Without their magic, without their invulnerability, and without any kind of coherent battle strategy, the Demons fell quickly to their highly organized and cooperating adversaries. Darvon and Tarrin continued to cut wide swaths through the Demons, breaking them up into smaller and smaller pockets, and the wedge finally broke up as the Legionaires and Knights helped the Marines surround those dwindling pockets of resistance and chop them down. In mere moments of furious, intense fighting, a force of two hundred Demons had been destroyed by a thousand mere mortals, and there was an eerie silence after the squeals of the last Demon faded away.
Then one man, an Arakite Legionaire with blood flowing from a nasty claw gash over his left eye, raised his spear and shouted in triumph. Another man joined him, then another, and then more, until the survivors cried out, flushed with victory over their unnatural enemies.
Tarrin didn't feel like joining them, and neither did Darvon, it seemed. He raised his sword quickly and got their attention. "It's not over yet, men!" he shouted. "Fan out in groups of fifteen and make sure there aren't any loners out there! Five of each, and watch each other's backs!"
Tarrin paused while the men quickly scrambled to obey the Lord General. The attack had no real sense to it. Did the Demons come here just to make him return, just to cause trouble? Where was Jenna? Was she alright? He cast out his senses into the Weave, and even that seemed to tire him. But he could feel her somewhere in the city, relatively stationary. The Weave around her showed no signs that she was doing anything, but it was shifting a little with her emotions. He could feel it clearly; Jenna was very angry. Something had happened out there, something to draw her out of the Tower, and then the Demons swarmed in while she was gone.
Wait. That was not right. The Demons showed no sign of using any kind of coherent battle strategy, but luring Jenna out of the Tower meant that there was a design behind things. What could be gained by getting Jenna out of the Tower? Tarrin mulled that over quickly, lowering his sword as he thought. Getting her power out was the first thing he saw. If Jenna had been here, the Demons would have been stopped almost before they could have gotten started. The Goddess would have used Jenna instead of him, and what was more, Jenna could have Circled with virtually everyone in the entire Tower, creating an awesome magical force that even a Demon would fear, a force that would have stopped the attack in its tracks.
Something a Demon would fear.
Jenna had been lured out of the Tower to prevent her from stopping the invasion. That much was plain. But why? The Demons out here didn't do anything but run around and try to kill people on the grounds. None of them he'd seen had tried to force their way into any of the buildings, and they'd had the chance to do it several times. Why come out here and attack men on the grounds when they went to all the trouble to pull Jenna off the grounds? They didn't do any lasting damage. The only thing they'd managed to do was bring him back to the Tower.
They were a diversion!
With an awful cold feeling in his stomach, Tarrin turned and bolted for the main Tower, but before he took more than a dozen steps, the Weave suddenly wrenched, wrenched with such a power that Tarrin felt it like a knife twisting inside him. There was a drastic, dreadful surge in its power, as if the entire Weave was trying to flow into one place.
And that place was in the Tower.
Jasana! Jasana was crossing over!
Only one thing could make her cross that line, to make her desperate enough to have to resort to Sorcery. She was in danger!
The Demons on the grounds had been a diversion! Their real target was Jasana!
Unable to Teleport or project, almost too tired to run, Tarrin still managed to dig as deep inside him as he could and summon up reserves from some unknown source, reserves tapped out of abject fear and concern for his daughter. It propelled him faster than any horse had ever run, and his mind raced even as a cold hand gripped his heart and squeezed it mercilessly. They'd distracted him and everyone else while someone or something else had snuck into the Tower and attacked his daughter! That was why none of the Demons tried to force their way into the Towers… they didn't want to interfere with what was happening inside! Tarrin endured the pain as he felt the Weave writhe and contract under his daughter's personal struggle, felt it rush into her like an avalanche unbidden, felt it seek to infuse her until her body literally exploded from the energy contained within. If she lost control and was Consumed, the explosion would kill everyone on the Grounds and bring the Towers down!
He didn't even bother with the door. He ran right through it, sending shards of wood flying in every direction as he plowed through the obstacle. He trampled some faceless person without even realizing, running the robed figure down without losing a single step. He felt the Weave reaching its crescendo as he reached the stairs, flying up them six and seven at a time, frantic to reach his daughter before she reached the moment of truth, to tell her what to do, to keep her from destroying herself. He abandoned running in circles and bounded up them in huge leaps, using the walls as springboards, taking entire floors in two vaults off the circular walls.
He reached their floor! He barrelled down the hallway madly, seeing the dead bodies of human servants lining the sides of the passage, trails of blood. Someone had attacked his family! He turned a corner and saw, to his horror, the door of Jesmind's apartment smashed in, with debris laying on the floor beyond the open doorway from what he could see. Where were Jesmind and Mist?
Jasana was infused as far as she could possibly be infused with the power of the Weave, far beyond the power he himself could hold. Even in his frenzy, in his terror at what was happening, he was awed by the absolute power contained within his daughter's tiny body. Such and incredible power! Almost there, almost there! If he thought it would do any good, he would have shouted, but he knew she wouldn't hear him. He was too late! Just a second too late! Jasana was already at the climax. If she didn't Transmute herself and do it now, she wasn't going to make it!
Think! he cast his thought frantically towards her. You've touched me, cub! Make yourself like what you've felt in me!
And she did. The power raging into her simply stopped, and then the power she contained turned inwards on her, sweeping through her as she Transmuted herself, altered her body so that it could withstand the destructive forces the magic brought to bear against her tiny body. Just like that, in the span of a second, it was over. She had used up all the power within her, and now she was isolated from the Weave until she learned once more how to come into touch with her powers.
For her, it was over. The Weave shuddered at Jasana's Transmutation, and then the entire thing seemed to thicken. It was the only explanation he could rationalize. The strands around them became thicker, stronger, if only by a negligible amount, every strand becoming a tiny bit more conducive to holding and transmitting magical power. The Goddess said that the Weave benefitted every time a Sorcerer crossed over; that had to be the effect.
But there was no relief in his daughter's survival. He reached the doorway and slid to a stop inside, certian that something dreadful had happened.
What graced his eyes was something that he would never, ever forget, ranking as the most horrid memory he would ever confront. The room had been destroyed in a savage fight, debris and pieces of furniture laying everywhere, and sprawled on the floor with the debris, laying in pools of their own blood, were Jesmind and Mist. Both had been slashed by some kind of edged weapon, and both were unnaturally pale, their breathing shallow and faltering. Across the room, holding both of his children in its arms, was a creature he had seen before. It was a Demon, a Demon with the upper body of a woman, the lower body of a snake, and six arms. He recognized this one; he knew her personally. This was the same Demon he had banished during the Battle of Suld. In her left arms, she held a limp, pallid Jasana, knocked out by her ordeal. In her right arms she held Eron, who was thrashing, hissing, spitting, gouging in vain at her ensnaring arms with his tiny claws, even biting at her. And in the left hand not holding Jasana, she held Jegojah's magical wounding sword.