Seemingly with no effect.

It took the arm he’d thrust with and held onto it, pulling itself onto his chest even as he blurred and twisted, trying to escape – the arch-diviner’s knife tore free of its flesh without leaving even a mark, never mind a killing-wound.

I didn’t have time to do anything to help him even if I’d possessed the volition to make myself move, make myself come to a decision on how to help him…

He plunged both knives into it half a dozen times – nothing, nothing, nothing.

It drew back its head to bite at his throat, and when it parted its lips the jaw opened unnaturally-wide. Hundreds of tiny, sharp white teeth glinted there in a tongueless void.

“Kas! Kas, something’s wrong with you!Snap out of it!”

Jaid and Jaroan, lying dead in the rubble.

I have abandoned Sticktown.

This is the end.

“Disbelieve!” Neverwish’s voice came through as an urgent command. “It’s not real!”

“Ah-h-h,” Zel breathed. “He’s right. Look.”

I still didn’t quite get it even as I watched the demon-child bite ineffectually at Starsight’s face and neck, its body seemingly now passing into his with no effect – but then Zel took my eyes over to a giant fiend fluttering around beyond the periphery of my pentagon. It was a titanic blue-shelled beetle with a man’s face and long flowing snow-hair, and it had its own wintry landscape.

And over there – another, and another: blue-skinned or blue-scaled or blue-spiked creations, all over the battlefield. The odd one in thousands. It took supernatural perception of the highest calibre to spot the correlating creatures out there.

“Then, look again…” She cast the violet-brown of the illusion-breaking vision over my eyes for a moment.

None of them were there.

“It’s a distraction!” our arch-enchanter snapped. “Pure imagism! You need to find the summoner – now!”

Or summoners.

“I’m still blocked,” Starsight said. There was barely a hint of the frustration he must’ve been feeling to be heard in his mind-voice.

Still, as I looked down I saw the arch-diviner walk right through the illusory demon – now that he’d come to the realisation that it wasn’t actually there, it seemed to have no power over him, no strength with which to cling to him. Ignoring it, he went to the old woman’s corpse.

Not a corpse.

He obviously had some experience in how to proceed in this kind of situation. He woke her with a gentle shake of the elbow; she stirred, and my ears picked out the words as he calmly instructed her to ignore the creature – the bluish demon was now rolling around in a desperate attempt to be intimidating, transforming into abhorrent shapes, squids and snakes and something that looked very similar to Em’s description of a troll. A waking nightmare, he called it.

A waking nightmare. It was true – I’d been almost catatonic a minute ago. It had played our fears against us perfectly. It got into my head.

Sorry about that, Zel.

“It’s okay – it had me confused!”

I turned my back on Starsight and the illusion, hoping these others all knew what they were talking about, and surveyed the battle.

Where’s the summoner?

“I’m looking. Be right with you.”

Groups of imps clung to my mekkustremin, but the giant doll rotated its limbs and body too fast to see as it bounded around, flinging its assailants off at high speeds. My four bintaborax had split up into two groups, one big and one slightly-less-big in each pair, and they were double-teaming the other huge enemies dotted around the neighbourhood. They were currently engaging a big ape with eyes all over its body, and a ten-foot-tall woman with her own glowing weaponry – her scimitars glittered with a steady amethyst pulse, the blade of each weapon vaguely the same size as your average household door. My ikistadreng and epheldegrim were ranging far out, and my kinkalaman and draumgerel were supporting Flood Boy, beheading and disintegrating those he froze in place with the endless tunes coming from his pipes – it felt strange to see the three of them working so well together, after the way they’d met last Fullday. Even the group of lesser demons I’d taken were playing their part, though several had already fallen.

The magister-bands around the perimeter of Upper Tivertain were fighting a controlled retreat. One sorcerer would put up a wall, then another would put up a second behind it so that their position wasn’t overrun the minute the first fell. Elementals and demons roamed beyond the shields, doing their best to stem the tide.

It wasn’t enough. I got the impression they were running out of spells – their wizards were nowhere to be seen. Every minute that passed, more and more demons slipped through the defences to outflank the magisters, or, worse, ignored them entirely, slipping off to wreak havoc in as-yet untouched, unevacuated areas.

If just one of the escaping demons was a summoner… we could well be back at square one within minutes.

