“Fire! Aim for the eyes!”
Immediately a lethal rain of bolts poured down on the mass of Tao Tei below. Those creatures that were struck in the eyes died instantly, their life force extinguished in a split second. However those that were struck in other parts of the body only became more enraged, tearing and biting at the bolts, ripping them from their plated bodies and casting them away, as if they were nothing more troublesome than thorns or the stings of insects.
Still firing arrows, his hands moving so quickly they were almost a blur, Chen heard Commander Shao, up on his command tower, issue another bellowed order: “Crane Corps attack! Now!”
Watching another of his bolts strike home, he felt like a small but vital component of a great war machine.
Soon, he thought with grim satisfaction. Soon we shall have victory.
Lin Mae conveyed the General’s orders, and watched with pride as the red-armored Eagle Corps drew back, allowing the sky rigs of the Crane Corps to be wheeled forward. The mechanisms and controls of the rigs themselves would be manipulated by the Tiger Corps, each of the different disciplines among the warriors of the Nameless Order working together like harmonious parts of a single entity.
As she was moved into position she looked right and left, and saw that the first wave of her Crane Corps soldiers were as poised and ready as she was. Each of them was standing upright on their rigs, proud and fearless, lances in their hands ready to strike at the enemy. Lin Mae knew how eager each of them would be to do their duty, the exultation they would feel as they launched themselves from the battlements. As a Crane Corps soldier, to fly was everything. To soar was the closest one could get not only to freedom, but to divinity. Facing front, she gripped her lances and took a long deep breath, searching again for that point of stillness in the center of her body.
As the blue-armored woman on her flying rig was wheeled forward to take her place at the forefront of the battle, William felt his stomach clench. They hadn’t exactly become friends in the short time they had spent together—in fact, he was sure she would see him executed without a qualm—but he nevertheless couldn’t help feeling there was a connection between them, and not simply because she spoke his language. The thought of someone so beautiful, so graceful, going head to head with the slavering, voracious beasts below seemed wholly wrong to him, obscene even. How could her elegance and purity survive in the face of such insatiable savagery? War was a filthy, bestial pursuit, best carried out by filthy, bestial creatures like himself and Pero.
As she braced herself to leap into the unknown his heart began to beat as fast as the pounding war drums, and he opened his mouth, as if to cry out.
But before he could say anything, the moment was gone. She yelled out an order, and then without hesitation dived from the battlements, lances extended.
William watched with horror as she plummeted towards the ravening horde below.
Launching herself from the top of the Wall, Lin Mae knew that her life was in the hands of the Tiger Corps warriors operating her sky rig. If they made the slightest mistake she would die, but she had the utmost faith that that wouldn’t happen. As she soared into the air, she knew they would be operating the winches to slacken the ropes of the rig, allowing her to plunge towards the sea of green flesh and ravening jaws below. Holding on to the point of stillness within herself she readied her lances and focused on making her contribution count.
At the apex of her dive she felt herself tipping, falling, the desert wind battering her body and the sails of the sky rig with increasing force as she hurtled towards the ground. It was easy to panic here, to lose control, to spin and twist in mid-air. But she maintained her shape and concentrated on picking out her twin targets and sticking to them.
There! The eyes of the creature rearing up towards her, like a dog leaping to snaffle a scrap of tossed meat, were small and black, but as she plunged towards it, they seemed to grow larger, to fill her world. She adjusted the position of her lances slightly, and then, just at the right moment, thrust them downwards! The creature shuddered and died as the lances embedded deep in its eyes bent in two perfect arcs, slowing her fall. As her downward momentum was arrested, Lin Mae calmly and expertly flipped her body round in mid-air, from a diving position into a sitting position, at the same time bending her knees and drawing them into her body, tightening herself into a ball. She knew that up above the Tiger Corps soldiers would be frantically turning the winches in the opposite direction, pulling the ropes of the sky rig taut, so that she could spring back up into the air, out of danger.
For a couple of seconds, though, she was vulnerable. And sure enough, as she let go of her lances and watched the dead, impaled Tao Tei sink back into the morass of wriggling green flesh below, another of the creatures surged up from the throng, using the bodies of its comrades to propel itself towards her.
Lin Mae watched its widening maw grow larger beneath her feet, knowing there was nothing she could do. She saw rows of jagged teeth, a long red throat, smelled the thing’s breath come boiling up towards her, hot and rancid.
Just as the creature’s wide-open jaws began to close, the ropes of the sky rig reached their maximum tautness, and a split-second later she was shooting up into the air like an arrow fired from a crossbow. The Tao Tei’s jaws snapped shut so close to the bottom of her feet that she felt the upward push of air created by it rippling through her lower body.
Nevertheless she composed herself as she hurtled upwards, stretching out her body, enjoying the sensation of the wind parting around her as she cut through it. As she neared the top of the Wall, she tilted her body, shifting her weight on to her right side so that the sky rig swung round with her in a graceful half-circle. She held out her hands and one of the Tiger Corps soldiers expertly tossed across two more lances. Lin Mae caught them, and without even catching her breath, flipped and dived again. Around her she was aware of other Crane warriors rising or plunging as they performed similar maneuvers.
Suddenly she heard a scream from below. Looking to her left she saw one of her warriors plummeting towards the open jaws of a rising Tao Tei. The girl was trying to twist in mid-air, to aim her lance towards one of the creature’s eyes, but it was clear that this creature had not been her intended target, had instead risen unexpectedly from the mass and caught her on her blind side. Lin Mae looked on in horror as the girl frantically kicked her legs in an attempt to arrest or alter her course. But it was no use. The ropes of her sky rig were too slack.
Next moment the Tao Tei had her. The girl disappeared into its maw, still clutching her lance, and the Tao Tei’s jaws snapped shut. With a couple of sickening crunches it devoured both the Crane Corps warrior, her lance and half of her sky rig, leaving the remainder of the rig dangling in mid-air, blood-stained and mangled.
Awful though the sight was, Lin Mae knew she couldn’t let it affect her. They had all of them been resigned to dying a heroic death. They had known it was inevitable that once battle became joined with the enemy there would be casualties. As she plunged once again towards the seething green sea below, she tried to focus, to rediscover the point of stillness at her center.
But as she tried to home in on her new target, she realized that something was happening beneath her.
More than that, she realized that something was wrong.