“Be ready for anything, Love; this could be dangerous,” Geneva said as they took off from the ground.
“I am ready, Love. However, I don’t think the enemy will attack. They will be expecting us to scout their position, and we will act as if we have seen only what they want us to see. That way, they will give us free passage while Marlo uses her senses to locate the Riders who I am sure are out there. While she is doing that, I will survey the land and see if I can figure the best means to frustrate their real ambush.”
“That’s all well and good, Dear One, but just remember, that saddle you are using was made very quickly and has not been tested.”
“The reason they finished it so quickly was that they had a riding saddle for a horse that they were able to adapt for our purposes. They triple stitched everything with strong thread. I supervised the operation, and Brock said the work looked quite good to him. The saddle isn’t even particularly uncomfortable, though it isn’t as heavily padded in the seat as the saddle I gave to Jhren.”
“It certainly is more comfortable for me. That other one had gotten so small that I felt as if I were choking when I filled my flame bladder. This one seems to ride in the right place and won’t interfere with my flame or my wings.”
“I’m glad it works better for you, Love. I’m sure I will adjust to having less padding just fine,” he replied. “We are getting very close, and I can make out the low ground where the false ambush is situated. Tell Marlo to concentrate on the area beyond that and see if there are any dragons we don’t know out there.”
“Done, love. Tell me though; wouldn’t Marlo have sensed any dragons long before now? After all, she sensed our approach from nearly fifteen leagues away.”
“Yes, her senses in that respect are acute, but she may have been unconsciously dampening them because there were so many dragons to sort through on our side. Remember, it’s not just the ten of us she is feeling in camp, but thirty or so un-bonded dragons as well. That’s a lot of background noise to filter out to see the enemy. Marlo is good, but I suspect that even she has certain limits that we might have exceeded.”
“I don’t know about that; it sounds like guessing to me.” She paused and then said, “All right, Love, point for you. Marlo just informed me that she has detected seven dragons who are with Riders just beyond the Roracks hidden in the trees.”
“Well, since she has done her job, and I have seen the lay of the land, I suppose we should get back to camp and make some plans. I think I have found a way to deal with situation, and I would like to get the game going.”
Chapter 40
“I don’t see how flaming those trees will help us, Love,” Geneva said. “The Roracks that are hiding in them are spread out. We won’t get many of them this way.”
“You are forgetting the terrain, Love.” Delno replied. “It was a wet winter followed by a dry spring and summer. The trees and the underlying brush are like a tinderbox. When we set those trees burning, the fire will then take on a life of its own. The Roracks may be fast, but they will find themselves facing a wall of fire between their hidden reinforcements and the bait they set for us. We will then concentrate on the false ambush, and then when we are finished the soldiers will mop up anything we missed.”
“But the fires won’t burn forever, Delno. What happens when they die down?”
“Dear Heart, you have never walked in the hills after a forest fire. The carcasses of the animals that tried to outrun the fire litter the forest floor. The beast-men may be a bit faster than an average human, but even they can’t out run a fire that is burning uphill and has plenty of fuel to feed it. I doubt any will survive, but if some do, they will be in no shape to fight.”
“I hadn’t thought about that. Now that you have explained it, I see the logic of your strategy.”
“I am not surprised that you hadn’t thought of it. You are a winged creature. It isn’t in your nature to stay on the ground and try to outrun a fire. You would simply fly away, and therefore don’t see forest fire the way that flightless creatures do. After all, one thing I have noticed about the bodies of the animals on the ground is that there are darned few birds among them.”
“Well, that is why dragons and humans make such good Partners, Dear One. We augment each other’s skills and instincts.”
Delno had been waiting for the sun to rise just a little higher before giving the order to attack. It was an hour past dawn and the sun was just reaching the position that would have the dragons flying down to flame the tree line with the sun glaring directly behind them. Hopefully, this would help to blind the enemies on the ground to their intentions until it was too late. As he realized that the time had come, he had Geneva relay the order to commence the attack.
Sheila led the un-bonded dragons in the first wave. They flew straight at the trees and flamed them. As one dragon emptied her flame bladder, the one behind her would slightly overlap her strafing run and continue the line, then the next would repeat the performance. Soon, to Delno’s satisfaction, and also to his horror, the line of trees was burning for nearly a mile, from one side of the slope to the other. As expected, the fire caught quickly and began to climb the hill with incredible speed.
As the un-bonded dragons were lighting the slope on fire, the bonded dragons began their runs on the false ambush. This group of Roracks may have been the bait but they certainly weren’t helpless. As the dragons swooped down, the beast-men immediately hit them with a hailstorm of arrows. Literally thousands of the missiles were flying in the air. Most missed their mark, but the shields the Riders erected were put to the test.
The shields held for the first round, and hundreds of beast-men died in the conflagration. However, hundreds more were still alive, and they seemed to have no real fear of the fire that consumed their fellows. They began to spread out, and Delno had Sheila use her forces help to ring the Roracks in flames so that they wouldn’t break out of the low area they’d set up in.
