Episode Fifty-Six The Attack

E ldar

Drixxa says it's been over two hundred years since the humans left us behind while they climbed into the safety of their towers. Two hundred years without an insurrection has left those Up Above soft and lazy.

Still, they have sophisticated machines. Certainly, some of them must be watching, giving the warning.

When Bretton and I practiced, the highest we flew was to skim above the tops of the trees. We're ten times higher than that now. My stomach is so queasy, vomit crawls to the back of my throat. I'm unsure whether it's from the altitude or my fear.

When the first shots are fired at us, I'm barely surprised. No matter how complacent those are in the Up Above, they must have seen us coming.

This is why we brought dozens of small avians with us. Their tiny wings could never carry them this high. They've traveled on our backs, clinging to us as we flew to the top floors. Now they break away, homing in on the exterior-mounted guns.

Though the laser bursts are powerful, the attack only lasts a minute until our small avian team either disables or changes the aim on our enemy's guns.

The dragon's roar is loud enough to hurt my ears. Surely my mates, one hundred stories below, heard his bellow of pain. He couldn't be hurt badly, could he? He's still flying at top speed toward the Tower.

Just as we'd planned, our attack begins with Drixxa's gust of dragon fire at the windows Nadira pointed out. Nadira is directing a steady stream of laser fire at the same spot.

Though I abhor the human weapons, I discard the idea of firing arrows at a metal and glass structure, choosing instead to tighten my thighs' grip on Bretton so I can use both hands to pull my pistols from my holster and fire away.

When Drixxa stops his stream of fire and the smoke clears, there's a gap in the bank of windows large enough for him to fly through.

The human security team must have arrived at the top floor because streams of laser fire are pounding us from the inside. Though at least a dozen of us are firing non-stop in the direction of laserfire aimed at us, all it takes is another belch of dragon breath to halt their assault.

"Stand down!" Drixxa yells at them. Perhaps due to the heat of the battle, his words are garbled. He must be almost fully in his animal mind.

"Throw your weapons out the window!" Azael, on the dragon's back, yells with all his might. He's not the biggest or strongest in our army, but perhaps he's the fiercest. When no weapons fly out the windows, the dragon bellows and Azael threatens, "You'll all be cremated in one second."

After a dozen laser pistols fly out the windows, Drixxa tucks his wings to his sides and sails in with Azael, screaming curses in every Down Below dialect, on his back.

Though Thallose and Nadira were to breach next, the starflyer waits in the periphery. A glance in their direction tells me all I need to know about why he's breaking protocol. He and Nadira are in a heated argument.

Good male, Thallose. It doesn't matter what the plan was, the starflyer is going to wait until we give him the all-clear before he brings his beloved, pregnant mate through those jagged, broken windows.

Bretton and I breach next, followed by a dozen more avian-humanoid pairs.

Once we're inside, it takes a moment to make sense of what I see.

The room is filled with smoke, the aftermath of Drixxa's fiery blasts. A few pieces of furniture are ablaze as males in what must be security uniforms try to put the fires out.

Despite our threats, and the guns they threw out the windows, ten of the males have weapons directed at us, pointing them back and forth in a threat to mow us down.

Drixxa belches a puff of smoke through that mouth full of terrifying teeth. Azael has jumped down, his rifle barrel pointing at our enemies moving from right to left just as theirs are.

"He could decimate you all," Azael threatens. When they don't move fast enough, he adds, "And we'll eat your barbecued corpses for dinner."

No one Down Below eats humanoid flesh, but the humans don't know that.

It was Azael's threat to eat them, more than the enormous fire-breathing dragon or the army of what the humans consider monsters, that motivates them to drop their weapons.

I jump off Bretton and kick the weapons to the far corner, then lean out the window to call to Thallose and Nadira.

"It's safe. We have the humans at bay."