May 13th, 2021 - June 14th.
Published June 14th.
A/N: Guess who's back! It's Black!
I'd say this chapter fought me, but that's not true. I fought tooth and nail to not have to finish it. I look at it and think 'this is terrible' but I will never get feedback on it unless I publish.
I've done some reading about story theory and yeah, all the knowledge I have makes my stories seem like amateur hour. After these next few chapters I'll narrow down the focus to a couple of key characters I've spent time establishing. Important stuff will still happen in the background, but it won't be brought up until it affects the characters or they're in a position to hear about it.
Chapter 21: Taking it back
Kyde fingered her weapon, eyes fixed dead on the town a distant mile away, partially hidden by thin wisps of mist, and the sparse foliage between her position and the unprotected buildings on the outskirts.
"Shakes?" asked a voice.
"Just nerves," she told the other dragon with her, 'Grease'. He'd picked that name up sometime in the old unit, and it stuck. She looked at the town, ticking down seconds in her mind. On the count of sixty, Starling expected everyone to break out of the woods and attack.
"The fear just makes me fight harder," said Grease. "No mercy."
A good mindset to dragons took it personally – fire flashed above her and she looked to the dark night sky, imagining every glow as another toasted wasp. A lot of dragons took it personally. The emotions tugged at her, but she wasn't fighting Sandwings today; this was a new enemy, a new front.
Just another mission that might get her killed. There had been so many…
The approach to the town went well: Starling lost only a handful of men in transit, and they arrived soon enough after the Skywings engaged that their appearance would still be a surprise. Right now the Skywings would be locking down hive airspace, hard, every Skywing sergeant accompanied by a Seawing pair of eyes to help him track down enemy elements in the dark.
Her count reached ten, her muscles tensed.
"Go!" shouted Starling, and sixty dragons exploded out of the woods.
Kyde let loose as she shot out of the underbrush, every second, every yard counted, if it meant the enemy had less time to men stuck closely together, trusting the tip of the spear to sweep away resistance and the rear guard to finish the rest. They would push on like this until they encountered significant resistance, then they would consolidate their holdings building by building.
Alone, 305th did not have enough soldiers to take Orwen, but that didn't matter.
They had backup.
The village loomed closer and closer until it was right in front of her, a cart in her way and an old Mudwing behind it gawping at the shapes looming from the mist. There was a door open behind him, a little candle burning in the house.
He should've stayed inside when he heard the noise.
She hit the cart, broke it, and kept going, Sergeant Falke following close behind, and the rest of the wing securing their flanks. Speed was of the essence, surprise only deadly as long as it was used. Streams of fire in the sky told her another wasp had died – with the aerial battle gone on for ten minutes already, it stood to reason the hives would've anticipated a ground assault.
A dragon ahead screamed, a wasp, an enemy, his friends dressed in their wargear, but looking above instead of around them. He waved his spear in front of him, he could tag her by accident she knew and she had to avoid that, so she swept away his undisciplined flailing with her own spear and closed in.
The last thing he saw was her talons gouging his eyes out. The last thing he felt, she imagined, would be a spear in his heart. Weaker than her brothers, she relied on precision, endurance and skill to see her through, and it did, past the first wasp and into the centre of the enemy formation.
Dangerous. But also an opportunity. A gout of fire bore through the night above her, the Skywings exacting their toll on the defenders above, and half the wasps glanced into the night, away from Kyde, away from her spear.
The first one took a stab in the ribs, then she yanked it out and ducked into a nearby building as darts whined around her. To brawl six wasps in melee herself – suicide. To dance around in plain sight of their weapons was also foolish, so she charged up a lick of fire in reserve, facing any potential enemies in the building while waiting for her wing to arrive.
They didn't take long.
"Watch right!" yelled a private, private Colt. Kyde peeked around the dividing wall, saw no one, decided to rejoin the fight. When she returned to the street the battle had turned in 305th's favor, two more wasps lying dead on the ground, the other four blasting off vertically to hop behind a row of stables.
Colt whipped out a captured dartgun and took a shot, where it went, none knew, but the four wasps got away while peppering them with a couple of inaccurate rounds.
"Regroup!" shouted Sergeant Falke.
He ordered their force ahead, towards one of the buildings agreed on as their rendezvous before the battle. Sergeant Snipe stayed with them, along with Lt. Starling, but Sergeant Robin went right, guarding their flanks from a suspected enemy barracks. They would all meet at the stable in time.
While their intelligence on the ground had come up short, having a couple Skywing scouts peep on the city on one of the past cloudy days paid big dividends. Each 305th sergeant, Firestorm, and each Skywing company besides possessed a map of the city, with only the Seawing contingent going without.
Instead of flying into an inscrutable, directionless maze, the attacking force had arrived on equal terms. Kyde took her position on the flank of the force, next to private Cowslip; they moved quietly, as experienced soldiers do. If someone called out a warning, the wing needed to hear it: when the pointmen ran into an ambush, the dragons at the rear had to immediately understand what was happening.
Movement above her caught her eye.
"Airborne contact!" shouted Kyde.
Private Colt and another pair of privates instantly drew their captured weapons and fired, halfway through the reload cycle before a rich, multitonal voice shouted from above "It's us you idiots!"
"ID!?" shouted Starling.
Colt lowered his weapon.
"We're the blues," said the voice, coming closer, "literally in this case."
