them liked the idea of being anchored to one spot.  They needed to get rid of it.  Fast.  Without turning themselves into air mules.
Billy ran a proposal by them.  Since no one objected, he sent for the two super-quad Indian cousins who looked like sisters.
“You still have family in northern India?”
“Several thousand or so.”
“Who rules there now?” Billy asked.
“A greedy, vicious Mongol named Bekel.  He has squeezed the land, people, and businesses into dry carcasses.  It shames us since for centuries we were usually the most prosperous kingdom in India.”
Billy scanned the hundreds of quad leaders eager to see the look on their faces.
“It will take decades for the Republic of India to consolidate the entire subcontinent.  
You can make their job easier if you restore the kingdom that Tamerlane took from you because anyone invading India from the west has to pass through your ancestral territory.”
The offer stunned them.
“You will have to deposit the shares due the Indians, but the Americans and the super-quads have agreed to forfeit our cut to fund your new government.  And the half that would go to my general war fund I hereby donate to your treasury on the condition that your leaders sign peace, trade, and mutual defense treaties with China, Persia, and the Republic of India.  Unless you don’t want several hundred tons of gold.”
“Agreed!” they shouted, hugging each other while jumping up and down like teenagers.
“First let’s see if the other Indians here agree as well.  We have two Indian super-quad battalions, the marathoners, and the ten thousand two-wanders.  Organize a meeting right away.  If we reach a consensus, then we’ll have the Indians and super-quads carry as much gold as they can, smash Mongolian air units, then leave one of you there with a few battalions to start a new government, while the rest return to drive that huge wagon train back.” 
This solved their problem simply.  They couldn’t just leave all that gold, yet they sure didn’t want to tie it around their ankles.  Mongols blocked off China, so northern India was the closest place to send it. 
Prince came back with word that the 20,000 or so survivors on their end of the pass headed north, undoubtedly to circle around west to join up with the wagon train they were suppose to protect.  
“Let me guess,” Grandma asked Billy.  “You want me and the Americans to hunt down the Mongols on my end of the mountains while, when you get back, you take the best quads after these 20,000?”
“That’s a great idea, Grandma!  If they continued on to China I would have let them go.  But maybe you should just reduce their numbers until we rejoin you.”  Billy turned to Princess.  “Well, my wife, what do you say?  Wanna go kill Mongols?”
“You can call me your wife when you finally man up and marry me.”
The silence grew incredibly uncomfortable.
“At least you two talk like a married couple,” Bear suggested.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Billy said, looking hard at Princess, “but now I’m really in a killer mood.”
“I’d be in a better mood if you gave me more,” she shot back.
"What? You're not pregnant enough?" he joked, patting her growing bump.  "You don't see Blade here demanding more."
"Well," Blade replied smiling, "not from you."
"Ouch!"  Billy turned to Prince.  "If even Blade can develop a sense of humor, then I hold out hope for you, dear brother."

CHAPTER 69

Despite the Mongol defeat in the southern tip of India, the Mongolians in northern India clearly did not expect 25,000 fighters to appear out of nowhere and decimate every air unit within a thousand kilometer radius.  Billy let the two cousins personally cut down the Mongol governor.  The three of them gave speeches and interviews to let the people know that they were under new management.  Billy repeatedly told the story of how he single-handedly took on General Tamerlane’s entire marathon division and gutted the bastard like a fish while thousands of his bodyguards chased him in freefall.  It was like his words were drinks and they wanted to get ever drunker.
Unfortunately, things always take longer than expected.  While the Indians returned to the wagons, the super-quads had to track down the 20,000 Mongols circling north around the mountain range before they could nail Grandma’s force from the rear.
The Mongols assumed that the Baron’s world famous super-quads would hunt them down, so they flew as long, as far, and as fast as they could.  When a week went by without a scout even spotting a hostile force, they relaxed.  By the second week, they were nearly at the entrance of the pass from the west.
With strong winds, heavy rain, and dark clouds, they posted sentries on the ground rather than patrol the air.  The twenty thousand Mongols spread out over several small hills to make bombardment less effective.  
Billy, however, formed his four thousand remaining super-quads in a skirmish line on the ground.  They walked quickly into the Mongol camp, stabbing and slashing the sleeping quads as they went.  The wind and rain drowned out their shouts and groans, while terrible visibility and rolling hills masked their presence among the trees.  As they progressed, more and more Mongols lived long enough to blast, but the sound did not carry far and Team Red stuck with steel to avoid noisy firefights.
For several minutes, things went so smoothly that Billy hoped that they could cross the entire camp.  But all good things end too soon.
Out of Billy’s sight and hearing, the enemy spotted his troops walking down a hill, killing as they went.  A Mongol woke his teammates by blasting Team Red, and soon a few hundred Mongols were shooting from behind trees, stopping the advance.  Not dumb enough to charge out in the open, Team Red flew up and over these Mongols to use their maneuverability in the air to pick off the easy targets on the ground.  
It was the right tactic.  Unfortunately, aerial duels carried much farther, waking up more Mongols.
Billy’s skirmish line broke down.  Some companies advanced far, while their neighboring company fought duels above the treetops.  As Mongols tried to flank the aerial duelers, they came upon the super-quads on the ground, triggering desperate fights in the dark.  The two sides became mixed up, which cost Team Red some of its advantages.
In contrast, Billy had a great night.  He had plenty of practice, so his team advanced the farthest.  Whenever Mongols peered closely to identify them, Billy sang the latest Mongolian hit song or yelled something reassuring to buy enough time to get within twenty meters.  He heard some firefights, but had no reason to retreat until he reached the peak of a hill and saw the extent of the battlefield.  Some of his companies advanced half a kilometer into the Mongol camp, where they could be attacked from behind.  Hell, Billy realized, his own company could be ambushed from the rear.
Billy gathered his team together, flew behind a thousand or so Mongols pushing back his neighboring team, and shot them in the back.  Billy now flew over the battlefield to signal retreat as the entire Mongol force would soon be upon them.  They had a great victory.  Now all they had to do was break off and enjoy it.
They rallied in dense woodlands across from a stream, behind a large outcropping just a ten minute flight away.  Billy’s company hovered in a line between the rally point and the camp to drive back enemies pursuing too closely.  He noted which team members flew by and which had wounds.  Small Mongol groups either attacked the line or stopped their pursuit.  Billy noticed a fierce fire fight back in the enemy’s camp.  It now dawned on him that he had not seen Princess.  Instead of fading away, the firefight grew in intensity.  Stomach churning, Billy rose in front of his line and signaled them to attack.
Billy knew this was bad.  Superior quads maximized their advantage by keeping a distance because they could fly and fire better.  It is so much easier to avoid a small, slow fireball than a big, fast one.  
“Do my scream when you engage,” he yelled at them.
Knots tied up his stomach as he raced full out towards the fight, not waiting for his company.  A minute later he saw his worst nightmare -- an aerial rumble where numbers mattered more than skill.  A few dozen of his troops battled several hundred enemies.  
Time to distract them.  
His primal scream erupted all on its own, voiced with greater power, rage, and intensity than Billy had ever known.  It was like a parent shouting down a child, if that parent was Thor and he used thunder to scream.  Billy’s throat would remain raw for days, but he accomplished his goal: letting the enemy know that the Red Baron was coming.  
The echo froze the battlefield as hardened warriors paused to absorb the warning.  Few would have been surprised if a giant troll crashed through the trees.  The enemy backed up, seeking the protection of comrades, squinting in the dark to see the new threat through the rain.  They looked more at each other than the few dozen vulnerable enemies virtually at their feet.
Billy rose in an arc to fire at the densest mass of Mongols below him.  He descended like a meteor farting streaks of fire.  All enemy eyes could not help but focus on him.  Billy knew his quads on the ground would use this distraction to break contact.  Since he had so many targets, he continued his controlled fall, firing as fast as he could.  He glimpsed Tiny picking up a limp Prince while Princess held off several Mongols in a blur of sword fighting.  
Having captured their attention, he needed to keep it.  He extended his full forty-four meter wingspan -- he previously tried to hide his recent gains -- and twirled among the Mongols as fast as his body could rotate.  He fired with his boot wands at those below him, which threw him in the air, like a drunk jumping to a dance song.  It looked like he bounced off of invisible walls in the sky, but it worked since it made predicting where he would be the next second nearly impossible.  Every heartbeat he changed his elevation, speed, and trajectory.
The Mongols drew blades since Billy popped around in three-dimensional space too evasively for fireballs.  But instead of trying to swat or slice them with steel, Billy extended fire to obscure the battlefield so his team could disengage.  The rain turned his flames into steam which obscured their view.  The enemy expected a swordfight.  Instead, they learned that swords don’t block lines of fire.  It was like the Baron held a water cannon in each hand, except it blew fire instead of liquid.  In a very crowded quarter-kilometer of cubic space -- not unlike an open-air stadium arena -- Billy used dual twenty-two-meter long flames to burn a dozen enemies a second, and horrify the rest.  
Billy glimpsed a few thousand Mongols from the camp staring at him in confusion, not sure what they were seeing.  If they joined the fight, then not even his one hundred quads could save his troops on the ground.  But first they had to understand what faced them.  It looked like a giant fire serpent dancing in front of a mirror, the way the lines of flame flowed and curled and snapped.  With every heartbeat more steam rose to cloud their night vision.
Although someone had to later point it out to him, what Billy did was not unlike the fire dance that Diva taught him, but delivered with a desperate fury that confounded expectations.
A Mongol above him recorded the “fire” fight and used the sale to fund his early retirement.  Although the Sun was far beyond the horizon, it nevertheless did not look like night time, either.  It was easier to imagine a two-headed fire-breathing dragon with one hell of a cough than one guy taking on several hundred with just flames.  And winning. 
The problem with throwing oneself at so many enemies is that they would strike back even if blind.  Billy felt something whack or cut or rattle him every other heartbeat, and he flew through so many pockets of super-heated air that he, too, felt like he was battling a dragon.  Because of the rain, Billy had no idea that tears of fear for Princess flowed down his face like rivers.  He normally prided himself on his tactical sense, his self-control, and foreseeing the immediate future, but now his fear for Princess turned him into a rage machine hell bent on destruction.  
With all his twirling, he could not keep an eye on her, so he tracked her grunting and groaning as she sliced off limbs, lanced chests, and whacked helmets.  It sounded like she was having great sex.  Without him.  But as long as she continued to let him know she lived, he was free to fight like a fire demon.  She didn’t know it, but just one moment of silence would have undone him.  Him -- the mighty quad who spooked the greatest empire in human history.  He heard her yelp in pain, and would have turned to make sure she was okay, but she screamed in outrage and Billy clearly heard a few Mongols loudly curse her -- and their anger made him love her all the more.  When he next saw his girlfriend, she still hovered above her twin, daring the big bad men around her to come any closer.  Not only did the sight make his heart leap, but it gave him an untimely erection that pressed uncomfortably against his body armor.  In a weird irony, Princess hurt the one part of him the Mongols left uninjured.
After just a minute, smoke, steam, and mist obscured the battle zone.  The Mongols were not defeated so much as blindfolded.  The Baron didn’t even kill many of them.  Instead, he worked his fire dance like a flute player controlling a cobra.
Every second felt like an hour, although it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two before reinforcements arrived.  His team repeated his arc and one hundred super-quads -- each touching a wand to their throats -- screamed like a million stadium fans outraged at a referee for an impossibly bad call.  The sound wave hit Billy like a gust of wind and covered his exposed flesh in goose bumps.  
But Billy at least expected them.  The nearby Mongols could not help but hear them, but couldn’t see them against the dark sky until they fired their first volley.  Coming a few hundred meters up and across, who knew what the Mongols back in camp made of the piercing scream that sounded like a dragon belching?
Later, his friends would praise him for his brilliance, but he couldn’t remember ordering them to scream as one.  Billy agreed it was brilliant, but couldn’t claim credit, despite the stunning video that took off globally.  It became really popular with parents who would project the clip when their kids misbehaved.  Even Mongol veterans could praise the tactic, or at least its originality, over lonely campfires.  What Billy liked was it helped bring the legend he was trying to create alive.
Hovering above the fight, his company blasted the biggest threats to Billy and his troops on the ground.  When their first volley blasted the one hundred most threatening Mongols, Billy switched to blades and flew through the air like he was dancing, his steel cutting or smashing or piercing the poor bastards trying to dodge the fireballs raining down on them.  The dumbstruck Mongols could either avoid him or the fireballs, but not both, unless they fled.  So they began to flee.  Their comrades back in camp, wondering if they should help, now had their answer.  They could not see the one hundred super-quads through the wall of mist, but they saw the fireballs and continued to hear the Baron’s haunting screams of rage.  Unwilling to help, hundreds of them instead recorded what they saw because the folks back home would not otherwise believe it.
Blade woke him up with the flat of her steel and pointed to his quads carrying the wounded away.  He dropped down to see who died.  Diva, pregnant with his second child, had her guts split open and Billy thought he saw his unborn son on the bloody grass.  That baby would have been his first redhead.  The Russian known as Crotch, because he touched himself enough to qualify as monosexual, had several fatal wounds.  That elderly Swiss lady who kissed his feet literally lost her head.  Zulu, a fierce African great-grandson of American Jack, bled too much to fly.  He kicked Dreamy, who certainly looked dead from a nasty head wound, who shocked him by yelling, "I'm awake, I'm awake."  Billy didn't know how many they lost in the entire battle, but he could see a dozen dead friends just in this firefight.  With the enemy bewildered, they carried back their dead and wounded.  
Although the Mongols didn’t press their momentary advantage, Billy’s victory no longer felt victorious.

