jungle to attack us. Hopping insectoid things came first, with glowing green carapaces and dark faces with clacking, complex mouth parts. They sprang all around us, bounding and leaping with horrid speed high into the air before plunging down at us with clawed hands extended. Many-legged crawling things shot out of the shadows, curling and coiling and doing their best to snake around our legs and drag us down. They had great sucking mouths with needle teeth. And squirming blobby things just fell on us from the lower branches. One dropped right onto Molly s golden shoulder and tried to cling to her neck. It scrabbled and skittered there for a moment, unable to get a hold, and then Molly grabbed it in one hand and squeezed till the living pulp shot out between her golden fingers.
Patrick and Diana blew away the hoppy things with great speed and enthusiasm, and the air was soon full of flying innards. We all stamped on the long-legged things, and they made high wailing sounds as they burst messily underfoot. Anything that got too close I smashed out of the air with my ironwood staff, and whatever Oath Breaker touched exploded. It didn t take long for the alien wildlife to get the message, and we went the rest of the way observed but unmolested.
The Regent was still strolling along quite happily, hands in his pockets, taking a great interest in everything, and I couldn t help noticing that none of the alien life went anywhere near him. I pointed this out to Patrick, who just nodded solemnly.
Why? I said.
Because they wouldn t dare, said Diana.
It didn t take us long to reach the clearing and the Hall. From the look of it, the Hall s sudden arrival in this world had blasted a massive clearing out of what I was still thinking of as the jungle. Broken and blasted parts of alien growths were scattered all around us, littering the perimeter of the clearing. I stopped at the very edge and looked the situation over carefully. The Hall, Drood Hall, that I had once been so sure was destroyed and lost forever, that part of me had still been sure I would never see again, stood there before me, solid and upright, in the middle of a half-mile-wide clearing. A shimmering barrier hung in the air surrounding the Hall, roughly halfway across the clearing.
The Hall was under siege from all sides by huge and monstrous creatures. They came slamming through the jungle, smashing through the twisting growths as though they weren t even there. Overpoweringly huge, bigger than the Hall like hills with eyes, and mouths big enough to swallow an underground train. Packed with hundreds of jagged teeth, each of them bigger than a man. The ground shook with every step the monsters took, and there were so many of them, the earth never stopped shaking, like an earthquake. Like it was afraid. The monsters roared and howled and screeched, as though someone had given horror a voice. And an insane voice at that. Vast muscles rolled under shiny skins like great slow waves. Monsters, big as houses and bigger, whose shapes made no sense, whose limbs just sprouted from scaly sides and leathery sockets with too many joints. Claws that gouged the earth and left deep trenches. Eyes that blazed like the sun, and swirling sets of things that might be sensory organs, whose nature I couldn t even guess at.
I had to look up at them. They were so large they probably didn t even know I was there. But they knew the Hall was there, and they hated it. They pressed constantly forward, screaming and crying out and slamming against one another in their eagerness to get at the Hall. They tore and clawed at one another, but their vast misshapen heads never turned aside from the Hall. Only the shimmering barrier held them back. They would not cross it, would not touch it. The last barrier between them and Drood Hall.
Dozens of golden-armoured figures defended the Hall. In armour covered with vicious spikes, with hands extended into long blades and heavy axe heads, Droods guarded the perimeter, standing just outside the shimmering barrier, cutting at everything that came close. Something in the cool, measured way they fought, preserving their strength, suggested to me that they d been doing this for some time. Probably ever since the Hall first arrived here. Golden blades sheared through monstrous flesh and dark steaming blood flew in the air, but nothing they did seemed to make any real impression. The Droods were just so small in comparison to what they were fighting.
A huge distorted head slammed down and snapped up a Drood in its jaws. He was caught, half in and half out of that terrible mouth, the heavy teeth grinding fiercely but uselessly against his armour. The jaws opened and closed, trying to saw through the Drood, but all that happened was that several teeth shattered and broke off. The Drood used the extra space to get his feet under him, and then he walked backwards into the jaw and severed the muscles with his golden blade. The creature howled like a fire siren as its lower jaw just dropped down. The armoured man jumped. It took him some time to reach the ground, and when he hit, the sheer impact blasted out a crater and a cloud of dust. When the dust settled he was climbing out of the crater, entirely unharmed. I felt like applauding.
