Free Flying the Storm by C. S. Arnot Page A

in the ground, and saw where the slaver he’d wounded had fallen. Tovmas paused for a moment, crouching next to the body. The eyes were glassy, and the chest was still. He saw the gaping exit in the man’s thigh, and swore as he realised he’d cut the femoral artery. Flaps of muscle splayed from the wound. The man was beyond help. Tovmas stood up and started running with his men as they crossed into the depression.
    It wasn’t much longer before the slavers saw the charging men and realised what was happening. Despite the withering fire from the men on the hill top, they still managed to shoot sporadically at Tovmas and his followers. Although at around a hundred metres, and mostly fired wild, some shots were finding their marks. As Tovmas glanced over his shoulder, he saw that two of his men had been hit; one had fallen face-down in the grass and the other was stumbling onwards, a hand pressed to his stomach.
    Infuriated, Tovmas fired his rifle as he ran, spraying shots wildly at the defenders. He knew he wasn’t hitting anything, but he squeezed the trigger anyway, his gun kicking against his chest .
    A bullet thumped into the ground in front of him , spraying grit into his eyes. He stumbled blindly forwards for a few paces before dropping to the ground, unable to continue.
    He lay on his back in the grass, fumbling for his water bottle. Holding his eyes open, he poured the water over them. It stung, and his vision was blurred, but at least he could see. Nardos and the others had reached him, and Nardos himself knelt down by Tovmas. “Are you all right?” he shouted over the militiamen’s gunfire.
    “I’m fine, just got dirt in my eyes,” Tovmas shouted back. He rolled over and got up into a crouch, eager to continue the attack before all momentum was lost. “We need to keep moving!”
    “ Come on!” cried Nardos, rising to his feet with the rest of them and charging onwards.
    The Iolaire made another pass. The thumping impacts of its heavy shells were terrifyingly close to Tovmas and his men.
    Then Tovmas, Nardos, Magar and the others were amongst the defenders, beating, hacking and firing their weapons. The dozen or so slavers by the crates and rocks were cut down by the furious Ashtarak men, standing little chance against their onslaught. The firing died away once more and the attackers spread out, all facing the sturdy little corrugated building: the last refuge of the slavers. Tovmas waved to his men to cease-fire.
    “Come out unarmed, and you’ll live!” shouted Tovmas.
    A man shouted back, but Tovmas couldn’t understand him. He recognised the language, however.
    “ Does anybody speak Azeri?” he asked along his line of men.
    “I can speak it,” said Nardos.
    “Tell them to come out with their hands on their heads, and we’ll let them live.”
    N ardos shouted at the building. The man inside shouted back.
    “He says he doesn’t believe you,” translated Nardos. “He also says there are women in there.”
    “Of course he says that, otherwise we’d j ust shoot him through the tin.”
    “Can we take that risk?” asked Nardos.
    “No.”
    “Well, what then?”
    Tovmas thought for a moment. “Ask him how many men are in there.”
    Nardos shouted at the building again. This time there was a pause before the man inside replied.
    “He says there are fi ve of them,” translated Nardos.
    “And what about the women?”
    This time the m an was quicker with his answer.
    “He says six.”
    “So there are eleven people in there ,” Tovmas almost laughed. The shed would be unbelievably cramped with eleven people.
    “Tell him to make one of the women speak , or we shoot the shed to pieces,” he said.
    Nardos smiled. He shouted the command to the Azeri-speaking man. When the reply fin ally came, he laughed out loud.
    “Apparently my Azeri is very bad, and he couldn’t understand the question,” Nardos sneered.
    “How convenient,” sighed Tovmas. An idea struck him. He thumbed the transmit