for just a split second, long enough for Brynn to leap down into the village and scramble into the shadows. She would be no spectator this time.
Alarms went up, as did a pair of bows from the sentries near the gate. But Agradeleous was upon them in a rush, jaw snapping, wings and tail smash-ing, and the sentries were dead and the gate crushed. Then the dragon flew off into the night, turning up high and out of sight, lining up his next angle of attack.
Brynn darted from shadow to shadow, listening to the sounds of the wak-ening town, measuring the screams.
She put her back up against the wall of one cottage, right beside the door, and when it swung open and a man rushed out, the ranger turned and struck hard, a slash across his chest that sent him back inside, sprawling to the floor.
Another man loomed right behind him, a son or a brother, perhaps. He gave a shout and awkwardly tried to put up his axe in defense.
But Brynn leaped over the prone, dying man, to stab the second through the heart.
The ranger turned and rushed out into the village, avoiding the central area, where great flames leaped high into the night sky and the dark forms of terrified outposters rushed all about.
She turned down an alley between two long buildings, realizing at once that they were storehouses. Brynn put her sword up high and lit its blade, but only briefly, the prearranged signal with Agradeleous to mark where he should not loose his devastating fires.
Around the back corner of the building, Brynn turned to see three men running her way. Confident that they had not noticed her, she slipped back around the corner, sword in hand, and concentrated on their footsteps and chatter.
Brynn stepped out right in front of them, skewering the man on the left and tripping the one on the right. She stepped and turned past the stuck man, tearing free her sword and coming around all the way in perfect bal-ance to bring her fine weapon in hard against the side of the third, trailing man. Brynn winced, and the outposter collapsed screaming, as his arm fell free to the ground.
Brynn heard the charge from behind, and purely on instinct brought her sword up horizontally over her head, intercepting a downward chop fr the man she had tripped up. She spun and slashed, opening his belly tK stabbed ahead once, slipping Flamedancer deftly past his feeble parry into his chest. Then she retracted it quickly and stuck him again, this ti in the throat. He fell away, and Brynn retreated back into the shadows the alleyway.
Agradeleous came across then with his second devastating pass, and line of buildings on the opposite side of the village went up in flames.
By the time Brynn came out the other side of the alleyway, no semblanc of organization remained within the doomed village. Outposters raced all about, screaming and crying. Many headed out over the wall, or through the smashed gates, fleeing desperately into the cold dark night.
Brynn caught another duo running her way, but looking back over their shoulders at the dragon, who had set down near the rear wall and was even then slaughtering outposters by the dozen. By the time the second man even looked ahead again, his companion lay beside him, mortally wounded and Brynn's sword was rushing for his chest.
He fell beside his friend.
It was over quickly, with the village deserted and most of it in flames. Brynn and the dragon did not give pursuit; the woman wanted those who had fled to bear witness to the sudden and devastating strike. The dragon, so excited from the destruction, had to be reminded of this tactic, but to Brynn's surprise, he agreed.
He went out from the village then, not to hunt down the fleeing Behrenese, but to retrieve the netting and skins, then joined Brynn at the warehouses.
As the pair rose again into the night sky, they noted the torches of the nearest section of the great Behrenese army, rushing for the dying outposter settlement.
It took Brynn a long time to convince Agradeleous to hold his course steady, to the south and the west.
Just before dawn, Brynn walked into the encampment of To-gai-ru once more, bidding the perimeter guards to follow her out into the darkness, to a mound of foodstuffs and other supplies.
"There will be more," she promised grimly. ?Every night. But keep your eyes out far, for the Behrenese army will