All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [262]
65. Fans have speculated for decades who precisely composed Eliot’s original band. While the surnames commonly mentioned match famous personas, one must not forget that Sealiah, the Queen of the Poppy Lands, was at that time responsible for the souls of those who had died from overdoses—a very large number of musicians, indeed. Eliot remained tight-lipped about the identities of his band members, not wanting their fans or families to unduly suffer, knowing they were in Hell. Still, fans wonder, and most would have “sold their souls” to hear them perform together. Having heard the band play firsthand, I can tell you that price would’ve been a bargain. The Secret Red Diaries of Sarah Covington, Third Edition, Sarah Covington, Mariposa Printers, Dublin.
76
LAST MOMENTS TOGETHER
Eliot felt broken inside and that broken part didn’t care about anything anymore. But part of him wanted to scream and toss caution to the winds and play the heck out of Lady Dawn and smash Mephistopheles’ armies to atoms.
. . . And maybe then Jezebel would be by his side.
Or was it being in Hell that made him feel that way? Maybe after this was over, he and Fiona and Robert should just go back to Paxington, hit the books, and figure out how to get through the rest of the school year without being killed, maimed, or flunking.
Eliot shook his head clear of those thoughts. He stood on a stage that had been set up near the edge of the mesa.
To the left, the land sheared away where he’d collapsed the tunnels. That now provided a way to the top of the plateau, a treacherously steep slope, but one soldiers and shadow creatures could rush up. He flushed with embarrassment that he’d caused this, but better that than letting the enemy crawl up through the middle of their defenses.
This was where Mephistopheles’ armies would try to overwhelm Sealiah’s forces—and it was where the Queen had concentrated her armies and artillery.
Archers and cannon had been positioned along the walls on either side of the slope. Industrial cranes dangled platforms piled with rubble—ready to release those loads and start an avalanche. Five hundred soldiers with rifle lances and tower shields formed a phalanx in the center of a breach. To either side, two thousand foot soldiers waited with ax and crossbow, net and pike. Mr. Welmann was there, too, with saber in hand and flintlock pistols tucked into his camo sweatpants. Behind them were the Poppy Queen’s Calvary—three hundred mounted knights who could rush through the line and knock the enemy back . . . although Eliot thought this a measure of last defense, because once they charged down that steep hill, getting back up wouldn’t be an easy option.
Eliot had read about every important battle, thanks to Audrey and Cee’s homeschooling: Thermopylae, Waterloo, and Gettysburg. He remembered how high the casualties had been even for so-called victories.
Sealiah’s defensive line looked solid, though.
But enough to win?
At the base of the Twelve Towers Mesa, shadows flitted, crisscrossed, and grew longer and darker until they reached the river in the valley. Beyond those riverbanks was a solid mass of black. Clouds the color of coal covered the sky and plunged this world into night.
Eliot put on his glasses, squinted, and caught glimpses of what moved in that darkness: large forms with haunches and pointed insect legs and blinking eyes that crawled over one another like it was all part of the same thing. The dark stretched to the horizon, endless and impenetrable.
Mephistopheles stood at the head of his ranks. The Infernal Lord rumm-bled within a swirling thunderhead that rose a hundred feet into the air. He was a giant flickering in and out of sight: an armored leg, a muscular arm, a barbed pitchfork the size of a telephone pole.
A pair of eyes, red and unblinking, stared back at Eliot from those clouds, two concentrated points of fury that meant to destroy them all.
Yeah . . . whatever.
As if Eliot