"Sarraya, it may come down to a fight!" he told her as he vaulted to another roof. He was just behind Jula; he intended to keep himself between her and any danger, and he could be there in case she began to weaken. Jula was tired, and using her Sorcery had taken more out of her than she was letting on. He could see it in how her knees shook every time she landed.

"We can't fight them, Tarrin!" she said adamantly, flying just beside him. "We can't hurt them!"

"We don't have to hurt them," he called back to her. "If they close in, we'll team up on them, so you can let me control what I'm doing. If I have control, I can send them to the moon! Can you get my staff?"

"It won't hurt them!"

"No, but it will keep them from hurting us!" he told her sharply. "I'm not going to face them again without a weapon!"

"There they are!" Jula said fearfully, pointing behind them even as they ran.

Tarrin glanced over his shoulder. All four of them were back, racing along the rooftops, catching up with the trio. "They're catching up to us," he told Jula as they jumped a wide avenue. Jula very nearly didn't make the roof, teetering backwards as she scrambled to get her balance; Tarrin had to catch her and pull her back up as he landed right beside her. "We're both too tired to outrun them. We have to make a stand, right here, where they have to jump a long ways to get here. Sarraya, can you get my staff?"

Sarraya's hands stretched out, what she did when she did her Druidic magic, and his staff simply appeared in front of him, on the roof. Sarraya's ability to conjure items, or summon forth existing items she had previously touched, was extemely useful. Tarrin reached down and picked up his staff. "Alright, just stay behind us, Jula," Tarrin told her quickly.

"What are you going to do?"

"Sarraya is going to choke off my Sorcery, can I can use it safely," he replied quickly, gripping his staff in his paws, feeling its comforting weight and feel. He always felt more confident when he had his staff. "If I have control, I can send those four flying into the sea. We'll be long gone before they get back to shore."

"Maybe we'll get lucky, and they'll drown," Jula snorted, but it was obvious she was afraid.

Tarrin's ears picked up, and his eyes lit. What an eminently simple idea! "Sarraya!" he said quickly, "could we do that?"

"Drown them? I doubt it," she replied. "But do they breathe? If they do-"

"If they breathe, we can kill them," he said with an ominous gleam in his eye. "Jula, if this works, I'm going to kiss you," he told her, getting between her and the quickly advancing four pursuers. "Now stay back, cub, you've done your part. Let us do the rest."

The four Demons lined up on the rooftop opposing Tarrin, Jula, and Sarraya. The Faerie was hovering over Tarrin's head, and she had her arms spread. Tarrin was hunched down with his staff in his paws, squaring off against the four of them with Jula safely behind him. He was not afraid. He had his staff, and he had a plan. With Sarraya with him, there was no way they could endanger his cub. But now he was looking to do more than simply toss them a few longspans. He studied them closely with his narrowed eyes, looking at their chests, looking for signs that these monsters breathed.

And they were! Their chests were moving, and he could hear their breathing from across the wide avenue separating them! With a malicious smile, Tarrin raised his staff in his paw, sensing the barrier Sarraya had placed between him and the Weave. He reached through it and made contact, and felt the power of Sorcery flow into him at a much more managable rate than the first time. Sarraya seemed to sense his power, and adjusted her control of the energy flowing into him automatically, allowing him to take in power at a very fast rate, but without hurting him. His paws limned over with the radiance of High Sorcery, and that made all four of them take a step back and draw their weapons, readying for some other kind of magical attack. They did not scramble. They stayed together.

They made it easy.

First, Tarrin wove a barrier of Divine power, a mystical border that appeared all around the four Demons, reaching down to the roof upon which they stood. The four of them glanced at the softly glowing dome of magical power, designed to create a physical barrier that would prevent them from escaping. Before they could respond to it test its power, Tarrin struck with the second weave, a reversed weave of Air.

In an instantaneous pop and rush, Tarrin sucked all the air out of the dome of power.

The four of them shuddered, and wide-eyed shock appeared on their faces. They made no sound-there was no air within to carry it-clutching at their throats with wide eyes. Misty vapors issued forth from their mouths as the air inside their lungs was pulled out by the vacuum, and it too was pulled outside the dome by Tarrin's sustained weave. One of them staggered and fell to his knees, but another managed to lunge forward jerkily, and he came in contact with the dome's border. He pushed at it inexoribly, and to Tarrin's shock and dismay, it parted before him, allowing him to push through and back to the air. He took in a deep breath, and then he hurtled over the empty air between that roof and Tarrin's, sword raised and an ugly sneer of hatred twisting his face.

Tarrin divided his attention between holding his two weaves and dealing with the physical threat approaching him. Grabbing his staff in both paws, he parried the sword as it drove towards his chest as the Demon landed. It staggered past him and turned, but Tarrin was on top of it immediately. It wouldn't get past him, it wasn't about to threaten his child! A furious assault made the Demon stumble backwards, desperately parrying Tarrin's staff as the Were-cat unleashed a fast staccato of slaps and jabs with the staff's ends, a routine designed to confuse an opponent and open his defense. That opening came as Tarrin smacked its weapon wide, then he spun into the shallow slash, let go of the staff with one paw, and whipped it around him as he came back around, giving the staff horrific force. It slammed into the Demon's side, picking it up as it folded around his weapon, and sending it crashing to the other side of the roof.

It didn't just jump back up. It held its side tightly, and it finally made a sound. A ragged intake of breath, followed by spitting out a mouthful of what looked like black blood.

Tarrin stared in shock as the Demon struggled back to its feet. It was wounded! He had hurt it! No, he hadn't hurt it. The staff did!

There's a bit of magic hiding in the staff, a magic that gives the wood its unusual properties, that short, bald human Sorcerer had said back in the Tower, the botanist that had been studying his staff. Something about the Demon was causing that magic to come forth, causing it to inflict true injury to the Demon. At first, he dismissed the staff's abilities and unusual attributes as merely curious, but now, now it mattered. The wood had injured to the Demon, and the Demon was afraid of it. That had to be it. Why would it bother parrying the staff, when it could do it no harm? It should have simply allowed Tarrin to hit him, then stabbed him with the sword. It was what Tarrin would have done, if he was facing a human with a non-magical steel sword. But it didn't. It seemed to sense that the staff was dangerous, even when Tarrin could not.

Was the wood unworldly? Could that be where it got its unusual magical properties from? It was possible. Ironwood was dreadfully rare. It only grew in the forests surrounding Aldreth, and finding a tree was a search that sometimes took months to accomplish. Maybe it was that rare because it had come from some other world, and had only just begun to spread on this one. If that were so, then it could harm the Demon.