But the last one was on her, too close for her to draw a ward. She fell back, fumbling at the knife on her belt.
“Leesha!” Thamos roared, smashing into the demon’s side with his warded shield. The wards flared, and the coreling was thrown away. Thamos stood tall in his shining armor, and for an instant she felt safe again.
But then a great tentacle wrapped around him, flinging the count across the clearing to crash heavily into a tree. He crumpled, and did not rise.
Leesha sent another blast of magic at the mimic, but again it was too fast. She clipped it, knocking the creature sprawling, but the bulk of the power tore into the woods, reducing hundred-year-old trees to kindling.
Her ears were ringing, but Leesha could hear fighting all around now, as the Hollowers sought to break through the ring of demons and get to her.
She drew a mimic ward in the air over Thamos, then moved to begin a circle of them for her own protection.
She should have started with herself. The mimic lashed out with a thin tentacle, wrapping it around her wrist and pulling her from her feet, unable to draw. She fumbled at the pockets of her apron as it reeled her in close, but she was running out of tricks.
A warded arrow neatly severed the tentacle, and Leesha fell back on her bottom as the tension dropped. The tentacle began to twitch, glistening as it sweat a foul ichor. Leesha shook it off in horror.
Three more arrows struck the mimic’s center mass, crackling and jolting the creature more each second they remained embedded. The demon screamed, flesh melting away from the missiles. They dropped to the ground, but in that moment of distraction Wonda closed the distance, leaping almost twenty feet to land a heavy blow of her warded fist atop its head.
The demon was flattened, hitting the ground like a soft clay figure struck with a club. But the clay reformed as if under a skilled hand, rising more menacing than before, all spikes and sharp edges.
Wonda was ready for it. Her warded hands and forearms batted its blows aside, and the impact wards on her knuckles struck it like a case of thundersticks. A dozen tentacles, ridged like blades, swiped at her. But Wonda was faster than Leesha would ever have believed, almost as fast as Renna Bales.
And she fought like Arlen—twisting, tumbling, and leaping over tentacles like a fly avoiding the swatter. The demons’ head turned into that of a flame demon and it spat fire at her, but Wonda spread her fingers and the heat and magic were absorbed, giving added power to her blows.
She got in close, arms blurring like hummingbird wings as she pulled arrows from her quiver and buried them in the demon with no need for her bow. The creature’s scream was a cacophony of pain, a thousand horrors crying out at once.
A new tentacle thrust from its center mass, striking Wonda full-on and flowing around her to join with itself seamlessly. She was held tight, warded limbs pinned helplessly at her sides, but there was no grip to break.
Leesha raised her wand, but the mimic was wise to the movement, putting Wonda in between the two of them.
“Don’t you hold back, Mistress Leesha!” Wonda cried. “Kill it while you can!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leesha said. She kept her wand raised and ready, mind racing. The sounds of combat were all around them, but the mimic must have brought many corelings to the trap, because no other assistance reached the clearing.
“What do you want?” Leesha demanded of the creature, if only to buy a few seconds to think.
The demon tilted its head curiously the way a scolded dog might, knowing it was being spoken to, but unable to understand the words.
Too dumb to speak, Leesha thought, but still smart enough to learn my name and lure me to my doom.
A screeching noise filled the air, and the demon threw its head back, shrieking. Even Leesha had to cover her ears. She turned to see Sikvah crouched, touching her choker and directing a scream that had the demon’s flesh rippling as if from a hurricane wind. How had Sikvah gotten through to the clearing when the others could not?
Just then a speartip burst from the mimic’s chest, the blade glowing bright with magic. Thamos planted the butt on the ground and heaved, throwing the demon from its feet.
But the mimic simply grew more limbs, catching itself before it struck the ground. The demon’s head reformed into something resembling a snake, with no ears to hear Sikvah’s scream.
The last time it had taken the mimic several minutes to adapt to a sonic attack. This one did it in seconds.
It was warned, Leesha realized. They’re learning our tricks.
The mimic lashed out at Thamos again, but this time he caught the blow, deflecting it off his shield. Leesha drew a freezing ward in the air, and the tentacle holding Wonda snapped off and she landed on her back, struggling to get free of the binding ring of demonflesh.
Finally with a clear target, Leesha raised her wand to blast the demon from existence, but the hora was drained, and mustered only a weak push.
