The Withered Land: Dragons and Marauders

Dragons and Marauders, Part Six

Each one of the cybernetically-enhanced, genetically-modified riders possessed the capability of a weaponized assault carrier, was easily capable of taking out ten or more regular Emperium Forces infantrymen. Twelve times stronger than the strongest unenhanced human, four times faster than the most celebrated athlete, and five times more physically durable, impervious to bladed weapons and able to withstand small arms fire, they were frightening mercenary soldiers of intercontinental renown.

By the time the thunder of the fourth fiery explosion had shaken the air, drumming upon the very molecules of the rushing wind like a hammer upon an anvil, a dozen of the fierce Kohvto-Beine armored cavalry riders had already fallen bloodily before the huge scaled creature's relentless assault.

Teshiwahur, known to a select few humans as "Brimstone", was a planet where generally accepted theories and memes of biological and zoological evolution ran discordantly, sometimes paradoxically, against established scientific human knowledge. Reptiles similar to dinosaurs had existed, but none of them had achieved the size and mass of similar creatures on Earth. Meanwhile, the genetic family tree of mammalian primates had branched off into unheard of mutational territory. And despite the planet's tremendous size, exceeding that of mighty Neptune, yet slightly smaller than enormous Saturn in the human solar system at the opposite end of the Milky Way galaxy, the Withered Land had experienced precious few celestial collisions in its history. So there had been no great "Great Extinction" during which the saurian and lizard population of the planet were made extinct. Humankind and Reptile-kind, who preferred to be called "Saurotetramorphs", had evolved upon the planet simultaneously. Each had developed language, science, industrialized societies and sprawling civilizations, but each species stubbornly held on to its hegemonic tendencies, its species oriented prejudices, and tried to maintain its distance from the other, except in matters of mercantile interactions and exchanges. Crossing lines had a tendency to complicate things to the point of violence and, truthfully, violence was almost always bad for business.

And days like today were very, very bad day for business.

Some inbred idiot of a tyrannical baron had decided that the Saurotetramorph caravans crossing his lands weren't paying enough in tribute-taxes to continue using his territory to avoid the sub-tropical Maunja'hral Groves. Caravans had, in the past, frequently run afoul of the awful geographical conditions inherent to the boggy wetlands and a great deal of exotic merchandise, life-saving medicine, and many lives, both human and reptilian, had been lost in futile attempts to navigate the area. The shortest and most efficient way around the Maunja'hral Groves had led caravans to make deals with the land-rich, cash-poor outlaw robber barons who owned the land at the edges of the Groves. Usually these generations-old agreements went undisputed and things ran smoothly, but every once in a while, one or two of the barons would forcibly dispute the rate of tribute, seeking more money from the neurotically frugal, some would say "cheap", Saurotetramorphs, and things would briefly fall into chaos and violence. That was generally when the Kohvto-Beine armored cavalry would be dispatched by the Interior Land Management Office of the Emperium's Territorial High Magistrate to remind everyone that it was in their best interests to play nice with one another.

But today, something went unexpectedly wrong. Something particularly nasty was at work to fuel and grow what should have been a minor conflict into a small guerilla war...

And that was why the High Magistrate had requested the imposing presence of an Aerieakon air schooner from the navy of The Ke'Tareveel, the sub-thermospheric micro-moon that revolved over Peravandeth's Harbor of the Lion, to keep the peace.

That stratagem had spectacularly not worked.

The telltale whistle of a steam-powered, revolving-barrel flechette cannon suddenly overrode the sound of explosions and everyone on the deck of the Aerieakon dove for cover just a split second before a lethal tornado of poison-tipped, barbed steel needles, each the length of a man's hand, ripped through the open spaces over the skycraft's for'ard port side railing. A fair number of the streaking needles pinged loudly off metal surfaces, some hits erupting into a shower of sparks, while others smacked half their length deep into the vessel's wooden detailing.