L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

After taking the bird, the first lizard remains perfectly still. So does the second.

A gap of a hundred cubits separates Lorn and the two squads of Second Company from the pair of lizards.

The first lizard lumbers forward a good twenty cubits, then halts. The tongue flicks the air once more.

Lorn waits.

The trailing lizard angles to Lorn’s right and continuesforward slowly until it comes to a halt ten cubits forward of the first.

The first lizard takes another dozen ground-covering strides, then lifts its head.

MMMMnnnnnnnn.. .

At the mental scream of the lizard, several lancers sway in their saddles. One drops a firelance and clasps his hands to his forehead, as if to try to keep his skull from exploding.

“Discharge at will!” snaps Lorn.

“Fire at will!” echoes Kusyl.

MMMMnnn … The second lizard charges for Shynt.

Hssst! Hsstt! Hssst! Firelances flare everywhere, but most concentrate on the second lizard, the one that has almost reached the five-abreast formation before slowing under the flash of lances.

MMMnnnnnn! Lorn feels rocked in his saddle by the mental blast, even though he knows the sensation is but within his mind.

The giant lizard half-turns and the tail swings. A lancer tries to duck, but is swept from the saddle, and the return swing, lower, sweeps his mount from its hoofs.

Lorn digs his heels into the gelding’s flanks and urges him forward. Recalling his previous encounters with the lizards, he directs his lance blasts at the first lizard’s left eye.

Hssstt!

MMMMMmmmm … The stun blast contains a sense of pain and rage. MMMnnnnn … The big tail thumps the deadland, then lashes toward the second squad.

Mmmnnnn … Lorn fires again, glancing toward the first squad momentarily. Two mounts are down, but the second lizard’s head is a charred mass. He concentrates on the lizard that continues to lumber away from him and toward Kusyl and the second squad.

The first lizard flees Lorn, its tail sweeping through the legs of another lancer mount, and sending mount and lancer down. Lorn urges the gelding more to his left, trying to circle past the flailing tail to get another blast at the lizard’s eye.

Abruptly, the big creature slows and its tongue flashes towarda lancer, but the lancer has the presence of mind to slash with his sabre.

MMMMnnnn!

The lancer shakes his head, managing to hold his blade against the lash-like tongue.

HHHssssTTT! Lorn focuses a long bolt, one that curves under his control, into the lizard’s left eye.

A deep roaring groan fills the air, and the tail slams the ground, once, twice. Lorn senses that the beast is dying, and lets loose another fireblast before he turns the gelding. His eyes travel toward the ward-wall, where, even as the two lizards are still twitching, another set of four large dark forms come streaking, not from the foliage, but down the massive tree trunk from the forest.

“Giant cats! Reform!”

“Lances ready!”

Before the second squad can turn toward the south and the ward-wall, one of the giant cats has struck a lancer.

Hhhsttt! Hssst!

The bursts from the lances are shorter, weaker, and many lancers have dropped exhausted lances and are using their sabres.

Lorn finds the Brystan sabre in one hand, and the firelance in the other. His eyes are watering, and his head is splitting, but he lets loose with another chaos blast, this time at a giant cat that has started to spring toward Kusyl from the side, while the senior squad leader is using his sabre on a third cat that has slashed the shoulder of a lancer in the first rank.

The cat squalls, then crumples, and Lorn tries to scan the area between the lancers and the crushed canopy.

A round tannish object rolls out of the canopy, surrounded almost by a dark fog, that starts to swirl away from a rough sphere.

Paper wasps! Lorn turns his lance in the general direction of the nest and lets loose a chaos bolt. Hssst!

Knives slash his vision, and he understands he is drawing chaos from around him, that the charge in his weapon is long since depleted. He drops the lance. This is one time that heisn’t worrying about the weapons, not with all the wild creatures swirling around and attacking Second Company.

He glances back at the tan sphere, but the wasp nest flares yellowish, as do some of the finger-long wasps. A handful escapes the chaos flash, and the insects whine toward the nearest lancers-those on the left end of Shynt’s company.

Lorn jerks his attention back to the crushed green leaves of the canopy, and the rustling that foretells night leopards. “Night leopards!”

“Frig!”

“Dark angels …”

Lorn manages to drag out the other sabre and wonders just how effective he will be guiding the gelding with his knees. He swallows and blinks as the smaller cats continue to bound from the greenery-far more than a score.

Hssst! Hssst! Hssst! The handful of firelances left from those lancers who had been in the third rank flare, and lines of chaos crisscross the dark feline forms, those that have not already reached lancers and their mounts.

“Short bursts! Short bursts!” Shynt bellows.

A mount screams.

Lorn finds himself swinging the Brystan sabre left-handed to drop a night leopard that has streaked toward him, while holding the second sabre ready in his right.

Hsst! Hsst!

Lorn does not recall well the next moments, only that he employs both blades, and that no leopards turn and flee, but all continue to attack.

Abruptly, impossibly, it seems, there are no creatures attacking.

Lorn glances down. One trouser leg is slashed, and there is blood splattered across his boots and legs. His eyes feel like knives are being driven through and behind them, and his skull feels as if it had been split with a dull wedge. He blinks and tries to assess what remains around him.

Close by, he can see five mounts lying on the deadland. One shudders and tries to rise, shudders and tries again, butthe mare’s right foreleg is crushed and twisted, possibly from the lashing tail of one of the stun lizards.

One lancer lies on his back, his body swollen, and his face covered with red blotches from the attack of those paper wasps that had escaped Lorn’s firelance.

Other unmoving forms-five-lie beside the charred forms of the lizards, the giant cats, and the night leopards.

Kusyl rides slowly toward Lorn. Dark splotches cover his gray’s coat, blood is smeared across the forearms of both sleeves.

Not sure that the attack is over, or that the comparative stillness is lull, Lorn keeps scanning the area, with both chaos senses and sight. The only sounds come from the lancers and their mounts, and the pitiful whimpering of the mount that will have to be destroyed.

A vulcrow flaps overhead, then glides above Lorn and down toward one of the lizard carcasses. Lorn blots his forehead to keep the sweat from eyes that already burn and slash into his skull, but he does not close his eyes, but keeps watching.

“Form up on me!” Kusyl orders.

“Reform!” yells Shynt, his voice cracking slightly.

Lorn watches the greenery as the lancers reform, those that remain and can, then rides to where Kusyl sits on his mount before the remaining eleven members of the second squad.

“Never … ever seen aught like that, ser,” observes the squad leader.

Lorn shakes his head, but only minutely, for each movement sears his vision. “I haven’t either.” He swallows, but that helps little with the dryness in his mouth and throat. “Best we remain formed up and see what happens for a bit. Except … have a couple of men look to the wounded … do we have any?”