Pyrrhia's moons cast little light tonight, but enough to see a handful of Seawings descending from the night sky. 'There are more of you, right?', she thought. But there weren't. Sixteen of them hit the ground in front of 305th as they moved up and that was all.
"As the Skywings would say, ID your targets," said their leader, and Colt winced. Sergeant… Klondike, if Kyde remembered correctly. He waved away the matter like it was nothing. "It's fine now. Firestorm wing is incoming, they'll be with you in a moment. I'm here to help clear things out on the ground."
"Best get to it then," said Starling, "you just missed a couple wasps, five to one they'll bring reinforcements."
"Fool's bet," said Klondike, "I'd never take it."
He had dark blue scales, and that taken together with his dirty shield made him almost impossible to keep track of in the dark. Not so for him. Seawing night vision was good here, beyond good, and Kyde knew his men intended to use it.
ID your targets… they had some accident, right?
It was a rumor in camp, something bad happened during one of the Skywing unit's battles and it was one of their own's fault. No one knew if it was true, but the lesson very much applied here.
"Alright, enough yapping," called Starling, "Off the street, don't bust too many walls. We'll go in building by building."
As they should. Sergeant Falke split his group into fives and fours, not wanting to waste time because of overcrowding. The room-clearing slowed down their progress horribly, but they couldn't risk a wasp element breaking into their rear while another simultaneously charged into their front.
"Clear," shouted Kyde. She held her spear close when she came around corners, always with a partner on her open side.
"Clear mine as well," said Cowslip. He looked to the civilians huddling in the corner, their faces grim. "Give us a second and we'll be out of your scales," he said. "We're sticking it to the wasps."
If one of the kids gave him a thumbs-up, neither of them mentioned it.
"G'luck sir."
"Well I'm only a private."
"Kyde! Cowslip! You got it or not!?" called the sergeant.
"Clear first level," she shouted, "did you get the cellar?"
"Clean as a whistle," said Falke, "let's hit up the next building."
There seemed to be less civilians here than she'd thought – a few must've had the foresight to flee before the enemy came. Someone yelled from outside, darts whistled and cracked, and Falke swore under his breath.
"Enemy counterpush," he said, he peeked out of the house and started giving orders. "Colt, Harmon, Deere, on the roof now for dart fire, ID your targets. I say again ID your targets."
Kyde abandoned her useless position and headed for the outside wall together with the rest of her wing, where she could be more useful. The four escaped wasps had come back with reinforcements, a stampede of shapes headed right towards their position in the hopes of repulsing the Mudwing attack.
'This soon?' she thought and then saw the enemy had made a mistake, rushing in with fifty men instead of conglomerating their sizeable garrison in the city and crushing it before they could dig in.
"If you're not in the buildings get in the damn buildings!" shouted Falke, "standby for spear charge."
Sergeant Klondike's Seawings retreated as well, holding up on the side of the stables where they could retreat inside the hardy structure as needed. Ten dragons raised a shield wall, while the rest of the splashers' peered over the tops of their heater shields, crossbows ready.
The enemy assault split up in the darkness, its concentrated charge dissolving into smaller barbs that Kyde lost track of in the night mist. But other eyes had seen them – wings swooped down from on high, Firestorm taking advantage of enemy movement to strike a decisive blow.
The aerial engagement had cost them fire, and the Skywings decided to conserve their remaining flame by engaging in melee. They pounced on an enemy tendril like a dog and started ragging on it, chewing up the enemy element on the rooftops.
"Six on the building, cover flank, keep them off us -" shouted Klondike, and he kept giving orders while Kyde scanned for wasps. The chaos and the shadows and advancing Mudwings gave her grim satisfaction: finally, a chance to do some real damage in this catastrophe of a war.
"Call flank! One on the outs, Falke plays inside," said Starling. "Forward!"
Cowslip pushed Kyde out of cover – "C'mon" and the two followed their sergeant over a pair of buildings while shots zipped into the dirt, the enemy archers firing here, there, everywhere. Someone kicked a lantern into a pile of hay and it caught fire, silhouetting the Mudwing position while casting their enemies into the dangerous zone between light and shadow.
Bang! A dart popped off the wall next to Kyde; she kept moving with Cowslip, eyes searching for the location of the shooter. Movement caught her eye – a wasp flying pell-mell towards the intact end of the stables, comrades holding the door open even as the fire spread through the banks of hay. Friendly darts spanged near him with no effect, and he ducked safely inside.
Meanwhile, the allies' tactical situation looked good. Until the company commander here received reinforcements from the other side of the town – already harassed by Skywing probing attacks – he was stuck in a burning building while Skywing, Mudwing and Seawing infantry closed in all around him. Either he held up or he broke out, fighting the entire allied force on his doorstep with maybe a company's worth of men, tops, vs 305th and Klondike and their Skywing support.
So it looked like Joe Stinger had a pretty raw deal.
However, if Starling's forces rushed into the building to force him out, then the enemy would give almost as good as he got: meanwhile, they couldn't push past the stables because the wasps might feel brave enough to pop out and ruin their flank security.
Reinforcements might arrive now, or might never come, swallowed up in the urban maze. Kyde habitually scanned out the corner of her eye, but saw nothing. Had Somers and Griff arranged some sort of civilian insurrection?
"Falke!" shouted Starling, "pile up hay by their door."
