“Kesheen,” the master of the Shadowguards said. “Serpent demons that can spit acid. Their scales are strong enough to resist most arrows, and swords will have a hard time piercing their hide. Not so much as chezamuts, but it will hardly be simple.”
“That won’t be easy to beat,” Jez said. “Is there any sign of Manakel?”
Sariel pointed to the southeast. In the dim light, Jez could barely make out movement. They were at least half a mile from the destruction lord’s forces. Before Jez could give any sort of command, the sun peaked over the eastern horizon, and a stone as large as a man flew over the army and slammed into the wall. Jez could barely make out the thin crack that formed there. He looked at Sariel, confused.
“Where did they get catapults?”
“Lifebringers,” Sariel said. “True pharim devoted to healing would not help in the construction of weapons of war, but afur, especially those with power over plants, might turn their power to the shaping of wood in order to create such devices. It would only take a few of them to make enough to supply an entire army.”
Other stones flew, slamming against the wall. For a moment, Jez was stunned. He hadn’t expected that. The walls of Rumar were warded against magic, but that protection didn’t extend to a more mundane assault. He began to hope Manakel’s plan would work. A second later, however, a horde of winged demons rose up from behind the walls and headed for Manakel’s siege engines. Jez looked at his forces. Most of the afur he had gathered weren’t warriors. Nearly all were healers and summoners, but eventually, his eyes rested on a group of eight green-robed former Beastwalkers. He motioned for them to follow and took to the air.
From Manakel’s forces, flame-winged afur rose to meet the demons. They engaged their foes high above the half dozen catapults, which kept flinging stones at the walls. The very air rippled with the heat of the afur’s flaming swords. Some hung back and shot balls of fire while others commanded the winds to tear demons out of the sky. The air was filled with the sound of demonic roars. Most of the creatures were dealt with in short order, but there were a few magma demons, taking the form of dragons, that were much more difficult to take down. The memory of the wounds such a creature had once given him that Jez could practically feel the bite it had delivered to his shoulder. He forced the thought out of his mind and led the charge into the demonic line’s rear.
His crystal sword lopped off the tail of one of the creatures. As it turned to face him, one of the former Shadeslayers sliced into the demon’s side while a former Beastwalker cut off its left wing with her bone blade. The dragon tumbled. Jez didn’t bother to watch it hit the ground. Instead, he moved to engage the next creature. They had downed two more before Sharim sprung his trap.
Glowing circles appeared on the walls of Rumar. Engaged with a dragon demon as he was, Jez could only spare them a glance. Still, that glance was all it took for him to identify what they were. There were at least two dozen of them, and they had been crafted specifically to summon chezamuts, the soldier demons of the abyss. To make matters worse, those circles were large, large enough to summon at least two demons at once. Most of Manakel’s afur were still engaged with the dragon demons. They were winning, but the battle wasn’t so one-sided that they could simply disengage. There was little doubt the dragon demons would be defeated, but it wouldn’t be soon enough.
Scaled demons with razor claws and iron hard skin stepped out of the circles. The fifty demons paused for only a second before rushing at the gathered forces. Jez pulled his attention away from the battle below to deal with the dragon before him. A pair of former Shadeslayers distracted it while Jez took its head. When he looked down again, the chezamuts were in the midst of the army, apparently having broken through the battle lines with little effort. They mowed through the men with a terrible efficiency.
Only a handful of dragons remained, and some of the afur had already broken off to help with the battle below. Jez flew down and joined them. His own forces had already mingled with Manakel’s. The initial charge had caught the army off guard, slaying some two hundred soldiers, but now the months of training their commanders had put them through took over. The soldiers managed to hold the demons off while the afur and mages moved in close to destroy them.
By the time Jez and the others had arrived, only a handful of the demons remained. Jez landed in front of the lines and shot a silver binding at one of the demons who was mowing through his forces with a casual ease. He let out a sigh of relief and turned to address the army when the soldiers let out a collective gasp. Jez spun, and his blood went cold.
