stood up as it seemed to lock gazes with him. The figure began to resolve itself into a man-like form, easily seven feet tall. Its shoulders were impossibly broad, and it appeared to have no neck. The creature’s ‘skin’, dark-grey blue without any apparent blemish, rippled and pulsed, as if air flowed under a silk cloth, and the face was featureless, save for two red flames where eyes should be. The skin hardened and began to look like black rock.
‘Now, Captain,’ said Kaspar softly.
Captain Stefan stood up, holding a white cloth in his left hand, and made a single chopping motion.
Chaos erupted.
From the ridge behind them shouts rang out, while arrows arched through the air to strike several of the men on the beach. Instantly three things occurred, as Jommy drew his sword. The men on the beach fanned out in precise order, not panicking, keeping their wits about them, and seeking cover wherever possible – behind the bulwarks of the boats, ridges of sand, and some large piles of driftwood. Several bowmen on the beach returned fire, but they were shooting blindly into the thicket on the hillside while those above had clear targets on the sand.
Men raced past Jommy’s position, soldiers wearing Keshian and Kingdom tabards, and Jommy leaped to his feet, shouting, ‘Come on, Jim!’
The conjured creature roared. It stood defiantly, arms spread as if ready to charge or be charged, and the men approaching could feel waves of heat coming from it as the volume of smoke rising from its black-rock skin increased.
Men faltered as they raced towards it, whilst those waiting for the onslaught were emboldened. Jommy half-ran, half-fell down the hillside, passing several soldiers who were brought to a halt by the demonic being’s outcry. Suddenly he realized he was passing the vanguard and in front of him waited weapons poised to cut him down, plus some creature from an impossible nightmare.
Jommy started to back away, but one of the raiders charged him, ignoring arrows that were still raining down from the hillside. The raider took a step forward then was impaled by a long shaft which knocked him backwards. Jommy crouched, waiting for the others to catch up. He glanced backwards, and saw the soldiers were either motionless or retreating.
He understood why a moment later. The conjured creature was growing! The thing was now a good two feet taller than it had been before and much broader across what Jommy considered to be its shoulders. The arms appeared brawnier, and decorated with what seemed to be burning metal bands, twisting rods of some hot metal that gave off so much heat that Jommy could feel it through the rain. Cracks in the rocky ‘skin’ now appeared and from them tiny flames issued.
‘Jim!’ shouted Jommy, ‘Let’s get out of …’ He glanced around and realized Jim Dasher was nowhere in sight. ‘Damn,’ muttered Jommy as he quickly backed away. ‘He’s either a coward or a lot smarter than I am!’
A pirate raced at Jommy and swung a vicious overhead blow with a weighted cutlass, a blow that was likely either to break Jommy’s blade or cleave him from shoulder to stomach. Training and experience lent the young man the reflex to knock the blade to the right while dodging to the left, avoiding most of the force. The sand on the beach was terrible footing, so Jommy ignored the impulse to spin and slice the man’s spine, instead electing to throw a right elbow at his jaw. Pain shot up his arm to his shoulder as he connected, and the man’s eyes glazed over. Stepping back, Jommy slashed sideways with his blade, slicing the man’s neck. As blood spurted upwards, Jommy continued to back away, unable to take his eyes off the horror that rose up before him.
Kaspar’s voice cut through the air: ‘Hit them hard: now!’
The soldiers were well trained, and despite their growing sense of dread as the conjured being rose up to a height of nearly nine feet, they charged. Those on the beach were dedicated, fanatics even, but they were not trained soldiers, and suddenly the left side of their defence collapsed.
With nowhere to retreat, they fought viciously, but within seconds the soldiers of Kaspar’s command had killed half a dozen and had the rest retreating through the water to the scant protection offered by beached boats. Jommy faced a more determined defence, as soldiers from the Kingdom, Roldem and Kesh joined him in attacking the middle, mere yards away from the creature.
The raiders fought like men possessed, as if they were more afraid to retreat back to where the smouldering creature waited than die facing mortal men. Then the creature strode forward, and the man next to Jommy howled in agony as the diabolical being snatched him up by the neck. The sound of searing meat replaced the choked-off cry and the apparition tossed the soldier aside like a broken toy. Jommy saw flame coming from the creature’s hands and could feel heat waves emanating from it as its appearance continued to evolve. The grey-blue skin was now crisscrossed with glowing red cracks, looking like nothing so much as molten metal under a rock crust, and where rain struck it sizzled and gave off tiny explosions of steam.
Jommy leaped backward, almost falling as he crashed into a soldier coming up behind him. ‘Sir!’ the man shouted in his ear. ‘Another two boats have put in to the north and more of the bastards are coming down on our right flank.’
Jommy hesitated, then realized the soldier must be waiting, and that he was a senior officer, or at least as far as the men near him were concerned. Something had to be done to avoid a total rout. ‘On me!’ he shouted. ‘Rally to me!’
Men hurried to him while the now-flaming monster snagged another screaming man and ripped his arm off while his torso was engulfed in fire.
‘Form circle!’ shouted Jommy, and the men nearby gathered in a tight knot around him. To the soldier who had warned him of the move on their flank, he shouted, ‘Find the General, and tell the others to fall back to wherever he is. We’ll hold them here! Go!’
The messenger ran off.
‘Shield wall!’ was Jommy’s next command, and the trained soldiers linked shields and suddenly he and two others, both irregulars from Krondor, stood in a tiny fortress of shields.
He had no faith in his order. Jommy knew that should the advancing monster strike the front of the shield wall, several of them would be instantly incinerated and the defensive position would collapse. But it was the only thing he could think of doing to buy a few minutes for the rest of the men to fall back to wherever Kaspar waited.
The creature stood motionless for a moment, and the magic-user pointed at the men clustered around Jommy with his staff and shouted something in the alien tongue. The creature took a great stride towards them and Jommy shouted, ‘Steady!’
The creature halted for a moment, and raised his fist up high above them. Jommy shouted, ‘Turtle!’ He dropped his sword and sat down hard, yanking the two men next to him down to keep them from injury.
The men raised their shields overhead, and braced themselves as they would for a barrage of falling arrows. The flaming monster’s fist, now the size of an anvil, crashed down on a pair of shields, causing one man to go to his knees and the other to collapse completely.
‘Bloody hell!’ said one of the irregulars, his eyes wide in terror.
‘Scatter!’ shouted Jommy: confusion was the only way to save as many men as possible. The two irregulars crawled away, while the soldiers did as they had been trained, each man running off directly away from the centre of the turtle, putting as much space as possible between themselves and their comrades. Those in the front fell straight back, then turned and fled.
Kaspar’s own archers had attempted to hurt the creature, but their arrows were having no effect, the iron heads bouncing off the thing’s hide while the shafts burst into flame. Waves of heat rolled over Jommy, as if he were standing before an open oven.
With a sweep of arms now as long as a spear, the creature knocked men aside as if he were playing with children. Whatever he touched burst into flames: men lay screaming and dying.
As Jommy pulled back, the creature seemed to notice him, and started towards him. Jommy braced himself, sure that in an instant he would be either crushed or burned to death. As he raised his sword to defend himself he saw