Another pounced from an alleyway. Shanvah got her shield up in time, and there was an earsplitting whine as its claws scratched against the metal. She batted at it with her spear, but the creature scrabbled at the shield tenaciously, even as her blows passed through it like smoke.
Three more sprang from above, going after Renna and Shanjat. Renna drew a wind ward that slowed the dogs long enough for them to dodge aside, but the creatures had too little mass, and they resumed their attack the moment the wind stopped.
Two leapt at Arlen, but safe on the greatward, he misted along with them, catching them by the throats in the between-state, where strength was meaningless and only will mattered. He dominated the creatures, forcing them to solidify, then broke their necks with a sharp shake.
“Back-to-back!” Arlen called, sliding in close to Renna. Shanjat complied immediately, taking up her other side. Renna would rather have had one of the war dogs at her left.
Shanvah gave a shove at the next scrabbling attack from the gwil, knocking it back long enough for her to join the formation at Shanjat’s left. The Spear of Kaji was a blur as Jardir quickstepped to complete the ring between her and Arlen.
“The crown!” Arlen shouted as he seized another dog, forcing it to solidify so he could tear its jaw off. “Drive them back with the crown!”
“Do you think me a fool, Par’chin?!” Jardir shouted back. “The crown no more repels them than it does you!”
“That explains why they weren’t stopped by the walls,” Shanvah said.
“Haunted, I warned you,” Shanjat said. “This drone requires a weapon.”
“Not on your life,” Renna said.
Shanjat blew out a breath, an expression so human it was easy to forget there was a demon at the reins. “His shield, then.”
Jardir frowned, but he slipped his brother-in-law’s shield from his back, flinging it to Shanjat.
The demon immediately had Shanjat put the item to work, slapping aside black talons flashing in the air. “Sever the talons! They are the war dogs’ only remaining link to the corporeal world. Without them they…”
“Can’t resist the call of the Core,” Renna finished, stepping into the next attack with a front kick, misting her leg enough to connect and stop the gwil short. She slashed with her father’s knife, and bloody talons clattered to the cobbles. The war dog howled as it dissipated fully, sucked down into the Core like dust into a bellows.
Jardir sliced the talons from his attacker and watched it similarly dissipate. More war dogs raced at them, silent but for their clattering claws. Jardir raised his spear, and the very cobbles of the street responded, leaping into the air to form a wall too solid for their claws to pass through. They howled, but Renna did not think it would delay them long. All around, gwilji were gathering.
“We have to get out of the city!” the demon shouted through Shanjat. “The war dogs fear to hunt in the deeper tunnels.”
He left the reason unsaid, but it was obvious to all. There would be demons in the lower tunnels, likely in numbers the surface dwellers had never seen. Drones the demon prince might, even now, be able to influence.
“Lot of ground to cover just to get to the gates, much less out of this cavern,” Renna said.
“Leave that to me.” Jardir grit his teeth, and his aura brightened, its normal crackles and whorls flat with concentration.
There was clattering from all around, and Renna thought there must be thousands of the dogs in the csar, slowly closing for the kill.
The sound grew into a cacophony—a clash of steel, rapping of wood, whooshing of air.
Windows and doors burst open all over the csar, spears flying out to answer Jardir’s call. They spun though the air, gathering in clouds as they swept the streets.
“If the war dogs cannot be slain by magic,” Jardir watched the spinning blades sever the claws from a pack of gwilji and send them to the Core, “let them fall to the spears of the very masters they betrayed.”
With spears dancing around them in an impenetrable cloud, Jardir resumed a steady march through the csar. Gwilji howled and yelped, the streets littered with bloodied black talons. The clatter of their claws was growing fainter as they fled the storm.
Jardir opened the gates with a wave of his spear, and they stepped out into the cavern. War dogs were gathered before the gate, and the cloud of spears cut them apart. Some, clinging to stalactites and stalagmites, tried to leap at them from above, but Jardir sensed them and spears spun to catch them in midair, shearing away the talons that let them cling to the physical world.