The circles on the walls were glowing again, and more chezamuts stepped through. The front lines of the army were fractured and even less able to deal with a charge than they had been before. Jez couldn’t let them reach the battle lines. He ran ahead of the soldiers, heading right for the demons. He’d never fought more than three on his own, but before he had time to dwell on that, a former Shadeslayer appeared on his left and a former Shadowguard on his right. Those above rained down fire, incinerating half of the demons before Jez and his companions even reached them. The demons fell like wheat before a scythe. In under a minute, the demons had been dealt with. The Shadowguard waved a hand at the wall.
The magic woven into the walls of Rumar was both old and powerful, and not even an afur could take them down with a wave of her hand, but neither were they immune to her power. The stone twisted. The circles flared and went dark. The army let out a cheer that didn’t quite drown out the cries of fear and pain that came from the rear lines. Jez and the afur exchanged glances before all three took to the air again.
Earth demons, sidens, that looked like petrified swordsmen had come out of the ground and charged into the unprepared rear. Even now, some of the soldiers lay unmoving on the battlefield. Those who hadn’t been killed outright had taken wounds that had eventually crystalized their blood, leaving them as little more than statues. The demons were coming from all directions. There was a working to banish many of these creatures at once, but it required greater skill than Jez possessed. He scanned the crowd for several seconds before his eyes settled on the one he was looking for. He tucked his wings and dove. Besis yelped as Jez grabbed him and carried him into the air.
“The bell binding, the one you used against the sidens last year. We need it.”
“Jez, I had a demon cage the last time I used that. It takes too much power.”
“You’re going to form a contingent with me.”
Before Besis could say anything, Jez landed next to a shadowed figure in an indigo robe who fought with a blade made of darkness. The former Darkmask gave the impression of being surprised.
“We need a shared thought. The spider web.”
The afur shook his head. “Leziel’s web is unique to him. Perhaps this will suffice.”
There was too much light. Deprived of most of his power, he could not hide as he once had. Even in this thick forest, he was too exposed. He looked around at the blackened earth where he had fallen. Part of a tree trunk had been scorched by his arrival. The wind blew through the forest, carrying sounds and smells. He would have to be careful of that, lest it reveal his presence. He took a step and winced as his foot crunched on dried leaves.
The scene vanished, and Jez was back on the battlefield. Besis took in a sharp breath. He stared at the afur, the color having drained from his face. “Was that...”
The afur nodded. “The moment I was cast from the Keep of the Hosts. I have no stronger memory than that.”
Jez nodded and summoned his power, keeping the Darkmask’s thought in mind. Besis twined it with his own magic, and Jez felt his power being drawn away. It was far less than he had expected, though. Besis apparently couldn’t force him to draw on Luntayary, but Jez did that of his own free will, and Besis gasped at the sudden influx of power.
“It’s so much.” His voice was barely a whisper. “I had no idea.”
“There’s no time,” Jez said as he picked up the maste
r and took him to the rear of the army. To his credit, Besis didn’t have to be told twice. As soon as they landed, he banged his hands together, and the sound of a tolling bell filled the air. The closest sidens were driven back several feet, many of them raising stone shields as if to guard against the binding. Besis sounded the bell again, and Jez felt a torrent of power rush out of him. At the third time, every earth demon Jez could see shattered, their pieces blowing away in the wind. The contingent dissolved, and both Jez and Balud slumped to the ground. A dull pain pulsed all over Jez’s body. He’d given Besis unrestricted access to his power, but the protection master couldn’t feel the pain of its use, and he’d drawn on it deeply. Still, given what had been at stake, it was a price Jez was happy to pay. For a moment, there was quiet, aside from the heavy breathing of the two mages.
“Oh, please tell me it’s over,” Jez said.
