- And disappeared ...
.. . And re-emerged on the boulder plains, in the vicinity of the hell-lands Gate. And indeed it was as if all hell had been let loose!
The scene was fantastic. A few minutes earlier there had been only the glaring hemisphere of white light, the boulders ranging outwards across the gaunt wastelands, and in a misted distance the toppled aeries of the Wamphyri, where Karenstack, or what had been Karenstack, stood tall and central among the stumps of the fallen stacks. But now:
Ben Trask and David Chung were each down on one knee, aiming into the sky and hosing fire and steel at a circling Wamphyri flyer. And skimming towards the pair, weaving from side to side as it avoided the jagged crests of rock jumbles and the jutting fangs of lone boulders, a second manta flyer reached out its prehistoric neck and spatulate head, and the pouch in its underside yawned open where the neck joined the body.
Seated in ornate saddles at the bases of the flyers' necks, Wamphyri lieutenants leaned forward and urged their mounts on. Having no knowledge of guns, they heard the hellish chattering of the weapons but had no idea of their firepower. So far they had been lucky; despite the awesome size of their mounts, neither the flyers nor their riders had yet taken a hit. Or it could be that the shooting had only just begun - or that the aim of the gunmen was off - or perhaps that the flyers had been hit but it hadn't registered.
Nathan looked for Anna Marie; she stepped out from behind a boulder and started firing; the recoil of her weapon was such that it threw her backwards, so that she stumbled and fell. And the flyer swooping low over the boulder plains veered a little and headed straight for her!
In the moment after stepping out of his Mobius door, Nathan had loaded his weapon. Now he called out: 'Anna Marie - to me!' She saw him and came stumbling in his direction. And again the flyer veered from its course, arching its wings and settling towards them where she tripped and fell against him. Forward of the corrugated belly, its under-slung pouch opened wider yet.
Chung was still firing at the other creature, where now it had stopped circling and was side-slipping this way and that, like a flat stone sinking in water, bearing its rider gently to earth. But Trask had seen Anna Marie and Nathan's danger and had turned his machine-pistol on the beast and rider threatening them. The flyer was hit in the leading edge of a wing, and its tapering neck reared up and back as a neat line of holes stitched themselves into its rubbery grey flesh. But still it came swerving between the last pair of boulders, its air-trap wings actually brushing their domes as the beast closed with its would-be targets.
By now the rider knew there was something wrong; he had heard the spattering impact of bullets, felt the shuddering of his mount as it skewed this way and that. And in his mind he'd felt something of the brute's dull pain, the damage to its vampire flesh. But he wasn't Wamphyri, just a lieutenant, with no real rapport with his mount. If necessary, he would drive the flyer to the limits of its endurance. Indeed he must, for his Lord and master Gorvi the Guile would require an accounting.
Dripping fluids from its wounds, the beast fell towards Nathan and Anna Marie. The saucer eyes in its hideously human head glared at them; its pink-lipped pouch was a
yawning mantrap lined with cartilage hooks, whose fetor they could smell and almost taste, it was that close! Trask shouted something incoherent and blazed away until his magazine was empty, and still the thing bore down on them.
Nathan could see its rider's eyes: feral yellow and red in their cores - with bloodlust! The man knew he was going to drink red tonight, take thralls for his master or meat for the manse's provisioning. And he laughed as he commanded his mount: Take them! Or knock them down, at least!
Nathan heard him, his unsubtle telepathic command, and so knew to counter the flyer's reaction to it. 'Get down!' he shouted, pushing Anna Marie aside and hurling himself in the other direction, rolling in the dust. The gaping pouch passed between them, literally scooping at the dirt as the arches of manta wings passed over them with feet to spare. Then .. . the great beast turned its head to look back as its diamond shape cleared them.
In so doing, it presented Nathan with a shot he couldn't resist. He brought his crossbow to bear, squeezed the trigger. The rider lieutenant was also looking back. He threw back his head and laughed as Nathan's bolt zipped under the arched wing and entered the flyer's neck fifteen inches back from its head. What, a mere crossbow bolt? And buried in all that muscle? The sting of a stink-gnat to a creature huge and insensitive as a flyer! And he at once yanked on the reins and turned his attention to Trask and Chung where they frantically reloaded.
None of this taking more than a second.