‘We have to shut it down!’ said Kaspar.
‘The problem,’ replied Pug, ‘is that it might take a while.’
Kaspar looked out at the battle raging beyond the door while Magnus sent another blast of searing energy at a demon charging in their direction. ‘Keep discouraging them,’ said Kaspar, ‘while I get a better look.’ He tapped Laromendis on the shoulder and said, ‘You up to giving me a boost up to the roof?’
‘Certainly,’ said the elf. They stepped out the door and Laromendis made a stirrup with his hands. Kaspar stepped up and the tall elf thrust him high enough to allow the General to clamber onto the tiles of the roof.
Magnus stepped outside just in time to destroy a flyer that had spotted Kaspar as an easy target, and the General shouted, ‘Thanks!’
Kaspar saw that the activity from the pit had ceased and shouted down, ‘I think that’s all of them!’
He looked over the battle and cursed himself for not having had a better notion of how this struggle might unfold. He had made one poor assumption, that a quick strike by overwhelming forces would obliterate a disorganized band of cultists and a few demons.
He hadn’t expected that the demons would be armed, organized, and sending reinforcements. Still, his forces were slowly gaining the upper hand through sheer numbers. Which was a good thing, he considered, as it seemed to take three or four human soldiers to best one of the larger demons.
The stench from demon blood was making his eyes water and another flyer almost took his head as it came hurtling out of the night sky. He felt the heat from its flaming body as Magnus dispatched it.
Kaspar sat on the eaves and then dropped to the ground, with an audible grunt. ‘I’m too old and tired to be doing this,’ he said to no one in particular.
Pug and the others came out of the small building as the ebb and flow of the struggle had drawn most of the combatants to the other side of the large fortress. Kaspar said, ‘We’ve got the upper hand if something doesn’t change unexpectedly.’ He nodded. ‘I’ve got to find my commanders and see if we can coordinate this a little better.’
He hurried off and Pug turned to Laromendis. ‘Why don’t you see what your brother and Amirantha are up to down there? Magnus and I will protect this position.’
Laromendis said, ‘Of course,’ and ran back into the building.
‘There’s a new war underway,’ said Belasco. ‘It’s been underway for centuries, now. The five demon kings have battled for supremacy since time began, but this new war is something different.’
Amirantha said, ‘How is it different?’
The sound of laughter filled the room, both Belasco’s and the demon’s. The monster’s was filled with hate and bitterness, while Belasco’s held genuine amusement. ‘I don’t really know,’ said the motionless magic user. ‘Lies are as much a part of a demon’s nature as they are of mine, dead brother.
‘When I first began to dabble with summoning it was for the usual reason: I wanted to best you. I tried to kill Sidi once by creating a lich, did you know that?’
‘No,’ said Amirantha.
‘It wasn’t well conceived, really, too much emphasis on irony and not enough on learning my craft. Sidi disposed of the monster quickly and I spent the better part of a year living in a very cold cave up in the Northlands, surrounded by ice bears, snow leopards and dark elves.’ He sighed, more as an emotional footnote than a real exhalation of breath. ‘You’d think I’d have learned, but I really didn’t.
‘I decided not to conjure a random demon and turn it loose on you; I knew you’d easily defeat it, so instead thought I might subvert one of your spells so that you summoned a creature you weren’t expecting. I thought that was very clever.’
‘It almost worked,’ said Amirantha.
‘Almost?’
‘I had help. I would have perished had I been alone.’
‘Well, that’s some sort of consolation.’ He paused, then said, ‘To learn how to do it I began studying demon lore, much of it familiar to you, I assume. But I did find a few unusual odds and ends; a scroll here and a book there revealed that there was far more to the demon realm than you’d ever suspected. I wasn’t doing this for scholarship, really. I was looking for a clever way to kill my brothers.’
Gulamendis looked at Belasco and then at Amirantha and just shook his head. Sandreena kept her eyes fixed on Amirantha’s face.
Amirantha said, ‘The demon war?’
‘Something is driving the demons. Something came into their realm and struggles with them for supremacy in their own realm,’ said Belasco. ‘Millions of demons have been destroyed in the fight and three of the kings have united to oppose the invaders.’
‘Who?’ asked Amirantha.