I tried to seize control of the sauropod’s mind, but Set was there before me. The great beast’s bony little head swung around on its long neck and it glowered at me with Set’s eyes.
“I will kill you,” he seethed in my mind. Somewhere deep inside this fortress Set directed his troops against me, remorseless, untiring. Perhaps he could not control each of his beasts and clones at the same time. But he could concentrate his control wherever he wanted to. Once he had killed me he could restore order to his domain.
The huge beast tried to stomp me beneath its ponderous feet and I had to jump back away from it. A bolt of flame sizzled past, close enough to singe the hair on my arm. I ducked back behind the enormous sauropod as it turned circling to find me and crush me to death. The Shaydanians were firing at me, tongues of flame lancing through the shadows.
They hit the dinosaur instead and it hooted madly with pain. Then I saw one of the humans fire his rifle into the Shaydanians. It was Chron, risking himself to protect me. I felt Set’s grip on the sauropod loosen momentarily as he turned his attention to his squad of clones. Ruthlessly I grabbed at the beast’s dim mind and forced it to charge into the squad even as it began firing back at Chron.
The massive dinosaur lunged at the source of its pain. I felt Set wrenching control of the animal away from me, but too late. Its enormous bulk was too much to turn or even slow down quickly enough. The clones saw nearly two tons of flesh hurtling at them and tried to scatter while they fired their blazing weapons at the beast.
It smashed into the wall in a final fury of pain, screaming like a newborn as half a dozen tongues of flame roasted it from both sides.
I dashed in right behind the sauropod and slashed the life from the first Shaydanian I could reach. The rebelling slaves cut down the part of the squad that had separated to their side of the fallen sauropod. I attacked the other half with my scimitar.
Even in hyperdrive I could not kill them all unscathed. My sword was a blurred gleaming scythe of death, but by the time all the Shaydanians were dead I had taken burn wounds on my legs and chest.
I slumped against the wall and slid down to a sitting position, my chest oozing blood like a rare steak, my legs charred and smoking. Automatically I clamped down on the messages of pain my nerves were screaming at my brain. I deliberately tightened all the blood vessels in the lower part of my body to prevent myself from going into shock.
Inside my head I heard Set’s hissing laughter and knew that it was only a matter of moments before he sent more of his clones to finish me off.
The dinosaurs were still shaking the courtyard with their thunderously wild thrashings. The ground shook perceptibly.
More than perceptibly, I realized. The ground was trembling, vibrating as if an earthquake had begun.
“This is the moment I have been waiting for, my love. Now I strike at the devil’s heart!”
It was Anya’s voice in my mind.
The earth was quaking, heaving. The circular wall of the courtyard was swaying sinuously like a sheet of cloth caught in a high wind. All the dinosaurs seemed to stop their fighting at once, as if on cue or someone’s direction, and made a furious charge for the main gate, the only gate that led out into the open.
I saw the human slaves stand aside near the gate, petrified with terror, as the dinosaurs surged to the gate and smashed it open like cracking an eggshell and poured out into the open countryside.
For an instant all was still. The courtyard was littered with the massive bodies of dead dinosaurs and the red corpses of Set’s clones. Then the humans started running through the smashed-open gate to freedom. Most of them. A few dashed back to the dungeon where the others still lay cowering. Within moments the rest of them began to come out of the darkness of their captivity and run, haltingly, for the world outside the wall.