outstretched on either side of them, heads close to the wall, eyes never deviating from their target. Sophie couldn’t tell whether their fingers and toes were finding minute cracks and crevices or if they were sticking to the stone through magical means or some innate ability that came with their devolved state. Hundreds of them were moving upwards, rapidly becoming thousands. There was something about the upward swarming of the black specks that made Sophie’s stomach churn.
‘We should fight,’ Thackeray said, distracted by the sight.
‘What? Are you mad?’ Harvey shouted, his Birmingham accent growing thicker with his anxiety. ‘What can we do against that?’
Thackeray looked from Harvey to Sophie. ‘The gods are helping us out — we’re the reason they’re in this mess. The least we can do is lend a hand to stop them being overrun. I mean, how hard can it be? We just drop things on them to knock them off the wall.’
‘Look how many there are!’ Harvey protested. ‘Everything inside the city will be outside, and they’ll still be climbing up!’
In Thackeray’s face, Sophie saw the decency and bravery that had been hidden from her before. He was a normal person trying to do the right thing in a nightmarish situation. The least she could do was help.
‘You two run off, find whatever weapons you can,’ she said. ‘I’m going to stay here and do my bit.’
‘You’re going to get all witchy?’ Harvey said suspiciously.
‘Just go.’
As they headed off, Sophie bowed her head and attempted to find the calm place inside her. Her Craft worked best in peaceful, quiet locations where she could use ritual to focus her mind. But she’d had remarkable success on the frantic chase from the Court of the Final Word; she was hoping it was just a matter of willpower.
She heard the clank of swords against stone as the defenders rested their weapons; the murmur of their voices; the wind keening over the rooftops; Lugh, far along the battlements, barking orders. Eyes shut, concentrating hard, all the distractions began to fade until she was left in the quiet dark of her head. Her ritual had been practised a hundred times or more. She muttered her trigger-word and the dark changed to a sunlit grove not far from her parents’ home where she had first felt the call of the Craft and the world from which it spun. Amongst the oaks and ash was a pool in which a fish swam lazily, its silvered scales glinting in the beams of sunlight breaking through the canopy.
Sophie leaned over the pool and said, ‘I call on you, Brother Salmon. Help your friend.’
The salmon rolled its eyes towards her and replied, ‘What would you have me do?’
Sophie emerged from her trance with a start, the words of her request ringing in her head. Already storm clouds were gathering. From deep in the night, a great wind rose up.
Sophie felt as if nails were being driven into her skull. When she looked around, she saw Caitlin staring at her from her perch on top of the gargoyle, a smile of dark pleasure on her lips.
Below, the little men still scurried up the wall. They were now close enough that she could see their mean, beady eyes. The one at the head of the swarm suddenly fell backwards with a shriek, an arrow protruding from between his eyes. Caitlin had hit him perfectly, in the dark, with an accuracy surpassing most human ability. So fast that her arms were a blur, she released four more arrows, all hitting their targets exactly. Sophie was sickened by the gleeful bloodlust she saw in Caitlin’s face; for the first time since Sophie had known her, she seemed truly alive.
The wind rushed across the plain like a living creature, plucking several of the little men from the wall and flinging them far out into the night. Sophie could control its direction and force — just — but each burst of mental energy took its toll on her. She focused. A lightning bolt crashed down. Stones exploded from the wall and more of the enemy fell back, smoking, their eyes liquid, their insides cooked.
Sophie kept up the assault from the elements for as long as she could, but eventually she fell back, her head swimming, so exhausted she could no longer stand. She had personally destroyed more than a hundred of the swarming attackers, but for every one she slew, ten more took their place. The leading edge of the swarm was close to the summit now, their harsh grunts echoing all around.
‘You did great.’ Thackeray was suddenly next to her, helping her back from the edge. ‘You need to rest now, get away from here.’
‘No,’ she said in a small, breathless voice. ‘Once I get my strength back-’
‘Just lie here,’ he said, leaving her at the top of the stone steps where she could get a good view of the battle, ‘but after they start to break through the ranks, do your best to get down and away.’ He paused. ‘What did you want earlier?’
‘Later,’ she said weakly.
Thackeray ran back to the ramparts where Harvey waited with a sickened expression. They were both armed with enormous swords that made them look like boys in comparison.
Weak, barely able to prop herself up, Sophie drifted in and out of consciousness so that the unfolding battle had all the reality of a bad dream. The little men swarmed over the ramparts, small and brown and vicious, tearing with their little knives, striking with broken nails and sharp teeth. The gods, tall and stately, responded just as savagely, though their brutality was masked behind the measured sophistication of their balletic strokes and skilful attacks. Bodies were cleaved in half by the gods’ swords, heads split in two. But though the knives and teeth of the little men had but small effect on the heavily armoured gods, it was clear they would eventually overwhelm the defence by sheer force of numbers. Sophie faded in and out, but still they came, clambering over the bodies of the fallen, attacking relentlessly, seemingly with no thought for their own safety.
But then there was a flurry of activity and the tide appeared to turn. A terrifying demon swept along the battlements, hacking and slashing in a blur of sword and knife, carnage in human form. It was Caitlin, and she was laughing and shrieking with the ecstasy of the moment, no longer human.
In her daze, Sophie thought she saw Caitlin rise up into the sky, grow larger, become the destroyer of everything; her sword came down on the city and a sea of blood rose up and washed everything away.
And then there was only darkness for ever more.
Chapter Ten
‘ Vox populi, vox dei.’
Light filtered through stained glass, flooding the whole hall with a demonic red, framed at the edges by blue and green. As Sophie gradually came back to consciousness, she had the odd feeling that she was surfacing from a dream into a dream. Colours too florid, distant sounds given uncertain solidity by odd echoes.
She had never been in the room before, but it had the ambience of a church. The stained-glass windows ranged from floor to ceiling along the vast eastern walls, presenting pictures of gods in battle and victory, and it was clearly the first rays of dawn that were turning them to fire. The floor was grey stone flags on which wooden benches stood, oriented towards a lectern, while the ceiling was cathedral-high and vaulted.
Sophie was propped up on the rear bench, flanked by Thackeray and Harvey. Lugh was at the lectern and had clearly just given a speech of some kind, for the gods who filled the remaining benches were taking their leave. Sophie had the feeling that these were the senior members of the court, for Ceridwen was there, and Math; she didn’t recognise any of the others, but they wore their gravitas like a cloak.
‘We were starting to get worried about you,’ Harvey said with some affection. Sophie had been convinced for a while now that he was starting to develop a crush on her.
‘I blacked out,’ Sophie muttered, ‘after calling up the wind and the lightning. Much good that did.’
‘Oh, it helped,’ Thackeray said. ‘But not as much as that did.’ He nodded towards the figure striding towards
