Screaming, Pashera passed out.
“Kaledonia!” Someone shouted the word. Pashera opened her eyes. Her head was being cradled by Tol’zen. In the distance, trumpets blasted and leatherbacks and warriors alike roared with battle fury. Ash and soot floated down like a million-billion goose feathers from the sky, covering the world in a cushiony down of doom.
The lead scientist, Ny’send stood not six issols away, his finger extended toward Pashera, his arm shaking like a leaf in the wind. “Kaledonia!” His tone was accusing, his face a mask of horror, even in the soot-laden darkness.
The other scientists picked themselves up from where they’d also fallen in heaps. U’Weet wavered on his feet like a ship in a stormy sea. The other, Yro’thra, looked around, saw Pashera, and shouted, “Kaledonia!”
“You mad fools!” Tol’zen hissed at the scientists. “Stop it!”
“Kaledonia!” Ny’send shouted again. “She is Kaledonia, come back from hell to doom us all. Don’t you understand? She is a demon in the flesh!”
Tol’zen stood up so quickly that Pashera’s head hit the grass. The grass was deliciously cool under her aching scalp. Tol’zen moved like a bolt, stepping to the lead scientist while drawing his blade at the same time. In one vicious, sweeping motion, Tol’zen cut Ny’send in two. Dark blood spurted everywhere.
Yro’thra, who was the closer of the remaining two scientists, looked on in shock, but not for long. His head rolled to the grass as more blood jetted into the air. His body stood for a second on its own, then fell down before the head stopped rolling.
The third scientist, U’Weet, cried out in alarm and turned to run away. Tol’zen moved quickly and ran his blade right through the other saurian’s heart.
All it had taken was a few seconds. Suddenly, Tol’zen and Pashera were alone on the hill, save for three rapidly cooling corpses. Pashera scrambled groggily to her feet.
The storm of soot and dirt masked their actions from the soldiers at the foot of the hill. They might have been the only two people in the world at that moment.
“Madness,” she croaked. “Tol’zen, you’re mad.”
He looked at her with a face that was anguish shot through with fury. He held out a bloody hand to her, and she shrank from it.
“Wait!” he cried. “Don’t you see, Pashera?”
“Kaledonia,” he croaked. Then he shook himself, dislodging a coating of ash, and continued:
“They were calling you ‘Kaledonia.’ She’s the monster under the bed for our race. A human female who wreaked havoc on our world nearly a thousand years ago. I don’t believe half the stories about her. No one can be that cunning, that treacherous, that destructive. I think she’s a scapegoat for so much that went wrong in the last Grand Cycle.
“But here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter what the truth about Kaledonia is. They called you ‘Kaledonia.’ If the warriors heard that, it would be over. You wouldn’t live to see the morning. They’d tear you apart. And there would be nothing I could do to stop them.
“And I wasn’t going to allow that. Not you. Not ever. Because I love you.”
And with that, Tol’zen took her in his arms, and pulled her close, and kissed her for a long time, with urgency. She realized that her captor, her enslaver, this murderer of his own kind, was truly, deeply, even madly in love with her.
And as he kissed her, her own passions rose. And she kissed him back. Because she was truly in love with him as well. Damn all the hells, she loved him as much as he loved her. And despite the awfulness of the setting, she was overwhelmed by the essence of Tol’zen's passion. The kiss became a transcendental experience, as if together, they formed a more perfect being. As his arms swept around her and held her tight, she delivered her love back to him, over and over again.
But even as she kissed him, there were ashes in her mouth.
Chapter 9. Kro’brin’s Story
After the third impact, war trumpets sounded. Kro’brin’s dragon shock troops hauled themselves to their feet just as the huge cloud of debris rolled out from the shattered fortress.
Kro’brin hated this from the get-go, and the wall of dirt just made it worse. He hated yasts, something he would have been surprised to find out he shared with Pashera. Kro’brin had never considered himself a talented rider. His yast was a disagreeable lump, overfed from months idling in the stables after its last rider had met a grisly end. But he’d been told this yast was the best that was available when he’d been tasked with this duty.