Sergeant looked at lieutenant and the meaning became clear. Find extra combustibles, and use 'em to smoke the enemy out. Kyde looked over the surrounding area, and saw no enemies popping out of basements: with no enemyair elements, the coast looked clear for the smugglers to bring in the burn.
"Looks clear, sir," said Cowslip.
"Good man," said Falke. "OK, there's a big pile that hasn't burned yet. You - run over to the marines and tell them we need their shields up while we work."
It wouldn't do to get nailed by a dart volley from inside, when Kyde had decided not to die to anything so pedestrian. As if soldiers somehow got a choice in the matter… Cowslip had already dashed off, explaining his case, and the Seawing officer nodded and agreed.
Kyde watched the flames boil over the top of the stables, and heard the distressed lowing of yearling calves trapped inside. So they would have roast beef in the morning, she thought, ignoring the noise in favor of her focus. She'd heard a lot worse.
Cowslip came back. "He's agreed, sir."
"Good news," said Falke. "Okay," he said, as the Seawings moved up and set a defensive perimeter around all of the doors and windows on the east end, "go ahead."
An unburned pile of hay lay on a long wagon, the flames licking at its surroundings but not quite reaching it, and the Mudwings covered the distance to it and pulled, rolling it slowly over the dirt.
"You know the funniest thing," said Cowslip.
"Not the time."
"The funniest thing. Klondike said they weren't marines."
Spear-toting Seawings with shields and fancy emblems. "Of course they're marines," she said. "What else would they be?"
"Didn't say, exactly."
"Stuck-up fishies."
"'Problem removal experts'."
A skywing dropped in from the heavens, speaking quickly to Starling after he'd finished giving an order. The lieutenant's face flashed from business to surprise to annoyance to 'what-gives?' as he heard the message, and then settled for concealed frustration bordering on anger.
He stepped forward. "New orders!" he shouted.
305Th's members cocked their ears to listen. "We're giving up on putting it through the door. Lieutenant Crab has ordered Klondike to bust open the roof and then clear everyone out to a fifty-yard perimeter," he said, and Kyde heard him whisper 'for what, I have no idea.'
"Sir, yes sir," said Falke, confused though he was, and Kyde too. There is a name for the commander who does everything by half. That name is 'the loser'. So Kyde expected whatever the Seawings had to be good, or else it just wasn't worth her time, or anyone else in 305th.
"Splashers can't make their mind up," said Cowslip.
"Now now, not within earshot," said Deere. "We wouldn't want our allies to feel unwelcome."
"Or landsick."
Falke grunted. "While we're waiting on Klondike," said Starling, "you may as well conduct flank security on the right. Sergeant Snipe and Robin can handle our center."
"Can do sir," said Falke.
He gathered his forces and they trudged off some distance from the main group, out of sight – and a little more. Kyde heard the entire exchange, and thought to herself 'Starling ordered flank security, not extended security'. But it wasn't her place to interfere and undermine the chain of command in the unit. At any other time she might have, since the two had known each other for years, but they were all a little bit annoyed at the Seawings right now and she didn't want to step on his toes.
"Feels lonely out here, doesn't it," said Cowslip. "All the dragons hiding in their houses, I don't see a soul."
"This sleepy little down doesn't get nightlife," she said. "Quiet."
She expected Firestorm to cover for Falke's dragons while they watched flank. She knew enemy forces could be here, but unless she ran into a company, she'd be fine. Reinforcements were only a few houses away.
"Clear," said Colt, dusting himself off as he came out of a dusty shed with the rest of his flight. "There's an alley behind here that goes in the right direction, we could take it."
Falke consulted his map, and she almost heard his thought process. While his wing could clear out buildings perfectly fine, they couldn't guarantee that the buildings would remain clear once they passed through. Additionally, their job was flank security, not pushing in – for now.
"Sounds good. We'll move through there and set up in the houses, with lookouts on the rooftops. It should give Starling the breathing space he needs."
Kyde listened in as always, but this time she heard something extra. A sort of buzzing. Getting louder, coming closer. Uh…
"Contact!" shouted Falke.
A bunch of wasps overflew a row of houses in front of them and split apart upon seeing the mudwings arrayed on the ground.
"Deere, Harmon, Colt, get us cover fire," said Falke. "Forward and take them out by the underbelly."
Another bunch of wasps appeared, making it not an even fight, but a brawl where the enemy outnumbered them two to one.
"Damnit!" shouted Cowslip. Darts pelted their position and the entire wing piled into the sturdiest nearby house.
"How's our exit strategy!?"
Kyde poked her head out and nearly got it nailed to the wall. "They're blocking our retreat, sir," she said. Falke cursed under his breath; no one heard it but her. "Fine then," he said, "we'll hold out in here until Firestorm realizes something's wrong and helps us out."
If they didn't, then all the dragons in here had a pretty short life expectancy, he didn't say. Reinforcements were only a few houses off… or five. Or six. Falke had taken them pretty far. They were in for a rough ride.
Suddenly a wing's worth of more wasps appeared over the buildings. "Wasps, wing strength ahead!" she called.
"On me!" shouted Falke, "Take cover!"
When the enemy force came over the buildings, some dragons went left and some went right. Kyde ducked right with most of them, together with Falke into a small building on the right side of the alley. Three or four of their number split the wrong way, however, across the alley and into a much larger home.
