Princeps’ Fury

“We have sought shelter and refuge from Lararl, a Warmaster of the Shuar,” Varg said. “The local pack leader has granted it, provisionally. Now we must go and speak to Lararl, and he will decide our fate.”

That sounded fairly ominous. “Meaning what?” Tavi asked.

Varg blinked at Tavi as if he had asked a rather foolish question. “Meaning that we have surrendered to the enemy, Aleran. You are a prisoner of war.”

CHAPTER 12

The air coach lurched wildly to one side and suddenly plummeted. If Ehren hadn’t been wearing the safety strap secured around his waist, he’d have slammed his head against the roof of the coach. As it was, his stomach lurched up into his throat, and his arms flew upward, seemingly of their own accord. The book he’d been holding flew up and smacked into the ceiling of the coach, bounced, then simply floated there, as the coach continued to fall, faster and faster.

The wind roared, but Ehren could hear the sounds of men screaming to one another over it.

“What’s happening?” Ehren shouted.

The First Lord, his expression calm, leaned over to look out the coach’s window. “It would seem that we’re under attack,” he called back, as the coach continued to dive.

“But we’re still miles from the Vord’s territory!” Ehren protested.

“Yes,” Gaius said. “Rather inconsiderate of them.”

Ehren snatched at his book. “What do we do?”

“The spin has stopped, which means we’re in a controlled dive,” Gaius replied, and settled back into his seat as if they were having an idle discussion while waiting for tea. “We let our Knights Aeris do their jobs.”

Ehren swallowed and clutched his book to his chest. A few seconds later, the floor of the coach suddenly pressed up hard against him, and he found himself almost doubled over by the abruptly enormous weight of his own body. The coach pitched to the left abruptly, then to the right. There was a scream of agony from one of the men outside.

Something slammed against the side of the coach, and blood-smeared fingers smashed through the window beside Ehren, clutching desperately to the window frame despite the jagged teeth of broken glass remaining. Ehren leaned over to see a young Knight Aeris, his face pale, one arm dangling uselessly, hanging on for his life.

Ehren tore off his straps and shoved open the wind coach’s door. The sudden drag made the cart slew toward the door side, creating a windbreak by the door. Ehren wrapped one safety strap around his wrist and leaned out the door of the coach, reaching for the wounded Knight.

He seized the man by the collar of his mail. The Knight let out a shriek at the sudden touch, then focused bleary, terrified eyes upon Ehren.

The Cursor gritted his teeth, let out a scream, and hauled with all of his strength, using his legs and back as well as his arm. It occurred to him that if the strap broke, he and the young Knight would doubtlessly fall to their deaths together-but there wasn’t time to spare for worrying about such things.

Fortunately, the young Knight wasn’t on the brawny or heavy side, and Ehren was able to drag him into the coach, all but throwing him to the floor.

“The door!” the First Lord called, helping to pull the wounded man the rest of the way in. “Close it! It’s slowing us down!”

Ehren staggered in the wildly swaying coach, trying not to step all over the wounded Knight, and leaned out to grasp at the door.

He had a short look at the outside. The coach was racing along at a dangerous pace, skimming thirty feet above the six-foot-long grass stalks of the central plains of the Amaranth Vale. The sun had all but set, and the sky was scarlet and midnight blue.

It was also full of Vord.

Ehren wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking at. He recognized the shapes of the Knights Aeris readily enough, the familiar armored forms streaking by, supported by their furies’ windstreams. But there were more-many more-of the strange, black, glistening shapes with wings like dragonflies, greenly translucent.

An instinct made him look up in time to see one of the enemy plunging down toward him. He had a second, perhaps two, to get a look at it.

It almost looked human.

It had two arms, two legs, a head, with a face that was human in shape-but eerily featureless except for its segmented eyes. Dragonfly wings buzzed behind its shoulders, and its arms terminated not in hands, but in a single, gleaming, scythe-shaped talon a little less than two feet long-almost precisely the same length, Ehren realized, as a legionare’s gladius. Its armor, too, resembled a legionare’s lorica, though it melded seamlessly with its skin, all of it made from the same gleaming, dark chitin.

It looked, in fact, a great deal like a Knight Aeris.

And it was coming straight for him.