Kro’brin still hated it.
He hated the whole idea of “shock troops”. He didn’t want to ride ahead of everyone else. What kind of deranged mind came up with that strategy? That was a good way to get killed, that’s what.
He hated the wonder weapons. A weapon that could dissolve anyone and anything terrified him. What if he activated it by mistake and killed one of his own men – or himself? Now he had two of the damned things holstered on his yast and another one slung over his back. The wonder weapon weighed like it was made out of granite. Damn the inventor of that, too. Who’d invented it? Probably that know-it-all Thal’tos.
Kro’brin expected the dirt blast to subside. But instead the dirt hung in the air, billowing around his head, and getting in his nose and eyes. If anything, it seemed to be getting worse. The night, which had been lit by the moon and the sparkling stars, was now a suffocating blanket.
Someone stumbled into him from the left. Kro’brin was so surprised he almost pissed himself. As it is, he yelped.
“Sorry sir,” said his second-in-command, Wa’iss. He sounded as choked as Kro’brin felt. “They’ve sounded the trumpets. We better advance.”
“We can’t ride in this murk,” Kro’brin said disgustedly.
“No sir,” Wa’iss agreed.
Kro’brin sighed, and choked as he took in more dust. “Pass the word. Tell our warriors to lead their yasts. Don’t leave them behind – we need the wonder weapons. Let’s move it.”
He yanked on the reins of his mount. The obstinate beast resisted at first, then gave in as Kro’brin’s yanks became more savage. Putting his head down and covering his nose with his hand, he yanked on the reins again and led his mount deeper into the cloud, headed in the direction of the fortress.
Meanwhile, in the fortress itself, fully half the inhabitants were still alive through a twist of fate – the section that hadn’t been blown apart was where most of them slept. Many of these were terrified out of their wits. But others, about two hundred, found their leather-winged mounts and guided them, braying and cawing in fear, into taking wing.
The Sky People, or sky pirates as the saurians called them, did not fly at night for the simple reason that their mounts, the helleckers, were not night fliers. But panic is a good motivator. And the sky pirates urged their mounts higher and higher, looking for their attackers. First, they had to clear the cloud of dust and pillars of flame that had torn much of their fortress apart.
But as the sky pirates cleared the dust, both man and bird choking and gasping from the dust, the bat-folk attacked.
Swooping down from where they coasted on rising night air currents, folding and aiming their stretched-skin wings, the bat-folk reached out with metal claws – their traditional battle weapons – and ripped the wings of the helleckers to shreds. The birds screamed in agony and rage. Some started to spiral out of the sky. Others, not as badly wounded, wheeled to attack.
Other bat-folk, still furious over the night-time acid-fire attack that had claimed so many lives, could not resist attacking the sky pirates directly. This opened them to counter-attack. But oh, the joy of seeing those ambushing bastards tumble, clawed and screaming, to their doom below. That was worth it.
Meanwhile, on the ground, next to the river and away from the fortress, was the camp of the allies of the sky pirates. These were a motley assortment of human renegades, rogues and runaways. The horrific triple-impact of the fliers into the fort, which seemed to tear the very night itself asunde
r, sent half of these folk scurrying down the slopes into the river, then swimming or clutching at rocks in a bid to get across before they were swept over the waterfall. Those that made it across the river ran off into the woods.
But the other half of this crew, bitterly remembering the bite of the lash and another thousand casual cruelties meted out by the saurians, formed hasty battle parties and charged toward the fortress.
If there was blood spilled tonight, by all the hells, they wanted some of it to be saurian.
Into the carnage at the heart of the fortress waded Kro’brin and his two dozen dragon shock troops. Kro’brin, leading his yast through the dust cloud, came upon a scene out of hell. Whole walls had collapsed, burying sky pirate and hellecker alike. Warrior and wife, young and old, man and beast, the voices of those trapped under the rubble raised in an unholy chorus of desperation and pain, screaming for help.
Kro’brin was not there to help. But in the murk of the dust cloud, which turned the night into pea soup, he wasn’t sure what he could accomplish.