CHAPTER 70

They treated their wounded and buried their dead at the rally point.  Billy found Princess moving from wounded to wounded, and kept away to not distract her.  He found Prince, now conscious, his lower face burned.  It must have hurt like hell.  Billy scooped water from the stream and heated it for pain-relieving tea.
"I turned and the damn blast hit me in the face," Prince explained.
"That’s how I got so handsome," Billy whispered, his throat sore.  "Now you look more like me than your sister.  Congratulations, you poor bastard."
“That crazy stunt you pulled saved twenty lives,” Blade remarked, almost angrily.
“I hurt all over.  Are you sure I survived?”
"Just as you will not let them do to me what they did to your mother, so, too, I will not let my children lose their father like I lost mine," she said without taking her eyes off her patient.	
"I want that in writing."
Startled, she looked up now and smiled.  Sweaty, filthy, and stinky, she looked great.  Princess once showed him images of Blade a decade ago and he was almost dumb enough to tell his fiancée that Blade was the best looking blond he had ever seen.  He could hardly blame Princess for sleeping with her.  If Blade and Princess could somehow reproduce, their kids would probably grow up looking like Greek gods.
Pushing away the pain, Prince looked up at Billy like he didn’t recognize him.  “You really do love my sister.”
“You sound surprised.”
“You don’t know how much you care for someone until given the opportunity to kill or die for them.  You should not have survived, throwing yourself among several hundred angry enemies, so you must love her so much that you cannot live without her.”
Prince may as well have thrown pee in his face, the way Billy reacted.  He kept blinking as if his eyes didn’t work.  That’s when Billy knew he was screwed.  He knew he loved Princess, but he never pondered the depth of that love.  He apparently didn’t follow his father’s advice by falling in love with someone wonderful like his dad did.  Now he’s screwed because her safety will warp his tactical judgment, and if he ever lost her, he would become a shell of a man like his father after his mother’s death.  Which he expected to happen.  Hell, it almost happened tonight.  Billy was surprised he survived for so long.  He vividly remembered his father the two years he spent without the love of his life -- that’s what I’m gonna look like soon, he suddenly realized.  Unless he died before her.  He didn’t know which would be worse.
“Well, that’s why I plan to marry her.”
“If you wanted to marry her, you would have done it by now.  But at least I know your real feelings for her.  You may never actually take her to the alter, but if you do, you have my blessing.”
“I want that in writing, too.”  Billy needed to know something.  “The day we met, did you fight me because you didn’t like me or because you didn’t want anyone with your sister?”
Prince smiled through the pain at the memory.  “For years I threatened everyone who wanted my sister, so I couldn’t give you a free pass.  I also couldn’t challenge a better dueler, so I had to punch you or else everyone would know how much you scared me.”
“I scared you?” Billy asked, shocked.
“My sister’s bodyguards recorded every duel that day.  Just watching exhausted me.  I’ve dueled since I was ten, yet you clearly fought far more than me, although I knew you were much younger.  And don’t get me started on the scars.  You must be a damn sadist to duel so much.”
Just really addicted, Billy thought to himself.  “Bodyguards?”
“You have no idea how many big brothers she seems to have.  Everyone loves her, while nobody likes me.”
“That’s not true.  Blade here likes you.”
Blade smacked his head which seemed to ring like a bell.  He looked over and saw Princess, on her knees in the mud, concentrating on the wounded with the intensity of someone fighting for someone’s life.  She poured her energy into Zulu, an obnoxious man she didn’t even like, and thought nothing of how much this would drain her while thousands of enemies were just a few clicks away.
The guys claimed she was the world’s best female dueler, but he never paid it much attention until now.  If she had not dueled for the last decade against Mongol super-quads, she would not have survived that last fight.  In fact, it seemed surprising  that she survived.  She and a few dozen teammates held off several hundred enemies.  Billy knew he loved her, but he never dreamed he would respect her so much.  He always knew his wife was amazing; he just now realized she was also awesome.
“Your sister is a damn hero,” Billy concluded, surprised at his surprise.
That startled Blade, who also now looked at him like she no longer recognized him.  Which, considering neither had ever seen his face, seemed odd.
“You need another helmet,” Blade told him.  “The one on your head died, saving your life.  You would have died with a conventional helmet.”
He took the burnt metal off and nearly fainted.  Something sharp cut deep into the top.  Well, that explained the headache.  He fingered his scalp and felt blood flow down his face.  He closed his eye just in time.  Uncle George’s suits saved him again.  Billy couldn’t even remember the blow. 
“I’m leaking.”
“Take mine,” Prince said, handing him a good helmet.  “That’s the least I could do for you saving my life.”  Prince looked ready to cry.  "Princess wouldn't leave me, and our cousin Tiny wouldn't leave her.  Even after they got Diva, Zulu, Crotch, and Geneva.  That arrogant bitch Mali almost died protecting me.  They hovered above while I screamed in pain.  I never imagined they would die for me.  The Mongols saw victory and charged.  Then they heard you scream and the psychology of the fight turned upside down.  Even through my tears I could see the naked fear in their eyes.”
"Unfortunately, we could not save some others," Billy pointed out, "but Zulu may actually survive."
"Without those super-suits, we would have all died.  I will make their families rich.  I will tell their children that their parents were heroes.  And I will one day make the same sacrifice.  Princess and I are from a city called Philadelphia.  It means love for one's brothers in arms."
"I gave him a lot to drink," Blade explained, as Prince rambled on.
Drenched to the bone, Billy walked through the mud and waited until Princess finished applying a bandage before stepping into view.  She looked up despite the rain, face dirty, hands bloody, and her hair messed up by her helmet.
“I never imagined the world’s most beautiful woman could become better looking, yet tonight you somehow did it.  I want you to know that I am in awe of you, and I plan on marrying you as soon as I can.”
His father once told him that the problem with husbands is not that they don’t say “I love you” enough to their wives, but that they don’t say “I love you” in enough ways.  From beautiful flowers to a sudden compliment to an unexpected night out on the town, men need to learn to say “I love you” with more than three words. 
Like any good surprise attack, he promptly disappeared to maximize the shock value, so he didn’t see her burst into tears.  He walked off, not sure his boots touched the grass.  He tried to think of something witty to say to Prince, but he suddenly felt dizzy and collapsed, his eyes swimming.  He spit out some dirt and realized his leg hurt like hell.  He found his lower-leg plate bashed in.  He took it off and nearly peed when he saw the size of the bruise.  
“I have more bruise than leg.”  
Blade explored the leg, ignoring -- or perhaps maximizing -- his pain, before concluding his leg was not broken.  But then she found additional cuts, bruises, and burns.  The more he undressed, the more wounds she found, until he was almost naked and feeling anything but heroic.  The fearsome Red Baron could barely stand.  By the time Blade finished bandaging Billy, the scrawny kid looked like a mummy looking for his daddy in the rain.  While the bandages stopped the bleeding, they also soaked up the rain, making him squeak with every movement like a rusty wagon on a bumpy road. 
“You belong in a hospital,” Prince insisted.
“I belong in a museum,” Billy countered.  “If I die, bury me in a pyramid in Egypt because I’d rather nobody see me like this.  Bear will start calling me the Red Mummy.”
“Go away,” Blade begged him with a smile, “before you turn me gay-er.”
Billy called his leaders together and proposed hitting the bastards again while they attended their wounded.  The terrible weather would conceal their approach.  Armor would ruin the bandages, so he stood before them dressed in gauze, boots, and Prince’s battle helmet, looking as silly as he felt.
“Go ahead and laugh,” he told them.  “I just wanted to prove I could become paler because we don’t have enough albinos.  Come on, Bear.  Wrap me up.  Bandage my pride.  Show me your best cracks.”
Instead, they stared at him silently with glassy-eyes, looking like lost puppies.  Even Bear wasn’t coming up with any quips, and those were his specialty.
“Why are you all looking at me funny?  Is it my helmet?” Billy joked.
“Us?” Bear asked.  “Did you notice how the Mongols looked at you?  You’d think the Baron was one hundred meters tall.”
“What are you talking about?” Billy demanded, exasperated.
“We just saw the video of what you did back there to save our wounded, and we’re all kind of awed by it.  We’ve never seen anything like it.  I can’t think of anything the Great Khan has done that’s a tenth as amazing as what you just did.  A few thousand Mongols were ready to pounce, but you somehow paralyzed them by impersonating a giant fire serpent.  I thought I’d gotten used to you routinely doing the impossible, but then you pull this out of your helmet.  And what’s most unbelievable is that you don’t see it.  You should be puffed up like a whale, or strutting like a peacock.”  Bear paused to get at least one quip in.  “Maybe it’s your new battle uniform that keeps you humble.”
Billy tilted his head as if he didn’t understand Bear’s flawless Mongolian.  Then he studied everyone else, who nodded their heads in agreement without losing their puppy-dog faces.  He recognized it as hero-worship, but because he was still in awe of his father, he didn’t know how to accept it from others.
Billy didn’t hide his impatience.  “I’m gonna go kill me some Mongols.”
They descended upon the Mongols like divine fury.  They approached from the opposite side, but in a tighter skirmish line flying over the trees instead of walking to cross the camp faster.  
They caught the Mongols as they either packed in the rain to leave or treated their wounded.  The unexpected attack had shock value as they pierced the camp like a knife through flesh.  They moved fast to avoid becoming fat targets, while cutting and slashing to wound as many as possible, knowing those wounds would soon become fatal.  Like phantoms, they disappeared as quickly as they appeared.
At their rally point, Billy called another leadership meeting.  “We can’t sleep in the rain anyway, without tents, so let’s hit them from above when they fly away.”
Everyone liked that idea.  They even knew where the enemy would head to, so the super-quads rode a circle 8 pattern above the rain clouds until a long shadow rose below them.  Lousy visibility worked both ways and the enemy didn’t see them until Team Red was cutting them up with long blades.  The bastards didn’t even try to fight back as a group -- they couldn’t see or hear the commander anyways -- so they broke formation and scattered like rats.
Every warrior loves a cheap kill.  They wounded several thousand without suffering any casualties.  With better visibility, they would have gotten even more.
The rain stopped as the sun rose and Billy called another leadership meeting, his bandages still dripping.  “We must have wounded several thousand serious enough so they could not flee with the main force.  Let’s find them.”
They scoured the area until they discovered the wounded.  They surrounded them from all sides and blasted until none survived.  Then they swept the area more thoroughly and found a few thousand injured Mongols hiding individually or with one or two buddies.
After eating breakfast from the enemies supplies, they slept nearly nude to dry out and minimize illness.  A cold was nothing to sneeze at.  Billy patrolled above them since he was incapable of sleeping.
That afternoon they caught up to the main force.  Billy waited until they landed for dinner since mediocre quads could only fly a few hours at a time.  The enemy hid in a forest and did not even put up patrols because that would give away their location.
Team Red weaved through the trees.  Sentries sounded the alarm, but they were quickly overrun.  Fleeing in fear without sleep exhausted the Mongols.  Their slow reactions proved fatal.
Steel works better than blasts in the woods because it's easier to dodge a blast than a sword.  The trick was to advance as far as possible before organized resistance pushed back.  Which it inevitably will.  Then both parties trade shots behind trees, and no one dies.  This stalemate negates the greater abilities of the better quad, and gives the advantage to the Mongols who had more shooters.  
But what it also did was expose the enemy’s back to Billy’s main force who attacked them from behind.  The Mongols now found themselves between a rock and a boulder.  With nowhere else to go, the Mongols flew up -- exposing themselves to the super-quads hovering above.
The battle soon ended with few casualties for the good guys.  Four thousand quads destroyed a force five times bigger in less than a day.
As it happened, Genghis Khan learned of the destruction of his follow-on force along with the rest of his troops.  Chinese fliers dropped wands over his camp that showed the Baron, grinning like a wolf, narrate how his tiny force beat a huge armada.  The surviving Mongol super-quads got to watch their leader absorb the shocking loss as the video displayed hundreds of thousands of Mongol corpses in the Pass.  His super-quad unit had punched through Chinese defenses and were halfway to Hong Kong when his punitive force got the news.  That stopped their advance.  A huge bombing raid that night started their retreat.  By morning, the Khan had effectively abandoned southern China.
Some historians argued that this effectively ended the world war.

