Bat-winged creatures boiled out of the darkness. Smaller than men, but not by much, more slender and lighter as befitted a flying creature, they streamed in from the sides and down from the gloom. Their tiny eyes burned scarlet, and jagged mother-of-pearl teeth flashed. They bore no weapons save for those teeth and the sharp claws on their feet and hands.
Without thinking Owen thrust his rifle into one’s face and triggered a spell. The bullet blew through the creature’s brains and sent another tumbling back through the air. He clubbed a third with his rifle butt and brained a fourth with the barrel. The steel appeared to do more harm, making its flesh bubble and blister. He shifted it to his left hand and drew his steel tomahawk, laying about him with both as quickly as he could.
Makepeace roared, smashing them with a rifle in one hand and snatching them out of the air with the other. He grabbed one by the throat and its wings closed around his hand, knuckles showing through the grey membrane. Bones crackled and the dead thing fell away, but Makepeace bled from where it had bitten and clawed him.
Kamiskwa’s warclub made short work of the creatures. It seemed as if the weapon had been designed to crush their brittle bones and slice through their wings. One clung to his long braid, so the warrior whipped his head back and flung the beast hard against the workshop doors.
Nathaniel, too, fought as if the devil had opened the gates to Hell and demons had poured forth. Tomahawk and knife flashed. Dark blood splashed through the night. Ebon bodies littered the ground, twitching and grasping, each creature chancing a last scratch or bite.
So many of them to fight. None of them had inflicted a deep wound, but the scratches stung and the bites wept. The woman who had escaped from Piety had not been subject to one swift attack, but to a series of slow and deliberate attacks. Though Owen fought against a horde of the creatures, no single wound could match any of hers, and taken in the aggregate, they had done less damage.
The sheer weight of the assault, however, forced Owen back, foot by foot. He slashed high and low, kicking creatures away, but could not regain lost ground. Wings wrapped his face and shoulders, blinding him. Things bit at his neck and ears. He’d tear them off, gaining a moment to orient himself, and then they would descend again.
Then he tripped, the leather rustling of their wings accompanying his fall. To stay down was to die, but bloody mud gave his feet no purchase. The demons pounced, piling onto his legs, grabbing his arms and spreading them wide.
Behind him, Makepeace had been backed against the workshop. The demons covered him in a living gray coat. Kamiskwa had likewise fallen and had been buried beneath a writhing gray carpet. Nathaniel lay slumped at the base of the workshop wall, his face a mask of blood.
Rufus strode through the carnage and laughed. “So, I see. This will be easier than I imagined. But time to end this now.”
A sudden shriek from above caused the Steward to look up. There, wide-eyed and clearly insane with terror, Ian Rathfield leaped from the workshop loft. He landed on both feet and staggered-Owen thought certain he’d heard a bone break-but it mattered not at all. In his hand, Ian bore the steel chain with which Owen had thought to haul him into the loft, and he whirled it above his head.
The chain’s deadly arc swept demons from the air. The heavy hook on its end dashed out brains. Roaring at the top of his lungs, making a sound no human throat was ever meant to utter, Rathfield drove forward and wrapped the chain around Rufus’ chest. He trapped the left arm there, warping the tablets. And yet, even as his attack crumpled the Steward, Rufus thrust his right hand toward Ian, and a glowing purple sigil flew from his palm.
The arcane symbol struck Ian in the forehead with the force of a hammer, denting his skull. The man dropped into a heap. One of the demons landed before him, wings spread, clawed hands raised high, ready to finish the work the magick had begun.
And behind it, backlit by the burning Temple, a bat-winged leviathan descended from the sky.
Chapter Twenty-eight
16 May 1767 Happy Valley Postsylvania, Mystria
Mugwump snatched the demon up in his mouth and spat it, broken and limp, toward a clump of the creatures covering something on the ground. The demon steamed, the dragon’s saliva already consuming it. The others screeched and pulled back, smeared mucus already burning holes in their wings. The dragon’s tail flicked left and right, snapping demons into clouds of black blood and bone splinters.
Prince Vlad, clinging to the saddle with frostbitten fingers, hunched forward as Mugwump spun. The dragon bit things in half, shaking his head as a terrier might shake a rat, and wetness spattered the Prince. Vlad didn’t really care what it was, since it was warmer than he. He dearly wished they were closer to the fire-at least until he realized it was a building.
Then Mugwump launched himself into the air again, up into a black fog that hid the ground, visibly reducing the burning building to a tiny spark. Right wing went up, left down. Mugwump rolled through the sky, flying after the bat-winged creatures. He hissed savagely, a sound the Prince had heard at Anvil Lake, but this time saliva jetted out in a mist. The demons caught in it curled up and dropped from sight. Vlad marveled, never having suspected the dragon of having such a weapon.
Mugwump pumped his wings and twisted again sharply in pursuit. He looped up and over as he chased after a particularly good flier. Prince Vlad vomited. He coughed and retched, doubling over both frozen and miserable, holding on for dear life and wishing he might fall to his death and end the torture. He had no idea where he was, why Mugwump had stopped responding to commands, what the demons were, or why Mugwump seemed so intent on, and skilled at, killing them.
Then one landed on Vlad’s back, cloaking him in its wings. It chittered as it lunged for his neck, its fetid breath hot against exposed flesh. Its clawed hands grabbed his shoulders tightly, and toe talons found purchase on his thighs.
Vlad snapped his head back, driving his skull into the creature’s face. Bones broke, and a part of the Prince’s brain catalogued that fact. It made sense that the creature’s bones would be light, even hollow, like a bird’s. To confirm that, he grabbed its ankles and squeezed. More bones popped and the creature thrashed. He reached up and back, grabbing it by the wings, then pulled it forward and smashed its spine against the saddle horn.
For a heartbeat he contemplated keeping it as a specimen, but contemptuously tossed it aside. As it fell, Mugwump looked back and hooted triumphantly.
Then he rolled again and dropped from the sky, leaving Prince Vlad’s stomach somewhere above the clouds. The dragon’s sharp descent pierced the black fog, but it had already begun to dissipate. Wings flared and Mugwump landed softly, snorting and hissing more deadly mist.
A man came running over, remaining well clear of Mugwump’s wings and tail. “Highness, what are you doing here?”
It took Prince Vlad a moment to recognize him beneath the blood. “I could ask you the same, Owen. Is this Postsylvania?”
“So the locals say.”
Kamiskwa came trotting over, a young girl clutched in one arm, his bloody warclub in his other hand. “Becca was never called to the Temple. She hid. As the demons scattered, one entered the house she was in. She screamed. I thought Rufus might have slunk off in that direction, so I went looking and found her instead.”
Mugwump raised his muzzle and sniffed. He roared a challenge.
The Altashee smiled. “Then I leave her to you, Mugwump, and I shall continue seeking signs of our enemy.”
Prince Vlad invoked the spell and spun the left-hand wheel. The dragon responded by turning toward a large barnlike building in front of which Nathaniel and Makepeace crouched over a man. “Is that Colonel Rathfield?”