Demonstorm

Chapter 31

Sharyr and Brynel knelt to prepare the ward. They were far from the gates of the college and could hear the sounds of demons whose attentions were mercifully still diverted elsewhere. Next to them stood Suarav. He was the only man they would have trusted to look over them. It was a curious strength they had gained from their ordeal in the library. None of them had truly recovered from it. They all still shivered intermittently and felt the chill of demon touch and proximity.

Yet it had instilled in them a fierce fatalism and brought the three of them together in a bond of mutual respect and belief. It was something that would be put to severe test in the hours to come.

'Attach it to the corner there,' whispered Sharyr.

Brynel nodded. The ward structure was simple and designed for a closely directed effect. Positioned on the junction of streets running away to the broken north gate, to the cloth market, and the college itself, it was a key focus of Chandyr's plan to help the Julatsans into Xetesk. Another key part of that plan was the three of them.

Sharyr watched his charge meld the ward into the building. When it was fixed he fed in exclusions to its activation to ensure no stray human or elven approach caused disaster. It was a quick process.

'All right,' he said, standing and helping Brynel up. 'That's our lot.'

'Well done,' said Suarav.

The three men looked at each other in the gloom of the street. The quiet was eerie and suffocating. Each knew what the others would be feeling. The desire to run back to the college. The dread at what they had volunteered to do. The pride at their own strength and the trust that had been bestowed upon them.

While other trios, some classic mage-defender structure, com-

pleted the ward lattice to Chandyr's design, they would be leaving Xetesk to contact the approaching allies. No one had to tell them the risk they were taking. No one had to remind them of their chances of success. They already knew that Chandyr had a contingency for their failure. It wasn't supposed to discomfort them, it was simple reality.

'Do you need to rest?' asked the gruff guard captain.

Both mages shook their heads.

'We should go,' said Sharyr.

'Just remember to follow my lead and keep yourself moving. To stop is to die,' said Suarav.

Sharyr chuckled. 'Only that?'

'Strength,' said Suarav.

'Let's go,' said Brynel. 'It's cold standing here.'

Denser looked down at his wife and a tear dropped from his check onto hers. It was the deep of night. The demons were attacking again. He could hear their calls echoing across the wagon train as it rolled inexorably on towards the gates of Xetesk. Feet skipped across the roof struts overhead and he could see the stress in the canvas in the half-light that permeated the wagon.

Rebraal had said the night would be the worst and so it was. Because the demons, indefatigable, lit up the sky with the colours of their bodies. They set up a stunning array of lights, at once terrifying and undeniably beautiful. Shifting patterns across the rainbow of colour, bright washes and gentle tones that were quite extraordinary, almost mesmerising. But they denied man, elf and horse any rest. Their calls gnawed at the nerves. And periodically, they would swoop into attack. Not with the intention of destroying the convoy, but in the knowledge that with the dawn would come new fear.

Denser tried to put it from his mind while he considered the folly of what The Raven would soon be attempting. Next to Erienne, Hirad lay sleeping fitfully, his many scratches and wounds bound and treated and his body shivering. He was strong. He would come back. But Erienne was a different case. Denser tried to believe that she was as strong-willed and determined as the woman he had met all those years before. But tragedy had dogged her and the pressure to be what she did not want to be was tearing up her soul.

Her facade cracked often yet still she tried to achieve what The Raven desired and what Balaia and all its linked dimensions needed. Out there in the fields as they had run towards the ColdRoom shell and the security it represented, Erienne had attempted something new, something awesome.

Denser understood what it was. She had created a structure that expanded on encountering the air and had evacuated the space it covered of any vestige of mana. But this super-ColdRoom wasn't the end. She had then stripped an element from demons that they could not survive an instant without. Something that bound their flesh. It would be like taking water from a human body. Whatever it was she had seen in their make-up, she had used to devastating effect. But as with all the castings of the One, there was risk in the new idea.

And the second time she had cast, she had let too much of the power flood her body. Her collapse had been her body's defence mechanism against a complete disaster for her and for Balaia. They had been lucky. The storms Erienne would unleash if out of control would make those that Lyanna had triggered seem like puffs of breeze.

But when would she awake from this latest trauma? And when she did, what would she be like? He could only hope that somewhere in her mind, Cleress was with her.

'Why did you try it, love?' he asked, stroking her warm cheek, wiping away his tear. 'There's nothing you need to prove to us. Nothing.'

Around him in the wagon, resting Al-Arynaar mages and humans including Pheone kept their thoughts to themselves, respecting his need for whatever privacy of mind he could eke out. A strong hand rested on his shoulder.

'Deep inside, she knows even that. But she cannot deny that part of her that desires to experiment. To find her limits.'

Denser turned his head to look at Thraun. The big blond shapechanger was seated behind them, sword across his knees. He would not leave her side while she was helpless. He never would. Thraun had known her longer than any of them. He'd seen her twins grow and had buried them alongside her first husband. Theirs

was a bond that comforted Denser. Something he knew would never fail.

