Titans of Chaos

"I am battle itself. I will not fall, save to fall upon you. Let us begin."

He gave a mighty shout and shook his spear. An aura of flame spread from him in all directions.

When she screamed a deadly falcon-wail, the sky turned black, and the waves leaped hundreds offeet into the air. A wild storm erupted.

Mavors cast the spear at her. His spear turned ruby red as it flew, and it shattered her vast shieldand pierced her between her round breasts. It should have penetrated her heart.

She plucked it out with a gesture of indifference, flicking it aside, a toothpick. Meanwhile, withher other hand, she drove her titanic spear through the hull of the black ship in which Mavorsstood and, with a twist of her hand, shattered the ship as if it were matchwood. Mavors wentflying head over heels into the waters. His flame was quenched.

With her fine white teeth, she severed the straps of her broken shield, and tossed it from her,crushing a battalion.

Roaring their battle slogans, the Laestrygonians and Atlanteans rushed to the breach of the hull,casting spears and arrows at Echidna. Many dove into the water, to come to the aid of their chief.

Echidna paused only to breathe flame and poisonous smoke on the men, snatching up a half dozenof them in one tennis-court-size hand to stuff as bloody gobbets into her mouth before she inclinedher head to the waters and lifted her huge lace-fluked tail.

Down she dove, seeking Mavors, and a rolling mile of speckled snake-tail trailed in a hugesemicircle after her, up out of the waves where she had risen, down into the waves where shedove. Her scorpion sting lolled in the air for a moment, throwing spray high, and then she wasgone.

Poisons came from the scorpion tail, mingled with the splash of spray as she dove, andLaestrygonians staggered away from the black rain, screaming, clutching bits of burned andmelted faces.

A crewman from the golem shouted down, "Boss! Boss! Should we go save Mavors?"

Mulciber said, "What, him? Kidding, right?"

But the statue trembled under his hand at that moment, and sweat began to roll down his face.

"Uh-oh."

Colin turned into a column of flame. The Atlantean next to me flinched back; severalLaestrygonians leaped toward Colin in long, loping steps, shooting arrows as they came.

I was almost still too weak to stand, but I was not too weak to do something. I reached up into theheavy substance of hyperspace, the fluid medium thicker than liquid lead, and pulled it down,rotated a mass of it into this space.