the massive, unfeeling force pressing against them. Yet it happened even more quickly than he had anticipated. Within fifteen minutes, there was a sound like the howl of a dying animal as the metal plates began to buckle under the weight of bodies crushed against them.
One of the soldiers firing from the top of the wall lowered his weapon, his mouth gaping. ‘Jesus Christ. What’s that?’
On the other side of the barricade, the purple mist was rising as the Lament-Brood clambered on top of each other to allow those behind to gain purchase. They reminded Mallory of ants. But riding the crest of the twisted bodies was a gleaming yellow-white figure that Mallory recognised from Hunter’s description as the Lord of Bones. It had grown in size, now almost twice the height of a man, its bulk increasing a little with every skeleton sucked into its voracious mass. There was a hunger to it, in the avid gleam of its eyes and the way it reached out with clacking-bone hands, desperate to snatch anything that fell within its reach.
Most of the soldiers leaped from the wall as it fell apart, but one remained in position a second too long, firing his pistol futilely into the seething mass. The Lord of Bones’ eyes swivelled towards the soldier, fixed on its target and then moved towards it with alarming speed. Crushing hands shattered the soldier’s wrist and yanked him forwards.
The Lord of Bones stood erect on the roiling Lament-Brood beneath it and pressed the yelling, squirming soldier against its chest. Mallory was sickened as he watched the victim’s skeleton sucked out of his body, leaving a flopping sack of skin and organs that was tossed to one side to splatter into the snow.
And then the Lord of Bones threw its head back, opened its mouth and released a sound that was not a sound. It made Mallory’s stomach turn and his brain fizz. It was the creature’s roar of victory.
Mallory lost sight of the Lord of Bones in the confusion as the barricade burst apart and the Lament-Brood flooded through into the city. For a brief moment, he was rooted as the Lament-Brood caught hold of fleeing soldiers, broke necks, ran swords through stomachs, gouged out eyes. And then, mere seconds later, repossessed the dead, twisting their bodies, forcing weapons to meld with bone and flesh, the re-animated corpses joining the ranks of those who had slain them to turn on their former comrades.
The big guns released a hail of massive fire power. Mallory fought to control his horse, glad that something had torn his gaze away from the hellish vision. Smoke swept across the street. When it cleared, scores of the Lament-Brood had been ripped to pieces, but hundreds more surged in to take their place. The gun positions were overrun in seconds, the remaining soldiers fleeing, powerless.
Mallory drew Llyrwyn and suddenly the street was flooded with brilliant blue light; even the falling snow appeared to be sapphire flakes. Mallory had never seen such a powerful display: the flames raged so forcefully along the blade that it vibrated in his hand, rang up his arm and into his heart.
Digging in his spurs, he propelled his horse into the fray. Lament-Brood fell beneath the trampling hooves, skulls split, torsos crushed. The air itself singed as Mallory swung his sword. The Lament-Brood fell before him like grass before a scythe. None could touch him, and soon the ground was covered with corpses and his horse was trampling them into the snow.
In Mallory’s mind, all sound disappeared, the hacking of bone, the ringing of steel, the thunder of hooves, until a deep silence swaddled him. He couldn’t smell, taste, touch, and a blue sheen lay across his mind. In that instant, he was the sword and the sword was him, each possessing and being possessed by the other.
Finally the Lament-Brood fell back at some silent summons. Their ranks parted and the Lord of Bones marched through. It towered over Mallory even on horseback, its bones splattered with red human blood.
It surveyed Mallory for a moment, a cold intelligence that insinuated through the blue into Mallory’s mind, unbearably alien, betraying no recognisable emotion. And then, when it was satisfied that it understood what lay before it, it drove forward with a speed belied by its size.
Mallory forced his horse to dance out of the creature’s path, but it only just evaded the charge. The Lord of Bones’ talons ripped through Mallory’s trousers and into the flesh beneath. And as the fingers scythed across his flesh, Mallory felt a tugging in his bones, as if they were on the verge of being sucked out of his body.
