The only problem, and it had been the problem that had largely frustrated Gorgrael’s attempts to push south to this point, had been that all of his creatures, whether Skraeling or Ice Worm or even SkraeBold, had been terribly vulnerable through their eyes.
Not so now. Now both Skraelings and IceWorms had their heads wrapped in bony armour that left only narrow slits over their eyes. Their vision was somewhat restricted, but it would take a skilled and extremely calm swordsman or archer to deliver a killing thrust.
Behind the IceWorms crept thousands of Skraelings, fully fleshed, equipped with bony protective armour, their mouths hanging open in delicious anticipation of the killing that awaited them.
Calmly, and with the most supreme confidence, the IceWorms crawled to the main buildings where most of the troops were likely to be located. Crouched behind one of the lower windows of the market hall where he was camped, Jorge was dry-mouthed with fear. He knew he was powerless to stop their attack; all he could do for his men was order them away from the windows and to the lower floors.
But what did it matter when it would delay their deaths but a few minutes?
He glanced behind him to the remainder of the Icarii wing. “Get out!” he rasped, “get back to Carlon. You alone will have a chance of escape. Tell your StarMan what you have seen here today. Go!” he shouted. “Do not linger!”
The Wing commander, RuffleCrest JoyFlight, signalled to the other seven Icarii. He did not share Jorge’s belief that they would get back to Carlon. Surely Gorgrael would have Gryphon circling above – and RuffleCrest had seen what a Gryphon could do. But he nodded anyway. Perhaps one or two of them could get back.
They swiftly moved to a rear door and lifted on silent wings into the air. They blinked in the unexpected sunshine, circled for as long as they dared, noting the awesome forces that were crawling through the town and, further west, through the northern Aldeni plains, then they bunched close together for protection and sped south.
To the north Timozel’s eyes narrowed. So. He had expected such a foolish display of courage. Did they really expect to escape unscathed?
SkraeFear, who waited with one of the Skraeling units still outside Jervois Landing, screeched in his mind. Let us destroy them, Lord Timozel! Or send the Gryphon! They can rip them to shreds in seconds!
Fool! Timozel replied and drew on the well of power that Gorgrael had given him to wrap SkraeFear’s mind and body with bands of cold steel. He could feel, if not hear, SkraeFear scream far below him. How had Gorgrael managed with such incompetents previously?
He touched the minds of a pack of thirty Gryphon circling to the west and directed them after the Icarii. But I want one or two of them to escape, he ordered, and he felt the Gryphon minds accept and agree. At least the Gryphon understood the principle of unquestioning obedience.
The Icarii birdwoman at RuffleCrest’s wing felt rather than heard the Gryphon behind them. She wheeled to her left and dived with a wordless cry, and as the Gryphon pack struck the Icarii Wing, the birdmen and women broke formation, desperately trying to evade the Gryphon and, increasingly, engaged in useless battles for their own lives.
One after another they felt the Gryphon on their backs, felt the great legs wrap about their bodies, felt talons and razorsharp beaks rip into flesh.
RuffleCrest felt the sudden rush of air and hot breath as a Gryphon fell through the air towards him, and he desperately twisted and dived, hoping that he would prove more agile than the creature behind him. He groped for an arrow from the quiver on his back, but just as his hand closed about the shaft of an arrow he was seized in the death grip of the Gryphon.
He screamed, but he could do nothing more. One arm was twisted and trapped beneath the body of the Gryphon as it clutched to his back – agony flared as the unnatural forces twisting his arm finally snapped both bone and tendon. His other hand grasped uselessly at one of the great paws that were wrapped about his chest and belly. His wings fluttered uselessly; the only thing that kept him in the air now were the powerful wings of the Gryphon.
To one side RuffleCrest could see another Gryphon clutching a birdwoman in a death grip. Even in the split second that his eyes remained on the woman the Gryphon’s talons sheared through flesh and bone, and before his eyes the woman literally burst apart in a shower of blood and body parts.
The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes in horror was the carcass of his comrade falling through the sky.
The Gryphon tightened its grip, and RuffleCrest realised that at any heartbeat its talons would begin to tear him apart.
And indeed they did begin to tear, but they did not inflict fatal wounds. A whimper of pain escaped RuffleCrest as he felt the Gryphon’s talons slice into the muscles of his chest and belly, but they did not penetrate to a killing depth. After raking him with its talons for several minutes, slowly, extending its enjoyment, the Gryphon unbelievably released him, and RuffleCrest fell almost a hundred paces through the air before he recovered enough to spread his wings and push himself as hard as he could for the south.
Five of the hellish creatures chased him and toyed with him for several leagues, RuffleCrest sobbing with fear, certain that at any moment one would strike and finish him.
But they didn’t. Eventually they left him alone, and when RuffleCrest finally looked back it was to see that the sky behind him was empty of both Gryphon and Icarii.
He was the only one of his Wing who had survived.
Hugging his crippled arm to his chest, RuffleCrest slowly limped south. The flight would take him several days, and he would be almost dead from exhaustion and the spreading poison from his infected wounds when he finally reached safety.
In his more lucid moments, he wondered why he had been left alive.
Almost immediately after the Icarii had fled, the IceWorms staged an attack. Rearing their monstrous heads, they crashed through the upper windows of the buildings that they ringed, heaving obscenely to disgorge their cargoes of Skraelings directly into the buildings’ upper levels.
At the same time the Skraeling units outside attacked the ground floors through doors and windows. And, as the IceWorms, empty, their task done, withdrew from the streets and joined their companions to the west, hundreds of Gryphon exploded through windows.
The attacks by the IceWorms, Skraelings and Gryphon occurred so close together that to Jorge it sounded like one continuous roar. He heard the windows in the upper levels of the market hall explode first, then, an instant later, the screams of both wraiths and men as the ground-floor windows shattered. Gripping his sword in hands so cold they were virtually numb, feeling the icy air sear his lungs as he took a deep breath, Jorge stepped forward to meet the first Skraeling who leapt his way.
May his Star Gods help him, Jorge thought as he kept the bony-armoured Skraelings at bay with well-placed strokes of his sword, desperately seeking an opening for a killing thrust. Even Axis will be hard pressed to defeat such as these.
And, even more worrying than their new appearance, where had they learned their new-found discipline? Today’s attack on Jervois Landing had been well planned and well coordinated as no Skraeling attack had been previously. What had they learned? Jorge wondered as his breath came in short gasps and his arms began to tremble with weariness. And who have they learned it from?
Out of the corners of his eyes Jorge could see his men dying about him. Gryphon were creeping down the stairs, launching themselves on terrified victims and tearing them apart in heartbeats.
I do not want to die! Jorge’s mind cried, but he knew that his death was inevitable. Would the Skraeling eat him after it had killed him? Strangely, Jorge found that thought even more horribly repellent than the idea of death itself. An honourable warrior deserved an honourable burial.
“You are right, Jorge,” said a voice, and a hand appeared on the Skraeling’s shoulder.
Jorge stared in disbelief at the man who