Swords swept from scabbards and the blows rained in. Pheone saw it all in a kind of detached awe. The relentless motion, the speed of the strike. All to a purpose. Swords bit into heads and arms, sliced through wing membrane. Feet thudded into gut, groin and temple. Disorientating, temporarily disabling. The demons had practically no reply. They lashed out with claws and tails or tried to bite. But the ferocity of the elves made mockery of their slight numerical advantage.
Only one made it into the air at all, to be brought down with arrows crippling critical wing muscle. The onslaught was quick but could it possibly be quick enough? Already, Pheone could hear the hoots of alarm that meant the cries of the attacked had been heard.
'Prepare now,' said Afen. 'No sense in delay. They are coming.'
Pheone dragged herself into the mana spectrum. It was unadorned by any casting barring the mass of activity that signified the ColdRoom lattice. She brought together the shape for IceWind, a flowing sheet of interlaced mana strands, glowing yellow with captured energy, just waiting for release when it would tatter in the face of its targets.
Almost at once, the hoots became howls and the hunt was on for those casting magic. The warriors responded, driving demons out of the shadow of the barn and into a pool of moonlight.
'Break!' called Kineen. 'Cast.'
IceWind tore away from Pheone's fingers, mingling with the slivers of DeathHail cast by Afen'erei. The effect was at once hideous and incredibly satisfying. Where Afen's spell gouged strips of flesh from the demons, Pheone's IceWind ignited the loose mana so freed, feeding on it as a FlameOrb did on human flesh, gorging, consuming.
The demons screamed, their voices like those of infants in agony, tearing at Pheone's heart and dashing her concentration. The IceWind ceased but the damage had been done. Again, a solitary demon took to the air but it was little more than a mass of pure blue flame, bubbling a few feet up and crashing back to earth, wing beating feebly at the ground.
'Go!' shouted Kineen. His warriors and archers ran for the barn doors. 'Pheone, retreat.'
'No.' She felt alive, vindicated. In two years, these were her first victims among the thousands that occupied her city and she found herself hungry for more. 'I'll defend you.'
'They can outrun you,' said Afen. 'But not us.'
Pheone looked to her left. Shadows climbed thick into the sky. Far right, she heard the pounding of feet in scrub. It was no time for heroics.
'Don't get caught,' she said, turning and running back into the field of spring crop, retracing her steps back into the city.
Behind her the yellow bloom of a spell lit the sky and a flat crack spoke of a FlameOrb detonating. More screams of dying children, this time further out of the city, away from the barn. Pheone smiled. A diversion.
The part-focused mana from the castings brought the demons to it, searching for the prized life force that only a mage possessed. Pheone ran harder, her ears playing games with her mind. She fancied she could hear a gravel-laden voice calling her name but it could have been the breeze through the crops. Wings beat close to her head though it could have been wind-echo.
She was alone and unguarded in this demon-run city of the walking dead. She broke through the crops and into the streets, trying to keep her footfalls quiet and maintain her speed. But all she produced was a dry slapping that sounded like a herald of her passage.
Pheone slowed, ducked into heavy shadow and stopped, breathing hard. She heard no sounds of pursuit. The howling of enraged demons was distant but she knew she couldn't relax. She studied the silent buildings while she caught her breath. No one lived here any more. The demons had herded everyone they'd kept alive into the centre of the city, where they were penned and housed like animals.
A hand clamped across her mouth. She felt breath on her neck. She tried to struggle and scream but she was held tight. She let herself relax, made herself think. Kineen's face came into view and she all but wept. He released her.
'Bad place to stop,' he said. 'They are closer than you think.'
'Gods burning, you almost frightened me to death,' she managed, relieved and angry.
'Sorry,' he said and set off towards the tunnel entrance and safety. 'I couldn't risk you screaming.'
She followed him, nodding. 'What about the others?'
'They have taken other routes to split the pursuit. We have four lambs, four piglets. A good raid.'
Pheone smiled, feeling safe though she ought not to. Only she was safe enough here, wasn't she? Here in a quiet empty back street the demons never travelled; as much as inside the college where they never attacked but just watched. No. Waited.
She caught up with Kineen. 'Why don't they attack the college any more?'
'They fear us.'
'Yes but that's not all of it, is it?'
Kineen glanced across at her. A few more turns and they were home. 'It is why we fight them out here.'
'What do you mean?'
'To keep that for which they wait as distant as we can.'
