A soldier went down, a javelin through his thigh before he could reach the small circle of men, half-formed in the first few seconds of battle. Rotherham picked him up and threw him over his shoulder, reaching reinforcements in the nick of time.
Then the first wave of cassowaries broke upon the small knot of men, parting around them like a wave, hurling spears and sweeping with their clubs. More men fell, even as goblins were blasted from their seats and cassowaries were skewered on poleaxes, falling in a flurry of kicking talons and floating plumage.
Riders circled and broke, then formed again, charging onto the poleaxes, meeting the bullets with their bodies in suicidal abandon. It was mad, brutal fighting, where sheer force of numbers threatened to engulf the beleaguered circle of men.
A crackle of lightning from Genevieve hurled cassowaries back, earning the men time to drag the injured into the center, where Rory’s healing touch waited. Beside him, taller men’s muskets cracked and spouted gouts of smoke, whipping death over the long grass with practiced accuracy, felling the stragglers who bore down upon them. Dwarves swept poleaxes low as cassowaries lunged, cutting their long legs from under them and finishing the job with swift, precise chops. The Foxes’ formation held, but barely; the weight of the cassowaries falling among their tightly packed ranks and leaving vulnerable gaps, even as more riders thundered from the edge of the jungles.
“Down!” Fletcher yelled, sweeping Blaze toward the second wave of riders. He tugged Gale from his holster as they hurtled through the air, Ignatius’s baying matching the roar of the wind in Fletcher’s ears. He emptied both barrels, seeing the twin spurts of black feathers and blood from the front-runners, spilling them and their goblins into the ground.
Then Ignatius was tearing through their lines, claws outstretched, beak snapping. Goblins were slashed from their perches, cassowaries bowled to the earth. Fletcher fired Blaze into a goblin’s chest—the spear it was about to throw falling from nerveless fingers.
Mana roiled within Fletcher’s consciousness as Ignatius landed, then the Drake spun and poured a flood of flame over the fallen bodies of goblin and cassowary alike. Half the riders were down, the rest wheeling away in disarray.
But the third wave of enemies was bearing down now, and they were forced to take off once again, pain flaring in their consciousness as a thrown spear pierced Ignatius through the delicate membrane of his wing, and another thudded into his haunches.
They limped in the sky, mana draining as Ignatius’s wounds healed, far more slowly than Fletcher would have liked. He tugged the spear from the Drake’s rump, grimacing at the spurt of blood and hurling it ineffectually at the charging enemies beneath them. Ignatius was flagging now, and Fletcher dared not risk summoning Athena with all the javelins flying, especially with her penchant for disobedience.
Far below, the final wave smashed into the schiltron. This time, the formation dissolved into knots of fighting soldiers, broken by the momentum of the impaled cassowaries. The gunfire slowed, the battle now a bloody mess of flailing poleaxes and the occasional fireball from Rory and Genevieve. At the center, Sir Caulder and Rotherham stood over a pile of wounded soldiers, killing all comers with deadly efficiency. But they were too few, and the riders many. They needed help.
Fletcher sheathed his pistols and drew his khopesh, pointing it down at the enemy.
“Again!” he shouted, and Ignatius was already swooping down for one final charge. They smashed into the back of the riders, sending a half-dozen goblins flying. Fletcher’s vision was filled with struggling men parrying and hammering, thrashing clubs held by gray limbs above hook-nosed faces, cassowaries kicking with savage abandon.
Then he was leaning out and stabbing over Ignatius’s shoulder, spitting a goblin through its mouth. The creature fell back, and Fletcher lost his sword in the melee, unable to tug the blade from the skull. A burst of gunfire half-deafened him, smoke stinging his eyes as it plumed by his face.
They were losing. The few Foxes still standing staggered from exhaustion, while more and more wounded fell behind the fragile ring of defenders. There were fewer gunshots now—no time to reload as the baying horde of creatures pressed in.
An elf screamed in front of him, a spear buried in her midriff by a snarling goblin. It was Dalia, her face white with shock. Weaponless, Fletcher could only curse and fire a bolt of lightning into the perpetrator’s back, killing it in a sizzling screech as Dalia clawed herself over the blood-slick grass into the safety beneath Rotherham’s and Sir Caulder’s swords.
Pain. So bad that Fletcher could hardly believe it. Ignatius collapsed beneath them, sending Mason’s body sprawling over Fletcher as they fell into the bloodied grass. A spear was buried deep into Ignatius’s neck, held by a triumphant goblin. Ignatius’s tail whipped around and near decapitated it with his spike, but the damage was done. The Drake collapsed, the pain too much for him.
“Fletcher!” Genevieve screamed, and he rolled aside in the nick of time as a club thrummed by his head, thudding into the grass. Mason grasped at the offending goblin’s leg, using the last of his strength. It gave Fletcher time to snatch Dalia’s discarded poleaxe from the ground and stab the goblin through the stomach.
It collapsed on top of him, pinning him in place, and a spear stabbed down as if from nowhere, the point slitting his cheek and missing his eye by a hairsbreadth. Fletcher felt the hot gush of blood on his face, saw a goblin raise his spear again. His hands were pinned beneath him. No time.
Then a brown, furry blur whipped by, and the goblin clutched at its throat, trying to seal the gaping wound that had suddenly appeared there. A warbling cry cut through the sounds of battle—and suddenly there were gremlins everywhere.
They rode their rabbitlike maras, ululating as they sliced their shark-tooth daggers into exposed goblin ankles, parting tendons and opening arteries with deadly efficiency. Poison darts flitted from outriders along the edges, sending cassowaries and goblins tumbling, twitching horribly as the toxins took hold.