"Third squad! On the captain!"

"Fourth squad..."

Mykel followed the tracks of the rebels rather than trying to navigate anew path. That way, he hoped, he could avoid pitfalls in the sandy soil. For the first several hundred yards, that also meant riding around fallen mounts and men.

He glanced to the southwest, where another line of blue fire lashed down from one of the pteridons. Mykel could sense a wave of deaths.

From the sand and dust, he could see that the remaining rebels-those that had fled the forest-were gathering under a rocky point jutting out from the cliffs, as if to make a stand.

Mykel couldn't help but feel sorry for them. Gathering was the worst possible tactic against Myrmidons and their skylances. They had to know that. So why were they doing it?

He glanced upward, looking for the pteridons, but they had circled back around.

Maybe the tactic wasn't so stupid. Could it be that there was some angle to the rock or a protected area there?

Mykel certainly didn't want to assault a natural stone fortress, but he couldn't see more than a hundred yards ahead. He didn't sense anyone that close, but he slowed the chestnut to a walk. "Measured walk!

Measured walk!"

They weren't going to catch the rebels immediately, and the base of the cliff where the rebels were looked to be less than a vingt away, although it was hard to tell with the fine sandy dust raised and the long shadows cast by the early-morning light.

Mykel had ridden less than a hundred yards farther when the profusion of low rocky ridges and boulders ended, and a flat expanse of low sandy hills replaced the rocks. Half a vingt away, the rebels were re-forming with their backs directly to the low cliffs.

"Fifteenth Company! Halt! All squads! Halt!"

Something was happening on the rocky point above where the rebels gathered. There was a greenish cast to the air just above the point. The green intensified, growing into a glowing greenish sphere. Side by side in the center of the sphere were two of the winged soarers.Fhe lead pteridon ignored the sphere, and Mykel took an trawn breath, sensing power still rising in or from the lere until it began to glow more brightly, almost as if terta had appeared over the plateau in all her green glory,'t Mykel could feel no heat.

'Fifteenth Company! Stand fast!" He didn't want anyone tting any closer to the soarers, especially with the Myr-dons closing on them. "Stand fast!" repeated Bhoral.

A line of blue flame flared from the skylance of the first yrmidon, angling down toward the gathered rebels. Mykel winced, waiting for the eruption of flame and the ndreds of deaths. Instead, the blue flame flared and then rved backward, turning and twisting back toward the yrmidon's lance. A line of green flashed and joined the le flame, and the lance of blue and green tore through the yrmidon and into the pteridon. "Oh..."

The pteridon's wings folded inward, and like a duck shot midair, it seemed to cartwheel downward in an arc to-trd the massed rebels.

A squad of bluecoats bolted from the right side of those thered beneath the red-walled cliff. They rode hard, gal-ping to the northwest, sandy dust rising from the hoofs of ;ir mounts. None of the other bluecoats moved, seem-gly frozen in place.

The injured pteridon struck the cliff twenty yards above i remaining mass of rebels. Blue flame exploded out from impact, spraying across the rebels below. The few reams of mounts and men were brief, and most came jm the stragglers of those galloping northward. Those aser never had a chance to react. The heat from the impact blast washed over Fifteenth jmpany like that of a forge fire in a gale, but subsided al-ost instantly.

Mykel's eyes flicked back to the soarer's green sphere. It had paled and remained so for several moments before beginning to regain its intensity.

Only a single soarer remained within the sphere, although Mykel could not have said when the other had vanished.

The second pteridon turned toward the sphere and the soarer within. A line of blue flame flashed toward the single soarer.

Once more the flame did not reach its intended target, but twisted back, turning into a mixture of green and blue before striking, then knifing through the forward Myrmidon and into the chest of the secondpteridon. The pteridon's wings bent upward and back as the pteridon nosed down and began to drop, more swiftly, toward the southwest of Fifteenth Company.

The remaining soarer and the green sphere had vanished.

One of the Myrmidons separated from the falling creature, and Mykel watched-fascinated-because he could sense something happening. Was it the submarshal? Whoever it was, whatever it was, he fell far more slowly, in an arc that carried him toward the rocks to Mykel's right.

'Third squad! On me!" Mykel turned the chestnut and urged him into a fast walk.

Barely had he done so when another explosion of blue flame flared from the cliffs to the southwest, the heat washing once more over the Cadmians, then dissipating.

Mykel glanced up once more. The Myrmidon was tumbling, end over end, but falling far more slowly than he should have been. Even so, he was falling, and disappeared behind a long ridge of rock a good hundred yards ahead of Mykel and third squad.

