All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [138]
38. Holy Bible, King James translation, 1 Peter 5:8. —Editor.
39
TWO AGAINST ONE
Team Dragon and Team Wolf sprinted toward Eliot and the rest of Team Scarab.
Eliot wasn’t scared. He was ready to fight.
Robert had taught him how to stay cool and not burn through his adrenaline reserves when they’d sparred. He’d also learned when to move quick, strike, and finish an opponent before they knew what hit them.
The other teams spread out and slowed, making sure Team Scarab couldn’t escape.
One worry: Eliot had learned to fight only one-on-one.
How did you protect yourself against sixteen enemies at once? Or protect everyone else on your side?
Especially Jezebel. She looked like she’d already been through one major battle today.
For all Eliot knew, that could be true. Had she crossed some battlefield in Hell just to get to Paxington for midterms? He wished she’d open up and tell him.
Too much thinking. They had to take the initiative—or lose it.
“Fiona?” he whispered. “What’s the plan?”
She tore her gaze from the onrushing teams. She blinked, and her features screwed with intense concentration. “Right—the plan is to get to the jungle gym and our flag.”
Robert whispered, “You’re actually going to play this stupid game?”
“It be the only way,” Jeremy told him. “End the match, and then there’s no fighting allowed.”
“If that’ll stop Dragon and Wolf,” Mitch countered.
“At least on the gym, we’ll have some cover,” Sarah said, panic creeping into her voice.
Amanda’s hands were at her throat, too scared to add an opinion.
Fiona turned to Eliot. “Get us some cover to cross the field.”
Eliot nodded. He understood what she asked of him.
He might hurt the others. Or worse. But Van Wyck was out for their blood. Eliot had to defend himself and his teammates . . . whatever that took.
“Leave them to me.” His voice sounded hollow and cold and not his at all.
Eliot tapped his bow on Lady Dawn’s strings, the opening of “The March of the Suicide Queen,” and skipped a third of the way into the piece—where shrieking notes built to a crescendo: the entrance of the cannoneers.
He cast three shadows upon the grass, and through them wheeled forth cannon pushed by crews in mud-spattered blue uniforms with white bandoliers.39
Their appearance from nowhere stopped the charging Dragons and Wolves dead in their tracks.
Van Wyck, after only a heartbeat to assess the situation, shouted, “Scatter! Quick! Circle around!”
The cannoneers lit the fuses while they sang:
Keep the powder dry
there’s little more dire
Watch your step, laddie
lest your boots a’mire
Stuff the wad with care
load the grapeshot, squire
Damn the devil back to hell
and let the cannons fire!
Flame and thunder belched from open metal maws.
A girl on Team Dragon motioned as a cannon ball arced toward her. The black iron blurred translucent and passed through her and into the earth.
Elsewhere, though, lawn exploded twice and cratered, and dirt showered into the sky.
Two on Team Wolf were blasted backwards—landed, bounced, and slowly crawled off . . . out of the fight for now.
Eliot worried how badly they were injured, but nonetheless played on.
His cannoneers tried in vain to reposition their artillery as the rest of Dragon and Wolf flanked them.
Well, Eliot could change tactics, too.
“Get ready to run,” he whispered to his team.
Only now did he look at his teammates. They watched the other teams, arms raised defensively . . . except Sarah and Jeremy, who stared at Eliot, astonished and openmouthed.
It was almost worth it to see their faces.
Eliot sank back into his music and played “The Symphony of Existence”—the part where you died and some spirits wandered aimlessly in limbo, forever lost.
Cannons and crews faded to shadow.
The air thickened