Delno saw that the reinforcements were, at first, frustrated that they couldn’t get through the flames to attack the dragons and Riders. Then, as many of them started dying, they began to realize the reality of their predicament. They turned and began to race the fire uphill, and they quickly lost the race. He knew that they were Roracks and that they were merciless killers, but he still couldn’t help but feel sorry for those on the slope, and for the rest of them that were now ringed with fire and dying by the score.
“Coming down from top of the ridge, Love,” came Geneva’s urgent warning.
He looked where she had indicated, and there were the enemy Riders. They were grouping for attack. Delno sensed that at least two of them were massing energy in preparation for using magic. He had, of course, been expecting this. That was why Jhren had been kept in reserve. Carra quickly rose high, and the old wizard cast a bolt of magic at the seven enemies. One of the opposing dragons screamed as she was knocked from the air onto the slope, and she and her Rider were quickly lost in the flames: the others scattered.
Delno tried desperately to figure out which of the pairs of enemies was the obvious leader. They were flying in a spiraling formation that wove a somewhat intricate pattern and made it hard to keep track of any one of them. He was having trouble deciding who to go after when Geneva said, “I have them. The large green and her Rider are giving orders.”
“Then they are our target, Love. Inform Jhren, but make sure he knows that he isn’t to confront them directly. I want him as backup, and he’s too important to risk his life trying to fight directly without training.”
“Done,” she said. “I am going to close on our quarry.”
Geneva circled around and made a straight line for the large green dragon. The green’s Rider was so busy directing the others that he didn’t look up until it was too late. He managed to shield himself from the magical bolt that Delno shot directly at him, but Geneva simply grabbed the other dragon’s wing with both sets of her front claws while passing at full speed. The green’
s wing was not only horribly torn but also pulled out of joint. She desperately tried to arrest her fall, but, with one wing completely useless, she fell spiraling faster and faster until she hit the ground hard enough to break her neck, and nearly every other bone in her body. As she hit, she flipped over on top of her Rider, squashing him like a bug.
“Two down; maybe the others can be reasoned with at this point.”
“That would be nice, Delno,” Geneva replied, “but I don’t think they are ready to give up yet. Keep your shields up, Love; they have decided to come after us.”
“Call for back up!” Delno said as he poured more energy into the shields he was maintaining around himself and Geneva.
Delno blocked one magical attack while Geneva maneuvered out of the way of two others. Then one dragon got close above them and flamed directly into their faces. Delno redoubled his shields and felt extra energy being poured into them from somewhere else, most likely from Jhren. Then Brock and Leera made a strafing run on the attacker, and she was forced to veer off.
It was still a second or so before Geneva came out of the smoke and flame and they could see clearly again. When they could see, they found that the last of the five remaining enemies hadn’t been deterred, and the pair was bearing down on them. They had no time to avoid the attack. Geneva began to roll so that she would take the attack on her heavily armored underside and be able to deal some punishment with her own claws, while Delno braced for the impact and began readying a magical retaliation of his own.
Just before the other dragon hit there was a blur and Geneva’s attacker was knocked about fifteen yards off course. She had been hit by another dragon from the side, and the impact was such that the noise of it was audible even above the roaring of the wind and sounds of the dragons screaming. The two dragons were now locked in mortal combat and falling rapidly. Delno then realized that his rescuers were Rhonna and Lawrence. The man wasn’t creative when it came to tactics and had opted to simply hit the other team as hard as possible. Unfortunately, Rhonna’s wings and other limbs were now so entangled with her semi-conscious foe that she couldn’t break free. Both Dragons hit the ground so hard that they were knocked apart. Rhonna and Lawrence were killed instantly on impact, and, as if to leave no doubt of the outcome, the other dragon’s flame bladder ruptured and the explosion engulfed both pairs.
Lawrence had died saving Delno’s and Geneva’s lives. The young Rider had simply followed Brock as he had been doing since leaving Palamore and used the only tactic he could come up with in the situation. Delno couldn’t bring himself to believe that Lawrence could possibly have been so dull witted that he would have thought he could survive such an encounter. The pair had deliberately sacrificed themselves to save their comrades.
“That was a very brave act, Love,” Geneva said. “I will make sure that all dragons remember it. I would like to take time to mourn and celebrate the act, but we still have four more enemies to deal with.”
“Then let’s put this matter to rest. I want those Riders on the ground as soon as possible, and at this point I don’t care if they are alive or dead when they land. We need to end this before we lose any more from our side.”
A dragon screamed in pain to their left and Delno turned in time to see one of the enemy pairs trailing smoke from the dragon’s hide while they were desperately trying to get away. Four un-bonded dragons had attacked them simultaneously, and they had been unable to avoid all of them. As they were trying for altitude, a fifth un-bonded dragon was waiting for them. Delno realized that the first four had herded the unsuspecting pair into a trap. The fifth dragon flamed them, and the bonded dragon’s wings were crisped. She fell like a stone. She fell right in the middle of the Roracks who were still alive at the point of the false ambush, and her flame bladder exploded when she hit. Not only did that reduce the number of opposing dragons to three, it killed several score of the Roracks who had formed a protective ring on the ground while disrupting their formation.
