form of a volley of arrows that had Brynn ducking tight to Agradeleous' back and had the dragon roaring in protest at the pestering stings.
"Destroy that group," Brynn ordered, and the outraged Agradeleous was more than happy to comply, tucking his great wings and falling into a stoop that shot him right past the archer battery as he leveled out.
By the time Agradeleous flew out past the Behrenese line, many had died before his breath, others from his wing, and he clutched two screaming men one in each talon. Now he and Brynn went up high over the city, back to their original position, where Brynn repeated her warning that any who did not flee the city would die in it the next day.
To accentuate her warnings, Agradeleous then dropped the two men, one after the other.
At dawn the next day, Brynn and her two thousand charged Avrou Eesa's western gate, with the dragon coming in to support them from the north.
There was little resistance, and when Brynn walked into the conquered citv soon after, moving to the high tower that anchored the eastern wall, she noted the lines of Behrenese who had fled at the onset of the attack, run-ning wildly to the east.
Late that same day, Brynn's scouts came in, reporting that Yatol Bardoh and his forces were coming down from the plateau in the north, and Chezhou-Lei Shauntil and his were coming down along the route to the south.
"We will have the city pillaged before the dawn, then we can flee out to the open sands," one of her commanders remarked.
Brynn shook her head. ?Pillage the city and hide the supplies and the valuables out in the desert," she did agree. ?But we will not run. Not this time."
That brought many surprised looks from those leaders standing about her, all keenly aware that somewhere around thirty thousand Behrenese warriors would soon converge on Avrou Eesa.
"Pagonel is not far," the woman explained.
"We would still be sorely outnumbered," one man observed.
"Only if we fight them as a singular, or even as half, of their force," Brynn replied, a grin widening on her face as she thought of yet another way she might stick a pin into the eye of the Chezru Chieftain and his marauding people, and particularly into the eye of Yatol Tohen Bardoh.
"What do you know?" one To-gai-ru woman asked her.
"We can outride them. We can outrun them," Brynn answered. She turned her gaze to the west, to the line of distant heights that marked the To-gai plateau. If the armies were filtering down the narrow passes out of the steppes, north and south, then she and Agradeleous could catch them m a vulnerable position indeed.
She nodded as she considered that her fighting that day was not done. She had to go out with the dragon, anyway, she knew, to go and inform 1 agonel of his role in the upcoming daring battle.
A large group of the fleeing Behrenese have camped just to the west of us," another scout reported soon after, and beside the woman, Tan 11 Grenk issued a low growl as threatening as any Agradeleous himself K ever grumbled.
"Leave them there," Brynn replied, issuing that order to all of her fi leaders. ?Let them tell Yatol Bardoh of our approximate strength."
"That he might overrun Avrou Eesa with complete confidence?" anoth man asked.
"That he will encircle Avrou Eesa to prevent any escape."
"Your great dragon cannot fly us all out of here quickly enough, as it did to bring us down from the plateau,"
came one concerned reply.
But Brynn only smiled all the wider, thinking that it was indeed time to take a gamble, and time to engage some Behrenese soldiers openly.
As dusk fell over the steppes, the desert already dark behind them, Brynn and Agradeleous saw the long line of torches, winding down from the To-gai plateau along a narrow and rocky descent to the Behrenese floor.
"He force-marches through the night, hoping to catch up to us," Brynn yelled to the dragon. ?The dog Bardoh is angry, and his anger will be his downfall!"
Agradeleous beat his wings more powerfully, speeding them along the plateau line, sweeping down from the north.
Brynn urged the dragon straight across that long and narrow line. The beast banked and swept past, breathing forth his fire, immolating those poor Behrenese who could not flee or find any cover behind the rocks. The dragon's tail thrashed as he passed, splintering stone and sending men flying to their deaths.
Caught by complete surprise, it took