Just then, shouts of alarm rippled through the army. Jez glanced at Besis who waved for him to go up. Jez spread his wings and forced his way into the air. Most of the other afur had already seen it and had gathered in front of the army to meet the attack. The front line had stabilized, but not enough to face this. The gates to Rumar had opened and countless demons streamed out and rushed toward them. At their front ran dozens of creatures, ten feet tall with fiery cracks spread through their obsidian skin. Jez had faced their kind before.
“Phobos,” one of the nearby afur said.
Jez nodded as the unnatural fear emanated by the creatures washed over him and those nearby. Then, the army broke.
CHAPTER 11
Men and women fled in every direction, all semblance of discipline banished by the aura of the fear demons. Jez and the afur crafted bindings to counter the supernatural terror, but phobos were frightening apart from their mystical aura of fear. No one who hadn’t faced them before could truly be blamed for running. There were simply too many of the demons to counter them all before they closed in.
“Scatter!” Jez called out.
“We can take them,” one of the afur said, his crystal sword glowing with sapphire energy.
“Not without losing half the army. Go! Protect the soldiers.”
The afur nodded. Everyone flew in a different direction. The army had gone from being a cohesive fighting force to thousands of terrified individuals. Manakel fought alone, battling what seemed to be fifty demons, and he actually seemed to be winning, his flaming sword leaving a path of destruction as it cut them down. He wasn’t doing it without injury, though, and he bled scarlet motes of light from several wounds. Chezamuts chased small groups, cutting them down with as much effort as Jez would expend squashing a bug. The afur were helping where they could, but there were far too many demons, and the army was too scattered.
Jez saw Lina with one of the groups. As a pair of soldier demons neared, her group of a dozen people shimmered. Suddenly, there were two groups, each identical to the other. They split off from each other, with one chezamut following each group. Jez tucked his wings and dove after one. The demon never even saw him coming. His sword cut through it like it was made of paper, splitting the demon in two. The creature went up in a gout of flame a few seconds before the group it had been chasing vanished. Jez’s blood went cold as he looked up to the other group, the one which, apparently, hadn’t been an illusion. The chezamut would be on them in seconds. He wouldn’t be able to make it in time.
He was still a dozen yards away when a ball of fire came down like a comet, smashing into the demon and reducing it to ash. The fire faded, revealing a pale-faced being with fiery wings and a flame shrouded sword. It looked up at him and smirked.
“Let me guess,” Ziary said once Jez landed. “You had another plan.”
Jez laughed out loud. Other beings came down, though most looked more human than Osmund’s alter ego. Still more came over rises in the land, lacking the wings that limaphs from purer lines possessed. They all glowed with a power that didn’t seem entirely human. Some carried otherworldly weapons, but others fought with steel alone.
“You found them,” Jez said.
“Later,” Ziary said as he spread his wings to engage one of the phobos.
The unexpected aid lessened the pressure on them and allowed some of the mages to rally. Balls of flame and beams of silvery light cut into the demons, giving the ordinary soldiers a chance to make it into the forest. The demons stopped before they reached the tree line. For a moment, Jez worried that there was another trap in the woods, but then he saw Galine staring out at them, and he understood. The city was a place of power for the demons, but with both Aniel and Aphlel, the masters of animals and plants, going into the forest would only lead to a swift banishment. Jez let out a breath of relief and went to join those who had fled into the forest.
CHAPTER 12
“It wasn’t easy,” Osmund said. “The limaph hide almost as well as the afur, and there’s no working to summon them.”
Most of the leaders of the army had gathered in a small grove. They had only been able to find a fraction of the army. Jez hoped the rest were okay. The demons seemed confined to the city, so perhaps they weren’t in any real danger. He could hope that once the phobos’ unnatural fear wore off, they would return, not that he actually believed it. Few people, after being routed like that, would willingly come back and face a demon army. As for those whom they had recovered, Jez ordered them to stay in small groups rather than a large concentrated force. He hoped that they would be harder to find if Sharim decided to send demons in after them, though Manakel thought that unlikely for the time being.