—
Alagai Ka heard the sound the moment the doors of the csar opened, but it was not the howls of war dogs.
The queen was crooning.
The humans heard nothing. Felt nothing. But even in the demon’s weakened and warded state, the sound was unmistakable, reverberating in every stone. The queen had begun to lay, sending out an endless stream of drone eggs. Not enough to lure back the other minds, desperately trying to establish hives of their own, but by the next turning she would begin to lay a few valuable mimics, a smaller group of minds, and six queens, deadly from the moment they hatched. They would begin sucking magic from the queen, growing more powerful by the moment as they fought one another with talon and stinger for primacy.
Unless a Consort was there to kill them before they grew too strong—as Alagai Ka had done many times in the past—or if his strongest brethren each stole one and fled. If that should happen, it might be millennia before the Consort could regain primacy, if he could manage it at all.
He could delay no longer. He needed to escape and return to the mind court now, while it remained deserted, restoring his power before his brethren returned. His greatest rivals were already destroyed. There was none who could stand against him once he regained his greatward.
He kept the drone focused, showing nothing as his insides clenched. Still, the demon breathed a sigh of relief with his own lungs when they stepped off the greatward of the csar. The pain squeezing him for the past day dissipated, and options that were unavailable a moment ago moved back into reach.
But he had to be careful. The Heir’s current display of power was terrifying. Even the inanimate objects of the csar leapt to his command by the strange magic of human faith. Setting so many weapons spinning in unison was a measure of the Heir’s will, and that had grown into something formidable. The spinning spears worked like a wardnet, protecting them from all sides at once.
The surface dwellers had grown powerful, and power emboldened.
The Heir did not ask for direction as he led the way across the cavern, headed for the correct tunnel to most quickly reach the hive. They had learned something, at least, during their time in the human temple. Perhaps too much.
The howls of wounded and fleeing gwilji died away, and the Heir, his ability to Draw upon the csar’s power diminishing with every step, began sending the summoned spears soaring back over the csar walls, no doubt to the very spots they had lain for thousands of years.
When the last of the spears had been sent home, the Heir took a moment to breathe, the others focused outwardly in defense.
And in that moment, covered by his shield, Shanjat reached into his robe and took up his daughter’s tear bottle. He broke the seal with a thumbnail and spilled the tears—infused with emotion magic—onto his fingers, drawing a quick warding onto his chest, and a few others onto the chain that bound them.
The wards glowed briefly, fading as the tears evaporated. Shanjat’s eyes flicked back and forth, but there was no sign his captors noticed. It was unlikely they would, for the magic that now radiated from him stank of humanity, of love and emotion and all the vile weakness of his captors. They might sense the magic, but they would not see it as a threat.
Indeed, it wasn’t a threat—to them. It was an invitation and a trail, singing of human frailty, inviting a mimic demon to attack Shanjat.
It was a plan not without risk. The Consort had not been ab
le to grow enough layers of flesh to force the tattoos from his skin, and an attacking mimic could accidentally kill him with a stray slash of talon.
But even an instant’s physical contact would be enough to take control of the mimic. With such a powerful drone, he could flee to a safe space long enough to flay the wards from his skin. Then nothing could prevent his dissipating to an empty mind court.
By the time these insects found their way down without him—if they even could—the Consort would be back in power, healed, and have an endless army of drones to stand guard as he imprinted upon the new generation.
—
It was two days in the lower tunnels before Alagai Ka sensed the mimic.
Two days of cautious descent, using wards and the Singer’s wretched voice to slip unnoticed past hundreds of drones that hunted—and sometimes fell prey to—the subterranean life in the higher tunnels.
The Heir kept the warding field of the crown in close, lest the demons sense its presence. They put their backs to the tunnel walls when packs of demons passed through, using subtle magics to divert the herding drones from brushing against the field.
The stupidity of drones was an asset in dominating them, but in times of war with the humans, it could be a liability. The hive’s defenses were weak.
Ahead, the mimic waited, wrapped around a great stalagmite mound. Its body blended perfectly with the surrounding rock, down to the layers of sediment and the slickness of dripping water. Its magic was drawn in close, hidden beneath its outer layer where even the Heir would miss it at a casual glance.
