Then, swiftly, before the rear guard could appear, he drove his great blue dragon forward—out of the crevice, out from behind the screening boulders, out of the spur canyon itself.
Like a thunderbolt, then, he charged, straight at the rear of the knot of huge scarlet beetles. His shout rose, a battle-cry of fury. The hwalon's rush drummed a death-roll.
A glad cry burst from Kyla's lips. She tried to dart to Haral.
But fatigue slowed her. A coleopteron sprang upon her from behind, and she crashed to the ground. Great mandibles reached out to crush her.
Haral blazed with his light-lance. The beetle died.
The girl lurched to her knees. But she could not rise. Another coleopteron rushed in to seize her.
Haral's hwalon lunged to her. Catching her up in one mighty claw, it dragged her close and stood above her, defying the beetles with all the menace of its fangs and talons and horrid, hook-beaked head.
Haral whipped round his light-lance just as the pursuing insect flicked on its Q-ray. The savage jolt of the beam striking home rocked him in the saddle. But the heavy copronium armor's breastplate held. He triggered the lance.
The beetle spun crazily, legs kicking, as the life seared out of it.