Adarin mapped the field in his mind: Oakridge’s 600 fighters behind the palisade, 15 ships with 500 soldiers and colonists, another 500 skeleton pikes, plus nearly 100 mages and musketeers dug in with 300 more skeletons around the bomb site. All ready to spring the ambush.

  He focused Thousand Eyes on the incoming wyverns. They were swooping in low over the swamps. Adarin frowned. They are flying toward… He considered their vector and where it might lead. The town was wrapped in a distraction spell. The ships were invisible. But the goat they were supposed to be hunting didn't seem to hold their attention.

  Fuck. They weren’t going for the goat at all.

  Adarin groaned, and everyone around him in the dugout flinched.

  “What?” asked Liora next to him.

  “We dispersed the smell. There is no single point they are gonna—” He looked across the field, desperately searching for something he could use. Then he saw the remnants of the distillery 200 meters downriver.

  ‘Gavin, is there leftover stink juice?’

  ‘Yes, there is half a barrel I didn’t use,’ the goblin answered over the noospheric link, tension clear in his voice. He was on board one of the ships with Devon, managing Giesela and preparing the grape-shot volley that was supposed to take down any surviving wyverns after the earth-pit mortars went off.

  Adarin took a deep breath, taking in the rising nervousness, the small rituals of prayer, the obsessive checking of weapons, and all the little human details soldiers clung to right before battle. He cut through the murmurs with a command.

  “Everyone stay here.”

  With an angry growl, he sprinted across the sand toward the distillery. All the while cursing that his manipulators weren’t getting enough traction in the loose soil. The wyverns were still incoming, maybe two kilometers away, flying in a wide, disorganized formation of several V’s.

  Adarin noticed something strange. One was far larger—wings nearly thirty meters wide—and its hide shimmered. Adarin forced himself to ignore it. Not now.

  He dismissed it as he reached the distillery. Dozens of barrels stood waiting.

  He reached out. ‘Gavin, which of the barrels is it?’

  Later, Adarin reflected this was a terrible moment to discover that the goblin’s sense of location and memory was horrible. After half a minute of useless descriptions, Adarin cursed, seized barrels one by one, and found the one that sloshed. He smashed open the top, and spectroscopic analysis confirmed it contained the rest of the putrid rot. The stench spread out. Great, now I am the most tempting target around here. Good job, soldier.

  He ran and assessed the situation coldly. The wyverns were a little more than a kilometer away coming closer with each stride. Clutching the barrel in his manipulators as he sprinted toward the goat, a mere 400 meters distant. I might make it in time.

  As he sprinted, desperately pushing his artificial muscles to the limits of their performance, he reached out to Francesco. ‘Can you hit me with a personal illusion?’

  ‘No,’ groaned the young mage. ‘I’m doing what I can. Unless you want me to drop—’

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  ‘No. Whatever you do, don’t drop it. You need to keep up the illusions until I say you can stop. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes,’ hissed Francesco, the strain audible in his voice.

  Adarin cursed the muddy soil as he slipped and slithered. He felt the pounding of his feet and the splashing of mud as the putrid liquid sloshed and splattered all over his body.

  The wyverns gave cries of delight. The flock split, circling in two groups—one clockwise, one counterclockwise—around the goat—no, around him. Adarin felt the intense attention of at least a third of them lock on to him. Their amber eyes burned with a predatory cunning.

  He hurled the barrel of putrid fluid at the goat. It flew in a lazy arc, black muck spilling out, and crashed next to the poor panicking animal. Its bleating grew frantic as it pulled with all its might against the futile strength of stick and rope pinning it in place. Sorry, friend. Life’s cruel.

  The hissing cries of the wyverns grew louder.

  Adarin gave himself a second to admire the creatures. The monsters’ green skin was perfectly adapted to the wooded landscape. The scales were beautiful, as were the wing membranes that made up the vast majority of their body. Their heads were oversized, their bodies twisted mockeries of men with wings stretched from feet to fingers, hands tipped in claws that doubled like talons.

  The first one dove—not toward the goat, but toward him. The air whistled as the beast descended.

  He cursed and dashed toward one of the six dugouts containing only pikemen skeletons and a single mage who had drawn a short straw. He met the woman's panicked eyes. The skeletons stood in impeccably ordered rows. Adarin realized just in time that she was freezing up.

  “Get the pikes up! Now!” He shouted the order as he barreled towards the formation.

  The wyvern dove. 200 meters. 100. Adarin dashed as fast as straining wooden muscle and muddy ground allowed. 20 meters. 10.

  Liora cried out. ‘Adarin, I—’

  He saw—no, felt more than saw—movement at the dugout on the beach.

  ‘Stay in shelter! Stick to the plan!’ he hissed.

  In his fear, Liora froze half outside the shelter. “Get back down!” Adarin shouted out loud as he jumped into the dugout. He tumbled into the formation, and skeletons were thrown about.

  For a second it looked like the mage wouldn't act in time. But then the purple strings of the control spell gathered in her hands and as the wyvern bore down on them the forest of fifty pikes rose like the benediction of a god.

  Pikes erupted like porcupine quills. The wyvern hissed, back-beating its wings to slow and twist away from the forest of spikes. They missed by less than a meter. The scale patterns of the creature were beautifully displayed above him as it started to gain altitude again.

  I’d give a kingdom for a proper ranged weapon. He considered ordering the rapidly beating mage to fling something at the creature, but dismissed the idea. Don't wanna throw the diamond dagger either. I need guns.

  Adarin allowed himself a moment to admire the situation. The circling wyverns—four of them—dived for the poor goat and the putrid barrel. Their low wingbeats buffeted the grass and created strange whooshing sounds. The cawing cries seemed to close in on all sides.

  He judged the distances, visualized the airspace, and reached out on the general channel. ‘Everyone get in cover.’

  ‘Ashfield.’

  ‘Yes, Commander,’ the imperturbable commodore responded.

  Adarin waited. One wyvern snapped, landed precisely on the goat, and grabbed it with its claws. Inevitably it tore it in half by ripping its hindquarter off with sharp teeth. The goat gave a near-human bleat that cut off in an instant, ending in gore.

  The other three wyverns began brawling for ownership of the barrel of essence of rot. In the airspace above, several clearly young wyverns circled low, cawing and snapping at each other. But the adults were higher. And the big one… it was out of range. Would have loved to get you.

  Adarin took a breath, pressed his body against the ground, and gave the order.

  ‘Blow it, Gavin.’

  The ground buckled and the world was consumed by a pillar of thunder and fire.