“There!” Brin shouted, pointing at a leaping beast.
He crossed swords, turning a bat-faced monster into rubble.
Tesh’s pride was short-lived, as to his left Gifford cleaved through three at a time.
“By all the gods—Moya!” Brin gasped.
Thinking she was in trouble, Tesh gave a glance and witnessed a stunning sight. With the shimmering blue dome gone, Moya was shooting her bow. The famous archer was hitting her targets as always but with one incredible difference. She wasn’t pulling arrows or nocking them. She merely plucked the string. Each time she did, a new arrow flew. Her speed, already famously quick, became impossible to believe. Moya panned from left to right feverishly strumming Audrey like a stringed instrument. Then as they watched, she began firing two and three arrows at once.
A pile of loose rubble, the residue of Fenelyus’s dome and Moya’s attack, built up around them. The storm of bankors faltered, slowed, then stopped. Those remaining on the ground flew away.
“We won?” Gifford asked, shocked but elated. He was grinning and hugging Roan with one arm as the other still held his blade triumphantly.
Fenelyus struggled to her feet, shook her head, and pointed at the sky. “Two swarms?” She shook her head.
Far above, another, identical set of bankors started their downward trek.
“There’s no call for that, Ferrol!” the Fhrey shouted at the sky. “You’re just making me angry, now. Mideon did that once; now there is a new mountain in Elan and a hundred thousand fewer Belgriclungreians!”
Fenelyus let forth a scream that made Tesh and everyone else flinch. In that instant, her whole body burst into a brilliant white light that was too bright to look at. Through squinting eyes, he saw Fenelyus was a white-hot fireball, and from her blazing form, lightning arced. Countless tiny threads stretched out as pulsating tentacles of blinding light. Where they touched bankors, the beasts’ bodies were blown apart, making it rain. Their smoldering residue melted the snow around them.
Moya went back to shooting, dropping to one knee for better support, as she, too, sprayed the falling sky.
In less time than the first, the second wave was dispersed, and once more, snow fell.
Fenelyus was panting hard and looking as weary as Tressa. “Move!”
She led them through the snow, a haphazard, undisciplined group. Fenelyus, who was visibly weakened, walked slowly. Even so, Tesh continued to fall farther behind.
Worse than that, Tressa was hardly moving. She staggered as if she might fall.
“Gifford!” Roan shouted. “Help Tressa!”
What limitations the crippled man had had in life were reversed in Phyre. Tesh was seeing the real Gifford, the invisible man who had been trapped inside the impaired body. Tesh never would have imagined it, but knew he should have. The potter had been a phenomenal artist and a bona fide hero, managing all of it as a cripple, and as such, he had to have an abundance of willpower. With grace and strength, he caught hold of Tressa, lifted her gently, and carried her forward with ease.
This left Tesh at the back of their line, and with each step, he faltered.
Who is the cripple now?
Ghostly outlines the size of mountains became visible through the curtain of falling snow. Easily the biggest thing Tesh had ever seen, the citadel of King Mideon was a monster of a fortress with a multitude of overlapping towers the shape of overturned drinking steins and topped with shallow domes. Two massive pillars, which were still no more than hazy shadows, indicated a gate—a tall gray one. Between their party and the entrance lay a wide fissure, a zigzagging rift torn through the ground. Spanning the gap, the final bridge provided access to the castle.
Those in front were running hard, dodging and leaping cracks, getting close. The castle and its open gate gave Tesh hope that at least Brin would make it through. Tesh knew he wouldn’t. Cursing his weakness and clenching his fists, he dug deep for strength. He’d found it before. In fights he was sure he’d lost, he pushed beyond his boundaries and realized new strength. He was reaching again, struggling to find that hidden granule of reserve.
Nothing.
“Tesh!” Brin stopped and called.
“Don’t! Keep running. I’ll make it,” he lied.
She turned toward him.
“We had a deal, remember? You run!”
“But—”
A moment later, it didn’t matter, as all of them were knocked off their feet. Fenelyus was hit the hardest and was blown into the air by the force of an explosion of snow and rock. Directly in front of her, a mammoth creature burst out of the ground. The size of Suri’s dragon, it looked similar, except this thing was longer—more snake-like, if a snake were a hundred feet long. And while it had no legs, it did have arms. Horns and spikes ran the length of its back. It wailed a hideous screech that ripped at the world with a voice to match the torn landscape around them.
Everyone found their feet, except Fenelyus, who lay unmoving before the monster.
“What is that?” Gifford asked.
“A digger,” Rain said, but not in reply. The little guy had said the words out of fascination.
“Fen?” Moya shouted at the Fhrey as she aimed her bow at the beast. Their guide lay unmoving on the snow.
The creature rose up the way a snake does before it strikes, but it didn’t attack. Instead, it screeched again and again.
“What’s it doing?” Gifford asked. He was still holding Tressa, his eyes shifting repeatedly toward the bridge. Perhaps he was wondering if he could make a run around the snake.
“Not doing anything,” Moya replied. She kept her bow up but hadn’t shot yet. “Just making an awful racket.”
“How come?”
“That’s why,” Tesh shouted, pointing behind them.
The snow had stopped. The hazy curtain was gone. A deep rhythmic booming sounded as three converging armies marched across the vast plain. Men, Fhrey, Dherg, giants, goblins, and a handful of other things he had no names for marched in perfect rows perhaps a hundred wide. He didn’t know how many deep. They carried spears and shields and wore helms with a variety of symbols and plumes. Standards hung lifeless from poles along with jangling bells. Huge drums mounted on massive beasts beat a relentless cadence.
“For the love of Elan!” Moya raised Audrey, took aim at the giant serpent blocking their way, and let a barrage of dark arrows fly. They followed one upon the other so quickly that she had loosed twenty before the first one landed. She aimed for the eyes and hit her target with six. Four punctured its snout. The thing brushed them away with a swipe of a hand and roared its screech again.
“Son of a Tetlin whore!” Moya cursed.
“Rain! Stop!” Gifford shouted as the dwarf ran forward toward the great worm.
He didn’t halt. With the serpent screeching in front and the pounding of the drums from behind, Tesh didn’t think he had heard.
The serpent’s eyes focused on the dwarf with greedy interest. When only a few yards away, Rain finally stopped. He pulled out his pick, and Tesh thought the dwarf planned to fight. The great worm looked to be of similar mind as it tensed, but they were both wrong. Instead, Rain drove his pick into the stone of the shelf. He struck the ground several times. His swings were mind-bogglingly fast, and each stroke sent up a burst of broken stone and dust. Then he stopped. When he did, the serpent stopped screeching, the muscles that had stood out so prominently relaxed, and the great worm lowered its head, studying the dwarf.