ed watched in horror as the Guardians charged. His friends in the Circus of Marvels formed a circle round Alice and her passengers, Gorrn still behind him rearing his head to and fro, not knowing which danger to watch for or from where, and all down the line Benissimo’s captains barked.
“HOLD FAST!”
From giant to gnome to grey-clad agent, the Hidden and the BBB looked their fate dead in the eye and held. But bravery, like ice, is only firm without fire.
Behind them the forest erupted with the stench of sulphur and, daylight or not, its Demons charged. Some were alight with flames, others charged like bulls with great dark horns and rows of knife-sharp teeth. Some ran on all fours; some flew with stretched and leathery wings. Ned saw past their great axes and spears, beyond their armour and their rippling scale-hard skin, to their faces. In each and every one he saw glee, the glee of unbound evil no longer hiding in their pits, but raging to fight, and burn, and kill.
The ground shook with metal and claw, as closer and closer the two fronts charged. For a moment Ned’s breath left him and his eyes widened, as everything, all the shouting, all the clamouring and barking of orders, became a shapeless noise.
Crash!
The air shook with the painful screaming of fair-folk. Even as the Demon horde laid waste to the first line, a second wave approached. Weirs and Darklings roared and ran. The wolf-pack and the bear-clan, like Antlor’s herd, had once watched over the forest, keeping Darklings at bay, but now they ran together, claws hungry for flesh and bone. Everywhere Ned looked, the Hidden fell. Through the chaos and its violence Ned heard a single voice.
“Ned! Ned! NED!”
Ned turned and Lucy took his face in her hands. Her eyes were bright and wild, her shoulders heaving.
“Ned, they’re not supposed to protect us, they never were – we’re supposed to protect them!”
Benissimo turned on her angrily. “Don’t be a fool, child! We wait for the Viceroy. When their air defences are focused elsewhere, we head for the eastern tower.”
“No, Bene, we don’t. We make a stand!”
Ned had never heard her speak with more conviction. Her voice was shaking, but not from fear – Lucy wanted to fight.
“Nothing is more important than your mission, child – nothing!”
Stunned and listless, Ned looked to the ground. Scraggs had fallen, with four of his gnomes dragging him away from the fight. George was leading a valiant defence with the BBB, their electrical batons swinging and stabbing at the Guardians, holding them back for precious seconds, but the machines’ unending numbers would not be held for long.
“They’re more important, Bene,” said Ned quietly. “What’s the point of beating your brother and the Darkening King if the fair-folk die? What’s the point of any of it?”
Benissimo’s face became soft and his brow stilled. For just a hint of a moment, Ned saw the man behind the top hat and whip. The man huddled in the rain knowing his end was near.
“We have until the Viceroy’s first volley of cannon. Make it count!”
As one, all three leapt from Alice’s back. Gorrn protested with a quiet “Unt” but a second later had caught up with Ned’s shadow. Benissimo marshalled Monsieur Couteau and Rocky, while Ned looked to his furred protector.
“Lucy, your powers won’t work on the Guardians,” said Ned. “Go with Bene and help push back those Demons. I’ll go to George.”
But there was no answer.
“Lucy?!”
The brave Medic and Farseer had already run ahead of Benissimo. Two Demons loomed up to her. One as large as a troll with legs as thick as tree trunks, a great spiked club in its hands; the other sleeker and more lithe, its face bright with red scales, broad black lips and even blacker teeth.
Lucy did not flinch, but calmly held up her hand. Her powers as a Medic could make her heal the cells of almost any wound because she chose to use her Amplification-Engine for good, just as her mother had and the other Medics before her. Today, here and now, Lucy made a different choice.
Foom!
Her hand tore forward and the Demons howled, bracing in pain and anguish. There were no wounds or cuts across their skin. The harm she’d done them was inside, deep in their bellies and chests. Again she struck, over and over, at more of the gnashing monsters, and again they fell where they stood.
Ned turned and ran to George. He was back to back with one of the grey-suits, a pair of Guardians closing and fast.
“Ned?! What are you doing? Go back to Alice this instant!”
Saying nothing, Ned raised his hand just as Lucy had before him and a surge of power tore through his arm. As they ran, the Guardians fell quite literally apart, a hand here, a leg there, till a string of lifeless bolts and armoured casing was strewn on the ground.
“George, I’ve waited a really long time to say this,” smiled Ned. “Get behind me.”
