"I did?" he asked in surprise, trying to remember that little adventure. Then he remembered that he did shift the Weave, to rob his opponent of his magical advantage. He didn't realize that it stayed that way.
"Yes, you did!" she accused. "You owe me, Tarrin, so I want that fixed!"
"I can't make any promises, Shiika," he told her. "But if I live through this, I'll try."
"Well...alright," she huffed. "Now that we're friends again, want to take a walk with me? I want to hear about what happened after you left Arak."
"You already know."
"True, but I want to hear it from you," she said with an inviting smile. "Besides, you owe me for avoiding me for so long. I think a little bit of your time won't kill you."
Tarrin found the idea a bit disconcerting--he still didn't absolutely trust Shiika--but in her defense, she had been forthright so far. "Alright," he agreed. "But I don't have long. My mate will come looking for me in a while."
"I'll take what time I can get," she assured him.
They went out into the gardens, and walked the brick pathways as Tarrin related some of the tale of what happened to him after he left Arak. He was frank with her, mainly because her telepathic ability would allow her to tell when he was covering something up. Despite the vile repulsiveness of her scent, Tarrin found that just talking to Shiika was a rather pleasurable experience. The Demoness was intelligent and quite engaging, asking questions that piqued his mind, forced him to expand himself to answer her. He very nearly began enjoying their time together when Shiika suddenly stopped dead in her tracks, her dusky skin sallowing a bit.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
She looked at him, and then she changed her form, taking on her wings, the form in which he always envisioned her when he thought of her. "It's time," she announced in a grim voice. "Zabelle just spotted the advance scouts."
She looked at Tarrin, her eyes dark and foreboding. "They're here, Tarrin. Now, things get ugly."
Chapter 35
It was a sea of seething sentient animosity.
Tarrin stood at the top of the main Tower in the darkness of the night, staring down over the city with sight augmented by Sorcery, one of the weaves that Spyder taught him, and his heart sank every time he moved his head. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of them. Humans, Trolls, Bruga, Waern, Dargu, and things Tarrin had never seen before. Strange horse-like creatures with fanged mouths. Horse-like creatures that breathed fire. Massive moving piles of what looked like rotting vegetable matter. Strange creaturs with the upper bodies of humans, but the lower bodies of snakes. Centaur-like creatures with lower bodies of assorted quadruped carnivores and the upper torsos and heads of human women. Rank upon rank upon rank of fetid corpses or dry skeletons, animated by powerful dark magic. Human-like beings that were obviously not as human as they appeared. What looked like pictures of the old Dwarves, but with fire for hair. Ugly bird-like creatures with the lower bodies and talons of a vulture, but the upper torso and head of exceptionally ugly human females. Some of them were proudly wearing Aeradalla feathers in their hair. And many more, some beyond description.
And those were the natives. It was easy to tell the Demons from the natives, and there were many kinds of them. The most abundant were these small, four-span tall bipedal creatures with naked, mottled bodies and small claws on their emaciated hands, with utter mindlessness showing in their eyes. There was an army of those to themselves, being supervised by creatures he had seen before, much like the male offspring of Shiika, the ones he had killed. Cambisi, half-Demon offspring that served their full-blooded masters in jobs probably too menial for them. There were many of those vulture-like Demons that had attacked him on the plains of Saranam, as well as quite a few of those four-armed monstrosities like the one he had fought to gain the Book of Ages. There were tall, rugged looking bipedals ones with the heads of some kind of carnivorous toad, and fat ones with tiny wings that had the heads of boars. There were ones that looked like human skeletons, with a tight sheath of skin stretched over their frames and a large horn on the top of their head. But the most numerous of those others were large winged ones that could only be called hideous, not resembling anything he'd ever seen before, with massive tusks jutting out of their lower jaws. He had no idea of the names of those assorted kinds of Demons, but it was apparent that there were a lot of them.
And it didn't take him long to find the one. He remembered Jegojah's description of her. He called her marilith, and her appearance was so striking that one could not forget seeing her. A large creature with the upper body of a woman, with six arms, and a pretty face and generous breasts, with the twenty-span long lower body of a massive snake. Tarrin marked that one, because Jegojah had said that she was the general of the army, the main tactical organizer. Jegojah had given her a great deal of respect, telling him that she was as intelligent as she was deadly, and Tarrin would put faith in Jegojah's assessment. Of all creatures, he would know. If they wanted to win this battle, that was the one that they had to kill first.
She wasn't the only one he marked. Standing beside her was the emaciated form that he just knew was Kravon. The man that had sent Jegojah after him, that had caused the death of Faalken, that had attacked his family and friends. That was the man that now carried all the hatred that Tarrin had felt for Jegojah, and Tarrin had to suppress the wild urge to try to kill the man where he stood. Something told him that to try would tip them to how strong he really was, and killing one man wasn't worth losing the city and the Goddess. There were much larger things at stake now.
He watched in grim curiosity as the massive invading army began to set up, giving the mortals among them a chance to rest. Tarrin realized that they were waiting for sunrise to attack, and that told him that the Goddess had been wrong. They were going to commit to this battle. They had no reason to wait if they were just going to let their bloodthirsty allies rush in and assault the city. They could just let them go now, and pull out under the safety of darkness while the maniacal elements of their army kept the city defenders busy. But they weren't doing that. They were going to rest, organize, and then when the sun came up, they were going to attack. In force.
