The dog leading the charge, a beautiful white-furred American Eskimo, smote with its bayonet, but confused by the unseen curtain, it missed the screaming Witch-man and struck the wall of the container unit behind him. A stream of viscous material, which scalded it as with acid, sprayed down its musket barrel and onto its paws, and the smell, to the dog’s sensitive nose, was the smell of death. The Witch clubbed the dog to the floor with his spearshaft, and drove the point into the dog’s belly; the dog screamed in agony and terror, trying to scramble away, its entrails unspooling like grisly red spaghetti on the floor around it, and its paws still smoldering, being eaten by the strange fluid.

The Demonstrators, seeing the magic of the Hags manifested before their eyes, suddenly realized three things. First, the Witches outnumbered the dog things set against them. The other packs were elsewhere, fighting Giants or Chimerae or Hormagaunts—all of whom were creatures from one version of the Witch afterlife or another, lending for the Witches an air of unearthliness to the scene, and this perhaps aided their courage.

Second, no dog dared now to fire its weapon. The curse of the Judge of Ages, a demigod, was clearly in full force here in the buried world of his golden Tomb.

Third, the poleaxes, pikes, and halberds pulled conveniently from the walls had reach on the musket bayonets, and were lighter, and were not butt-heavy, and were in every way better designed as an implement for stabbing a foe beyond arm’s length than was either cutlass or bayonet.

So the twelve Demonstrators roared like men gone mad, and the other Witch-men, whether farmer or huntsman or factory hand, roared with them. Something in the instinctive fear of beast for man seized the line of dog things, or else they realized at the same moment their disadvantage of numbers and weapons.

The dogs broke and fled on all fours before another blow was struck. The Witches, of all races of man, were both the most in love with violence for its own sake, and the least disciplined of fighters. There was no captain to call the Witch-men back into line, and the crones did not know enough military science to give the order. The sight of a fleeing foe in combat makes a man drunk with battle-lust, and only soldiers trained to steadiness of nerve can resist the temptation.

The Demonstrators did not resist the temptation. Then ran each Witch-man whichever way his feet took him, cutting down dogs from behind, falling clumsily on gold floorplates slick with blood and entrails, and running headlong into orderly reinforcements—for the dogs did have captains—or into clouds of choking or soporific gas the automata were spraying. Whereupon the Demonstrators threw down their weapons and ran, but no farther than the nearest wall, this being no battlefield, but a locked room.

The melee with the Witches was both the clumsiest, and most brutal, and, because they were not practiced with their weapons, the least bloody part of the battle.

8. Knight

Humans were not affected by the spore released by Prissy, even though they were affected by the black gas released by the automata. Sir Guiden, now coming down the stairs behind the statue of Michael, greatly daring, hyperventilated, held his breath, and ran forward into the black cloud obscuring the throne.

He had to cross all the way from where Zouave fell, up the dais, past the throne, and down the dais to where the powered armor stood beneath the shadow of Hades. It was not a short sprint.

He opened his burning eyes once or twice, which was a mistake: the black gas contained a lachrymal agent, and tears both filled his eyes, and, under the influence of the chemical, thickened to an opaque glue. Blind, he found the powered armor, and in that hour he blessed and blessed again his drill master who had so often made him field strip and assemble his weapons while blindfolded. He opened the back of the armor, but thrust his head in first to the helmet, clicking the oxygen-helium feed wide open with his chin, so that a blast of fresh, clean air drove the fumes from him. He cried aloud for joy and battle-lust, and his voice was absurd, high and squeaky with helium.

In a moment, he was inside, blind as Samson, and equally as strong. His coif connected with mated jacks lining the helm interior; his implants could give him a fuzzy radar picture of the surroundings. A warning voice in his ear told him that discharges of chemical or energy weapons, sidearms, or rockets were unauthorized inside the chamber during Event Condition Red, and so with a grim smile Sir Guy drew the oversized claymore that hung from his war belt, flourished it in both hands, elbows high, turned on his external amplifiers, and cried out: “DEUS LO VOLT!”

And he waded out into the fray.

Musketballs fired by one or two suicidally brave dog things bounced off his chestplate and helm without even jarring him backward, but the energy pistols of the Blue Men began to crack and drill into his armor. The pistols were aimed so well that the tiny hole begun by one pistol could be found by the next, which continued boring through. He used his sword to cut free a plate of the floor, and held up the reflective, gold surface as a shield to ward off the pistol fire—which now merely concentrated on the leg and knee motors.

Alarms rang in his ears. Sir Guiden wished he could see his helmet readouts.

Automata formed a line against him. He struck right and left with his sword.

9. Knight and Warlock

The knight in powered armor and the Warlock in the coffin were at the fountain.

The knight called out through his speakers in German: “Hexen! Ready are you?”

The Warlock called out through his speakers in Virginian: “Christlich! Shall we?”

Neither understood the other. Both understood perfectly.

They charged into the thickest part of the line of automata, dog things, and little men firing energy weapons. Soorm, the fur of his head matted and dripping with blood, put his sea lion nose over the edge of the fountain, and twitched both his mismatched eyes at the sight, looking on in awe.

10. Chimerae

When first the Giant snatched up Menelaus and began charging across the chamber, Lady Ivinia and the two Beta girls, Vulpina and Suspinia, heard Daae give the order, and they let fly at Ull.

The javelin and the handmade arrows flew straight and true toward Ull. But the many, many gems on his coat flickered with energy. This was evidently more gems than he was used to manipulating, for the wooden arrows were instantly reduced to ash; the metal spearhead was seized by an invisible magnetic force, twisted, and flung to the ground like a red-hot pretzel. Annoyed, he whistled toward the Great Dane in charge of the musketeers facing the Chimerae, and called, “Rirk Refka Kak-Et! Abate this nuisance!”

The Great Dane barked back, “Me! I will do it! Them! They shall die!” But the dog thing was unwilling to fire a fusillade toward a damaged atomic pile, so it raised its snickersnee and gave the signal to charge. It led the charge itself, clutching its sword in its teeth and running on all fours.

The Chimerae, astoundingly enough, did not man their defenses, but themselves countercharged the charging dogs, moving faster on their two feet than any dog could run on four. The Chimerae wheeled right, struck the flank of the dogs, and broke through their line.

The Chimerae made for the curving staircase behind the statue of Father Time. These stairs led to the balcony opposite the one where Menelaus fought. Halfway up the stairs, where the foe could come at them only in twos and threes, the Chimerae made their stand. The Kine were at the top; the maidens with their bows were midway; and Gamma Phyle, with his sling firing over the heads of the Alphas, at the foot of the staircase.