Mallory guided the horse to circle and then drive in. Llyrwyn blazed through the air to smash against the bone-creature’s shoulder blade. The impact almost threw Mallory out of the saddle. Bone erupted outwards and parts of the creature’s form began to fall away. But it clearly felt no pain and immediately launched another attack that Mallory only just avoided.
They continued that way for nearly half an hour, with no sign of the creature weakening. Every now and then, the Lord would draw blood with its razor-sharp fingers and Mallory’s clothes were now wet and sticky in many places. Mallory had a vision of losing the battle, of the thing pulling his skeleton clean out of his skin. He wondered with a sickening fascination what his final thoughts would be.
The horse’s breath and his own mingled in a hot, white cloud in the freezing air. But while Mallory tirelessly sustained his attack, his horse was growing sluggish. Finally, as Mallory brought his searing sword down in a hissing strike that shattered a portion of the Lord of Bones’ skull, his mount failed to retreat quickly enough.
The Lord of Bones seized its moment. Like a striking snake, it grabbed Mallory and ripped him from the saddle, pressing him close to its hard body. It smelled incongruously of milk.
Mallory fought to free himself, but a powerful sucking sensation had already manifested deep inside him. It felt as though hooks had been attached to his bones and were pulling them out through his muscle and skin. The agonising pain drove him to the edge of unconsciousness, but he continued to fight to the last.
The hurricane wind came from nowhere. Mallory and the Lord of Bones were thrown through the air against a building on the far side of the road. The Lord of Bones took the brunt of the impact, but Mallory was knocked unconsciousness by the shock.
When he came round, he was lying in the snow, his entire body on fire with pain from the sucking power of the Lord of Bones. But it was fading. The creature was staggering around, its right arm shattered into pieces and a section of its torso falling away.
The wind had died down a little, but the snow still blasted against Mallory’s skin like hot pins. Dazed, he staggered to his feet, searching for his sword. It lay half-buried in a drift nearby. But the Lord of Bones had seen him again and was rapidly stalking his way.
Before it could reach him, there was a deafening clap of thunder. Lightning crashed down in a direct hit on the Lord of Bones. In the flash of blinding light, Mallory was hurled backwards, but this time he fought to stay conscious.
The air reeked of burned iron. What remained of the Lord of Bones still stalked around, smoke rising from the shattered bones. Drunkenly, Mallory retrieved his sword. The moment the weapon was in his hands and the blue flames were roaring, his mind became sharp and focused. He attacked the Lord of Bones with venom, not stopping his hacking and slashing until only a few bone shards remained and a faint purple mist was drifting in the now- subsiding gale.
Mallory looked around eagerly. He knew who he had to thank for his survival. Sophie stood in the driver’s seat of the jeep, arms raised in supplication to the sky. Gradually, she sagged as the power faded. She managed a wave and a smile before Shavi urged her to drive to another location.
The Lament-Brood appeared disoriented by the Lord of Bones’ destruction, but Mallory could see that they were slowly re-forming their ranks to prepare for their next advance. All the surviving soldiers had fled to another fall-back position. There was nothing else he could do. Reclaiming his weary horse, he turned back into the city, following the tracks of Sophie’s jeep.
The row of mighty oaks soared more than thirty feet above Laura’s head, and the barrier was at least the same distance thick. Almost all her reserves had gone into constructing it, but she knew it would not keep the Lament-Brood out for long. Already she could hear the hacking of their weapons against the trunks. They would not tire, would not defer to serious injury; they would just keep going until they crushed everything in their path.
Laura walked away in search of shelter to recover, only to be halted in her tracks by gunfire coming from the buildings on either side of the wall of trees. Knowing instantly that it signalled a change in tactics, she angrily stormed into the nearest building and climbed the stairs to the second floor where two soldiers were pumping rounds wildly into the swarming Lament-Brood on the other side of the defence.
They were so preoccupied with their task that Laura could creep close enough to see past them. The Lament-Brood were clambering up the side of the building to get access to the windows so that they could bypass the trees. Some were smashing their weapons into the brickwork to gain foot- and handholds; others were simply clambering up on top of compacted bodies. But at the head of the climbing ranks was the Lord of Lizards. The glow
