Then the gargoyle ichor struck, and men howled as it spattered them and burned. With unvoiced accord, the soldiers and attackers both left off fighting and ran for cover.
"Come!" Sir Guy pulled Matt away toward the door of the keep. "This is not your place! Peasants and outlaws can hold only so long against evil magic—you must cut out the corrupted heart of this corpse!"
They turned, but they could scarcely push through the jam-up—with a caustic rain falling from the skies, every man was struggling to get indoors. They shouted and flailed, the king's guards trying to cut their way through, making a din that drowned out the battle above—until a huge roar boomed out, and men screamed and shouted and scrambled aside from the tongues of flame that slashed out at them. Matt stumbled to his feet, facing the door of the keep, and found it filled with a dragon. "Stegoman!" he yelled with relief—just before the merry men caught him up as they streamed through the doors to either side of the dragon, swirling him into the armory where the current broke up into eddies of merry men fighting Gordogrosso's guards.
Matt leaped aside, refusing to let himself be sidetracked. He ducked and dodged between fighting groups, heading for the broad main staircase, some strange compulsion pushing him on and up. There wasn't time! He had to hurry, not forget what the core of this battle was all about. On and upward he ran, up the stairs to find and fight the king. Guards leaped out to challenge him, huge men in rococo armor—but Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Sir Guy dispatched them with a few cuts and parries each, finding the weak points in their armor that decorations hid. Fadecourt heaved the huge men up and tossed them crashing behind him, where Yverne jabbed between gorget and breastplate with her sword and ran on, her face set into stone, her eyes burning.
Then, suddenly, they were out of the stairwell and into the throne room. Matt stopped, suddenly awed by the huge space and the gloom that clustered above, hiding the dark ceiling—and quailing, for a moment, at the sight of the huge armored figure, a twelve-foot-high ogre with four arms and the ugliest face he could imagine, who bellowed laughter and shouted, "Fools! To think you can come against Gordogrosso the king, and live! Now die!"
Fireballs filled the air, hissing toward each of the companions.
Matt shouted,
And the balls faded and disappeared before they could reach his friends.
The sorcerer snarled and gestured, shouting a rhyme in a language that seemed to slide around the consonants, hissing and clacking—and a forest of spears sprang up from the floor, shooting toward Matt and his friends.
But Matt was ready for that one. He shouted another verse:
A wall of shields suddenly blocked their sight of the throne room; the spears slammed into them and rattled back harmlessly. Then Matt called out,
The shields disappeared—but the king was hissing another enchantment, his fingers weaving sinuous patterns in the air. The spears turned into snakes, writhing toward the companions with fangs bared.
They all had swords; they all started chopping—except Fadecourt, who seized vipers by the handful and threw them back among their fellows. But Matt shouted,
The floor was suddenly filled with small furry bodies, dancing and red-eyed. The snakes turned from the humans to these much more dire threats, hissing and weaving, each faced with a mongoose.
Gordogrosso reddened and howled another spell. The air glittered and glimmered, forms becoming apparent, and Matt watched, waiting with apprehension—and wondered why the huge man didn't wade into physical battle while he was spellcasting.
Unless he wasn't really all that physical?
Then the glittering hardened into a thousand diamond points.
Matt saw what was coming, and shouted,
The points shot toward the companions like buckshot-but a swarm of men was suddenly there, catching the diamonds out of the sky and slamming them into the stone with sledgehammers.
Gordogrosso barked a command, and the Tarriers disappeared—but so did the diamond points.
Matt managed to get a verse started while he was barking, though.
The king screamed; his huge form grew cloudy and shrank, then was suddenly gone—and in its place was a little, gnarled, ancient figure, hunched over, with a huge nose and thin wisps of mustache. His chin receded so badly that it was scarcely there, and his eyes were glittering beads of malevolence.
"Why, how is this?" Yverne gasped.
"It was illusion," Matt snapped, "the ogre. This is what he really is."
"But so old..."
"Yes." Matt nodded, with grim certainty. 'They were all illusions—Gordogrosso the Second, Third, and Fourth. There was only the one of them, all along—two hundred years old, and more. This is the original usurper we're looking at."
"Then he never was legitimate!"
"Vile creatures!" the ancient screamed. "Stinking traitors!" From out of his gorgeous brocade robes, he drew a shriveled hand that was almost a claw, wrapped around a glowing ring. "Let the hellfire have ye!"
He hurled the ring like a quoit, and as it sailed toward them, it grew larger and larger, settling about the six companions before they could run—and burst into flame.
Its searing heat hit like the belch of a blast furnace. The women screamed as their hair and dresses smoked, and a tongue of flame licked Sir Guy. He howled as the heat conducted through his armor. Fadecourt took a valiant chance; he leaped high, arcing over the tops of the flames toward the king—but a flare shot up and wrapped him in fire. He fell, bellowing in pain, rolling in agony and batting at the tongues.
"They will not die!" the old king cackled in vindictive glee. " 'Tis hellfire!"
Inspiration struck, and Matt shouted out,