City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [192]
Three hours since that message, and now long into the night. While drinking hot tea, snipers and scouts examined the neighbourhood for movement, when eventually a shrouded figure emerged from a side street. A couple of the lads went to investigate and escorted the newcomer over, cloaked and silent, to stand before their platoon leader.
Jeryd then laughed. ‘Nanzi, you murdering bitch. The hell are you doing here?’
‘I’ve been selected to help the Night Guard,’ she declared, her tone almost apologetic.
Someone behind him gasped and there followed a moment of stunned silence. The presence nearby of that regiment was profound, and had a profound effect on everyone’s morale. Jeryd’s curiosity increased exponentially.
‘Not in this shape, I imagine.’ Jeryd gestured up and down at her human form.
Nanzi shook her head. Jeryd shook his.
‘There’s more,’ she said. ‘Because of such low temperatures, they want rumel to guide me into position, and then to oversee the escape of the hostages.’
Jeryd held back his disbelief. ‘We’ve not had any official instructions yet.’
No sooner had he said this than a Dragoon came riding up to them, and jumped down from his grey. ‘Sele of Jamur, Lieutenant Jeryd. Sergeant Vígspár. I have orders for you from the Night Guard.’
As his mount’s hooves crunched on the debris, the sergeant confirmed what Nanzi had just said, and Jeryd listened carefully to the well-organized plan.
Vígspár rode away, and Jeryd immediately dispatched platoon members in search of carts to retrieve any injured hostages.
As the moment for action approached, he heard a communal gasp. He looked back to see Nanzi begin her transformation. She began juddering into shape, limbs unfolding, tufts of hair sprouting.
Within a minute she had contorted into the vast shape of the killer spider.
A couple of the rumel in the platoon cowered back some distance and Jeryd shouted at them, ‘Get back, for fucksake. We’re meant to guide this . . . thing into place.’
In the awed silence that followed, Jeryd inspected the dark street once again for movement, all the time waiting for the sound of Brenna devices detonating, forcing the enemy into fighting at night, against their will.
Then suddenly it came, a dull booming in the distance, and shortly afterwards, the faint but urgent response of the invaders being pressed into action, their battle cries.
‘Right, lads. Let’s go,’ Jeryd called.
*
Brynd couldn’t tell whether his attack of nerves came from beinransported by a garuda or the prospect of the mission ahead. Hirmour was buckled tight, and he had a cultist-enforced hoplon shielnd sabre. To one side of him, Lupus had a double-compound bolung across his shoulder, a quiver full of flu-flus and standard arrowtrapped to his back. They were hauled above the cityscape watchinhe lights of the explosions some distance away, dull thuds followey yellow flashes. Unmanned garudas flanked those carrying the Night Guard, and instead they carried shields and nets to prevent the mutombs from intercepting them.
In the distance could be seen a surge of enemy troops away from their target location, at least a thousand enemy rumel, and the sight of their departure brought a pang of relief. As the garudas tilted their wings and began to descend, the change in altitude and pace was distressing. Brynd couldn’t help swallowing as the streets rushed vertiginously towards him. As soon as their feet touched to firm stone, his troop untied themselves, and the garudas shot skyward.
Brynd checked all were present, whispered brief orders.
Then they separated.
*
Strap your weapons tightly, Brynd signalled to Lupus, and he nodded hinderstanding.
Their small troop of four – Brynd, Smoke, Tiendi and Lupus – then slipped along a side street, behind several war-torn buildings, before tearing down the main thoroughfare that led north towards the warehouse.
The streets here were smothered by a thick layer of snow, and