The remaining Howlers fight their way to the roof to join Sevro and me as we fly up the mountain toward the high tower. At the top, the landing pad nearly sixty meters across is being used by a Gray sniper team and Obsidian reinforcements. They retreat as we land, seeking shelter behind the long wings of the Ash Lord’s personal shuttle.
Sevro and I land on the edge together and fight back a squad of Obsidians and Grays. I rocket into them at full speed, breaking the rib cage of a Gray against the concrete. Rolling up, I deflect the huge axe of an Obsidian and shoot him in the head. His helmet takes the blast, but I stun him enough to hew through his legs with my razor. I’m hit from the side by a Gold pulseFist before I can finish him. My shield absorbs it. I shoot up on my gravBoots, then straight down in front of him to exchange a series of razor slashes that ends with his arm off at the shoulder. Someone shoots him from the side. Sevro kicks a Gray off the roof with the boot of his mech. An Obsidian launches toward him and stabs a pulseSpear into his cockpit. He moves his head at the last moment, then pulls the Obsidian off. Blood showers his mech as he crushes the Obsidian’s head with a squeeze of his mechanized hand. Green plasma rounds pound the legs of his mech, melting them inoperable. A squad of hunched Grays fires at him from across the landing pad with huge anti-armor plasma rifles. I fire at them, cutting a hole of steaming meat through their ranks. Too late. An EMP rocket slams into the chest of Sevro’s mech. Blue electricity sizzles out, frying his circuitry. He manually ejects, shooting straight up, over the heads of Alexandar and Tongueless, who fight like mad together against the tide.
I lose Sevro in the fray.
The enemy presses in, firing at us from the air above, chewing into our ranks. I’m slammed sideways by a concussion munition. As I try to gain my balance, an Obsidian a head taller than me hits me in the chest with a pulseHammer. My pulseShield shorts out. My armor caves inward. I feel several ribs crack and I tumble back. He knocks me to the ground before I can lift my head. Stomps on my hand as I try to stab him with my razor. His axe lifts high into the air, the moment slowing. Thraxa lies pinned to the ground, a razor in her thigh. Alexandar tries desperately to reach me. I roar in fear as the pulseAxe comes down. It smashes through my helmet. The energy blade glows with a pale fire, its edge centimeters from my face, held back by squealing metal. The heat radiates into my eyeballs, filling them with aching pressure. The Obsidian wrenches the axe sideways. My helmet rips from its sockets. He cries his war chant and kneels on my chest, a crooked knife in his hand. He grabs my hair with an armored hand and saws on the front of my forehead to claim my scalp.
Bazzoooohhh. Bazzoooohhh.
A trumpet’s clarion call rides in with the wind. The Obsidian looks up to see a flight of armored knights falling from the sky, a violent figure in purple Minotaur armor at their head. The Minotaur lands before the Obsidian and hacks him in half with a running two-handed upward blow.
Apollonius has come.
His knights fall upon the Ash Guard, carving them with razors and smashing them off the face of the landing pad till not one is left alive. Apollonius sings as he kills the Golds and lurchers who try to make a last stand at the doorway down into the fortress.
“I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night
Taught by the heav’nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend!”
He picks up a Gray with one hand and smashes the man’s skull into the hull of the Ash Lord’s ship until there’s nothing to hold on to. Fresh from the kill, he wheels on me, his Minotaur helm blood-soaked and battered, and for a moment I think he will strike me down. But his helm retracts, and from his sweaty face and tangled hair, he stares at me with wild, loving eyes. He helps me to my feet.
“What wrath we summon together!” he roars. “Reaper and Minotaur, legends unholy. We broke them on the beach!”
How in the hell did he do that?
He was outnumbered four to one.
One of his men helps me to my feet. I’ve lost my helmet, but my face is so covered in blood from the attempted scalping that even my own mother wouldn’t recognize me. Apollonius skewers the heart of a wounded Gold and turns to his bodyguards. “Vorkian, Gaul, rejoin the hunt. Slaughter them to the last man.”
His men jump from the tower back toward the battle, which rages inland of their beachhead below. Apollonius comes toward me and extends his arms, taking me into a hug. Bewildered, I stand there as he pulls back. “A divine spectacle, Darrow.” He looks at my men with a smile. “A more glorious band of devils there is none. What a path you cut, like fallen seraphs amongst mortal men.”
Sevro limps toward me. His left arm bends the wrong way at the elbow and I can see charred flesh through fissures in his armor. I scan the remains of my Howlers and realize with a sinking feeling that Pebble and Clown are nowhere in sight. Thraxa sits propped against a retaining wall as Tongueless administers first aid. Alexandar alone is uninjured. His shell is a smoking wreck, but he stands free of it, almost elegant amidst the carnage despite the shell-shock in his eyes. “Alexandar.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Call the Nessus and hold the roof.” I turn to limp toward the security door leading down from the landing pad into the tower. “Sevro, Apollonius, with me.”
I WAKE FROM A FITFUL SLEEP and expect to see Cassius standing there, filling the door, asking me if it’s the night terrors again. But he is gone. I remember slowly, then all at once. There’s a presence in the room. By the window an old Brown watches me. I’m too tired to be startled. His bark-colored eyes smile with deep respect from underneath cirrus-cloud eyebrows.
“Dominus Lune, I beg pardon for interrupting your sleep. But your presence is requested.”
“By whom?”
“A friend.”
Seraphina? He walks past my pallet, careful not to trod on the fabric, and sketches a strange symbol onto the stone wall. It rumbles very softly, dilating inward to reveal a hidden passage through which he seems to have entered. I hesitate, wondering if it could be some sort of trap. He wags his hand impatiently. “Come, come, dominus. She awaits.”
I follow the Brown in silence through the tunnels. He leads on through the darkness till we reach another wall where he sketches another symbol and the wall retracts. The Brown leads me into a sitting room and closes the new aperture behind us. He gestures to several silk cushions on the floor by the hearth.
“Wait here, dominus. May I prepare refreshment?”
“Tea, if you have it,” I say instinctively. Then I feel my hunger. “And food. Anything will do.” He bows and limps away. “Excuse me, steward. What is your name?”
“Aruka,” he says softly.
“Thank you, Aruka.” I dip my head in Rim fashion.