the long awaited hour has come.

Fortress Coldstone

- Beal, demon spawn! How dare you, dirty beast, occupy my castle? What about my mother and Listina? Immediately open the gate, and then you will die quickly! - Glian al Bert was sitting on the back of a majestic and huge monster, one of which inspired horror to strangers who never saw him. The head of an eagle is of enormous size, the body and paws of a predatory cat, its wings are a classic description of a griffin from ancient myths. Only, now it was a reality - a beast the size of a small truck crouched in front of the fortress, letting his rider scream.
- My dear brother, you forgot about decency! Shouldn't you be kneeling when you greet your master? I give you one more chance - get down from your gryphon and swear allegiance to me, as your sister Listeyna did.
- She always felt for you something more than disgust! How did you convince this mouse to swear to you? Did you promise a successful marriage? Who will need it after I take this lock and put your head on the peak? You die a cruel death! Go ahead, my warriors!

All tactics Gliana was visible to the naked eye. Three mages, not even trying to hide, stood a kilometer from the walls. Next to them stood a detachment of bull cavalry of three dozen warriors, and a little distance away a detachment of two hundred infantry. Ghon was expecting three hundred, but it turned out - not even two hundred fifty. So even easier.

Huge stones, turned out of the ground, hit the gate, responding to the district with a dull blow. However, the gates survived - Disari desperately resisted. Mages hit again - and again weathered. Ghon stiffened. Disari was covered in sweat, he desperately combined spells, trying to patch holes in the magic shield. But huge boulders beat and beat at the gate, taking away both the fortress walls and the powers of the magician. Finally, one of the boulders hit the gate with such force that the thick log broke. This meant that the shield can no longer hold. Disari, knowing full well what would happen to him after the capture of the castle by Glian, made the last effort a desperate attempt to weave a shield. A huge boulder crashed into the gate, but did not demolish them, but only broke it a little more. The mage's eyes rolled and he slammed to the floor. The magic shield over the castle was no more.

Beal, seeing the fall of the magician through Chiorn's eyes, quietly said: "My lord, there will be no other chance." He was right. Kyorne jumped to the unconscious mage, turned him over on his stomach and cut the robe. The controller from her sleeve slid onto the man’s bare back and dug into the spine. Now the magician does not wake up earlier than in a week, and when he wakes up it will be too late. The last breed of controllers no longer require a month of immobility. The victim can move, walk, talk - can not only harm her. And at this time the controller subjugates the victim. Such a fate awaited Disari.

Meanwhile, the heavy boulders finally broke through the gates, and with joyful cries the bull cavalry, and behind it the infantry, rushed forward. The magicians sat quietly in the clearing, right where they stood - their work was finished. Glian raised the griffin into the air. No one saw a small group of people, about ten people, get off the back of the wall along the cables.

The narrow bridge of the Cold Cliff did not allow to fit more than two bulls in width. Therefore, the cavalrymen were forced to reorganize into a column of two and thus break into the canvas of the bridge. Ed brought a large-caliber machine gun at the target with the usual movement and pressed the trigger. A chain of stacked interspersed armor-piercing incendiary and tracer bullets crashed into the chest of the front bull and ... bounced aside with sparks. Ed goggled (though not letting go of the descent).This machine gun punched BTR and even tanks from the Second World War - and then a knight turned out to be practically invulnerable to him! A hail of bullets only slowed the bull, left dents on the bull armor, but did not hit him. The fierce brute continued on to the gate.

However, right outside the gate the bulls were in for a surprise. At full speed, they flew into a masked pit, in the middle of which was a rotating millstone with peaks stuck into it. Turning the millstone with their bodies, the bulls ran into unprotected bellies on the spikes, howled, dropping the riders, however, they could not jump off - the notch of the spikes kept them tight. The hustle began. The rear cavalrymen had to stop, they came upon the front ones. Dropped riders tried to get up and at that moment the soldiers of al Bertov rushed at them. Began a violent slashing. And at that moment, people with weapons unknown in this world rose on the walls. From two pipes in their hands stretched two smoky streams, and in place of the last two bulls fiery explosions flourished.

Unlike bullets, cumulative jets of garnet armor bulls struck, smearing animals across the bridge. One rider fell into the ditch, and the other - with a broken leg was on the bridge. Realizing that the cavalry was locked up on the bridge, Glian took the only, as it seemed to him, right decision - he rushed down the gryphon to the square. A huge animal scattered two dozen guards, trying to open the way inside the cavalry. With a wild roar Glian raised up a huge peak, aiming at the machine-gun crew, but suddenly something small flew right into a small gap between his helmet and the collar of the shell that opened for an instant. Gripping the neck, the griffin rider fell out of the saddle and collapsed on the battlefield. Ghon snorted contentedly - Lara pulled back the bolt of the sniper rifle, freeing the hot cartridge from the captivity. The griffin, left without a rider, tried to fly up, but several lines broke its wings, and now a huge animal bristling at the corner of the fortress, not allowing anyone, but not being able to cause harm.

