The detonations thundered. And the rain of slaughter began.
The huge wagons and their scrambling drones vanished beneath an avalanche that lifted nearby K’ell Hunters into the air, tails lashing for balance as they flailed about. Dust rolled out thick as a tidal wave to swallow the spreading horror as massive chunks of stone descended from the battered Uprooted.
Through the torrential, billowing smoke and rubble, Ampelas lashed back.
The saw-tooth line of Ve’Gath lifted as if heaved forward by the ridge itself, and all at once the huge warriors were pouring down the slope, straight for the lines of Nah’ruk.
Sorcery arced out from the wired clubs, crashed into a shield-locked wall of iron. The Ve’Gath staggered, but not one fell.
There was no time for a second salvo.
The Ve’Gath toothed line hammered into the Nah’ruk. The impact of the charge flattened two, then three ranks of the Short-Tails. Weapons lashed down as the Ve’Gath trampled the fallen enemy, closing with the deeper lines still reeling from the impact.
Stormy was at the very heart of the attack. He’d swung his sword twice, and both times his blade had bitten deep into armour-but his targets were in the act of dying anyway, for they had come within reach of his mount. He couldn’t close with anything worth hacking apart. He roared in frustration.
The Nah’ruk warriors were outmatched. They bore no shields. The Ve’Gath simply chewed through them.
Lightning ripped down from the sky, ploughed a bloody, burning swath through the rearmost Ve’Gath ranks, slaying hundreds in an instant.
Stormy snarled, battered by those sudden, terrible deaths. Break formation! Close with the enemy!
Another lash of sorcery scythed down hundreds more.
Close!
Ampelas Rooted burned from a dozen gaping fissures. Massive pieces had shorn clear, revealing exposed innards from which poured black smoke. The sky keep shuddered as attack after attack pounded into it. The edifice’s forward progress had halted, and now it was being buffeted backward. Still it spat its own fury, and Gesler could see one of the Nah’ruk keeps leaning far to one side, billowing flames and smoke, and from this one no lightning winged out.
But there were too many of the damned things. Three had drifted out to the east, and were now angling to draw up behind Ampelas Rooted-where the thick iron plates armouring that side of its flank had been removed to fashion shields for the Ve’Gath. In moments, they would strike a soft target.
And that’ll kill her. Like a knife to the back.
When she’s finished, those keeps will turn on us here below. If they can.
But I won’t let them.
‘K’ell Hunters! Flanking charge from both sides. Cut in behind the contact-hollow out those engaged legions! Don’t piss around, damn you all! Charge!’
The three Nah’ruk sky keeps loosed raging arcs of lightning. Kalyth stared in horror as the lower half of Ampelas Rooted seemed to bulge, limed in red glow. The concussion of the detonation threw Sag’Churok and Gunth Mach down. Kalyth tumbled clear of the thrashing beasts, rocks lacerating her shoulder and face. She rolled on to her back. The sky was burning, and flaming stones rained down.
She cried out, covering her eyes.
At the rush of hot wind, Stormy twisted round. The lower third of Ampelas Rooted was simply gone, and what remained was spilling its guts, everything burning as the wreckage plunged earthward. The impact was driving the keep on to its side-or back-exposing the destroyed maw of its base.
He swore as Ampelas Rooted somehow managed to return fire, two serpents of lightning writhing out behind it.
They must have struck, though he could not see past the Che’Malle keep, but the thunder of impacts trembled the earth-and then he saw one of the Nah’ruk keeps rising behind Ampelas Rooted, climbing on streamers of smoke.
His eyes widened to see the huge thing gaining speed as it shot still higher. With smoke swarming down its flanks, damaged beyond hope of control, the keep seemed to lunge as it shot into the sky-and kept going.
The remaining two ignited in another sorcerous strike.
Light engulfed Ampelas Uprooted-
The K’ell Hunters plunged into the buckling flanks of the Nah’ruk Furies that were locked jaw to jaw with the Ve’Gath. Their massive blades hacked bloody paths into the press. The Nah’ruk could not match their speed, their reach, and they seemed to melt before the attack.
In his mind, Gesler was shouting the same words over and over, a mantra of desperation. Close close close in-close-they won’t fire if-
Two sky keeps, hovering directly above the battle, sent down writhing spears. Nah’ruk, Ve’Gath and K’ell bodies lifted into the air, blackened, iron shattering.