Mykel had covered another twenty yards when he could sense someone ahead. "Rifles ready!" He had his own weapon up even before he finished speaking.

Crack! The shot was close.

Catching sight of a figure in blue behind a low boulder, i fired. The man dropped.

More shots came from behind the rock ridge.

"Third squad! Drop back and take cover!" Mykel )uldn't see losing a squad-or even several men-at a me when the majority of the rebels had been destroyed.

e guided the chestnut back behind one of the larger boul-;rs, finding Chyndylt and his mount coming around the lier side.

"Fancy seeing you here, sir," offered the squad leader."You, too." As he flashed a grin to Chyndylt, Mykel juld sense a faint purpleness farther to the west, to the ght of where the rebels seemed to be.

Was that purpleness le Myrmidon? Could it be the submarshal?

Crack! Another bullet smashed into the boulder behind hich he had taken cover.

"Chyndylt, keep the men under cover, but keep them fir-ig at those rebels. I think the Myrmidon colonel's still live, but he's out to the north of where they are."

"Must be hurt, or we'd know it. He'd use that weapon of is."

Mykel dismounted. "I'm going to circle around." He ;ached up and handed the chestnut's reins to the squad sader.

"Yes, sir." Chyndylt sounded doubtful.

"If he survives, would you want to be a captain who left im out there?"

"No, sir. I see what you mean."

"Just keep the squad firing enough to occupy the blue-oats."

"We can do that, sir."

Mykel moved to the right side of the boulder, then rouched before he peered around it. The rock ridge that tieltered the rebels was high enough that they would have lore trouble aiming at a man on foot.

He dashed across the five-yard space to the next rock, one less than a yard and a half high, but enough shelter for a man. More shots peppered the area, most of them high and ricocheting off the taller ridges behind him.

The next dash was a shade longer, but the cover was higher, and longer.

As he moved to the northwest, more and more outcrop-pings blocked the rebels from getting a clear view of him. He could sense the purplish pinkness that had to be the colonel, and felt that he was getting closer, but he was also getting a sense that there were others nearby.

Ahead, behind another series of more jumbled boulders, he heardvoices.

"Just shoot him. Too big to move him."

"If he'd wake up... we could use him to get out of here. Won't do us much good dead."

"Won't do us any good alive..."

Mykel inched forward, peering around the base of an eroded chunk of reddish sandstone, trying to move more into a better position without being seen. Three rebels stood over the prone figure of the Myrmidon submarshal, who had apparently dragged himself into a half sitting, half-lying position against the rocks before losing consciousness. Mykel could see that the submarshal's right arm and left leg were bent at angles suggesting they were broken. If they were not, then alectors' bones were very different from landers', and Mykel doubted that. He was amazed that the alector had been able to move at all.

"Need to get the others over here," said one of the rebels.

That was the last thing Mykel needed.

He raised the rifle, aiming-and firing.

The speaker dropped, and both the other rebels whirled.

Mykel fired twice more. The others fell where they stood.

He listened, and tried to sense whether there were other rebels nearby.

He didn't hear anything, except rifles ex-hanging fire to the south and sensed no one. After several noments, he eased around the boulder and moved toward he submarshal.

Crack!

The impact on his left shoulder spun Mykel around and o the ground.

Several more shots went overhead.

Mykel's left side was a mass of fire. He still held the rifle n his right hand, but doubted he could aim it that well. He night be able to prop it to get a shot in the general direction )f someone. Why hadn't he sensed theother rebel? Had he >een too worried about the submarshal?

He had to scrabble, slowly easing himself into a position cropped against the rocks. He could see the blood welling icross his tunic.

"... certain dangers... to commanding from the front, Zaptain..." The submarshal's voice was labored.

Mykel glanced toward the alector. He could hear the ;runch of boots on the sandy ground, and he doubted those joots belonged to a Cadmian. He levered the rifle up, icross his knees in at least the right direction-he hoped.

"Well... look what we got here..." A bluecoat stepped iround the boulder directly across from the submarshal, his rifle held at the ready, swinging from Submarshal Dainyl to Mykel and back again. "Like to take you for a ride, but looks like neither of you is going anywhere."

Mykel couldn't sense anything about the rebel, unlike the others, even as he stood there and fired.

The bullet bounced off the Myrmidon's tunic.

In that moment of surprise, Mykel squeezed the trigger of his rifle, willing with all the concentration he could muster the bullet to strike the bluecoat. A single hole appeared in the bluecoat's forehead, and he toppled forward.

Mykel knew the rifle had not been aimed that well.