It was close. So close. But whether by instinct or sheer luck, the Heir led them on a path that put the mimic just out of reach. Even this more intelligent drone could not pierce the cloak cast by the Singer and his captor’s wards, save for the human stench the tear bottle painted on Shanjat. The mimic could sense the prey was close, but not see or hear it. Not yet.
The Consort slowed, and the Heir and Explorer, senses focused ahead, did not notice as they pulled ahead until they were just out of sight.
The mimic hid just a few short strides away, but Shanjat’s daughter was positioned between them. The Consort had Shanjat stumble slightly as they passed another stalagmite, cut off momentarily from the others’ line of sight.
He shattered the weakened links on the chain, freeing the drone’s hands and feet. Shanvah reacted quickly, but not quickly enough. The drone’s fighting skill and muscle memory were undiminished.
With the element of surprise, the drone quickly established a dominance hold, leaving a free hand to hammer precise blows, shattering bone and breaking joints. In seconds he cast her aside, a broken thing, and sprang for the mimic.
His sudden movement negated the cloaking wards, but the mimic gave no sign as he approached, continuing to lie in quiet wait, like a spider in his web. When he got in close it would strike, and the demon might have only seconds to slip free of Shanjat’s mind and into the mimic’s. He readied his last reserves of power for the transfer.
The Hunter noticed him bolt from cover. She was a blur of movement as she ran to cut him off, unwittingly putting her back to the mimic. Her knife was in her hand, and her aura was without mercy. She would kill him, if she could.
The woman was a fool, facing him with her body. Her knife. She could have drawn wards where she stood, powering his tattoos and killing him. The humans had power, but their primitive minds had not come to trust it more than steel.
She lunged, but for all her magic-enhanced strength and speed the Hunter did not have skill to match this drone. He caught her wrist in a turn that set her blade shaking in nerveless fingers. She turned her attention to keeping the grip, letting the drone hold her in place long enough to kick hard off a ridge in the tunnel floor, adding power to the already mighty blow as he struck a fist into the rounded egg sac bloating her belly.
The Hunter screamed, knocked from her feet. The Consort followed her down with a rain of swifter blows, all aimed at the same, vulnerable spot.
—
Renna cursed silently, lungs emptying as she landed hard on her back. Shanjat was atop her immediately, continuing his heavy blows. It was not the fluid grace of his daughter’s sharusahk. The sharukin of the Sharum were cruder, but no less effective. Renna thought herself a skilled fighter, but he took her as easily as a cat took a mouse.
But while the demon had full control of Shanjat’s skills, it did not seem to care much for his sense of pain. By the time he noticed his mistake, Shanjat’s hand was shattered to pulp.
“Think I’m stupid?” Renna had used powerful magic to strengthen the muscles of her stomach. Her child floated in a suit of armor hard as warded glass. “Saw you eyein’ my belly back in the csar.”
The demon’s hesitation gave her an instant, and Renna punched Shanjat in the chest, the impact wards on her fist flashing. She felt ribs crack. He was knocked several steps back, landing with surprising grace.
Renna was already back on her feet, charging in. The bone handle of her knife was hard in her hand, throbbing with power.
“I would tell you it is not personal,” Shanjat said. “That it is survival, my race against yours, that forces my hand.”
She was faster, stronger, but still Shanjat picked off her attacks until he locked on to her knife arm, twisting until he had control. Slowly, he pressed the knife in Renna’s hand toward her belly. The magicked blade was one of the few things Renna did not trust her belly against.
“I would tell you that,” Shanjat whispered, “but it would be a lie.”
Renna remembered the first time that knife cut her. She was five, and Harl made her clean it after a kill. The blade, sharp as a razor even then, slid through the cleaning cloth like it was nothing, cutting a thin line across her palm.
Her mother gasped, but Harl only grunted, holding up a hand to keep her from rushing to the girl. He caught Renna’s tiny hand and pressed it in her face, forcing her to look at the reddening wound.