“How many?” Sariel asked.
“Just over a thousand.”
All of the high lords, save Leziel, stared at him. “A thousand?” Manakel said. “I had not known there were so many, not with bloodlines pure enough to manifest a scion at any rate.”
Osmund shook his head. “Only three others can fully manifest. Two hundred can fly. Half again that many can call a sword. The rest have a couple of enhanced abilities.”
Manakel huffed. “That is not as useful as I would have hoped.”
Osmund rolled his eyes. “It was enough to save you.”
Manakel gripped the flaming sword at his waist but stopped when Aphlel put a hand on his shoulder. The lord of healing shook his head.
“This is not the time for this, and we do not have so many soldiers that we can afford to turn away a thousand of them. Why did your attack fail? I have never seen you so thoroughly outmaneuvered.”
Manakel’s eyes blazed, though the sword at his waist dimmed. “It was Andera. He knows me. This whole thing, from drawing us to Between to the attack itself was his plan to draw me out.”
Jez let out a long breath and suppressed the shiver that tried to run down his spine. “Because he knows that if he can take you out, we won’t be able to resist him.”
Manakel nodded. “Destruction magic would grow as erratic as beast magic did when Aniel’s mind was damaged a few years ago. Without that as a tool, you would not be able to long stand against him.”
“Then, perhaps you should stay away from battle,” Balud said. “Remain here, where it’s safe.”
The fire in Manakel’s eyes brightened, but Jez spoke before he could say anything. “He can’t. This is a war. More than that, it’s against demons. It’s part of his nature to fight. He literally can’t do anything else.”
“Then, we need another way to fight,” Fina said.
“Raids,” Osmund said.
From between the trees, Galine nodded, no doubt certain that his beast men would be ideal for attacks like that, but Fina shook his head. “It won’t work. Raids are good for taking out supply lines and whittling down enemy forces by attrition. They won’t do any good against a force that doesn’t need to eat and that can replenish its numbers at will.”
“But there were traps we didn’t know about,” Osmund pointed out. “If we had disrupted the runes on the walls, they wouldn’t have been able to surprise us with that. If you hadn�
��t been distracted, you would have detected the sidens, and then the lines wouldn’t have been so scattered when the phobos and chezamuts came out. A smaller raid could have set that trap off earlier, and you wouldn’t have lost almost the entire army.”
For a moment, everyone just stared at him. Wind gusted through the grove, rattling the leaves. Finally, Fina pursed his lips. “He has a point. Sharim has to have other traps out there. If we can find them, and disable them, then we can avoid them next time. Even if we can’t, with smaller groups...”
“Any traps we set off will only take out a few people instead of the whole army,” Jez said. He took a deep breath, hating himself for thinking that sounded like a good thing. “I’ll lead one of the groups doing that. Galine, most of our army is still scattered. I need you to help recover them.”
The lion man inclined his head. “It can be done, but don’t you think our skills would be better served conducting raids?”
“Some of you should do that, but those are my soldiers out there.” Istar stiffened at that, but Jez ignored her. “They’re vulnerable. We’ll need as many as we can get once we decide that the raids have done as much as they can.”
Galine nodded. “It won’t be difficult to find those who fled into the forest, but there are a lot that went in other directions.” Jez started to speak, but Galine raised a hand. “We can find them as well. It will just take a little time.”
“Good,” Jez said. “Do that.” He turned to Balud. “Between the seven of you, the masters know the capabilities of every mage in the army, and I bet you have at least an idea of the afur. Osmund, give him as much as you can about the limaph quickly. I need the masters to coordinate with Galine to form the raiding groups we need. There were probably illusions hiding the runes on the wall, but don’t ignore other possibilities.”
Shadeslayer (Pharim War Book 7) Page 5