Delno saw nearly a hundred Roracks, all relatively unscathed, form up and begin advancing toward the only opening in the flames that were consuming the dry grass and nearly surrounding them. He quickly had Geneva report the movement to Sheila, and several un-bonded dragons dove on the Roracks and closed the gap before they could escape. The Roracks screamed in rage and charged the flame wall as if they were insane. The charge amounted to nothing, and the beast-men who participated died in the useless attempt to get past the wall of fire.
The three enemy dragons had pulled back and were holding in confusion. Apparently, this was going so far against what they had envisioned they were unable to even regroup. Delno took the respite to survey the slope. It was completely involved in the fire and would probably burn for a day or more. Geneva confirmed that there were no living Roracks to be found on the ridge. The two thousand beast-men who had waited in ambush there had been low enough on the slope so that they would have been able to get quickly into the battle; therefore, none of them were close enough to the top of the ridge to get to the down slope on the other side before the flames reached them. They had all died without even getting the chance to return fire at the dragons who had killed them.
“Try and contact those Riders and tell them that if they surrender, they won’t be harmed,” Delno said.
There was a pause while Geneva relayed Delno’s message. “One of them says that he will personally kill you, and one says he is willing to surrender, while the third is completely confused as to what to do, and is waiting for the other two to decide.”
“Tell the one who has offered to surrender to land behind us. Have Will and Saadia, and several un-bonded dragons ensure that he really doesn’t try something. If he is not aggressive, they are not to do him or his dragon any harm.”
The pair acknowledged the instructions and moved to comply. The Rider who had made the threat was furious. He immediately moved to attack the pair who were surrendering, but found his way blocked by over a dozen un-bonded dragons and four bonded pairs. Then he made the colossal mistake of trying to flame his way through them. All of the un-bonded dragons returned fire for fire, and the pair were dead before they hit the ground.
The last enemy dragon turned and flew away from the scene of the battle as fast as her wings would carry her. Several dragons moved to give chase, but Delno called them back.
“Tell them to let that pair go,” he said to Geneva. “Let them return to their master and report on what has happened here today.” He looked down and saw that his soldiers were moving in and finishing off the Roracks who were still alive. In most cases, it was more an act of mercy than an act of aggression. “There may be a lot of Roracks out there, but the loss of nearly four thousand of them without any appreciable gain against us will be a blow to Warrick. Add the loss of six of his dragons, and he will be hard pressed to make up the deficit.”
“We should get on the ground, Love,” Geneva replied. “We have some injuries on our side and a prisoner to interrogate. Also, I wish to mourn the loss of a brave pair who died defending us.”
Delno suddenly had a bit of trouble with a large lump that popped up in his throat so he simply let Geneva take control, and she began gliding down to land. Once on the ground, the two of them just stood together for a moment gathering themselves before they moved on to do what must still be done.
Once he felt his composure return, Delno moved to the injured dragons who had been burned or pierced and began healing them. It didn’t take long; casualties were light on their side, and the bonded dragons had their own Riders to heal them if they had been injured. A few of the dragons had gotten a bit scorched, and three had actually gotten arrows in their mouths, while one had taken an arrow in the flesh surrounding her eye where the scales were the thinnest.
If the arrow had been an inch higher, she might have lost her eye. As it was, he had to pull the arrow out, which was quite painful because the Roracks used barbed arrow heads that tended to work the dart in deeper rather than facilitate
removal. The dragon stood stoically though while he pulled the thing free. Then he healed the injury completely within a minute or so.
Many of the uninjured dragons remained aloft and watched the skies in case more enemies showed up, but the air remained free of threats. Those dragons on the ground gathered with Geneva around Rhonna’s body and set up that same eerie keening that Delno had heard Geneva use when her mother had died. The sound was echoed from those still circling above. Then the dragons soaring overhead all began to flame while flying in a spiral pattern as a tribute to Rhonna’s and Lawrence’s sacrifice.
Chapter 41
“You can’t do anything to me. I surrendered today, but Warrick will soon take you out of the picture, and I will be back where I belong!” the young Rider they had captured, Kurt, said defiantly.
“There are several reasons you shouldn’t be so quick to put any further faith in your master, Warrick, boy,” Delno responded. “First; he will not take lightly to you surrendering. As far as he is concerned now, you are a deserter. If he catches up with you, he will treat you accordingly. Second; he has consistently underestimated us since we joined this war. What happened today is simply a large scale version of what has happened every time we have faced his forces. We lost one dragon and Rider, while his losses number five Riders and their dragons dead, and one captured. At the same time, he lost nearly four thousand of his beast-men without so much as making our ground troops break a sweat. He has over extended himself and now doesn’t have the resources to keep his captured territories. He is losing ground continuously in every kingdom where we have moved against him to this point. Now that we have arrived in Horne, he will lose ground here as well.” He paused and let that sink in. “No, son, don’t look to your former friends to swoop down out of the sky heroically and rescue you from our clutches. You are our prisoner and will remain so until I say otherwise.”
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