Groping through the gloom Kro’brin lost sight of his men. Through a gap in the dust, he saw a group of sky pirates and they saw him. They picked up weapons as he approached. He swung his wonder weapon up on its sling and fired. The gun made its metallic hum, and the light refracted through the airborne dust, leaving him blinded. Damn the hells, why didn’t he remember his training and close an eye?
In a few seconds, he could see again. He realized that the people he had aimed at had disappeared except for stray body parts out of the cone of effect.
Another blinding flash to his left. One of his dragon troopers had found a target.
“Tha-wump!” A hellecker fell to the rubble in front of him, its wings torn to shreds. Miraculously, the sky pirate riding it survived. He rolled off the carcass and ended up right in front of Kro’brin.
Kro’brin’s mount barked and shot its head forward, clamping its sharp teeth around the sky pirate’s head. The pitiful devil screamed and screamed, until the shriek choked off in a crunch as his skull cracked like an eggshell.
Another group of survivors charged out of a hole in the wall. Kro’brin leveled his wonder weapon again and fired.
He smiled with grim satisfaction. He’d remembered to close his left eye that time.
Back at the main body of the army, warriors unhooded their lights. There was no need for stealth anymore, and the dust cloud created a pea soup smog.
As the wonder weapons of the dragon troopers hummed and lit up the dust cloud from inside, several lieutenants turned to Commander Dal’ger expectantly. He nodded, put his whistle to his lips and blew.
The leatherbacks howled, and the troops picked it up. And they moved forward steadily.
At the foot of the hill, the troopers assigned to guard the scientists lined up to watch the show. It had started with amazing fireworks. Now, sky pirates and bat-folk battled against the background of columns of fire and smoke, the ashes floating down like confetti from hell, and the howl of the warriors set all their blood to singing.
“Blast you all,” came a voice from behind them. They turned to see Lord Tol’zen coming down the hill, his slave by his side. Dust covered them both, but lamplight showed that his hands and face were covered in blood.
“My lord!” the senior guard exclaimed.
“While you’ve been watching the show, rogues slipped through and attacked us on the hill,” Tol’zen hissed. “Three scientists dead, and my own head nearly lost in the bargain.”
Fear coursed down the troopers’ spines. To have failed their lord so abysmally …
“My lord,” the senior trooper said, abjectly humiliated. Then he shouted to the others. “Form up! Form up and protect Lord Tol’zen!”
Lord Tol’zen continued down the hill, the troopers around him feverishly looking for any threats. The human slave at his side clung to his arm and searched his face.
“Where to, my lord?” the senior trooper asked.
“To the battle, of course,” Tol’zen hissed, and stumbled forward into the cloud.
At the fortress, Kro’brin quickly ran out of sky pirate warriors to kill. The little folk either found hellecker mounts to take them skyward or ran off toward the river. So, he used the charges on his last wonder weapon to knock down more of the fortress.
Out of the rubble streamed human captives; mainly women and children. These were women who had either been captured by the sky pirates or run off to join them. Kro’brin didn’t know what to do with them. Should he kill them? Probably not. Kro’tos would love having more slaves, since that attacks in the south were crimping the slave trade. Besides, Kro’brin didn’t have it in him to kill those who weren’t threatening to kill him.
The slaves weren’t much to look at now, covered in dust and bleeding from all sorts of terrible wounds caused by shrapnel from the flier impact. Kro’brin didn’t expect much from monkeys at the best of times. But in the aftermath of the attack, these were weeping and moaning.
Well, he’d leave the problem to Tol’zen. Commander Dal’ger would be along with the rest of the force soon enough. Kro’brin knew that his dragon troopers had acquitted themselves well – admittedly, it was Tol’zen’s plan – and Kro’tos would be pleased with his nephew.
Or would he be pleased? The problem with success, Kro’brin reflected, is it made you a target at the palace. Just look at what happened to Tol’zen – sent off on that damned-fool quest with just a spear to recover the hearts of missing Cydars.
Maybe Tol’zen would be a useful ally, Kro’brin mused.