"Set defense! Set up set up, I want two guys on each door and the rest of you space out on the walls. Cover that damn skyhole. You know what to do," said Falke. "Kyde, how are the enemy?"
"Swinging around and coming up short," she said, "they're hemming us in."
He swore again. "Damn, I wish I hadn't taken us this far."
Something roared outside, something entirely different from a dragon, like a fire. A faint draft rustled her ears suddenly, and the buildings out of doors suddenly looked brighter. A dense, oily stench settled into her nostrils.
"Damn, what's that smoke?" asked Cowslip. "My eyes frickin' sting."
"What a stink."
"Focus!" shouted Falke. "We need to link up with the rest of the wing."
"Their position looks better than ours, sir," she said. "Better for containing a breach."
Falke budged into her spot and took a look himself. The other position had buildings surrounding it on both sides that he could see, likely allowing his dragons to stealthfully move through the complex, whilst his own position had a thin roof, and a skyhole up top. The choice was obvious.
"We'll cross. Deere, Harmon, Colt, out back and get shooting. The rest of my wing, cross the alley on my order! Interior men first, door-men second, ranged last."
She waved at the dragons holed up in the building, using sign language to tell them to stay put. The three dart-equipped privates stepped to the doors and fired off their first rounds, following after with a shot every six seconds.
"Mark!"
The dragons stuck inside the house moved first, then the three clustered up on the near door, then the far door, all sprinting across the twenty feet of open ground without mishap. Falke nudged Kyde's tail. "Run," he said. And she did, over the scattered junk and garbage and open sewer, right into the open door. She turned around, and got out of the way for the sergeant.
"I'm hit!" shouted Colt.
"Can you move!?" shouted Falke.
"Yeah!"
"Then you're not hit, let's go."
Whatever the enemy had seen, it had stunned them far more than it had the Mudwings, but they had recovered, and now showered the building with a hail of fire while more than a dozen dragons descended on the sergeant's old position. He burst out of the building just in time, followed by Deere and Colt, followed by Harmon, who had to push Colt's wounded tail out of the way to get forward.
"Get in!" she shouted. They nearly all made it.
Someone above threw a javelin down from above, impaling Harmon's wing. He gritted his teeth and tore it off in the doorframe, hopefully taking out the head in the process.
Now, they had two casualties. She shoved both towards private Stringer with a mumbled "Stitch 'em up," and they were out of harm's way.
"Same pattern, walls and doors," called Falke. "Two of you explore and find a covered route out of the building."
"I need space in the middle," said Stringer, hauling Harmon to the floor. A few dragons moved their tails.
"Take what you need," said Falke.
The corpsman began the grisly process of tearing the steel out of his patient's flesh, before it could cause more damage to soft innards or pop an artery. He had his sharpened talons, and a pick, and most importantly a cool head.
For a minute or two, they held inside while the enemy bandied shouts outside, deciding what to do. Finally, joe stinger figured out his plan. Darts showered the doors, and she ducked inside from her lookout position.
"Walls!" someone called: a dragon thumped into the far wall at full speed a second later. Dust fell but the walls held. This kept on, though Kyde doubted they would get in that way.
"Keep watching the flank," said Falke, "ears, eyes, nose."
But she couldn't smell much of anything through the oily stench. The enemy kept clawing at the structure, ripping away bits and pieces while the Mudwings held up inside.
"Door!"
Kyde shoved her spear forward when she saw an enemy appear in front, missed, pulled back for a second go. She didn't doubt for a second that they would be coming in the roof soon, and she didn't like her chances in a two to one brawl.
Dragons started yelling outside – a rescue? - no such luck. A cavalcade of archers flew into the alley and pelted Kyde's door, forcing her to slam it shut.
"Hold them back!" shouted Falke. "Any way into the next building?"
"Sir, no sir," shouted one of his lookouts.
The place was divided into two parts, one room here, one there, and a cellar that didn't look very big, probably filled with villagers who'd heard the noise and decided to hunker down. The enemy kept overwatch with their archers, while the rest of their men kept digging away at the sides and probing the doors. Someone punched hers, and one of the beams cracked.
With the corpsman working on private Harmon, they just didn't have enough soldiers to defend the entire building. Kyde saw something out the corner of her eye, Colt was quicker.
"Breach right!" he shouted, then coughed.
Someone fired a shot into the gap as an enemy dragon knocked it down, and got pushed into the opening by his fellows, his spear offside. Someone skewered his shoulder and he roared, then Falke put a spear into his neck and the blood poured. The soldier gurgled and fell, but they kept coming.
"Stay on the doors!" Falke ordered, "don't abandon the doors."
In the middle of the floor, private Stringer picked up Harmon's spear, leaving his patient on the ground, with cold steel poking out of the bleeding wound. The dragons on the walls broke off and formed a ring around the breach, leaving Kyde to defend her door with Cowslip. A dart punched into the cracked beam and sprayed splinters everywhere, but didn't penetrate.
"Argh!"
Over the grunts and groans a heavily accented voice yelled.
"You're outnumbered, come out and surrender."
"Over my dead body!" yelled Harmon. But a clash of steel drowned out his shout.
In the middle of all this, a dragon crashed into the roof and came part way through, cracking the wooden beams that held up the slightly-sloped tile. Instead of making a proper joint, the builders had nailed the beams together, and some of the nails sheared right out, leaving some of the beams to hang loose or fall to the ground.
