With a deep groan, the colossal Ixax warriors began to move.
Watching them, Nathan felt a rush of fear and excitement. The iron armor screeched reluctantly as the Ixax lumbered forward, moving on their own for the first time in centuries. The turretlike giant waists turned with a creak. The Ixax swiveled their helmets, tilting down to look at Nathan. Though he was a great wizard, he felt insignificant when these warriors looked at him.
He remembered how the first one had pounded Andre into a smear of skin and crushed bone. If they became treacherous, these Ixax warriors could turn on him, rip down the gates of Ildakar, and wreak havoc throughout the city.
“Please…” Nathan whispered, not sure that they could hear him.
The Ixax straightened themselves to stare ahead at the countless thousands of enemy troops and the dragon that had just landed in the general’s camp. The titans plodded forward onto the battlefield.
“Back inside,” Nicci shouted to the people around him. “Close the gates!”
Leaving the large empty carts outside the wall, the duma members, gifted nobles, and workers retreated into the city, and the enormous gates swung closed. Nathan, Nicci, and Elsa hurried to get a view of what the warriors would do. They raced to the top of the wall, where they joined the sentry guards and countless spectators.
Nathan watched the Ixax stride toward the huge army. “This is why they were created.”
The Ixax warriors strode forward like battering rams on two legs. The ancient soldiers that filled the valley had focused on the arrival of the dragon, but now the front ranks turned to face the new threat as the Ixax warriors picked up speed.
The enemy soldiers formed a line, locking their shields in a barricade against the oncoming juggernauts. The giant warriors towered over them, and each Ixax held a sword in one gauntleted hand, its blade as tall as a man. They waded among the enemy ranks like wolves in a chicken coop.
Utros’s soldiers were cleaved into pieces, dozens dying in a single stroke of an Ixax sword. Hundreds of the ancient soldiers converged around them, heedless of their own lives, rushing forward to thwart the giants. In response, the two colossal warriors slaughtered hundreds and moved deeper into the army camp.
From the high wall of Ildakar, the spectators cheered the unleashed Ixax. Nicci grabbed Nathan’s arm and pointed toward the sky. “Look, the dragon! It’s flying toward Ildakar!” Utros had apparently won his struggle to command the gray monster. She set her jaw. “I will go to the city’s high point, where I can fight the dragon if I have to.” She darted off without waiting for him to reply.
Nathan watched the titans release their fury. For countless centuries the Ixax had been unable to twitch, unable to react, and now all that pent-up anger was directed against a real enemy. The two giants swept their huge swords down lines of the half-stone warriors. They smashed with their massive gauntlets. Hundreds more enemies died, and the Ixax crashed deeper into the army, bashing heads, crushing dozens at a time.
Nathan had never felt sympathy for General Utros and his half-petrified army. He would have preferred that they saw reason and founded some new land of their own in the untamed vastness of the Old World, but now he knew they had to be defeated. Utros would never surrender. He had catapulted the mutilated bodies of fallen Ildakaran soldiers over the walls. His two sorceresses had attacked Nicci with her own hair and they had killed poor Lani.
This was a deadly game, and now the Ixax would knock all the game pieces off the board.
Their widening swath of destruction ripped through the enemy army. Thousands lay broken and dead as the titans crashed forward without slowing. Nathan felt great satisfaction at what he saw. The Ixax were as powerful as he’d hoped. And they were following their mission to protect the city. But they still had many thousands more to defeat, and Nathan feared that even those gigantic fighters didn’t stand a chance.
Meanwhile, the gray dragon flapped its enormous wings, flying fast toward Ildakar.
As the dragon soared away from Utros, First Commander Enoch galloped up on his warhorse, shouting, “Thousands down already, General! We have to fight those giants.”
Utros had seen the behemoths emerge from the gates of Ildakar, but forcing his will on Brom had demanded all his attention. At another time, he would have found the two huge warriors terrifying and impressive.
But he had a dragon.
The old veteran’s craggy face was drawn, his gestures frenetic when he heard no response. “We need to fight them, General! We need all the magic we can summon. Your sorceresses must blast them.”
Utros turned to Ava and Ruva, who looked diminished after their recent effort. “I require all their strength to maintain control on the dragon. We don’t dare let it turn on us, and they have expended so much magic already.”
“But look at those giant warriors, sir! We’ll lose much of our army.”
Utros watched the towering inhuman giants careering through the ranks of his soldiers. They seemed unstoppable. He regarded Enoch through his golden half mask. “Then turn all of our army against them, overwhelm them with sheer numbers. We have more thousands than they can imagine.”
With cold detachment, he admired the sheer power unleashed by the armored monstrosities. His own soldiers flew in all directions like scattered coins, and fell broken. Utros drew a deep breath, adjusted the horned helmet on his head. “Yes, that is what we must do. Gather our fighters. Those giants may seem invincible, but we have only two targets, two enemies, and countless ranks to throw against them.” He smiled with his hardened face. “I am confident we will be victorious.”
As the battle raged outside the walls, Nicci raced to the top of the plateau, where the ruling tower rose high and the broken pyramid marked the night when the old order of Ildakar had begun to fall.
Beyond the wall, the Ixax warriors continued to mow down countless enemy soldiers, but Nicci turned her attention on the dragon flying high above. She could see few details, except for how huge it was. With a beat of powerful wings, it swooped down, spewing an orange trail of flame in the air. The beast torched long patches of vineyards, ignited olive groves, burned the roofs of warehouses. In the city below, people rushed to find shelter wherever they could, but neither inner rooms nor root cellars would protect them from a barrage of dragon fire.
When Nicci reached the top of the plateau, she raised her hands to the sky and let out a resounding shout. “Dragon! Come face me.” Using her gift, she unleashed black and white lightning that skittered across the sky, demanding the creature’s attention.
She began to run up the steps of the broken pyramid, choosing that structure intentionally, since the stone blocks would not catch fire, and there were no other people or homes around. Nicci alone would face the beast.
The dragon circled toward her and bellowed from the sting of her lightning bolts. Seeing her scramble up the broken steps of the pyramid, it swooped closer.
The beast seemed familiar to her, and as it filled its chest to exhale deadly flames, Nicci called out its name: “Brom!”
The dragon faltered, flapping his enormous wings and circling again.
“Brom, guardian of Kuloth Vale. Why did you abandon the bones of dragons? You should be protecting them, not fighting us.”
The gray beast snorted, but seemed curious. Nicci remembered the ancient and decrepit dragon, his wings tattered, his ribs showing. Even in his aged, weak condition, Brom had fought to defend the graveyard of dragons. Nicci, Nathan, Bannon, and the girl Thistle had gone to Kuloth Vale because they needed a dragon’s rib bone to defeat Life’s Mistress. When they had battled the ancient gray dragon, Nicci’s magic had inadvertently rejuvenated him, giving strength and energy to the feeble creature.