CHAPTER 71

Grandma looked relieved to see him.  Her four thousand surviving Americans were not enough to take the enemy.  But, for some reason, she assumed their combined force of eight thousand would somehow manage it.  Or maybe everyone assumed that Billy could do anything.
“The Khan put his treasury in big steel boxes too heavy to fly off with, but the survivors broke one open and took all that they could carry.  Plus a lot of bombs.  So the good news is that the enemy is weighted down.  The bad news is they have twelve thousand quads and almost one hundred thousand two-wanders.  Since we had to guard the wagons, we lost them far to the west.  We don’t know where they are now, but we do know that they are not within a thousand kilometers of us.”  
Billy could have let them go.  But he didn’t.
“Then let’s fly a thousand kilometers southwest tomorrow morning, then start a systematic search for them.”
Except the first day of their search yielded nothing, and Prince did not return.  Nor the next day, which really bothered them.  Finally, Prince flew in after midnight and woke Billy up.
"I wondered if you got tired of all the gold, women, and Mongol-killing," Billy said in greeting while handing the dehydrated quad a leather bag of cold water.  "Thought maybe you took up fishing."
"I did," Prince said.  "And I caught a whale.  I found them near Herat."
Billy blinked like someone slapped him.  
"Herat?  But that's way the hell to the south.  Our last report had them far to the west, so... oh right!"
"They're going to intercept the gold on the wagon train as they return to India," Prince finished his thought.
"They chose to avoid us super-quads and instead snatch tons of gold?  But of course they would do that.  Why would they do anything else?  Now why didn't I think of that?"  He eyed his brother-in-law.  "But you did, didn't you?  Otherwise, why fly so far to the south?"
"It was a hunch," Prince agreed.  "I actually caught one of their outer patrols and followed them back to the main force.  The bad news is that Mongols fleeing northern India have doubled their quad force.”
"This is why I surround myself with those smarter than me," Billy said.  "You just saved twenty thousand lives."
"Don't bother flattering me.  I can't give you kids."
"Grandma is gonna flip.  She didn't think of it, either.  Now go wake up your sister so she knows you’re okay, but don't tell her she snores.  It only happens when she's pregnant or when I’m really sleepy.”
Prince looked enormously pleased.
Billy positioned Team Red between the enemy and the wagons.  Their scouts must have spotted his force, however, so they ended up fighting in the clouds.  
Billy found it strange that one enemy force made itself so visible when there had so much cloud cover to hide in, so he looked around and saw movements within clouds on either side of him suggesting two other large enemy units.  The enemy obviously wanted to use their superior numbers to negate Team Red’s superior ability by engaging them from three sides.
The problem with flying really high is suddenly flying much higher -- just one heavy breath could leave a quad gasping.  But Team Red was used to high altitudes, while the enemy probably was not.
So Billy signaled "line formation" while slowing down and climbing higher.  The companies behind his quickly lined up on either side of him just in time to fire as the line of Mongols rose, four hundred meters away.  
Each Team Red company flew in a 10 X 10 box-shaped formation.  Slowly rising at a thirty degree angle exposed the enemy to the entire company.  All one hundred could now fire instead of just the ten in the front line.  Or, rather, all eight thousand quads.  
The Mongols naturally sought to close as fast as possible and encircle him, so Billy signaled for everyone to reverse course and rise backwards at a thirty degree angle.  Given the power of their wands, they could fly backwards while firing down almost as fast as the enemy quads could rise using all four wands.  Billy's textbook aerial broadside devastated the Mongols.  And the higher they rose, the worst the devastation, because Billy's troopers were already acclimated to very thin air, while the Mongols were not.  Like rising from deep underwater, the faster they rose, the more it hurt.  Plus, Billy trained his troopers to keep their breathing very slow during battle, while fear, anger, and despair left the enemy gasping for oxygen.  It is so much easier to relax when winning.
The Mongols had three times as many quads, but their front broke under the withering fire before they could get within blasting range.  The few survivors dived steeply while they could.
Billy then turned into the Mongols on his left flank who had the strong wind at their back, and therefore would close faster.  His formations rotated so everyone had a clear shot, and the turn evened out the distance between the two lines.  Still, the Mongols were closer, higher, and approached faster.  Billy was unable to have his people fly at a backwards angle for fear of the third Mongol force rising behind him.
So he flashed all four wands to unnerve the enemy and climbed higher to buy his team more time.  Their wands, thrice as powerful as the enemy, also had the benefit of higher altitude, but the disadvantage of firing into the wind.  They completed their turn just in time to face the Mongols as they closed to three hundred meters.  
Only the Mongols in the front line of their formations had the option of firing -- although many needed to use their hand wands to maximize speed or dodge shots.  Billy's fliers could therefore unleash several times the volume while firing from beyond the enemy's range, and were better positioned to dodge blasts without bumping into their neighbors.  Relatively few Mongols closed within blade distance, but the super-quads enjoyed a big advantage there, too.
Having destroyed the Mongols hoping to out-flank them, Billy led his team forward to put distance between the Mongols behind them.  Billy turned his fliers to face the remaining Mongols, while leading them gradually higher, suspecting this would leave the Mongols literally breathless.  The Mongols sure had a lot of balls because they continued to attack rather than do the smart thing and run like hell.  With the wind behind them, Billy's super-quads had no problem shooting them up without suffering any casualties in return.
Later, nobody could believe it: a perfect score.  This battle would soon became popular at video libraries across the world.
And so the Red Baron's legend grew.

