fault.'
The confession hit Mallory hard. Staring at Church, he struggled with the mysterious tides of his powerful emotions, then, unable to comprehend or contain them, he gave in and with an anguished roar drew his sword and half-scrambled over the lip of the crevice.
Church and Veitch dragged him back, too late. A cry went up and the ground vibrated with feet running in their direction.
'That's torn it!' Veitch wrenched out his sword, the blue and black flames surging, entwining.
'Sorry. Hell, what's wrong with me!' Mallory raged.
Church gripped his arm, steadied him. 'Forget it. Fight!'
Blue Flames whooshed as they drew their swords together. All three of them were stunned by the way the fire from the three blades funnelled together, twisting in complex shapes, interacting, throwing out bolts of crackling energy.
It echoed within each of them, feeding the Pendragon Spirit so they felt unbelievably stronger, more confident.
'The Three Great Swords of Existence!' they heard an awed Tom exclaim behind them. 'In use together for the first time in generations. Three become one!'
They had no time to consider what it meant. The first brutish creatures appeared at the lip of the crevice.
'We've got to get out of here!' Veitch yelled. 'They'll just pick us off one by one trapped down here!'
Church scrambled back along the crevice with Ruth, Shavi, Caitlin and Tom close behind, and Mallory and Veitch protecting the rear. Scrabbling for footholds, Church propelled himself up the opposite wall of the crevice and out onto the hardpan. The roar that greeted him from the enemy was deafening. At the same time he saw activity along the rows of windows in the Fortress wall. In the midst of the action, his attention alighted on two things: the delight that came to Niamh's face, not that of someone who spies a former lover, but something cruel and sadistic; and the devastation that marred Laura's battered features.
Battle cries that sounded like the roars of hungry animals filled the air. The enemy streamed across the narrowest gap in the crevice, and within seconds Church was fighting for his life. The brutish creatures moved with the speed and strength of gorillas, using their long arms to propel themselves forwards before slashing in a frenzied manner with short, serrated swords. Bracing himself, Church hacked with Caledfwlch, but each collision was so bone-jarring that he was almost thrown from his feet.
Within seconds, Veitch and Mallory were at his side and he felt his strength and stamina increase proportionately. The air was red with blood-mist and lit with the electric sizzle of the Blue Fire, dancing around them as though it was alive.
'Nice one, Mallory,' Veitch shouted between attacks. 'Why didn't you send up flares while you were at it?'
'I didn't want you to get lonely doing all the screwing up.' Mallory's Templar swordsmanship was more controlled than the other two, and he carved through two for every one Church and Veitch took down with their self-taught skill.
For several minutes, the world was just the hard-fought few feet around them, where the dismembered bodies piled up and their own lives were challenged every second. But then they each became aware of activity beyond their sphere.
A gap in the attacking bodies revealed Ruth transformed into a furious elemental force, her hair whirling about her head, Blue Fire crackling off her and the Spear of Lugh, which she wielded with brutal efficiency. Attackers she didn't even touch flew back from the force of invisible hands. Others were turned inside out, or had their eyes boiled in their heads.
'Bleedin' hell,' Veitch said. 'You're not going to want to get in a fight with her.'
Beyond Ruth, Caitlin was a force of nature too. Her eyes blazed as she carved a path through the brutish creatures with her axe, which whirled so fast it was barely visible. Heads split in two, limbs were cleaved, and while she was striking with one arm, she was tearing out throats with the other. When one attacker broke through her defences, Caitlin effortlessly clamped her teeth on his jugular and ripped it away; blood drenched her hair and face, but she never missed a step. The savagery of her attack was counterpointed by the eerie calmness of her face.
'We're the A-Team,' Veitch said, gutting another attacker.
As the waves of brutish creatures thinned out, Church dared to hope they had survived the onslaught. But then Niamh's shrill laughter echoed nearby, and the attackers came to a halt.
Through some trickery, Niamh had got the better of Ruth, who now slumped in a daze at Niamh's feet, a knife at her throat.
'My rival of the heart for so long, through all those years of my awakening to the pain of human existence, and here she is, finally at my mercy.' Niamh laughed. 'Oh, how different things would have been if I had cut the life from her all those times ago.' Niamh looked directly at Church, no hurt in her eyes, just cruel glee. 'And now she is here, I have no true need of her death, for I have already got you, my sweet, in a form that is better than the one you now occupy, stronger, more attuned to me. I have won. And she has lost, because I will have you for ever, and she will not. Though she no longer matters to me one jot, I will kill her anyway, because I can. Because it will drive you into my arms, soon now, just a little way along this road.'
Church froze. Was this it? The moment of shattering devastation that would transform him into the Libertarian? He looked at Ruth, the knife at her throat, and his heart broke. Nothing mattered more than keeping her alive; not the destruction of all Existence, all his friends, his sanity, his soul. Nothing.
At the great Fortress wall, the enormous gates rattled open slowly. The black gulf grew wider, like a monstrous mouth, and then light flooded in to reveal a sea of misshapen creatures poised to spill out across the hardpan.
Mallory let his sword drop to his side. 'This is starting to look like game over.'
Church turned his attention from the reinforcements back to Niamh's hard smile, and then to the knife poised a fraction of an inch from destroying his world. And then Ruth's eyes snapped open, her lips moved and after the disconnection of a second, a word of power boomed out. A bolt of Blue Fire seared across Niamh's face and into the silver sky where it exploded like fireworks. Screaming, Niamh staggered back, clutching her face. One side of her shimmering golden features was seared black, the sun being eaten by the moon.
Caitlin grabbed Ruth's arm and hauled her towards Church, Veitch and Mallory. In the lull, Shavi and Tom clambered out of their shelter in the crevice and faced the oncoming horde.
'Hundreds of them,' Veitch said. The bleak edge to his voice stung them all.
'No point running,' Mallory said. 'Got to die sometime.'
'I always planned on picking my moment,' Veitch said. 'Fuck.'
'The bad news never stops coming.' Tom was facing away from the Fortress, looking out across the hardpan. The others turned to see what had caught his attention.
Glistening like oil, a black wave washed across the hardpan. On skittering insect legs, the Fomorii came, their forms changing as they moved, plates clanking into place, spikes bursting from the gleaming carapaces, wings unfurling. Thousands of the shape-shifting beasts converged on the Fortress gates.
'They found their way through the Groghaan Gate,' Church said.
'This is just overkill.' Mallory turned slowly to take in the full weight of the forces ranged against them. On the lip of the crevice, the tiny knot of Brothers and Sisters of Dragons was at the eye of a hurricane of savage enemies. Amidst a deafening, full-throated clamour, the Void's army continued to surge out of the Fortress, like the flow from a disturbed anthill. The Fomorii were almost upon them too, the low rumble of their call and response now resonating in the pits of their stomachs.
Church felt for Ruth's hand, and they exchanged one brief, painful look of regret.
'We always knew it would come down to this, right?' Veitch said. 'People like us, we were never going to win.'
'Speak for yourself,' Mallory muttered. He eyed Caitlin, wishing his friend was there, but seeing only the grim face of the Morrigan.
'Laura ought to be here,' Shavi said. 'We should all be together at the end.' Searching the swelling ranks, Shavi finally glimpsed her casting one desperate look his way before moving towards the Fortress gates of her own
