We formed
up. Jerem Cozak ordered a column three mastodons wide, all the space the
greatship’s entrance would afford. He took the lead and I was glad that he, at
least, would know the layout of the docks. I did not even know what we would be
charging over. But we stood ten mastodons deep, all tossed trunks and
heightened senses. The Never-born named Laches and Gorgias had mounted up
behind me, clinging to the ropes that held them. And waited again, because the
artillery still needed to break the gates. It took longer, because our line had
fallen back so far that the artillery captains could not see what they were
shooting.
But the
walls fell, in time. In the fog I guessed it was about noon. I followed Jerem
Cozak as we charged around the warehouse and across the plaza at full speed.
They knew we were coming because they could see the breaches in the walls.
Artillery fire bloomed around as we neared the gaps. Then it fell among us,
behind me as the Augers tried to break our formation. Hair singed, mastodons
roared and reared and some riders were blinded because I was momentarily so. I
glanced back to see three mastodons fallen, struggling to pull themselves along
the ground, their legs and sides charred ruins of flesh. The herd flowed around
them. Jerem Cozak pressed on and the last mastodons cleared the wall two and
three abreast.
Then we
were on the docks and too close for the artillery’s calibrated range. The
Augers were slow to adjust and we were moving three times as fast as any man
could run. The docks were all clanking Profusionist metal beneath us and slick
with the fog and we did not even slow as the greatships reared up ahead of us
like sheer blocks of mountains. Other herds sped north and south along the
docks to head for the other ships. Jerem Cozak steered straight for the one ahead
of us. The ramp sloped down from its gaping maw like a great tongue and it
vomited Augers, their shrouds awake and glowing the color of jade in the day’s
diffuse light.
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