Without waiting for response, he placed the writings of the old wizard down and touched the vulture’s feather to the flame. It hissed as an old serpent arising from slumber and spat copper sparks and black smoke. The Sengezian’s deep voice rose into a song of exultation, turned hideous by the Tongue of Demons. He began to move.

With grace, he whirled about the roaring flame - a lean silhouette against the blaze - his lithe limbs bending and swaying in a rhythm predating the ancient stones they stood upon. Black smoke trailed him, twirling and forming strange lines and patterns with his movements.

Wurhi stared on, transfixed by what took place before her, an instinctual loathing rising up from instincts both human and animal. A wrongness akin to that in Cas’ chambers rooted her to the ground and yet demanded that she speed into the night with all haste. Torn in two, she could only tremble at the abomination being worked before her.

St. Cristabel’s aversion manifested not in fear - for that had burnt out of her with her coming to sainthood - but in a grand wrath that only her discipline managed to yoke. She stayed her hand, for the Zabyallan’s terror and disgust were plain to see, yet the woman did not flee. Heeding her earlier words, she would see this through.

The five corpses shuddered.

Crack.

Their jaws wrenched apart, compelled by unseen force, releasing sinuous streams of steam with the stink of bile and blood. The streams weaved through the vulture feather’s trailing smoke, braiding together into one roiling mist. Kyembe’s voice grew in volume and menace, until he shrieked his song toward the stars themselves.

The smoke above the bonfire deepened.

Wurhi gasped, taking a step back.

Some hideous thing hinted at their presence, reaching forth from a place too foul to comprehend. A repulsive whispering caressed the air beneath Kyembe’s chant, joining with him in foul counterpoint. With a final cry in the Tongue of Demons, he stilled and cast the smoking feather into the flame. The smoke above solidified into a column of darkness. “Three who Dwell in Ash! I call to you!” the Sengezian cried.

The heat of the fire ebbed away. Three vast silhouettes formed. One mountainous. One lean. The last squamous. Light recoiled from their vile presence, and their auras held an ancient, primeval terror.

“We come with sacrifice for your dread blessing!” he exulted with arms extended above him.

The shapes in the smoke paused, and Wurhi felt in them a vast amusement. Her mind shuddered at such contact.

“Little thing!” the squamous one hissed, its voice an ebb and flow of decay. “You are promised to us! You and the smaller thing there!”

Wurhi whimpered as a thousand eyes crawled over her.

The mountainous one grated in laughter, its voice the scream of rust upon rust. “Our human-things brought feasts to us and we grow fat and strong! You will be feast for us too, when they come!”

“We will guide them! Now we hide them!” the lean one screeched, its voice the wisp of ash on the wind. “They will feed us and we will eat you!”

“But you know words.” The mountainous one leaned toward the edge of the column. “You know ways. You feed us too. We take you. We bind you. Not eating.”

“One here is not promised!” the squamous one writhed in hideous longing. “Its smell is sweet and tart! It is marked by another! Good! We will take! Good sacrifice!”

“Try it,” St. Cristabel growled beneath her breath.

Wurhi blinked in horror. Was this Kyembe’s grand plan that excited him so? Was he trying to gain mercy for them by bargaining with these things?

The Sengezian shrugged languidly to the Three Who Dwell in Ash. “I am afraid I did not call you to appease you, demons. I called you so that I may kill you.”

There was a startled silence from all present except the Sengezian.

Laughter burst from the column.

“Fool!” the mountainous one roared. “We are here but not here!”

“Metal no harm us!” the squamous one jeered.

“Not Flesh! Not wood!” the lean one cried. “Not little mortal magic!”

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“And what of fire?” Kyembe asked.

The demons’ sniggering grew; a cheer of rust, pus and ash.

“Twice fool! We dwell in ash!” laughed the mountainous one. “Fire no hurt!”

A fourth laugh arose, deep and cruel and triumphant. The Sengezian’s great mirth rolled through him, and he raised his fist. His ring blazed white.

Suddenly, his laugh was alone.

“And this fire?” The ring grew brighter. “Will this fire ‘no hurt’?”

“Hellfire!” the lean one shrieked.

“Flee!” cried the squamous one.

Whoom.

The ring of braided mist rushed inward, coiling about the smokey column like a serpent about a screaming rabbit. The demons screeched and writhed within, pounding on their bindings with foul appendages. Kyembe slowly brought his ring to bear, drawing out what was to come.

And then…

Vrooosh!

A white beam hungrily fired toward the smoke.

