David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

Five more transports crashed to the earth before they could get out of range, and Commander of Fifty Fahrlo swore with cold and bitter hatred as the Air Force found itself hammered yet again.

Five Hundred Urlan had no way to know what had just happened to the airborne diversion. Nor, to be completely honest, did he very much care as his assaulting column pushed forward.

He didn't want to think about the losses the Seventh Zydors had taken getting the infantry into position, but if it gave them the fort, it would be worth it. And it certainly looked as if-

The rifle bullet struck him behind the left ear and killed him instantly.

"Hit them!"

Had he stopped to think about it, Sunlord Markan might have felt just a bit ridiculous waving a sword in the middle of a modern battlefield to urge his men onward. Or perhaps not. There were swords in plenty on the other side of that "modern" battlefield, after all, as well as crossbows and daggers. Of course, there were also dragons, fireball-throwers, and the gods alone only knew what else to go with them.

None of which mattered at the moment as he brought an entire dismounted battalion of elite Uromathian cavalry crunching in on the Arcanans' flank.

The Arcanans fought to turn and face the new threat, but the Uromathians had come out of the smoke and dust like ghosts, and the section of wall which had shielded the attackers from Markan's fire earlier had also hidden his own reinforcements' approach from them. No one had noticed him at all … until his troopers swept out and around the wall and opened fire. Now they sent disciplined, rapid, aimed volleys crashing into their enemies, and the battered Arcanan cavalry had had enough.

Those who were still mounted turned and galloped towards the rear, and most of those who weren't mounted took to their heels after them. The infantry force driving forward into the breached wall outnumbered the Uromathians by better than two-to-one, but it didn't feel that way when it found itself suddenly flanked by a thundering wall of Sharonian rifles.

The Arcanans recoiled, and even as they did, a counterattack came pounding back through the gap. No longer disorganized knots of men swarming instinctively towards the enemy, but an ordered, disciplined attack by two companies of Portal Authority infantry with rifles, shotguns, and grenades.

It was too much. Those who could, turned to flee. Those who couldn't, threw down their weapons and raised empty hands in token of surrender.

Jukan Darshu, Sunlord Markan, climbed carefully down the loose, shifting slope of rubble which had spilled into Fort Salby from the breach in its eastern wall. It would have been easier to come in through the gate, but the gate was on the far side of the fort, and he was damned if he'd hike all the way back around just to use the front door.

He stepped off of the untidy ramp of wreckage and looked about him with a sense of disbelief. It didn't seem possible that so much carnage had been inflicted upon so many men-and so many … creatures-

in so short a time.

The surrendered, unwounded Arcanans were still being shoved and pushed, none too gently in most cases, into a semblance of order, then searched while hard-eyed men with bayoneted shotguns watched them like hawks. Those searches were extraordinarily thorough, and no more pleasant than they had to be. It was plain the prisoners didn't care for the harshness of their treatment, but it was equally plain that they didn't have to be Empaths to sense the hatred radiating from their captors in waves and realize it was time to be very, very meek.

Markan felt his lips twitch in a slight, bitterly amused smile at the thought. It was the only thing remotely like amusement he'd felt in what seemed an eternity, and it vanished quickly as he picked his way around the sprawled, untidy carcasses of eagle-lions.

He wasn't the only man moving out there. Casualty parties were busy searching through the wreckage, concentrating on finding and collecting the wounded. There'd be time enough to collect the dead later.

An occasional pistol shot cracked as the search parties discovered an eagle-lion that wasn't quite dead yet, and Markan wondered what they were going to do with all the carcasses.

Hells, he thought with a snort, why worry about them? What are we going to do with all the dragon carcasses?

He reached the steps leading up to the gun platform where he'd left Crown Prince Janaki and Regiment- Captain chan Skrithik six hours and half a lifetime ago. The climb seemed much steeper, somehow, and he shook his head in weary bemusement as he started up them, rehearsing the apology he had to make when he got to the top. He hadn't attempted to hide his skepticism when Prince Janaki started describing his Glimpse, and now that he'd seen the reality, it was time-

Sunlord Markan's thoughts chopped off with brutal suddenness and he froze in mid-stride as he reached the head of the steps. He felt as if a sledgehammer had just hit him squarely in the pit of the stomach.

Crown Prince Janaki chan Calirath lay on the gun platform where he had died. His body had been moved to a stretcher, but no one had been able to move him further, for painfully evident reasons. The two medical orderlies who'd brought the stretcher to the gun platform were backed up against the parapet, and the deeply bleeding gouges down the side of one orderly's face had obviously come from the talons and beak of the imperial peregrine falcon perched protectively on the dead prince's chest, wings half-spread and eyes blazing with battle fury. The bird's head snapped around as Markan stepped the rest of the way onto the gun platform, and its beak opened in a warning hiss of rage.

No one seemed to know what to do. Markan certainly didn't, and the stupefying shock of Janaki's death seemed to have shut his brain down entirely.

Then someone stepped past him, and his head turned to see Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik.

The Ternathian looked terrible. His left arm hung in an improvised sling which had been jury-rigged out of someone's pistol belt. His forearm was crudely splinted, and his filthy uniform tunic was torn in half a dozen places and covered with dust. An ugly, scabbed cut across the center of a livid bruise disfigured his left cheek, and dried bloodstains-most of them, obviously, from other people's blood-were spattered across both trouser legs.

But it was his face, his eyes, that truly struck Markan. The shock, deeper even than Markan's own. The loss. The pain … and the guilt.

Unlike Markan or the intimidated stretcher bearers, chan Skrithik didn't even flinch as Taleena hissed at him. He only walked straight across to her, slowly, holding out his good hand. That razor-sharp beak, fit to snap off fingers like a hatchet, opened as her head cocked threateningly, but then something seemed to flicker in the bird's golden-rimmed eyes. A memory, perhaps, Markan thought, recalling half-believed stories about the imperial falcons' fabled intelligence. Taleena's head swiveled toward the dead eaglelion sprawled in ungainly death at the foot of the gun platform. Then she looked back at chan Skrithik and made a soft, almost entreating sound.

Markan was an experienced falconer, but he'd never heard anything like that cry of avian heartbreak out of another bird. Chan Skrithik seemed to flinch, but he only held out his hand patiently until, finally, the bird just brushed it with that sharp, wickedly curved beak.

"I'm sorry, My Lady." Chan Skrithik spoke then, so quietly Markan could barely hear him. "I tried. Gods know, we both tried."

Taleena looked at him for one another long moment, and then, without warning, her wings snapped once as she leapt from Janaki's chest to chan Skrithik's good shoulder. The regiment-captain's uniform lacked the nonregulation, reinforced leather patches Janaki's tunics had boasted, but the pistol belt-sling gave his shoulder some protection, and the falcon's powerful talons were careful, gentle. She stood on his shoulder and bent to press her beak into his hair, and chan Skrithik reached up to touch her folded wings with equally careful gentleness.