Deep inside the crypts of Dordover, the last remaining bastion of college resistance huddled. Barely two dozen were left now. The onslaught had been relentless. They hadn't been able to replenish stamina outside the ColdRooms when the demons had found all their borders and they had too little strength to cure all the afflicted when disease had struck. Dysentery had stolen their best mages once it had taken their ability to heal themselves and now the demons were coming after what was left. They could sense the weakening. The ColdRooms were not secure, the casters were weak and the swordsmen barely had the muscle to raise their blades.
Vuldaroq, a shadow of the obese bulk he had been two years before, listened to the battering on the doors of the outer crypts. They had fled here the night before and had nothing with them. The Heart of the college was below them and they could no longer reach it.
He dragged himself to his feet and looked around the chill, lantern-lit chamber.
'They will be here soon,' he said. 'They must not take any of our souls.'
A swordsman, Marn, turned to him. 'The college must survive,' he said. 'Even if none live here until the demons are defeated. We cannot let our light fail.'
Vuldaroq managed a smile. 'That you still have hope makes you the strongest among us, my friend.'
'Not for myself, my Lord Vuldaroq, but for you and the mages we still have.' He gestured about him. 'We have been talking, the non-mages I mean. If you all have the stamina left for one more casting, there is a chance you can escape.'
Vuldaroq shook his head. He was tired. The bluster and arrogance he had carried were long since gone and he had developed an unflinching loyalty to those who had fought the demons so bravely though their efforts were ultimately to end in failure.
'We will take our lives here, leave them nothing to leech from us,' he said. 'It is as we agreed, Marn. We will die together.'
'No,' said Marn. 'It is you they want, you they prize. We can get you out.'
'How? We are trapped.'
'Yes, my Lord, but not yet quite helpless.'
Vuldaroq listened on and the spark of chance warmed his heart once more.
Chapter 11.
'Unknown!'
Hirad's shout shattered the peace of Herendeneth, setting birds to flight and scattering the cattle in the yard behind the house. He pounded up the track from the landing, not even noticing the swaying trees to either side that flanked the path with such grace. All he could see was the man he hadn't laid eyes on for well over a year. It was a great sight.
The big man was dressed in light linens, his shaven head hidden from the sun under a tied-back cloth. The smile on his face was broad and his bulk almost blocked out his wife and child standing a little way behind him.
Hirad hurtled into his embrace, rocking him back a step. The two old friends spun each other around, the barbarian kissing him on the cheek before stepping back.
'Surprised?'
'I thought you'd gone elven native,' said The Unknown. 'It's wonderful to see you looking so well. Still off the wine?'
Hirad wrinkled his nose. 'They have something almost as good. Made from some tree sap or other.' He blew. 'Very sweet, very powerful.'
'So not wine at all then. Got some young stuff you should try.'
'When on Calaius, Unknown . . .'
The Unknown shook his head. 'Very funny. Seriously though, how have you been? There's a lightness about you, I'll say that.'
'Life with Auum teaches you a few things.'
'Hasn't quietened your voice though, I see,' said Diera.
Hirad stepped around The Unknown, kissed Diera and ruffled Jonas's blond hair. The boy hid behind his mother's skirts.
'And a good morning to you, Lady Unknown,' he said.
'It's good to see you, Hirad. It's been too long.'
'Yeah,' said Hirad, stepping back and taking them all in, feeling the guilt begin to nag at him like it always did when he saw them standing together, the perfect family. 'Yeah it has.'
'Come on up to the house, it's almost time for lunch anyway. Denser and Erienne are going to get a real surprise,' said Diera.
'Yes, they are,' said Hirad, unable to keep the light in his expression.
'So,' said The Unknown, slapping him on the back. 'You've got a year or more to fill me in on, man-elf. How long is Jevin staying for or is the Calaian Sun coming back to pick you up another time?'
'He'll be here a few days. As long as necessary, really,' said Hirad. 'Look, Unknown-'
But The Unknown wasn't listening to him. There were voices coming from around the corner in the path, still just out of sight.
'Who's that man, Mummy?' asked a small voice.
'That's Hirad, sweetheart, one of your father's . . .'
She trailed off, sensing the tension that had stolen through every muscle of The Unknown's body. Hirad looked briefly at her, saw the colour drain from her face and the tears already beginning to well up behind her eyes.
'Brought some friends with me, Unknown,' he said, voice close to cracking. 'I'm sorry, Diera, I'm so sorry.'
And round the corner they came, their smiles and greetings dying on their lips as the scene unfolded before them. The Unknown spared Hirad a dangerous look and turned back to watch them approach, most of them people he hadn't ever thought to see again. Darrick, Thraun, Rebraal, Auum, Duele, Evunn.
