by the shoulder and stopped her dead in her tracks.
"And is that enough for you, human? To die here is acceptable because you know that you are right?"
"I'd rather live," Brynn replied with a grin. ?And I pray that we win out, or hold out."
"But if you do not?"
Brynn had no answer, but neither did the possibility shrink her proud shoulders at all.
"I hope you live," Agradeleous said to her, and he let her go, and Brynn stood there for a long while, staring at him, until the cries from the wall told her that a breach was imminent.
She ran off to a ladder, scrambling up to the parapet, to find as many Behrenese in that area as To-gai-ru, and with more enemies scrambling over the wall with each passing moment. Brynn's sword came to fiery life.
"To-gai!" she cried, and pushed past her fellow defenders, driving hard into the forming Behrenese line. Those invaders gave way a bit before that blazing sword, and that single waver was enough for Brynn to gain a breach in the line.
Spearheading a wedge, she pushed through, shouldering one man off the parapet, stabbing a second man in the belly. She retracted the blade and fell forward to her knees, spinning about, an errant Behrenese sword swishing harmlessly over her head.
Flamedancer took that man out at the knees, and then Brynn was at the ladders, and a thrust to a face had another enemy tumbling back out. That falling man clipped the one behind him on the ladder as he tumbled, and as that second man struggled to hold his balance, the drifting ladder moved out from the wall.
Brynn leaped atop that wall and kicked hard, dislodging the ladder altogether.
A line of arrows came at her from below, but she turned quickly and got her pulsating powrie shield up to deflect most of them. One did clip her across the calf, a burning wound.
She shrugged it off and leaped away, driving back another disintegrating line of enemies.
The breach was closed.
Agradeleous watched it all with sincere admiration, understanding more clearly Belli'mar Juravi el's words to him concerning the value of humans.
"I hope you live," he whispered to Brynn, though she certainly could not hear, and then the dragon fell within himself, bringing forth the transforma-tion into his more natural, huge and terrible form.
Over the eastern gate he flew, above the line of ducking and scrambling Behrenese. Only a few got their bows up to offer meager shots.
Gaining speed with every passing foot, the dragon rammed hard into a catapult, scattering the crew and destroying the war engine. His head swung about and his fiery breath immolated a handful of fleeing soldiers.
Then the arrows began, but Agradeleous ignored them and attacked the next catapult, and then the next. He saw one man rushing to organize the defense - a man wearing the armor of a Chezhou-Lei.
Off the dragon swooped, crashing amidst the leader and those about him, accepting the heavy blow from the man's sword and returning it tenfold with a savage claw rake that nearly took the man in half.
Several others fell and Agradeleous leaped back up into the air, his great wings bringing him higher. His attack had stopped the entire charge at that eastern wall, had allowed the defenders within the city to peel away and re-inforce other vulnerable areas, for the Behrenese were turning back upon the wurm, with cries naming the dragon as their primary target. Now the volleys of arrows showering Agradeleous increased, but the dragon roared through it and charged on, destroying another catapult.
A ballista bolt shot past him, then a second, but the dragon pressed on, breathing forth his fire to light both catapult and crew.
His wings brought him up high and he dove immediately, passing low over one group of Behrenese cavalry, unhorsing most as he sped past on his way to another catapult battery. Now the dragon swooped back around and up, hovering for a split second to line up his fiery breath.
Just as one ballista crew had anticipated.
The dragon fire came forth, then stopped abruptly as the huge spear smashed against his side, crushing bone at the base of his wing. With a shriek that deafened those nearby, Agradeleous rolled over in the air, then tumbled down into the sand.
Immediately, the Behrenese soldiers swarmed over him, bows twanging, swords slashing, but the dragon went into a thrashing frenzy, his tail swip-ing out men by the dozen, claws digging and raking, his maw snapping to and fro,