Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [89]
Glancing back for pursuit, I saw that the two vullwings had paused, for reasons obscure to me. Silhouetted in the light behind them hung the great pyramid of Vohanna. And, even as I watched, that huge black dreadnought lost its last ounce of toir’in-or power and plummeted like the stone it was toward the earth.
A grim smile curved my lips before I turned my attention back to the hespern. The wing-stick had been lost on the arm of the previous rider, but the beast responded to its reins beautifully as I began to guide it swiftly down through the flotsam of war. All around us were riderless birds and birds with dead men in their saddles, birds with blood rusting on their grey or black or brown plumage. It seemed to me that those among the enemy who were still living were starting to pull back, to withdraw—as if the loss of the pyramid had suddenly chilled their ardor for battle.
A shadow warned me too late that my own battle was not over. I was struck savagely in the shoulder, knocked forward over the neck of the hespern with my right arm numbed halfway down my side. A kryll sliced past within inches of us. Its talons had struck me a glancing blow but failed to grip. On its back rode Vohanna in her gargoyle-Amazon form.
Where Vohanna had gotten a saddle bird from I did not know. Perhaps she’d taken it the way I’d taken mine. Perhaps she had conjured it. Either way she had the advantage in the air. The kryll is a raptor, green-eyed, bold yellow in coloring, with spurred claws for holding prey and a curved beak for tearing it. The hespern is no match for it in either speed or viciousness.
I jerked the down-rein taut, then loosed it to give my bird its head. Immediately, the hespern went into a dive. Vohanna was just below us and I tried to ram her smaller bird with my bigger one. But the kryll was too quick and slipped to one side, then turned almost upon its own length to come after us with a snap of wings. I heard a doubled cry, Vohanna’s and the kryll’s, as they launched their pursuit.
Though agony shot through my right arm, I forced movement from that limb as I grasped the hespern’s reins. I didn’t know if the shoulder was fractured or merely badly bruised, but I had to use it anyway as I sensed the kryll nearly upon us and tried to haul my bird to one side and out of the way. I almost made it. The kryll missed me with its talons but hooked the hespern along one broad flank, ripping out feathers and bits of flesh.
The big transport bird shrieked in pain and went into a steeper dive. I hung on, Bryce bouncing unconscious across the saddle in front of me. Off to one side and below us, I could see Jystral’s flagship and fought to turn the hespern’s head toward it.
Again, Vohanna dove her bird upon us. Though Bryce’s sword had been melted into slag back in the pyramid, I still carried my own blade thrust through my belt. I drew it now, tried to slash up and over my head at the reaching talons of the kryll. I hit something.
The raptor veered away with an angry squawk, then came back hard under the goading of Vohanna. I swung at it again, had the sword jerked from my hand as a three-inch claw raked across my wrist. For the second time, then, the kryll struck at my mount, tearing away gobbets of meat.
The hespern faltered. Just beneath us but still off to the left loomed the wounded battleship of Hurnan Jystral. It was close, but maybe still too far. I sawed on the reins, trying to force the bird’s head up. It fought me, then seemed to give in. With a low moan that could almost have been human, it quickened the beat of its wings. We rose, drifted over the ship.
With a scream of rage, Vohanna drove her bird directly into mine. The kryll’s talons stabbed down, shearing through the hespern’s wing; its beak struck, tearing a chunk from my bird’s neck that left arterial blood spurting.
The hespern folded,