'Hirad, what is going on?' he hissed.
'Think we'll be all needing that drink,' said Hirad.
Whatever it was The Unknown said next, Hirad lost in the sound of Jonas beginning to cry and Diera shouting 'no' over and over.
'There, see it?' Kayvel was pointing out over the south-west of Lystern.
Heryst was one of a dozen faces pressed against the highest window in the tower. The day was dull and drizzling, adding to the misery of the population of the enslaved city. He could barely concentrate on what he was supposed to be trying to see, his eyes as always drawn to the perpetual terrified drudgery that unfolded daily beneath him.
The demons had assembled the people they wanted to keep alive into buildings ringing the college and had cleared areas of the city in full view of the rebellious mages for crops and livestock. It was a reminder every heartbeat if one were needed of the Lysternans' failure to do any more than survive.
In two years, while they had expanded their domain within the college, nothing outside of it belonged to them. They had wells under their control but had to raid farms for food or fly high and fast to hunt or forage in distant areas still apparently ignored by the invaders. Those making the flights had at least brought back information about the wider state of Balaia and it made grim listening.
Those still living outside the control of demons lived in constant fear of being the next into the inexorably expanding net. In addition to the college cities, all major population centres bar one were in thrall. Korina, Gyernath and all the northern and eastern baronies were captured, leaving only Blackthorne as a bastion in the south. It was a testament to Baron Blackthorne's skill and farsightedness that he still remained free, if that term could really be applied to any of them. Only Blackthorne outside of the colleges had refused to victimise and drive away the mages in his town or employ when the Black Wings were at their height of influence. He was alive now because of that decision.
In the scattered villages, isolated farmsteads and hamlets, a subsistence life went on but there was precious little travel or trade. After all, the demons controlled every marketplace and port and had thrown an impenetrable ring around Blackthorne. Those living in these small communities would all have fled but there were no ships to anywhere. Some had tried to make it to Understone Pass but no news of their fate ever came back.
And everywhere the stories about what the demons were doing were the same. No one unable to father or bear children was left alive. The old, infirm and barren had been taken for their souls in the early seasons of the occupation. Those that were left were drilled into a workforce designed purely to keep them alive, let them breed and so perpetuate the supply of souls. And while the new generation were born and grew, the demons satiated themselves by draining life force slowly, using a horrifyingly exquisite touch to draw off only that which they needed.
Heryst had seen it from the windows of the college. He wondered why the enslaved hadn't given up, taken their own lives or their children's. He had witnessed in their faces the enduring shock and incomprehension. The eyes not dead but not alive either. The look of hope extinguished.
But somewhere inside them, most of them, the will to survive still lurked. It drove them to exist through the nights of terror, the knowledge of why they were being kept alive. The human spirit, never truly broken.
Heryst knew why that inner light still burned. It was because every day they could see the college. Still holding out. A torch to guide them through their bleakest moments, something to cling on to though they were helpless themselves. It meant an expectation was laid on Heryst and those few who worked to find an answer. It was why Heryst looked out every day to remind himself. They had to strike back. They had to. If only they had the means.
'My Lord?'
'Kayvel,' said Heryst. 'I'm sorry, miles away.'
'Please, just for a moment, look away from the city.' Kayvel placed a hand on his shoulder, all it did was remind him how thin he had become.
'Show me again.'
'Look towards Xetesk, tell me what you see.'
Heryst looked. Beneath the shale-grey cloud, there was a lightness in the south-west. It was faint but it was there. Sometimes stronger, sometimes fading. There seemed to be a pale blue hue to it but that could have been a trick of the distance.
'What is that?' he asked.
'You know how you've been asking why it is the demons don't try and attack us any more?' said Kayvel.
'Yes.' Heryst shrugged and drew back from the window. 'So what?'
Kayvel pointed. 'Well, I think that's why.'
Heryst regarded him coolly. 'You're going to have to explain that.'
'Naturally.' Kayvel chuckled and scratched at his beard. They all had them these days. There were other things more important than putting the edge of a dagger to your chin every day. Until the lice struck. Then they shaved. 'We know that what we possess as mages makes our souls prized by demons. That's surely why they targeted the colleges from the outset.'
Heryst nodded, about to tell him to stop repeating the obvious when he realised Kayvel was speaking for the benefit of the whole room, which had fallen silent.
'But we saw them back off quite quickly when they knew they couldn't take us without great loss of life on their side. We know this has happened in Xetesk and Julatsa too but we don't know about Dordover. Worryingly quiet over there, if you ask me.'