David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

No one-not even Imperial Ternathian Marines-could be expected to face something like that. Not when it came at them cold, with absolutely no warning. He looked at the handful of men-there were only five of them-clustered around him, upwind from the killing clouds of vapor. There was still time, he thought. Still time to run, to put distance between himself and the dying, spasming men behind him before the dragons came back. He saw the same thought, the same recognition, in the eyes around him.

And, like Balkar chan Tesh, not one of them ran.

"All right, boys," he said quietly, looking past them, tracking the dragons with his eyes as they swept back up into the heavens. "They'll be back in a few minutes. It doesn't look like rifle bullets bothered the bastards very much, either."

He turned his head, taking his eyes off the dragons, and looked at the men around him.

"Whatever those people are doing, and however they're doing it, they had to come in close before they fired or whatever," he said.

"Yes, Sir," one of the others agreed. "And they opened their mouths, too," he added.

"Good point." Chan Tesh patted him on the shoulder, then gestured at their Model 10s.

"You've all got grenade launchers," he said.

Hundred Geyrsof studied the ground below through Graycloud's eyes as Skykill and Windslasher formed up on them once more.

The initial strike had succeeded even more completely than he'd hoped. The vast majority of the enemy was already down, dead or dying, and aside from minor damage to Graycloud's and Windslasher's wing membranes, all three of his yellows were unwounded.

He should have felt nothing but satisfaction. He knew that-and he did feel satisfied. But that wasn't all he felt. Graycloud's vision brought it all too close, made it all too clear. He saw the men he'd just killed, even though they weren't all dead yet. He saw them twisting, convulsing in agony, jerking like landed fish drowning in poisonous oxygen, and for the first time, he truly understood why some people had fought for so long to have the yellows banned. It was ugly … unclean.

Oh, fuck "ugly!" he told himself fiercely. Dead is dead, Horban. There aren't any good ways to die, and better it should be them than us!

He knew that was all true … and it didn't make him feel any better.

However he might feel, it didn't change his responsibilities, though, and he watched the other two yellows settling into formation once again behind and to either side of Graycloud. He waited until they were both in place. Then his hands moved in the control grooves, and Graycloud slanted downward once more.

"Here they come," chan Tesh said quietly.

One of the Marines had found the company-captain a Model 10 whose owner would never need it again.

Like the others, he'd mounted the grenade launcher and loaded the special blank ammunition that fired it. Now the six of them stood waiting, watching their executioners sweep towards them.

There were other Sharonians still standing, somewhere beyond the swirling haze of green-yellow vapor.

Chan Tesh heard their rifles beginning to crack, and his heart swelled as he realized his men were still there, still fighting back, despite everything.

He took his own eyes from the oncoming dragons for just a moment, let them sweep across the Marines around him.

"Gentlemen," he said, "it's been an honor. Thank you."

No one replied. There was no need.

Chan Tesh looked back at the oncoming dragons. Only one of them-the one on the extreme left of the Arcanan formation-was going to come into the grenade launchers' range, he realized. Well, at least that guaranteed concentration of fire.

Onward, closer and closer. They weren't coming in as quickly this time, a detached corner of his brain observed. Was that overconfidence? Or were they just slowing down to improve their accuracy? Or was it simply that they'd started from a lower altitude, hadn't had the opportunity to build the same velocity?

It didn't matter.

Closer, and closer still.

Properly speaking, rifle grenades weren't launched from a normal firing position. Given their recoil, The Book called for them to be fired only with the rifle's butt firmly grounded. Chan Tesh knew that, but he didn't really care. Not this time.

He nestled the brass buttplate into his shoulder, tracking the incoming dragon steadily, waiting.

One of the Marines fired. The grenade missed, and the dragons swept closer. Another Marine fired and missed.

Chan Tesh and the other three waited. Waited.

"Larkima!" Hundred Geyrsof barked.

The dragon belched its dingy death seed.

All three of chan Tesh's remaining Marines launched their grenades. One of them missed completely. Of the other two, one struck a wing membrane and punched clear through without ever exploding. The third slammed into the dragon's left foreleg and exploded, blowing a huge, gaping wound into the limb.

But Balkar chan Tesh waited just a moment longer. Waited even as he watched the growing breath weapon streaking towards him. Waited for the dragon to come just that little bit closer. And then, as it opened its mouth in a bellow of pain, he launched his own grenade.

Rithmar Skirvon sat slumped in his chair while Fifty Narshu's splattered brains and blood dried into a caked residue on the back of his neck and the back and shoulders of his elegantly tailored civilian coat.

There were probably at least a few specks of Uthik Dastiri's brains mixed in among the rest of it, and his face seemed to have crumpled in on itself. There was no sign of the confident, masterful diplomat now, Dorzon chan Baskay thought grimly, and felt a fresh ripple of anger roiling about in his belly like slow magma as he glared at the Arcanan.

Skirvon had, indeed, worked hard to convince chan Baskay to let him live. In fact, he'd spilled his guts, more than half-babbling in his urgency to tell chan Baskay anything-anything at all-which might placate the Ternathian's frozen rage.

Which meant chan Baskay knew just how utterly and totally screwed he and all of Hulmok Arthag's surviving troopers actually were.

"We're ready," a voice said behind chan Baskay, and the platoon-captain turned to find Arthag standing behind him. The Arpathian stood beside his magnificent Shikowr-Daykassian-cross Palomino stallion with his Model 10 slung over his shoulder, and the rest of their surviving men stood saddled and ready to ride behind him. Every bit of movable, useful equipment had been loaded onto pack horses at truly Arpathian nomad speed. Two of them had packed up chan Baskay's and chan Rothag's gear and saddled their horses, as well … and the bodies of every dead Sharonian were lashed across their saddles.

"Is that really necessary?" chan Baskay asked very quietly, nodding at the dead men.

"As a matter of fact, I think it is," Arthag replied. Chan Baskay couldn't quite hide his surprise.

Arpathians, as a rule, weren't particularly sentimental about the bodies of the dead. As far as they were concerned, once the soul had fled, the body in which that soul had once resided had no intrinsic importance, which made Arthag's apparent concern for these bodies unusual, to say the least.

"We don't have time to bury them," Arthag explained, responding to chan Baskay's perplexed expression, "and one thing all of us canny Arpathian nomadic warriors get taught at a very early age is that it's important to keep an enemy guessing about your losses. Let the bastards find their men's bodies lying around here without a single one of ours. You don't think that's going to make them more than a little anxious about just what happened here?" He shrugged. "The way I see it, anything that can convince them to be even a little hesitant about chasing after us is well worth the effort."