Damn Bram to hell!
The Archmage had not lifted a finger to help Rowan. For all his clever arguments, he had abandoned them. What would Bram know about aiding his friends, about helping those he loved? Marley Augur had been Bram’s closest companion, and look how he was treated! Bram was a snake; he was a loathsome, self-important snake and deserved to die a thousand times over. Max did not have to do it alone; the Morrígan would help him. Once Bram was gone and Rowan was restored, peace would follow; they would work with Astaroth to create something better, something beautiful and lasting. Wasn’t that what the Demon truly wanted? And Astaroth never lied.…
Something settled on Max’s hand. Glancing down, he saw a brown gypsy moth scuttling over his fingers, twitching its wings and feelers. Was it real? Taking flight again, the moth circled twice about Max’s head and then flew toward Northgate. Max followed its progress until his gaze settled on a pale, translucent figure gliding toward him.
It was Astaroth.
The Demon was in his spectral form, no more than a pale apparition walking across the battlefield amid all the destruction. He was smiling, but there was no mockery or amusement in those angelic features. There was only love; there was only compassion and understanding. Cradling the Book of Thoth, the Demon extended a hand and silently urged Max to speak the words that would summon him.
“Noble Astaroth,” Max whispered. “Pray favor thy petitioner with wisdom from under hill, beyond the stars.…”
As the words tumbled forth, the Demon’s smile widened.
He nodded at Max to finish, beckoned eagerly with a terrible gleam in his merry black eyes. But Max trailed off, blinking instead at a tiny figure that came hurtling out from Northgate even as the dreadnought reared up to demolish it.
The figure was David Menlo.
Max glanced back at Astaroth, but the apparition was already fading. Its smile was gone; its features blank and masklike as it disappeared into the night.
Utterly perplexed, Max pulled himself higher and stared in disbelief at his friend.
David was now directly beneath the dreadnought, screaming in terror and running in staggering zigzags as he sought to avoid the monstrosity’s stamping, shuffling feet and keep his balance on the shaking ground. On several occasions he stumbled and fell, but each time he righted himself and hobbled on with crazed determination.
He was making for Max, calling his friend’s name as though he could possibly be heard above the din. The sorcerer practically collapsed when he reached the wagon. Yelling for Max to take firm hold of the gae bolga, David seized his other hand as he had on Madam Petra’s balloon.
Torrents of energy suddenly rippled through Max, screaming through every blood vessel as though David had flipped a circuit breaker. His broken leg kicked and he tried to tear free of David’s grasp, but the sorcerer would not let go.
Strange things were happening to Max. He beheld not only David crying out in Latin, but also himself wreathed in a nimbus of golden light and slumped against the wagon. It seemed as though he were also seeing the world from David’s perspective, their visions overlapping. As David turned, Max’s view shifted. He was now gazing out at the dreadnoughts as they began to clamber and climb over Rowan’s broken walls.
Max caught his breath as the dreadnoughts came to a sudden, inexplicable halt. Huge golden pentacles were forming around each, their intricate symbols reflected in the monster’s shiny underbellies. The circles trapped the creatures where they stood. Once the pentacles were complete, the abominations could not even twitch without David’s permission.
David’s voice was growing ever stronger as his mind locked on to each of the spirits that were controlling the gargantuan bodies. Max could sense a mounting desperation as the imps fought against David’s will.
They fought in vain.
The sorcerer possessed all nine dreadnoughts, simultaneously shattering all resistance with terrifying strength and dominance. The imps were utterly overwhelmed. Still connected to David, Max became aware of these new presences on the periphery of his consciousness. Whenever he let his mind drift toward one of them, he found himself staring through a dreadnought’s many eyes. Through those fragmented, hazy lenses, he glimpsed Old Tom and Maggie within Old College. At first glance, they appeared undamaged, but it was too disorienting and painful to inhabit the dreadnought for long.
David Menlo had no such difficulties.
The boy did not merely command each dreadnought; he was each dreadnought. The sorcerer’s extraordinary mind controlled the bodies as if they were merely huge extensions of his own intelligence and will. At his silent urging, the creatures now turned slowly about and fixed their attention upon Prusias’s army.
The demon’s troops were beginning to cross Max’s chasm, marching over giant battering rams that had been laid across to form causeways. When the dreadnoughts wheeled upon them, those in front frantically tried to retreat, crashing into those coming up behind them. Many were thrust aside, toppling into the gorge and triggering a general panic as every vye and ogre tried to scramble back.
Sweat was coursing down David’s pale face as he followed the dreadnoughts’ earthshaking advance. Within seconds, they strode over Trench Nineteen and reached the chasm, obliterating the bridges with their tentacles. Striding over the gorge, the dreadnoughts now loomed directly over thousands of vyes, ogres, deathknights, and demons like smoldering mountains.
The ensuing onslaught was horrific. Whole companies were trampled in seconds; others were destroyed by the sweeping, flailing tentacles that pulverized everything in their path. David showed no mercy as the dreadnoughts began walling the army off and hemming them in against the gorge and the cliffs.
Some escaped, of course. Some vyes managed to flee beneath the dreadnoughts like mice darting beneath a cat. Several rakshasa transformed into spirits of fiery smoke and escaped through the air. But the rest were less fortunate as the dreadnoughts crushed, lashed, and drove them toward the steep cliffs and chasm. Thousands were sent hurtling over the ledges, plunging hundreds of feet to the sharp rocks and wild waves.
Throughout, Max had focused almost all his attention on the golden palanquin. Two dreadnoughts had seized it and were pushing the massive thing toward the cliffs, digging their tentacles beneath and slamming their bodies against it. As the monsters gained leverage, the litter flipped and began to tumble as though the creatures were rolling a gargantuan boulder. With a final frenzied effort, they heaved it and themselves over the edge, clinging to the carriage like hideous octopi as it plunged down to the sea.
The seven remaining dreadnoughts followed their example, charging the cliffs and sweeping along everything in their path as they threw themselves like lemmings over the ledge. More geysers came screaming up once they crashed, their mist floating across the landscape like shimmering veils of silver.
Max heard himself gasp when the dreadnoughts struck the water. A peripheral part of his mind and consciousness had been with them and experienced firsthand the tumbling blur of sky and sea, the awful glimpse of rocks and ocean rushing up to meet them.
Thankfully, David had released the psychic connection right before the monsters had struck. With a groan, Max leaned back against the wagon, feeling as weak and helpless as a newborn. He clutched hopefully at the gae bolga, but the spear lay dark and dormant in the mud. Rowan’s sorcerer was also apparently spent, for he doubled over coughing and wheezing for breath as steam rose off his body in ghostly wisps.
An eerie quiet settled over the battlefield. There were no more drums, no more horns or the terrible shaking of dreadnoughts. There was only the distant crash of the sea and the sound of their hoarse breathing.