Laquatas knew this was a mistake even before the inevitable happened. Unable to see the Cabal dementia summoners, who were now hidden behind their own vale of smoke, the aven mages were caught unaware as wispy blue creatures with long claws and razor-sharp teeth rose up out of the smoke and attacked them from below.
The tide of the battle was turning. The foul dementia beasts on the ground tore through the overmatched Order grunts, using their claws to catch swords and spears and their strength to first disarm their opponents and then disembowel them. Above the battle, the aven mages could no longer protect or heal their warriors, for they were fighting for their lives as well. The blue horrors strafed the mages, shredding aven wings with their vicious claws as they passed or ramming into the flying warriors and sinking their claws and teeth into aven flesh as they pulled the Order mages down to the ground.
Glancing back down, Laquatas saw a new horror enter the melee as Burke pushed his way into the midst of the fighting. The Order guards fled from him, which only made Burke's job easier, for it opened up a passage to his real target: the Cabal demons. The first imp he met seemed confused by the large creature's presence, for it offered no resistance as Burke grabbed its small head in his huge palm and squeezed until it popped.
The nearby demons did not hesitate after that, piling on top of the lumpish creature and raking at his rubbery flesh with their claws, teeth, and barbed tails. In a moment, Burke was completely covered with a squirming pile of deadly creatures, but Laquatas was not worried. The summoned creatures could not hurt Burke. Nothing could. And the smoke obscured his jack's handiwork from the dementia summoners, so there was no chance they could see or recognize Burke as he single-handedly dismantled their summoned army.
Looking back to the skies, though, Laquatas was disappointed by the effectiveness of the aven mages. They were flying to and fro, merely trying to evade the horrors when they should have been mounting their own offensive against this airborne threat.
"Must I do everything in your little war?" he asked no one.
Laquatas pressed his forefingers against his temples and gathered the mana needed to complete his spell. Azure energy licked at his fingertips, arcing back and forth across his forehead.
Laquatas concentrated on the closest horror until the energy leaped from his fingers to fly through the air and engulf the dementia creature. The creature fell for an instant as it lost control of its body, control that traveled back down through the energy beam. As the mer took control, he righted the creature's flight and gave it new instructions.
"Kill the horrors," Laquatas said into the beast's mind.
Laquatas watched his new warrior for a moment to make sure it understood the simple directions. It flew off toward a battling aven, and the mer worried that these beasts might be uncontrollable. But then he laughed at his own doubt when the horror interposed itself between the aven and another demon. Flashing its claws and teeth, the controlled beast ripped through its brother's wispy wings and body, sending large gobs of gauzy, blue matter floating toward the ground.
Satisfied with his beast's performance, Laquatas looked again for Burke, not worried about his jack but worried he might need new instruction after killing the Cabal's summoned ground troops. He needn't have worried, for the jack had just emerged from the pile of demons, which Laquatas noticed had shrunk considerably.
Surrounded by summoned demons, many of which were still clawing at his legs and body, Burke calmly grabbed the nearest two ghouls by their necks, one in each massive hand, and smashed their heads together. As the ghoul bodies dissipated back into dementia, Burke pulled an imp off his leg and impaled it on the extended finger of his other hand, which had grown six inches and ended in a needle-sharp point.
The jack next grabbed a shade in both hands, its hazy body difficult to hold. Spreading his lump of a body into a large blue-black net that enveloped the summoned creature, Burke oozed around the shade, squeezing the beast as if it were a bunch of grapes in his fist. Burke finally released the creature, leaving its broken body to return to its dementia space while he reverted back to his normal, featureless form.
Laquatas enjoyed watching his jack work, but he knew that Burke needed no help while the aven mages were still in trouble. His controlled horror had destroyed three of its fellows, but another three had banded together to handle the rogue beast, grabbing it by its wings and head and ripping its body into pieces.
Laquatas began to tap into his mana once again to control another horror, but as he looked for a creature to control, he saw one of the smoky, blue creatures loop up and over an aven mage, landing on its back. The Order mage tried desperately to reach the enemy on her back, but the horror grabbed the aven's wings and ripped them off her body, then pushed off the falling mage and flew away from Laquatas.
As the mage fell, she cast a spell, creating a white glow around her body. Laquatas watched her fall, streaking through the night sky like a shooting star. She landed on the hillside of the bluff, far behind the Cabal lines, and Laquatas was astounded by what he saw the instant before the mage's protective spell went dark: a barbarian and a dwarf picking their way around the rear of the Cabal camp.
They ducked behind some rocks as the illuminated mage hit the ground, but Laquatas knew in that instant that Kamahl had come to him. All thoughts of helping the Order win this battle vanished as Laquatas saw his prize within his grasp at last.
"Burke, come to me," commanded the mer. "Our quarry is near, and we don't have much time." Laquatas crept down the hill and began to make his way around the battle toward the fallen aven, trying to stay in the shadows and out of the battle.
One of the blue horrors must have noticed the movement and dived toward Laquatas. As the beast came out of the black sky, Laquatas thrust his arms up at the beast and unleashed the built-up mana he had prepared for the control spell. This time, though, when the blue light enveloped the beast, it didn't fall. It merely winked out of existence, returning to the dementia space from whence it had been summoned with nothing more than a faint popping sound.
A short while later, Laquatas neared the edge of the frontline battle, and Burke rejoined him. But a trio of dementia summoners blocked their way as they followed their prey.
"Hold," said the first. "You're not Order or Cabal. Who are you?"
"I don't have time for this," said Laquatas. "Burke, kill them."
The jack moved so fast the first dementia summoner had no time to react before Burke grabbed his head and chest and snapped his neck, dropping the Cabal mage to the ground before turning to face the next. The second Cabalist shot a stream of magically created daggers out of his palm at Burke, pelting the jack in the chest, head, and arms with dozens of blades while the third mage began to shape a piece of dementia space.
Unfazed by the daggers sticking out of his body, Burke leaped atop the second summoner, pushing him to the ground and landing on his chest. With a quick kick to the mage's head, Burke crushed the man's skull and stepped off the unbreathing chest to face the last Cabalist.
The third mage finished his summoning and stepped back behind the creature he'd called out of his dementia space. The eight-foot-tall monster towered over Burke. It had a huge, misshapen head with bull horns and a double row of vertebrae sticking out of its hunched back. Its arms hung down to its knees and ended in razor-sharp pincers instead of hands.