Beyond the Shadows - Brent Weeks [235]
“What think you, shortarse? A break to pick flowers?” He glared at his diminutive joint second-in-command. “We get up there and do our job.”
“How?”
Coilla was staring at the leaden sky, a hand cupped over her eyes.
“Frontal assault,” Stryke replied. “You have a better plan?” It was a challenge.
“No. But it’s open ground, uphill. We’ll have casualties.”
“Don’t we always?” He spat copiously, narrowly missing his sergeant’s feet. “But if it makes you feel better we’ll ask our strategist. Coilla, what’s your opinion?”
“Hmmm?” Her attention remained fixed on the heavy clouds.
“Wake up, Corporal! I said—”
“See that?” She pointed skyward.
A black dot was descending through the gloom. No details were obvious from this distance, but they all guessed what it was.
“Could be useful,” Stryke said.
Coilla was doubtful. “Maybe. You know how wilful they can be. Best to take cover.”
“Where?” Haskeer wanted to know, scanning the naked terrain.
The dot grew in size.
“It’s moving faster than a cinder from Hades,” Jup observed.
“And diving too tight,” added Haskeer.
By this time the bulky body and massive serrated wings were clearly visible. There was no doubt now. Huge and ungainly, the beast swooped over the battle still raging on the plain. Combatants froze and stared upwards. Some scattered from its shadow. It carried on heedless in an ever-sharper descent, aimed squarely at the rise where Stryke’s Wolverines were gathered.
He squinted at it. “Can anybody make out the handler?”
They shook their heads.
The living projectile came at them unerringly. Its vast, slavering jaws gaped, revealing rows of yellow teeth the size of war helms. Slitty green eyes flashed. A rider sat stiffly on its back, tiny compared to his charge.
Stryke estimated it to be no more than three flaps of its powerful wings away.
“Too low,” Coilla whispered.
Haskeer bellowed, “Kiss the ground!”
The warband flattened.
Rolling on to his back, Stryke had a fleeting view of grey leathery skin and enormous clawed feet passing overhead. He almost believed he could stretch and touch the thing.
Then the dragon belched a mighty gout of dazzling orange flame.
For a fraction of a second Stryke was blinded by the intensity of light. Blinking through the haze, he expected to see the dragon smash into the ground. Instead he caught sight of it soaring aloft at what seemed an impossibly acute angle.
Further up the hillside, the scene was transformed. The defenders and some attackers, ignited by the blazing suspiration, had been turned into shrieking fireballs or were already dead in smouldering heaps. Here and there, the earth itself burned and bubbled.
A smell of roasting flesh filled the air. It made the juices in Stryke’s mouth flow.
“Somebody should remind the dragonmasters whose side they’re on,” Haskeer grumbled.
“But this one eased our burden.” Stryke nodded at the gates. They were well alight. Scrambling to his feet, he yelled, “To me!”
The Wolverines sent up a booming war cry and thundered after him. They met little resistance, easily cutting down the few enemy still left standing.
When Stryke reached the smoking gates he found them damaged enough to offer no real obstacle, and one was hanging crookedly, fit to fall.
Nearby, a pole held a charred sign bearing the crudely painted word Homefield.
Haskeer ran to Stryke’s side. He noticed the sign and swiped contemptuously at it with his sword, severing it from the upright. It fell and broke in two.
“Even our language has been colonised,” he growled.
Jup, Coilla and the remainder of the band caught up with them. Stryke and several troopers booted the weakened gate, downing it.
They poured through the opening and found themselves in a spacious compound. To their right, a corral held livestock. On the left stood a row of mature fruit trees. Ahead and set well back was a sizeable wooden farmhouse.
Lined up in front of it were at least twice as many defenders as Wolverines.
The warband charged and set about the creatures. In the intense hand-to-hand combat that followed, the Wolverines