All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [267]
Sealiah collapsed, one hand forestalling her fall. Her knights came to help her, but she waved them off and shakily got to her feet.
The shadow dinosaurs hit this wall of thorns—impaled on the living spikes, they died there. But more came, and leaped upon the backs of their fallen numbers—and hurtled over the barrier.
Behind them, the centaurs and axmen hacked at the vegetation, some throwing themselves on the tangles to become bridges.
“Light arrows!” Sealiah cried.
Her archers lit arrows, notched them, and pulled back their long bows.
“Fire!” she commanded.
A cloud of spiraling flame rose into the air, over the defenders, and down the slopes—hitting the charging dinosaurs, felling them by the dozens—and more arrows plunking farther down the steep banks—lighting the wall of vines.
The sap ignited and flared like napalm, sputtering from the plants. The coils of vegetation blazed.
A thousand of Mephistopheles’ warriors writhed and cooked in the tangles. Their screams mingled with the smoke filling the air.
There were, however, thousands more behind them, all pushing forward. They threw themselves on fire by the hundreds to smother the flames; others slashed at the vines while hands and arms blistered and burned.
The enemy breached the wall of flaming thorns, streamed though, pushing and cutting, and made the way larger.
Eliot cranked the gain on Lady Dawn to the sixth notch. He nodded with grim determination at his band. They nodded back, understanding they had to do more.
He belted out the opening chord of “The March of the Suicide Queen,” curdling the notes with a heavy metal edge.
After a beat, his band joined him. A wall of sound erupted from the amplifiers.
James and Janis sang:
Show no mercy
Ask no quarter.
Rivers of blood
blade and mortar.
Eliot pumped his arm, feeling the hoofbeats of his summoned cavalry; the bass punctuated the air with the echoes of cannon shot, sustained by a long wail from Bon’s bagpipes and James and Janis . . . that became the battle cry of the dead Napoleonic soldiers—
—as they materialized, marching forth upon the steep slopes between Sealiah and Mephistopheles’ forces.
French horsemen lowered their visors and set their lances; riflemen stopped in an orderly line and leveled their muskets, men wheeled cannons into place, aimed high, and lit fuses. Musket shot and cannonball and flashing hooves and sabers cut down the onrushing hordes of darkness.
They clashed and fought and died—on both sides—by the hundreds. The slope grew muddy and slick with blood.
Eliot and his band played on.
More soldiers appeared and fought, and screamed, and died for him.
Not enough, though.
Mephistopheles and the vast bulk of his remaining army reached the base of the mesa. The clouds darkened.
Patchwork soldiers and giant ants tore through Eliot’s exhausted army.
Eliot stopped playing. His arm was numb, and he felt as if he’d run out of notes in the song. There had to be some limit on how many ghosts he could raise.
A hundred centaurs broke though and charged Sealiah’s phalanx.
The Queen’s warriors set their rifle lances.
The centaurs fell upon them, hacked and clawed—but their assault was thrown back and they tumbled down the slope.
Archers rained death on the enemy as their ranks slipped and struggled in the mud.
The glowing red eyes of the Infernal Lord surveyed the terrain, and his terrible tactical situation. Mephistopheles thrust his pitchfork into the ground and it crackled and frosted, spreading up the hillside, freezing bodies and streams of blood in place, turning the landscape into a gruesome collection of solid shadow, contorted anatomy, and broken weapons.
The Infernal shouted, and it sounded like thunder.
His army roared in response—and charged up the hill with renewed strength.
Sealiah