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south, cloaking the distant enemy lines.
"Let's go," Mark shouted.
The team lifted into the air. This time there was a ragged cry of triumph from below.
As they headed out towards the west Stede and his sorcerers rose, carrying several large bundles. The
bundles were nothing more than rocks, and Stede swung out to simulate another bomb drop.
As they crossed the river into the west side of the city Mark and his team struggled for altitude.
"All right," Mark cried, "on the embankment promenade, first drop take out the troops, next two for the
wall towers covering their advance on the bridge."
"Here they come," Ikawa roared.
Enemy demons and sorcerers were winging up from their positions in the western part of the town. But
the diversion was working: nearly half of them were breaking towards Stede.
"Keep it tight," Mark ordered, "shields overlapping!"
The formation pulled in closer together, presenting a larger target. But at the same time the shielding of
one reinforced the other, so that a hit in one place quickly dissipated. It would take a dozen or more
bolts striking the formation simultaneously, or several slashing into just one man, to have an effect.
Mark felt as if he was flying inside a slow lumbering target as flash after flash struck them, the strain from
the impacts not quite dissipated before another shot raised the strain even higher. No one alone could
have survived that onslaught, but together they had hope.
Outside the tight formation the Japanese weaved back and forth, returning fire, disrupting Sarnak's
sorcerers as they tried to concentrate.
"Turn left, now!"
"Smithie, tighten it up, tighten it up!" Mark cried.
Half a dozen bolts hit Smithie in rapid succession. With a startled cry he dropped his end of the bomb
and fell out of the formation, his shield glowing hot.
"Smithie!" Takeo dropped from the formation and dove after the American. Half a dozen of Sarnak's
sorcerers broke off attacking the main group to fall upon the two.
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Smithie struggled to regain control. Takeo swung in alongside, grabbing and providing support. Mark
watched as the two raced towards the citadel, while Sarnak's sorcerers broke off the chase and turned
back to the main target.
Younger and Welsh struggled to hold up their load. Mark slowed their flight, trying to keep them within
the protection of the formation.
Bolts hit the two, who quickly fell astern and outside the protection of the formation. Suddenly
Younger's shield overloaded and snapped off. A bolt nicked the heavy crystal dangling beneath them.
"Drop it!" Mark screamed. If the bundle was hit square on and the clay pot shattered, they'd all be gone
in an instant.
The bomb dropped away. Mark averted his eyes at the last second, as the flash snapped out, raising a
column of fire a thousand feet into the air.
"Fifteen seconds," Mark shouted, forcing his attention back to the flight.
Younger closed back with the group, seeking their protection, Welsh at his side.
One of the enemy sorcerers was now hit square on. His shielding disappeared, and a bolt from Ikawa
cut him nearly in half. The formation flew straight through where the sorcerer had been only seconds
before and Mark choked on the stench of burned flesh.
"Five seconds!"
The enemy sorcerers slashed into them again. A buffet ran through the formation from the impact, their
collective shields glowing. Mark felt the formation waver, as if it was about to burst.
"Ready!"
"One away!" Walker and his team released.
"Two away. Break left!"
The formation surged upward, their burden gone.
Cutting through their turn, they dove back towards the protection of the citadel, Ikawa and his men
covering the retreat.
Mark led the group straight through the expanding column of fire and smoke from the first explosion. He
knew it was a desperate act, but hoped that it would throw off their pursuers.
As he hit the wall of smoke he instinctively closed his eyes. They were buffeted by the violent updraft
and several seconds later emerged from the other side. He looked over his shoulder. The enemy had
broken off, cutting around the column rather than going straight through.
The second bomb hit, followed almost immediately by the third. The two towers disappeared, followed
an instant later with secondary explosions from both that mushroomed out at almost right angles from the
primary blast.
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"No need for a photo recon on that," Jose' cried. "One hundred percent destruction confirmed!"
Valdez, his eyes still stinging from the flash, watched from one of the casement windows as the
explosions tore apart the twin towers holding Sarnak's heavy crystals. He felt a perverse fascination, like
someone watching passively as a madman smashed a priceless work of art, yet he was unable to turn his
gaze away.
The double shock ripped across the river, kicking up a wave that hit the battlements like a hurricane.
The offworlders appeared through the smoke, returning to the citadel.
He looked to the team of sorcerers poised and ready by one of the wall crystals which was pointed
towards the sky.
"Do we fire, Valdez?" one of them asked.
To serve my lord unto death,Valdez thought. This had to be death, he realized. In the distance another
sound came to him, louder than the first faint ripplings of moments before. It was the sound of thousands
cheering. Not in hatred, nor in blood lust, but in hope.
What would Allic think when he awoke safely, but his city was gone? And Valdez knew the answer
clearly at last. It was best at times to let one's lord die in the fighting than to let him live in shame. Better
to die screaming defiance than to crawl into the shelter of night.
"My lord, I can hit them clearly," the sorcerer said.
"We're cursed and abandoned by the gods already," Valdez said coldly. "Take that crystal up and give it
to the offworlders."
"My lord? We only have three crystals left!"
"Damn it all, doesn't anyone around here understand an order when it's given? I said to take that crystal
up and give it to the offworlders. We're staying here to fight."
Chapter 20
During the middle of the second night on the march, Macha gave up trying to beat stragglers back into
line. Men were actually passing out from exhaustion in the middle of the road, their comrades dragging
them to the side, placing them in the care of civilians, and then pressing on.
But as fast as the twin armies melted away from exhaustion, their ranks were renewed as each village's
militia, which had been braced for attack from the south, now fell into rank and joined the host sweeping
north--the Torm and Landrian armies marching on parallel roads, a league apart.
The armies were passing through regions of prosperous farms, orchards, and vineyards. The populace
poured out to meet them: Word had raced ahead that this was the relief column, rushing north in a
desperate bid to raise the siege.
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At every farmyard gate women passed out pitchers of water and wine, while their children pressed
bread, meat, and bunches of grapes into the soldiers' hands. In the waning light of the twin moons they
had seemed like ghostly angels of comfort, hovering in the blue dark light, offering words of
encouragement and compassion as the troops pressed along, their column a serpentine line of darkness,
cutting through moonlit fields.
Now as the army pressed through the heat of day the women rushed up with buckets drawn from their
wells, to see them passed into the ranks and reemerge seconds later, to be refilled again.
Hollow-eyed Landrian officers and cavalrymen, mounted on lathered Tals, galloped back and forth
down the line, urging the column to close up, and warning the villagers to secure themselves in their
houses, taking the stragglers with them. For once the army had passed, the Subata would be overhead.
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