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Chapter Thirty
The gryphons hit Fort Salby like a tidal wave of ferocity wrapped up in feathers, talons, and fur.
The men on the fort's walls had never seen anything like them. But then, they'd never seen anything like quite a lot of what they were seeing this day. And if they'd never seen them before, at least they'd had them described to them by officers who had been briefed by Crown Prince Janaki. Those briefings defused much of the terror of the unknown. They didn't magically banish fear, didn't make dragons or gryphons any less monstrous, any less u
They knew about the negotiations. They knew the Crown Prince was right, that the Arcanans must have been carefully pla
They'd already smashed the first attack. The price might have been high, but they'd knocked those stupendous dragons out of the air, proven the Arcanans' magical creatures were indeed mortal, however wondrous they might appear. And so, as the gryphons swept down upon them, swinging wide to avoid overflying the infantry positions west of the fort, they were ready.
Rifle fire flamed across the parapet. The heavy machine guns which had wreaked such havoc against the dragons couldn't traverse quickly enough to engage the smaller, fleeter gryphons effectively, and even the rifles were less than completely effective. As good as the Model 10 was, it was still a bolt-action rifle engaging flying targets coming in at speeds of well over two hundred miles an hour.
Here and there, a gryphon's wings suddenly faltered, a beast fell out of the oncoming cloud of killers, but the rest kept coming.
The overhead cover which had been erected to protect the firing steps from fireballs proved at least partly effective against gryphons, as well. Some of the beasts flung themselves upon the sandbags, ripping at them, shredding them to get at the fragile human bodies beneath them. Others hurled themselves straight into the faces of the defenders, coming over the parapet, swarming into the gap between the overhead and the tops of the fort's walls. Still others swept past the parapets entirely, stooping on the unprotected men on the fort parade ground and in the gun pits.
Fourteen-inch bayonets turned rifles into short spears, thrusting frantically as two-foot beaks snapped like headsmen's axes. Here and there, wicked talons gripped rifles, snatching them aside, and everywhere men screamed in agony as bellies were opened, throats were ripped out, heads simply disappeared.
Revolvers cracked and shotguns began to bellow, thundering in rapid fire, spitting buckshot into tawnyhided killers, and gryphons shrieked in agony of their own. It was all one mad, swirling sea of chaos.
Rof chan Skrithik saw the gryphon which had killed his prince. The creature flung back its head, bloody beak gaping in a scream of triumph, and then a feathered thunderbolt struck from above. Janaki's falcon hurled itself into the monster's face with a hissing shriek of pure fury, and the guillotine beak snapped ferociously as its small tormentor ripped bleeding furrows across its face and blinded one eye.
Taleena distracted the gryphon just long enough for chan Skrithik to drag out his revolver. The regimentcaptain was aware of his prince, bleeding under the gryphon's ferocious talons, and he bared his teeth in savage hatred as his thumb cocked the hammer and the heavy weapon roared.
The gryphon screamed in fresh pain as the heavy bullet smashed into it. It turned away from Taleena, back towards chan Skrithik, and the regiment-captain shot it again. And again!
It went down at last with the fourth shot, and chan Skrithik felt hands pulling him back to his feet.
It was Senior-Armsman Isia, bleeding from a deep cut in his right cheek, his eyes wild.
"Sir! Are you all right, Sir?"
Chan Skrithik stared at the Flicker for two or three eternal heartbeats. All right? How could he ever be
'all right' again? He ripped his eyes away from Isia, and they burned with unshed tears as he looked down at the dead young man at his feet. But then he shook himself. His prince had died to give him his final orders, and his lips drew back.
"Message!" he barked at Isia.
"Yes, Sir!"
Isia dragged out his notepad, holding it to one side to avoid bleeding on it.
"I want Platoon-Captain chan Noth over at the southeastern tower—now! He's to do whatever it takes to hold that wall!"
"Yes, Sir!"
Isia's pencil slashed at the pad. He stuffed the hastily written order into a message canister and Flicked it on its way.
"Message to Sunlord Markan," chan Skrithik continued without a break. "Begin: Expect heavy cavalry attack from southeast. Expect fire-throwers. Imperative the enemy not reach the fort's walls with blasting spells."
He thought about adding specific instructions, but there was no need. Uromathian or not, Markan was smart and experienced. He'd know what to do.
Isia Flicked that message to its destination, as well, then took chan Skrithik's revolver and quickly replaced the expended rounds for the suddenly one-handed regiment-captain. Chan Skrithik thanked him absently and reholstered the weapon, then started down the steps from the parapet. He hated leaving that vantage point—and hated, almost as much, the feeling that he was somehow abandoning his prince—but with Janaki dead, he needed access to chan Forcal.
