This Red Sky

Chapter Thirty-Two

The people of the camp did not expect the Faithful, who had spent the last months wreaking havoc over the countryside, to come to them.  They charged over the plains, their savage howls without echo in the open space. Even less did they expect to see dragons and humans working together. The five sets of flapping wings were the image of death silhouetted against the sunrise.  

Torchlight reflected off the faces of the men who took up their weapons in the light of the early morning—the green-streaked fear of shepherds and townsmen, narrowed eyes through the slits of knights' helmets. Bells were ringing inside Palasotarr's great walls, mixed with the panic of the refugees, who crowded around the wooden gates, pounding and crushing forwards with animal desperation.

A knight on the wall, his hand gripping a steel sword, oversaw soldiers loading iron cannons, pulling the muzzles upwards at the sky.

"Hold," he said quietly, watching the five dragons twist and swim against the fading stars. So rarely did even two of the beasts work together. But even now he saw that four of the five were smaller, strangely bestial even compared the golden spectre that swooped low over the field, setting the grass alight. It was as though the apocalypse was upon them. The battle cries of the Faithful could now be heard.

He glanced left, wondering why the gates had not yet been opened more than ten feet. There was the soft zing  of an arrow.  A man screamed and fell from the battlements, into the panicked crowd.

The knight's heart dropped as he looked away, closing his eyes for a moment. The refugees trickled inside, but it was as a hole the size of a pebble in a barrel of wine, and the dragons were getting closer.  

"Gamorax leave us," he whispered, and raised his sword. "Fire!"

There were seven deafening bangs, and like shooting stars, cannonballs rushed upwards, towards the flying beasts. With a glimmer of hope, the knight saw their light reflect off scaled bellies and wings. But most of the cannonballs fell back to the ground, useless as a child throwing rocks. One punched through a brown leathery wing, and the dragon screeched and tumbled in the air, flapping harder to recover.

Down below, the shepherds rushed forward. They and the well-armoured knights were trapped inside by the mass of refugees. Torchlight reflected off a green reptilian eye, and the golden dragon was upon them.

Syralth dove towards the mass of the men in sheepskin and armour, arrows, spears and rocks ricocheting off her scales. Claws grabbed up a handful of shepherds, lifting them two hundred feet in the air and dropping them into the sea of their comrades. The air rushed around her body as her wings pushed her upwards, towards the high, stark walls. A rush of human hatred coursed through her reptilian brain. She dove towards the shapes of men running on the walls.

Her claws sank into the limestone bricks, scrabbling for a hold as the stone rained down below. The city was full of screams, shouts and clanging bells. A missile, like a massive spear with a burning head, flew over her back. She turned, tail smashing into the nearest tower, and roared in the direction of the nearest catapult. The burst of fire set the wooden structure alight, and she faintly heard the screams of the men who'd been reloading it, staggering back as the fire caught their clothes. She knocked them and their weapon aside like toys, taking off again towards the mass of people on the field below.

Projectiles filled the air like a hailstorm. One of her new dragons had landed on a cobblestone street, and now batted almost playfully at the soldiers and their blades that surrounded him. A knight charged on horseback, sword and shield raised. The dragon pounced, grabbing the animal in its teeth and shaking its head like a cat with a mouse. Hot blood rained down on the knights.