They’re just imps, he told himself. Imps in huge bodies, but imps all the same.
He recalled the words and warning of the Fomorian after the giant had reforged the gae bolga beneath the waves.
This weapon can never be broken. The wounds it makes will never heal. There is nothing it cannot pierce and nothing it cannot slay, for its essence will destroy both flesh and spirit … this blade will slay gods as well as monsters.…
That weapon was calling to him now, urging him forward. Max was not a mortal being; he was a demigod, a prince of the Sidh who had just driven half of Prusias’s army back across the field. The Morrígan could see his greatness; why couldn’t he? Max was stronger than they, wilder than the storm, and when his anger was roused, nothing on this earth could stand against him. He was invincible.…
Trembling anew, he stared out at the dreadnoughts like a rabid wolf. He spurred YaYa forward and she obeyed, breaking into a trot and then a rolling canter. The gae bolga burned, scalding Max’s hand as the blade keened and screamed like the Morrígan herself.
Breaking into a gallop, YaYa streaked across the battlefield, as swift as an arrow. She soon left the ground behind, springing into the air and racing over the gales and gusts as though they were a shorter path to her enemy. The dreadnoughts loomed even larger, filling Max’s view so that everything else disappeared. It was growing ever hotter, ever louder. Scorched air filled his lungs; all about him was the sound of heavy, churning machinery and the belching fires from the smokestacks. He focused on the nearest one’s central eye, so huge and luminescent it might have been the moon. Gripping the gae bolga, Max stood tall in the stirrups and reared back to strike as Scathach had taught him.
The impact was like a bomb.
Max and YaYa were thrown back with inconceivable force. They crashed into what remained of Trench Nineteen’s embankment, careening over rocks and sharpened stakes until they rolled down into the trench itself. Clawing blindly at the wet earth, Max sensed the gae bolga’s searing heat and seized hold of it. Coming to his senses, he glanced about and saw YaYa lying on her side in a small crater. Great waves of steam rose off her, as though the ki-rin were a meteor that had fallen to earth. One of the embankment stakes had impaled her shoulder, while a sickening shard of bone protruded from her foreleg.
Dirt rained down upon them as the creatures continued to advance. Scrambling to his feet, Max saw that the one he’d struck was stumbling. Half its knotted, pulpy head was missing as though it had detonated. Fire and smoke gushed from the gaping wound. Listing sideways, it flailed its tentacles in an attempt to balance, but its momentum was too great. Its legs gave out and the monster toppled like a falling skyscraper.
A savage elation overcame Max. The Morrígan was right; he was invincible. He was the son of Lugh Lamfhada, High King and greatest of the Tuatha Dé Danaan. And the weapon Max wielded was no mere sword or spear. The gae bolga was a conduit—it was a living tether to the war goddess herself. Together they could destroy the dreadnoughts. Together, they could destroy everything.…
Twelve creatures remained, advancing steadily in a line like a convoy of battleships. Scrambling out of the trench, Max glared up at them as energy from the gae bolga flooded into him, the Morrígan’s power mingling, multiplying with his own. He ran at the colossal things with blind, berserk rage. The nearest loomed above him, its bulk blotting out the sky. Raising the gae bolga high, Max plunged its point deep into the ground.
The instant it pierced the earth, the spear made a hideous scream and split the battlefield asunder. The shock wave sent Max flying backward, tumbling head over heels until he crashed against an overturned wagon. His leg slammed against its heavy axle, cracking his shinbone down the center. Ignoring the pain, Max focused on the battlefield. The very terrain where the gae bolga had struck seemed to be dying, rotting away and collapsing to form a great fissure that spread swiftly beneath the attackers. With a roar, the fissure became a yawning chasm as the surrounding earth sheared away in a flurry of avalanches and rock-slides.
Three of the dreadnoughts vanished from view as they plunged down into the gulf. There was an appalling crash as they struck water far below. Seconds later, jets of steam shot from the fissure like geysers, arcing high into the night and dissipating on the wind.
Gasping for breath, Max watched the geysers plume and drift. He could do little else as the remaining dreadnoughts steadied themselves with their tentacles and continued over the chasm as though nothing had happened. Once across, they began to pick up speed, charging now like Hannibal’s war elephants. The entire battlefield was shaking, but there was nothing Max could do. The Morrígan had grown silent and his own powers were spent.
Boom boom boom boom!
Through gaps between the dreadnoughts, Max glimpsed Prusias’s palanquin and his remaining troops approaching over the dark fields. Dozens of lightning bolts lanced the dreadnoughts from Rowan’s casting towers with no apparent effect. The creatures were running now, their ropy tentacles slapping at the ground while torrents of smoke billowed from their crowning backs.
They strode over Trench Nineteen, stampeding over the remaining terrain. Max was certain one would crush him, grind him into a red smear. He almost wished they would. He had no desire to witness Rowan’s destruction, to see its people murdered or enslaved as Prusias’s army swept in. Everything around him was blinding light and deafening sound and violent, terrifying tremors.
He gazed up, awestruck, as a dreadnought stepped over him, utterly heedless of his presence. There was a rending crack as the first reached the citadel. Twisting about, Max saw one of the monsters rear up on its hind legs to seize one of the casting towers with its tentacles. With a savage wrench, the creature heaved the entire structure off its foundation, ripping it free as though it were no more than a sapling. Others slammed into the wall, rearing up like great spiders to tear frantically at the battlements and masonry.
An overwhelming sense of anger and shame came over Max. Scathach was likely dead. YaYa too. By dawn, thousands more would join them. All of his efforts had been for naught; he had summoned every ounce of Old Magic in him and still the Enemy was grinding Rowan to rubble. Gazing out, Max saw Prusias’s forces halting at the chasm he had made. Already vyes were loping along its ledges, scouting for the narrowest gaps where they might devise a way to cross.
At this range, Max could see Prusias with his naked eye. The demon was standing at the palanquin’s threshold like some barbarian chieftain come to view the sack of Rome. Max’s anger kindled to blind rage. He had never wanted to destroy another being so badly in his life. If he could just get up, rise once more on this broken leg …
And then a dangerous, intoxicating thought occurred to him.
Astaroth!
Clutching the wagon’s wheel, Max twisted farther about so he could see Northgate. It had not yet fallen, but one of the dreadnoughts was lumbering toward it. There might still be a chance to save Rowan if only he spoke those words and called the Demon to him. Astaroth had promised to destroy Prusias’s army and protect Rowan if Max summoned him. And Astaroth never lied! He had the power to do so this instant … all Max had to do in exchange was slay Elias Bram. At the mere thought of the Archmage, Max gritted his teeth.