Then something touched his thoughts - a feeling of dark evil intruding. Malingo! The sorcerer was already working to disable him! And there was no time now for his spell. Desperately, Matt cried out the only lines he could think of, sure they would not work, but forced to try.
A wind seemed to sweep across his mind, and the dark presence weakened, seeming to rise, struggling, to hover over him. Stalemate between himself and Malingo? If so, at least Astaulf's armies would not be able to invoke major magic.
And halfway across the valley, Astaulf kicked his horse into a gallop as he swung his sword overhead with a bellow. His whole army broke into a run with a vast shout.
Alisande sat her charger, waiting tranquilly, while the tail of Astaulf's army still flowed down over the ridge and until Matt could make out every detail of the usurper's armor.
"Now!" Alisande bawled. "Charge!"
Her army broke into a gallop with a shout of joy, thundering across the valley to meet the enemy.
As they charged, Sir Guy rose to stand in his stirrups, and his voice sounded above the battle, directed toward the foe with a pounding melody in archaic words. From his right, Colmain echoed it, hammering the meaning through:
There was magic in the words, a weird magic that beat through Matt's head and drummed in his blood. And it was a magic for which Malingo was not prepared.
Pockets of Astaulf's army slowed, seeming suddenly reluctant. Their captains bellowed, lashing at them with the flats of their swords. The pockets swelled as they stopped, balking. The captains cursed and swung with the edges, lopping off heads.
With a roar of fury, whole battalions turned on their commanders, laying about them with their pikes and shouting: "Lord, forgive me!" ... "Jesus, I do repent each blow I've struck for my foul master!" ... "Die, devil! Heaven claim my soul!"
In a matter of minutes, almost a third of Astaulf's army had turned against him. That quickly, Sir Guy had changed the odds to a somewhat more even match.
"For God and Saint Moncaire!" Alisande cried, swinging her sword high as the two armies crashed together. She and Astaulf traded blows; then a horde of battling footmen surged between them, and they were lost to one another's sight.
On the left flank, Sir Guy mowed down soldiers; chanting war songs, with the Moncaireans following to bind the sheaves of dead. On the right, Colmain bent low, slapping knights from their horses and slinging them behind him for the dwarves to finish, while the ogres spread out to either side of him, crushing skulls.
Both flanks slowed as reinforcements surged toward them, stalling the advance by sheer weight of numbers. The battle settled down to personal combat and immediately degenerated into chaos, as repentant queen's men fought those whose greed outweighed their fear of Hell or of their sons' contempt. Knots of struggle formed all along the line.
Matt laid about him with his marvelous sword, catching blows on his shield and slashing in return. The air was filled with the roars of the berserkers and the shrieks of the dying. Pikes pressed in upon him from all sides. He had no time to try magic, even if the countering spells were gone. But they seemed to endure, since there was no sign of magic from Malingo, either.
An ancient Greek battle song roared in his right ear, and his left was filled with a battle hymn from Sister Victrix's band; he was caught between the classical and the medieval. He had lost sight of Alisande; he'd lost sight of everything but Colmain, Stegoman beneath him, and the swords and lances that stabbed at him from all directions. Here and there, above the clamor, he heard metal crashing together as Max pulled down pocket after pocket of enemy troops. Hoarse male screams filled the air.
Then a chorus of screeches came down from the sky. Matt looked up in alarm and saw a horde of harpies plummeting down toward the battle; in front of them came twelve-foot flying snakes, bat-winged and breathing fire.
"Firedrakes!" someone screamed nearby. "Lord defend us!"
Hell-spawn had joined the battle. Apparently the stasis on spells was wearing thin. The enemy roared with relief and waded in.
"To me!" Stegoman bellowed, lifting his head above the crowd.
Matt caught a blast of fire from a drake upon his shield and swore as the armor conducted heat to his skin. He rose in his stirrups to chop out full-length, slashing a firedrake in half. Liquid spattered as the two halves went flying, still writhing and snapping. A drop hit Matt's shield; in a few seconds he was staring through a hole the ichor had eaten.
"To me!" Stegoman bellowed again, and a chorus of roaring answered from the skies. Matt risked a quick glance up, and saw a hundred dragons diving down from the heights, a shoal of fire before them - Glogorogh and the volunteers.
The harpies shrieked and flapped frantically upward, sheering off.
"Captains!" Alisande's voice came clearly above the lull in the battle the aerial combat had created. "Regroup your forces!"
They had time, because the dragons plowed into the firedrakes with bellows of fury and billows of flame. A score of younger dragons scoured the skies for harpies, sailing into a cluster of monsters and lashing fire about them, slashing out with claws and teeth. The harpies shrieked, ganging up on the dragons by dozens and scores; but the dragons were in full rage and in no mood to argue numbers. Charred harpies crashed down in the midst of the armies; manic women's heads went flying.
Lower, just above the soldiers' helmets, older dragons chewed up the fire-snakes.
The armies cowered under their shields as fire and acid rained about them. The allied commanders bawled commands at their troops, cajoling and bullying them into order again.
The rain of fire began to slacken. Matt risked a peek around the edge of his shield and saw only a few harpies, trying to flutter away toward the east, with the dragons in hot pursuit. There were no firedrakes, though snake bodies writhed upon the ground, splattering acid blood about them.
"Now," Alisande called, somewhere ahead, "hew a road for me to the usurper! Ladies, to me!"
The nuns howled, and the Greeks bellowed behind them, hammering into the churning enemy battle line.
Far away across the ranks, the moonlight revealed Astaulf, laying about him with the flat of his sword, knocking his own men aside to clear a path to the princess. Behind him rode a robed figure with a tall, pointed cap-Malingo, preoccupied with sword and shield.