A rhythmic pounding sounded on the last door; some sort of ram was being brought to bear. Arutha and the others hurried outside the cave mouth and halted to watch. Guy triggered the ballista and it seemed to hesitate, then with a jerk it snapped the chain forward only a few inches. It was enough. Abruptly the door erupted outward as Guy sprinted for the cavern mouth, a rolling cloud of dust behind. A few bloodied and pulped goblin bodies fell out as rocks came rushing out of the tunnel.
They all ran with Guy away from the cavern. He pointed up, where a path led above the cave. “I want to go up there awhile. If you want to head out now, go, but I’m going to see this.”
Amos said, “I wouldn’t miss it,” and followed after. Arutha looked at them, then followed.
While they were climbing above the cave mouth, a rumbling beneath their feet could be felt as a series of dull explosions sounded. Amos said, “The lifts were set to fall when the tunnel was collapsed. They should have ignited the barrels on each floor of the citadel, all the way down to the cavern.” Another series of explosions could be heard. “Seems the damn contraption worked.”
Suddenly the ground heaved. A sound like the heavens opening rang in their ears as they were slammed to the earth, and a concussion of enormous power stunned them all for a moment. From beyond the edge of the prominence they were climbing, an astonishing, roiling ball of orange and yellow flames rushed heavenward. It rose at rapid rate, expanding as it went, and in the terrible beauty of its glow they could see trailing debris being lifted upward. Dull thuds rang through the ground beneath them as the last reservoirs of naphtha began to ignite, ripping the keep apart. Stones, charred fragments of wood, and bodies were being sucked skyward as if some giant wind blew straight up.
Arutha lay upon the ground, staggered by the display. A shrieking wind passed him, then there came an immense blast of heat. For a moment the air burned their noses and stung their faces, as if they stood within feet of the mouth of a giant furnace. Amos had to yell over the noise. “The storage below the citadel blew. We were venting it all day and night, so it would become explosive.”
His words were faint, as ears rang, then were drowned out by another titanic explosion as the ground bucked and heaved under them, followed instantly by a series of lesser detonations, the concussion of the reports hammering at them like physical blows. They were still two hundred yards from the cliff overlooking the city, but the heat was nearly unbearable where they lay.
Guy shook his head to clear it and said, “It’s . . . so much more than we had thought.”
Locklear said, “If we had reached the edge of the cliff we’d have been cooked.”
Jimmy cast a glance backward. “It’s a good thing we got out of the cave, as well.”
They all craned their heads around to look back to where he pointed. The ground continued to heave and more explosions sounded as rocks and debris rolled down the slopes past them. Below, the hillside had changed. The entire contents of the tunnel had been blown clear by the first massive explosion, covering the hillside opposite the cavern with a litter of body parts and rubble. Then the ground heaved and pitched as another massive explosion sounded. Again a fireball rose high overhead, though not as massive as the last.
There was a surging, rolling motion of the ground and a third tremendous explosion came, then some minor trembling. They all lay still, lest they be tossed down again by the shaking earth. After a time the ground only echoed with dull thuds, and they stood. Still two hundred yards or more from the edge of the cliff, they gathered and watched as the utter destruction of Armengar was accomplished. In only a few terrible moments the home of a people, the centre of their culture, had been swept away. It was an obliteration unmatched in the annals of Midkemian warfare. Guy watched the angry, glowing sky. He attempted to walk closer to the edge of the cliff, but the heat, an almost visible curtain of superheated air rising before the cliff face, forced him back. For a moment he stood, as if resolving to brave the inferno and glimpse the remains of his city, then he relented.
“Nothing could have survived that explosion,” said Arutha. “Every goblin and Dark Brother between the citadel and the city wall must have been killed.”
Amos said, “Maybe his bastardness got caught with his pants down. I’d love to think he had a limit on how much his magic could handle.”
Arutha said, “His soldiers may have died, but I think he will somehow escape. I don’t think that beast he rode minded the fire.”
Jimmy said, “Look!” and pointed skyward.
The cloud of smoke that hung above them was glowing red from the reflected light of the fire below as a giant column of flames still rose toward the heavens. Against that angry backdrop a single figure could be seen riding in the air upon the back of a glowing red steed. It seemed to be descending, as if running downhill in a circle, and it was clearly making its way back to the heart of Murmandamus’s camp.