But it was too late.

The single pincer-claw on its outside arm drove towards him like a spear, and he felt it hit him in the belly. He felt every agonizing spine and protrusion as it drove into him, through him, erupting from his back smeared with his blood and with bits of flesh and tissue hanging from the bony protrusions along the inside edge. There was no pain, only the awareness that he had been impaled, speared like a fish, and with that realization came a curious weakness in his limbs.

The Demon raised him, turned him so he could look into its eyes, eyes that were without remorse. Those eyes bored into him as its hands moved the sword, laid the edge of the blade against the side of his neck, taunting him that it could end him right then and there.

That was a huge mistake.

He had nothing to lose now. His eyes turning from green to blazing white, Tarrin reached out and grabbed the Weave in a crushing grip, demanding all the power it could give to him. The power roared into him, suffused him, threatened to burn him alive, but he did not stop. His body exploded into Magelight, and he wove together a spell of Fire, a spell with a specific effect.

The Demons could not be harmed by magic. But they were still vulnerable to purely physical effects.

Releasing the weave, Tarrin closed his eyes against what was coming. A blazing eruption of light exploded from in front of him, moving only away from him, burning into the red eyes of his opponent with the light of a million suns, a light so intense that not even a Demon could resist it. It staggered back with a howl, thrashing its arm in a way that threw him from its bloody pincer, causing him to crash to the ground. The pain of having that pincer rip through him hit him like molten steel in his belly, making him convulse as the pain threatened to scour away his sanity even as the Weave sought to scour him into ash.

But the pain eased. It eased, turned into a strangely warm feeling inside. He found newfound strength, newfound determination. He felt a strange presence, a feeling of something greater, but not something that was the Goddess. It came from beside him. He opened his eyes and looked down.

Sarraya. He had nearly landed on top of her. Her eyes were open, and she had a single, tiny hand on his side. She was using her Druidic power on him, for him, healing his horrific injury by giving his body the energy it needed to heal itself, and accelerating his body's natural healing processes. She infused him with new strength, replenishing his exhausted body, even gave him enough strength to get a handle back on the Weave.

She looked up at him, a wan smile on her face, and then her eyes rolled back into her head, and she collapsed.

There was no thought. He put a finger to her head, assensing her, forgetting about the Demon. She was alive. Hurt, unconscious, but alive. She would survive long enough for him to deal with the Demon, then come back and heal her.

Tarrin snapped to his feet as the Demon thrashed for another couple of moments, then blinked its eyes and focused them hatefully on the Were-cat.

"Now it's personal," Tarrin hissed at it with utter contempt, raising his limned paws before him, raising them to the sky above. He drew in energy from the Weave, and then he turned it against the Weave itself. His power radiated from him like an invisible sun, waves of intense power that the Weave itself could not resist. "Let's see how tough you are without your magic, Demon!" Tarrin suddenly screamed at it, slashing his arms across his body, to the sides, in a snapping motion as he used his power to directly affect the Weave itself, throwing absolutely everything, power, Sorcery, anger, rage, will, even a part of his own soul, into the gargantuan task which he was trying to accomplish.

The Weave shuddered. The strands of the Weave, crisscrossing through the sky, coming up from the ground or disappearing into it, suddenly began to glow with a noticable radiance, mesmerizing the citizens of Dala Yar Arak from their daily activities. They began to glow, then they shuddered again and then they began to move. They spread away from the Imperial Palace like the opening of a curtain, sliding silently as if some titanic hand were working a loom, shifting them until there was no strand within fifty spans of the outer wall of the Palace.

And then they winked back out of sight.

Within him, Tarrin felt something disappear, something that seemed close to his soul. There was no pain in it, no sensation, only that feeling of sudden disjointedness. He felt the Weave escape him, drain away from him, leaving him without a backlash for the first time in a while without Sarraya's aid. And when its power fled from him, it left him severely weakened, a strange kind of weakness that both took its toll on his body and seemed to reach all the way into his core, into the heart of his soul. It even drained away his fury, leaving him curiously aware, curiously calm. He tried to reach across the gulf to the Weave.

But there was nothing.

He could not afford to try again. The Demon looked at him in confusion, then seemed to stand there for a moment.

And its eyes went wide.

"Don't be surprised," Tarrin hissed in a nearly gutteral snarl. "No magic can flow without the Weave, and I control the Weave," he finished in a fierce declaration. He was utterly exhausted, utterly drained. Shifting the Weave had been what he desired, but his knees shook and he couldn't find the Weave again. Had his ploy deprived him of magic as well as the Demon? It certainly seemed that way. But it had evened things considerably. It still had his sword, still had an advantage, but it now had to come to him to kill him. It couldn't stand back and assault him with magic, or vanish and reappear somewhere else every time Tarrin got an advantage. He crooked his paw at the Demon tauntingly. "Bring it on," he hissed, laying his ears back.

If he was trying to enrage the Demon, he was monumentally successful. With a raging howl, the monster threw his sword to the side, behind the bookstand holding the Book of Ages, then charged towards him with its huge pincers readied to either catch him or stab him. Tarrin moved out so Sarraya wouldn't be trampled, staying near the wall, readying to receive its charge. He let it rush him, rush him madly, blindly. For once, Tarrin would use someone else's rage against them, rather than be the victim of his own fury. When it was almost close enough to spear him, he suddenly jumped straight up, over its head, catching it by surprise. It tried to reach up and grab him, stab him, but he pushed off of the dome above and out of its reach, and it turned and slammed its back into the wall, making the whole chamber shudder, as Tarrin landed well out from the wall and simply dashed for his sword, dashed for his very life.

But in his wildest dreams, he would never have thought that something so large, so ungainly, could move with such speed. It closed the distance between them quickly, and Tarrin had to dive aside to avoid getting impaled through the back by its mauled pincer-arm's claw. He rolled to his feet, but it was right on top of him so quickly he barely realized it, and its pincer again managed to lash out and close around his waist. It picked him up yet again, and he screamed when the tip of its other pincer claw drove into his side, not deeply, but deep enough to threaten to scratch his rib.

No sliding out this time, mortal, the Demon's hideous voice echoed in his mind. I think you can't do that with something sticking out of you. I will crush you slowly, savoring your screams, delighting in your every agonized cry. It will be delicious.

Separated from the Weave, with Sarraya unconscious, with no way to injure this Demonic foe, Tarrin was out of ideas. He simply had no tricks left. There was nothing he could do but squirm under the crushing vice of its claws, cry out as it increased the pressure, then released it just enough for him to draw breath, then squeeze him again.