Another hellecker plummeted to earth just 15 issols away, scaring the piss out of him. Kro’brin swore and stomped over to look at it. The pilot was dead, too, ripped up by the horrible war-claws of the bat-folk. Kro’brin looked up. Far above, illuminated by a pillar of fire and the moon, but vaguely visible through the haze of dust, far-away figures wheeled and attacked each other.
Another body fell to earth nearby. This was one of the bat-folk, with a javelin right through his heart. Give the sky pirates this much, they were tough buggers. They didn’t know when they’d been licked.
Kro’brin was so busy looking up at the sky, that he nearly missed the wave of renegade humans that, at that very moment, charged through the ruins and set upon the dragon troopers with howls for blood.
Commander Dal’ger urged his troops along with curses and threats. It was tough going because of the swarm of human captives coming the other way, popping up out of the dust cloud in ways that scared the tar out of the younger warriors.
The captives were women and young ones, which his men didn’t see as a threat. Some warriors killed anyway, just to get their swords bloody. Commander Dal’ger soon put a stop to that. “Professional warriors act like professionals,” was his motto on the wall and at the Dragon Gate. He didn’t maintain discipline there just to see it fall apart here.
Still, captives kept popping up. They were often bleeding and always balling and blubbering after the flying bombs had blown their world apart. This slowed his warriors down. Exasperated, Commander Dal’ger ordered two squads to round up the captives and urged the rest of his force on. He wanted to get to the fortress before Lord Tol’zen came to the front. If Dal’ger was late getting to the war, he’d never live it down.
Suddenly, there was screaming and howling up ahead. Commander Dal’ger put his whistle to his lips and gave three short blasts. The signal meant “double time!”
Dal’ger added his own emphasis, shouting: “Charge, you bastards, and devils take the hindmost!”
At the ruined fortress, the renegades swarmed over the dragon troopers. Some of Kro’brin’s warriors still had charged wonder weapons, and they went down blasting. But surprise favored the renegades. And attacking from all sides, they made short work of half the dragon troopers in a matter of minutes.
The other half fell back around Kro’brin. Since his wonder weapons were already drained, he didn’t step forward to attack. Instead, he pu
t his back to a wall and laid around him, swinging the wonder weapon like a club.
It was heavy, and he had the satisfaction of cracking three skulls before it was pulled out of his hand. He pulled his dagger, set his teeth in a grimace, and prepared to die. But then, in a bur of brown skin, heavy feet and white teeth, his yast charged in and sent the renegades scattering. Kro’brin swung himself up in the saddle, thinking at the same time that it was probably a stupid thing to do. There was broken rock all underfoot, and his mount was probably going to trip and fall over on him.
But there was also the fact that a saurian in the saddle was worth three on the ground. And all was not lost. Through the gloom, he saw three dragon troopers to his left and four to his right fighting their way to him. Other yasts ran around, attacking the renegades and generally sowing chaos. Kro’brin pulled his sword from its saddle sheath and hacked at those around him with a vengeance.
Still the renegades came on. A sharp pain in his left leg – stabbed right in the thigh! Again! This time, another spear found its mark and ripped long and deep. By the demon Darklu’s balls, it was excruciating! Groaning, he stabbed that renegade in the eye, but the damage was done.
A forest of spears formed up and marched toward him. The problem is, mounts would not charge a wall of spears. The bastards knew that! His yast barked and trilled in fear, and rose up on its back feet. Kro’brin spat at the renegades and howled a battle-cry.
His battle cry was answered from beyond the cloud of smoke. First one voice, then many voices. Then the saurian warriors charged out of the dusty gloom, cutting the renegades before them like a blade through tall grasses.
He was saved.
Now Kro’brin realized he was in a bit of a pickle – his leg was too ripped up to dismount. But he was already feeling woozy – he’d lost too much blood.
Commander Dal’ger ran into view.
“Took you long enough, you slow, fat bastard!” Kro’brin shouted, and fell out of his saddle.
Slave in the City of Dragons (Dinosaurs and Gladiators Book 1) Page 23
