The Raven Collection

‘Casting,’ muttered Erie

The air dried out all around them. Dust dropped from the sky, clearing the scene dramatically. The One casting, otherwise invisible, struck the karron in the front rank and over a wide arc in front of The Raven. These lesser demons, far more reliant than their better-evolved reaver brethren on the density of mana, sensed the linkage to their life force shorn from them.

Hirad sensed panic spreading through the karron but another set of FlameOrbs from Denser focused their attention once more. They came on again urged on by the reavers but vulnerable with Erie

‘Ready, Raven!’ The Unknown’s mace tip tapped rhythmically on the floor of the playhouse. The first karron reached the standing-room floor. ‘Stepping up, let’s take them.’

The Unknown double-tapped his mace. At the left-hand side of the line, Ark took a pace forwards and left. He thundered his mace through in an upward curve, following up with a downward slash with his blade. The karron was knocked backwards, its stomach opened up, spewing its internal organs to the ground. The Raven all followed suit in order, a heartbeat apart. Blows catching karron on limbs, heads and torsos. The ferocity of the attack stopped the demons in their tracks, confusing them with its direction.

Suarav hadn’t followed the move and had gone straight forwards, many Al-Arynaar likewise. But the space it left between him and Thraun was bait the karron in front of it could not resist. It stepped forward and flailed its limbs outwards.

‘Thraun, go.’

Ahead of The Unknown’s order, Thraun had ducked and moved right, coming up under the karron’s strikes and crushing its skull with a massive overhead strike. The creature collapsed and Thraun paced forwards and right again, leading the line this time. Suarav had anticipated too and moved with him. His blow was caught by the karron ahead but still the demon was pushed back. The Raven’s line drove hard, maces aiming at gut and chin, beating a space in front of them.

‘Down,’ ordered Denser.

They dropped to their haunches, Thraun dragging Suarav with him. IceWind wailed into the space. Simultaneously, Sharyr dropped more FlameOrbs outside the playhouse. The elven flanks moved up left and right, forcing the karron into an ever tighter area. Abruptly, the lesser demons broke and fled into the teeth of screams of rage from the reavers.

‘Hold!’ bellowed The Unknown.

Outside, the demons massed again. Strike-strain bunched and clouded. Karron jostled and reformed. Reavers landed and began to run.

‘Plenty more work to do, Raven. Good start but they might not fall for that again.’

The Unknown tapped his mace once more and The Raven paused for breath.

Flanked by guards and with Vuldaroq next to him, Dystran watched. He tried to take it all in but didn’t really believe what he saw. Tried to understand and follow the speed of strikes. It was all but impossible, a fact that the demons were finding out in far more brutal fashion.

Auum and Evu

Auum had logged his immediate targets. The first approached on foot, three others in the air around it. Auum dropped and swept its feet from under it, bouncing back and striking out and left with his knife hand at his next target, dragging the point deep into wing membrane. The demon flittered clear. Auum ignored it. The next had whipped out its tail. Auum caught it in front of his face, looped it around his wrist and dragged the reaver from the sky. It bounced onto the ground. The TaiGethen dropped onto its chest and drove his knife up under its arm.

Never stopping, he rose and turned, sweeping his right foot high over the head of Evu

Seven reaver bodies lay on the ground around the two TaiGethen. The others gathered and dived straight down. The elves waited. Without a word, they dived left and right in concert, cartwheeling back onto their feet and ru

Behind him came Auum, sliding into their prone forms, knives in both hands driving home. His body was a shadow across the courtyard. And where he went, demons died. Fifteen reavers were downed and strike-strain littered the ground before the karron attacked too.

Auum and Evu

Dystran ordered the doors closed. Heavily invested with protection, they would stand massive bombardment by the karron should the need arise, and Dystran had no doubt that it would.

He watched the elves return to the catacombs.

‘Extraordinary,’ he said.

‘But even they knew when to stop,’ said Vuldaroq. ‘A handful of demons are dead and tens of thousands still fly.’

‘If only we had a few hundred more like them, eh?’

‘Shame that you killed so many of them with the Elfsorrow, isn’t it?’

Dystran glanced sharply at Vuldaroq but there was no blame in his expression, merely statement.

‘And all for nothing,’ he said, feeling suddenly weary. ‘Would that I could have that time over.’

Chapter 38

The karron attacked again, backed by reavers on the ground, underneath Pheone’s ForceCone. They swamped the space inside the playhouse, driving hard into The Raven and taking on the Al-Arynaar flanking forces. Erie

‘Firm up left,’ barked The Unknown.

Rebraal took a glance. The Al-Arynaar had faltered. They were distracted by the rubble and broken benches around them and the slope of the auditorium. Reavers, floating a couple of feet from the ground, were hitting them hard.

‘Gheneer,’ he called. ‘Bring up defence.’

But he knew there was very little of that. He struck out at a karron’s hammer limb. The spikes of his mace dragged gouges in its flesh. It reared and fell back. Ark followed up and drove his sword deep into its gut. In the heartbeat’s space, Rebraal assessed their situation. It was becoming ever more forlorn. The cursyrd were pressing on every casting, keeping the pressure up on the ForceCone mages, not letting them have a moment’s respite. In five areas around the playhouse and all across the roof, reavers and karron launched themselves at the constructs. And every time they did, more plaster and loose stone was dislodged and a degree of stamina leeched from the caster. It was only a matter of time.