Meanwhile, a detachment of infantry, hiding behind tower shields, was already approaching the aid of knights stuck on the bridge. Those again had to test two grenade-launcher shots on themselves, and they, having dismounted, already surrounded themselves with shields and closed with bulls. Now they could hold out for a long time, at least they thought so. The infantrymen had already entered the bridge when a second machine gun hit one of the towers. Two shchitnikov fell, not expecting an attack from the flank, but the rest rebuilt, lined up with a turtle and moved forward. From the Barbakan fortress they opened fire on them with smaller calibers, as well as bows, but all this was in vain: the shields withstood and not such blows.

This was understood in the fortress. Grenade launchers transferred fire to the infantry, trying to prevent it from breaking through to the riders. However, the grenade pierced the shield, but did not kill the soldier chained in armor, stunning him to the maximum. The infantry slowly, stepping over the fallen wounded and contused, advanced along the bridge.

Finally, despite all the shelling and opposition, having lost two dozen people, the infantry reached the goal. The surviving two dozen horsemen began to move under the protection of tower shields. Hundreds of infantrymen were standing on the bridge, and another hundred were covering the other side of the moat with shields. Suddenly, shouts, crashes, shots rang out from the rear.

A small group of defenders, descending from the wall, went to the rear of the troops of Glian. First, they cut off unsuspecting mages with a sudden throw (two men and one woman), and then, disintegrating with a chain, struck the besieging infantry. From the rear, they were not protected by anything - even the armor was weaker on the back. The group of attacks, on the contrary, was armed to the teeth: two backpack flame throwers, four multiply charged grenade launchers and grenade launchers on each machine gun, three light and one universal machine guns. Such a powerful blow of the “pocket artillery” overturned all the infantrymen standing along it into the ditch, and the fiery streams passed right through the infantrymen and knights standing on the bridge. At the same time, both heavy machine guns in the fortress and all the defenders woke up.The bridge turned into hell, but it was impossible to escape from hell - from the side of the fortress it was littered with the bodies of bulls and peaks of defenders, and from the back side it was closed by fiery jets. In addition, the unknown attacker hit the magic precisely in the cracks of the armor, in the eye sockets of the helmets, in the unprotected parts of the body.

Someone to death, someone hurt, someone burned. None of Al Zvikerd left the bridge. Everything ended by the evening, when the wounded were separated from the dead and the fortresses were taken to prison to assist them. That evening, another fifty people were added to the list of candidates for the Ghon army. Unfortunately, Gliana was not among them. Under the desperate howl of Quinlia, the body of her son and hope al Zvikerdov fell into the pit along with the bodies of other valiant knights and simple warriors of her kind. Beal triumphant victory.

The square in front of the citadel of Chill Cliff

The huge beast was unable to fly away because of its broken wings, and the walls prevented him from escaping. Lara stood behind the guards who surrounded him and at the sight held his huge bird head with a curved beak. It was a pity to kill the beast, but he had already managed to hate, sweeping away with his huge paws the three approaching spearmen. Suddenly the beast darted somewhere in the side and immediately returned to its place. One of the maids of the castle, a plump woman of about thirty, who had stumbled out of the door in the square, was beating in his claws, thinking that the battle was over. The monster's huge claws held her carefully, without causing harm, but firmly. The woman huddled between two paws clutching her shoulders, screamed, but no one jerked. It seemed that the monster is not going to harm her. Took a hostage? Surely, he understands something?

Lara lowered the rifle and carefully looked at. The griffin with its front paws pressed the woman's shoulders to the ground, and grabbed one of her hind legs by the hip and pushed her, forcing her leg to bend under her stomach. With two movements of a terrible beak, the monster tore the clothes on the back of the maid, managing not to leave even a bruise. The woman fought, screamed, called for help, but no one dared to engage in a fight with the monster.

The griffin was fussing somewhere there, at the level of her thighs, and suddenly her eyes popped out, and she screamed wildly: “Help, he rapes me!” Her fingers clung to the ground, her eyes popped out of orbit. Unhappy tried to escape, but the forces were clearly unequal - her shoulders pressed to the ground could not even move. However, this did not last long - in ten to fifteen seconds the monster moved and stopped. A woman with a squeal went on to howling, and then on a sob. She screamed again when the gryphon filed its pelvis back, coming out of it, and then fell to the ground.

The monster, as if nothing had happened, moved away to the wall and went to sleep, as if there was no just desperate battle, broken wings and violent rape. The woman tried to get up and collapsed to her knees. Blood was running down her legs. She looked plaintively at Lara. The guards ran up to the unfortunate, put him on a stretcher and took them to the citadel - Ghona, this situation seemed extremely interesting for the study. The griffin did not wake up while it was tied up with chains and dragged to the backyard of the fortress. He woke up only late at night, but no longer showed aggression. On the contrary, with pleasure I ate the meat brought to him and even muttered something on his own, a griffin.

Beal felt that he had an important discovery in his hands. Ghon saw opportunities. This monster definitely should have benefited the Nest. Meanwhile, in the cloudless sky over the valley of thorns, a blood-purple dawn was engaged.