CHAPTER 72

Team Red took the remaining munitions carried by the wagon train and used them on the huge number of two-wanders waiting to bomb the Indians.
Some of their bombs dropped on enemy bombs and the fireworks blinded the eye and deafened the ear.  The shrapnel not only shredded bodies into tiny pieces, but sent gold coins everywhere.  The eight thousand now had to chase down the two-wanders who could not possibly dogfight them.  Good thing they had great endurance, because that’s how they spent the next week, while the Indian two-wanders searched the enemy camp for coins in the mud and bushes.
This campaign over, Billy called another leadership meeting.  “We should escort the wagons to Delhi so nobody steals them.  But what should we do then?  
“We cannot field a larger force because our quads have become too rich to continue risking their lives when the Mongols no longer pose a threat to their neighbors.  
“Tonight, I want everyone to think about how we can defeat the Mongol Empire and tomorrow we’ll discuss our options.  But you should all know that I could use a break.  I have a woman to marry and babies to kiss.”
“You already know what to do,” Bear insisted.  “I can see it in your devious eyes.  Why not just tell us now?”
“Because I want to see if anyone else can come up with a better idea, because mine is pretty crazy.”
Red’s proposal spoiled their celebration.  They just beat four hundred thousand Mongols, but they didn’t feel like they did.  They reduced the Mongol Empire to just Mongolia and northern China.  In just a few years they re-wrote the world map.  Now what?
The following morning they voiced their opinions.  Billy laid out the consensus:
“It seems we agree that the best duelers should continue dominating Mongolian arenas to get rid of their best quads.  Some of you want to form specialized hit squads and go after their super-quads, Imperial Guards, and government officials.  Others want to help the Indians or Africans crack the Mongolian resistance.  I agree that we should field more marathoners in Siberia to raid Mongolia and bleed their treasury.  And most of you would like to return home to see your families and spend your new wealth.  I approve of it all.
“But I haven’t heard a way to defeat the Mongol Empire, so I guess we’ll try my idea.
“Most quads are tired of fighting.  They want to rest, enjoy their families, and spend their treasure.  So we must give them time to do all those things.  Late at night, when their lack of fresh wand juice gives them the shakes, they will contrast the wild times they had with us with their boring, peaceful routine.  But they will need a compelling reason to leave their families to risk their lives again.
“So we need a powerful catalyst to bring them to one place at the same time.  They don’t need money or fame or better wands, and the Mongols will no longer look like a lethal threat to their lives, families, and kingdoms.  So how do we motivate them to fly across the world and finally finish off the Empire?”
Billy studied their faces and could tell no one had any idea how to end this war.  His father did.  Dad explained how in Peking when Billy was just eight years old.
“Genghis Khan has hosted the Olympics every four years for three centuries.  We have two and a half years before the next one.  I plan on giving speeches asking for every anti-Mongolian quad in the world who can reliably fly a thousand kilometers to meet me in Anchorage, Alaska, a few months before the Olympics start.  I want all of you to bring every marathoner you possibly can.  Form squads, companies, and even battalions.  I’ll be happy to defray the cost.  Train every marathoner you trust.  The best will receive free world-class body armor.
“Every quad who hates Genghis Khan would do anything for a chance to help kill the bastard who started a world war that cost the lives of one hundred million people.  That is the only catalyst that would motivate rich quads to risk their lives in the heart of the Mongol Empire.  The chance to witness history will draw them to me like a moth to a flame.  For the next two years, every quad in the world will talk about our fight.  The betting alone will be enormous.
“Grandma, I need you to train and organize them.  Work them through all the usual formation flying exercises as if their lives depend on it and we will have the largest super-mobile force in quad history.”
Oh, he had them now.  He could feel their excitement.
“Why wait for the Olympics?” Blade asked.
“Because the Khan cannot invade anyone before hosting the Olympics, and he will need every pro-Mongolian quad he can buy to maintain security during the games.  Not every Mongolian quad is our enemy -- just those willing to use lethal force to protect the Empire.  I will warn Mongols who don’t want to be our enemy to live somewhere far away.  This is how we will separate those we must kill from those we don’t.  And it gives me time to make more armor.”
The idea astounded them.  “Every anti-Mongolian marathoner in the world will sign up!” Bear predicted.  “You could easily have a few hundred thousand long-distance quads.”
“And millions will flock from around the world to see you duel him!” Princess added.  “Foreigners will swamp Peking.”
“American University will continue training marathoners, near-marathoners, and half-marathoners.  With this epic duel to help recruitment, the university could train a few hundred thousand more quads in time.  We could have half a million Americans attacking Mongolia.
“Plus, I hope to bribe our Asian friends to help China retake the territory they lost to the Mongols.  The great Gobi Desert will then separate Mongolia from China.”
“You’re raising this huge force just to kill Genghis Khan?” Prince asked.
"No, brother.  Everyone in Greater Mongolia, Manchuria, and Siberia will be fair game to be shot on sight.”
A lot of heads nodded approvingly at this edict.  
“I can’t go over two years without killing Mongols,” Bear complained.  “Ever since they wiped out my young kids, I feel guilty unless I am avenging them.”
Billy studied their faces and recognized the look.  “Meet me in Anchorage in mid- spring and I’ll give you a ride you will never forget.  Bring as many angry marathoners as you can, but only marathoners.”
That night he took Princess and Prince aside so no one else could hear them.  He could tell the prospect of a long break thrilled her.  
"When is our third baby due?" he asked.
"February.  I sure hope we have a boy this time.”
"Then we should get married on March 11 at Westminster Abbey in England on my 18th birthday.  I’d like my grandfather, King Richard, to attend.”  The twins looked at him completely bewildered.  “Oh, yeah, I never mentioned this, but my father added two years to my Mongolian birth certificate, which is why we had to wait so long to get married."
Expecting a fierce hug, Princess instead slapped him so hard in the face that she left a hand print.  Prince laughed so hard he fell on the ground.
"You bastard!  That's why you wouldn't marry me?  Because you weren't old enough?  Why didn't you tell me?  I thought you didn't want to marry me!"  
Which explained the bitchiness that Billy had blamed on the pregnancy.  Now she cried again, forcing him to hold the girl who just whacked him.  
Relationships are not fair.  
“Brother,” he said to Prince, “I want you to come with us so you can breed with England’s and Ireland’s best quads.  I’ll even finance the child support.”
Hell, his half of what his Chinese merchant fleet delivered to England easily made him richer than Crassus.  Even Jack couldn’t figure out how to spend it all.
Prince smiled.  “I finally can get even with the guy doing my sister?  You have yourself a deal, whatever-your-name is.”
“Billy,” he said, finally taking off his mask and hoping his facial scars made him look older than his years.  “My parents called me Billy.”

CHAPTER 73

Billy and Princess spent the next few months on a pre-wedding honeymoon where he reproduced with the best quads in the world.  Everywhere he went hysterical crowds filled the streets to catch a glimpse of the infamous Red Baron in his distinctive bloody red suit.  Billy gave interviews, speeches, and advised government leaders.  
He used his vast wealth to give away world history textbooks that put the Mongol Empire in an unflattering context.  He bought the most productive farmland and grazing land to reduce global hunger, started dozens of shipyards, founded a multitude of universities, and spent huge amounts on roads, bridges, and ports.
They didn’t arrive in England until a month after the English and Irish mothers gave birth.  The wedding would give Billy a great opportunity to re-introduce himself to the English after slaughtering his great-uncle's family several years before.  Since he had been dying his hair black as the Red Baron, he could now return to his natural blond. 
Billy, Prince, and Princess landed before the Matriarch’s front gate.  Billy welcomed the dogs who barked so ferociously and yelled "Emily" when he saw his cousin, three times removed, run out.
"Billy!" she screamed, ecstatic to see him again.  She recently delivered their sixth baby and was eager to start another.  Billy held out his arms and she leaped into them, kissing him on the mouth with the passion of a newlywed.  To his credit, he immediately turned his head and tried to pry her off him.  She backed off confused, saw the pained expression on his face, then noticed the pregnant woman next to him.  She assumed the lady was with the guy who looked so much like her.  She looked ready to burst any day now.
"The fiancée I told you about..." Billy began before Emily screamed in horror at her blunder, stared a moment at the bulging tummy, then ran red-faced into the house.
Billy’s kids with Emily now ran out, shouting “daddy!”  The five, four, and three year olds tackled him with such enthusiasm it made him cry.  The two year old led the one year old by the hand, who looked up at him like he was a giant.  He would have visited more often, were they not so far away, but he anticipated how awkward the two ladies meeting would be.
“She’s in love with you,” Princess concluded with a deep sigh.  
Women are encouraged to marry up, so even the most powerful of women wanted an even more powerful husband.  Princess couldn’t throw the first stone because she waited years to do the same thing.
“But I am in love with you,” Billy argued weakly, knowing it didn’t help, before deciding to change the conversation.  He whispered something to William, his oldest kid, who looked up at the twins and smiled.  Something about that smile unsettled Prince.
“How can your firstborn look just like you, yet also mature?” Prince asked.
“I want to show you guys something.”
Billy led them towards the woods, searching for something close to the ground, the twins a few steps behind him, looking over his shoulder.  Then an enormously loud primal scream exploded behind them, several times larger than a normal human voice.  Both Prince and Princess dived to the ground while drawing their wands.  If they had their wands already in their hands, they may have blasted William.
Billy fell on the grass laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe.  He balled up like an infant, completely helpless as Prince kicked him, tears flowing like rivers.  His son hovered before them, doing his own version of the four-flaming-wand dance that Diva helped Billy develop.  Except the boy was a much better dancer, doing graceful somersaults with the agility of a veteran.
“Now he completely looks like you,” Prince concluded, not without satisfaction.
“You bastard!” his fiancé screamed at Billy, trembling and trying hard not to laugh. 
“I’m so sorry,” Billy lied, knowing they knew he wasn’t sorry.  “I’ve been planning this ever since Emily did the same thing to me.  Oh, he scared me so bad I nearly peed myself.  My legs shook so much I couldn’t even stand!  I had no idea how terrifying it is for someone to scream so loud at one’s back. Every warrior hates feeling vulnerable -- I just never felt it so keenly before.”
After nearly crapping himself, Prince stared up at the boy with both envy and admiration.  “That was awesome!”
Indeed, Princess now smiled up at him, seeing him in a new and completely unexpected light.  She held out her arms and the damn kid dropped into her embrace with a laugh that only kids can do.  He hugged her so fiercely that she found herself kissing him as if he were her own.  
“I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful,” the boy said, looking deeply into her eyes, his adorable face radiating innocence.  Princess burst into tears and opened her heart, loving the oldest son of her fiancé despite all the complications that this would bring.
“This is William,” the father introduced them.  “Not Will or Willy or Billy, but William, after my father.”
Their own first son they would name Wilhelm, his father’s birth name in German.
“You gave him Millennial Wands?” Prince suddenly demanded, examining the kid’s sticks.  “You had another set of Millennial Wands?”
“I took them from Empress Borte.  Show them, William.”
The five year old flew up then shot out flame eight meters on either side of him.  Even Prince applauded.  A decade from now, when he reached his full potential, he would be truly impressive.
“William, you are incredible,” Princess told the boy.  “I need to bring my daughter Elizabeth here to meet you.  She’s a prodigy, too.”
“Is it true that you are the most powerful woman in the world?”
This kid was as good at flattery as flying.  Princess laughed, knowing what he was doing, but unable to defend herself against it.  As more adults from the house gathered around, she motioned them back then, with a deep breath, extended flame fifteen meters.  All that fighting and flying paid off.
The crowd mobbed her, all talking at once.  The woman who had to be the Matriarch -- she just gave off that kind of authority -- picked her up like she won a championship.  The English started singing a song as they put her on their shoulders and carried her to the house like a Roman senator.
Maybe this won’t be so awkward, after all, Billy privately wondered.
The Matriarch met the guys outside the front door.  “Is this the Indian you keep telling us about?”
“Show her, brother,” Billy urged him.
So Prince extended flame seventeen meters while Susan recorded it.  Dueling so many Mongolian super-quads the past decade really paid off.
“Does he understand the rules?” Susan asked Billy.
Prince looked alarmed.  Billy put a friendly hand on his shoulder.  “Every time I visit, Susan makes me ‘donate’ five times a day.  I strip, put on a blindfold, then women who wish to have my children have their way with me.  Few speak and I never know their identities.  It’s more like a medical exam than sex.  Susan prefers this because it reduces jealousy, gossip, and back-stabbing.”
Billy didn’t want to mention it, but Princess brought a few dozen ladies with them, half for him and half for her brother.  She even slept with quite a few of them herself.  She kept a list of the best candidates and rotated the ladies out when they became pregnant.  She would continue this for the next two years.  
“Susan keeps track of the results.  Since her son runs Global Bank, she arranges for any children to receive a kilo a year for eighteen years.  It’s basically what they did to us in China, India, Russia, and Prussia, but with barely edible food.  I’ve done all that I can, but obviously I cannot reproduce with those closely related to me.  That’s where you come in.”
“I can’t wait to start,” Prince said.
“Is he always this easy?” Susan asked Billy.
“He has improved over time.”
“If you’re ready,” she said, taking Prince away, “I’ll show you where you can bathe.  You will be very busy for as long as you stay here.”
Against everyone’s expectations, Prince would fall so hard in love with one of Billy’s cousins that he would marry her when Billy wed Princess.  A duel wedding for the twins was the perfect way to close the circle since they met Billy three years before.
Billy entered and found Princess and Emily whispering suspiciously in the corner.  He felt naked every time they looked at him.  He never expected them to get along, much less conspire against him.  His fiancée waved him over, and he dragged his feet the entire trip.  It reminded him when he was just a kid and his father made his fly as slow as possible.
“We have agreed to raise our children as siblings,” Princess told him.  “The long distance flying will be good training for them.  Socializing them as much as possible will help them bond since a threat to one will be a threat to all.”
“I appreciate you informing me,” Billy said carefully.
“Since we will honeymoon first in the Americas, you should impregnate her before we go.”
Billy sometimes wished his fiancée was more possessive.  “Yeah, impregnating her right before our wedding is much better than on our honeymoon,” he said dryly.
“Great!  Then you can join us.”
Billy meekly followed them to Emily’s room, as they chatted happily, hand in hand, his expectations clearly way off.  He feared they would be enemies, but never imagined he should fear them becoming lovers.
As a child, he acted like an adult.  Now, finally a grown man, he felt like a kid, surrounded by demanding women planning his wedding.  They chose his clothes, decided what he would eat, where he would sleep, with whom, and scheduled his day.  No wonder he spent the last decade at war. 
Once, over dinner, the Matriarch ruined supper.  “Billy, I’m sorry about the loss of your babies.  Ouch!  Did you just kick me?”
Princess glared at her.  Nobody could believe a guest kicked the Matriarch in her own home.
 “Exactly what babies are you sorry about, Susan?” he asked.  She sat there looking stupid, so Billy turned to his bride-to-be.  “What babies have I lost?”
She looked anguished.  Susan left for the kitchen -- a sound tactical retreat -- leaving Princess to defend the silence.
“The Khan is paying a ton of gold for the heads of your children.  He has gotten eight so far, that I have confirmed, although the Mongolian State News Agency has put the figure at twenty-four.”
“He’s killing my babies?”  Billy couldn’t believe it.  “Even after I saved his newborn from the Koreans?”
"American Jack had sources within the Empire who told him of a new team dedicated to killing your families.  Prince led the unit that destroyed the first team, but we assume there are others, drawn from the Imperial Guards, who want revenge for you putting a price on their families."
Billy had almost forgotten about that, even though he recently made the rewards more generous.  "But they raped my mother!  And it was my father who started that."
"The only way to stop it is to kill the Khan.  But, for reasons I don’t understand, you’re waiting for the Olympics.”
“I told you!  I want all the Mongols willing to defend the Empire to return home, so we know which ones to kill.  Those not willing to fight have time to move far away.  Plus, we need time to build ships and armor, and recruit as many marathoners as possible for the final confrontation.”
“Then expect to lose more babies,” Princess said harshly, losing her appetite and leaving the supper table.

