a dancer’s.
As he released, he took his next arrow from his belt. “Two,” he spat.
He meant he had two shafts left.
Both wyverns had chosen to turn in place, gaining altitude and timing their strike so that they could envelop the desperate stand of the knights and archers, splitting the archers’ efforts and the knights’ attention.
But it had cost them. All the archers were hitting at this range.
Gavin stood in
coda longa
with his war hammer stretched out behind him, prepared to deliver an enormous blow. Di Laternum had his spiked axe up in front of him.
The wyverns finished their turn and their sinuous necks flashed as one as their heads locked on to their shared prey. Both monsters screeched together.
The wave fronts of their conjoined terror struck. Di Laternum fell to one knee. Gavin’s shoulder flared in icy pain and his mind seemed to go blank.
Flarch lost the arrow in his fingers.
Cuddy loosed and missed.
The smaller wyvern was the size of a small ship, its body forty feet long top to tail and its wingspan sixty feet or more. Its underside was oddly flecked with the fletchings of a dozen quarter-pound arrows.
Its mate—if the mighty monster had a mate—was bigger. Its wingsseemed to block the sun, and its body was a mottled green and brown and white like old marble. Its wave of terror was far more subtle than its younger partner’s—its terror promised freedom through submission.
The children under the wagon all screamed together.
And then a taloned claw the size of the wagon took the greater of the two wyverns and ripped one of its wings from its still-living body.
Darkness blotted out the sun. Night fell.
The dragon was so huge that no mere human mind could encompass it. Its taloned feet were themselves almost as large as the wyvern’s body. The mortally-stricken wyvern wheeled into a catastrophic crash with a scream of rage and humiliation.
The younger monster turned on a wing tip. It was cunning enough to pass
under
its titanic adversary, rushing for open sky and rising on a lucky thermal even as the dragon turned in the sky, so close to the ground that the vortices at its sweeping wing tips a thousand feet apart launched small spouts of leaves and the rush of its passage knocked men flat.
The wyvern rose and turned, going north. The thermal lifted it—
Ser Gavin watched with savage satisfaction as the thing was chased down. The dragon—incredible as it was—was faster.
The wyvern made two attempts. Because of the altitude, both were visible. First it dived for speed, and then it tried to fly very low, turning under its mammoth adversary again.
The dragon pivoted in mid-air. It was too far away for its size to register—far enough that the whole of the incredible monster was visible, top to toe, a bowshot or more long, with a neck as long as a road and a noble head with nostrils as big as caves and teeth as tall as a man on a horse.
The great mouth opened, and all the men on the road gave a shout.
Silence fell.
And then all hell was given voice in the woods north of the road.
When the ambush was sprung, Count Zac’s first thought was to envelop the northern arm of the ambush. It was bred in him, not a conscious decision. He gathered every man on every pony, all the pages and his own survivors, and they rode into the deep woods north of the road, sweeping wide around his best guess of where the enemy might lie.
The great wardens were no aliens to the easterners. The lightning-fast carrion dogs were a terrible surprise, but he’d seen them now.
Like the veteran hunters they were, the Vardariotes spread as they rode, casting a net as wide as they could. The pages tended to clump up. Zac ignored them as amateurs.
His own boys and girls trotted—and then when his sweep turned in a neat buttonhook south, and he raised his arm, they reined in.
Every man and woman with him drew their sabre and placed it overtheir right arm, so that the gentle curve nestled in the archer’s
As he released, he took his next arrow from his belt. “Two,” he spat.
He meant he had two shafts left.
Both wyverns had chosen to turn in place, gaining altitude and timing their strike so that they could envelop the desperate stand of the knights and archers, splitting the archers’ efforts and the knights’ attention.
But it had cost them. All the archers were hitting at this range.
Gavin stood in
coda longa
with his war hammer stretched out behind him, prepared to deliver an enormous blow. Di Laternum had his spiked axe up in front of him.
The wyverns finished their turn and their sinuous necks flashed as one as their heads locked on to their shared prey. Both monsters screeched together.
The wave fronts of their conjoined terror struck. Di Laternum fell to one knee. Gavin’s shoulder flared in icy pain and his mind seemed to go blank.
Flarch lost the arrow in his fingers.
Cuddy loosed and missed.
The smaller wyvern was the size of a small ship, its body forty feet long top to tail and its wingspan sixty feet or more. Its underside was oddly flecked with the fletchings of a dozen quarter-pound arrows.
Its mate—if the mighty monster had a mate—was bigger. Its wingsseemed to block the sun, and its body was a mottled green and brown and white like old marble. Its wave of terror was far more subtle than its younger partner’s—its terror promised freedom through submission.
The children under the wagon all screamed together.
And then a taloned claw the size of the wagon took the greater of the two wyverns and ripped one of its wings from its still-living body.
Darkness blotted out the sun. Night fell.
The dragon was so huge that no mere human mind could encompass it. Its taloned feet were themselves almost as large as the wyvern’s body. The mortally-stricken wyvern wheeled into a catastrophic crash with a scream of rage and humiliation.
The younger monster turned on a wing tip. It was cunning enough to pass
under
its titanic adversary, rushing for open sky and rising on a lucky thermal even as the dragon turned in the sky, so close to the ground that the vortices at its sweeping wing tips a thousand feet apart launched small spouts of leaves and the rush of its passage knocked men flat.
The wyvern rose and turned, going north. The thermal lifted it—
Ser Gavin watched with savage satisfaction as the thing was chased down. The dragon—incredible as it was—was faster.
The wyvern made two attempts. Because of the altitude, both were visible. First it dived for speed, and then it tried to fly very low, turning under its mammoth adversary again.
The dragon pivoted in mid-air. It was too far away for its size to register—far enough that the whole of the incredible monster was visible, top to toe, a bowshot or more long, with a neck as long as a road and a noble head with nostrils as big as caves and teeth as tall as a man on a horse.
The great mouth opened, and all the men on the road gave a shout.
Silence fell.
And then all hell was given voice in the woods north of the road.
When the ambush was sprung, Count Zac’s first thought was to envelop the northern arm of the ambush. It was bred in him, not a conscious decision. He gathered every man on every pony, all the pages and his own survivors, and they rode into the deep woods north of the road, sweeping wide around his best guess of where the enemy might lie.
The great wardens were no aliens to the easterners. The lightning-fast carrion dogs were a terrible surprise, but he’d seen them now.
Like the veteran hunters they were, the Vardariotes spread as they rode, casting a net as wide as they could. The pages tended to clump up. Zac ignored them as amateurs.
His own boys and girls trotted—and then when his sweep turned in a neat buttonhook south, and he raised his arm, they reined in.
Every man and woman with him drew their sabre and placed it overtheir right arm, so that the gentle curve nestled in the archer’s
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