Page 56 of Of Blood and Fire
But there was nothing except the wild gray storm and the occasional incandescent flash, and it just didn’t feel right.
We came up and over the top of the Sheer. The ice eased to rain, and the bleak gray shroud surrounding us slowly lifted.
As it did, the flat mountain peak gradually revealed itself.
On it was a sea of gold.
Gilded birds.
Lots andlotsof gilded birds.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
We attack,Kaia said,before they sense us and rise.
For once, I was in total agreement. A hit and run attack wouldn’t take them all out, but we couldn’t afford to get caught in an aerial battle; not when we were outnumbered at least ten to one.
Ask the other three to fly up beside us.A single line would give us more fire coverage, and it remained different enough to our usual formation to counter any measures they might have put in place.And warn Yara about what we’ve found.
There was a long pause.Yara see soldiers, not birds.
Meaning theywerebuilding up both their forces here. It wasn’t just a ruse to draw us into a trap.Have them do a burn run and then peel away toward the Throat.
Not Esan?
I don’t want to fly over the Mareritt going home.I don’t trust that all this isn’t part of a grander trap.
There had to be a reason there’d been no watchers on the Mareritten approach to the Sheer. Had to be a reason why the Mareritt weren’t attacking Esan with their usual intent. Granted, they might be awaiting the arrival of whatever was being hauleddown from the Ghost Forest under the cover of that fog, but if that were the case, why attack at all and give us a heads-up?
It only made sense if it was part of a larger plan—a minor attack to draw Esan’s attention and a reveal to draw out the drakkons and their riders. Then, once far away from any possible backup from the air mages or Damon, they could either kill us with sheer force of numbers, or drive us toward the waiting Mareritt and do it within sight of Esan herself.
The surest way to demoralize an enemy was to utterly destroy their fiercest warriors.
Of course, instinct was insisting that we needed to retreat while we still could, while we were all still alive, and yet, trap or not, we could not forsake this chance to inflict major damage on them. One pass could decimate their numbers enough to give us a fighting chance.
The shadowy shapes of our younger drakkons flew up beside us, and as one, we swooped down hard and fast, the air practically screaming around us. The nearest birds glanced up, then rose onto their claws, their wings outstretched and pumping as they squawked in warning. Those squawks died on the wind as four streams of deadly fire hit them. Feathers melted, flesh crisped, and the ground soon ran with rivers of gold. We flew hard down the lines of tethered birds and metal tents, leaving a trail of destruction underneath us. Men scrambled out from those tents lining the untouched edges of the rows, and though all were armed, none of them raised their weapons.
None of them fired.
My gut twisted. Thiswasa trap, and it was about to be sprung.
Kaia, drop, I all but screamed.
She instantly obeyed, and a stream of acidic shit shot past us, barely missing her tail. She bellowed in fury and command, and,as one, the drakkons swept up and over until they were facing the direction from which we’d come.
Directly ahead of us was a line of at least a dozen gilded riders.
The storm that cloaked the peaks had not only allowed us to get close without being seen, but had also hidden them from our sightandallowed them to rise in daytime. Even though we were still some distance from them, it was clear that only a couple of birds were wearing the control devices.
Blanket burn now, I immediately ordered.Then we leave. Warn Yara and Cansu; they’re likely to be facing a similar threat.
There was a brief pause as she passed the message on, then all four drakkons unleashed. It was a thick wall of fury that coated the sky ahead with deadly heat, but the riders and their birds didn’t back away. They burned, they melted, and they screamed, but they kept on flying until they had no wings left and dropped from the sky. Their riders were similarly determined, unleashing their acidic weapons even as they fell, forcing us to duck and weave through exploding streams of brown.
Then something silver shot past us, barely missing Kaia’s wing.
A spear. Ahookedspear, the same sort—only larger—that had taken out Ebrus.