I settled down near Starsight.

“Can you get her out now?” I asked him psychically. “I’d offer to fly just her out, but I honestly don’t know where’s safe anymore.”

“There’s a refuge, on Danamir Row.”

I looked at him blankly.

“I’ll take her,” he said aloud in an understanding tone, his lips twitching in a smile. He bent down to lift her in his arms again. He didn’t look particularly strong – it must’ve been taking all his effort to hoist her up.

I was glad, because I didn’t want to say it to him: an arch-diviner without a flight-spell wasn’t going to be able to deal with the perimeter outbreaks like I could.

I gave him a grateful nod – he nodded back, and we simultaneously took off. I leapt into the air and he burst into rapid motion, moving even faster than me, heading north on a route that kept him in the cleared-out areas, skirting the battle.

I went back to doing what I’d done in Oldtown – circling the area, picking up those trying to flee.

Only this time, I had nowhere to put them. No wizard to obliterate them without a second glance.

The affected zone was much larger here than it’d been in Oldtown. There were probably a similar number of toppled buildings, but the buildings here were ten times the footprint of the ones in Oldtown, and the roadways were wider. I’d only gotten a quarter the way around the zone before the diamond-tesseract hanging off my pentagon-shield was filled with imps. I could only enlarge it by so much, and I was starting to miss my targets simply because they didn’t fit.

What can I do, Zel?

“I’ve got one idea, but you might not like it.”

Give it a shot.

“Your… inward spikes.”

I eyed the pulsating diamond of force constricting them.

I didn’t have to think – couldn’t have thought – wouldn’t have let myself if I could.

If I did think of it, in the glimmer of a moment that seemed to unwind itself, unfolding as slowly as a full minute of tense anticipation, I would’ve felt sick.

But I was crushing bugs.

Bugs.

I let spikes protrude from the inward faces of the tesseract – let spikes enter the imps.

Shredding them.

Bereft of ill-will, the twisted remains fluttered free on the wind as I whipped around Upper Tivertain, and I soon had another group pinned there, ready to be shredded.

Why didn’t you tell me about this before?

“Well, it’s not like I’m the expert around here, is it?”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I thought of the way I’d ripped that giant heretic-spider thing in half a few nights ago.

Does this mean I could’ve killed Dustbringer the other night?

“Honestly? Of course you could, if your projection was strong enough. Would you have done it, though?”

Accidents happen, Zel! I want you to tell me everything you think of like this, okay?

“I… that’s a hard command to follow, Kas. Do you want to rescind that till later, when you can phrase it properly? Unless you want me to start telling you about the various ideas I had that you could’ve accidentally killed the Cannibal –“

Okay, okay. Rescinded.

I continued flying, continued crushing lesser fiends within my diamond. Despite the coolness of the evening air and the constant wind sweeping through my robes, I was beginning to sweat beneath the hood and mask.

“I’ve got something for you.”

Show me.

My fey passenger pulled my eyes upwards.

Something I hadn’t noticed even on my approach, and certainly not since arriving at the edge of Upper Tivertain. It was too easy to forget to look up when so much was going on on the ground, or in just the first hundred feet or so.

A flock of big, lanky-looking birds was descending upon the battlefield from the darkness of the night sky, the knot of clouds above us barely illuminated by the waxing moon.

And then, there – a flock ascending back into the clouds.

Redder.

It seemed like there were two flocks – overlapping.

“Or many more than two. Folkababil, they’re called.”

Vulture-demons? Gathering the blood of the fallen somehow, taking it up to… something up there?

“Well you can see for yourself; what do you think? It sure looks like it to me.”

I crushed the group of insect-things I currently had trapped; I’d been doing my best not to listen to their chittering as they were caught, their squeals as they were turned to mush, but these things were tougher, didn’t die as quickly as imps –

I turned my head away until I felt the loss of pressure, and knew they’d been obliterated.

Finally, I made for the clouds.

Should I follow the birds?

“No, don’t warn them in advance we’re onto them or they might do something to throw us off. Just head up there, I’ll be able to guide you.”

“Neverwish! I’m going up. I think I know where the summoner is.”

“Up?”

“The clouds.”

