William’s face fell and he slumped backward. “No…” he moaned.
Lin Mae was equally distraught. “They blocked it!”
But there was no time to dwell on their disappointment. For all at once the Queen rose up from within the protective circle of her Paladins, as if her massive, palpitating body was about to swell and explode. She swiveled her head, her glittering green eyes searching, probing for her attackers. William shuddered as she looked up, directly at them. Even from here he fancied he could feel the icy coldness of her penetrating stare.
There was a long, silent moment of mutual appraisal—and then the web of flesh stretched between the Queen’s horns began to vibrate. The sound the action produced was like an ululating screech of such rage, such purpose, that both William and Lin Mae had to momentarily cover their ears. Instantly, like a shoal of fish, the Tao Tei turned as one and began swarming towards the pagoda.
“They see us!” Lin Mae yelled.
William leaned out over the balcony and glanced upwards. “We need to go higher.”
“Come! Hurry!”
Down on the ground, standing in the courtyard doorway that gave access to the pagoda, Wang paled as the milling Tao Tei suddenly turned in unison and rushed towards him. Exactly how strong was the magnet’s influence? He was about to find out.
Holding the magnet above his head, he stood resolute as the horde bore down upon him. When they got to within eight or ten feet of him, they veered off to one side or the other, forming a semi-circular no-go area around him.
It was working! He was denying the Tao Tei access to the pagoda! But to his dismay, he quickly realized that the courtyard doorway was not the only way to breach the tower. To the left and right of him the deflected Tao Tei were now starting to climb up the outside of the pagoda. There were so many of them that from a distance they must have resembled a voracious, fast-growing fungus.
So numerous were they, in fact, and so eager to reach and destroy their Queen’s attackers, that many of those ascending found they were unable to secure handholds through the melee of their fellow creatures’ bodies. These unlucky ones began to fall back, like exceptionally weighty autumn fruit shed from a tree. They crashed down in the courtyard one by one, their vast bodies smashing open on impact with the ground. Protected though he was by the magnet, Wang realized it was only a matter of time before a falling Tao Tei body smashed down on top of him. Added to which, the Nameless Order’s only realistic hope of preventing the Tao Tei scourge from spreading and devouring the world rested with William and the General. It was they who needed the protection offered by the magnet, not him.
Bracing himself, he stepped out into the courtyard and looked up. “General!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “William!”
A pair of heads, perhaps seven floors up, appeared over the top of a balcony and looked down at him.
There was no time to engage in conversation. Wang simply yelled, “It’s up to you now!” and then, gathering all the strength left in his body, he hurled the black stone up towards them.
William looked down in horror as the magnet left Wang’s hand and began hurtling upwards. As soon as its protective influence, which Wang had worn around him like a cloak, was removed, dozens of Tao Tei heads turned in his direction. The little man didn’t try to run. He simply stood where he was, composed and dignified as ever, waiting for the inevitable. Before any of the creatures surrounding him could pounce, however, a climbing Tao Tei fell from the tower directly above him. William turned away, not wishing to see the man he had come not only to respect but to consider a friend crushed beneath it.
Leaning so far over the balcony that William instinctively rushed forward to grab her legs, Lin Mae pulled free the long lance that was strapped to her back and lowered its metal blade to meet the ascending magnet. Attracted to the metal, the black stone rushed towards the blade and stuck fast to it. Lin Mae pulled the lance back in and gathered it protectively to her chest as William dragged her back to safety. The two of them glanced at each other, a split-second acknowledgement that in order to both justify and respect Wang’s sacrifice they had to act now and mourn later, and then they turned and raced up the stairs to the top of the pagoda.
When they were as high as they could get, William nocked another black powder arrow onto his bowstring and gave Lin Mae a determined nod. As the fuse passed through the ignition device on his wrist and burst into life he let fly. The target was larger and wider from this height, but with incredible speed and dexterity the Queen’s bevy of Paladins flowed upwards, clambering atop one another like acrobats, and once again deflected the projectile with their fan-like shields.
“We only have one black powder arrow left,” William said bleakly. “Give me the lance.”
Lin Mae, though, had unclipped the grappling hook from her belt, and was now quickly unspooling the long coil of rope attached to the hook.
“What are you doing?” William asked.
“I have trained for this my whole life. We will fly,” she said.
William looked across at the Queen. It was a fair distance. He couldn’t see how they would reach her. “What? How?”
But she was already spinning the grappling hook on the end of its rope to gain speed and momentum, her eyes fixed on an ornamental corner of the overhanging roof above the balcony, which had been carved into a curl that looped up and then back on itself. Without another word, she let fly.
The hook flew straight and true, the rope wrapping itself around the jutting corner of the roof, before the hook itself, having spun round on the rope several times, clamped tightly on to the structure, its metal prongs digging deep into the wood.
William looked dubiously at the jutting curl of wood to which the hook was attached. It was stout and solid, but would it be strong enough to take their combined weight? Turning back to her, he said doubtfully, “Lin Mae, I—”
“Xin ren,” she said fiercely. She held his gaze for a moment, and then he nodded at her.
“I’ll give you the shot,” he said.
With no further argument, he plucked the magnet from the end of the lance to which it was still attached and tucked it beneath the breastplate of his armour, knowing the magnetism would hold it there until he pulled it free. Lin Mae, meanwhile, quickly secured the line around the both of them, binding them together, then drew her lance, around the top of which she tied pouches of black powder with leather thongs. Lighting the long fuse, which ran up the shaft of the lance, she said, “Ready?”
He nodded. Lin Mae transferred the lance with its sizzling fuse to her left hand, and then, with Tao Tei hurtling up the stairs of the tower towards them, their cries echoing in the confined space, they climbed up on to the top rail of the wooden balcony—and leaped.
As they swung away from the tower, looping towards the ground, the first of the pursuing Tao Tei reached the balcony on which they had been standing seconds before. With no thought for their own safety, the Tao Tei hurled themselves one after another from the balcony, their jaws snapping as, like vast eagles attacking smaller prey, they tried to pluck their enemies from the air. William and Lin Mae, however, were moving too quickly, their bodies describing a graceful arc as they swung out over the courtyard. Lin Mae looked down at the Queen and her Paladins. Then, almost casually, she hefted the lance in her right hand, drew back her arm, and nodded at William, who tugged the magnet out from beneath his breastplate and hurled it towards the center of the protective dome created by the Paladins.