Nearly 150 men, poorly armed but with spirits heightened by the pike-pricked wyvern corpses, had rallied around Adarin. Shadows swooped constantly in the smog above them. The mocking cries of wyverns and the dying cries of isolated victims echoed in the distance. The town’s neat cottages with gardens stood in stark contrast to the horror around them. Yet the waves of heat emanating from the burning cottages provided ample illumination for the anger, despair, and fury on the militiamen's faces. Everyone was ready. Everyone awaited an attack. But nothing happened.

  The tension stretched to a breaking point. Just as the wyverns seem to have turned into distant specters, they cooed ominously, always shadows out of sight. Single archers and crossbowmen began firing off shots despite Adarin’s soldiers ordering them to hold fire until a clear target appeared. The mocking cries intensified, arguments breaking out as men wanted to save their houses from the fire. He barely held back a sergeant from clubbing a townsman with the butt of his musket. “That’s my house! If it burns, there’s nothing left to fight for!”

  Before the situation could escalate, another townsfolk approached and grabbed the man by the scuffs on his neck. “Nothing to fight for? You got your cousins! You got your friends!” The man seemed shaken out of his stupor and readied his axe again. Adarin let out a sigh of relief. Disaster averted. But he felt the situation sliding out of his hands. The only mercy was that the cries of dying men reduced in frequency as everyone had either rallied with them or hidden away.

  Adarin exhaled through ground teeth. This enemy understands psychological warfare. We can’t hold much longer.

  He spotted a group of locals breaking off, disappearing toward a burning house. They made it halfway there, then—swoosh—a shadow descended. Screams, blood, tumbling bodies. At least three men were thrown into the air as grotesque projectiles that crashed into the remaining militia. First the small and then the big wyvern struck, creating carnage and finishing off the group. Horrified murmurs spread as militiamen muttered prayers and gripped their weapons tighter. At least no one is fucking running. Yet.

  Militiamen fired wildly, hitting not the retreating boss-wyvern, but finishing off at least three of their own. Panic intensified, filling the air with its sweaty musk and whispering mind-virus. Adarin felt the crowd milling around him like a maelstrom—sweat, fear, wide eyes darting for the next threat.

  Then Commodore Ashfield reached out. ‘Commander, we are at the wall. We are blowing it in ten. Understood?’ He could have screamed in happiness. This is just what I needed. A goal for this rabble to focus on.

  Just as the men huddled tightly, holding up broken pikes or even farming tools to defend themselves, Adarin cried out: “Brave men of Oakridge, salvation is coming! We will blow a way into the wall! Our soldiers are coming to rescue you! Hold for a few seconds!”

  Jubilation erupted among musketeers and mages, but the militia only exchanged tense looks. We need more.

  Adarin turned to Mage-Captain Jacobson, while his wounds were dressed by a musketeer. He tapped the man’s shoulder, raising his voice so all could hear. “That was well done, Mage-Captain. Few men could have done what you did, holding it together against such a dreadful foe. Thanks to you, Oakridge will stand victorious today.”

  Some militiamen joined in the cheer, but it was forced, too tight, too low.

  The commodore reached out again. ‘We are it blowing in 3… 2…’

  A dull explosion ripped outward, tearing a piece of the palisade and earthen wall. A hundred meters away from them. Adarin assessed the terrain: the outermost cottages bordered a ten-meter grassy strip—likely for grazing sheep and goats—now a killing ground behind the walls.

  The militia cheered. One of their commanders screamed, “Toward our allies!” and the militia charged, breaking the defensive formation, some even dropping pikes or tools. Their cover collapsed. Wounded were abandoned as panicked men, seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, fled.

  “This fucking idiot,” Jacobson muttered. “I’m gonna kill him. That village idiot. Let’s hope some friendly fire gets him.”

  Adarin could only agree with the sentiment. There was always a certain kind of officer who would do the greatest service to their country by dying early in the war. Adarin considered rallying the man but thought better. Never give an order you know won’t be obeyed. That will only intensify the chaos.

  Instead, he chose to go with the flow. “Pick up the wounded. Mage-Captain, how good are you with evocation?”

  The man grinned, canines showing. “I can throw one nasty sucker punch if you need it.”

  “Good enough,” Adarin judged. He readied his diamonoid dagger, picked up several of the wounded, and followed the stampede toward the breach. There, the Order’s undead and musketeers were establishing a beachhead beside the pyre that had been the gatehouse. Adarin saw a company-strength detachment scrambling deeper into the town—reconnaissance in force? He considered asking, but was busy keeping wounded alive, their blood and sweat running across his surface, tinting his sensors and the world red.

  He had made it only a quarter of the way when disaster struck.

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  The two wyverns swooped again. A musket volley hit the big one, but it didn’t care. The shimmer of an abjuration spell absorbed much of the volley; the rest splintered harmlessly against its scales. Brutal gusts of wind followed. The dry musk of scales was quickly replaced with the metallic stench of blood. Limbs and guts splattered the ground. The militia broke in rout in both directions, away from the terrible foe, colliding with their own allies in chaos.