He could feel his vision narrowing, then widening.

"... if you want us to get through this, Captain... you need to get my sidearm into my good hand... can't reach it... otherwise..."

Mykel scrabbled forward, leaving the rifle, crawling, then resting, crawling, until he was beside the Myrmidon.

His right hand fumbled with the catches on die holster, but he managed to loosen them and ease the weapon onto the submarshal's chest.

"We might... have a chance now..."Mykel slumped back. He could barely see... and then... he could not.

98.

With the pale orange-white of a sun that had just crept above the eastern horizon out to his right, Dainyl shifted his weight in the harness and second seat of the pteridon he rode behind Falyna. Ahead, and to his left, were Quelyt and the other pteridon, as the two flew across the old-growth forest. As the dispatch from Captain Rhys-tan had indicated, Captain Mykel had indeed attacked the rebels at dawn. Whatever he had done had scattered them away from the forest, and Cadmians were pursuing, in a measured fashion.

Both pteridons had circled to the northwest to make a long pass across the rebels heading southeast, in order to avoid the higher cliffs. At that moment, Dainyl Talent-sensed the appearance of one of the ancients. He leaned to one side, trying to pinpoint the source of the amber green force.

There was a distortion in the sky, just above a rocky point where the rebels had begun to re-form. The distortion resolved itself into a greenish sphere.

Suddenly, the pteridon began to lose altitude as the ancients drew on lifeforce as well, leaving less for the pteri-don. Dainyl dropped his shields, except around his head, and let the energies flow to the pteridon.

"Falyna! Avoid that point, and fire from as far away as you can!" Dainyl leaned sideways to see past Falyna. Her pteridon's blue crystal beak shimmered in the bright white light of the morning sun. Farther to the south, Quelyt had clearly not seen or sensed the soarer, and he had dropped his pteridon into a dive toward the remaining rebels beneath the rocky point; his skylance flared toward the rebels, a line of blue flame.

The blue flame that had been aimed at the rebels at the base of the red bluff curved and reversed itself, retracing its path back skyward to the lance and turning green. The shaft of green exploded through the lance, then drove through the impenetrable skin of the pteridon.

Dainyl blinked. Quelyt slumped in his harness, the upper part of his body a blackened mess. More impossibly, the pteridon's wings froze, then folded against its body. The pteridon nosed downward toward the rebel force and slammed into the stone above the rebels. The bluish explosion cascaded off the stone and across the rebels below.Falyna raised her lance and triggered it.

"Get away from there! Turn east!" snapped Dainyl. He'd sensed that the soarer was dangerous, almost from the beginning, but he hadn't thought that she'd get involved in something like a minor revolt.

A second line of green extended from the green sphere and met the blue flame from Falyna's skylance. Dainyl saw and sensed the energies flaring back at them and drew all the lifeforce he could, throwing up shields.

The green lance struck, and Dainyl found himself swatted clear of the pteridon, his harness straps snapped, tumbling in midair. Time seemed to slow, and he reached out with all his Talent, thrusting out force to the ground below, trying to slow himself, to break his fall. The wind past his face seemed less fierce, but was that enough?

He could see rocks and sand below, and he cast out more Talent-force, could feel himself slow... but not enough. From somewhere came another infusion of Talent- green?-tinged with black, and his speed slowed yet more. Then he had no more strength left, and he dropped out of the sky, slamming into a line of rock with one leg. Instinctively, he put out an arm-and wished he hadn't as he heard and felt it snap as he crashed into another boulder.

Pain washed over him from too many places for him to count-but he was alive, at least for the moment. In addition to the broken arm and leg, Dainyl's chest was badly bruised. With his good hand, he tried to straighten himself, to push himself into a sitting position against the rocks beside him. He moved a bit, and then a pinkish blackness washed over him.

He couldn't have been unconscious too long, before, in between waves of pain, he could hear voices, but the words were indistinct. Dainyl could vaguely sense three rebels, standing less than two yards away. If he could reach his sidearm... but it was on his right hip, and that was the arm that was broken so badly he couldn't move it, even blocking the pain with Talent.

"Need to get the others over here," said one.

A single shot rang out, and the rebel who had spoken pitched forward.

Two more shots followed, and the other two rebels dropped.Dainyl wasn't surprised when Captain Mykel slipped out from behind the rocks.

Crack!

The captain was twisted by the force of the bullet that had slammed into his shoulder, and he went down hard. For several moments, the Cadmian officer lay on the sand stunned, then slowly twisted himself onto his back and used his legs to lever himself into a position against the rocks. Blood was staining his tunic, slowly.