and rolled away. The claws tore his chest and arm, and Nish could not shoot for fear of hitting him. Soldiers were running from everywhere but they wouldn’t get to the general in time.
Nish dropped the crossbow, which fortunately did not go off, sprang and grabbed the nylatl by its tail. Its spines went through his palm and the venom burned. Nish bit down on the pain, heaved with all his strength and tore the creature off. It tried to go for him but he swung it around his head and hurled it at a rock three or four spans away.
It rolled into a ball in mid-air and the spines took the impact, bending then springing erect. The creature twisted to land on its feet and streaked for the general again. Nish grabbed the crossbow and, as the nylatl sprang, put the bolt in through its open mouth.
The bolt must have torn all the way through it. The nylatl screamed, turned over in the air and landed hard on its back with its legs spread. It kicked twice then went still, though its eyes remained open and its flanks heaved for a minute or two.
‘Don’t go near it!’ cried Nish as a bloody Troist wavered towards the beast. Troist froze.
Nish wrenched the sword out of the general’s hand and came up behind the creature. It rolled over and raised its bloody maw to snap at him. Its back legs scrabbled on the ground. With a savage blow that buried the blade a hand-span into the turf, he cut it in half lengthways.
‘Now it’s dead,’ he said after a careful look. ‘They’re flesh-formed creatures, surr. The spines drip poison and they can even spit venom at your eyes, if they get close enough.’
‘You’ve fought one before?’
‘I have, and it was one of the defining moments of my life. Aah!’ Nish wrung his hands, which were already swollen and burning. The pain grew until they felt as if they’d been skinned and dipped in vinegar. He wiped them on the grass, which did no good at all.
‘I owe you my life,’ said Troist, signalling behind him. A healer was already running towards them.
While she was attending to Troist, Nish took up the spyglass again to scan the battlefield. He could barely hold it. ‘I’d say they had about a hundred of these creatures, surr. Aah, Aah!’ The spyglass fell from his hands and he couldn’t pick it up again. ‘They’ve savaged hundreds of our troops. And hundreds more have been killed after their formations collapsed and the lyrinx attacked. If they’d had a thousand nylatl, it might have won them the day.’
‘It might anyway, the way things are going.’ Troist sat down suddenly.
‘How are you, surr?’ said Nish, wincing as a second healer began to bathe the poison off his fingers.
‘I feel … a little faint.’ Troist lay back and closed his eyes.
‘Is he bad?’ Nish asked the healer.
She pulled back Troist’s shirt. ‘He’s been clawed about the chest, but he’ll recover. Unless the poison takes hold or infection sets in.’
‘It knew how to pick its target, surr,’ Nish said to the general. ‘It went straight for you.’
Troist didn’t answer. ‘Bring the farspeaker, quick,’ he said in a faint voice. ‘And get me Flydd.’
An attendant ran up with it.
Flydd answered immediately. He knew about the nylatl attacks. ‘It’s not looking good, Troist. I think we’d better go with the dust again, just to reinforce the idea.’
‘I think so,’ said Troist, and closed his eyes.
The five thapters repeated the operation, exactly as before, except that this time one flew a little too low. Four javelard spears caromed off the sides and a fifth went just over the head of the pilot, who was flying with the hatch open. The sixth and seventh spears converged on the soldier hurling the dust from the rear platform, sending him spinning into space, dead before he hit the ground.
The battle swirled back and forth. The thapters finished their work and the four swept around and back, firing their javelards furiously. The fifth flew across as before, Merryl repeating his message with the speaking trumpet.
Nish looked down at his casualty sheets, adding up the dismal numbers. It was clumsy work with his bandaged hands, but when he finally looked up there was hardly a lyrinx to be seen.
‘Where have they gone?’ he said. When the nylatl had been released there had been more than twenty thousand of the enemy. ‘Troist? Troist?’ It must be another trick.