Shiika landed beside him quietly as he looked over the army. Her scent was hard to catch in the stiff wind, and that was enough of a blessing for him. "Quite a few of them, aren't there?" she asked in grim humor.
"I didn't realize there were so many kinds of Demons," he told her.
"Those are only a fraction of the various kinds," she told him. "The little ones being tended by the Cambions are called Manes. The numerous ones with the wings are called Nabassu. The skeletal ones are called Babau. The vulture-headed ones are called Vrock. The four-armed ones are Glabrezu. The ones with frog heads are Hezrou. The pig-heads are Nalfeshnee, and that single one with the six arms is a Marilith. Thank the darkness there aren't any Balors out there."
"What's a Balor?"
"The grandpappy of all Demons," she told him. "That's the last thing you'd ever want to meet in a dark alley." She glanced at him. "I think some here call them Demon Lords."
Tarrin formed an Illusion, showing some of the creatures he'd seen. "What are these?"
"The fanged horses are Leucrotta. The burning ones are Nightmares. The plants are called Shambling Mounds. The chalky-skinned fellow is a vampire, and the woman-topped beasts are called Lamias. The snake-creatures are called Naga. The short fire-haired ones are called Derro, and the vulture-women are called Harpies. All part of the Fae-da'Kii."
Tarrin remembered his lessons about them, but they hadn't included descriptions of them, or names. The Fae-da'Nar tried to forget that their human-preying cousins existed. "Quite an army to attack one city."
"When the fur flies, you'll understand why it's such a large force," she snorted. "They're trying to attack a God, Tarrin, and do it in the place she calls home. She may not be able to directly intervene, but she can give her power to her worshippers. Expect the power of Sorcery to
suddenly increase when the battle starts, Tarrin. Your Goddess is going to tamper directly. And I see that their god is going to do the same thing," she grunted.
"What are you talking about?"
"I can tell you're using magic to look, the same as me. Look right over there," she pointed. Tarrin looked where she indicated, and saw a strange black obelisk being carried on a platform pulled by Giants. Just by looking at it, Tarrin could see the powerful magic tied up in it, a magic so strong that the gods had to have had a hand in its creation. "That, my dear Were-cat, is something I haven't seen in five thousand years. I didn't think there were any left."
"What is it?" he asked irritably.
"It's called a Mafeli," she told him. "It's going to give Val's troops the same boost your side's going to get. It gives Val a direct presence here, just like the Goddess' icon does for her. That means that his priests are going to be able to throw around some pretty strong magic."
And that, he realized, was their counter for attempting to take on the katzh-dashi in Suld, where the power of Sorcery was at its strongest. It also turned into Tarrin's primary target. He could feel the magical power flowing into it, and he realized that that's what it was supposed to do; absorb magical energy and then grant it to those who knew its secrets. Tarrin realized that any attempt to attack the obelisk with magic would be ineffective, because it would simply absorb the magic. The only way to effectively attack that thing was from within the Weave, to strike at the mystical connection between it and the source of its power. Break that connection, and the device would be rendered mundane. He raised his awareness until he bridged the gap between reality and the alternate reality of the Weave, and spoke into it. "Jenna," he called immediately.
"What is it, brother? I'm a little busy," came Jenna's tart reply.
"I know you are, but are you out where you can see things?"
"Not really, but I can look where you want me to see."
"Alright. About half a longspan east of due north. Look for a bunch of Giants."
There was a pause. "I see them. What's that big black piece of stone?"
"That's your primary target," he told her. "If you can destroy that, it'll weaken the magic they'll use against us. You'll have to attack it from inside the Weave, sister. It'll absorb any kind of battlemagic you send against it."
"I see," she mused. "Destroying that thing'll be a good place to start. That way they find out just what they're facing, and we don't tip our hands that we can counter their magic so effectively until it's too late."
"I'd say that that's a good idea," he agreed.
"I'll talk to the others about it. I have a feeling that it's going to be no easy thing to destroy its magical connection, judging by what I'm seeing. I think a strategy is in order here."
"I think that's a good idea," he repeated. "I'll let you go now."
"Alright. If you see anything else worth passing along, don't hesitate to let me know."
"I won't, I promise," he assured her, then he returned himself fully to reality.
"Clever move," Shiika nodded in complement. "I don't think even Val fully understands what's facing him on this side of the line. Your Goddess did a good job hiding how strong her Sorcerers are now, and very little was known about the power of the katzh-dashi, even back during the Blood War. Your order's always been rather close-mouthed."
"It's something of a basic rule of war, Shiika. Never show the enemy exactly what you've got." He turned from her, looking down on the city below. "Now if you don't have anything else to say, you'd better go get your daughters ready," he told her in a tone that clearly indicated he wanted to be alone.
"You have something up your sleeve, don't you?" she asked with a sudden sly smile.
"Something like that," he told her absently, fingering his amulet.
