The Power of Five Oblivion

hurt. You can’t let yourself fall into their hands. You’re too important…”
    Matt nodded. “I know…”
    Scarlett had steered the blizzard all the way up to the edge of the fortress, hiding the army behind it. She let it fall away as they covered the last few metres … they had crossed the full length of Oblivion with amazing speed. The wind died down. The snow seemed to fall aside like a curtain. And it was only then, when it was far too late, that the truth was revealed.
    The moment before, the fortress had been in ruins, burning, blasted by the air strike. Now it was intact again, the four towers and the barbican still standing, the walls unbroken. At the same time, the gates had opened and the forces of the Old Ones came pouring out in their hundreds. And that wasn’t the worst of it. There were thousands more of them. They had been lying flat on their stomachs, buried under the snow. But just as the World Army reached them, when it was far too late to turn round, they rose up, seeming to appear like ghosts or zombies, and suddenly they were everywhere, six rows deep, screaming and, surging forward with weapons raised.
    First came the ordinary soldiers with axes, swords, spears and pitchforks, then their hideous and deformed commanders, the men and women who had been “adjusted”. They were followed by shape-changers, scrambling over the ice, a blur of half-human and half-animal constructions, screeching and howling. Fly-soldiers poured down from the battlements, solidified, and joined the others. It was a tidal wave of death. The World Army had walked right into it.
    Scarlett couldn’t believe what was happening. From where she stood it had been like a mirage in the desert – as if what she was seeing had evaporated in a single shimmer of heat haze. She turned to Lohan. “How…?” she began.
    “It’s a trick!” he snapped.
    The fighting began at once, but for the World Army it was no longer an attack – it was a desperate struggle for survival. They had the guns, but even so they found themselves being stabbed and hacked at by a surging mob that had no interest in its own life or safety. Many of the Old Ones’ recruits were longing to die and they took out all the anger and the pain that they had suffered on the soldiers who had been sent to fight them, lunging out with arms that had been made into swords or biting with teeth made of jagged tin, moaning with pleasure when they themselves were shot down. Meanwhile, the fly-soldiers cut and slashed their way forward more slowly, deliberately. Bullets couldn’t hurt them. The insects simply separated to let them pass through. But when they congealed back together they were solid, their swords and spears razor-sharp. One after another, men and women from the World Army fighters died, with a buzzing horde of black insects in the shape of a spear plunged into their chests or throats.
    There was blood everywhere, enough to turn the snow bright red. It was as if the shock of seeing the fortress undamaged had paralysed the World Army and many of them barely moved, allowing themselves to be cut down. A few turned and ran, dying with arrows fired into their backs. Others held their ground, even though it was hopeless, shooting again and again until their guns clicked empty and they were grabbed and torn apart.
    The massacre had reached its height when Chaos sent out the forces that were closest to him. Thirteen black figures on horseback rode out of the fortress, hooded and shrouded like monks or friars, their faces hidden apart from their eyes, which glowed as specks of red in the shadows. Matt recognized the fire-riders. They had only to reach out and whatever they touched shrivelled and burnt. As he looked desperately around him, trying to work out what to do, he saw one of the British marines, a man in his twenties, firing with a machine gun. The man didn’t notice as one of the riders stretched out a single finger. He barely had time to scream. Instantly he was dead, blackened and disintegrating like a scrap of paper in a furnace.
    Almost alone, Matt held them back. Just like Scarlett, he could feel the energy as it surged through him and he directed it at the enemy, simply gesturing with an outstretched arm. The fire rider who had just killed the marine was flung backwards, the black robes crumpling around him, his horse rearing up in terror. A shape-changer with two snake heads who had been scything through the squadron was hurled ten metres