No one answered. No one knew. The green itself felt different suddenly, not affecting all of them so much as being gathered elsewhere. Teia was holding a pair of binocles. Through them, she could see more than most. “It’s coming from the Great Pyramid,” she said. “Or going to it, I can’t tell.”
“Is it a weapon?”
“I don’t know!”
Men were scrambling around the room, the gunners swabbing out the smoking hot bronze barrel, cooling it and making sure no bits of burning powder remained in the breech that would ignite the charge. Others were weighing the powder for the next shot. The Blackguards who were tasked with muscling the great thing back into place were taking a well-deserved rest. Though the carriage was wheeled, the culverin was still massive. Hezik was staring alternately at a list of numbers he’d scribbled on a piece of parchment someone had passed him and down at the green island, lips moving silently, doing mental sums.
Everything was chaos, happening all at once.
“There’s a green man on top of the tower,” the spotter on the long lens called out.
Whatever was happening between the Great Pyramid and the bane was definitely helping the invaders. The tower was getting more massive by the second. “Why would the Atashians be helping the bane?” Teia asked.
“Sir,” the spotter said, “if I didn’t know better—Sir, that thing is Atirat.”
“Because the city has fallen,” Commander Ironfist said grimly. He walked over to the spotter, who moved aside for him.
“What?!” Hezik shouted to a Blackguard reporting to him. Not asking about the city.
“We didn’t see it before. It was at the bottom of the pile.” The Blackguard turned one of the shells over. The side was stove in, spilling all its powder out, and making it as effective in flight as a one-winged bird.
“Commander,” Hezik said. “We’ve only got two shots left. One shell, and one ball. Which do you want us to load?”
They’d been shooting the shells, and Hezik had honed his accuracy through practice. He was now hitting within forty paces of where he aimed, and he had done much better than that twice. But Gavin and the others were almost to the top of the tower. An exploding shell, that close? It would kill all of them.
On the other hand, the balls weighed more and flew differently. They’d shot a few of those earlier to get range before they started shooting the shells into the wights, but they hadn’t had as much practice.
Commander Ironfist said, “Use the ball.”
Hezik hesitated. “Sir, I’m only accurate within maybe twenty paces with the ball. It’s not a matter of skill at this distance, sir. We’d have to get very lucky.”
Teia had seen him shoot. He was being wildly optimistic.
Commander Ironfist’s face didn’t shift. “I trust you. Use the ball. Kill that god.”
By the time Kip reached the top of the tower, wheezing and so exhausted he thought he was going to vomit, the others were already fighting. The top of the green spire was something between a tower and a tree. Twelve smaller towers ringed it, like merlons on a crenellated wall. From each of those merlons, a giant was emerging. Four of them were already out, fighting Gavin, Karris, and the last Blackguard, Baya Niel.
The others were waking. Kip felt a shiver in the merlon next to him. The giants within the merlons were still men, but men who’d descended so deep into green that they’d rebuilt themselves, and the blasting green light from Ru seemed to be helping. Even as Kip looked, he saw green skin covered with tiny scales shimmer over the giant’s naked muscle on his arms. His chest was thickening, legs elongating.
In a paroxysm of revulsion, Kip stabbed his dagger into the creature. The dagger punched through the cocoon like it was wet paper. The giant’s green, green eyes shot open, its mouth opened on the other side of the glass, and then it slumped and its eyes dimmed.
Six of the giants were now out, fighting Gavin and Karris. One died as Kip watched, its head wrapped in flames by Gavin and then taken off by Baya Niel. But the others were still emerging. It seemed that those who were full in the green light from Ru had already awakened, but those who were shaded from it by their merlons were slower.
For one second, Kip considered joining the fight in the middle. Gavin and Karris were doing their best to get to the middle of the tower, where the green light was focused and reflecting so brightly it hurt Kip’s eyes. The other giants were blocking Gavin and Karris from getting there. Gavin and Karris had their hands full. Kip would barely be a help to them—but he could keep them from facing even worse odds.
So he ran around the edge of the tower instead, circling to the great cocoons. He rammed his dagger into another giant’s chest. As before, its eyes opened, bulged, dimmed. Kip ran on. He stabbed a third. This one punched its fist through the cocoon and groped for Kip, but Kip pulled the dagger out and ducked. The giant crumpled, tearing through the cocoon and falling on the ground in a splash of goo.