Tarrin gauged distances, and realized he was right where he wanted to be. They'd reach the edge by sunrise, and then they would run to the pyramid. He had no intention of walking while surrounded by enemy forces. There was too much chance for mischief. So he would minimize his exposure to them.
As if moving by the clock he carried inside his vest, they reached the border of snow and grass just as the upper rim of the sun appeared in the southeastern horizon. They found themselves facing a large formation of humans, mercenaries, dressed in mismatched armor and carrying assorted weapons, being commanded by a black-armored Cambisi , one of the male half-breeds, which Phandebrass sometimes referred to as Cambions. Tarrin and Jesmind stopped right at the edge of the snow, as many of the humans looked down and realized that their feet did not sink down into it, both Were-cats looking grimly at the host arrayed before them, looks totally devoid of fear. That put the humans back slightly, but the Cambisi only sneered at them in an evil way and then barked a single command to his troops. They separated their formation, splitting in two and forming a wide alley down their center, clearing the way for them.
Without a word, Tarrin stepped into the area of Val's protection, and felt both the heat and the animosity in it. He felt the Weave pull away from him as he moved into the void, felt the strange restriction placed over him, a restriction he knew he could circumvent whenever it was necessary. He levelled a flat look at the half-breed Demon, a look that made the red-eyed, blue-skinned creature flinch and reach reflexively for his sword. The amulet around his neck grew heavy for a moment, and then it seemed to get hot, as Tarrin realized that Val had reached into his own void and adjusted it so Tarrin's amulet would function within the bounds of his anti-magical field. He felt Val's fingers reach out towards him, touch the amulet, and in that touch he knew what the amulet was carrying within its elsewhere. Val knew that Tarrin had brought the Firestaff.
That was all the proof he needed. Val was inviting him in.
He was making the biggest mistake of his life.
Nudging Jesmind, Tarrin moved forward, ears back, eyes flat, keeping an eye on the men surrounding them, men who looked at them with honest fear. Jesmind did the same, and they slowly crossed the ground within the formation's area, eyes shifting to keep an eye on all the men and their Demonic commander. Once they were through, they broke into a run, moving towards the distant massed armies, set up to respond to any attack.
Quickly yet carefully, they travelled the twenty longspans. They ran up to each mass of troops, layer after layer after layer of them, then paused as a Demon more hideous and power than the last, commanding each layer of defense, caused his armies to part and allowed the pair to pass without hindrance. The stops served to slow them down, and Tarrin watched the sun in the sky carefully to gauge their time. They were on pace to reach the pyramid more or less when he wanted to do so, so he was content to continue on as they were. The idea of being surrounded by enemies did not sit well with him, though, and stirrings of unease and worry finally managed to seep in through the grim determination he had in place, deadening his emotions. Jesmind too seemed upset by the continuous moves through soldiers whose avenues they allowed through their ranks seemed to be getting narrower and narrower. The Goblinoids they passed growled and howled and banged their shields as they passed, taunting them, but those brave taunts stopped and the Goblinoids jumped back in fear when Tarrin or Jesmind hissed threateningly at them, laying back their ears and challenging them. Goblinoids feared Were-kin, feared them more than any other creature, and even the threat that these two highly volatile, very dangerous Were-kin may strike at them was all the motivation they needed to give them a very wide berth.
With a little creative pacing by Tarrin, slowing them down or speeding them up between encounters with enemy troops, he managed to get them close when they needed to be there. After an hour and a half, the black stone of the ancient pyramid of Gora Umadar appeared on the northeast horizon. It was a huge, titanic monstrosity, as big as a mountain itself, built of ominous black stone that even from that distance seemed foreboding and evil. The sight of it filled Tarrin with momentary dread, but that was consumed by his driving need to rescue his daughter. A god was in that pyramid, a god that wanted to kill him, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered other than his need to get Jasana back. He would face all the gods, all at once, if that was what it took for him to rescue his cherished daughter.
The sight of the black pyramid made Jesmind stop, putting a paw to her heart and with a stricken look on her face. The pressure of what they were doing was getting to his mate. He reached out and put a paw on her shoulder, his look both neutral and reassuring at the same time, conveying to her his absolute determination. That bolstered her, and she nodded to him, her nervous expression melting away into a mask of stone much like the one that always rested on the face of their mother.
Gora Umadar loomed larger and larger before them as they moved towards it, still unescorted, but with thousands of eyes locked on their every move, both within the pyramid and without. Tarrin slowed to a stately walk, nearly a swagger that announced to everyone that he was there on his own terms, a pride that his position would not take away. He was coming to bargain for his daughter, but his attitude clearly showed that he felt he would be bargaining from the higher chair. Jesmind matched his pace if not his confidence, her slashing tail betraying her anxiety and worry over what was going on. But Tarrin was calm, almost serene now. He knew what had to be done, and there was no reason to even think about it. Everything was going to work out alright. He believed it in his heart, he was absolutely sure of it, and that belief gave him confidence.
As they approached, Tarrin saw that there was a debris field on the west side of the pyramid. There was a huge, gaping hole near the top of the ancient construction, the black rubble the stone that had been torn free from the inside. Tarrin looked in that direction, and he realized that the hole was facing the position where the conjunction would occur. Val had blown out a window of sorts to let him see the daytime sky, to let him see it when the four moons aligned.
That would serve both of them.
They reached the base of the pyramid, towering over them, right on time, barely more than twenty minutes before the fateful moment of the conjunction. The channel through the army of Goblinoids ended in a wide passage into the bowels of the black stone building, a wide passageway with heavy arch at its entrance, with ancient runes and glyphs carved into the stone face. In that arch, her coils shifting restlessly, was none other than the very six-armed Demoness that had cut Eron's throat, the Demoness who had been responsible for Jasana's abduction. The expression on her face was eager, and the look in her eyes said that she felt that they had already won. Four of her arms were crossed before her bare breasts, and the third set of arms were resting on hips that slid down into the scales of her snake body Jegojah's deadly sword rested in a scabbard slung jauntily off one of those scaly hips by a narrow sword belt, her only garment, within easy reach of her hand. She wore rings on her fingers and a medallion of a very large oval ruby in a gold vine and ivy setting around her neck, a pair of simple diamond stone earrings dnagling from gold studs in her ears, and she also wore a slender silver tiara crusted with small diamonds on her head that held her black hair back from her face, all jewelry of great value and riches, a king's ransom.