“READY?” RIGBY YELLED FROM THE REAR OF THE THRONE room.
“Ready!” Kara yelled back as she hovered over the second throne.
“We’ve got the hounds at bay for now!” Coop bellowed. “Do that thing! Yeah boyeee!”
“Now!” Rigby commanded. Simultaneously, he and Kara used their collective dream might to power a pair of colossal stone-breaking hammers. The massive tool whirled and fell. The sound of the twin thrones shattering was five hundred cracks of thunder. On steroids.
Rue de la Mort was stunned by the sudden concussion. Even Shadowkeep fell silent. The destruction of the twin thrones was earth-shaking, a sound that could wake the dead.
A thunderous sound woke Archer with a start. He could scarcely blink away the disorientation fast enough. Someone was calling him. Shrieking to him. Begging him.
“We got the thrones, Archer!” the urgent male voice screamed. Some distant part of Archer recognized the voice. “We got the two thrones, but he caught . . . us! Get the trees . . . burn the trees!”
Rigby.
Archer blinked completely awake and found himself leaning up against a stone wall, surrounded by muck in the midst of a vast castle courtyard. The graves were gone, and a few hounds were pacing in the distance. But then Archer saw them. The Trees of Life and Death. They were separated by a hundred yards of cobbled stone, the wreckage of a throne, and a pair of the Nightmare Lord’s hounds.
This was the first time the Dreamtreader had been able to actually take in the size and form of the dreambeasts. They were huge, thick-bodied animals with broad paws, barrel chests, and thick, wild manes, like a lion’s but black. Most apparent, of course, were the raging red eyes, protruding muscular jaws, and livid yellow teeth.
“The trees, Archer!” Rigby screamed as if in great pain. “Please.”
That did it. The pain. The searing agony in Rigby’s voice, the urgency, it smacked Archer like a physical blow. He was up and running in an instant. He vaulted a hound, tossing a fistful of willed blades at the beast as he careened over its head and crash landed by the first tree. It was a tall oak or, at least, something like an oak in its form and height. But its leaves were tear-shaped and rather small.
The Tree of Life.
Archer pulled at the bounds of his imagination. This could not be a slow burn, a crackling bonfire, or an intense glowing smolder. This had to be an absolute inferno, something equivalent to a volcanic eruption or a solar flare. He eyed the tree, and great molten gobs of flame coalesced around his fists. He screamed and threw his hands up. The fire that leaped from within Archer both shocked him and knocked him backward off his feet.
From his back on the cobbled stone, Archer saw a blazing inferno rise up around the tree. It was a searing, flash-burning column like a tornado made from tongues of flame. But amidst the roar of the flame, there was also a great scream. It was sharp, agonized, tremulous . . . and brief.
The engulfed silhouette of the tree seemed to tremble. Then wither. Then crack. Pieces of raw timber flashed away into ash. Archer saw other shapes in the fire, shapes that did not belong. It was almost as if the tree had an inner skeleton, a rib cage and limbs, all completely blackened now.
A small piece of ash fell into Archer’s eye, stinging him back to the task. The Dreamtreader curled and rolled to his feet, off and running for the misshapen Tree of Death before he could stop to think about his actions. As he ran, he became aware of his own tiredness. Spending his mental energy had begun to drain on his system. To consume the second tree would spend even more. He didn’t know if he’d have enough left to fight the Nightmare Lord, much less prevail against him. But those thoughts were secondary. The tree had to burn.
The two hounds between the trees set against Archer, but their threat had diminished somewhat. They seemed smaller now, weaker. Maybe it was the destruction of the first tree. Archer didn’t know, but before the beasts could pounce, he attacked them both. The Dreamtreader willed forth a length of chain around each of their necks. The hounds yelped and snarled and fought to get free, but Archer held them fast, constricting the chains link by link. Archer strode past the struggling hounds and said, “These are your tokens of doom!” He didn’t look back, but he heard the fall of the beasts and the heavy clank of the chains as he leaped to the second tree. Before his feet again touched the stone, Archer unleashed streams of burning liquid from his fingertips, swallowing the trunk in front of him in a monsoon of fire.
The Tree of Death seemed swarmed by hornets of flame. Branches vanished, then limbs. The trunk split asunder and fell apart. The buring hunks twisted within the flames, and again, Archer saw those strange skeletal shapes before it all withered and was gone.
Archer had to duck his head and cover his ears at the raging howl that blasted out at that moment. Somewhere in the distance, the Nightmare Lord roared with such venom and agony that the entire keep shook, but Archer knew his job wasn’t finished. He forced himself to his feet and strode in the direction from which the sound had come.
It seemed like he ran for an eternity, but then the ground fell away and he was falling, crashing madly down steps of stone. He tumbled and banged his head, his elbows, his knees—again and again. Each time he healed his wounds immediately, but he couldn’t stop his momentum. He found himself sprawled midway down what looked like an old Roman theater: a bowl of stone with a central stage in the center, everything funneling down to that point in the middle.
Archer blinked stupidly. The trees were gone, withered in flame. Tiny flakes of ash rained down from the sky even now. Tired and aching, he found a way to his feet. He stood and looked down onto the stage.
There was the Nightmare Lord. He wasn’t wearing his horned helm but rather a pale crown adorned with black gems. He did not look hobbled in the least. He stood like a massive statue of some mythological warrior or maybe a demon with those pale green eyes. But his face was not what Archer had expected. He was grim and fearsome but ruggedly . . . normal. A broad chin, proud cheekbones, ridged and angled brows set above the emptiness of his eyes—it was a startling contrast. Archer gaped down at his enemy and yelled, “I fear you no longer! You are mortal now!”
“No,” came his hornet-infested rasp. “Young fool.”
It was then that Archer realized the Nightmare Lord was not alone. There was a wide stone altar, and upon it, bound at the wrists, neck, and ankles, lay Rigby Thames. Standing at the side of the altar with a steel dagger was Kara Windchil.
The Nightmare Lord began to clap his hands in mock applause. He gazed up at Archer with those ghastly pale, greenish eyes. “Bezeal played his part well, did he not?” he said.
Archer went to speak but found his tongue knotted. He gazed at Rigby, already bruised and battered, blood leaking from a dozen wounds. But breathing. Breathing rapidly. And Kara, the look in her eyes was baffling. There was sadness, some kind of regret . . . and yet, also a steely determination that Archer couldn’t quite understand.
Finally regaining his voice, Archer cried out, “Kara, what are you doing? Put down the blade!”
Kara did not move. She seemed mute, almost entranced.
“Destroy the thrones, not once but twice,” the Nightmare Lord mocked. “But he who does will pay the price. Isn’t that what Bezeal told you? It was a splendid exercise, or should I say expenditure of your will. And the trees, Archer? The Tree of Life and the Tree of Death, that was quite a show of strength you put on, razing them to the ground. To think that you might have used such power . . . on me? A terrible shame. I wonder whose doom you sealed.”
But as Archer pondered the mysterious words of the Nightmare Lord, he studied his enemy standing over Kara and Rigby. And for a few moments, confusion overwhelmed his pain. Where were the other Lucid Walkers? They had seemed to be doing pretty well in the initial stages of the assault. What had become of them? And how had Rigby been captured? The guy was powerful in the Dream, resourceful and smart. He had the Lurker, his Uncle Scoville, watching his back. Why would the bonds on that altar even hold Rigby?
Then he knew. Fear. Archer could see it in Rigby’s eyes. It was the stricken look of a man who could no longer see a way out. It was the gaze of a man who had no hope.