Timing was everything in a situation like this, and the endless hours of training with someone with Allia's inhuman speed finally paid off. In an absolute blur, Tarrin twisted aside at the last instant, the tip of its polearm just barely grazing the edge of his vest as he spun out of the way, and a viper-like paw lashed out like a whip and struck the top of the polearm as it passed, even as the Were-cat ducked under a wing moving with enough speed to decapitate him if it had struck.

He didn't strike it very hard, but he struck it hard enough. The downward strike on the polearm changed the vrock's trajectory in the air, dipping it down in a course that would plow it into the ground. The Demon opened its wings when it realized that it was now flying towards the ground, but it did not react fast enough. With a frightened squeal, the Demon slammed into the ground, digging a two span deep trench in the rocky ground with its beak, then it struck a rock it could not move and was catapulted over it. It rolled and tumbled on the rocky ground for about fifty longspans, as Tarrin and Jesmind raced behind it with weapons readied. Not even a crash like that would do more than temporarily stun the Demon, since it could not be harmed by the ground, but the impact and the physics at work in such an impact would still serve a vital purpose. Such an impact would stun the creature, possibly give it a concussion, as its brain rattled around in its skull like a clapper in a ringing bell.

There were ways to get around a Demon's invulnerability.

The thing rolled to a stop on its belly some three hundred spans away from where it had initially struck, and it never got a chance to so much as rise up on all fours and shake its head. Both the Were-cats were on it instantly. Jesmind jumped on its back and drove all ten metal talons of the Cat's Claws into its back, pinning it down. It squealed in sudden pain as the wounds registered to it, but that squeal died abruptly when Tarrin's black metal sword took off its head. The head bounced a little off the ground, then rolled to a stop a bit away upside-down, its eyes still glowering in abject hatred.

"Get off of it!" Tarrin barked in command, but Jesmind was already jumping free. She knew what was going to happen. The body immediately began decomposing, melting it a horridly smelling, sizzling, acidic black ichor that started burning its way into the rocky ground.

"How do I clean these?" she asked, holding up the smoking talons of the Cat's Claws, smeared with Demon blood.

"Just wipe them off on the ground," he told her as he did the same with his sword. "The blood doesn't seem to harm the metal, but I don't like taking any chances."

She drove them into the ground a few times to clean them, then retracted the blades and came over. Tarrin had just finished cleaning his sword, but he wasn't expecting what she did next. Jesmind hauled off and punched him in the jaw, felling him to the ground. Tarrin glared up at her as soon as the stars cleared-she didn't pull that punch, which would have taken the jaw clean off a human-but she glared down at him just as hotly, shaking her fist at him. "Don't you ever do that again!" she shouted at him. "It nearly skewered you!"

"When you fight Demons, you have to take chances," he told her bluntly as he regained his feet, rubbing his jaw. "We can fight about this later. Right now, we have to get as far away from this thing as we can. There may be others up there looking for us, and this one might have told them where we are before attacked."

She glared even more at him, promising him with her eyes that this was far from over, but she didn't argue. Tarrin picked up his sword and started off towards the north, to skirt the camp and reach the pass on the far side, and Jesmind followed silently.

They moved very quickly, but both of them kept scanning the skies like rabbits in an open field watching for a hungry hawk. Vrock weren't the most dangerous of the Demons, but they could fly, and they could tell the other Demons where they were. The Demon's ability to Teleport anywhere they wanted to go meant that the entirety of Val's Demonic host could fall on them at any moment, so keeping hidden from the searchers was an absolute priority. They moved up into the pass, which opened into a narrow, uneven valley that had a frozen stream flowing down the middle of it and stands of scrubby pine and fir trees to each side of the stream They moved into the trees and stopped for a while, keeping watch on the clouding skies above, looking for any more large winged figures.

After about a half an hour, when no others appeared, he realized that the Demon had attacked them without reporting in first, or at least he hoped so. But he wasn't about to take any chances. He realized that this close to Val's armies, moving around during the daytime was going to be dangerous, and moving at night may be the better option. Despite the intense cold that would face them, they would be harder to spot from the air if they did their travelling at night, when the darkness would make it easier for them to hide.

Tarrin knelt down and took out the map, studying it as Jesmind continued to watch the sky from the edge of the trees. The series of interconnecting valleys was the easiest way through the mountains, and would put them closest to their destination, but it wasn't the only way. Not far from here, according to the map, there was a cave that went under a mountain and opened in a treacherous ravine on the far side. It would take days to where the cave let out by foot, and it may throw off any vrock that were looking for them. Actually, it was a faster way to go, but the map showed that the cave opened to a thousand span cliff with a hundred spans separating it from the other side. That ravine was in the base of a valley that connected to one that was along his chosen route. He pondered that for a moment. He'd have to use magic to get them across the ravine, a calculated risk, but the day or so of being underground and the sudden change of position would make it hard for the Demons to find him if indeed that one did manage to send word of their positions back to the others.

And it would cut two days off their trip through the mountains.

Tarrin checked the book. They had thirty-thirty-six days left before Gods' Day. He estimated that it would take them ten to twelve days to cross the mountains, and the seven to nine days he'd given to get to the mountains actually only took five. He'd have to stop to find a way to keep the Demons from finding them, which may take a few days… perhaps doing that up in that cave would kill two problems with one arrow. They'd be out of sight, away from the Demons, and if he did find a way to hide them from the Demons, it would keep them out of their hair the rest of the way across. He did not want to have to duck behind a rock every time he thought he saw a shadow in the sky. If he had to do that, they'd be slowed to a crawl in a place where being in the wrong place at the right time could strand them until spring.

As if to reinforce that, snow began to fall on them, dropping flakes on his book of charts, causing him to quickly sweep them off with a muttered curse and put the book safely away.

That cave seemed to be the best option. It would be a grueling path-he'd explored a few caves back home, and they involved a great deal of climbing up and down-but the gain they'd make by taking that route and the safety that it would offer to them would more than make up for the arduous nature of the journey through it.

Tarrin crept up to the edge of the wood carefully and knelt in the snow beside Jesmind, who was looking up into the sky carefully. "Anything?" he whispered.

"Nothing yet," she answered. "What was that thing?"

"They're called vrocks," he answered. "We're lucky we killed it so fast. They're usually very nasty."