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He wore light, leather armor, a mail shirt beneath, padded with a thick wool doublet to keep it from clinking. His trousers and tunic and cloak were borrowed from a Stranger, the shifting brown-gray-green that resembled dancing leaf shadows, and which concealed them so well in the forest. He’d smeared dirt on his face, and ground it into his hair – ugh – and felt that he looked sufficiently unlike a golden lordling. Connor had done a double-take, before they departed, so that was something.
He peered now through a screen of leaves, and Connor did the same beside him, Strangers flanking them on both sides. The nearest scorpion – manned by a crew of four, if he wasn’t missing anyone in the shadow of the contraption – stood two dozen yards away. Near enough they could cover the distance quickly, but far enough that one of the Sels would have a chance to take up the bow that sat propped at the scorpion’s base and fire off a shot at them. The moon was big tonight, nearly full, and visibility would hurt them, and help the enemy.
Again, Reggie waited for panic to grip him, but he stayed firmly rooted in the moment, and the problem at hand.
They’d counted on this, and were ready.
He turned to his left, and the young Stranger standing there, his long hair twisted back in a knot, arms banded with leather bracers. Reggie caught his eye, and lifted a single finger.Be ready. They were in position, now it was up to–
A distant, inhuman call echoed through the clearing, a lilting, crooning sound that Reggie could tell straight off was Alpha, communicating with his girls.
All four men on the scorpion snapped to attention. There was a scuffle, the hiss and shush of nervous voices, speaking in their native tongue. They stepped around the base of the machine, peering up at the sky.
Reggie peered up, too, and saw a drake’s silhouette pass before the moon. The long, serpentine neck and tail, the great rise and fall of the wings, their sharp, batlike tips stark black against the moon-washed blue of the sky. At the drake’s withers, a small bump: Amelia’s head, where she was tucked low between his wings.
For a moment, he didn’t see them as his friend and a friendly beast he’d come to respect and trust, at least a little (Lenny was his favorite, after all), but as the panicking Sels must have seen them: a winged demon, dressed in darkness, impossible and terrible and awesome. A single note of fear licked down his spine, and he knew the urge to go belly-to-the-ground, cover his head, and pray to any gods that might be listening.
But then he blinked, and his chest was flooded with satisfaction, as the men on the ground scrambled toward their firing positions.
Alpha slipped past the moon, two of his females close on his heels, which meant the other two would be on this side of the clearing, waiting to back them up. He wished, with a sudden, shocking fierceness, that he could communicate with them the way Amelia did. Reach out through a psychic bond to check their location, and urge them closer, ask for their reinforcement.
Not possible.
He lifted a second finger toward the Stranger beside him – then a third.Go.
Creak of the bow, twang of the string, and a Sel toppled forward onto his face in the grass, the shot too quick and true for him to so much as cry out in pain. He was dead before he hit the ground.
His comrades turned, shouting an alarm, and the archer shot a second man, clean through the throat.
Reggie signaled forward with the flat of his hand, drew his sword, and charged out of the brush.
Feet thundered on either side of him; he heard Connor’s open-mouthed, excited breathing – or maybe that was his own. He couldn’t be sure. They closed the distance in a matter of strides, and in that span of steps, Reggie felt the old thrill of battle rise up in him. He didn’t like violence; it inspired a twist in his belly, and a rush of blood in his limbs, and a sensation like panic around his throat, stronger even than the phantom noose. An ugly thrill. But he trusteed his training, his strength, and he powered through. His vision sharpened, so he could see the smooth, near-poreless grain of the Sel’s pale, beardless face, before he cut him down, an unhesitating strike at the join of neck and shoulder.
His blade hit bone, and bit. The Sel bared his teeth, face a rictus of pain, but he didn’t scream, and he didn’t drop the sword in his other hand. Brought it up in a clumsy strike toward Reggie’s belly.
Reggie tried to dodge backward, but his sword was stuck in the Sel’s clavicle. In a split-second of battlefield stupidity, he refused to release the sword. He had a knife on his belt, but it was a poor substitute. He yanked–
And another blade swung up beneath him, deflecting the blow the Sel had aimed for his gut. Squealing scrape of steel on steel.
His sword pulled free, finally, and he staggered back to see that it was Connor who’d interceded on his behalf, deflecting the Sel’s blade. Who was killing him, now, with a vicious thrust through the throat, blood fountaining black in the moonlight.
Connor jumped back from the spray, but his face was dotted with it, when he turned to Reggie.
Reggie who was too focused on the task at hand to bother being angry that Connor had interfered. Far from it: Connor had saved his skin just now, and he knew it.
He was rusty.
“Thanks,” he breathed on a gasp, Connor nodded, and they rushed to take command of the scorpion, Strangers taking up a defensive ring around them, bows nocked.
Drakes shrieked high overhead, and human voices took up shouts, moving in a ripple around the clearing. A glance over his shoulder revealed the bloom of torches lighting. The element of surprise was working in their favor, but now the alarm was roused. They had to work quickly.
Ragnar gripped the heavy iron bar on one side, and Connor took hold of the other. Together, they swung the scorpion around, so it was loosely aimed at the next scorpion over.
“Peter!” Connor shouted.
“Right, coming.” The archer who’d shot the first two Sels from the trees rushed forward to help them aim. Down, up, side, other side, smaller and smaller increments.
Reggie felt hourglass sands slipping through his fingers. Precious seconds passing, passing…
