Sandreena was expert in avoiding the animal-like claws of the demons. This bunch was similar to those she had encountered before, mostly sinew and fangs with little intelligence, though they were cunning, as demonstrated by the trap they had unleashed on the young magicians.
Miranda tried to pull the smothering black fabric from one young magician, and then threw spells designed to dispel enchantment at it, but it resisted her every attempt to remove it. She felt her heart sink and went cold inside as the young magician, a bright young man named Patrick from Yabon, died. ‘Do something!’ she shouted at Amirantha out of frustration.
He recognized and ignored her frustration, concentrating as much as he could on dealing with the threat right before him. He could have easily gated in half a dozen demons of his own in this period of time, but he now realized he could not trust any of them to do his bidding. Instead he focused on the spells at his disposal that would either destroy them outright, or banish them back to the demon realm. But it took time. Each target had to be in his line of sight for nearly a minute as he enchanted it, and sometimes the break in his concentration forced him to start over.
Father-Bishop Creegan seemed to have different abilities at his disposal, more effective, but slower. He would single out a demon, chant, and after a minute, a bright light would envelop the target and it would freeze motionless. Then after another few minutes, it would simply vanish. Unfortunately, from Amirantha’s point of view, he could only manage one at a time.
The wind shifted and suddenly they were choking from the smoke as it billowed from the flaming buildings and swept over them, a blinding wall of darkness that filled the lungs and caused the eyes to sting. ‘This way!’ shouted Miranda, coughing as she tried to lead them upwind of the flames.
Sandreena crouched as another demon tried to claw at her, its talons scraped her helm and she stood, bringing her helmet up under its chin as she held up her shield to block a second demon to the right. Then she spun, her mace held out, so that when she finished the circle, the mace head slammed into the second demon’s side. The creature doubled over and fell on top of the stunned first demon; then Sandreena retreated after the others.
As they moved back and regrouped, a scene of horror before them unfolded. Of the hundreds of students and instructors in residence on Sorcerer’s Isle, most lay dead on the ground. Many had been maimed or mutilated, or partially devoured. Also scattered around the area were demon corpses, mute testimony to the courage of the young magicians.
From their vantage point, they could see figures scampering in the fire as the main house went up in a tower of flames. Then they saw it.
In the middle of the inferno, where the flames reached highest into the sky, stood a figure of terror. It was nearly twenty feet tall. Its head was like that of a bull, but with an elongated snout, and its horns were impossibly wide, spanning at least eight feet. The creature had massive shoulders and enormous arms with muscles that looked like heavy cable under black silk skin. Its eyes were red flame and steam or smoke blew out of its flaring nostrils. As if challenging the very heavens, the creature threw back its head and bellowed so loud it was painful to listen.
Confusion and panic were mounting on all sides, and Miranda struggled to make sense out of what she could see through the blinding smoke. ‘Amirantha! What is that?’ she demanded.
‘If I had to guess,’ said the Warlock, coughing from the smoke, ‘it’s a demon captain, perhaps the Dahun those Black Caps were summoning. Right now—’ he exploded into a fit of coughing, then swallowed hard ‘—I don’t know if I understand anything about demons.’ His tone left no doubt he was shaken by the day’s revelations.
‘Everything we saw over by the Peaks was simply a diversion,’ said Father-Bishop Creegan. ‘To lure us away so they could destroy the Conclave.’
‘As long as I’m standing and Pug and my sons are alive,’ said Miranda, ‘so is the Conclave.’ Her tone left no doubt of her anger. And she shot forth a bolt of searing energies that should have withered the demon where he stood. Instead, he turned and looked for the source of the attack.
Sandreena, Amirantha, and Creegan all reacted within moments, simultaneously unleashing three spells of banishment. The creature seemed stunned, staggering back, but didn’t vanish as intended.
‘It’s tethered!’ shouted Amirantha.
‘Tethered?’ asked Jommy.
It was Brandos who answered. ‘Something’s anchoring it here, in this realm. You do it to keep a demon from going home if it’s unhappy with what you want it to do!’
‘Look for anything that seems out of place,’ shouted Amirantha. ‘An icon, a pole, something that’s not burning. That will be the tether. Destroy it, and we can banish that horror.’
Miranda said, ‘I can’t see a thing with all this smoke and flame.’