All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [105]
Queen and country and flags to fly.
Brothers and sons a’glory sought
Our silent graves what we wrought.
Eliot bowed faster, his head bobbing. Horses rode from the fog into the alley. Their headless riders were armored, holding shield and lance. They charged into the fray, scattered the shadow monsters, impaling some, then slowed as they faced overwhelming numbers, switching to sword, horse rearing . . . but all falling in the darkness.
Eliot tapped his bow upon the strings.
Black iron cannon mounted on wagon-wheel bases maneuvered to the front—and fired!
Six flashes of thunder and smoke filled the alley. Blasts that blew shadow and flesh and claw to bits, battered brick walls down . . . and revealed more darkness beyond . . . a thousand shark-tooth grins . . . and an endless starless night.
Fiona had never seen her brother like this before. He’d been stupidly brave, sure. But not the center of a battle and conducting troops like some general. It was like one of his daydream fantasies come to life.
But it was strategically stupid to fight here.
It wasn’t just the shadow monsters—although their numbers seemed endless, and certainly any one of them looked like they could tear them to pieces.
It was this alley. It was a sideways passage through nothing. A void in space that, if they weren’t careful, they’d get lost in and never find the way out.
Already Fiona felt her sense of direction swimming.
“Eliot!” she shouted.
Eliot jerked away from the reloading cannon crews, squinted as he finally noticed Mitch’s light, nodded, but kept playing.
“This way,” Fiona called.
The shadows about them pushed in.
Fiona wouldn’t let them stop her—not when she was so close.
She turned to Mitch and told him: “Duck.”
Confusion washed over his face—but only for a moment—then he understood. He crouched and held the ball of light before his body.
Fiona spun her chain overhead and let out the full length.
Where whirling metal touched shadow and flesh, there was smoke and blood and shrills of pain . . . and the enemy moved back.
Fiona and Mitch crept forward past outstretched talons and hissing maws.
Jezebel moved to the other side of Eliot, her pale arms reddening as if severely sunburned by Mitch’s white-magic light.
“You can’t keep fighting,” Fiona told Eliot. “We’ve got to get out—while we still can.”
Rather than be delighted at his rescue, Eliot looked annoyed.
“She is right,” Jezebel said, blinking in the strong light. “The Shadow Legions are endless in their realms . . . which are near. I can feel them, and I can feel us getting pulled deeper into the darkness.”
Eliot looked around them. “Okay. But which way is out?”
Fiona turned and couldn’t see the exit.
She had, however, left a trail of fallen monsters. Connect any two points, and you had a straight line. In theory, anyway . . . in normal space. She wasn’t sure if the geometry she knew applied here.
“Back this way.”
Fiona led them—Mitch next to her, his light brighter than ever; Eliot next, who continued to play (although his music changed, sounding like a retreat now); and Jezebel last, walking backward so she faced the tide of creatures that followed.
Eliot left his cannon crews behind.
They fired together once more—a storm of smoke and screams and shouts—then shadows covered them, coinciding with the end of Eliot’s song.
Fiona saw a sliver of light overhead, and the buildings tilted back to their proper standing positions. Then the passage straightened and she spied the Paxington alley.
She broke into a trot and they followed, emerging in the warm afternoon.
Jezebel looked as she had in class: no claws, her praying mantis eyes back to normal.
Fiona, though, would never forget the monster inside the girl.
Mitch closed his hand and his light winked out. “Apologies,” he said to Jezebel.
“No need. Your white magic was necessary to keep the Droogan-dors at bay,” Jezebel replied, unperturbed. “I am in your debt, Stephenson.”
“Those creatures were from the Shadow Legions,” Mitch told her. “Beelzebub’s operatives, right?”
“Your intelligence