pointed his wand skyward. “Meum insigne esto praesidium meum!”
The war phoenix had hitherto been a static beacon. Now, slowly, majestically, it flapped its enormous wings and descended toward a formation of wyvern riders outside the bell jar dome. The wyverns spewed fire at the war phoenix; but flame, like lightning, simply passed through it.
“Trust the Master of the Domain to always have something up his sleeve,” said Kashkari, shaking his head.
Before the war phoenix’s inexorable approach, the wyverns scattered. One wyvern rider, who was too slow moving out of the way, screamed as the tip of the war phoenix’s left wing brushed his shoulder. The war phoenix did not cause actual damage, but enemies who came into contact with it were said to experience a brief yet intense bout of pain.
“Here’s my distraction,” said Fairfax.
A ball of lightning, blue and eerie, hurtled toward a company of wyverns, sending them scattering.
“Send one like that into the war phoenix,” said Titus.
She did. The war phoenix glowed with double the intensity and emitted a call that was wild and harsh, yet oddly stirring.
“Excellent. Keep it up.”
The war phoenix continued its stately progress, while half a dozen spheres of sizzling electricity careened all about, keeping the forces of Atlantis scattered and in disarray. As one more cluster of bewitched spears and hunting ropes arrived, Titus directed the war phoenix eastward.
“I think it is safe to say our allies have quite a bit of experience with Atlantis,” he explained. “They knew Atlantis would not be taken by surprise a second time and would be ready for the bewitched spears.”
“So they send the bewitched spears in batches to see what kind of defense they would be dealing with?” said Kashkari.
“Exactly. I would not be surprised to learn that the clusters had come exactly ninety degrees apart on the compass, to best pin the net to the ground with all the hunting ropes.”
Kashkari tapped a finger against his chin. “Should we expect to see spears and ropes coming in smaller clusters—twos and threes—to test that the net is well and truly pinned down?”
As if on cue, a pair of bewitched spears arrived. The Atlanteans shouted when they realized that their net could no longer spring up to catch the spears, but was squirming on the sand, held down by the hunting ropes.
They barely caught the spears, thanks to two particularly agile wyverns. The wyverns, spears in their claws, were being directed to head away from the bell jar dome. But the momentum of the spears was still strong, and the wyverns flapped their wings as if they were flying against a cyclone. “Tell your scouts with the keenest sight to look on the ground,” Titus said to Amara. “That is how I would send in the one bewitched spear that counts. And tell them to keep quiet when they have spotted it.”
“Understood.” She flew off.
“When we do spot the spear we are looking for, the one carrying the blood spell that would act as proxy for the human touch,” he said to Kashkari, “I will set Fairfax to safeguard its progress. Can you arrange for some additional distraction on the part of the rebels?”
Kashkari nodded. “Leave it to me.”
Titus took Fairfax’s hand. “And you, you smite anything that comes between the spear and the bell jar dome.”
“Your wish is my command, sire,” she said smartly.
He pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Good. Say that to everything I want.”
She laughed. Even in the midst of chaos, the sound still made his heart lift.
Amara returned. “One of our scouts spotted something approaching from the northeast.”
Titus immediately sent the war phoenix to the southwest of the bell jar dome, so that as little light as possible would fall on that “something.”
He and Fairfax rode into a cluster of rebels and came out the other end with their heads covered in keffiyehs. Behind them, Kashkari had set up a spectacle: a dozen carpets floated end to end in midair, and several rebels made tumbling passes across the length of this makeshift stage.
“I’m tempted to neglect my task and watch that instead,” said Fairfax. “And my life is on the line here.”
She and Titus took the place of the pair of scouts originally stationed at the northwestern point of the bell jar dome, and each applied an angle-view spell, so that despite their tilted-up faces, they were watching the desert floor.
Cresting a dune about a half mile away, a bewitched spear slithered toward the bell jar dome. It was not dawdling,