Chapter 35

It was a sea of seething sentient animosity.

Tarrin stood at the top of the main Tower in the darkness of the night, staring down over the city with sight augmented by Sorcery, one of the weaves that Spyder taught him, and his heart sank every time he moved his head. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of them. Humans, Trolls, Bruga, Waern, Dargu, and things Tarrin had never seen before. Strange horse-like creatures with fanged mouths. Horse-like creatures that breathed fire. Massive moving piles of what looked like rotting vegetable matter. Strange creaturs with the upper bodies of humans, but the lower bodies of snakes. Centaur-like creatures with lower bodies of assorted quadruped carnivores and the upper torsos and heads of human women. Rank upon rank upon rank of fetid corpses or dry skeletons, animated by powerful dark magic. Human-like beings that were obviously not as human as they appeared. What looked like pictures of the old Dwarves, but with fire for hair. Ugly bird-like creatures with the lower bodies and talons of a vulture, but the upper torso and head of exceptionally ugly human females. Some of them were proudly wearing Aeradalla feathers in their hair. And many more, some beyond description.

And those were the natives. It was easy to tell the Demons from the natives, and there were many kinds of them. The most abundant were these small, four-span tall bipedal creatures with naked, mottled bodies and small claws on their emaciated hands, with utter mindlessness showing in their eyes. There was an army of those to themselves, being supervised by creatures he had seen before, much like the male offspring of Shiika, the ones he had killed. Cambisi, half-Demon offspring that served their full-blooded masters in jobs probably too menial for them. There were many of those vulture-like Demons that had attacked him on the plains of Saranam, as well as quite a few of those four-armed monstrosities like the one he had fought to gain the Book of Ages. There were tall, rugged looking bipedals ones with the heads of some kind of carnivorous toad, and fat ones with tiny wings that had the heads of boars. There were ones that looked like human skeletons, with a tight sheath of skin stretched over their frames and a large horn on the top of their head. But the most numerous of those others were large winged ones that could only be called hideous, not resembling anything he'd ever seen before, with massive tusks jutting out of their lower jaws. He had no idea of the names of those assorted kinds of Demons, but it was apparent that there were a lot of them.

And it didn't take him long to find the one. He remembered Jegojah's description of her. He called her marilith, and her appearance was so striking that one could not forget seeing her. A large creature with the upper body of a woman, with six arms, and a pretty face and generous breasts, with the twenty-span long lower body of a massive snake. Tarrin marked that one, because Jegojah had said that she was the general of the army, the main tactical organizer. Jegojah had given her a great deal of respect, telling him that she was as intelligent as she was deadly, and Tarrin would put faith in Jegojah's assessment. Of all creatures, he would know. If they wanted to win this battle, that was the one that they had to kill first.

She wasn't the only one he marked. Standing beside her was the emaciated form that he just knew was Kravon. The man that had sent Jegojah after him, that had caused the death of Faalken, that had attacked his family and friends. That was the man that now carried all the hatred that Tarrin had felt for Jegojah, and Tarrin had to suppress the wild urge to try to kill the man where he stood. Something told him that to try would tip them to how strong he really was, and killing one man wasn't worth losing the city and the Goddess. There were much larger things at stake now.

He watched in grim curiosity as the massive invading army began to set up, giving the mortals among them a chance to rest. Tarrin realized that they were waiting for sunrise to attack, and that told him that the Goddess had been wrong. They were going to commit to this battle. They had no reason to wait if they were just going to let their bloodthirsty allies rush in and assault the city. They could just let them go now, and pull out under the safety of darkness while the maniacal elements of their army kept the city defenders busy. But they weren't doing that. They were going to rest, organize, and then when the sun came up, they were going to attack. In force.

Shiika landed beside him quietly as he looked over the army. Her scent was hard to catch in the stiff wind, and that was enough of a blessing for him. "Quite a few of them, aren't there?" she asked in grim humor.

"I didn't realize there were so many kinds of Demons," he told her.

"Those are only a fraction of the various kinds," she told him. "The little ones being tended by the Cambions are called Manes. The numerous ones with the wings are called Nabassu. The skeletal ones are called Babau. The vulture-headed ones are called Vrock. The four-armed ones are Glabrezu. The ones with frog heads are Hezrou. The pig-heads are Nalfeshnee, and that single one with the six arms is a Marilith. Thank the darkness there aren't any Balors out there."

"What's a Balor?"

"The grandpappy of all Demons," she told him. "That's the last thing you'd ever want to meet in a dark alley." She glanced at him. "I think some here call them Demon Lords."

Tarrin formed an Illusion, showing some of the creatures he'd seen. "What are these?"

"The fanged horses are Leucrotta. The burning ones are Nightmares. The plants are called Shambling Mounds. The chalky-skinned fellow is a vampire, and the woman-topped beasts are called Lamias. The snake-creatures are called Naga. The short fire-haired ones are called Derro, and the vulture-women are called Harpies. All part of the Fae-da'Kii."

Tarrin remembered his lessons about them, but they hadn't included descriptions of them, or names. The Fae-da'Nar tried to forget that their human-preying cousins existed. "Quite an army to attack one city."

"When the fur flies, you'll understand why it's such a large force," she snorted. "They're trying to attack a God, Tarrin, and do it in the place she calls home. She may not be able to directly intervene, but she can give her power to her worshippers. Expect the power of Sorcery to suddenly increase when the battle starts, Tarrin. Your Goddess is going to tamper directly. And I see that their god is going to do the same thing," she grunted.

"What are you talking about?"

"I can tell you're using magic to look, the same as me. Look right over there," she pointed. Tarrin looked where she indicated, and saw a strange black obelisk being carried on a platform pulled by Giants. Just by looking at it, Tarrin could see the powerful magic tied up in it, a magic so strong that the gods had to have had a hand in its creation. "That, my dear Were-cat, is something I haven't seen in five thousand years. I didn't think there were any left."

"What is it?" he asked irritably.

"It's called a Mafeli," she told him. "It's going to give Val's troops the same boost your side's going to get. It gives Val a direct presence here, just like the Goddess' icon does for her. That means that his priests are going to be able to throw around some pretty strong magic."

And that, he realized, was their counter for attempting to take on the katzh-dashi in Suld, where the power of Sorcery was at its strongest. It also turned into Tarrin's primary target. He could feel the magical power flowing into it, and he realized that that's what it was supposed to do; absorb magical energy and then grant it to those who knew its secrets. Tarrin realized that any attempt to attack the obelisk with magic would be ineffective, because it would simply absorb the magic. The only way to effectively attack that thing was from within the Weave, to strike at the mystical connection between it and the source of its power. Break that connection, and the device would be rendered mundane. He raised his awareness until he bridged the gap between reality and the alternate reality of the Weave, and spoke into it. "Jenna," he called immediately.