  The smaller flier swooped in for a second round at lower velocity. Adarin could only drag the wounded forward, watching disaster unfold. He considered ordering his men to stop the white-faced militia sprinting past them, weapons dropped and screaming in sheer terror, but knew it would be futile. To knock them out would only mean unconscious bodies to carry—or feed for wyverns. Fuck.

  The smaller flier’s second swoop was met with evocation spells. Order mages hurled sharp earthen projectiles, burning splinters, globules of conjured napalm. The creature staggered mid-air and crashed sideways into a house roof.

  Men twitched, ready to chase. Adarin cut in over the general channel: ‘Hold the line. Do not pursue.’

  The wyvern scrambled off the burning roof and disappeared into the smoky streets. Soon wingbeats returned. Fuck. We didn’t even cripple its wings.

  Measured marching brought Adarin’s detachment—30 men and 30 skeletons—across the wounded and dying to their allies. Surprised Liora isn’t here.

  Within the safety of their own skeletal pikemen, he met Francesco. The young man snapped a salute. “Sir Adarin, reporting for duty.”

  Adarin nearly hissed. Never salute an officer on the battlefield. You only do that if you want him killed. But they don’t have snipers here yet, so it’s not that important. He dismissed the thought from his past.

  “Well, what’s the situation?”

  Francesco looked to the side, towards an elderly senior sergeant. The woman gave the young mage an encouraging nod. He made a private note upgrading his estimate of the young mage. Wouldn't have thought he was smart enough to listen to sergeants.

  “I sent an advance unit into town. They are trying to set up a killing ground—”

  Screeches erupted. The two grounded wyverns barreled into the formation’s side. Muskets thundered, ripping through torn wings and scales, but despite bleeding wounds, neither beast faltered. Briefly the enemy movements were obscured by powder smoke.

  For a moment Adarin hoped their charge of lurching flaps would impale them on skeletal pikes. No such luck. They turned aside. Spells flared, but the wyverns crouched low, using skeletons and musketeers as cover.

  Adarin shouted: “Mages! Up onto the earthworks! Fire over our soldiers!” He extended his diamonoid dagger, readied root whips, and turned to Francesco. “Get the mages ready. Hit them on my command—and only on my command. No one fires, not even the musketeers, unless to deter a charge. Got that?”

  Francesco swallowed, then steadied. “Yes, Adarin… Sir… but…”

  Adarin didn’t wait. He charged. One wyvern was eating a man alive, his thrashing under the sharp teeth. Adarin barreled in, dagger slashing for its neck. The beast recoiled with snake-like suddenness, hissing, and its claw raked deep gouges into Adarin’s stinger arm.

  He saw an opening. If I go low, if I get under it, I can—

  But the other wyvern leapt onto his back. Claws sank into his wooden flesh, its weight pinning him. One claw jarred into his computronium core. His sensorium splintered, shattered, then re-formed as connections re-established after a full second. He struggled, swinging wildly into the dark, the satisfying impacts proof of his success.

  Adarin reached out, and spoke calmly over the noospheric link. ‘Musketeers. Mages. Fire.’

  The plan was sound: pin them, let ranged units finish them.

  But Adarin had miscalculated one thing. The Order of the Invisible Hand’s mages were necromancers first. Necromancers excelled at unit control, not coordinated artillery.

  As musketeers prepared their volley, the first spells went off. Instead of a devastating wave of arcane might, frying the one sitting on top of him, the first spells ripping loose gave the game away and the wyverns scattered. Musket balls flew wide. Spells blasted into houses, or nothing at all. Fires erupted. Ozone, blood, and gunpowder thickened the air.

  Adarin screamed internally, kicked the ground, but kept his anger private—barely.

  The wyverns circled him again. A deadly dance began. They had learned. They didn’t pin him anymore, instead darting in and out, hit-and-run tactics rending wooden flesh. He kept slipping on the muddy ground. Some idiots, he could bet they were militiamen, were even cheering him from the cover of the formation. Am I a beast in a cage fight or your fucking commander?

  He glanced at damage reports after he had been assaulted again by both reptiles in quick succession.

  Loss of body functionality: 31%.

  I’ve been in this for only two minutes. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  But fate held something worse for him. Adarin heard swooshing through smoky air. The big wyvern plummeted down towards him, claws reflecting the firelight. Claws dug deep into his body. With a jarring jolt he was lifted off the ground. Ten centimeters, fifty, a meter. The sudden loss of balance was nauseating.

  Adarin reacted in a flash. Root whips lashed at wing membranes, shattering the blue abjurations again. His stinger arm plunged into its lower abdomen like a sewing machine. One, two, …, eight, nine thrusts in rapid succession, blood spraying. He rose up higher and higher, but the beast had underestimated his density.

  He tore and ripped, getting lost in the rhythm of slaughter. The big wyvern screeched in pain and let go of him. He fell to the earth, hitting the ground hard after several meters. He thrust the dagger up three more times before realizing his target was gone.

  It was disappearing over the houses, leaving a trail of blood—but sadly no entrails—as it vanished over a burning cottage.

  Adarin cursed. That was a missed chance. Should have ordered spells on it. I’m wounded. Risking too much. We need a new tactic. We need—

  Suddenly, a charging wyvern was blasted by necrotic magic. A familiar girl’s voice rang out:

  “Hey fat and ugly! Come and get me!”