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I looked at his feet. He glanced down. We were standing in an arcane circle. It would take me seconds to finish it. Grandmother Victoria and I worked on the design until almost midnight. It had to require a bare minimum of power. Neither one of us was happy with the power drain it would take to maintain it, but then we wouldn’t have to keep it up for long.
“Touché,” Leon said.
Cornelius strode into the pavilion. For some reason, the helmet and the vest made him look slightly ridiculous. It just didn’t suit him.
“Something is coming,” he said.
“Define ‘something,’” Leon said.
“Something large.”
“Summoner portal,” Bern said. “Nine hundred meters out from the north gate.”
They were just outside Alessandro’s blast area. As if they knew his range. Hmm.
“The portal has closed. Something is moving through the trees.”
“Something large?” Leon raised his eyebrows.
“Yes. Go to your tower.”
The stone floor under our feet reverberated. Cornelius turned and ran out.
A colossal shape burst from under the trees at the foot of the hill. It was the size of an elephant, its thick lavender hide streaked with purple splotches. No, not splotches, armor, heavy bony plates stretching into spikes. Bony shields covered its broad head, bearing two large horns. It was shaped like a rhino, armored like an ankylosaurus, and it was charging toward us like a bull.
The floor shook.
“Time to mosey.” Leon ran outside.
The beast thundered toward us, three pairs of small eyes gleaming in the skinfolds between the plates on its head.
“Brace!” I yelled and crouched down. I had no idea why I’d done that. It just felt right.
The arcane beast smashed into our gate with a deafening clang. The impact shuddered through the wall. Metal screeched.
I jumped to my feet and ran out onto the patio.
The creature slid to a stop in the parking lot, the wrecked gate stuck on its horns. It shook its head side to side. The gate went flying.
With one hit, it reduced our wall to nothing.
The beast bellowed and tore down the driveway toward the main house.
A short figure walked out from under the oaks and directly into the monster’s path.
The beast bounded forward.
Cornelius raised his hand. His voice snapped in my earpiece. “Stop.”
The dino-rhino braked with all six paws. He slid forward, comically landing on his butt, picked himself up, and trotted toward Cornelius.
“Significant, my foot,” Grandmother Victoria said.
The rhino monster bumped its head against Cornelius’ hand. Its skull was as big as Cornelius himself. Its long, spiked tail wagged.
“Incoming,” Bern said.
I turned around and ran back into the Wedding Cake. Figures were emerging from the trees, running for the gap the beast had created. The four attackers in the front line shimmered behind the aegis shields.
“Good boy,” Cornelius said. “Go get the bad people.”
Arkan’s people were almost on us. I could see them clearly now, dressed in identical tactical grey fatigues, odd helmets on their heads, covering the skull and the ears. Arkan had taken precautions against my siren song.
The creature bellowed.
“Go,” Cornelius repeated.
A sniper rifle shot took a man down in the third row. The aegises stretched their magic shields, angling them up.
The floor under my feet shook again. The walls trembled, and the rhino beast hurtled through the gap it had made at full speed. The line of advancing soldiers scattered. Bodies flew, one of them desperately trying to adjust his shield against the impact.
The beast rampaged on the slope, running back and forth, stomping and goring anything in its way. It rammed one of the car wrecks we hadn’t had time to clear and headbutted it like it was a toy.
“Psychological warfare in three, two . . .” Bern said.
Arabella’s voice blared through my earpiece. “You’re going to die. This is your last warning. Leave, and we will not pursue you. Save yourself.”
“Bern?”
“Sorry. Had the speaker on.”
Arabella’s voice vanished.
On the field, one of the soldiers yanked his helmet off. Noise-cancelling helmets were fine and good, but you still had to transmit the orders to your soldiers. Bern had hacked into their communication channel. Right now, their ears were full of my sister’s voice telling them they were about to die.
Loud booms of artillery bombardment came from the south.
“We have visitors,” Runa announced.
On the hill, the attackers reformed into a column, the aegis mages in the lead, and charged the gap. A portal snapped open in front of the beast. It was galloping down the hill as fast as its legs could carry it and it had no time to turn. The creature vanished into the portal and the ragged dark hole collapsed on itself.
“Krause is in range,” I called out.
“Good.” Alessandro straightened in his circle.
The flood of Arkan’s soldiers spilled inside the wall.
A rapid staccato of gunfire tore from Leon’s tower. People dropped like flies.
The last woman through the gap stabbed the man in front of her with surgical precision, spun, sliced another attacker’s throat, blurred into the man she just killed, and sank her knife into the third soldier’s kidneys. Konstantin.
