“Ser,” the messenger blurts. “Squad leader Kusyl, ser, he wants you to know that there’s another trunk down on the far side of the chaos tower.”
“Another?” murmurs Shynt to himself.
“Thank you,” Lorn replies. “Tell him we’ll join him on the perimeter road off the crown of this trunk. And tell him to stay well back until we get there.”
“Yes, ser.”
The lancer rides back toward Kusyl, and Lorn and the first squad continue riding in formation, outward through the ground mist that has begun to dissipate, out toward the perimeter road and the second squad.
Lorn keeps studying the dark trunk whose length they parallel, but he sees nothing overt, no giant cats on the trunk, no night leopards-just a huge trunk-wall that seems blacker than most of the fallen forest giants he has encountered on previous patrols.
As Lorn nears the second squad, formed up on the perimeter road, Kusyl rides forward to meet his captain. “Two of’em down, ser,” reports the senior squad leader. “You can see the second, on the other side of the tower building.” He points. “Looks big as this one. Could be bigger. Hard to tell from here.”
Following the gesture, Lorn nods. “Two or not, we’ll have to check this one first. We’ll follow the road and then head straight at the crown.”
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn continues to watch the two fallen forest giants, separated by almost a kay, with the bulk of the midpoint chaos tower and its connecting wall between them, yet he can see nothing moving except dark birds that are clearly vulcrows.
When they are opposite the first tree, Lorn reins up, then turns. “Form up on me for the approach to the crown.” The captain looks from Kusyl to Shynt.
“Yes, ser.”
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn eases the gelding forward, then slips the white firelance from the holder. He also checks the sabre. Once the squads flank him, with seventy-five cubits separating him from the forward lancer on each side, and he rides alone once more, he urges the gelding toward the mass of twisted and splintered branches and greenery that lie six hundred cubits before him.
A vulcrow flutters to land on a branch protruding higher than the others, its black feathers glistening under the hot spring-like sun, something dangling from its mouth before the morsel disappears when the scavenger swallows. Lorn rides closer to the forest canopy. He can see long strands of moss-like vegetation.
The air smells of splintered and resined wood, of acrid crushed leaves, and slightly of the acrid and musky scent that tells of stun lizards. The branches rustle, then crack ominously, and the crackling is followed by a greater odor of musk and an intensified acridity.
“Prepare to discharge firelances!” Lorn orders without turning his head, his eyes sweeping the twisted greenery.
“Firelances to the ready.”
The two stun lizards that crash from the fallen tree are five cubits high at their front shoulders, and stretch more than twenty-five cubits. The heavy tails do not lash. The nearer and fractionally larger lizard halts, then watches Lorn through black eyes that do not blink. Soundlessly, a black tongue flicks out like a lash, pulling a gray sparrow Lorn had not even seen from the air.
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.