Knife’s like a mean old hound, Harl used to say. Bite what you tell it to, but you ent smart, it’ll bite you, too.
Renna grit her teeth, forcing the blade back. She could hear Arlen and Jardir rushing to her, but they would not be in time.
She breathed, visualizing her movements as Shanvah had instructed her. Then, in a sharp jolt, she broke the hold and reversed it.
The ground is the true battlefield, sister, the Sharum’ting taught. Bring your opponent to it, establish control, and force submission by blood or air.
Now Shanvah lay senseless, perhaps dead. It was time to put an end to Alagai Ka, even if it meant finding the Core on their own.
But that didn’t mean Shanjat had to go with him. Renna pinned his struggling limbs and curled up, putting her foot between Shanjat and the demon. She kicked, tearing his robes and throwing the demon far enough away to power its tattoos without killing Shanjat.
“Gonna burn you like the sun,” she growled. Arlen and Jardir were rushing back to the scene, bright with readied power. There would be no escape for the demon king.
Alagai Ka tumbled less gracefully than Shanjat, coming up hard against a stalagmite mound. Renna readied her attack when the movement stopped, but her concentration was broken when the stalagmite reached out of its own accord to wrap around the demon.
“Mimic!” she shouted, though it was obvious to all by now.
Idiot girl, she cursed herself. Demon was plannin’ that all along. Played right into his talons.
All three of them, Renna, Arlen, and Jardir, unleashed powerful blasts of magic, but the demon sloughed them off even as the stalagmite was destroyed in a cloud of debris. None of them hesitated, bulling forward through the screen.
“I have him in the crown’s bubble!” Jardir cried. “He will not escape!”
The demon was only out of sight for an instant, but when Renna’s vision cleared, the mimic had swollen, with the spiked armor of a rock demon and the horned tentacles of a water demon. Rows of four-inch teeth grew fr
om a mouth large enough to swallow her head and shoulders.
“Mind’s still bound by the tattoos!” Arlen shouted. “It’s in there somewhere, wearin’ the mimic like a suit of armor.”
He drew a mimic ward, smashing the demon hard against the edge of Jardir’s bubble. The creature flattened, and Renna glimpsed a lump in the middle. She leapt, knife leading. She would not hesitate again.
The mimic flowed away faster than she could move, tentacles shooting out to knock them all back. Renna and Jardir were ready, slicing at the tentacles. Mimics could heal instantly, but they could not regrow what was severed.
Alagai Ka knew this as well. The tentacle was thicker than her blade, the demon accepting the cut to whip around and strike her from behind. Knocked to her knees, she glimpsed Arlen from the corner of her eye.
Arlen could have dodged, or warded his tentacle away, but he caught it instead, holding the long powerful muscles with his bare hands as he shocked killing magic down the limb. He caught sight of her then, and his eyes widened. “Ren!”
The demon took advantage of the distraction. A second limb split off from the one Arlen held and drew a quick ward, knocking him sprawling. Another quick ward collapsed part of the ceiling onto him.
Renna did not have time to watch things unfold. The demon continued to press the attack, tentacles merging, dividing—turning hard and sharp, then soft as jelly. She fought to draw a ward in the air, but it slapped her hands, foiling the attempts while it searched for a submission hold.
Renna wanted to dissipate. It would be so easy. But this deep underground, the call of the Core—a song once like the seductive burble of a brook—was now a river roaring with spring melt. Could she swim that? Could she trust that she could pull herself—her baby—back out?
No. She needed to stay solid.
Jardir did not appear to be faring better. He was fast, picking off attacks and delivering the occasional blow of his own, but he was a shadow of the infinitely powerful man he had been in the csar.
The demon had a score of limbs now. Jardir’s spear was a blur, but more than one slipped past his defenses. With the power of the crown focused on keeping the demons in, he could not use it to turn the demon’s blows. He was stripped to the waist instead, the wards scarring his skin bright with power. The demon could not touch him, but he was battered and bruised by the rebound as it pummeled the wards. Jardir shrugged the blows away, but soon they would begin to tell.
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