Into The Darkness

Here and there, scattered Forthwegian companies tried to withstand them. They had little luck. Sabrino shook his fist at them. "This is what you get for invading Algarve!" he cried, though only his dragon could hear him. "What you visited on us, we visit on you a hundredfold."

He'd been worried when the Forthwegians approached Gozzo. [..H..] the city fallen, King Penda's soldiers could have spread across the plain of northern Algarve and done untold damage. But behemoths a: dragons had turned the battle in front of Gozzo, and turned every fig since, too. However brave the Forthwegians were, they could not sta up against such force.

Here and there, the retreating Forthwegians had set fire in the fie. and woods to slow the Algarvians' advance. Had they done that in( systematically, they would have got more good from it. As things we occasional whithin of smoke rose to Sabrino's nostrils: hardly what t enemy could have hoped to accomplish.

More smoke rose above Wihtgara. Sabrino's countrymen I bypassed the town to the north and south and joined hands beyond it, they'd done with Gromheort a few days before. The Forthwegt trapped inside the jaws of the pincers still battled to break free, but it had little chance. Unicorn cavalry, tiny as dots down below, charged squadron of behemoths. The egg-tossers and heavy sticks the behemoths bore on their backs wrecked the charge before the Forthwegians got to close quarters.

Dragons wheeled above Wihtgara. Till Sabrino drew near, he thought them Algarvian beasts dropping eggs on the defenders below. Then he saw they were painted in blue and white: Forthwegian colors. There were only a dozen of them or so. Without hesitation - or without any more hesitation than balky dragons usually caused - they hurled them selves at his entire wing.

Sabrino waved to his dragonfliers. "If they want it, we'll give it to them!" he shouted, though he didn't think any of the other men could hear. That they would give it to the Forthwegians, he had no doubt.

Even after losses in the fighting thus far, he still commanded four times as many dragons as the foe had.

Like the unicorn cavalry down on the ground, the Forthwegian dragonfliers cared nothing about the odds. On they came. Sabrino's dragon made a noise that reminded him of hot oil sizzling in a frying pan about the size of a small duchy: a challenge. Sabrino raised his stick and blazed at the nearest Forthwegian. If he didn't have to fight at close quarters, he didn't want to, no matter how eager his mount was to flame the Forthwegian dragon out of the sky.

But blazing straight wasn't easy, not with both him and the

Forthwegian moving at high speed along courses that changed unpre dictably as one dragon or the other took it into its ferocious, empty head to dodge a little. Fighting in the air wasn't just man against man. It was also dragon against dragon, and the beasts wanted nothing more than to bum each other and tear each other to shreds.

Here came the Forthwegian. He had some idea of what he was about, and a dragon that, by Forthwegian standards, was decently trained: the beast rose to give him a clear blaze at Sabrino, instead of simply trying to close with the Algarvian's dragon. Sabrino flattened himself against his mount's neck to present a harder target as he goaded his dragon to climb, too.

And Forthwegian standards did not measure up to those practiced in `Km~ Mtze_ntio's domain. Moreover, Sabrino's dragon was larger and stronger and swifter than his foe's. He outclimbed the Forthwegian and got routed behind him, despite the enemy's best efforts to twist in the air.

When Sabrino's dragon flamed, fire licked the other beast's back and left wing.

The Forthwegian dragon's hissing shriek of anguish was music to Sabrino's ears. Very likely, the Forthwegian dragonflier shrieked, too, but his cry, if he made one, was lost in the greater cry of his mount. The enemy dragon plummeted out of the sky, not just burnt but burning.

Because of the brimstone and quicksilver that had helped fuel it, dragon fire clung and clung.

Sabriino's dragon bellowed its triumph and spurted more flame. He whacked it with the goad to make it stop. It Inlight need that fire in future fights. His head swiveled as he tried to see which of his dragonfliers needed help. He spied none who did. Most of the Forthwegian dragons were falling in flames (so, he was sad to see, were a couple painted in Algarvian colors). A couple of the enemy flew west, off to the shrinking stretch of territory Forthweg still held. And one, its flier blazed off it, struck out at the dragons around it like the wild beast it was till it too tumbled out of the sky.

More dragons were flying in out of the east, these lower, and with eggs slung under their bellies. As the eggs began falling on Wihtgara, Sabrino smiled broadly. "A splendid little war!" he cried, exultation in his voice.

"Splendid!"