CHAPTER 74	

More marathoners graduated from American University, but some of the veterans wanted to take this summer off.  His five thousand super-quads, however, brought several thousand friends, so Billy found himself in Anchorage with just over fifty thousand marathoners. 
“Now can you tell us what you have planned?” Blade demanded because Billy wouldn’t tell them anything until they organized into squads, companies, and battalions, then rehearsed formation flying.  “We’ve been here a month.”
He needed their consent, so he gave it to them straight: “We’ve been here a month to give Genghis time to send whatever units he has in the area to stop us from entering Siberia.  I want his sentries to see us fly past his blocking force for reasons I’ll explain next year.  I assume two or three hundred thousand Mongols are now pissing themselves at the thought of going up against their boogeyman.  Their job is to stop us, so we’re gonna let them chase us until they’re exhausted.  After we wipe them out, we’re gonna sack the biggest cities in Greater Mongolia.   The Khan will personally lead a larger unit after us, but we will just outrun him to show everyone how impotent the Great Khan is.  Maybe he’ll renounce global conquest after he arrives at one burnt out city after another.  Just as the Mongols pacify kingdoms by killing enough of the people, so, too, will we win this war when we have killed enough Mongols.
“We raid in the summer when food is most plentiful and so we don’t have to carry cold-weather gear.  We must travel light, so leave your armor behind and expect to bury the treasure we seize.  I’ve had the Americans jerk literally tons of meat to start our journey, and Jack has been kind enough to order his agents to stockpile food in the cities I hope to destroy.  So if you see sandbags in the shape of an X on the roof of a hard-to-burn building, please don’t destroy it or the fruit, vegetables, breads, milk, and juices inside.  The University has prepared fifty thousand backpacks with everything we need.  Things we share like cooking pots are distributed evenly among squads.  Lastly, I have heat-resistant clothes and headgear for everyone.”
Billy knew the Mongols monitored the American bases near the Strait, so they flew around to the north and slept in heavy felt tents that he had pre-deployed just one hundred kilometers from the enemy camp.  A battalion of half-marathoners had plenty of cooked fish ready for them.  They slept all day and took off at dusk, carrying as much food as they could.  Patrols soon shrieked alarms, which gave them the opportunity to shoot up quads forming in the dark on the ground.  They fought long enough for the enemy to get a good estimate of their numbers and Billy naturally announced his presence with his scream and fire dance.  Then he led them straight south because -- even in the summer -- northern Siberia is really cold and they dressed light.  They slept all day, waiting for the enemy to catch up.
And Billy got his first surprise when sentries reported that the enemy did not pursue him.  Which really pissed him off.
“I didn’t want them in my rear,” Billy complained.  “What if, as I expect, we have to cross the Strait in a hurry?  Or we arrive too tired to outrun them?”
“They know they can’t catch us, so they didn’t even try,” Bear reasoned.  “Or they stayed to block our other quads.”
Billy shook his head.  “No, Genghis simply told them to contest every crossing.  Crap.  Permanent bases large enough to accommodate a few hundred thousand troops ruins my plans for the Olympics.”  He called a leadership meeting with his wand.  “Fly all night to get as close as safely possible to their west.  Sleep all day, then attack them all night long to exhaust them.  Break off before dawn and return to where we slept yesterday.  I’ll return to Alaska and get as many bombers as possible to attack them at dawn.  The half-marathoners will have to stop and rest for a few hours before attacking, so I’m counting on you to keep the enemy busy so they don’t bomb us.  Our weakest quads will tire out by noon, and won’t have the energy to fly to safety, so return at noon so we can overwhelm their survivors.”
Marathoners can fly at least ten hours, while most of the Mongols would probably last only half that long, so Billy expected a lot of them to rest within the bunkers by the time his bombers arrived just after dawn.
The battle played out much as Billy expected, but it surprised him to learn that half of the Mongols were two-wanders ordered to defend the forts with their lives.  Since cleaning out bunkers was dangerous, Billy assigned it to his half-marathoners and sent his near-marathoners down the coast to clear it of people.  As shelter became available, Billy occupied them with his marathoners, who had months of long days ahead of them.
As expected, Genghis chased him across eastern Mongolia as he sacked dozens of cities and hundreds of towns, villages, and hordes.  He put his highest fliers in the same division and dedicated it to harassing the Khan’s armada.  Billy went to sleep imagining the Khan’s face as Americans -- flying higher than his quads could reach -- shot up his troops with impunity, day after day.  
Proud Mongols bitterly abandoned cities, fleeing like refugees to China as Team Red destroyed crops, herds, and infrastructure.  Billy avoided big dogfights unless he had surprise or overwhelming numbers, and was disappointed that the divisions following him didn’t exhaust themselves in the pursuit.   
He unintentionally flew too close to an enemy division who saw his scouts.  Having already flown several hours, his troops were in no condition to outrun them, so Billy sent them in one direction while leading the enemy in the other.  After a good nights sleep, the four American divisions now pursued the Mongol division and lasted longer in the air.  The Americans conserved their energy while the angry Mongols spent their energy, until they were too tired to flee or fight.
The one big surprise -- which Billy should have seen coming -- was when he attacked a city capable of repelling him.  Billy left the Khan far behind, and so didn’t expect to face a superior force, but that’s what he found as his force hovered over the city.  Instead of flying up as a mob, active-duty quads in civilian clothing flew in formation around and over Team Red.  Billy gave the call to retreat just before hundreds of company-size units attacked from above.
Billy preferred to sack cities during the day because killing fliers requires being able to see them.  Since nobody chased them, Billy returned that night so his fifty thousand quads could send a million fireballs into the city before organized resistance could punish them.  The marathoners went back at dawn and flew the enemy literally into the ground.  Team Red simply outlasted them in the air in order to shoot them up on the surface.  That was the one city that Billy took pleasure in sacking.   
Billy sent the Americans home once the weather turned cold.  He and Princess spent the next several months hoping from city to city, giving speeches, interviews, and unsolicited advice to government leaders.  While Mongols saw him as a monster for killing a million people almost every year, the rest of the world hailed him as a hero.  His crowds, praise, and influence kept growing bigger.  For some reason, interviewers wanted to know his opinion about everything, as if he was an expert on art or women or politics just because really good quads did as he asked.  Billy didn’t know he knew the secrets of leadership.  All he knew is that he had a really great teacher in his father.
On Hainan Island, Billy met with Kung-ti, whose grandson Zhu the Chinese elected as the first president of the Republic of China.  The fat man hugged Billy like a son.
“You scared us, you know?” he told Billy.  “The Khan stabbed deep into our territory like a hot knife.  A nation of butter would have resisted him more.  Then you destroyed his follow-on force, and Zhu bombed his super-quads to hell, wounding Genghis Khan himself.  You wanted democracy instead of another dictatorship, so I held elections as soon as possible to capitalize on Zhu’s new popularity.”
“Would you like to retake the rest of China?” Billy asked.  “If I kill Genghis and destroy his largest air units, would the Republic of China send everything they have north?  I am willing to bribe Korea, Japan, and Taiwan into helping you.”
The old man’s eyes twinkled.  “I cannot speak for the government, since I am only the governor of this island, but I can tell you it would be very tempting.  Most of the Chinese quads who fled with stolen loot have since resettled in our territory, while few Chinese still serve in the Mongol Air Force.  We now have over one hundred trained battalions.  I want to thank you again for giving us so many wands.”
“I want you to send civilians north to hunt down Mongols as soon as it’s confirmed that I have killed the Immortal One.  There are one hundred times as many Chinese as Mongols, so spread the word that every Asian who wants to avenge the Mongols, before they become extinct, should start right after I kill Genghis Khan.”
The governor was too excited -- or heavy -- to continue standing.  He fell into a chair to think through the consequences, while Billy continued.
“I’m not asking you or your son to publicly advocate killing Mongols once the Baron kills the Khan.  Instead, have news agencies interview widows and orphans who urge everyone to do it.  That way you stay clean, and it sure as hell doesn’t have my fingers on it.  In return, the Khan will have to devote a large chunk of his military to basic security -- his people will demand that he keep them safe.  That then leaves him with fewer quads to chase after me when I visit Peking.”
“But how will we know the Khan is dead?”
“Hide spies around the Peking Stadium.  When they see him die, you have others ready to ring monastery bells.  Have your men stand by every bell in every city to spread the word so the people can rise up against their oppressors.” 
“That’s it?” Kung-ti asked.
Billy paused dramatically.  “Well, there is one more thing I hope you can do for me.”
Billy leaned closer and whispered into his ear so that not even their bodyguards could overhear.
Kung-ti looked like the Buddha after a satisfying fart.  "You are a such a clever bastard.  I shall personally see to it."
The next spring, Billy met his American marathoners in Scandinavia.  He took them to the southern end of the Ural Mountain Range where Ivan the Terrible stockpiled food, bombs, and supplies.  But this time, Billy had demanded that the European nations loan him their marathoners, so now he had one hundred battalions.  He led one half and Grandma commanded the other.  Together they sacked the biggest cities in western Mongolia.  If the flu didn’t devastate his troops, Billy could have destroyed the Khan when his slow, bloated armada finally arrived.  As it was, his healthy troops just mauled the Khan so the sick ones could be carried to safety.
Despite the brutal nature of the job, Billy began to like beating the Great Khan summer after summer.  The Red Baron cemented his reputation as the best air general ever, although Billy knew that the Khan would beat him silly if they commanded the other’s troops.  Although he accepted the adulation, Billy knew it was his father who first came up with the idea of a large all-marathon force that specialized in flying really high, fast, and far.
The real challenge was winning when he didn’t enjoy a range advantage.  Which meant next summer, at the Peking Olympics, was do or die.

