“We have to stop those catapults!” Xander yelled. “Fire!”
Nothing worked. No matter how many flaming arrows and javelins were tossed their way, they didn’t catch fire. And when someone shot one of the operators, another soldier ran over to take his place.
Zalira held on to Stephanos and called up her aspect. She used lightning, making it fork in massive waves when it hit the ground so that it could do more damage. She struck the towers and catapults repeatedly, but nothing happened. They still didn’t light.
She went until she passed out, trying desperately to help. Stephanos held on to her.
Nothing seemed to be touching the earth dragons. They kept hitting the wall, causing everything around us to shake continually. The archers managed to hit some of the riders, and those dragons stopped their work. One of them even seemed to go mad and went running through the Carian army, trampling people as it did.
“Keep aiming for the riders!” Xander shouted.
It again felt like everything was happening too slow and too fast all at once. We were running out of time. The Carian navy had hemmed in the Ilionians and fired repeatedly on them with stones and arrows.
Thrax had opened the western gate, and Carians poured inside. Even with the traps in the labyrinth, eventually their numbers would overwhelm us.
And these dragons were going to shake the ground out from underneath us.
A Carian catapult launched again, and this time it nearly hit the palace.
“Climbers!” someone called out, and I rushed to the door of the tower to see Carians on siege ladders. I ran over to kick one away, causing all the men on it to fall to the earth below us.
Everyone who had been in the tower came out to help fight off the invaders, to push their ladders away so that they couldn’t use them. The archers joined us, firing like mad at everyone at the base of the wall.
This ... this was too much. They were going to destroy us. We were going to be overrun.
Then Luna reappeared.
What do you need Dea’s dragons to do?
I didn’t know what she was talking about. Was this some kind of negotiation? “I need them to burn the towers, catapults, and siege engines. I also need them to destroy the Carian ships. And to get rid of Arion’s earth dragons. What is—”
I was cut off by the sound of a dragon roar.
Coming from above my head.
It was an air dragon. Flying into battle, carrying a fire dragon. Flames erupted from the fire dragon, catching the nearest catapult on fire. The Carians began to scramble, running away.
Then there was another air dragon. And another. And another.
Dozens.
Some carried fire dragons that they used as weapons, to burn everything the Carians had constructed. Other air dragons swooped down and picked up the earth dragons with their claws, carrying them over to the ocean.
I looked in that direction and, in shock, realized that the water dragon I had seen on theNikoswhen I’d traveled to Ilion had been a baby. These dragons were a hundred times larger.
They came up out of the ocean by the dozens and were so massive. They began destroying Carian ships, easily tearing them apart. Whenthe first air dragon dropped an earth dragon, a water dragon opened its massive jaws wide to catch it and then pulled it down into the sea.
I turned back to see an air dragon pick up a catapult, fly to a great height, and then drop it on top of the Carian army.
Many of the Carians turned and fled. This wasn’t an orderly retreat—they were utterly terrified by the destruction the dragons were creating. Their earth dragons were either taken and dropped into the ocean or they had run off on their own.
They had no way to fight Dea’s dragons, no way to stop what they were doing.
Except for Artemisia. A fire dragon raced along the ground, shooting flames as it went. Artemisia rode up on a horse and used her hammer on the dragon, knocking it off its feet.
When it was down, she jumped off her horse and ran over to crush the fire dragon’s skull. I gasped in horror, the fury and desire for vengeance rising up inside me.
She had to be stopped. And I knew deep in my gut that I had to do it. I couldn’t send a dragon after her—they were sacred to the goddess. I wouldn’t risk her doing more damage to them.
