Tarrin felt the individual Circles suddenly break up, and then reform into a huge one, one that had to number at least a hundred Sorcerers, a circle of immense power. It touched High Sorcery, and then he felt it get to work. He felt them reach into the power the Goddess had gathered for them, and then the entire Tower grounds seemed to shimmer visibly. Light bloomed at its edges as Tarrin felt them build the barrier of stolen magic, building a sectioned shell of Sorcery some twenty spans high and then filling its hollow center with the alien magic the Goddess had pooled for their use. The result of their work was not a solid barrier, but a highly volatile, explosive field divided into thousands of small cell structures that, the first Demons to touch it learned, quite literally exploded outward in a fiery blast whenever it was disturbed. Whoever had been leading that Circle had been clever in anchoring it into that pool of alien magic, so that every time a section of it was drained off by destroying a Demon, the individual shell weaving that had exploded mended itself using flows from its partner cells, and energy to replace what was expended in the explosion filled the hole. And since only one cell of the aggragate would explode when it was disturbed, not exploding those to either side, it kept the Demons from making the whole barrier detonate and then rush in before the Circle could rebuild it without needing thousands of Demons to all attack the barrier at the same time. And Tarrin rather doubted that they had that many to waste. The barrier was a self-repleneshing defensive ring of highly reactive, unstable energy that destroyed any Demon that touched it, and it stopped the invasion of new Demons onto the grounds instantly.
Sorcery that clever had to be Ianelle's handiwork.
In moments, the steady stream of Demons rushing onto the grounds stopped. Dramatically. Those trapped on the grounds were very quick to gather into one large mass, and then they turned and started moving quickly towards the defenders, seeking to swarm them over in a single hideous charge. The defenders too had quickly regrouped, forming a single body a thousand men strong that stood right in the path of the Demons, and the Lord General of the Knights himself arrived quickly to take command of it. He arrived on a black charger, heavily armored with barding, the warhorse's protective armor showing signs that Demons had tried to claw through it. Darvon's sword was pitted and burned from Demon blood, and he had some blood seeping from the shoulder of his armor, staining his side, but he moved in the saddle with sureness and his booming voice was sharp and decisive. "Alright, men, form up in the wedge our clever Tarrin has been leading around the grounds!" he called in a commanding tone. "Legionaries in the center, Knights on the flanks, and Marines behind and ready to envelop when we hit!" Darvon himself moved quickly to the center of the hastily forming formation, fully intending to serve as its spearpoint alongside Tarrin. The Legionaries gathered behind them into three rows, and two rows of Knights extended out to each side of them as the Marines set themselves in the center of the wedge, ready to sweep out when it broke through.
Tarrin flashed the Lord General a quick smile, one that was returned enthusiastically. Darvon was old, almost elderly, but he was still one of the toughest fighters the Knights had. His aged arm had swung a sword longer than most of the Knights under his command had been alive, and he was regarded with a towering respect by professional soldiers all over the world. That respect gave the men behind him tremendous confidence facing the unworldly enemy, confident in the fact that the legendary Darvon would lead them to victory.
Darvon clapped down his visor and raised his sword. "Stand ready!" he boomed, and the humans and Wikuni behind him suddenly roared in reply, as swords, spears, and shields were raised and readied.
"We won't stand in defense!" he shouted defiantly as his night-coated warhorse pranced a little under him. "We won't huddle here like cowering babes and wait for them to come to us! We'll ram into those stinking Demons while they're still confused and send them back to the Hells they crawled out of!"
The echoing cry of furious assent from the defenders was almost deafening, swords and spears bouncing in the air over their owners' heads as they screamed their enthusiastic acceptance of Darvon's commands. Tarrin could clearly hear the shrieks in reply coming from the Demons; despite being at a disadvantage, they still wanted to fight, still wanted to kill.
"Alright then, men! They're waiting for us! Let's not disappoint them!" He turned his horse and pointed forward with his sword. "At a walk, forward!"
They started out at a slow walk, as the Demons some distance ahead quickly tried to line up even as they moved towards the defenders.
"At a trot, forward!" Darvon boomed, picking up the pace. Tarrin didn't have to run, he simply stretched out his pace to keep up with the Lord General beside him as the armor of the men behind started jangling as it bounced with their trotting steps. The Demons began to scream and brandish their claws or weapons, and they too picked up their pace.
"At a run, forward!" Darvon commanded as he spurred his horse to a canter, and the entire host suddenly broke into a sharp, fast, yet still tightly organized run. They kept their lines, kept from spreading out, keeping a pace that Darvon set that any professional soldier could hold for a short amount of time. It wasn't a dead sprint, which would let the men behind set the wedge, but it was fast enough that them crashing into the Demons was going to split their enemies into two groups. The Demons, not nearly as disciplined as the soldiers they faced, charged at the host, breaking up as the faster ones outpaced the slower ones. Every eye was locked on that unworldly horde of nearly two hundred Demons, big ones, small ones, thin ones and heavy ones, but all universally ugly. But not a single man faltered in his charge, despite charging into battle against the spawn of the Hells themselves. As one, they were confident in Darvon, and they would not break under his command.
"Set-shields!" Darvon barked, raising his own sheild to his side, tucking it in. In a singular rattling sound, the Legionaires all raised their curved, rectangular shields to form the shield wall that would split the Demons' line apart. The Demons only screamed in fury and ran at them even faster, some of them frothing at the mouth with a horrible grayish foam.
"Spears-ready!" the Lord General boomed, and the forest of raised spearpoints suddenly lowered in a single motion, putting glowing steel spearpoints to either side of Darvon's charger and the loping Were-cat. The Demons did not falter in their mad charge, closing the distance in a shocking amount of time. But still the men behind did not waver. Tarrin raised his black-bladed sword grimly, ready to do his job and punch through the lines, break a hole in them the host would use to separate them, surround them, then grind them to dogmeat within a ring of unyielding steel teeth.
"No mercy!" Darvon boomed furiously as he raised his sword to ready to do battle with a vulture Demon not ten spans away. The defenders screamed in an intimidating war cry and followed as Darvon deflected aside the cruel point of the vulture-Demon's wicked hooked polearm with his shield, then sent its head flying with a powerful stroke from the saddle of his warhorse. Tarrin didn't bother with fancy fencing, he simply chopped his sword over his head at a heavily armored cambisi, shearing through the sword raised in defense and cleaving a horrid wound in its face and shoulder. The power of the blow sent it flying to the side, only to be trampled into the ground by the warhorse's grinding steel-shod hooves.