CHAPTER 75	

Overlooking the crowded Peking Stadium Arena, Genghis Khan smiled for the first time in two years.  Instead of the Red Baron interrupting his beloved Olympics, the games went off flawlessly.  Foreign news agencies fawned over the Khan’s charm, wit, and generosity.  In fact, it was the most successful Olympics in history.  Tourists filled every hotel for hundreds of clicks, boosting the local economy. 
Of the several million Mongol descendents who moved here or just visited, the one hundred thousand sitting with him in the Peking Stadium represented the most powerful -- who refused to join his air force or militia.  The Khan desperately needed them, and they knew the Khan needed them, but they didn’t like being told what to do, which is what joining an air force requires.  Many of them headed large families with extensive businesses, which meant they were more important than their numbers.  Most of them were very rich and not a few of them were trying to keep their commercial enterprises -- along with their heads -- in territories the Baron recently freed.  Genghis hoped watching the duels would spark memories of past heroism, get their blood pumping, and rekindle the joys of conquest.  With their families, friends, and supporters, they could provide him another million quads, with which he could exterminate the Americans.  So he flattered and praised and charmed them, culminating in this exclusive honor of attending the final award ceremony with the Great Immortal at the famous Peking Stadium Arena.
Genghis went out of his way to welcome athletic teams from his former enemies.  Beating Mongols in sports helped them recover from centuries of humiliation.  Few realized that public relations was the Empire's most effective weapon.  He joked with their heads of state and charmed the world media into dispelling the negative caricature that Mongol-haters had of him.  One summer event would not entirely erase the hostility, but it was a good start to resettling relations.
While critics portrayed Genghis Khan as a villain, his own people saw him as a great man who brought peace, prosperity, and security for the most people on Earth for the longest period of time in history, along with the greatest economy ever known.  A lone woman could cross from one end of the Empire to another reasonable sure of her safety.  For the Great Khan, the Olympics was less about sports and more about an opportunity to spread this positive message to the rest of the world.
Now more than ever.
The only dark spot was that damn American Indian dominating every wand event, from dueling to flying.  He apparently traveled across the Empire beating everyone.  He arrived in Peking a few months before the Olympics and remained undefeated.  He wanted to poison him until his spies showed Genghis an interview of the arrogant bastard bragging that he would continue dueling until he had the strength to beat the Red Baron to show, for once and for all, that he was the best dueler in the world.  Even better, the Red Baron publicly accepted the Indian’s challenge!
Well, that was the best news that Genghis heard in a long time because he could not re-conquer his Empire with the Baron alive.  The Khan knew he met his match.  The propaganda videos that the Baron distributed worldwide proved that the Baron, like Genghis himself, had the gift of war.
And he was glad he didn't poison the Indian because it turned out that he flew for the English Olympic team.  King Richard and his extended family came all the way to Peking to cheer their new champion, who married the king’s favorite granddaughter.  
When crowned several years ago, King Richard reassured Genghis that England would stay neutral, despite the pressure his neighbors put on him.  When Genghis lost his air forces in Europe, the English King repeated his neutrality, despite being called a traitor by the rest of Europe.  Genghis appreciated England's consistency when circumstances would have rewarded intervention.  Finally, when the Baron massacred his air force in Kiev, and every leader in Europe cried out for war, the English King sent a sensitive message expressing condolences and continued English neutrality, despite the benefits of turning against the Empire.  Genghis Khan valued loyalty.  England didn't blow with the wind like most countries, so he didn't regret not poisoning the Indian who won so many medals for the English.  
And King Richard turned out to be a delight at the supper table.  Genghis was now very glad he didn’t kill him twenty years ago, as Ambassador Tamerlane urged him, when Richard’s daughter voided their treaty.
What Genghis Khan didn’t know is that, at that very moment, Richard helped Billy’s son William put on bright red custom armor.  Grandma and her son Jim stood uncomfortably in their own red suits, while Elizabeth, Billy’s first daughter with Princess, literally danced in excitement in hers.  All four could extend four flames.  After learning to imitate the Red Baron’s famous scream, their job was to lure the four large Mongolian air units away from the marathoners flying in.  The Khan’s biggest units would spend the day flying away from the fight.  The four fake Red Barons would tire them out, then take them over the ocean where, hopefully, many of them would lack the energy to return.  Those who survived would be lured to the Baron’s huge marathon force, one at a time.  Their most important job was to keep those air units apart.  Only united did they pose a serious threat.
Grandma did not look forward to pissing off fifty thousand scared Mongols, but the other three Barons looked eager to be chased all day.  But now she understood why Billy gave them all Millennial Wands.  Because they were going to need them.  Two hundred thousand quads chasing four fake barons -- Grandma chucked at the crazy stuff that Red came up with.
Apart from the battalion guarding his person, King Richard sought to avenge his daughter’s murder via fifty thousand English and Irish quads dressed as civilians who would form up and pounce on police, militias, and smaller enemy units.  King Richard already thrilled the Chinese president when he offered to help Southern China retake its historic territory.  Billy assured them both that a few hundred Asian battalions -- and an even greater number of civilian quads -- from neighboring countries would also attack once their spies reported the Khan dead.
To the dismay of millions, reports came in that the Red Baron caught pneumonia in Canada by working himself too hard.  Genghis found that hard to believe, but his spies followed the marathon armada south to San Francisco.  The Khan expected the Baron to make a last-minute rush to attack Peking before the Olympics ended, but instead they flew farther south to Los Angeles, which made it impossible for the marathoners to reach Peking in time.
In fact, Genghis received a report every day, and just this morning he saw a video of Grandma at the Baron’s bedside with the distinctive Los Angeles city and many thousands of marathoners behind them.  What he didn’t know is that this would be the last messenger that Team Red would let through.
Genghis organized nearly two million quads into four groups: he had half a million to the Bering Strait; four groups of fifty thousand around Peking; half a million opposing the half a million Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese, and civilian quads near his border with Korea; and the rest near his border with China.  The Russians, Persians, and Turks kept their air units far from his borders, so the Khan repositioned his airmen in the west to the south to oppose the Chinese, who looked ready to invade in force if the bells rang.
What Genghis didn’t know is that Billy convinced Russia, Scandinavia, Prussia, Turkey, Arabia, and Persia that the Mongols were an existential threat -- that Genghis would wipe them out as soon as he was strong enough.  So Billy asked them to pull back their troops to fool the Khan, then send their air forces against the nearest civilian enemy populations the week before the Olympics ended -- and to continue slaughtering until superior forces confronted them.  In a switch, the marathoners would carry the bombs so the rest could travel farther and faster.   Including Jack’s European Air Force, half a million quads would attack the Empire from the west.
To help the Chinese crossing the border north, Billy paid the Indian Air Force and the kingdom founded by the two cousins to attack the Mongols facing the Chinese from behind.  One hundred thousand of them were to start with enemy units on the Tibetan Plateau and work their way east.  Instead of charging the Mongol Air Force head on, the Chinese Air Force would cross west, wherever the Indians gave them the opportunity, to also attack from behind.
The Baron’s raids into the Stans over the last dozen years was a blessing in disguise for the Khan since it motivated quads living there to join his air force, regardless if they needed the money.  Three years ago the Baron’s marathoners drove the rest into Greater Mongolia and the Tibetan Plateau, and they were as eager as native Mongols to avenge their families.  
Apart from the Stans, widespread persecution in former territories succeeded in bringing several million other Mongol descendents to move home -- something that Genghis himself repeatedly failed to do.  The Baron’s threat to the homeland motivated several million more to visit to defend their ancestral homeland against this perilous threat.  Few were quads, but all were willing to fight.
What bothered the Khan was the horrible realization that several million real Mongols and several million of their recent descendents failed to even visit Peking during this threat to the Empire.  He understood that, after interbreeding with foreigners over several generations, that Mongolian descendents may not consider themselves Mongols, but he knew millions who didn’t help him who had Mongol parents or grandparents.  It hurt because he liked to believe that everyone with Mongol blood would be proud of their ancestry enough to fight for the Mongol Empire.
And he knew who to blame: the damn Baron!  Because the Baron convinced these traitors that he was going to win.  And after out-thinking the Great Khan year after year, who could blame them?  So they chose to identity as non-Mongolian rather than give the Baron the opportunity to slaughter them.
Apart from a million new quads joining his air force, and a few million more flying in just to protect Mongols in case the bells rang, Genghis hired another half a million foreign mercenaries.  The Empire lost a lot of wealth the past decade, but the Khan still had huge reserves secretly buried in Mongolia.
Just in case the bells rang, Genghis designated dozens of “safe” cities -- those in China with large Mongolian populations, where he urged all Mongols to stay until the threat passed.  The Baron had already sacked the biggest cities in Mongolia.  Besides millions of two-wanders, Genghis spent heavily to give conventional weapons -- swords, bows, and spears -- to many millions of Mongols who couldn’t use wands but wanted to contribute.  What’s more, he appointed a commander in each of those cities to organize the fighters, prepare defenses, and come up with tactics.  Many Chinese residents fled from these cities for the same reason the Mongols fled to them.  Seemingly overnight, neighboring cities either emptied or filled up with Mongols.
The generals facing the Americans, Chinese, and those in Korea spent months preparing for every conceivable scenario, building defenses, and stockpiling supplies.  If the enemy attacked, these troops would trounce them.  They knew the land and hid companies in hundreds of hideouts to harass the enemy from behind.
If bells rang across China, several million people on each side would start slaughtering each other.  Plus the four million quads in professional air units.
Genghis tasted victory already.  Without the Baron and his one hundred fifty thousand marathoners, the Americans, the foreigners, and the Chinese Air Force won’t attack, which left him a delicious irony. Genghis waved a messenger over and gave the order to ring the city bells.  He’d much rather fight the enemy now without the Baron than later face the Baron leading a million quads.
With his two million quads without enemy armadas to occupy them, he could deploy them against the Chinese civilians and foreign tourists eager to shoot any Mongol they crossed.  With the homeland empty of traitors, he could then retake southern China and later his other lost territories.
Or, he thought with a smile, put pleasure before business and wipe out the Americas, once and for all.  After they slaughtered several million Mongols in the last dozen years, that would be just the therapy his injured spirit needed to recuperate.
For this final award ceremony, Genghis reserved the Peking Arena for the best Mongolian quads who had moved back home to defend the homeland.  One hundred thousand of them.  Genghis wanted to highlight them to both show his appreciation and to use their example to inspire others.
What a beautiful morning!  He personally didn't like Peking because dust clouds from the Gobi practically buried it.  And the dust usually triggered his hacking cough, which inevitably reminded him that he once had to crawl through a million headless bodies covered in shit.  But since the Baron destroyed his capital and his roving tent palace, he only felt safe within the Forbidden City that his grandson, Kublai, built two centuries ago.  Even then, he and his family lived in ger huts, with their horses and goats around them, in the middle of the city.
Music started and the three champions flew out.  The Indian landed on the highest post, with Jirko winning the silver and a Tatar prodigy the bronze.  Then Genghis gave an inspiring speech that he spent an unusual amount of time on, knowing the world was watching.  The Empire's national anthem followed while the arena played a montage of video clips of the duels that the audience witnessed over the last month.
Genghis Khan could not remember when he last enjoyed himself so much.