But the monsters were so big, so powerful, and there seemed no end to them. Armoured Droods cut at legs bigger than tree trunks and hardly made an impression.
More golden figures defended the Hall from inside, firing all kinds of weapons from every door and window. Everything from automatic rifles to energy weapons to steam-powered bazookas. Plus a whole bunch of cobbled- together-looking things, probably come straight from the Armoury for testing. The sheer firepower blasting from all sides of the Hall would have been enough to wipe out an army, but the colossal monsters of this world just soaked it up and kept pressing forward. They surrounded the Hall on all sides, looming over it, driven by sheer fury at this alien thing that had dared to enter their world. I wondered if they even knew it was the tiny golden figures that were their real enemy and not the Hall itself. Perhaps only the Hall was big enough to hold their attention.
Do you know what that shimmering screen is? said Molly beside me.
No, I said. Never seen it before. It s not part of the Hall s defences. Maybe some kind of improvised force shield?
I don t think so, said Molly. Looks wrong for that.
We ll find out when we get close enough, said the Regent.
Molly and I turned back to look at him. He seemed entirely serene.
You think we should just go running out there? said Molly. Into monster-snack territory?
I think the family needs all the help it can get, said the Regent. Don t you?
You re wearing Drood armour, Molly, said Patrick. You don t have to worry about monsters anymore.
We re not doing any good just standing here, I said quickly. So I say Go the reinforcements!
I took a deep breath, silently called myself all kinds of idiot and ran out into the clearing, heading straight for the shimmering barrier hanging in the air and the Hall beyond it. Molly was right there at my side in her rogue armour, and I just knew she was grinning broadly behind her featureless golden mask. She put on a sudden burst of speed, leaving the rest of us behind, striking out savagely at the monstrous creatures that blocked our way. Her golden fists gouged great chunks out of alien flesh, but the creatures didn t even seem to notice one more stinging irritant at their feet. Molly s actions worried me. They showed a viciousness I d never seen in her before. And why wasn t she using her magic instead of relying on the armour s brute strength? Was the rogue armour getting to her already, the way it had got to me? I fought to keep up with her, striking out with Oath Breaker. Wherever the ironwood staff struck alien flesh, great slabs of muscle exploded and more than one monster lurched suddenly to one side as a limb buckled unexpectedly. Patrick and Diana stuck close behind, maintaining a devastating rate of fire and keeping anything from getting too close to us. And the Regent just trotted along behind us, puffing gently, still smiling that interminable smile.
Molly laughed aloud, delighting in the strength and speed the rogue armour bestowed on her, smashing her way through everything that stood before her. I was disturbed at how quickly she d taken to the armour after all the comments she d made before about how she didn t approve of unnatural sources of power. But it is an undeniable truth that power tends to seduce, and appalling amounts of power Molly took the rogue armour away from me to save me from its influence. Was I going to have to take it back again for her sake?
We were halfway across the clearing now, almost at the shimmering screen. I could see the Hall ahead of us. Huge creatures the size of airplanes cruised by overhead, circling the great clearing, swooping down to attack the Hall on massive wings that briefly blocked out the sun. Droods went up to meet and duel with them, in flying saucers, autogyros, attack helicopters even sitting astride winged unicorns. They darted back and forth, easily evading the languorous movements of the larger creatures, plunging in to attack again and again and blasting the winged creatures with all kinds of weapons. Like golden wasps attacking winged whales.
Huge wormlike things burst up out of the ground inside the shimmering barrier, exploding up and up into the air, sending dark earth flying in all directions. Slimy ringed segments the size of hot-air balloons and with leprous grey flesh rose over the Hall, carrying blunt heads with great circular mouths full of rows of teeth that rotated like
