"No. Lay it down… Yes. On its back. Right, but shove it up against this mechanism here… Excellent!" he proclaimed, dragging a great red stone from his pocket and setting it on the forehead of the statue.
The stone sank into the forehead, embedding itself and pulsing to life.
"Wonderful! Wonderful!" Snaff cried.
Metal loops rose from the magical creation that lay there, clamping down on the shoulders of the bust and forming a collar. The machine groaned, pitched forward, and sat up-a towering golem with the head of Zojja.
THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
The moment before the axe-rifles fired, Logan Thackeray swept his hand out in a fan. A blue aura bled from his fingertips into the air, solidifying it in a curved wall before the scouts.
"Fire!" the charr centurion roared.
The axe-rifles boomed and vomited smoke and lead. But the shots struck the ethereal membrane and sank into it and were eaten away. Bullets showered rust to the ground.
The leader of the charr stared, his jaw dropping. "You're full of surprises!"
"I'm Logan Thackeray. I protect those who are mine."
"I'm Rytlock Brimstone," the charr shot back. "I kill those who aren't."
"I recognize your blade. Did you say Rurik Brimstone?"
"Rytlock," the charr snarled.
Logan shrugged. "I just figured since you stole Prince Rurik's sword, you probably also stole his name."
Rytlock lashed the air with the burning blade. "The sword's mine now."
"After this fight," Logan said, whirling his war hammer in a figure eight, "Sohothin will once again be in the hands of a human."
"During this fight," Rytlock spat, "Sohothin will once again be in the guts of a human." He looked back at the charr around him. "Turn those damned rifles around and chop them to pieces!"
Rytlock charged, ramming his sword toward Logan's stomach.
The man spun aside, his war hammer pounding the fiery blade. Sparks flew, and the sword clanged down to one side. Logan stepped in to kick his opponent's leg, and Rytlock staggered back in surprise and pain. The man meanwhile advanced, swinging his war hammer in a thundering arc overhead.
This time, Rytlock deflected the blow, leaned in, and planted a massive fist in the man's stomach. Logan flew back and crashed to the ground. He staggered up to one knee.
"You fight like a charr"-Rytlock laughed blackly-"though you fly like a grawl."
"Grawl don't fly."
"They do when you punch them!" Rytlock stomped toward the man and swung another massive blow.
Logan tried to dodge, but the flaming sword followed him. Growling, he jabbed his hammer out desperately. Sohothin engulfed the weapon, fire mantling the hammerhead.
Logan ripped his hammer free, but it sloughed a skin of red-hot metal.
The charr cackled. "Nice sword, eh?"
"Legendary."
"And you'll never wield it."
Again the roaring attack, again the argument of metal and fire, and again Logan stepped back, his hammer smoldering and his chest heaving.
Rytlock was a cat playing with prey. "At least you're doing better than your friends."
Logan glanced to one side where Wescott, Perkins, and Fielding fought back-to-back, surrounded by four charr. On the other side, Everlee, Dawson, Tippett, and Castor fought a similarly desperate battle against five charr.
"Is that how you fight?" Logan growled at the legionnaire. "Four on three? Five on four?"
Rytlock shrugged. "We fight to win. Foreign concept to you humans, I know."
Fury flooded through Logan, and he spun. His war hammer vaulted overhead and moaned down toward Rytlock's head. The charr rolled aside, the hammer cracking across his claws. He clambered to his feet and charged, Sohothin's fires roaring. The flaming blade struck a blue aura that Logan had painted in the air to cover his retreat.
Rytlock ripped his sword free of the barrier and said, "You're so good at retreating."
Despite his words, Logan took another step back, staring in horror-not at the sword, but at what it showed lurking behind the charr.
Two monstrous faces loomed out of the night. Their eyes were the size of fists; their mouths were gathered like sacks; their armored figures towered like cliff faces.
"Ogres," Logan stammered as he staggered back.
"What?" Rytlock roared, turning.
"Ogres!" Logan shouted.
A massive boot pounded the ground behind Rytlock, who whirled aside just before a spiked club crashed down beside him. The spikes impaled another charr and rooted him to the ground. The ogre flexed its sinewy arm, trying to yank the club free.
Recovering from shock, Logan charged the ogre, running up its huge club and arm and onto its shoulder. With a mighty swing, he buried his hammer in the brow of the beast. Moaning, the ogre dropped to its knees and rolled ponderously forward. Logan leaped to the ground.
"How about that?" Logan crowed.
"Turn around!" Rytlock snarled.
Logan spun to see a pair of hyenas soaring toward him out of the darkness.
His hammer rose and fell, and beside it, Sohothin danced, and the hyenas dropped before the man and the charr.
"Pets," hissed Rytlock. "Ogres always travel with them."
"I know all about ogres!" Logan snapped, clubbing another hyena.
But Rytlock wasn't listening, his sword slicing through an ogre's leg. Its club had been swinging toward Logan, but as the beast crumpled, the club flew free and crashed into the wall of the canyon. Rytlock leaped onto the breast of the fallen ogre and buried his blade in its heart.
"How about that?" Rytlock exulted.
Logan rose and hurled his hammer toward Rytlock. "What the-" Rytlock ducked, and the weapon spun by overhead and smashed into the face of another ogre. It staggered dizzily, shaking its head to clear it. Rytlock leaped up and struck the ogre's head from its shoulders.
Between them, Logan and Rytlock had felled three ogres and three hyenas, but five more of the beasts and ten more of their pets battled the other scouts and charr.
One ogre kicked its way through the crowd, hurling Tippett against the rock wall and stomping a charr warrior to mush. Another ogre tackled a charr, breaking its back. A third swung a club with Wescott impaled on it.
Logan ducked beneath the club, fetched his hammer, and smashed it into the beast's hip. A wet crack told of a broken pelvis, and the creature slumped to one side. Another blow from the hammer destroyed its spine.
Rytlock, meanwhile, dragged his burning blade across the hamstrings of another ogre. As it dropped, he plunged the sword into its skull and fried its brain.
Two charr chopped at a third ogre like woodsmen working a great bole. It was an agonizing end, but the ogre made its opponents pay for it. Its flailing hands clutched their heads and pulped them.
The last of the defenders, Logan and Rytlock retreated back-to-back within a circle of hyenas. The snarling creatures darted in, snapping at the legs of the warriors. They responded with hammer and sword. Bashed and burning, hyenas yelped and withdrew.
And now it was down to one human, one charr, and two ogres.
One of the ogres was young and broad; the other was old and narrow. The young one demanded, "Why have you invaded my lands?"
Rytlock hitched a thumb at Logan. "He invaded. I just followed."
The old ogre growled, "You attacked Chiefling Ygor, son of Chief Kronon."
"I want no trouble," protested Logan. "My quarrel is with the charr."
"Your excuses mean nothing," the chiefling said. "The sentence is death."
"Chiefling Ygor has spoken!" pronounced the old ogre.
With that, the ogres charged, their massive morning stars descending like meteors.
Logan and Rytlock rolled away as the weapons impaled the ground.
"Get back here," the old ogre growled. He swung a wild shot after Logan.
Logan tried to leap over the blow, but it caught his boot and flipped him over. Desperate to bring him down, the old ogre lunged sideways and bashed Logan with his elbow. Logan barked with pain, staggering out of reach.