It didn't quite make sense, but it was enough—Marian and Fadecourt staggered with sudden release as the sorcerer shot back against the wood of the gate. The cyclops and the maid heaved the bar up and out, and Matt shouted,
The huge iron lock groaned as its innards turned; Fadecourt and Maid Marian threw their weight against the huge leaves, and the doors boomed open.
Sir Guy was fencing madly with sword and dagger, holding off three guardsmen who were frantically trying to hew their way to the portal, to close the doors. More guards came pounding, and Fadecourt and Marian turned to grapple with them. The maid's staff whirled like a flail, threshing a human crop, and Fadecourt picked up two soldiers at a time, hurling them back against their fellows. Yverne's sword was a blur, holding two soldiers at bay.
But two more minor sorcerers came running, their hands windmilling.
Matt decided to get the jump on them, and started reciting verses of his own—but he could see a veritable human wave building up inside the keep, about to fall on them...
Shouts of triumph pealed behind him, but he didn't dare to look until he saw the knights ride past him, men who had fought beside Sir Guy at the siege. Right behind them came a tide of Lincoln green, quarterstaves slamming out to break swords and pates, and a mob of commoners behind them with scythes and staves. Matt was caught up and borne by a human tide. He turned, bobbing in it like a cork, saw Robin's army streaming in through the gates, more soldiers thundering up behind him, and something towering against the sky, but he couldn't make out what it was before he was spun about to face front, as the human river slammed into the tidal wave of guards.
Then, for a few minutes, all was bellowing and screaming and confusion. Crossbow bolts hailed down from the walls, and attacking peasants fell, but so did defenders—the men of evil weren't worried about how many of their own they killed, as long as they wiped out the invaders. But Robin's merry men were already swarming up the stairs to the battlements, leaping on the crossbowmen and dispatching them with well-aimed blows of the quarterstaves. They didn't fire down into the courtyard-too much chance of hitting their own men—but they did blockade the stairs and hold them against the king's troops rushing up to charge them. Quarterstaff met pike in a furious, staccato concerto, and the king's soldiers fell like the spume of a river running into rapids.
The other half of the merry men were following Robin back into the keep, or trying to—guards kept getting in their way. Robin squared off against the big captain; there was a furious clanging of swords; then the captain was falling, and Robin was turning to help Little John against a band of five. His men echoed him; throughout the courtyard, pairs of foresters stood back-to-back, dispatching soldiers left and right. Blood stained the Lincoln green, and here and there a man fell—but very few.
The peasants bellowed with ferocious joy. They had weapons in their hands, and the hated king's livery in front of them; they were busy paying back old scores. Many of them died, but the frenzy was on them, and they scarcely seemed to notice.
"I can't believe it!" Matt stared, then had to turn quickly to parry and cut. But it was incredible—his troops were winning!
Then the king began to call up his reinforcements. With a bellow, a horrendous lion, with the face of a man and several sets of jaws, came stalking out of a tower, roaring. It set upon the peasants, chewing them up and tossing them aside. From the opposing tower, another lion stalked—only this one had wings, and a dragon's tail.
"A manticore and a chimera!" Robin drew his bow. "Aid me, Tuck!"
Friar Tuck gave a last blow of his sword, dispatched an opponent, and made the Sign of the Cross over him as he stepped back, sword down but buckler up, lips moving in a quick prayer for the soul of the fallen man. Then he looked up at the manticore, held up his hilt as a cross, and looked up to Heaven, saying something Matt couldn't hear—but Robin loosed, and his arrow slammed into the manticore's breast. It howled and leaped into the air, clawing and biting at the arrow—and fell back, dead.
Robin drew another arrow—but Matt's attention was diverted by a shout from the walls. Tentacles slapped over the battlements, drawing up after them huge, loathsome forms, half squid and half man, reaching out to catch and crush. The merry men and peasants chopped off arms with swords, but the monsters only hissed in fury and squeezed harder.
But other forms sprang up behind them, small, dark, and darting—and changing form even as they attacked, metamorphosing from seals into naked men who struck with spears taken from dead narwhals. The squid-men hooted and turned to strike back at them, but the silkies danced back; this was an old and familiar game to them. Matt shouted with delight; the old king of Ys had sent his descendants against the abomination who fouled his waters. The merry men shouted, too, rallying and striking the monsters from behind.
Matt would have loved to watch them turn the squid-men into chowder, but he had to spare some attention for the guardsmen who were trying to carve out his liver. He was just getting them under control when a tearing snarl filled the sky, and defenders and attackers looked up in alarm, then stared in fright. Matt spared a quick glance and saw a host of gnarled dark forms scuttling across the sky, with a clattering of wings. For a moment, he thought he was in The Wizard of Oz, looking at winged monkeys—then he saw the faces and realized he'd done the monkeys a grave injustice. The faces were distorted visages out of nightmare—or off the roofs of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. They were more gargoyles come to life, but the flying kind this time, a hundred of them, swarming down at the defenders.
But a tawny streak split the sky, screaming as it dove into the herd of gargoyles, shrieking with rage, catching the monsters in its beak, raking them with its claws in a fury—Narlh, letting himself go without the slightest trace of inhibition, finally striking back at the force that had bled him for so long. But there were many of them, too many, and they pounced on the dracogriff from all sides. He went into a frenzy, snapping and biting all about him—but they were overwhelming him by sheer force of numbers. Matt started to form a spell to help him, but just then, two guards jumped him with whirling pikes, and he had to fall back and pay attention to fighting. When he had knocked them out of the way and cut off their spear heads, he looked back up to see the sky darkening, and felt a thrill of fear at the weather effects the king could call up—until he realized there was something glowing up there, off to the east, something that was growing larger very quickly, with a swarm of darker, huger shapes behind it. "Ghost!" Matt shouted in relief, then turned to parry a halberd, chop off its head, and swat the guard aside with a shield he grabbed up. When he looked up again, the ghost was swooping toward the top of the keep, but the dragons had dived into the battle with all claws out and flames roaring. The gargoyles shrieked as iron-hard scales shouldered them aside and glittering claws raked them from the skies. They fought back with ferocity, biting and clawing, and dragon blood misted the air—but the sorcerers were too busy to try to gather it up.
Ichor was raining, too, though, and gargoyles hurtled down like cannonballs. A shout went up, and guards and invaders danced aside as the skies cleared of enemies, the dragons swooping and roaring. Narlh screamed with delight, in his element at last, on the same side as the dragons.