'We need a large open room. Defensible. Now.'
One of the warrior guard led them down the tunnel into the college proper. They brushed aside elven questions and the fears of men. The demon, cowed and scared but very alert, was held now by just its arms.
The tunnel ended inside a cellar beneath the library. Their guide
took them through the sparse bookshelves and across the short distance to the single lecture theatre. Already, word was spreading and elf and human alike were being drawn in.
Auum spared one glance up into the sky at the cursyrd circling there and pushed his captive inside. He hurried it to the centre of the stage.
'Rebraal, guard the door,' he said. 'Evunn, stand ready and watch.' He released the cursyrd which backed away confused, deep reds and blues chasing each other across its skin. Auum's smile was bleak. He turned to Duele.
'Fight it.'
Ule backed a little further into the cave. He looked down at Vituul, spent and shivering; and across to his brothers, bloodied, frozen, but unbowed. Both stood to his left, mace and axe in hands, waiting.
'They are coming back.'
Minute nods greeted his words, a tightening of grips on weapons, a shifting of stance.
'When the time comes, you know what to do.'
The three former Protectors stepped forwards to the cave entrance where the gap was at its narrowest. They looked out over the last foothills of the Blackthornes. To their right, Understone, the Pass and a sizeable encampment of Wesmen. To their left, the forward Wesmen positions and the city of Xetesk. Their destination. A day's walk but impossibly distant.
Ule wasn't sure how the demons had detected them as they descended from the peaks into the deep grey and black mass of the range. Perhaps a lone scout. Perhaps the elf mage's aura was too bright. It hardly mattered now.
Upwards of fifty demons were flying at them. Most were soul stealers and all were of the warrior strain popularly termed 'reavers'. They were tall and well muscled with powerful wings, trademark hairless bodies and writiling veins. The band had repulsed three attacks on their descent, with spells accounting for dozens of the enemy, but still the demons came and Vituul had no more to give. His face bore the terror of the fight and the wounds that iced his
blood and sapped his will to a point where he could no longer protect his soul.
Ule had time to appreciate the irony of the position in which he and his brothers found themselves. So long in thrall and so relatively short a time released. Had they never been freed they would be in the halls of Xetesk even now. He breathed in the air, felt it over his face. He experienced a moment of pure release, almost joy. He smiled.
The demons flooded the cave mouth but paused just out of weapon range.
'Ule,' said one, a pulsing deep green creature with huge eyes in an otherwise largely featureless face. 'Return your soul. It belongs to us.'
Ule stared at the demon. He felt calm, at peace. As did his brothers.
'There is no hope,' said the demon. 'You cannot resist us.'
'You will not taste our souls again,' Ule said. 'While we live, we will fight you. And in death, we will escape you.'
'You cannot harm us.'
'Wrong. We cannot kill you. Know pain.'
The Protectors' speed was startling. Ule's mace came from his right side and blurred upwards catching the demon on its chin. The force of the blow echoed in the confined space and catapulted the squealing creature end over end into those massed behind it, wings flapping uselessly.
Ryn and Qex drove into the enemy simultaneously. Ryn flat-bladed his axe into the side of one's head, sending it tumbling sideways, scattering others back and forwards. Qex slammed his mace into the midriff of his target and scythed left to right with his axe, biting deep into the demon's forehead. It fell back, screeching.
The wound did not bleed but instead healed over almost immediately, leaving a livid blue line where it had scored most deeply. And then the demons bunched and charged. Ule faced a blistering assault of claw, tooth and tail. He worked feverishly to keep them at bay. The mace was a potent weapon thudding time and again into head, chest and gut. And with it came the axe; flat-bladed to block strikes, edge-on to inflict pain.
But inexorably, the press grew and deepened. Claws raked his
face. Tails threatened to trip him and fangs bore ever closer. He could feel the desperation beginning to creep into his brothers as he could the chill of the demons' touch through his body. Every time they struck, he felt himself weaken. But he would not let it show.
He dragged the spikes of his mace across the throat of his nearest enemy, deriving strengdi from its strangled yowl. He followed it up with a carving swing into its waist. It was a blow that would have severed a human. But here it cut just so deep, forcing the creature back.
To his left, his brothers suffered. Qex had been on his knees more than once and Ryn's face was a lattice of cuts, bleeding and blue from the cold. They didn't have very long.
'Once more my brothers!' he shouted, his voice bouncing off the cave walls.
He launched a ferocious attack, summoning everything he had left. He battered at the press of demons, seeing his mace buried in face and arm, his axe chop claw from hand, only for it to regrow. He took what pleasure he could from the cries of pain and the anger of his enemies that they had not cowed their prey. And nor would they.
'Duck.'
It was a moment before he realised it was Vituul who had spoken, so unlike him was the voice. But there was no mistaking the intent in the word.
'Brothers, drop!'
And they did, together as always.
The IceWind scoured over their heads and swept into the defenceless demons. And now the screams were of agony and death. Flesh boiled away, wings froze and shattered and eyes glazed. Veins stood out proud and still, the supercooled mana penetrating skin and stopping flow in an instant. The entire front rank of the demons died before Ule could blink and the rest scattered back into the air, howling their anger and fear.
Ule turned to look at Vituul. The elf slumped back onto his side, his breath laboured and his eyes sunken deep into his skull.
'You were spent,' he said.
T am now,' said Vituul between gasps. He managed a smile. 'That really was the last.'
T didn't think you had it in you.'
'Neither did I.' Elf and Protector eyes locked. 'We cannot take another round.'
Ule nodded. T know.'
He swung back to his brothers. Both were leaning on their weapons, exhausted, all but finished. Out in the light, the demons had gathered once more and were approaching cautiously.
'Ule,' said Vituul, dragging his attention around. 'Just make it quick.'
'It is something I am very good at,' he replied.
Vituul chuckled. 'Glad to hear it.'
'My brothers,' said Ule. 'Prepare. They shall not take our souls.'
Each man drew a dagger from his belt, letting his other weapons clatter to the floor of the cave.
'Vituul,' said Ule. 'You understand we will die as one. Your journey must begin sooner.' He knelt by the elf and wiped the tear from the mage's eye. 'Your courage will be remembered among the Protectors. Even in death, we will not forget you.'
The strike was quick and sure.
Ule stood and embraced his brothers. Daggers rested against throats. 'Release is ours, my brothers. We are one.'
'We are one.'
The crowd watching the fight grew steadily. Auum could sense them and at times even hear low words but he didn't ever take his eyes from the scene being played out in front of him.
At first, the cursyrd had been reluctant. It had felt the weakening effects of the ColdRoom construct but slowly had come to terms with it. What it had found more difficult were the probings and lightning strikes of Duele.