Page 135 of Dragon Rule (Age of Fire 5)

The demen started up an eerie hissing that wasn’t quite a whistle, and clacked their spines together. On a demen it was hard to tell where limb and carapace ended and armor and weapons began. Wistala thought it sounded like a swarm of insects.

“We fight, we drink blood?” their general asked.

What had started as a victorious drink of blood every now and then had grown into a need terrible and desperate. Wistala wondered how they’d ever sate their appetites after a battle again. The idea was to lose less dragons, not more.

“You can drink from my own veins,” Wistala said. “Form for an attack!”

LaDibar and a few other Ankelenes stood at the top of the stairs leading to their hill. “If you take the Tyr’s legion, who—”

“Arm your thralls and make your own flame,” Wistala ordered. What had happened to dragons over the years in the Lavadome?

“Follow me,” she said, trotting around to the west side of Imperial Rock. Instinctively, she flapped her wings and the next thing she knew she was aloft.

Perhaps a heavier male dragon couldn’t fly with the Tyr’s traditional battle armor on, but she could. Hard flying with the armor—it cut the wind and made it harder to push through the air with the proper lift.

She circled back and the demen cheered.

A knot of dwarf-warriors, coming around to encircle Imperial Rock, saw the oncoming demen. She couldn’t read their expressions, but they were clearly shocked to see demen formed up and ready to fight for the Lavadome.

One of them raised a metallic tube, with smaller vessels and cylinders attached, capped with a bellowslike structure.

Wistala couldn’t identify it and certainly didn’t wish to see its effects. She folded her wings and dropped, spitting fire that fell only a little faster than she did. Her nostrils were well-scorched by her own flame.

The war machine sparked and sputtered as it burned, shooting thin projectiles in all directions.

The dwarfs fell into a defensive line and the demen washed over them like an incoming wave. The first demen in line locked limbs onto the dwarfs’ shields, the second braced himself low to keep the others from being shoved forward or pulled back, and the third ran up and over the backs of the second and first ranks.

The dwarf line disappeared under a carpet of demen as they rushed up and over. The dwarfs fell back.

A dwarf-leader called on his signalman to wave a banner. Wistala swooped down and struck hard with her tail, sending both rolling and cracking like a pair of dropped melons.

White sparking streaks surrounded her and Wistala felt a stabbing pain. Her wings were holed in a dozen places. She came to earth in a mushroom field, sending the growths up in a shower of fertilizer.

She’d been struck by nine or ten shafts like heavy crossbow bolts. They stank of sulphur. Luckily none caught her under the throat or in her wing joints. Three pierced her chest armor and ground a claw’s width into her scale. If it weren’t for the Tyr’s armor—

Dwarfs charged from three directions, axes and spears aiming.>Ayafeeia snorted. “She’s wearing this. You look good in it, Queen-Consort Wistala. Let’s not delay, now that you’re dressed for the party, go up and see and be seen.”

Party. Wistala stifled a snort. Ayafeeia avoided the socializing Imperial Line, despite being of Tyr Fehazathant’s line. The only parties she had a taste for were battles.

Wistala made a light clattering sound as she walked wearing the armor ching-ching-ching-ching—the sound reminded her of coin rattling in a purse.

She went to the top of Imperial Rock, reflecting light from the polished armor on the passageways around her.

“Your orders, my Queen,” Ayafeeia asked.

“You know more about warfare than I do. Should we fight them in the hills, or concentrate on defending Imperial Rock?”

“We’re better off staying mobile, striking and flying again. If you stay in one place, they use war machines on you. Spirits, are they in the Lavadome already?”

Wistala saw one of the Aerial Host flying in loops at the edge of the Lavadome, above the north passageway down to the river ring.

Dragons, drakes and drakka, many carrying eggs or with hatchlings riding on their back, streamed toward Imperial Rock. The Drakwatch, guarding the entrances, urged them on.

The dwarfs came in waves. Wistala had to admire the precision of the attack.

War machines fired clusters of sparking missiles into the air at the flying dragons. They spread as they rose, like dandelion seeds blown by a strong wind. A Firemaid dove, dropping fire and a fountain of sparks shot up around her. She rolled over and fell.

Flying wildly, the last of the Aerial Host she’d sent to defend the holes swooped left and right, avoiding the fireworks.

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