Now Brom was enormous and frightful, a true monster. Backflapping his wings, he landed on the uneven rubble of the pyramid, where Nicci stood before him.
With her uneven blond hair still growing out, she didn’t know if Brom recognized her. Maybe the dragon considered all humans identical. She felt her gift boil within her, ready to be unleashed. She shouted bravely, “I fought you before when you were much weaker, Brom. I will fight you again, if you force me.”
The gray dragon poised on the broken pyramid, crackling with intelligence and energy. He sniffed, drawing in a loud hollow snort. Smoke curled around his scaled face. “You are the sorceress. I remember.”
“We met at Kuloth Vale,” Nicci said. “You granted us one rib bone for our needs, and my magic reignited the fires in your heart. I gave you strength and burned away some of your age.”
“Yes, you did. And I gave you the bone you needed. I no longer have any debt to you.”
“I am not calling in a debt,” Nicci said. “I am only appealing to your common sense. You are a wise dragon, an ancient scholar. Is a wise dragon drawn into a war that means nothing to him? Why do you fight for General Utros? Why would you care?”
“I do not care. And I do not care about you.”
“Then why do it?” she asked.
Brom snorted. “He has bound me with magic from a dragon-fire scar on his face. We are joined, and his sorceresses forced me to do his bidding. This once, and then he says I will be free of him.”
“How can anyone force such a powerful creature as yourself?” she asked. “I know where his scar came from. You are not the silver dragon who fought him a long time ago.”
“The connection is weak,” Brom agreed, “but I cannot break it. His sorceresses inflict pain. Utros told me I must destroy Ildakar and burn you all before I can return to guard my ancestors. That is all I care about.”
Nicci put her hands on her hips. “Then you will force me to fight you, and you already know that I, too, can inflict pain.”
Brom opened and closed his immense jaws. “I do not want this fight.”
“I am the one who helped you in Kuloth Vale, gave you back your strength, while General Utros binds you, forces you, hurts you. He is your true enemy.”
Brom thrashed. “I must burn Ildakar, or I will never be free.”
Nicci extended her gift, felt the powerful presence of the gray dragon. With her own Han as well as the aura of magic that throbbed through the city of Ildakar—especially here, at the pyramid itself—she could see the faint gossamer thread that strung out from Brom. “His sorceresses bound you, but only with a weak chain. They used a piece of his dragon-burned flesh to call on any dragon. You just happened to be closest.”
Brom snorted fire, blasting at the air to release his fury. “I know! I am a wise dragon. Do not think you can fool me.”
“I’m not trying to fool you. I am stating the obvious, and my magic is greater than the magic those sorceresses wield. I killed a wizard once, and I have his power as well as my own.” She studied the tenuous line between Brom and Utros. Reaching out, she seized it, and used her gift to sever the link, just as she had cut the single key strand from her hair when Ava and Ruva attacked her.
When the invisible bond broke, Brom reeled. He flared the scaly plates at the back of his head, drew himself up tall, and spread his wings wide. Huge and terrifying, he loomed above the damaged pyramid.
“Choose whom you wish to fight,” Nicci said. “I set you free. You may go back to Kuloth Vale if you like.” She smiled. “But I have placed a new debt upon you. If you attack General Utros and his army, however, we will be even again.”
Brom thrashed his barb-tipped tail. “With pleasure.” He launched himself into the air again.
Energized and angry, the dragon flew above Ildakar and plunged back toward the enemy army.
CHAPTER 65
The screams of slaughtered soldiers, the crunch of bones, the splash of blood filled the battlefield, but the Ixax warriors uttered no sound. The titans covered a dozen paces with every stride. Their iron-shod boots crushed multiple opponents at a time, grinding enemy soldiers underfoot. Their swords decapitated ten at a time. A single blow from a gauntleted fist knocked down steadfast defensive lines.
The Ixax destroyed hundreds, then thousands, and set their gaze on thousands more. They moved in tandem as countless enemy soldiers rallied against them, attacking with spears and swords, battering their impenetrable armor. The Ixax destroyed anyone who engaged them.
First Commander Enoch rode up on his chalky-gray warhorse, raising his sword and yelling to the troops. “Rally! All soldiers of General Utros, rally! We have strength in numbers. Make your stand!”
Messengers raced among the farthest ranks, and the invincible army pulled together like a living creature, tens of thousands falling into ranks and running in lockstep, perfectly trained.
The Ixax warriors smashed forward, as if wading through waves of flesh and bone. Many opponents fell with each blow, but the ancient army did not scatter. Enoch knew they wouldn’t. He had spent his life with these men, and he’d trained them for decades. Now they were all joined by a brotherhood of blood, their families dead, lost from time. The only thing remaining to them was the victory that Utros promised, and they had faith in him.
Battle horns sounded, and desperate orders spread like wildfire. “For the general, whatever it takes!” Enoch shouted, and thousands of voices echoed the resounding response. “For the general!”
Two companies locked their shields together, pointed their spears, and formed a pair of phalanxes. They marched forward with precision in the face of the chaos caused by the colossal Ixax. More hardened soldiers threw themselves upon the giants, and they were summarily slain, but more came in their wake to continue the attack. And then more.
Enoch was horrified by the casualties he saw. In the past half hour, more of his comrades had been killed than General Utros had lost in all of his military campaigns combined. But the general’s army would not retreat, nor would they surrender. Judging by the uncontrolled destruction caused by the two giants, Enoch knew the Ixax would never give up, either. He couldn’t tell whether these titans were intelligent and aware, or just mindless fighters with one purpose. The massive armored warriors would continue to fight until they had killed every enemy soldier.
The only choice was to destroy them, no matter how much blood it cost. General Utros felt the same.
Another fanfare sounded, and half-stone soldiers closed in from all directions, tightening the net. The two phalanxes struck the giant warriors, and when the Ixax shattered the point of the formation, the soldiers closed up and pushed ahead, jabbing with spears. The enraged giants flattened the formation, but the numbers that flooded in were becoming overwhelming. Around them, bloody, broken bodies of slain soldiers piled up like mountains.
Astride his warhorse, Enoch bellowed orders, but the mayhem of the battlefield was simply too loud for anyone to hear him. Even so, the soldiers knew what to do. “For the general!” they cried, their voices scattered and overlapping, and as they repeated it, their shouts fell into a pattern, a rhythmic chant. “For Utros, for Utros!”
The Ixax warriors took down more and more of the ancient soldiers, but General Utros had hundreds of thousands of fighters, all well trained and well armed, each man ready to give his life to cause even a flicker of damage against the titans. Even Enoch, who had relayed the order, stared in breathless disbelief.
The soldiers reminded him of a swarm of ants trying to take down a much larger insect. They came forward by the thousands, throwing themselves upon the Ixax warriors. Their bodies piled up in barricades of bloody flesh, broken bones, and severed limbs, but they pressed closer to overwhelm the Ixax.