“You’ve got to be joking!” Neverwish’s irritation came through clearly. “Now you’re just gonna claim the kill, aren’t you? Dropping new arch-sorcerer, out to make a name for yourself –”

“Is this about the money? I –“

“Yes it’s about the money!” The arch-enchanter was almost snarling.

“I’ll split it with you,” I said at once, “both of you.” If playing to his greed this once would give me an even footing with a fellow champion or two, I would happily absorb the loss. “I just want it dead.”

I was getting really high now. I could see Hightown in all its fire-orange, smoke-clogged, demon-infested splendour.

“Fine,” Neverwish replied at last, a bit of the temper gone out of his voice. “You hear that, Star?”

“I heard it,” Starsight said softly. “On my way back now, Neverwish.”

I gradually entered the cloud-bank hovering over Hightown. Even with Zel’s help I couldn’t see anything, hear anything, smell anything. The moonlight illuminated the chill mists of the clouds surrounding me, but it was a dim, graveyard greyness, no silvery sheen piercing the thick fog I ascended through.

“But it’s close,” Zel said. “Just a little farther.”

“I’m close. How’s things going down there?”

“Your demons are doing well,” Neverwish said grudgingly. Perhaps he was realising how he’d come across a minute ago.

“A fine showing, for a first-time champion,” Starsight observed.

It wasn’t as though I’d never been in a life-or-death situation, but I knew what he was getting at… Incursions were like nothing I’d ever seen before, Infernum being birthed on the Material Plane in a way I’d never imagined. Even cowering under my bed, all those previous times the Bells rang – I’d never imagined this.

And now Incursions were my life, for as long as I managed to keep living it.

“Thank you,” I replied, feeling a bit embarrassed all the same at the compliment.

Neverwish chuckled.

“Stop!” Zel shrilled. “There! You just went past it!”

I let her take control a little so that I could feel her tugging me in a certain direction – which direction it actually was, I wasn’t now quite sure, being immersed in the night-sky clouds and all.

The mists seemed to part slightly just when I approached, moonlight slanting down to illuminate the scene as I stopped, staring at the floating altar.

Dozens and dozens, perhaps hundreds of imps were holding it aloft in a horizontal position, their bat-wings beating rapidly as they clustered below it and all around its edges. It was a block of black stone, a single slab perhaps twelve feet on a side and two inches thick. The dark material itself was like that from which the Maginox interior was constructed, threaded with milk-hued ribbons. Upon its face had been etched a summoning circle, so wide that it almost touched the edges of the square, with inner rings comprised of thousands of individual runes.

In the centre of the summoning circle stood a huge iron cauldron, filled with a crimson substance that glinted and tinkled as it slowly sloshed back and forth, in pace with the not-quite-steady motions of the imps supporting the platform. And around the edges of the cauldron there were four men or women, each wearing a heavy black robe and a chain at the neck that linked them to the cauldron’s base – they were gaunt, hairless, and, I saw to my horror, eyeless. They were kneeling up to the rim of the great iron basin, dipping their hands into the bloody mixture it contained.

For that had to be what it was – their hands were covered in the redness – and yet there was the tinkling sound.

“Rhimbelkina. Only four of them. They’re decent-enough diviners but they’re low rank – you’ve got this.”

Low rank like the ikistadreng?

“Low rank like third rank. You could handle eight or twelve – you shouldn’t even notice four. Take them.”

I considered my options.

“You’re about to drop something on civilians,” Starsight said.

Well, that’s reassuring. Sort of.

I didn’t want this altar setting down nice and neatly somewhere another demon might come along and find it – or some enterprising darkmage demonologist for that matter, once the Incursion was all over.

“Can you move them?” I asked the champion. “Like, completely out of the way?”

Even as I floated there a line of diseased-looking, scabrous birds with long legs and necks came up to the altar, their plumage a dim red hue where they had kept it. They entered the cauldron, one by one, and came out looking healthy again, the oozing sores on their bare flesh now gone, covered over with thick tufts of feathers.

They were coming down to Mund and absorbing the blood, the conflict, the death, and bringing it back in themselves to give to these rhimbelkina?

The birds, they’re…

“The folkababil? Technically first rank. They can think. I’ve never seen their abilities used this exact way before, though.”

There were too many new words to remember.

Whatever. Okay.

