The Raven Collection

‘Raven,’ called Rebraal. ‘We need you here!’

He saw Hirad turn his head and mouth a curse at what he saw. Ten, twenty, fifty reavers circling and darting in, each needing only one strike to disrupt her concentration. Hirad dropped, swept the feet from under a karron that plunged left. He called to The Unknown and ran into the maelstrom.

Erie

‘You can do it!’ shouted Denser.

He and Eilaan joined the fray. Both mages held FlamePalms. Denser leapt at a reaver pacing along the floor, bearing it to the ground. He took a claw across the face but buried his palm in its mouth. The mage fire took hold quickly, bursting from its eye sockets. He stood and turned, the next creature punched him from his feet.

All sense of cohesion had gone now. The room was full of wings and screams. Blades flashed in the shimmering light. Rebraal saw Hirad grappling with a reaver, plunging his sword into its side and ripping it clear only to see the creature come back at him and backhand him across the floor. The Unknown and Ark had one by the arms. Ark savaged his mace across its face. The Unknown stabbed it through the chest and up into its nerve ganglion and they threw it aside.

Rebraal ducked a tail, stood and straight-punched his assailant in the gut. It doubled up and dropped to the ground. Eilaan’s hand clamped around its neck and charred the veins in its head. At his feet, Erie

Evu

He turned towards Evu

Rebraal lashed out at a strike-strain pair, catching them both and beating them aside. One disappeared back over the gap, the other struck something far more solid.

‘Karron!’ he yelled.

They had stormed across the bridges and were ru

Auum drop-kicked another in the chest while Evu

‘Now would be a good time, love,’ said Denser, staggering back into the circle, a bruise the size of an egg coming up under one eye. He held his sword at ready but the reaver coming at him wasn’t going to worry about it. The demon lunged with its pincers but had failed to notice either Eilaan or Ark. The former Protector chopped down hard on the searching limbs and Eilaan drove FlamePalm into its chest.

Ul-karron by the dozen were streaming into the attack. The Raven backed away, the circle around Erie

‘Keep it steady, Raven!’ called Hirad, but his voice was weary. ‘Just a little more time.’

But they had no more time. The reavers screeched and dove, the karron charged. A reaver claw co

Green luminescence fountained from her hands, face and chest, boiling into the space around her. It coalesced into multiple spears that shot away, each targeting a demon heart. Reavers and karron were impaled, their bodies sloughing flesh while the spears dissolved inside them. Rebraal saw one pass straight through him and sink deep into an ul-karron forehead. The creature fixed him with a stare of incomprehension as its mouth collapsed and its face fell like slime over its chest.

More of the light pulsed from Erie

‘Erie

The spears still rattled away across the gap, seeking their targets, but around Erie

The coil around Erie

Erie

The world went black and the wind began to howl.

The karron were coming. Blackthorne could hear them pounding on the doors that led down to the kitchens. It hadn’t been two days. Ferouc had beaten them. Too many demons, too few defenders and no respite. Incessant and draining, the karron had attacked. He had lost men in the grand hall, in the cloisters by his council chamber and in the banqueting hall. He had fought the enemy all the way down the stairs to the armoury and around the corner to the quartermaster’s stores. He had held them at the servants’ chambers and driven them back briefly but the result had never been in any doubt.

And now he and the thirteen that were left with him were holed up with no place left to run. Blackthorne was tired beyond belief. His left arm was broken and bound to his side so he could still strap on a shield and his left leg bore deep cuts raked by a karron spike.

But still he stood in the middle of the line, waiting for them. Still the ColdRoom was in operation and he could take some of them with him. He heard timbers splinter and the sound of karron feet tramping down the stairs. He knew Ferouc would be behind them, far enough to avoid harm himself.

The first hammer on the kitchen door sprang a hinge but the second barely made an indent. The third was more a gentle knock and there was no fourth. He heard squawks and shrieks echo about his castle. And then he heard nothing at all.

He took a pace towards the door and stopped, wondering how long it would be before he dared believe that they had won.

Hirad found that there was light. It came in from the fires surrounding the entrance to the edifice and from those that still burned around the mouths of the dead Kaan dragons. He opened his eyes against the gale. The conduit demons were screaming in terror that had no end. Their bodies were being stretched into the arc that joined them. Little by little, they were picked apart. Their heads distended, their legs split and their bodies twisted and elongated. How they still lived he didn’t care but that sound they made cut him right to the bone and he prayed for it to stop.

From the gap he heard a sucking sound. Above, the darkened canopy bowed inwards, its centre drew closer and closer to the gap. It touched and shattered and for a moment the room was filled with a dazzling light. The conduit demons wailed their last and were sucked into the arc which fed at dizzying speed into the canopy which in turn was snapped up by the gap. The howling of the wind reached a crescendo, then with a bass thud that slammed through Hirad’s skull the gap closed.