"Hold the door," said Cowslip. He reached up and slashed the wasp in the tail as it struggled to get out of the hole it had made, warm droplets of blood spattering on the dragons below as it tried to fly away and failed. Kyde helped him yank it down, then Cowslip finished it off with a spear to the heart.
But not everyone had a weapon. The dragons holding off the wall breach had to back up more and more as wasps poured in, each one carrying a long, sharp spear that could kill a mudwing if it hit him in the throat. Now, Cowslip fell back to help, leaving Kyde alone with her tail backed up into the wall and her attention split between three places.
Not ideal. Someone on the roof poked his spear down and started fishing for exposed backs, thrusting down at anything that moved. He ripped a couple of holes in wings, but nothing serious, until Kyde got tired of it and stole the spear away from him, tossing it to one of the privates without a weapon.
"Harmon, get back!" shouted Stringer.
"I'm tired of sitting around, I can fight."
The injured Mudwing had gotten up, obviously still hurting. Each movetore muscles and flesh, but he pushed through the pain.
"Fall back into the next room, Harmon," said Falke. "Stringer, drag him."
"Sir, yes sir."
The corpsman withdrew from the battle line, dragging his patient further down while Harmon grumbled.
Meanwhile, she had to deal with dragons outside hammering on her door, all while the one up top kept fishing around with his javelin, moving it too fast for anyone to really grab it. If she fell back too far from her position, she might get skewered in the neck, and that only numbered third on her list of worries.
Something busted through the heavy duty door at last, and spears poked through: she broke one, but the other kept searching for flesh: two dragons stacked up on there, at least, probably with a shooter aiming downrange to nail her if she made a mistake.
"Corpsman!"
"Oh for fuck's sake!" yelled Stringer. He dashed back into the room. Someone had got a narrow slice in the neck, and needed to be bandaged: with that loss, the thinly defended line containing the breach became untenable.
"Fall back!" shouted Falke. He shouted something else. "FALL BACK!"
She snarled, then backed off the door, forgetting the dragon fishing with a javelin above her. It clocked her in the head, drew a long gash on her nose, and then slid off, blood welling up in its wake. She batted at it, then moved away, still guarding the flank with her spear, while the dragons holding the breach line gave ground until they made a narrow ring around the passage into the next room.
"C'mon, go!" shouted Falke.
Darts peppered her position from the front, hitting a few Mudwings in the flank.
She pulled away, followed by another couple of privates, then Cowslip, then finally the Sergeant himself, his wide body blocking the way in. Everything looked blurry – she brushed off her eyes and rubbed away her blood, hopefully not her blood.
"Get in!" she yelled.
Falke grunted, concentrating on his fight. "Bloom!" he yelled.
Everyone blinked.
The sergeant breathed fire downrange, weak in the chill, but still enough to blind and sting. The enemies on the other side lost their night vision, but the Mudwings had most of theirs left, using it to get out of the way when Sergeant Falke stumbled back and took up position in the center of the room.
"Cover for me," he said, "I can't see."
"Switch," said one of the privates guarding this room's door.
He swapped out with one of the wing's wounded and started guarding the passage, along with Kyde. Darts showered in, but this soon after the flash, they all missed.
This room was the last they could take over in. Instead of there being an open passage to the next building as Falke had hoped, there was only a wall at the back of the room: they couldn't easily make a break for it except through the passage or the side door, and archers or spearmen would pick off their number either way.
'We made a mistake,' she thought, 'and we're paying for it'.
She listened to the enemy shout, making out a few words that sounded familiar, but no gist.
"Can we spare a soldier to bust through the wall!?" asked Falke.
"No sir," said Stringer, the closest to the rear. "There, good as new."
"It's sturdy?"
"No! Yes!" shouted Stringer.
"So can we spare a soldier!"
"No!"
Stringer's voice trailed off and then he snapped off a swear. She didn't see what had happened, too busy fending off the enemy down the hall. They should've used the enemy confusion to countercharge and inflict heavy casualties, but they didn't – because the sergeant was the last one through, because he blinded himself and didn't call the shots.
The air stenched like blood and smoke, scraps of wood and straw burning on the floor and casting a firelit glow that she stood just outside of, the enemy wasps doing the same. They looked like ghouls in the corners of her eye, and she fought the fear because she knew she looked the same to them.
Someone shouted an order on the other side. The archers stepped out from behind the spearmen and laid down a hail of darts: she ducked into cover, bracing her body with her tail while she kept her spear just close enough -
"They're pushing in!" she shouted. Dark shapes ahead, Harmon hissing as he stacked up on the wall, his health in doubt, but good enough to help she supposed. As an extra body if nothing else.
A rush of soldiers barreled around the corner bellowing war cries, jabbing with their short spears. She got in close and batted a wasp's foreleg aside, then stepped in and slammed her spear into its chest. It bucked in her grip as the head went straight through enemy scale, squelching through blood and guts and something arterial as the dragon thrashed, eyes wide and screaming. He bore down Kyde and she dropped her weapon, the haft snapping when it hit the dirt. Someone shouted "Bloom!" and she blinked a second too late.
Blinded, helpless again -
Falke roared.
