Allan Cole: Wolves of the Gods

Then the outcropping swung away on magical hinges and Leiria peered into the revealed darkness.

Nothing.

She looked deeper.

Still nothing.

And deeper still, nerves winding tighter, neck muscles cabling with tension, each second a water drop trembling to fall.

It was almost a relief when nothingness ended and the yellow-eyed demons scrambled out of the darkness to get her.

She shouted a challenge and braced herself to meet them.

This time Biner couldn't turn away. This time Arlain made herself watch. They saw the earth shudder, saw the gate swing open and then Leiria's shout reached out to chill them. To fix them on the scene below. They saw Leiria brace, saw her soldiers flow in to form a line-Leiria at its center. Suddenly a demon horde burst out of the gateway, ululating war cries shattering the air.

Then the two lines converged and Leiria was swallowed up in the chaos of battle.

"Now! Now!" Arlain cried. "Do it now!"

She lunged toward a pile of crates heaped near the railing. Biner stopped her, gently pulling her back.

"We have to wait," he said. "It's not time for our entrance."

Arlain heard cries of pain from below and trembled. "We have to help her," she pleaded.

"Not yet," Biner said. Then, to cut through-"Remember how we rehearsed it."

Arlain sagged, overcome by performer's logic, and turned back to the railing. Whispering the actor's mantra for strength: "Character, timing, plot, character, timing plot…" and so on as the tale unfolded beneath her.

She made herself think of it that way. A tale to be told in two acts. Act One: The villains attack. Heroes fight bravely, but are overwhelmed. Act Two: Heroes retreat, villains in pursuit, all seems lost. Cue The Forces of Good. Which was Arlain's cue, the circus' cue-the big It Was All A Clever Trick Surprise.

Villains routed, heroes rewarded, cue the music-Happy Ending, ta da!

Arlain watched the horror below, doing a very bad job at keeping her actor's pose, visibly shrinking as the sights and sounds of battle increased. Awaiting her cue.

Leiria was a calm center to the storm raging about her. It was place where there was no fear or anger.

No shrill relief when she parried a well-struck blow, no fierce animal enjoyment at slipping a guard and killing her opponent. She was a cold, calculating killing machine, ripping through every weak point her enemy revealed. And there were many. So many weaknesses she could end the fight now with a rallying cry for her men to charge the demons and seal the gap.

She and Safar had planned for this moment. The doorway between the pass and the valley was no more than two wagons wide. No matter how large the force Iraj hurled at them only so many could come through the gap at a time. A handful of determined soldiers would be enough to stop them. The problem was, this handful could only kill a finite number and with the enormous force opposing them it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. To give the fleeing villagers any chance at all more time and more enemy casualties were needed.

Leiria kept her mind fixed on the plan, an impersonal observer of very personal events.

A demon towered over her, roaring in her face. Slicing at her with a huge battle ax and at the same time lashing out with a demon spell of hopelessness-the image of a cowering rabbit about to be carried away by an owl.

In theory it was an unequal contest. Demons had size, speed, and magic over humans. But Leiria was a former captain of Iraj's personal body guard, trained and blooded in all varieties of encounters-be they human or be they demon-and so these things meant nothing to her. She was doubly armed that day, as were all the Kyranians, with Palimak's necklaces. Which made it even easier to turn back the demon's spell so that He was the bleating rabbit, and She was the owl.

Whoosh! as the ax swung down.

Shriek! as Leiria's owl froze the demon.

Snack! Snack! and Leiria's sword parried the faltering blow.

Then another Whoosh! for her final stroke and then the sounds became very ugly as the demon fell, farting and shitting his last dinner, crying for his mother as Leiria stepped over him to meet the next ax.

On either side of her she heard Renor and Seth hoot with owl-like glee as they similarly dealt with their opponents. The hoot was taken up by the other young men, and they pressed forward, shrilling "hoot, hoot, hoot," killing and killing until the demon line began to waver.

Leiria was nearly overtaken by their blood lust. She saw hundreds of yellow eyes swirling in the darkness, howling for blood, hurling curses to diminish her.

Do it now! she thought. Do it now!

And she signaled the retreat.

Biner saw the Kyranian line waver, then break. He immediately shouted orders to dump the ballast and all hands rushed to the side to drop the sandbags.

The airship, suddenly relieved of weight, shot upward, climbing high above the battle scene. Clouds passed under the ship and the figures below became very small. Even so, they still kept their significance and Biner felt a mailed fist clutch his guts as Leiria made her dangerous maneuver.

To his amazement, it seemed to be working. When the Kyranians fell back it was as if a pent-up flood had been released and hundreds of demon warriors burst through the gate, swarming down the hillside after Leiria and her retreating soldiers. From his vantage point Biner could immediately see the grave error the demons had made. The error Leiria had been counting on.

As the enemy warriors rolled down the hill they suddenly found themselves milling about in a small valley-a dip in the terrain their officers had no way of knowing about. It looked like a bowl from the airship, a bowl quickly filling up with confused enemy soldiers who had only one way to go and that was straight up the hill to where Leiria stood her ground.

Leiria reformed her line and began firing arrows into their ranks to block the advance.

Biner waited until the valley was nearly brimming over with soldiers, then turned to Arlain and the others.

"Showtime folks!" he said. "Showtime!"

Leiria and her men were down to their last few arrows when the flaming crates and barrels came tumbling out of the sky.

"Get down!" she shouted, and everyone leaped for cover.

Just then the first crates struck and the ground was rocked by explosions. More immediately followed, a fast series of whump! whump! whumps! Leiria's whole world suddenly became very small as stones and clods of earth rained over her. Waves of heat followed each blast, searing her back. She hugged the ground, trying not to listen to the screams of the demons.

Iraj watched his panicked soldiers pour back through the gateway, crushing fallen comrades beneath their feet in their desperation to escape. His spell brothers were knotted around his traveling throne, stunned by the rout.

"I wouldn't call that a glorious first effort," he said dryly.

"It was merely a probe, Your Majesty," Prince Luka said, quickly trying to diminish the size of the defeat. "To feel out the enemy's defenses."

Iraj sneered at him. "Now we know," he said. "And the answer does not inspire my confidence in you."

"Pardon, Majesty," Kalasariz said, "but I don't think we should be too hard on our brave prince. Or make too much of what just happened. After all, how many times can Lord Timura withstand our assaults?"

"Kalasariz makes an excellent point, Majesty," Fari said. "Even now our wizards are preparing a spell that nothing can withstand. Not even Lord Timura."

Their gradually hardening unity disturbed Iraj. He had to get this over with before they discovered what he was up to. He had to get into that valley immediately. He had to defeat Safar. But he had to do it quickly so he could cast the spell that would free him from his spell brothers forever.