"Alright, I'll let you be all secretive. I'm sure I'll find out what it is soon enough. I'll tell them you're up here, in case they want to talk to you," she said, then she spread her wings and vaulted into the sky, then spiralled down out of sight.
Tarrin paid the Demoness no more mind, his attention focused on the army below. That was a force that Tarrin wasn't sure against which they could hold out. There had to be fifty thousand beings down there, of varying degrees of magical or physical power, and Tarrin knew that their own forces were outnumbered. The only advantage they had was Sorcery, in the place where, in the entire world, Sorcery was at its strongest. The presence of the Goddess' icon in Suld enriched the power she granted to the world, and it was going to be up to him and Jenna to use it to defend the city.
But where was Spyder? She should be there, he was sure of it. If they had her there, the balances would be evened. What errand had the Goddess sent her to accomplish, so important that she stopped teaching them magic to do it? When their learning about Sorcery was the most important thing he could think of. They had three sui'kun in the city. Jenna and Tarrin would fight, but Jasana--well, he wouldn't bring her into things unless there was no other choice. He'd already made that decision. He could use her without putting her in danger by Circling with her, but to do that, she had to be close to him. If he did anything, he would become the main target of anything that could reach him, no matter where he or they were. Since they had creatures over on that side with wings, that meant that if he tried to attack them, no matter where he was, they'd be drawn right to him. And the Goddess had already made it clear that he was very high up on their list of battle objectives. He couldn't do anything that would draw their attention to him. And that meant that any reason he could think of to use Jasana's power would just put them both in danger.
They were done setting up, which was literally little more than a bedroll thrown on the ground for every man or beast that required rest. But why were they setting up so close? Didn't they know that Tarrin had the range to strike at them when they were that close? Or did they do it just in the hopes that Tarrin would make an attempt to strike at them, hoping it would tell them where he was?
That was a stupid assumption. They had to know exactly where he was, because there was nowhere he would be other than the Tower at a time like this.
Ah, wait. That explained a few things. Many of the hideous Demons had looks of consternation on their faces. Obviously, they had just attempted to use their magic to appear inside the city, but found out that it didn't work. Shiika and her brood had managed that part of it very well. Tarrin guessed that they were going to send the Demons in to have some fun and cause chaos in the city, to weaken the defenders so the assault force could just waltz in come morning, which was only about two hours away.
They weren't the only ones with an idea like that. Tarrin turned and looked back towards the Tower, back to the glowing pillar of magical power that rose from its center, the main Conduit. What some called the Heart. That was going to be very useful to him in just a few moments, for he intended to beat the invaders at their own game. The Goddess had told him not to leave the grounds, but Tarrin had learned already that a Weavespinner didn't have to physically be in a place in order to wreak havoc there.
It was the wreaking havoc part that he dreaded. He knew what he was about to do, but unlike Torrian, there was no regret in this. They were all enemies, and there was no mercy for them. There was only a weary acceptance that destruction seemed to be the only thing that he could do well.
"Mother," he called grimly, turning towards the Conduit.
Be very careful, she warned. She obviously knew what she planned to do.
"I'm the backup here, Mother," he told her absently. "It doesn't matter if I tire myself out. In fact, it would better for us if they thought I did. They'd march straight into Jenna."
You underestimate your worth.
"Maybe, but right now, what I can do for her is much more important than what I can do for you," he grunted, absently spinning out a weave that lifted him off the roof, held by gentle feathers of Air. Those flows carried him up and forward, and then they pulled him into the Conduit.
The effect was visible all over the city of Suld, to all the enemies surrounding its walls. The main Conduit suddenly flared with a bright white light, a pillar of magic that rose into the heavens, bathing the city below in the milky radiance of the power that had always been a part of their city, yet had rarely been visible to them. Within the Conduit, Tarrin felt its power coarse over him, caress him, flow through him, infusing him with the unmitigated power of the Goddess. He could feel her closeness, could sense her eyes looking down on him, could feel her almost as if it were her gentle, loving hands that were holding him in the air. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall within the Weave, felt his consciousness separate from himself and hurtle into the light, joining with it and becoming one with it.
He hadn't been in the Heart for a while, but it was as it always was, an endless blackness streaked with the light threads of the Weave, and the countless stars that represented the Sorcerers upon which the Weave depended. And behind them all, seen but unseen, were the eyes of the Goddess herself, smiling down on him in gentle benediction. But he wasn't there to adore her or waste time. He could feel that, whatever it was, that black obelisk, could sense it through the Weave in the amount of magical power it was drawing from wherever Arcane magic drew its power. He sent his awareness out into the Weave, searching through it, using the techniques Spyder taught him, tracing that flow of power from the nether boundary from which it came down to its destination. The enemy army was only fifteen longspans away, but the geography of the Weave did not correspond to the geography of reality, and he found himself travelling a great distance through it before he found a pathway to the sense of intense Arcane magic that he had sensed from the Heart. Once he had reached that place, he breached the Weave with his senses and reached out into the real world, felt around until he felt the unmistakable presence of a Demon and the same sense of presence that he'd felt in the soultrap that had once held Faalken. The soultrap created by Kravon's power.
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