The lean one screeched and shoved the mountainous one forward.

The hulking creature screamed. Hellfire lanced it through the chest and it sparked into a white blaze like a dry desert tree smote by lightning. Writhing and clawing at itself, it crashed into its fellows, and they too went up like oiled parchment. Wurhi fought back springing bile as a scent, fouler than any she had encountered, struck her nose forcing her to her knees. A strange sound came from her side and she slowly looked toward it.

Comprehension left her.

St. Cristabel was doubled over in laughter.

Demonic shrieks rose higher in pitch until there was only the crackle of flesh that was not flesh. Their bodies disintegrated.

A swift wind crashed over the tower, nearly sweeping Wurhi off her feet and stealing the sound from her ears with its roar. Foul smoke and symbols in ash were carried away, the five corpses in the circle dissipating to dust; floating away like gossamer.

The fire abruptly died.

Calm descended as quickly as the wind came.

As her hearing returned, laughter from saint and demon killer greeted her.

“So that was your game!” St. Cristabel’s face had turned red.

“Did you see it!?” His fists shook like an ecstatic child’s whose prank was a triumph. He drew himself up. “Fooooool!” he mimicked the rust-like voice. “Fire cannot huuuurt uuuuus!” He clapped his hands. “And then boom!”

“It seems that it could!” the knight roared scornfully.

“What’s so funny?!” Wurhi demanded. She’d been a heartbeat from soiling her loincloth and was not particularly amused.

“Wurhi!” he came up to her. “Those greedy, foul demons! I called them and they came, with the smugness of jackals, expecting to feast! One moment they bragged and they threatened and the next, well-” He clapped his hands again. “-BOOM!” he roared with laughter. “I would have given much to have seen the looks on their faces!”

“Hold, hold!” St. Cristabel waved her hands. “What did they mean when they spoke of hiding something?”

Kyembe’s grin turned outright villainous. “You see, my friend, those were the tribal demons of the great Avernix! The same Avernix who it seems has led many warriors into this forest if our pursuers’ numbers are any measure.” He gestured all about. “In a forest full of ogres and beasts.” He leaned toward them. “Eppon gloated about how the tribe’s demons are cloaking them.”

St. Cristabel’s eyebrows shot up. “And those demons now lie slain. Their entire force…”

“…will just poof into the ogres’ senses. In the midst of their territory. With our persistent friends having no way of knowing until Lukotor calls on their demons again.” Kyembe looked up toward the moon. “And they said he called on them this very night, so he will not do so again for some time. They are probably readying themselves for a restful sleep.”

The Traemean’s laughter boomed up into the sky.

A grin split Wurhi’s face as she finally realized what this meant. “Oh, they’re going to have a bad, bad night.”

Kyembe’s teeth shone in the dark. “The worst.”

As her companions’ mirth continued, Wurhi’s swiftly abated. She realized what the uncomfortable, familiar feeling was she’d gotten from the Traemean knight.

Her eyes drifted between the two, marking their shared laughter.

“Oh no…” she moaned. “Not two of them.”

----------------------------------------

A hulking, twisted figure stalked through the dark.

Typical of his kind, the ogre towered over the tallest of human men. His chest spread broader than a bull’s and his arms could wring the life from the most massive auroch. Sniffing the air with each long stride, his eyes pierced the darkness like a dire wolf’s.

In one hand, he bore a tree-trunk as a club, while the other gripped the grisly remains of a fox that had misjudged the quickness of the giant’s limbs. Half of it had already disappeared between his grinding fangs.

In this forest of beasts, little threatened him. He patrolled ensuring no neighbouring ogre tribe dared challenge the territory of his chief, Danu the Bottomless. So feared was the ogress that his task was rarely fruitful.

He took another bite of his meal, savouring the taste of cooling blood and the tang of it as it caressed his nostrils…

His large body came to a stop.

…he smelled something else.

Horse-flesh. Fire. Human-flesh.

The scents were strong. So strong he must have been nearly on top of them. He blinked, shaking his horned head as though throwing a shroud off his senses.

Now he heard them. Many of them. Speaking in human tongues.

He whirled about. His jaw gaped at what he saw.

Not a hundred strides away, fires rose in a clearing through the trees, illuminating human silhouettes. How had he not noticed? Perhaps it was human witches or shamans and their tricks. His tribe bothered not with such things.

His jaw closed into a fanged grin.

These bold men had stumbled right into the maw of the cave lion.

He turned to find his brethren on patrol.

Tonight, they would feast.