They clashed on the fallow farmland outside the city, and it was horrendous enough for them to hear it in the courtyard. Screaming, shrieking, howling monsters attacked one another with claws and fangs, fists and pincers, not even trying to battle with magic. Tarrin found himself repulsed by the scene as the creatures tore into one another with absolute wild abandon, knowing that even if they were destroyed, it would do nothing but send their spirits back to the Abyss unharmed. Black blood flew, even as bits of putrid flesh and even entire limbs were torn from Demons, to disintegrate into that horrid black ichor that burned and melted into the ground. For long moments it went on like that, until ki'zadun Wizards stepped up and began attacking the opposing Demons with magic. Wizard magic could affect Demons, as it was what was used to bring them to their dimension to begin with, and with their help, the ki'zadun's Demons began turning the short, ugly battle in their favor.
"Damn," Miranda muttered. "Phandebrass said that would happen, but they didn't want to listen to him. I told them to put a few Wizards at the wall."
"Now what?" Tarrin asked.
"Now the walls brace for the Demons," she replied. "They'll tear a hole in the wall and enter the city. Our troops have been told to let them go by without attacking them, and then prepare to meet the assault of the troops that will come in behind them. The Demons are going to come straight here, and this is where the Wizards will attack them."
But things didn't quite happen that way at first. In a sudden withering storm of projectiles, many of the Wizards attacking the Demons were felled by arrows. Tarrin looked up from the disc, since they had come from above, and he saw the Aeradalla. They were very, very high over the battlefield, well out of range of any magic or missle, so high up that the winged creatures on the other side would have to climb for a long time to reach them. They were firing down on the Wizards, using their superior vision and their outstanding skill and knowledge of firing their crossbows at extreme distances. They had probably been circling up there in the darkness before sunrise, at least a longspan over the battlefield, waiting for their opportunity to attack. The Aeradalla had taken their shot, and now they all turned and dove back over the city wall as winged creatures simply appeared just behind where they had been-the winged Demons-and then dove to give chase. Tarrin realized for a moment that there was nothing to stop those flying Demons from reaching the Tower-
– -and then they began to fall from the sky.
Tarrin used the viewing disc to get a view of it. Shiika and her Cambisi had appeared in the midst of the flying Demons, those vulture ones and the ones with the horrid tusks, and they assaulted them with what looked like long spears. They had appeared out of thin air within striking distance, then they drove the spears into the backs or sides of the Demons, and then vanished to attack the next. The Demons suddenly scattered in every direction, some of them vanishing just as they had appeared, but those that did not, those that kept after the Aeradalla, were systematically eradicated.
"Shiika used something to keep the Demons from teleporting into the city, but she also figured out a way to allow her and her daughters to get around that," Miranda told him. "If they're over the city, they can slaughter any flying Demon and probably get away with it without being touched." He saw what she meant. There was one particularly large one over the city, and all six of them were attacking it with their long spears, jabbing it again and again. Every time it tried to turn on one of them, that Cambisi simply vanished from sight, to reappear somewhere else and just within the reach of her long spear. The six of them harried the monster mercilessly, until a large gout of black blood erupted from its neck, and the thing began to dissolve into black ichor even as it fell from the sky.
"I didn't know that they could do that," Tarrin said in surprise. "They never used that power against me."
"Only Shiika can teleport. She said that could use a spell to give her daughters that power for a limited time. Shiika said that the Cambisi don't have any of the Demonic powers in our world. They'd have those powers in the Abyss, but not here."
"I wonder why."
"Well, you can track down one of those Demons and ask it," Jula said shortly.
Tarrin felt a sudden influx in the Weave, and realized that Jenna had begun to assemble her Circle. Jula gasped and looked up, then stared at Tarrin in surprise. "What is that? The Weave is, I don't know what it's doing."
"Jenna is building the Circle," he said grimly. "She's getting ready to attack."
Jesmind came over and looked into the disc. "It looks like they are too," she announced, pointing at the disc's image. The landbound Demons had destroyed their attackers, but at a massive cost. There were only about twenty Demons left on the battlefield, and all of them were showing the extent of the viciousness of their fight with their own kind.
"She's not going to attack. She's supposed to erect a Ward that will eliminate all magic except Sorcery that tries to cross it, and smother any magic except Sorcery from being used within it. Those Demons didn't use magic against each other, but they will when they attack the wall. Jenna is supposed to stop that, force them to try to tear down the walls with muscle instead of magic."
"Clever," Jula said appreciatively.
"When she finishes the Ward, then she's supposed to start destroying anything not a Demon that tries to come at the walls."
Tarrin considered that, and found it… inefficient. They'd lead with their Goblinoids when they sent in their attack force. Tarrin thought about that a moment, and realized that they could eliminate that threat without having to expend energy destroying them. He turned towards the statue of the Goddess, her icon, but she cut him off.
"I know what you're about to ask," she said audibly, though the statue didn't move. "I'll tell her how to make it."
"Was that-was that-" Jula stammered, going pale.
Tarrin nodded simply. "The Goddess," he told her.
Jula clutched her amulet tightly in her paw, staring at the statue in awe.
"What is she going to do?" Miranda asked curiously.
"Show Jenna how to make a Ward that will kill any Goblinoid that crosses it," he replied.
"Ah, very smart," Miranda said approvingly.
"Wards take more energy to form than battle spells, but they last as long as you set them to last," Tarrin told her. "It's not as tiring to just let the enemy kill themselves."
Miranda chuckled. "I'll say."
Things quickly got very fast, very violent, and very chaotic. The Demons reached the city gates, and began to batter against them with their fists. In a sudden flash, the obelisk on the far side of the battlefield began to glow, with robed men and women surrounding it, chanting sonorously, and Tarrin could sense an oppressive weight suddenly form on the Weave, as if it meant to bottle up the flow of magic. He felt Jenna's counterstroke to that, a blasting eruption of power that surged over the weight, around it, then infused it and shattered it. Tarrin felt what was going on, and realized that an entirely different battle was being fought in the invisible reality of the Weave. The men and women around the obelisk were using it to assault the powr of magic directly, to interfere with the Sorcerers, but Jenna and her very large, powerful Circle were resisting it. Tarrin felt the enemy seek to charge all the local strands with an absolute saturation of magic pulled from elsewhere, which would increase the power of Wizard magic, but would also make Sorcery more difficult and exhausting to use by weighing down on the Weave's capacity to allow magic to flow. Like filling a bottle half full of water the rest of the way with oil, making it impossible to reach the water beneath it without getting oil first. He then felt Jenna counterattack that by spinning out a multitude of feeder strands, saturating the local area with strands to support that extra magic, and also making Sorcery stronger in the process even as it spread out the burden of containing the Wizard magic filling the Weave. He then felt the Wizard magic within the Weave attack the integrity of the Weave itself, seeking to disrupt the strands, even feed back to cause damage within the Conduit. He felt that, and realized that it wasn't the Wizards doing it, or even the Priests. This was coming from somewhere else. This was being done by some being of immense power.