“Starsight, Neverwish, can you move them!” It wasn’t a question even if I’d phrased it that way – I didn’t know how much longer I could wait. The weird humanoids in chains, the rhimbelkina – they were taking things out of the cauldron now, as the birds departed again: handfuls of what looked like little bits of rubies, glittering beneath a sheen, a gravy of blood.

They were grinding them in their bare hands – I could hear it – probably in order to add their own blood to the mixture. They were grinding them, and then tossing them over the side.

No wonder I hadn’t seen or felt anything down there, and no wonder the summons were being spread over such a large area. It was all going on up here. As the handfuls of ruby dust were thrown overboard I felt same way I felt as the red flames arose. I felt the summoning.

And the handfuls of ruby dust were taken by the wind; the dust could be carried anywhere.

Anywhere.

These rhimbelkina might’ve been responsible for Oldtown, miles away.

“I have to act now – what’s going on down there?”

“Sorry, Feychilde.” Neverwish didn’t exactly sound sorry. “I had to lower the link for a moment. This damn demon! We’ve got news. Roseoak’s got worse. Ten summoners at the minimum. We’re to abandon Upper Tivertain.”

“Are you –“

Are you kidding me!

“– going to be able to clear the area under me or not?” I finished.

There was a pause, then Starsight came through: “All done.”

“I owe you a drink,” I muttered mentally as I psyched myself up.

There were a load of different ways to do this, but I didn’t really want to take these horrible creatures as my minions.

They were chained to it. This would be much more satisfying.

I just had to ensure I had their attention. I needed that sweet, sweet ill-will.

“Hey!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs, speaking in plain old Mundic, zooming towards the altar as I waggled my fingers in the air. “Uglies without eyes! Can you hear me? It’s, like, real important.”

I got the attention of the imps, and the birds currently visiting the platform. A seething mass of demonic faces turned my way, fanged mouths and fanged beaks parted, yapping and cawing in alarm.

And the rhimbelkina too – they could hear, or at least sense the distress of their assistants. They stopped grinding the glittering bloody mixture, hunching over in tension at the cauldron’s lip.

That was enough for me.

I moved swiftly towards the platform, as though to land upon it, close to the centre.

And my shields pushed them all away.

The rhimbelkina were chained to the heavy cauldron, and their collars looked like they might’ve been made from the same quality hellsteel as the cauldron. My shielding was inexorable.

The collars handily decapitated them, and the four summoners and their four eyeless heads went tumbling overboard.

In addition, my presence pushed all the imps and the remaining birds out to the edges of my shields – the platform dropped away beneath me before I was able to land on it.

“Incoming!”

A wave of my hand bound and dismissed the things lurking on my shield’s edge.

I felt swollen, suddenly. I’d taken more in one go than ever before.

For just a few moments, I waited alone, sitting in the clouds, luxuriating in the feeling of victory that had stolen over me –

Then I heard what I’d been awaiting – the dull boom as the platform landed and shattered on the rubble far beneath me.

I loosed a sigh of contentment, then started descending. I’d get beneath the clouds, then have a look around, get my bearings…

“Meet you at Roseoak?” I sent to my fellow champions.

“Uh… can you give me a lift?” Neverwish asked. “I’m not exactly light.”

“I can try, but Starsight warned me against it… Where are you?”

I started arrowing straight downwards, but something went wrong.

A jolt. A chill. A feeling of doom –

“Summon Avaelar now!” Zel screamed.

I felt like I was slipping.

But an hour hasn’t passed yet, nowhere near – oh Yune – Em. Em!

“Now!”

My heart was in my throat as I fell – I was whipped about, hurtling down from a dizzying height.

It was just one instant before I left the clouds, head-first.

Another before I saw Hightown below me – above me.

I got my hands up, went through the motions, and the green rupture answered.

I barely had chance to see the sylph below me (above me!) before I fell into and joined with him.

“Not that way!” Zel howled.

It was too late. I tried my hardest to manifest the wings in time, fighting against whatever lethargy prevented them from springing fully-usable from my back, fighting with all my will, all my might –

But it wasn’t enough. Not even close.

There was a single instant of struggle, the ground rushing down at my head, and I managed to right myself, swinging my legs down, feeling the wind rushing through my wings.

Too late.

I felt nothing as my feet hit the ground, surely shattering every bone in my body.

I felt nothing. No impact.

Just nothing.