The world turned fiery red, outlines dashed through the haze and then faded, leaving her blind in the dark, scrabbling for the javelin she knew she kept on her while navigating by sound and smell, equally useless senses in the stinking, noisy pandemonium. A dragon bashed into her and knocked her off balance; her claws swung out to retaliate and stopped. ID your targets.
"Who - !" she shouted.
It roared with a senseless gnashing of teeth, not her roar, not anyone else's but the enemy. No fire. Fire would just mark her as a Mudwing target. So she reached up before it could kill her, grabbed its neck and raked, digging her other claws into its chest and mostly avoiding its pained lashing, its screams of pain.
So what if it didn't want to die?The enemy had stepped on the Mudwings' toes, it was its own fault they were fighting in the first place. The Seawings and Skywings and Sandwings she'd fought had all been people, she could feel pity as they died and regret as she stood over their bodies, but this?
She killed the invader with no remorse.
The navigator ran into two more dragons next, rolling and biting on the floor: she couldn't tell who was who so she left well enough alone. Instead she fumbled away from where she remembered the hall was, ducking away from the frenzied strikes.
"Hey, you!"
She spun on her heels and charged toward the voice, trusting his eyes. "Enemy?" she asked.
"Five of them blind," said Harmon; his position had moved, closer to her, beside her. She spun around.
"You can't take them."
"Just got to keep them off us," he hissed.
"Sounds good."
Their group gathered up more and more fighters; Cowslip, who could still see; Deere, who blinked just in time, and a few others. The groupbeat a path through the chaos, stumbling over the fallen.
"Falke," she called, "orders?" Nothing. "Falke?"
The mudwings huddled up with their backs to the wall, spears pointing outward. "Falke?" Kyde swallowed past a knot in her throat, her grip twitchy. Moonlight seeped through the gaping hole in the wall, whilst the shadows shrouded the mudwings' corner in a deep layer of gloom. Nasty, tangled mutters floated over from the other side of the room, and a dragon groaned.
"You're in charge now, nav," said Cowslip. "Maybe sarge bought the farm."
"Ssh. He might've gotten knocked out in the scuffle," she said, eyes shifting over the blooded room. That heap might be the sergeant, or it might not be. She counted bodies, relieved when the four-winged corpses outnumbered the mudwing dead.
Then someone groaned and she tensed up again. Whispered pleas in a language she couldn't understand, but knew the gist of. Dragons all bled, no matter what color, and this wasp had a slick of blood seeping out under him as he whined for mercy. Harmon leveled his spear with the wasp's skull, ready for the strike.
"You'll still have to clean that," Cowslip muttered. "Brain grease ain't oil."
"I'll wipe it off when I'm dead," said Harmon.
"Camarie!" shouted a dragon in the darkness, "Camarie camarie."
Harmon halted, about to finish the dying man on the ground.
"Comrade?" she asked.
"Camarie, camarie," he said.
"OK," she said. She puffed a lick of flame and tapped her spear on the ground. "If you have weapons, drop them."
"Camarie," said the wasp. He stumbled out into a patch of better light, glancing this way and that as if afraid. A few of his wingmates edged forwards behind him, scales sallow and drawn by fear, their javelins clutched tightly.
"There's more of them than there are of us," said Cowslip.
"Quiet," she said. Behind her, Harmon rested the butt of his long spear on the ground, still standing over the downed wasp but not looking to kill him. "Camarie," she said at last.
The wasps let their spears clatter to the ground.
"Camarie," said the dragon in front. The wasps stepped forwards, tails drooping, twelve in all, or three more than she counted in her bloodied, eviscerated wing of fighters.
"You should've led with that," said Cowslip. He turned to her. "What now, sirra?"
305th wouldn't have an established position on the ground yet, just a line of maybe-cleared houses progressing ever-closer to the town center. There would be no secure place to put them, nor did Kyde want to frogmarch them to the front line and be targeted by both sides.
"Cowslip, run to 305th and tell Starling we have prisoners and wounded. We'll bring them up when we establish contact," she said.
"Yes, sirra," said Cowslip. "Anything else?
"No."
Cowslip stepped outside through a hole in the wall and flew away.
The wing had overextended, bled. She felt the ensuing post-combat jitters as the battle lulled, the whispers and doubts. With the long practice of a veteran, she pushed them away for that nebulous 'later'.
"Deere, Stringer," she said, "search the building for downed men, see if any are still alive."
"What about the wasps?" asked Deere. "Let them die?"
"Take care of ours first, the rest if you have time."
"Yes, sirra."
Sirra.
Landmarks and maps were her mutton and chops, not this officer business. She put those concerns aside and her eyes back to the prisoners, looking over their strange, thin frames, their proportions that seemed just a bit too lanky to be real. The POWs shuddered, though the night windwarmly brought the scent of smoke and blood.
Shadows moved in the house, and she tightened her grip on her spear, her nerves suddenly on edge. But it was only Mudwings.
"He's alive!" called Deere, "Falke breathes."
"Not for much longer," said Stringer, his younger tenor somehow more weary than that of the 30-year old Deere.
"How?"
Stringerstood quiet for a second, his eyes shimmering faintly from the orange light coming in the doorway.
"His head is bashed in, sirra," he said. "He won't make it."She glanced to the POWs again, still twitching and shivering despite the muggy air. The wasps killed with venom, spears, claws. She'd never seen them kill so much as a Seawing by bashing its head in, much less the sturdy skull of a 'Mudder.