And quietly and quickly, the great ape and the grey-suit at his back did as they were told. Ned pushed onwards, cutting a line through the Guardians like a knife through butter. One by one they fell, as Ned’s will and his ring fired. He reached into their inner workings and pushed and pulled at them, throwing them to the ground like a puppeteer discarding his dolls.
Gorrn hung back in his shadow, eyes in quiet awe, and across the line the fair-folk cheered. Redoubling their efforts, a great surge of Demons and Darklings rushed on Lucy, only to fall in screaming pain. On Ned’s side of the battle, a deluge of armoured machines charged and were cut down by Ned’s Engine, till their parts piled up like a scrapheap.
“Good Lord, old bean! Why didn’t you do this before?” stammered George, his animal rage now turned to wonder.
“Didn’t know I could!” beamed back Ned.
For a moment, on either side the fighting mellowed as both fronts looked to the centre in awe. By an elderly elephant, a boy and a girl were single-handedly waging war.
And that was when it started. A vast tree came hurtling through the sky. It landed like a bomb amongst the Guardians.
“Arooraa!”
Towering over them all were the fair-folk’s six colossi. They were wading through an angry wood, its black branches snagging at their legs like spears, but the colossi did not flinch. They were tearing their way through the forest, trunk by trunk, to join the fight, and as they did so they hurled the felled and broken trees over the canopy and their gathered allies, deep into the amassing metal foes.
Somewhere in the chaos, a man with no past paused, and looked across the battlefield searching for someone’s eye.
He found it, and Benissimo nodded back.
Mr Fox stared at the fair-folk fighting beside him, prayed that they might have a future and took the aged horn from his back. And he blew. When he did, the sound that came from the Stag King’s horn filled the air not with a rallying blast but with the sound of stamping hooves.
A cheer echoed through the ranks, and on the other side of the fortress’s clearing the trees parted. Running at full gallop came the herd, King Antlor at the centre of at least two hundred of his rushing warriors. They charged, crashing into the Guardians at the fortress’s back in a stampede of bone and metal.
“Aark!”
Ned paused to look up. High above Antlor’s herd he saw Arrk and Finn, the circus’s Irish tracker. They had circled the taiga for miles to flank Barbarossa and draw his air defences away. Behind the hawk and the winged warrior, the sky was full. Giant owls, griffins and huge eagles filled the air, and behind them – the Viceroy’s fleet.
BOOM!
The air burst with cannon fire, striking at the far side of the fortress and below to the gathered Guardians. Benissimo’s great army cheered once more, surging forward to their front and rear, when the air began to shake. Those not fighting could only strain their necks as Barbarossa’s Daedali appeared through some giant glamour of invisibility. There were more than a hundred of the looming black machines and they had been waiting for the Viceroy and his owls to reveal their strength. From their bows and walkways poured wyverns, a great black swarm of leathery-skinned death. Below them the fortress’s ground-to-air flak cannons erupted and the sky screamed.
Everywhere, from the earth to the clouds, the two brothers’ armies were fighting and perishing. Ned’s stomach was turning and his ears rang till he thought they might burst, when there was a leathery prodding at his shoulder in the form of Alice’s trunk. On her back were Benissimo and Lucy.
“Quickly, pup, we go now!” ordered Benissimo.
Ned looked to his left and right – despite their best efforts, their bravery and the Viceroy’s fleet, the fair-folk were losing. The forest’s hordes vomited more and more of its Demons and Darklings, and for every felled Guardian, three more took its place. Ned’s heart physically shook, not just for the brave men and women he was being asked to leave, but for his parents. Whatever had become of them, one thing was abundantly clear – they had not turned the Central Intelligence or his army, and without that precious help, all would be lost.
“We can’t leave them, Bene. They’ll be slaughtered!”
He turned, firing up his ring, when Alice’s powerful trunk reached round his waist and hoisted him on to her back.
Lucy was busy with their mount’s leather harness, working the straps frantically to unleash her wings.
From down below, a bruised and battered George looked up to Ned, his face even now managing a smile.
“Don’t worry, old bean. They’ve got me, haven’t they?”
Behind him the ground shook as a fresh row of Guardians marched.
“Run, George, get out of here!”
“Run? My dear old chum, there’s nowhere else to go.”
“Ready, Bene – she’s ready!” screamed Lucy.
“Alice, old girl, give us everything you’ve got.”
With a great trumpeting, Alice surged forward, her white wings unfolded and she launched herself into the air and over George’s head.
The last thing Ned saw was Mr Fox and a handful of agents. They were hurriedly forming a circle, as if discussing something of the utmost importance. Mr Spider was there. He had a small device in his hand and was whispering in Mr Fox’s ear.