Dragonfly Falling Read Online Free PDF

oncomer’s eye. The Wasp flier recoiled in the air and then dropped from
sight amidst the tall grass.
    Salma had no time to
string his own bow. As the three remaining soldiers launched the golden
lightning of their stings he let his wings take him straight upwards, his
shortsword – stolen Wasp-make itself – clearing its scabbard.
    Skrill had already
dashed to one side but Totho had no option but to cast himself to the ground
and hope. He felt one sting lash across his pack as though he had been punched
there by a strong man. Then he was up with a magazine slotted into his
crossbow.
    One of the men had
skimmed upwards in pursuit of Salma and it struck Totho how they seemed nimbler
in the air than most Wasps, obviously hand-picked as scouts. He raised his bow
and loosed.
    The man coming for him
jinked aside and the bolt sped past him. Totho saw the man’s face split into a
grin in the knowledge that there would be no reloading of such a cumbersome
weapon as a crossbow in time. By then Totho was racking back the lever and
shooting again and again, seeing surprise and dismay splash across those same
features. The man dodged the second shot but not the third, nor the fourth or
fifth, and he ploughed dead into the earth six feet away. They were a race of
builders and artificers, the Wasps, but for all their numbers and ingenuity
they were behind the Lowlands yet in craft.
    He heard a shout nearby
and saw Skrill fighting furiously with another enemy, sword to sword. She was
swift, her blade lunging and darting like a living thing, but her opponent was
a professional, and the metal plates of his armour kept turning aside her
blows. Totho knew he couldn’t risk a shot in their direction and drew his own
blade, breaking cover to run to her aid.
    Above them Salma dived
and spun in a deadly aerial ballet with his opponent. For them, distance was
all: too close and they would foul each other, too far and the Wasp would have
more chance to use his sting. Amidst their aerobatics their swords flashed
rarely, each seeking a second’s opening to strike against side or back.
    Salma was
Dragonfly-kinden, born to the air, and his race prided themselves on their
grace and control while on the wing. The Wasp, for his part, was as fleet and
nimble as his kind ever were, but there was a distance even so. Salma had
abruptly cut away, seeming to falter in the air, allowing the Wasp to draw up
to shoot at him. In that same moment Salma reversed his motion, wings powering
him forwards. The man tried to angle down to face him head-on, sword sweeping
in a broad parry, but Salma was through his guard on the instant, driving the blade
between the Wasp’s ribs where his armour left off, and then using the pull of
the man’s heavy descent to drag the steel from his corpse.
    He touched down, looking
around for more enemies just in time to see Totho and Skrill finish off the
last Wasp scout together.
    ‘Get your kit together!’
Skrill urged him. ‘There’ll be more!’
    Salma scooped up his
satchel, seeing Totho shoulder the big canvas bag that held his tools and
belongings. I travel very light these days , the
Dragonfly thought wryly, but of course, being captured and stripped of your
possessions would do that to a man. He had only what the Mynan resistance had
been able to find for him.
    Skrill’s kitbag was
already strapped on her back, a position it never left save when she was using
it as a lumpy pillow. She pelted past him even as he and Totho were collecting
their gear, and they ran after her, knowing it was vain to try to catch up.
    The Wasp armies had yet
to invest the city of Tark in siege. But for us the war has
already started.
    He remembered his talk
with Aagen, the Wasp artificer whose information had originally sent him south
to Tark – the same who had been given the Butterfly dancer named Grief in
Chains and then released her with the name Aagen’s Joy. Salma had now killed
another Wasp, his first since then. There had been no