Demons piled into the space they were leaving. Hirad backed up, swinging his mace in a figure eight. It did nothing to halt the tide. They'd be on him in heartbeats. He glanced up. Reavers were massing to dive.
'Shit,' he muttered.
He was only four yards from the doors. It was too far through the crowd of elves at his back. Those guiding hands left him but another squeezed his shoulder.
'Duck.'
The word in his ear was like cold ale in a summer-dry mouth. He grinned mirthlessly at the advancing demons. And he ducked. The air froze. IceWind seared death into the mouth of the alley. Simultaneously, a ForceCone swept over his head, driving the flanks clear, and FlameOrbs dropped left and right.
For an instant the demons' triumphal voices were stilled and all
that could be heard were the shrieks of the burned and frozen, punctuated by elvish orders.
'You are coming with us,' said The Unknown from his left.
Rebraal was on his right. Behind was Denser.
They were all backing away slowly, the elves disengaging with them. The moment's pause ended. The demons attacked again. With renewed pride swelling his heart and strength filling his body, Hirad called out over the heads of the enemy.
'Raven! Let's see our people inside!'
With Pheone's ForceCone still deployed and sweeping above, The Raven fought the rearguard action. Hirad snapped a karron hammer aside, stepped inside the spike and smashed his mace high into its forehead, splitting its front eyes. The creature staggered and raised its arms to cover itself. Rebraal skewered its nerve ganglion.
Left, The Unknown held a mace in either hand now and both dripped with demon gore. He cycled them in quick ovals, striking out at body and limb, yelling his challenge. He caught a reaver on the side of the head sending it skittering into the pack. The karron that took its place took blows to its gut and neck before it could marshal a strike. The Unknown's attack was relentless, forcing it into desperate defence.
Rebraal's quick hands kept the attackers at bay to the right. His mace in both hands, he weaved a complex defensive pattern that confused the karron facing him. Above them, reavers screamed exhortations to attack while they tried to get themselves under the Cone. And all the time, The Raven backed off. More FlameOrbs fell, relieving the press of bodies. Rebraal grunted under a karron blow, his mace taking its full force but still it unbalanced him. Another blow came in, Rebraal quick enough to duck. And on the next pace, he stepped back into the shadow of the playhouse.
'Almost there, Raven!' called Hirad, feeling his heel against a step. 'Al-Arynaar step it up, get inside.'
He moved up a step. More spells flashed out over his head to crash into the defenceless demons, spreading fire and chaos. Karron rained in blows, desperate to take anyone they could in the final flurry. The Unknown's maces whirled defiance. Hirad slammed his mace again and again into heads and limbs. Rebraal took another blow to his side, half blocking it and recovering to defend.
Hirad felt for the last step. The ForceCone snapped off. Reavers dropped into the attack. Hirad raised his arms to strike out but felt hands dragging him back. He was pulled unceremoniously into the playhouse. The door was slammed against the demon pack. Ward-Lock fizzed across its timbers and not even the hammers of karrons could break it. Not for a while.
Hirad dragged himself to his feet, his limbs quivering, his mace discarded for the moment. The gloomy playhouse was full of noise, activity and dust. Outside, the demons were hammering on doors, walls and roof, the sound reverberating dully through the heavily draped space. He counted off The Raven. There was a gaping hole in their ranks. Thraun and Denser were kneeling over Erienne who was lying where the injured were being gathered in one part of the standing area that circled the stage.
Rebraal was with Dila'heth on the stage which rose from the centre of the playhouse. He was already snapping out orders to his warriors, she organising her mages. Spells crackled away, disturbing dust during their otherwise invisible progress across the open space. Al-Arynaar warriors ran to all corners, checking for unforeseen access ways. LightGlobes hung over the scene, casting gentle light that slowly lifted the gloom.
The Unknown was making for the stage and Hirad followed him, aware of the aches washing over his body. His left arm was still tingling where the karron strike had been blocked and his head itched interminably from the sweat mingling with the scratches inflicted by the strike-strain.
'Gather all the wounded on the north floor. Pheone and Denser are assessing them,' said Rebraal. 'ColdRoom teams to the stage, please. Prepare and wait for the casting order. Let's hope we don't need you.'
His smile was grim and weary when he saw Hirad coming towards him. He grasped the barbarian's shoulders.
'You saved a lot of lives,' he said. 'Thank you.'
Hirad shrugged. 'Not quite enough, eh?'
'You know what I mean.'
'Difficult space to defend,' said The Unknown.
Hirad could see what he meant. The standing area around the circular stage was flat ground ten yards in all directions. It ended in a
rail beyond which a series of fourteen rows of benches were bolted onto steep steps. Gangways led from each of the bolted and Ward-Locked doors and a thin path ran all around the periphery of the playhouse. Stairs ran up the side of the outer wall to the. left of each door, leading to the ornate and overhanging boxes for the rich of Xetesk. Empty windows now, drifting with the memories of privilege. Strange. He could all but hear the applause and smell the expectancy of the crowd. As if the walls retained the atmosphere of past triumphs.
'We need numbers, stamina and sustainability estimates now,' said The Unknown, bringing him back to himself.
'We also need a way out,' said Rebraal, wheezing.
'First things first,' said The Unknown. 'Dila'heth, what have you got?'
Dila blew out her cheeks. 'It's not a good picture,' she said, biting back her emotion. 'We left Julatsa with one hundred and eighty mages not three days ago. And now' - she began indicating as she spoke - 'I have six mages keeping ForceCones on the ceiling. I have thirty investing the walls with WardLock constructs. I have nine ready to cast ColdRooms, five are on healing duty and the other seven are injured too badly to cast. That's fifty-eight including me.'
'We've all lost people,' muttered Hirad.
Dila let the figures sink in. Hirad looked about him. It had seemed such a throng when they had run for the playhouse but now, in the enclosed space, the scale of their losses was all too clear.
'And what about the warriors, Rebraal?' asked The Unknown.
'Less than a hundred,' he said, face drawn and pained. 'We can't know the numbers Auum still has with him but at worst we've lost well over half our sword and two thirds of our mage strength. And it gets worse, I suspect. Pheone?'
The Julatsan High Mage looked up from her search of the wounded.
'How bad is it?'
Pheone's face was a picture of despair. Her face was streaked with fresh tears and she was shaking, the fear setting in to her body. She took a moment to compose herself and walked onto the stage, the mage Geren at her shoulder.
'I've lost almost everyone. There's only ten left. Pathetic isn't it,
but Geren and I are the only human Julatsan mages left. Everyone else is dead or a non-mage.'
'There'll be others, Pheone,' said Hirad. 'Hidden and scattered. Blackthorne has Julatsans in his employ. You can rebuild.'
'From this?' blurted out Geren. 'You talk like it's over and we've won. Look at where we are. We've just swapped one trap for another. There's no way out, is there? Nowhere for us to go.'
'There is always a way,' said Hirad, his tone ominous and stilling Geren's outburst. 'That's what we do. What you do is go back and get our people fit to fight again. And I will do the same with mine.'