Two fliers passed over the nearest nest. Small objects, trailing smoke, dropped from them and fell on the nests. Females, flapping their wings, scrambled towards them. Then, there was an explosion. Smoke and fire billowed out. Another explosion followed.
The two gliders pulled up sharply. Carried upward by the momentum of their steep dives, they turned and came back for another and final pass. Again, their bombs hit. Fire spread through the dry plants and caught and enfolded some of the giant gas-cells. The females screamed so loudly they could be heard even above the wing-beatings and trumpetings of the circling horde. They rose from the burning nest, their infants clutched in their toes. The entire nest blew apart, catching some of the females, burning them in flight or hurling them head over heels. Infants dropped towards the sea below, their short wings ineffectively flapping.
Wolff saw one mother fold her wings and drop like a fish-hawk towards her infant. She caught it, beat her wings, and lifted slowly towards an untouched nest.
Two nests, burning and exploding, spun towards the ocean. By then several hundreds of males had detached themselves from the ring around the island. They flew after the gliders, which by now were far down, headed towards a landing on the waves.
The nests on a level with the island were out of range of his beamer. It was possible the two below might not be. Wolff told Dugarnn what he meant to do and went down a fifty-foot winding staircase to a hatch at its bottom. The nests there had risen close, and he caught both of them with a sweep of the full power of the beamer. They blew up with such violence that he was lifted and almost knocked off the platform. Smoke poured up through the hatch. Then, as it cleared away, he saw the flaming pieces of vegetation falling. The bodies of the children and females plummeted into the sea.
The male warriors from the nests were trying to get through the bottom hatches. Wolff put the beamer on half-power and cleared the area. Then he ran along the gangplank, stopping at every hatch to fire again. He accounted for at least a hundred attackers. Some had gotten through the defending abutal at the hatches at the far end. It took him a while to kill these, since he had to be careful not to touch the many great bladders. Even though he slew thirty, he could not get them all. The island was too large for him to cover all the bottom area.
By the time he climbed back up to the hatch, he found that the Nichiddor had launched their mass attack. This end of the island was a swirling, screeching, shouting, screaming mob. There were bodies everywhere.
The archers and slingers had taken a heavy toll of the first wave and a lighter toll of the second. Then the Nichiddor were upon them, and the battle became a melee. Although the winged men had no weapons other than their wings and feet, these were powerful. With a sweep of a wing, a Nichiddor could knock down an Ilmawir. He could then leap upon his stunned and bruised foe and tear at him with the heavy hooked clawlike toenails. The abutal defended themselves with spears, swords which were flat blades lined with shark’s teeth, and knives formed from a bamboolike surface plant.
Wolff methodically set about to kill all those in the neighborhood of the maindeck. The Lords had made a compact group, all facing outwards and slashing with their swords. Wolff took careful aim and slew the Nichiddor pressing them. A shadow fell on him, and he fell on his back and fired upwards. Two Nichiddor struck the deck on each side of him, the wing of one buffeting him. It covered him like a banner and stank of fish. He crawled out from under just in time to shoot two that had forced Dugarnn back against the wall. Dugarnn’s wife lay near him, her spear stuck in a winged man’s belly. Her face and breasts were ripped into shreds, and the Nichiddor who had done it was tearing out her belly. He fell backwards, his claws caught in her entrails, as Wolff shot him from behind.