CHAPTER 76

What Genghis Khan didn’t know is that the Battle for China, as it would soon be called, actually began a week ago because it takes that long for his relay messengers to reach him from the Bering Strait.  Billy timed the American attack so that Genghis would not learn of it before Billy killed him.  As it was, a messenger -- flying at maximum speed -- was only an hour from Peking with news of the epic battle near the Bering Strait.
Billy had been planning this attack for three years.  He had the Americans eliminate everyone in eastern Siberia and Manchuria the last few summers, sent his commanders to learn the future battleground terrain intimately, and sent munition ships to the coast so his marathoners could stockpile several million bombs strategically, where Billy expected to need them.
Billy couldn’t hid the fact that he expected to have half a million Americans pouring into Siberia from Alaska during the Olympics, so he assumed the Khan would station an equal number of quads to block them.  So he had the Americans build thousands of carefully concealed bunkers and bury several million bombs in the area to supplement the fortified bases six hundred clicks from the Strait that they built a decade ago to deter Mongolian counter-raids.
When the first one hundred thousand Mongols arrived in early spring, the Americans appeared to retreat to Alaska.  Once the Mongols almost completed their bomb-proof bunkers on the Siberian side of the Strait, Tiny led four hundred thousand Americans across, dug up their bombs, then overwhelmed the Mongols at dawn.  The Americans ate their food, destroyed the incomplete bunkers, and killed all wildlife that could feed more Mongols.
Furious, Genghis himself led a million quad force supplied by a million two-wanders working as supply mules. 
Billy knew that Genghis could not sustain so many in the freezing cold, so he expected the Khan to cross continents.  Which was a problem.  He sent one hundred thousand of his weakest marathoners to harass them every day on their way north.  As expected, Genghis crossed the Strait in strength at dusk, let them nap a few hours before dawn as his stronger airmen intercepted Red’s bombers, then reached the line of fortifications before noon.
In those bunkers, Billy replaced his quads with enthusiastic two-wanders eager to fight instead of carry supplies.  Billy took his division of high-altitude fliers to harass the enemy while otherwise avoiding the pitched battle that the Khan desperately needed.  Billy knew the Khan wanted to occupy his shelters, eat his food, and use his forts as bases to continue the fight.  The Americans barely had time to pack all the bombs or the Mongols would have captured those as well.  The Mongols needed those bunkers more than the Americans, so they eventually won them -- at great cost.
And Billy was happy to keep the Khan in Alaska because Grandma took fifty thousand of his best marathoners down the line of Alaskan islands to northern Manchuria.  Two years before, Billy crossed the Strait to fool the Mongols into thinking that was the only way into Siberia.  Grandma attacked the tail of the Mongolian logistical train before it ever left Mongolia.  Traveling light, they couldn’t take much food with them, so they ate food they took from dead supply mules.  The marathoners swept north, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of two-wanders and the quads who guarded them.
Unfortunately, the Mongols left the American bases at dawn, destroying them, and reached the tip of Siberia that afternoon to find the troops he left behind to construct bunkers in a massive battle with Grandma’s marathoners.  Having fought all day, the marathoners lacked the energy to fight the Khan as well, and so retreated.  
Day and night the marathoners bombed the network of enemy fortifications on or near the Bering Strait, until they ran out of bombs buried nearby.  But the real purpose of the bombing was for his marathoners to weed out the Khan’s strongest troops.  From six hundred clicks away, Billy’s best troops could bomb the Khan and return home, but the Khan’s best troops could not.  
Genghis lost almost all his million two-wanders and half a million quads on this one trip.  
By the time Genghis returned to Peking to welcome important guests attending the Olympics, a stalemate ensued, though the Americans caused several times as many casualties.  Yet the Mongols succeeded in building bomb-proof shelters to field enough quads to keep the Americans out of Siberia.
While Billy famously got sick and took his one hundred fifty thousand non-American marathoners south to Los Angeles during the Olympics, the five American marathon divisions bombed the Mongols from Alaska.
Meanwhile, the surviving four hundred thousand American quads flew down the line of islands from Alaska towards northern Manchuria.  After the last islet, a battalion flew five hundred clicks until they found sentries, who led them to a ship.  They rested for four hours, then flew to the next ship.  After another four hours, they flew to the Manchurian coastline.  Once everyone crossed, they surprised the enemy from the south a week before the Olympics ended.  While the bunkers closest to the Straits got hit a lot, the farthest forts didn’t get hit at all.  Until now.
Bomb-proof bunkers are not really bomb-proof, but bomb-resistant.  The Americans simply dropped multiple “bunker-busters” until the roofs collapsed, the doors blew open, or until they buried the bunkers under tons of earth.
The Mongols formed a long wall against American incursion from Alaska, so the Americans overwhelmed the southern tip of that wall, then worked their way up.  The Americans didn’t have more quads, but they had far more quads fighting at any particular time.  And after a massive dogfight that lasted all morning, they also enjoyed air superiority.
But the Americans now faced what the Mongols faced in Alaska: sheltering themselves so they didn’t die of cold that night.  They didn’t have to clear out all the bunkers and storage buildings, but enough to accommodate everyone who stayed.  So the marathoners from Alaska carried felt tents instead of bombs, saving the lives of fifty thousand comrades.  After dropping off the tents, the marathoners flew south, instead of helping end the battle, because they had to attack the Mongol armada from behind once it confronted the Koreans, Japanese, and Taiwanese crossing the Korean border.  It could take another week for the half-marathoners to clean out the last of the bunkers.  
Because they didn’t have enough shelter for everyone, one hundred thousand near-marathoners would nap that afternoon, then fly south that night since their wands would keep them warm.  After another nap that morning, they would continue south to the coast, where they set up warm tents they brought from a ship off the coast.  Warm, fed, and rested, they would race south to help the marathoners destroy the Mongol armada.

