Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 524
suddenly realizing she was stepping into a fire she staggered
and went down on one knee.
Flames licked up her leg. Calandria screamed and flung
herself forward, rolling past burning logs and coming to a
crouch on the inside of a very large hearth. The smoking body
of a man lay across the logs next to her. In the lurid light of the
fire she saw men struggling in a large triangular room.
The defenders were picking off her people as each one
staggered out of the broken fireplace. Everyone who came up
this ladder was going to die.
A sword swung down, clipping her arm and sending a
spasm of pain through her shoulder. Calandria rolled, did a
sweep with her foot and was rewarded as her attacker fell over.
She vaulted over him and straight-armed the man behind him.
The room was a maze of armed men; she ducked and kicked
and tried to get to the door.
Swords fell across her back and jabbed her flanks. Her
package clanked. She cursed and redoubled her efforts.
She got turned around and ended up in a corner. It was
slaughter over by the fireplace. Maenan was dead, as was
every one of the men she had met over the last several days.
Three desperate defenders faced her now, with more behind
them.
She had hoped to delay using her weapon until she
confronted Armiger―and not only because its presence would
alert the Winds. "Sorry," she said, and swung the package off
her shoulder. She pulled the burlap off the gun and raised it
just as they closed on her.
The microwave gun chuffed, and fire shot to left and
right from its barrel as first of its nano-built energy charges let
go. The man in front of her coughed and went down. She
turned the weapon on the next one and then the next. She was