Leesha threw her remaining klats, heedless of their effect. The demon was alternately burned, shocked, frozen, and shoved, but it seemed more angered than harmed, its body reforming in seconds to heal the damage.
It became a rock demon, but with eight long obsidian arms instead of two. Every ridge of the carapace looked sharp, but none more so than the wicked talons that topped each limb, edged like shards of glass.
A sweep of its arms knocked Thamos aside, splintering his spear and hooking the edge of his shield, snapping the straps from his arm. It hung limp, more hindrance than help.
The demon bunched, leaping at Leesha, but Thamos screamed, throwing himself bodily in its path. The wards on his armor saved them both, but he was thrown into her in the process. Leesha felt his powerful hands lock on to her arms, twisting himself to take the brunt of the impact as they slammed into the broken trunk of a once great goldwood.
They clutched each other as the mimic charged, but then a bolt of lightning lifted it clear off the ground, slamming it down a dozen feet away.
Amanvah stood at the edge of the clearing, holding what looked to be a lump of gold, bright with magic. The demon began to reform, and she sent another blast of power to knock it back down.
Rojer and Kendall were at her side, fiddles keeping the corelings at bay as the dama’ting worked her hora. Coliv kept his distance, hurling sharpened steel triangles into the demon, their wards sizzling on impact.
The mimic turned to regard the new threat, but Wonda had worked her knife from its sheath and managed to free herself. Her fine uniform from the duchess was soaked in ichor, but she glowed bright with magic as she renewed her attack.
The demon began to shrink back from the blows, and Leesha knew immediately it meant to flee. She thought to cry a warning, but to what end? The mimic had failed to kill her, and she had nothing left to fight with. The longer the battle went on, the greater the chance one of them might be killed.
A blunt attack knocked Wonda back a few steps, all the time the demon needed to dematerialize and find a vent to flee back to the Core.
Leesha closed her eyes, leaning into Thamos’ arm as he guided her back to her carriage. The others gave them a wide berth, and she was glad for it. If almost being killed by demon assassins was the price to be in Thamos’ embrace again, it was a bargain.
Thamos held her just a moment longer than necessary when they reached the carriage, and she turned into him, wrapping her arms around him. She felt his chest expand as he inhaled the scent of her hair, and for a moment, she began to hope.
But Thamos shook himself, as if waking from an unpleasant daydream. He let her go abruptly, taking a step back.
“The child?” he asked.
Leesha felt her stomach. “Fine, I should think.”
Thamos nodded, his aura an unreadable mix of churning emotion. He turned to go, but she caught his arm.
“Please,” she said. “Can’t we at least talk?”
Thamos frowned. “What is there to discuss?”
“Everything,” Leesha said. “I love you, Thamos. Doubt everything else in creation, but never doubt that.”
But doubt did color his aura. She clutched at his cloak. “And you love me, too. Sure as the sun rises. You protected me with your own body.”
“I would have done as much for any woman,” Thamos said.
“Ay,” she agreed. “It’s the man you are. The man I love. But there was more to it than that, and you know it.”
“What does it matter?” Thamos asked. “It doesn’t change that you lied to me. You bedded me under false pretense, a shield to guard your reputation. You used me.”
Leesha felt tears welling in her eyes. “Ay. And if I could take it back, I would.”
“Some things can’t be taken back,” Thamos said. “Am I to marry you, knowing in half a year you’ll humiliate me before all Thesa?”
The words were a slap, but not so much as those that followed.
“You love me, ay, but you love the babe in your belly more. No matter the cost in lives and honor it may bring.”
Leesha began to weep. “You would truly have me kill my own child?”
“It’s too late for that, Leesha. The time for that choice was in the weeks before you told me.” Thamos sighed. “It was wrong of me to ask you to drink Weed Gatherer’s tea, and for that I am sorry. I don’t think I could love a woman who would do something like that simply because I asked.”
Leesha clutched at his arm. “So you do love me!”
Thamos tore his arm from her grasp. “Spare me the Jongleur’s show, Leesha. How I feel doesn’t change your circumstances.”
Leesha stepped back, stung. “What is your mother planning to do to me?”
Thamos shrugged. “If she knows you’re with child, or suspects the father, it hasn’t come from me.”
Leesha breathed a slight sigh. It was a small blessing, but she was in no position to refuse a blessing of any size.
“I won’t lie to her face,” Thamos warned. “Nor will I marry you with another man’s babe in your belly. My mother is no fool, so you’d best choose carefully what you say to her.”