CHAPTER 77

Genghis didn't know how long he had been looking up, or really what for, until he noticed others staring at him.  Then he realized he heard something really faint, like a musket shot fired from the moon.  Now he heard other shots, regularly like a heartbeat.  The sky had plenty of white billowing clouds, but no thunderclouds.
A warning shrieked from multiple patrols above them and everyone realized they had another suicidal -- some idiot eager to ruin the party.  They would barely feel a blast fired that high up.  Still, his paranoia got the best of him as dozens of other patrols repeated the warning to alert everyone.  He looked around him for hidden dangers, and noticed his Imperial Guard doing the same.  They had multiplied patrols for a few thousand kilometers out to detect large air units, but lone wolves still posed risks.  One hundred thousand of the world's best quads, like those in the stadium, couldn't stop a lone attacker.
What the Khan didn't know is that 1) Team Red flew a thousand kilometers into the Pacific Ocean onto the Chinese fishing fleet that Billy commandeered a few years before; 2) that their wands pushed the fleet at record speed towards the port city of Tianjin near Peking; 3) Billy loaded the steamship with bombs; and 4) the Olympics were about to end with a bang.
Dayan, his most trusted descendent, put a hand on his shoulder, something that few others dared.  "You know the rules," he said harshly to deter an argument.  Genghis grunted impatiently -- he didn't want to hide in his panic room during this incredibly important publicity event.  "Why build an escape room if you won't use it?"  
Still, Genghis hesitated.  Then Dayan looked up, alarmed.  The blasts not only kept coming, but they grew much louder.  Too loud for an ordinary suicidal.  "Go!" Dayan barked at the greatest conqueror in history while opening a hatch below them.
Genghis reluctantly went, climbing down the stairs and hoping nobody noticed.  Except that damn Indian standing on the stage in the arena.  While everyone else searched the skies, the Indian's eyes never left him.  The Indian cursed, popped out his wands, cut down the silver and bronze winners, then flew straight at Genghis, firing powerful bursts.  
“Jirko!” the Khan cried out in despair.  He just lost the most powerful Mongol he had left.  
Surrounded by one hundred thousand of the Empire’s best quads, the crazy Indian attacked the Great Immortal!  Dayan, facing the wrong direction, never saw the blasts coming.  Genghis yelled a warning, then dropped down the chute just before a blast vaporized his most trusted descendent.  Genghis bounced off a wall, which disoriented him until he smacked into hard, compact earth thirty meters below.  
So much happened so fast that he didn't even get the chance to use his wands to control his fall.  When he finally got on his feet, he screamed in pain.  He sprained an ankle, or worse.  He didn’t even know if he could fly.
Genghis heard a familiar primal scream and climbed up to a spy hole to see the Indian face off against a guy in a bright red suit.  No!  The Red Baron here?  Challenging the dueling champion?  The bastard even spoke to the crowd before bowing to his opponent like in ancient honor duels.  As well he should because one hundred thousand pairs of wands tracked him.  The Baron wasn’t going to leave this arena alive.  Oh, how the Khan would love to see two hundred thousand fireballs consume the Red Baron!  His hatred of the man felt limitless. 
The duelers positioned themselves in a fighting stance, then the Indian charged, shooting rapidly.  The crowd swooned.  Genghis, despite himself and unable to believe his eyes, could not stop watching, even though he knew something was terribly wrong.
The Red Baron avoided the first blasts by flying up while flaming all four wands.  Genghis still had a hard time believing it, but his hands wands extended fire for over twenty-two meters each.  His personal best was thirteen and a half meters after hearing reports that Subodei reached thirteen.  To get even that he had to kill thousands of tied up prisoners, transferring their wands while they died.  
Unimpressed, the Indian attacked aggressively until they slashed at each other with blades in the very center of the huge arena.  The fight captivated the stadium, despite warning shrieks from distant patrols.  Suddenly the Baron saw a shadow in the sky and released his infamous scream.  Instead of fighting, the two duelers instantly popped straight up, not three meters from each other, and engaged the quads overhead.  Two guys attacking two hundred while two hundred thousand wands tracked them.
What the hell?  Nothing made sense.  Then a series of explosions shook the entire stadium, knocking Genghis back down into his hole. 
Thousands of explosives under the stadium stands detonated nearly as one, each many times larger than the contact bombs dropped by fliers.  Millions of tiny pieces of scrap metal flew in all directions as those who lit those fuses raced for cover outside of the stadium.  The earth shook so hard he bounced into the air.  His ears ringing, Genghis realized that he had never been subjected to a heavy bombardment before.  He looked up from his dirt hole deep in the bedrock to the thick metal walls above him.  He flew to the ceiling and locked the heavy steel hatch from within.  
I'm safe, he told himself, not quite believing it.
Ironically, thousands of quads monopolized the largest nearby skyscraper with the best view of the Khan.  They were told to record the Khan at all times in case the Red Baron dueled him, yet were still shocked when the Baron actually showed up.  From that distance, an Imperial Guard blocked the view of the Khan, but he clearly had not flown away when the stadium suddenly exploded from within.  And the Immortal certainly would not have survived the bombers who systematically stabbed everyone in the audience.  As one, they flew off to complete their jobs.  Two reported to King Richard, several others to the largest surviving Triad factions, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean spies sped towards their generals, while thousands of Chinese flew out across China to spread the video of the Khan’s death.  The stadium explosion was like a rock thrown in a pond, as a wave of quads flew out in a circle to share the news.
The survivors, ears bleeding and heads throbbing, barely noticed a dark cloud above that dropped thousands of bombs.  Fifty thousand marathoners then dived to finish off the survivors and transfer their wands.  Five divisions stayed overhead to intercept Mongol rapid response teams, militia, and local police, although fifty thousand other marathoners struck targets in and around Peking.  Billy knew tens of thousands of Mongol civilians and veterans would fly up in a mad rage at the invaders, which only made his job easier.
Bells soon sounded across China, signaling the death of Genghis Khan, as thousands of volunteers on rooftops repeatedly projected video of the Khan’s death.  Millions of Asians and Europeans started killing Mongols on sight and vice versa.
Prince led Billy to where the Khan escaped and explained, once again, that he saw the Khan descend into something.  Quickly enough they found a wooden chute and, below that, a large metal box set into bedrock.  Prince thought his twenty-year old brother-in-law may have a heart attack, he looked so distraught.  Prince slapped him, then backed up quickly.  Billy finally cleared his eyes and, apparently, his head.
"A panic room.  The Immortal built himself a box to escape into."  It sounded like Billy was trying to convince himself of what his eyes plainly saw.  "The whole point was to kill the Khan.  We knew exactly where he would be, exactly when.  And he still got away."
"Pull yourself together, man," Prince barked impatiently.
Billy pounded on the steel.  "My lord!  My lord, are you all right?  The cowards bombed the stadium and fled.  Everyone is chasing them down.  Do you need help?"
Genghis realized that the Indian and the Baron worked together, knowing that nobody would be able to take their eyes off them.  The warnings from numerous sentries fell on deaf ears.  Few in the stadium probably even looked up.  Since he himself fell for it, Genghis knew it was a great plan.
Literally shaking, he got up and flew to a spy hole above the bedrock.  He could not believe what he saw -- total devastation.  Thousands of laughing enemies stabbed bodies and transferred wands.  One hundred thousand quads -- the air force he planned on using to retake India -- all gone.  Just like the Peking Arena.  
And that's when it hit him.
"You're that damn traitor, Temujin, aren't you?" he yelled above.  "The brat from the Olympics twelve years ago.  You faked your own death!  I knew I needed to kill you.  I never would have believed a descendent of Taran would betray his own people."
"I didn't descend from Taran.  A pregnant ancestor married him after Mongols killed her husband.  All of my ancestors died fighting you.  You killed the first one over Peking in 1215, and your imperial guards gang-raped my mother several years ago."
"Do you even care that I exterminated Taran’s descendents?  You know, you’re not the first true quad I’ve had to kill.  You’re just the first to not descend from me.”
“True quad?”  
Neither Billy or Prince ever heard that term before.  Apparently it described the few who could use all four wands for fire, steel, and blasting.
“As for Peking, you mean that cocky Prussian?  Of course!  He was a baron, too.  Richthofen, right?  His mother Hildred caused me more trouble than he ever did."  Genghis, despite everything that happened in the last few minutes, now laughed viciously.  "You descended from Karl van Richthofen?  The jokes on you then, because Baron von Richthofen was my son.  The baroness sought me out after I received the ten sets of Millennial wands because she wanted a powerful son.  Well, I gave her one, only to have the turncoat lead thousands of quads against me in China.  I tried to reason with him.  I gave her a kilo of gold for child support, but she wanted me to marry her.  Ha!  Like I would give up Borte for a cranky bitch like her.  She was all beauty, zero gratitude."
"Liar!"
"She put me on his birth certificate.  Look it up."
“I’ll ask him.  He’s fighting above us right now.”
“What?  Now you’re the one lying!”
“He changed his name to American Jack.  Perhaps you’re heard of him,” Billy yelled.
“That traitor is still alive?” the Khan roared incredulous.  The irony is that Genghis never targeted American Jack because his weak tactical skills killed more enemies than Mongols.
Billy felt overwhelmed.  He could not think clearly and therefore needed to buy time.  “How ironic that your only surviving son is your biggest enemy.  Consider this a final family reunion, grandfather.”
“I descended from this mass murderer?” a shocked Prince asked in disbelief.
"So you're my ancestor?” Billy said, trying to buy time until he figured how to break into the panic room.  “Crap, does that make me Mongolian after all?"
"This changes nothing," Genghis yelled back.  "You killed my woman, so I will kill you and yours.  I don't care how many kids you have -- I will get them all if it takes me a thousand years."
Billy turned to Prince.  "Take a squad to the Forbidden City and kill the Khan's family."
"I heard that,” Genghis screamed, “you son-of-a-bitch!"
"What are you going to do, hurt me?" Billy screamed back, nearly losing it.  His head hurt.  If Genghis Khan fathered American Jack, then all of Jack's descendents were also the Khan's.   As were his own kids.  Billy felt sick.  He not only had the Khan’s blood, but polluted thousands of babies with it.  Though his mind was a fog, he knew he had to kill the mass murderer now while he had the chance.  He flew down to where the steel wall disappeared into the bedrock.  Collecting all his strength, he punched a short blade into the metal, causing a short gash.  He repeated it a few dozen times until exhaustion stopped him.  By that time he had a small crowd wondering what the hell he was doing.
"Uh, Red, more Mongols are coming."
"I need more time.  The Khan is in there.  Do we have any bombs left?"
"Why would we not drop them all?  And what do you mean, he’s still alive?"
Frustrated, Billy blasted the bedrock, but quickly realized that would take forever.  So on each side, near the ground, he punched holes just thick enough for a wand to get through and ordered a quad to blast fire downward.  Soon he had a dozen quads shooting flame inside the panic room, turning the box into a smoke-filled coffin.  Given his stressed out mind, Billy couldn't think of anything Genghis could do to save himself, yet something nagged at him that the bastard would somehow survive.
"If you come out, I promise you a fair fight," Billy yelled into a hole, but didn't get an answer.  He flew to the top, punched more holes, then blasted straight down.  He ordered his men to stop, then searched for a dead body on the floor through the smoke.  What the hell?  He used all his strength to punch as large a hole as possible on the other side of the top and there he saw, to his horror, the entrance to an underground tunnel.
Billy fought his way out of the rubble and saw, one hundred meters from the stadium, a store made of mortared stone built like a fortress.  He ignored the fierce dogfight raging above him.   He flew to it and found an oak door still open, but nobody inside.  He rushed in and found the tunnel's exit.  Panicking for the first time in his life, he flew to the Forbidden City within Peking and saw a few of his troops gathered around several bodies on the ground.  The richly dressed corpses must be the Khan's latest women, quad warriors who may have fought like tigers, but were no match for his brother-in-law.
"Prince was cuddling two crying babies when some Mongol stabbed him in the back, took the babies, and fled.  Some of our guys are chasing him, but he's pretty fast."
“That was Genghis Khan.”
Some of the guys recorded Prince's final moments, while others waved wands to heal his back.  One of them looked at Billy and shook his head negatively.  Too much internal damage.
"We should have given him one of our new suits," someone said, which only made Billy feel worse since he didn't think of that, either.  Prince had been dueling for months in Peking, and so couldn't make it to Anchorage.  Better back armor may have saved his life.
"I never saw him coming," Prince whispered.  "I'd be alive if I killed the babies instead of saving them.  Please give my wands to my most powerful offspring.”
Billy knew he was in terrible pain, and so held his hand.  "I'll get him for you, brother, and make sure your children know what a great hero their father was."
"You're the hero," were Prince's final words.  “You’re gonna win this war.”
Billy broke out in tears that surprised the troops.  Too much happened too fast.  His brilliant plan failed, and got his brother-in-law killed.  The rest of the plan consisted of sweeping across northern China and Mongolia and taking as many Mongols lives and valuables as possible.
But now Billy would have to fight Genghis Khan leading a huge Mongol air force just to leave Asia alive.
“What am I going to tell Princess?” Billy cried out, on the verge of an emotional  meltdown.

THE END

Sorry for the abrupt ending (after 125,000 words!), but look for the exciting sequel in 2014!  Please post positive reviews online and tell your friends on Facebook and Twitter to get this ebook while it’s still free.