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."Algres Drear appeared, low on the neck of his mount.The animal was fleeing but making no speed because it could not use its right hind leg.Drear no longer carried a lance.He had lost his sword, too.A heaving something appeared behind him.It was the source of the echoing noises.Drear's broken lance protruded from what might be called a left shoulder.At eye height, as though the monster had dodged to avoid being blinded.Helspeth started forward, meaning to snatch up the second lance.Drear's men seized her.She struggled weakly.As she did, she noted that the monster's lost claw had grown back.The thing was in a mad rage.And gaining on Drear.Who was injured.One of the Braunsknechts took the lance.He started forward.Prosek smacked him."Let it unfold the way it was designed." But the man from the Brotherhood moved forward himself.Drear's mount spied friendly folk ahead.She found some last reservoir of will and picked up the pace for the last fifty yards.Drear's men swarmed round her once she passed between the last few boulders shielding the lower falcon.The monster in pursuit sensed danger at the last instant.Limbs flailing, it stopped.Its hideous head rolled back and forth.Antennae waved, tasting the air.But the wind was blowing down the pass.The monster oozed forward, seeking a better taste of what had fired its suspicions.Helspeth told the Braunsknechts to stop making a racket.Unaware that hearing was the monster's weakest sense.Drago Prosek kept moving forward.He made no effort to avoid being seen.He carried a yard of burning slow match.The very thing he did not trust his falconeers to depend on.The monster scooted forward a dozen yards, alert for danger.Had it not been excruciatingly wary it would be feasting already.Its head rolled.Its antennae sampled the air.It found something.It stiffened, then collected itself for flight.Prosek stepped aside, between boulders.The lower falcon discharged, hitting the monster's underside as it reared to turn.It rose yards higher, shedding noises describable only as painfully loud.It fell back and stumbled a few yards.Stunned.The upper falcon discharged.Some of the thing's limbs flew away.Chunks of chitin flew out of the monster's back.Pale yellowish green liquid splattered the surrounding rock.Then the thing's smaller wounds began shrinking.It began to regain control.Began to examine its surroundings.An antenna brushed the smoke trailing from under the overhang sheltering the second falcon.The monster started to strike.The lower falcon spat poison again.The impact shoved the monster back.The beast made horrible noises.Helspeth's thoughts entangled with its madness as it entered her mind briefly.Everyone experienced the phenomenon.Now the beast rushed the lower falcon, all reason fled.Sudden serpents of fire scurried along the walls of the narrows.First from the right, and two seconds later from the left, explosions savaged the monster's flanks.What? Helspeth had seen Prosek fiddling around out there but… What was this?The blasts near tore the monster in half.But it persevered.The upper falcon barked again.Then the lower weapon exploded.Its crewmen shrieked.Prosek materialized, running.He was pale, his face contorted by horror.He glanced back to see if the monster was gaining.It no longer cared about anything but getting away.Its wounds were not healing.It had a huge problem turning without tearing itself in two.Steam the shade of its ichors rose from its injuries."It's not going to die," Helspeth murmured."We did all that and it's still not going to die!"Prosek stopped amidst the rocks piled round the lower falcon.He called for help.The higher falcon drowned him out.Its charge lashed the monster's side, destroying more legs but doing little more damage to the body proper.The thundering echoes faded.Prosek began yelling at Stern's crew.A couple of Braunsknechts went to help the falconeers.Prosek zipped out of the position, staggering under the weight of a cask of powder and the charges Varley's weapon had not expended.He clambered up to the overhang.Drear, though injured, managed to regain his aplomb."Cheated death again " he muttered as he fumbled at the ties on a bent piece of shin armor, the name of which Helspeth could not recall."But this leg may be broken.Somebody needs to run down to the teamsters' camp.Have them come take away the wounded." Braunsknechts brought Varley and his falconeers to the fireside.None were dead.Varley might prefer death, though.Only a massive growth of beard had kept the left side of his head from being torn off.That side of his face would become a mass of scars.One of Varley's assistants explained, "We used a double charge of powder, second shot.It must've cracked the falcon, inside.Leaving a place for burning wad to hide.The next charge exploded when we were ramming it." He accepted water from Lady Hilda
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