'What makes you say that?'

A smile touched Thraun's lips. 'A shapechanger drives his body when he is not a human. He desires to push it further than he ever could his human frame. It is something he never truly controls but in that lack there is such life and excitement. It is to be feared as it is to be loved.'

The wagon bounced across a rut in the ground. Above there was a shifting of feet and the multiple impact of weapons. Bodies hit the ground, death cries fading to nothing.

'You know, you might be right but I think there's more to it,' said Denser. 'The One is Erienne's only link to Lyanna. When she lets it thrive it's like life.'

Thraun shrugged. 'Yes. It is why I have to live part of my life with the pack. It is a link to something I cannot deny.'

'Do you remember any of the years you spent as a wolf after the Noonshade rip?'

Thraun's face darkened. 'No. It is at best like scent on the breeze. Fleeting reminiscence, soon dispersed. I'd rather it was that way.'

Erienne shifted in her sleep and Denser caressed her brow. 'It's all right, love. You're safe.'

Denser hated himself for saying it but it was the only way he could feel any worth at all. He glanced up at Thraun but the shapechanger wasn't looking at them. He was sniffing the air, sword clutched in his hands and his muscles tensed.

'Thraun?'

The shapechanger's eyes glinted yellow in the swimming lights reflected from the demons' bodies as they flew outside. 'Threat,' he said.

He stepped over Erienne and Denser and stood at the covered rear of the wagon, silent and unmoving. Denser could see him balancing with the shifts of the axles and could hear The Unknown shouting instructions from where he was riding with Darrick at the front.

There was an impact on the wagon's tail board. Thraun stiffened, crouched very slightly. The canvas rippled. Thraun's right hand shot out through die opening and dragged a reaver in by the throat. He held it down by his knee and growled, sword cocked and ready.

The demon screwed its head round, its body flaring yellow, bathing die wagon with an alien light. Both Hirad and Erienne moaned. There was a concerted movement towards the front of the carriage.

'Shapechanger,' grated the demon, voice strangled through Thraun's grip.

'And the reason you will never take what you want so badly,' he replied.

He jerked the creature further into the wagon. It spat and struggled, wings beating against the canvas, arms clutching Thraun's wrist. Thraun merely tightened his grip.

'Look,' he said. 'Look at what you are so close to but can never touch.'

His sword drove through the demon's chest. Within the Cold-Room shell, there was no defence against that. The creature convulsed and died. Gore drained onto the floor timbers. Thraun flung the body from the wagon and thrust his head out into the open air.

'Any more of you come right in.'

Denser had never seen him this animated. The big warrior withdrew and retook his seat.

'Glad you're on my side,' said Denser.

'Always,' said Thraun.

'What's got into you?'

Thraun's eyes bored into his. T have watched her these years, only leaving her side when I thought her to be safe. I have seen her grow in strength even as her heart broke. She can save us all. It is best that they know it.' He gestured outside.

'You're baiting a trap,' said Denser.

'And The Raven are its jaws.'

Hiela was unused to resistance. But the incompetence of the aggressor strains over an insultingly long time had forced his early appearance in Balaia. It had not been in his plans for this time. The orderly transfer of mana energy from their home of the last generations needed careful marshalling and he was particularly schooled in the linkage between their land and Balaia.

Hiela, of course, was the designated Shroud Master. He had overseen the capture of so many souls from the Balaian mages when their petty squabbles had forced them to come to him for protection. He understood how they thought. How anything was better than that which they had just faced.

He still remembered how the Julatsans had capped and dismissed the shroud around their college almost at the moment he had forced a breach that would have made all that had happened since an irrelevance. Balaia had been so weak at the time. One rabble had been fighting the other and breaking the spirit of the whole. How easy it would have been to invade at that moment.

But dragons had become embroiled in the dispute. And so had this group of humans and elves that so went against all their teaching about the weakness of the spirit of those from Balaia's northern continent. This Raven. To find they were still a thorn in the side ‹›l conquest and dominion had hastened his departure.

And so, rather than sit basking in the warmth of the mana flow and see to the needs of the masters who maintained the gap and focused the stream, he was here. In the heat of the Balaian dimension. Smelling their foul air and hearing the pathetic excuses as to why the land they had identified was not yet sanctified for habitation. Why so many humans, elves and damned Wesmen ran free to cause them trouble rather than build, breed and die at their pleasure.

Hiela hovered outside the walls of the city known as Xetesk. He was aware of the activity within its boundaries. Of the lift the withdrawal of forces from its people had given them. It bothered him very little. He had overflown the city before agreeing to the order to defend the borders and had found them broken. Even those still nominally at liberty within their spells were cracked and their wills close to collapse. He could hasten that inevitability by the destruction of those who came to their aid. Hence the arrangement of his forces as a welcome. Latterly, though, this tactic had been somewhat complicated.

