He was forced into a crouch by the power of the blow, but the armour held and, roaring his defiance, Styrax drove upwards towards the daemon, slamming the scored shoulder-plate into its gut and putting his full weight into pushing it back. He swung Kobra, smash¬ing aside the cleaver as it came down again and following that with two deep cuts across the daemon's midriff. As it fell back under the force of his attack, Styrax caused a greyish slab to appear at an angle under its feet. Unbalanced, it staggered sideways and he dropped to the ground, lashing out with one tree-trunk of a leg and connected with the daemon's knee.

Propelling himself upright, Styrax slashed with all his prodigious strength, a straight cut up that would have split a normal man from groin to scalp, but the daemon jumped back with unnatural speed. Styrax readied himself for the counter-attack, but it never came.

Instead, the daemon gave a deep, cold laugh. 'Your skills are impres¬sive, but you are still just a mortal, little man,' it mocked.

Styrax didn't reply, beyond shifting to a more comfortable grip on the hilt of his broadsword. The exchange had lasted only a few seconds, but it had been long enough to tell him what he wanted to know about the daemon. When it struck, it moved with blurring speed, and not even a white-eye of Styrax's ability could match that. But the daemon had revealed its greatest weakness. It had no imagi¬nation.

He leapt forward, slashing from first one side, then the other. The daemon gave a little ground but it parried each blow with ease. It could not see the satisfied little smile on Kastan Styrax's lips, for his mouth was hidden by the black helm he'd won from Koezh Vukotic, his greatest test so far. Koezh was a superb swordsman, his skill had been considered supernatural even when he had been a normal man marching under his father's banner during the Great War. Against Koezh the ancient vampire, Styrax had needed every ounce of guile he possessed, blended with the unnatural speed and skill granted by his patron, Karkarn, the God of War himself. Against this daemon- prince, all he needed was a brain. It mocked him for being a mortal, yet it was exactly this that would prove its undoing.

Styrax flourished his sword, noting the daemon's eyes following the tip until it came to rest again. He spoke loudly, so even the watching Chetse could hear. 'Daemon, you're a fool.' He took a step forward, moving out of the way when it thrashed the air with its flail and tore up a chunk of stone from the temple floor. Sending a surge of magic beneath his feet, Styrax swept up through the air above the daemon's head, easily deflecting the surprised swipe it aimed at him, then dropped down and scored a glancing blow on its shoulder.

Again, the daemon reacted, but Styrax had already shifted position and as its enormous arm lifted, he lunged, stabbing Kobra's fangs into the armpit, pushing deep as the daemon howled in pain and fury.

Styrax retreated and gave a roar of adrenalin-fuelled satisfaction. 'Do you see this, daemon?' He brought the sword closer to its face as dull greenish ichor dripped from its fangs. 'You bleed, daemon, like any mortal; can you feel it now?'

He drew a heady surge of energy into his body and felt flames rise from the armour encasing his body, an echo of the armour used to ensnare his son. In the distance he heard Kohrad's strained bellow, hoarse defiance that sent a thirst for revenge shuddering through his body.

'And that feeling is fear – can you feel it now?' he asked. 'Have you been a prince among daemons for so long you've forgotten fear?' He was happy to take his time now, to put on a show for the watching commanders.

Try to take my son's soul? For that, I'll make you hurt. 'I'll show you what fear is again, daemon, and when I send you back broken and ruined to your pestilent burrow in the deepest pit of Ghenna, before you are consumed by the scavengers there you will tell them. You will spread the word and teach them to fear me. I will destroy and leave for the vultures any daemon that thinks it can own or control me or mine.'

He charged forward and smashed aside the daemon's sword, step¬ping inside the reach of the flail and grabbing its wrist. As it tried to get an arm around his neck, Styrax reversed his sword and stabbed backwards into the daemon's gut, then snapped his head back to smash the reinforced peak of his helm into the daemon's jaw. Before it had time to recover, Styrax wrapped his free hand with white coils of fire and punched into the daemon's right arm. The fire exploded on impact in a shower of burning glassy shards that buried deep into its flesh.

With Kobra still reversed he slashed it up across the inside of the daemon's right knee, halting the backswing almost immediately as he grabbed the hilt with both hands and drove the tip back down into the open wound. The fangs went deep and the daemon screamed.

Now Styrax could hear its fear. For perhaps the first time in ten thousand years the daemon-prince was afraid.

'Fear me,' Styrax growled, ripping his sword from the wound and drawing another great swell of magic into his gut. White sparks burst at the edges of his vision as he drew as much as he could, resolving to change the manner of attack before the daemon could adapt. Around him the temple swam and he heard a shrieking chitter run around the walkway. The flames rose on his body, growing fierce and hot on his skin, but the pain was both exhilarating and intoxicating. At that moment he knew how his son had developed the addiction to the daemon's armour.

He punched forward with both fists, hammering them into the daemon's scarred midriff and releasing the magic inside at the same moment. The flames rushed through him and surged over the daemon as it was slammed backwards into one of the temple's great pillars. It crashed with the sound of mountains colliding, and the great blocks of stone creaked and wavered under the impact.

'Do you fear me yet, daemon?' Styrax roared.

A howl of rage preceded a torrent of black energy that flew towards him. Styrax dived out of the way and it hit the stone floor where he'd been standing an instant before, cracking the stone with a crash. His shield wouldn't stop raw power, but at least the daemon would be fighting on a white-eye's terms rather than its own.

Styrax retaliated with a wildly thrown spear of fire that lanced into the pillar above the daemon. It scorched a ten-foot segment black and tore another great hole in the stone.

The daemon jumped up in the air, talons ready to rake down into Styrax's body. The white-eye rose to meet it, using his body like a huge armoured fist, knocking the daemon off-balance and driving it into the white shaft of the eternal flame. A bright burst of fire flashed out across the temple as the daemon passed through Tsatach's holy light and it screamed in pain. Styrax gave it no chance to recover.

He dived through the flame himself and stabbed down into the torso of the daemon, putting all his weight behind the blow. It howled and punched up at him, launching the Menin lord up into the air to smash one of the walkways between the pillars. The stone slabs exploded in a shower of stone shards and blistering sparks and the entire temple shuddered as the magic holding it up started to fail.

Styrax crashed to the ground, the shock of the impact sending a stab of pain through his body. For a moment the Land seemed to stop around him-

The scent of grass appeared in his mind. Styrax smiled inwardly as he remembered his father; the mornings out in the meadow when he'd first learned how to use a sword. Caution and calm had been his father's constant mantra; 'Lure them into rashness, never do so yourself.' Styrax nodded and felt his lips twitch in echo as his father, now centuries deceased, repeated that advice to his son: 'Pride, my son, pride is a reaper.'