They had stricken one of their own.
"Is he conscious?" she asked.
"Delirious."
"Our casualties?"
"One living with minor injuries, two dead." Stinger sniffed, taking in the dragon-blood's iron tang as it wept from new wounds.
Wings suddenly fluttered outside and dragons thumped to the ground. She cursed, realizing she'd forgotten to post a watch – though the friendly flaps reassured her somewhat. "We're Mudwings! Who goes there?" she called.
"Sergeant Klondike and his men, here for the POWs!" shouted the Seawing L-T.
"Understood," she said. She stepped through the gaping hole in the wall, out into the dusty path between rows of huts. "What's the word?"
"Lt. Starling orders that you regroup with his unit in the center of the town and prepare for another assault."
"Alright," she said, then paused awkwardly. Addressing NCOs from different tribes was always a bitch to do properly. "We're ready to move. Wing! Two in front of the POWs, two each side, rest bring up the rear."
"Yes, sirra," said Deere.
"… We'll get Falke's body later."
Assuming there'd be a later. Assuming they won.
She hissed, her forked tongue slithering out from between her teeth. Any assault with the wing would be her leading a wing of six, maybe seven dragons. Sure, they'd have support, but she was still working with an overly small element closer to a Icewing hit wing than an actual unit.
"On foot?" asked Klondike.
"Won't be far," she said. "Don't want these guys flying away in the dark."
One of the wasps growled; Deere growled right back. "Shoulda thought about that before you surrendered huh? Huh?"
"Stow it, get moving back the way we came," she ordered. The wasps hissed and crouched to the ground – "Really, you surrender to us and decide to act up now?" she thought.
"Get your tail back in line," growled Deere.
"Somethin' doesn't feel right, sirra," said Cowslip.
She opened her mouth to reply - right as the wasp lashed out and clocked Deere over the hell? She heard something crack – as likely the wasp's talon as Deere's nose – and then the rest of the captured wasps cried out in their tongue and rushed the startled allies, a dozen wasps vs her scarce few soldiers and Klondike's men.
"Counterattack! Counterattack!" shouted Klondike.
She jumped backwards, beating her wings to widen the gap between her and the backstabbing wasps. One charged her down, ignoring the tip of her spear pointed towards it. Combat time kicked in, the dragon kicking up dust on the ground while it flew towards her – any second, she thought, the enemy would see the spear-point blatantly glinting in the moonlight and dodge. She sunk lower in her stance and then -
And then the wasp crunched into the spear arm-first, another one close behind. She dropped her spear and took another step back, cushioning the blow on the right just before punching with her left arm. Bone cracked yet the wasp kept coming, its stinger blurring past her cheek as it tumbled past her and dropped harder than a sack of potatoes, only its pained grunts telling her it was alive.
The second one tackled her to the ground, jaws snapping shut just as she kicked it in the groin right where its balls should be. Blood gushed onto her leg, yet the wasp kept wrestling, its gleaming fangs inches away from her snout. Suddenly a spear point sprouted from its belly and it gurgled, surprised at the blood suddenly dribbling out of its mouth. She pushed it off, cursing the mess, the wasps, everything.
"Got you boss," said Cowslip, offering a talon. She nodded and took it.
That was weird as hell, she thought, looking at the corpse just to make sure it was a male. Dragons always stopped fighting after a good kick to the gonads… always.
And yet this one hadn't.
A mudwing rolled past with a wasp clawing at him, both tangled in life-or-death struggle. It screeched when she grabbed it by the neck, still spitting and clawing when the mudwing got up and killed it.
It should've run, but it didn't. A four-man flight of Klondike's Seawings jostled past, galloping to the last few wasps holding out with their backs to the wall. Kyde's eyes narrowed as she watched the three survivors attack ruthlessly, driving back the exhausted, injured Mudwings until the Seawings arrived in the melee.
She galloped forwards, seeing the two wasps already down, the last about to die as Harmon put him in a headlock.
"Stop!" she called. The wasp kept fighting, but the Seawings halted. "Hold him down, I want answers."
They had the wasp pinned to the ground in short order, Harmon's talons forcing down its chest, while a Seawing stepped on its tail for good measure. She leaned in, one question at the fore of her mind.
"Why?" she asked. "Why do something so wasteful!" The wasp only spat on the ground, hissing in its native tongue.
"I say we kill it and regroup," said Klondike, appearing in the ring of men surrounding the restrained prisoner. "There's no guarantee he even understands what you're saying."
"Maybe it doesn't, maybe it does," said Kyde, her voice bitter. "I'm hoping it'll tell me why they all decided fighting to the death was an attractive option. They could've run. They could've done anything else." She leaned in again, eyes locked on the wasp's dark orbs, sclera she could've sworn were white five minutes ago. "So, why?"
The wasp pursed its lips, and she recognized itas the same wasp who'd first shouted "Camarie" in the dark, albeit with its eyes turned a strange shade of white within black within black. If any wasp could understand her, it was this one. It mumbled words under its breath, no doubt familiarizing itself with the syllables of her language.
"Fuck. You."
"Never," she said. "Anything else?"
It spit again.
"I say we be done with this farce," said Klondike. She shrugged. "We're not getting anything useful out of him," said Klondike, pressing the issue. "It's better that we save ourselves time to help our allies – this mission has been a fustercluck since thirty minutes ago."
