Read Online The Books of the Wars by Mark Geston - Free Book Online

conspiratorially, "There's the bleeding mind muties, sir, the ones that directs the others. My Dad said that they have the Dark Powers on their side."
    "The Powers? Sorcery? Surely you can't expect me . . . "
    "I don't expect you to do a thing, sir. You asked me a question and I answered it straight as I could. Maybe in other times they would call some of their acts science or something like that, but now . . . My great, great grand-sire was a drummer boy and one of the two thousand that made it out of this hellhole with Miolnor, and by my hand, sir, the tales that he left to the family were unholy, that's the only word you could use—unholy."
    Rome was about to question the man about the possible insanity of his ancestors but was cut short by a sharp rattling from the lead boat.
    They were almost directly over the Ford now, the rocky bottom sometimes visible when the mud swirled the right way. Rome jumped from the cabin top and crouched low on the starboard deck; he had never heard a machine gun before. The lead boat, which had two automatic weapons, the extra one being mounted on its bow in place of a cannon, was blazing away at something above them. Rome looked up and saw that the flier he had noticed earlier had moved closer and had been joined by several companions.
    Shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun, the engineer tried to see what manner of bird it was. The most readily apparent feature was its sheer size: its body was about five feet long but the membranous wings must have stretched almost twenty-five feet across. The sun shone through them, outlining the thin bone structure and lending a ghastly yellow tinge to their surface. There were no feathers or any other sort of covering on the wings so Rome surmised that it must be some form of bat, grown to monstrous proportions with the help of a gene-radiation bomb; with a shock he noticed that the head was that of a human, twisted, drawn out into an almost reptilian cast, with horribly prominent fangs. The parody was furthered by the dull corselet of mail that the creature was wearing; the sun glinted on a double-edged battle-ax clutched in a spindly claw at the joint of the right wing.
    Even as Rome watched, terrified and sickened, the thing descended with an ear-splitting scream. Above him the Rivermaster opened up with the machine gun. Other boats joined in and soon the sky was richly embroidered with thermite tracers. The animal evaded the shells for a moment and then a fine network of holes was stitched along one wing; the chain mail buckled and flew into a thousand glittering fragments. The torn body fell into the river not five feet from Rome's boat, its blood mingling with the scum of the river.
    "Shrieks, bloody flaming Shrieks," hissed a man at Rome's side. "They fight a battle like a damned ritual. All the time a goddamned ritual: first a sacrifice and then they fight." The man turned away and viciously braced his crossbow against his shoulder.
    A shout arose from the afterdeck and all hands looked skyward. Where once not more than five Shrieks had been hovering, there were now well over three hundred. Down they fell, tucking their parchment wings close in.
    The Ford began to fill with yelling and the smell of gunpowder. The cannon was touched off, ripping the bodies of two fliers away from their wings. Burning, lidless eyes came driving down from out of the sun. Steel striking out from a yellow cloud descended over Rome, and the man who had damned the Shrieks fell to the deck, his liberated head rolling overboard. Rome struck out, his eyes screwed shut, and drew back his sword dripping with scarlet blood; little bits of yellow skin and mail clung to its pitted surface.
    Rome looked hurriedly about him; the boat in front of them had been set afire and was drifting ashore. Halfway back the flagship, engulfed in a swarm of pale bodies, was sending up a continuous stream of signal rockets. The line was breaking up and many ships, not knowing the way