A Darkness Forged in Fire by Chris Evans

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-11-03T01:36:51+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

Konowa debated going after the troops and leading them into the mound. He took a step forward, then something made him turn. Visyna was walking toward him in the rain. He stopped, unable to keep from staring at her as she moved. She came to an arm's length from him and stopped, staring back at him. For several moments neither one of them said a word. Lightning fretted within rumbling clouds and Konowa tried to find the anger he'd felt after the faeraug attack, but he missed having her this close to him.

"Listen, about the other night," he said, "you have to understand, out here, my men come first."

She nodded. "And you must understand that out here, my land and my people come first."

"Perhaps when we get out of here we could come first," he said, hoping the driving rain drowned out the squeak in his voice. "I kind of enjoyed it when it was just the two of us."

"So did I," she said, stepping closer. "Perhaps we won't have to wait until we are out of here. Rallie and I have been talking. I think you and I have more in common than I thought. We both want the same things." She reached out a hand to touch him, then stopped, her fingers just above his chest. "I will do all in my power to protect you and this regiment. Please, get rid of it."

Konowa hung his head, but the rain sluicing down his collar quickly forced his head up again. "I really wish—"

The sound of an explosion drifted up from belowground. And then the shouting and screaming started.

"Oh, hell."

Alwyn saw yellow, then white, then black. An acrid wind blew past him, followed by clods of dirt, and he turned his head away from the open hole. When he dared to look again, thick, dark smoke was roiling out of the mound in a dozen different places.

"Yimt?" he called. There was no reply. He had opened his mouth to yell again when black shapes began darting out of the smoke.

"Bats!"

The cry went up everywhere as hundreds then thousands of the night creatures flew up from the mound and into the smoke and rain. They formed a growing cloud of whirling wings and high-pitched screeching as they circled the mound.

They moved like a big school of fish in the sky, darting this way and that.

Then they dove.

Alwyn barely had time to switch his grip on his musket and use it as a club when the first of the bats screeched toward him. Their eyes bulged white and milky and their fangs glistened with saliva.

Alwyn swung hard, knocking two bats out of the sky. A dozen more swarmed over him. They screamed and darted around his head, beating their wings in fury against his arms as they tried to get at his face. Everything was a blur of black leathery wings, white eyes, and wicked-looking fangs.

"Put me down, you buggers!"

Alwyn swatted three more bats to the ground and turned toward the sound of Yimt's voice.

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