Movement jarred the shattered bones in his left forearm. A part of him almost welcomed the physical pain as a distraction from the anguish within, but he couldn't afford to be distracted by either of them.
And so he pushed both of them aside, cradling his broken arm with his good one in an effort to at least minimize the hurt and trying not to think about what another fall might do to that arm while he ran down the steps faster than he really should have.
All about him he heard screams, rifle shots, shotguns, and pistols. Bodies and pieces of men's bodies fell from the walls. Sprays of blood and feathers seemed to be everywhere, and gryphons—most dead, some only wounded and even more dangerous for that—littered the parade ground.
Chan Skrithik let go of his left arm and drew his revolver once more as he and Isia headed out across that parade ground. Twice, wounded gryphons slashed at him with beaks or talons, and twice the heavy H&W revolver roared in his hand.
Then, ahead of him, he saw Company-Captain Mesaion. The New Farnalian company-captain had moved down to the ground level gun pits and he'd brought his Distance Viewer with him.
"I understand what His Highness said, Sir," Wesiar chan Forcal protested. "I'm trying. But they just godsdamned disappeared and I can't get them ba—"
The Distance Viewer broke off. For an instant, his eyes were distant, almost confused looking. And then, abruptly, they snapped back into focus.
"I've got them again," he said flat-voiced. "I See the standard, too. Gods, those are big fucking horses!"
"Screw their size!" Lorvam Mesaion snapped. "Give me a target!"
"Yes, Sir."
Chan Forcal closed his eyes once more, concentrating on his Talent. Distance Viewers were critical to accurate indirect artillery fire, but chan Forcal had a special Talent, and Mesaion had never been gladder that the chief-armsman had wound up assigned to Fort Salby. Men with his Talent were more often snapped up by the Navy, because chan Forcal was a predictive Distance Viewer. His particular Talent included just a touch of Precognition. The ability to project a moving target's position ever so briefly in advance.
"Six thousand yards," chan Forcal said suddenly, sharply. "One-seven-three degrees. Two minutes."
"Six thousand yards!" Mesaion bellowed. "One-seven-three degrees! Move, godsdamn you!"
"Bugler!"
"Sir?"
"Blow 'At the Trot'!"
"Yes, Sir!"
Five Hundred Urlan heard the urgent, golden notes flaring from the bell-mouthed bugle, and the Seventh Zydors sprang ponderously into a trot. Their horses might be slower than unicorns, but despite their size, the massive beasts were still faster than the finest unaugmented thoroughbred ever foaled On the other hand, they still had over three miles to go.
"Bugler, blow 'Canter'!"
"Now!" chan Forcal shouted, and seven four-and-a-half-inch mortars coughed as one.
There was no warning.
One instant, the Seventh Zydor Heavy Dragoons were thundering forward, moving up from a trot to a hard canter in perfect order under the protection of their cloaking glamour. The next, thunderbolts came dropping out of the heavens without any warning at all.
Five Hundred Urlan swore savagely as the mortar bombs exploded. They clustered around his command standard with enough perverse accuracy to make a man actually believe in demons after all, and the sunbaked, stony earth was almost as hard as a paved street. The incoming mortar rounds scarcely dented it, and there was nothing to absorb the force of the explosions ... or the deadly, whirling splinters those explosions threw out in all directions. Horses and men screamed as white-hot steel fragments drove into fragile flesh and bone. Half a dozen of the huge steeds went down, shrieking like tortured women as legs broke or whirling steel knives opened their bellies.
"Spread out! Skirmish order!" Urlan bellowed. Once again, the bugle's notes flared golden, and his men responded like the elite troopers they were. They opened their ranks, dispersing to deny their enemies a compact, concentrated target.
Urlan watched the evolution. The confines of the valley meant they couldn't open their ranks as widely as he would have preferred, but at least they were no longer riding knee-to-knee. He bared his teeth as more of those infernal explosions raked the Zydors, and then he swore again, hideously, as he realized the commander of fifty responsible for the glamour was down.
"There they are!" Lorash chan Braikal snapped.
He didn't know how the Arcanans had pulled it off. Still, if the bastards had dragons, why shouldn't they have cloaks of invisibility, as well?
The thought flickered through the back of his mind, but whatever it was and however it had worked, it obviously hadn't fooled Company-Captain Mesaion's Distance Viewer. The explosions sprouting amongst the oncoming cavalry looked like flame-cored toadstools, and he saw the huge horses going down, spilling their riders.