"Would've been better if they never invaded," she said, and laughed a hollow laugh. "Kill it. Kill it now."
One of the Seawings plunged his spear into its chest.
"From now on there are no prisoners," said Klondike. "No quarter will be given to the stingers and the punishments for going easy on them will be severe. Form up, we're heading back to the battalion."
"If any of the enemy have been taken prisoner, we'll have to kill them too," she pointed out. "Unless they're fully trussed up and watched, they might just start this shit all over again."
Klondike actually had the decency to look pained. "Of course they would. Bastards."
She nodded, then headed back to one of the wasp corpses to get her spear. "Cowslip! Gather the ones that are left, we're heading back at a walk."
"There's something you should see, sirra. Harmon didn't make it out of the way," said Cowslip. He stepped aside, revealing the stout Mudwing down on his side, black, poisoned blood oozing out of a hole between his lower rib. Harmon looked up at her, maybe for the last time.
She knelt, eye-to-eye with the seasoned warrior. "Goodbye," she said.
Harmon rasped, a small smile coming over his face before he closed his eyes.
They did not open again.
The trip back to 305th's front lines took less thanthree minutes, but it felt more like three hours to Kyde. Her men dragged their wings, down on their form. Cowslip stared blankly ahead, whilst the rest flew along in single file, following their Seawing guide to the newly established command post in a small market square. She looked below. Lt. Crab and Captain Lou leaned over some maps on a butcher's block that had hastily been dragged into the open, whilst the Mudwing Lt. Starling was nowhere to be seen. Kyde folded her wings and plummeted into a hard landing, bowing her head a little to respect the officers from the other command.
"What news?" asked Lou.
"We took some wasp prisoners," she said. "They stabbed us in the back after they surrendered. You have to kill all your POWs, it's the only safe way."
"Up till now we've given even the wasps quarter," said Lou. "and we gave even our most hated enemies quarter in the Succession War. This is an extreme course to take."
"They'll turn in a second," she said, "their eyes become black and they have no fear."
Lou stood still for a moment.
"In extreme times we might have to consider extrememeasures," said Lt. Crab; the Seawing commander rapped his knuckles on the knife-scarred butcher's block.
"That far?" asked Lou.
"We needed a field test anyway."
"With all due respect, sirs," said Kyde, "what is being discussed?"
"A new weapons system," hedged Crab.
"A what now?" That might as well be a non-answer as far as she was concerned. Weapons were simple; a spear, a crossbow, a shortsword of last resort. There was no such thing as a weapons system. Directly or indirectly, these officers had lead good Mudwings to their deaths and they wouldn't even give her straight answers about what they were doing.
"A new weapons system," repeated Crab. "We need to find Starling and brief him; there is much to discuss."
So whatever this new weapon was, the Seawings and Skywings had not even bothered to inform 305th before this point. Classic. Even in a war against an external threat their 'allies' would find some way to conceal valuable information.
"Am I dismissed?" hissed Kyde.
"You are. Find Lt. Starling and give him this," said Crab, tossing her a scroll sealed in brown parchment. "He should be on the west side of town, preparing for another assault."
Ah yes; commandeering a lowly Mudwing from another command was typical indeed. "Yes sirs," said Kyde. She did a about-face and trotted back to her unit, ears laid back.
"The hell was that about?" asked Cowslip. Kyde glared, temper still hot. "If looks could kill I'd be a dead duck."
"Seawings and Skywings being cagey as usual," she said. "They need to get in contact with Lt. Starling for one of their plans."
"We don't get to know about it, typical," said Cowslip. "Wait -"
She gave a half-smile.
"Great. Where's Starling?"
Kyde laughed. Thirty minutes in and she was a typical officer already. "I'm not passing it off on you; I'm taking the whole wing, just in case we run into trouble."
"Just in case has a funny habit of turning into 'oh shit we're about to die."
True.
"On me!" called Kyde. "We're moving out."
They found Lt. Starling in the pulverized remains of a one-story mudflat – 'knocking down buildings has become a bit of a habit for us', she thought, dropping onto the dirt. Their el-tee was surrounded by the members of second wing under Sergeant Robin, bleeding, beat-up, bruised, and most importantly alive.
"Who goes there?" shouted Robin.
"Corporal Kyde and third wing," she said.
"Well it sounds like her," said Starling.
"Sir!" she said, then saluted.
"At ease," said Starling. "The Seawings told me you ran into a spot of trouble but made it out alive. Where is Sergeant Falke?"
"…"
"Dead?"
Her ears went flat. "He didn't make it. Him and three others."
"And the rest of you?"
"Injured. Some badly, some not. The other lieutenants want a meet with you – something important," she said, passing the scroll to Starling. The older dragon merely sighed, shifting his wings.
"We'll deal with what happened to you later," he said, unwrapping the scroll gingerly with sharp talons. "We've got the enemy encircled, but not defeated. They're holed up in their tower, and neither the Skywings nor ourselves can make an assault without taking a lot of casualties. We don't want to leave them there till morning either."
She nodded. "If we wipe out an entire garrison it'll send a message."
"Indeed." Starling's brow rose as he scanned down the paper. "Looks like the Seawings have an answer to our problem. They're calling it 'hellfire'."
"Burning the wasps in hell? Sounds like a plan to me."
Kyde turned at the new voice. It was Somers.
