The claws of the arch-fiend sank into my shield and burst my force-lines, despite their reinforcements – but it was not a one-sided exchange. My blades did their work, at least in part. At first I felt the bitterness of disappointment, yet as her savage talons hit the colossal, thick shield of the twins and were repelled, there was a single slice of time in which I could see what was going on, a moment where her forwards motion seemed to halt before the backwards motion began. I had chance to see the wounds.

Her flesh was opened right up to the bicep, a spiralling slice-pattern that threatened to let all the meat fall from her arm, ribbons of shredded robe and muscle left hanging.

Still, the demon must’ve used the repulsion from the twins’ barrier to project herself up, away into the air, seeing as she rebounded far from us – she brought the whip high over her head – there was no pain on her face, only mild surprise and, yes, pleasure.

She was happy to be here. I could just tell.

But her turn was over. It was our time now.

Safe within the shielding, Ciraya barked in Netheric, then aimed her fist sidelong at the eolastyr with her elbow locked. The sorceress’s sleeve billowed suddenly, and a sickly green flame coursed up her forearm, becoming a series of ethereal skulls that went streaking through the air at our foe, wailing as they soared, detonating into incandescent explosions when they reached the demon –

The windows and walls exploded in as, two or three seconds after Killstop had given the command, the druids struck – Wanderfox was a titanic red mongoose, Sunspring a green gorilla that could barely fit in the chamber – there was another arch-druid too, a magister like a huge wasp in gold and blue –

Simultaneously, a white sheet of energy passed from one side of the chamber to the other, twenty feet over the eolastyr’s head – it was Em’s sword of lighting slicing off the roof, shearing through the bricks themselves, cutting them in two lengthways. The sky up there should’ve been dark but it was as bright as day, a rainbow of colour as dozens of conjoined lances descended, crackling with frost and electrified magma, twisting about one another –

How many wizards were up there pooling their energies, I couldn’t quite remember – but it was more than a few.

Arithos twisted on the air as though she cavorted to a hell-music only she could hear. Spells bounced off her jet black circlet, the glossy band appearing only briefly then vanishing once more – fireballs and frostbolts rebounded through shields, striking allies, forcing our druids to focus on healing. But for all her supernal dexterity, it wasn’t enough – a tendril of blue flaming lightning latched onto the ribbons of flesh dangling from her arm, seizing them and rippling up them, creeping along the remnants of her arm, entering her torso.

It flashed through her, and for a moment there was only the darkness of her skeleton’s shadow against the whiteness. Every part of her on top of the bone sloughed away in a shower of wet, crispy flesh.

The very instant the wizardry abated, a dizzying array of shapes flitted through the tumbling masonry, the showers of glass-shards: the arch-diviners joined the fray.

They knew. They knew, despite what had just hit her, how invulnerable she truly was. Arithos’s flesh had fallen away, but the skeletal core remained, still acting, warping in patches as the eolastyr’s true form threatened to overtake it.

She was still unharmed inside the body she’d stolen.

She brought the whip down, despite Dimdweller holding onto her weapon-arm; the flight-spells on him weren’t strong-enough to halt her downward motion.

The crack rang out, and we staggered, an unstoppable wave of time halting us.

It was only a second, the eolastyr still basically hovering there as she gently descended – but a lot could happen in a second.

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She reached out a dismembered arm of broken bones and the purple-black fur was visible for a moment – she sank her claws towards Dimdweller’s bearded face, right there by her side: the dwarf’s eyes were thrown wide, paralysed –

“Second line, go!” Killstop cried over the link.

Killstop wasn’t here yet – she was in the third line. It was her dispensing the solution to our problem today; Irimar might’ve shown up, but it was still Tanra’s operation. The solution to the whip was to be ready for its magic to be used, then pounce with renewed vigour once the swell of its power passed by, before the others were released from its spell. If we could stop her killing those affected by its power, we could deplete it, or take it from her.