'They are within, you are sure?' he demanded.

'Yes, Master Hiela,' said the messenger. 'All of them.'

"I see.'

He turned to his advisers. Incompetents all but with more knowledge of the developing situation at present.

'Tell me, any of you, why this force should be so keen on driving to the heart of a college which we have so effectively sealed from the outside?'

Hiela regarded them, waiting for one to speak. He scratched at the beard he still preferred to sport. It was a legacy of his grudging respect of the Julatsan mages of old. Men and elves of some strength and spirit. Those who would have been a challenge to break.

'It is their way,' said one. 'They group together for strength in times of duress, believing their best hope for survival lies in their numbers.'

'Hmm.' Hiela nodded. 'But there is more, isn't there? The Raven are with them now. These are not men who come merely to extend their lifespans. These are men who expect victory and travel only to the places where they believe that chance exists.'

Silence.

'Idiots. Isn't that why you crave their souls? Isn't that why they fascinate you yet more than a mage or an elf? Within diem is that life force that is so exquisite it burns us not to be able to touch it. Do you believe such as these would join a hopeless defence?'

'But even for them there is nothing to be done,' said another. 'We will prevail. It is a question of time.'

'Even at the time of our burgeoning strength there lies risk,' said Hiela, letting his colour drift to a brighter blue. 'You swallow too much of what you are told by the masters. They have not dealt with these people before. I have. And this is not a futile gesture. There will be a purpose.'

'But surely there is only one. .'

Hiela snapped around in his position, floating in their midst, to stare hard at the long-fingered cerebral that had uttered the words. He let the import sink in.

'Yes,' he said. 'And can you think of another reason why the Julatsans would leave their college — the one place where we had doubts about our ability to dominate — and travel to the heart of dimensional research and understanding of our race? And why do the Wesmen still watch? Why are they so close?'

There was a wind blowing across the open lands. It brought a welcome chill though the assembled company barely acknowledged

it. Hiela turned a slow rotation in the air, making sure they all heard him.

'Out there, travelling towards us, are those who are capable of beating us, should they receive the help they need. We can suppose that this is why they are travelling to Xetesk. And you can suppose this is why we are ranged here. Because they shall not make the walls of the college. And they shall not ask for what they need, let alone find it.

'This is no longer a battle to defeat the will and farm the souls of those who approach. This is an order to destroy. We have all we need here. Never mind the sweetness of its taste, let us kill that which we can live without. We must focus on this and this alone. What is the state of our conflicts to the south and the college of Lystern?'

'The resistance is weakening in both places but it still holds. These are determined men,' said Drenoul, master of the Xeteskian battle front.

'So they are but that must end. I know your commanders will want the prized souls of those within but we need their strength of numbers here to keep die Wesmen from causing us delay while we face Julatsa and Xetesk combined. Order them to extinguish that which will not be cowed and travel here with all haste.

'It is time to deploy the destructors.'

'Surely they will be too weak yet. The mana density is not high enough,' said Drenoul.

'But not for long and they are many,' said Hiela. 'Summon the karron.'

The malevolence was causing panic throughout. The others were packed far away from the pulse of pure hate that was spreading. Like a battering on the door to their world. And it was getting louder and stronger. He had struggled with the concept of there being a force wanting to harm them. But then he had travelled to a place where the sense of evil intent and salacious desire washed over him in a wave.

While searching for The Raven he had seen in a moment of clarity that the threat was genuine and that they in their countless number were helpless against it. Those who could have heard him in his

homeland were gone from there but one had resurfaced near The Raven. It would be his brother, he was sure. It was logical, if logic held sway here, that they were aware of the threat and were battling it.

But did they really know the extent of it? And did they know where to travel? He knew. And now here he was, unsure how to proceed. He had the battering pulse filling his mind and soul. He had The Raven, bright lights surrounding one that dazzled. And he had the sense of the destination. It was a place of enormous power that ebbed slowly as if that power was being drained. He could feel it pass him like a wind through his being and tracing it back had found its source in an otherwise cold and dead land.

The Raven had to go to there and nowhere else in that land. He needed a way to contact them that was not the loose meeting of subconscious minds that he had managed so far. So often, Hirad had almost grasped him but each time the fluidity of dreams had snatched away what he was trying to say.

He concluded that he had to get closer, if closer was possible. Before him, indeed all around him, the battering was weakening the Spirits within. The anxiety had spread through all of them and communication was laced with terror and the knowledge that they had no defence against those wanting to break through. There would come a moment when the door would fall and the panic would overflow and communication would be impossible. But until that time, he had to believe in his own safety and in the strength of the Spirits that wished him success.

He forced himself to concentrate. There was a point between The Raven, the place where they had to go and the door through which they must pass. It was a place of great risk, where the boundaries between worlds were weak and the malevolence waited its chance. But it was the only place he was sure he could make a difference.

Letting the light of his friends suffuse him and protect him, he journeyed on.