Terry Brooks - Witch Wraith

“Hold steady!” he shouted to Wint.

He brought the barrel of the fire launcher around, sighted down its length, and pulled the trigger all the way back. The light beam shot out of the barrel’s end in an explosion that caused the weapon to recoil sharply. The charge arced into the forefront of the attacking pack and incinerated the leaders. Keeton moved the weapon’s barrel from one pack to the next, trying to stay calm, to keep his aim steady and accurate.

But the motion of the flit made it difficult for him to keep his strikes as effective as he would have liked against the very swift and elusive wildcats. They veered left and right after the first strikes, zigzagging across the grasslands toward the towers, spreading out to widen the distances among themselves. Now there were hundreds of targets, and even if Keeton had been more effective with the launcher than he was, he couldn’t have stopped all of them.

Wint, seeing the problem and knowing that the flits and their sleds were too slow to escape the pursuit, acted swiftly. Yelling at the commander to cease fire, he brought the nose of their two-man around sharply, flew directly at the foremost attackers, dropped down as if to land atop them, and then spun around so that the exhaust was exploding into their front ranks as he guided it down the front wave of the attackers in a long slow expulsion of fire. It took a pilot with Wint’s skills to perform this maneuver, but it turned aside a sizable portion of the attack and left the savage cats further scattered and in some disarray.

Still, they kept coming. They leapt onto the flit, trying to find a grip to climb aboard. Two did so, and one raked Wint from neck to hip with its claws before being dislodged. The second got to Keeton, but he thrust it away quickly and sent it tumbling off the craft.

Below, all of the towers were emptied out and all of the rescue flits and sleds were racing for the safety of the city. But a handful of the wildcats had reached the rearmost of the sleds and leapt aboard, shrieking and clawing at the soldiers clinging to the grips. Keeton could see clearly the struggle taking place, the soldiers kicking and punching at their attackers, trying to use their weapons without killing or maiming their own people. But a handful of each tumbled off. Sprawled on the approach road like rag dolls, the soldiers were quickly torn apart. Chaos ensued as the trailing sleds tried to go faster, to get away from their pursuers, until at last one of them lost its balance and went over completely. The flit pulling it was dragged down with the sled, and then it flipped, crushing the First Response members who manned it.

There was nothing Keeton or Wint could do to save any of them. By the time their flit was winging toward the gates, its fire launcher scattering the savage felines that had gotten close enough to provide a further threat, all those toppled with the sled or pulled down as stragglers were beyond help.

Still, the rescue effort was a success. Most of those in the watchtowers had been saved. Only one of the sleds had been lost; the other three were now nearing the gates and safety.

Keeton glanced back at the army on the ridge, and his blood turned to ice.

A huge wave of creatures was coming down off the heights and swarming across the grasslands toward the walls of Arishaig. These attackers were different—larger in number by far, encompassing all sizes and shapes, and all manner of appearances and movements. Some had the agility of jackrabbits and deer; some lumbered like great Kodens. There were flying things and crawling things. He could make out huge jaws with teeth each the size of his hand. Coats of thick hide rippled next to those of coarse hair. Eyes flared scarlet and emerald out of heads that were triangular and bony. Claws ripped at the earth and hooves tore at the grasses.

Above them all, a huge mottled red-and-brown dragon swept across the sky.

Wint saw something else, too. “We’re in trouble,” he shouted.

He was pointing ahead, and now Keeton saw what he meant. The flits and their loaded sleds were nearing the west gates, ready to enter the city.

But the gates were still closed.

Atop the city walls, Edinja Orle watched the chase unfold, saw one of the four sleds and its flit brought down, and saw the others continue unimpeded as Keeton’s flit fought back against the attackers and burned away those close enough to cause trouble. She watched as a mass of attackers—too many for most armies to stop, let alone the handful of men and women seeking the sanctuary of the city—streamed down off the bluff. She felt the desperation in the hearts of the pursued, knowing that only moments separated them from either safety or death.

She waited for the gates to open.

Cinla stood beside her. The moor cat had returned from tracking Arling Elessedil, discouraged by the crush of citizens swarming the streets. Cinla had sought to resume the hunt twice once the crowds had been broken up and disbanded, blending in with her surroundings, becoming a part of the buildings and streets as she hunted. But the scent of her quarry had been buried by hundreds of others, and she could not pick it out.

She had conveyed all this to Edinja, for they could share a single mind when necessary. Now she sat beside her mistress, calm and steadfast.

Down the wall’s walkway perhaps a hundred feet away, Tinnen March was dispatching runners to all four quarters of the city, summoning reinforcements to the west wall, shoring up his defenses—realizing, perhaps, that the danger he was facing was much greater than he had first supposed. He shouted and gestured, and men raced everywhere at his command.

But the gates did not open to those outside the wall.

Edinja had seen enough. She stormed down the walkway in fury, the white-hot heat of her displeasure clearly visible as she neared the Federation army commander. She could feel Cinla following a step behind, her great head swaying from side to side.

“What are you doing?” she screamed at March, unable to help herself. “Open the gates!”

He gave her one swift glance. “It is too late for them. The enemy is too close. I cannot risk it.”

“I order you to open those gates, Commander!” Her small body shook with rage. “Now!”

He gave her a scathing look. “I command the military in this city, not you.” He turned, beckoning to a handful of guards. “See that the Prime Minister is placed safely away until she calms herself …”

He never finished. Edinja made a sweeping motion with one arm, and the guards tumbled away. Then she snatched Tinnen March by the front of his military jacket and marched him to the edge of the wall.

“You command at my pleasure, Commander,” she hissed.

Then she lifted him off his feet with what witnesses later would describe as superhuman strength and threw him over the wall.

He was still screaming when she turned to the soldiers who had watched it all happen and shouted, “Now get those gates open!”

Outside the walls, the rescued soldiers were gathered in a knot before the gates, having abandoned the sleds after the flits had been forced to cut them loose. Daylight was fading quickly. First Response still flew overhead, offering what protection it could, making wild sorties into the teeth of the attacking army as it swarmed over the grasslands and approach road, watching in horror as the enemy overran watchtower after watchtower on its way to the walls of the city.

Keeton was searching the walls for some sign of activity near the gates—anything that would have indicated they were about to be opened—when a body came flying over the wall. It was a man in Federation military uniform, but that was all he could tell. He watched in shock as the man tumbled earthward and struck with such ferocious impact that there was no question about whether he still lived.