Now, amidst a wave of champions and magisters, Timesnatcher and Zakimel entered – if I hadn’t regularly seen each of them moving at such speeds, if I didn’t have experience picking them out of the streaks of coloured after-images, I wouldn’t have been able to tell what I was looking at. Even still it wasn’t straightforward. I obtained a series of glimpses, little better than an approximation of the real motions, even with all my varied perceptions focussed on the ordeal.

The eolastyr’s claw-tips pierced Dimdweller’s skin, just, but they didn’t get purchase in the meat of his face; she had to turn, twist away, throwing the dwarf aside as Zakimel’s sonic knife came thundering down to sever her hand at the wrist. She managed to evade the blow, but only barely. The scratches on Dimdweller’s face started to heal even as he was hurled back, vivid green light bursting out of his injuries as a nearby druid took on their task.

In the meantime Irimar had already struck her, two spellbound knives buried into either side of her neck – she twisted away from Zakimel towards Timesnatcher, and now he took Dimdweller’s place, a hand on the handle of the whip beside her own.

His free hand suddenly held another dagger, and before Zakimel even seemed to recover from his first swing Irimar was beginning his third, sawing at the bony arm clutching the whip.

It was then, as we all recovered and pressed the attack once more, that she abandoned the carcass she wore.

A shower of bones fell to the ground, but clearly Sunspring didn’t think it was unsalvageable; the gorilla gave up his attempts to join the combat directly and lunged out, catching the remains of Eneleyn Arithos in his massive hands. His motion brought him towards me and Ciraya, and as he entered the shield’s safety he shrank down, a nimbus of emerald mist immediately enveloping the skeleton he laid out on the carpet. My death-sense didn’t seem to register it as a corpse, which was intriguing.

As I moved my eyes back up to the eolastyr, I saw that the tigress had almost landed amidst the scorched debris, but Timesnatcher no longer had hold of her whip – a circle of crimson shielding had surrounded her, driving him away.

Drop it, no…

Em’s sword danced down from the sky, its edges incapable of cutting through the scarlet bubble about the demon, producing nothing but smoke; other energy-rays descended, to even less effect. A few arch-diviners made moves that were repulsed.

I saw as Killstop entered early, perhaps in an attempt to wrangle some greater dominance of the scene with her power – Tanra struck the red shield, unleashing a devastating torrent of blows, hundreds of strikes achieving barely as much of a disturbance as Em’s vast weapon.

At the same moment, a number of others imbued with sorcerous senses started reporting what they could see for the benefit of those who hadn’t yet intuited what had happened.

Damn shields!

“Netherhame!” I cried. “It’s time. Kani!”

Lyanne was only slightly slower than I’d been. As Netherhame came up through the floor not five feet from me, the eolastyr had landed softly in the charred remnants of the chamber – and she was speaking.

I had forgotten just how abhorrent the pearly, triangular face was – and the mocking breeziness of her flawless voice, emanating from between the dusky lips. Emanating from Infernum.

“Five of you I recognise, and I must apologise…”

I glanced up – I could see Em amongst the wizards up there, now that their energy-beams had halted. Glimmermere was perched on the balcony beyond the shattered back wall, her condor-shape not quite full-grown.

Even Everseer didn’t know Killstop would be number five…

“How is it that the Daughter of the Sinphalamax spoke awry?” the eolastyr went on, cocking her weird-shaped head in an unusual sign of puzzlement. “I acknowledge your strength, champions of Mund. Not in all the realms of men have I seen such valour – and I am old beyond your ken. Yet you come here expecting to catch me unawares.”

I looked back at the doorway, the whole thing shattered at some point by a stray spell launched by an ally, deflected or manipulated by the tigress.

Where’s Kani?

“In truth, I knew not that this sorry space should be our battleground – yet I knew that I wouldn’t get to choose this time. It was your turn, and you chose. You chose, and you failed.”

I didn’t even need to ask her – Netherhame caught my eye from the far side of the room and then together, as we’d practised on the way over, we joined our forces, each of us pinning the eolastyr’s shield at one side.

“How long?” I screamed at Kani over the link.

“Your failure is all my success.”

The tigress raised her whip once more –

* * *