"What do you say? Kinsmen?" said the tall one. "How should we constrain your kinsmen? We are mere men, we cannot command Dragons."
It was an unfortunate word for the Gedri to use. Dragons. The Lesser Kindred. Whose helpless soulgems he bore.
I could bear it no longer. I ran out, flaming, meaning to destroy these vermin as they deserved and recover the soul-gems of the Lost.
My flame did not affect them in the slightest.
I moved as one in a dark dream, slowly, as time sped on and left me behind to fight limbs like stone. Rishkaan's flame did not touch them. He stopped, wide-eyed, and sent again a blast of purifying fire against the rakshadakh, the demon slave that stood beside Marik and spoke with the tongue of falsehood and darkness.
The rakshadakh laughed, untouched, and lifted his hand. An answering flame shot from his fingers, black and red, not like true flame at all, and I heard Rishkaan cry out in pain.
And time snapped back into its place, my limbs were mine again, and I leapt into the air. If flame did no good, I might at least injure them when I landed. I was not thinking clearly, of course, for the Lost called to me endlessly. I flew so that I would fall on the Gedri with extended claws and that was my saving, for no sooner had the large claw of my foot come nigh the rakshadakh than it was sheared off. If I had practiced I could not have managed to do what I did, but somehow I swerved and tumbled gracelessly to the ground beyond them, unharmed as yet. I felt that dark flame pass over me as I fell, and unlikely though it seems I finally began to think.
How could we fight them? Our flame was useless, and now it seemed we could not reach them physically—what was left? Then Lanen's voice rang in my mind.
I couldn't help myself, I called out to him without thinking. "Akor! What's wrong, what in the Hells is happening? I saw Caderan shoot flame from his fingers, he's Marik's demon master, why don't you fry the bastard where he stands?"
Akor's answer came swift but wearily. "Tried—flame no effect—can't touch him either, the rakshadakh has some protection against us. Where are you?"
''Kédra and I are on the north side of the clearing, in the trees. Are you hurt?"
His answer chilled me.
''Not yet.''
Fear, loathing, anger—in a lucid moment they transformed into cold, calculating thought, as Jamie's drills on battle came back to me. If your enemy is unarmed, use your fist, you've a long reach and he won't expect it. If he's wearing light armour, use your dagger to pierce the joints. If his armour turns your dagger, use your sword. If it turns your sword, get under his guard and push him over backwards across your ankle, he won't expect that either.
I knew Caderan must have several spells going at once. It couldn't be easy to keep all that up.
If only I could find something to distract him—
The Lady's servants say that thought is the birth of action. I believe it, for no sooner had the thought come to me than Rishkaan, glowing in the sunrise, leapt into the air and beat his wings, climbing swiftly into the morning. I couldn't believe it, he was running away, leaving Akor to face the two of them alone.
Marik, who had seemed to be mumbling to himself since Rishkaan first attacked, raised his hand, and in the dawn light I saw the sun glinting off something on his finger, a ring of some kind. Then I realised it wasn't sunlight; the ring was glowing a bright and hideous red. He said something I couldn't understand and turned the back of his hand to Akor.
Something small and swift, glowing even in daylight, flew from his hand and struck Akor in the chest. I watched helpless as red blood flowed from him, obscenely lovely against his silver armour, while I hid unmarked in the trees, horrified, helpless, furious.
I did not know I was wounded until I heard Lanen cry out. I looked down and saw a small red stream trickling from a perfectly circular wound high on my chest, and I knew. Nothing pierces our hides save Raksha-fire. Marik was in their service, and I would kill him if I could. If he didn't kill me first.
I began to understand for the first time the actions of my people against the Demonlord.
Foolish as it had seemed, at least they did not stand still and wait to be wounded. I longed to launch myself at the rakshadakh again—instead I leapt into the air, seeking height, calling out to my dearest companions, to Shikrar, to Kédra, even to Idai as she flew: " 'Ware, my Kindred, the demons are among us! The Rakshasa have sent their slaves and our doom is upon us. To me, my friends, to me!''
I heard the chorus of their replies (along with Idai's curses at being too distant to aid me as yet), heard Shikrar from the Chamber of Souls and Kédra not five lengths away rising in anger as I looked down on the rakshadakh and saw the last thing of reason I can recall before I threw myself at Marik.
It was Rishkaan, diving with wings folded from a great height, straight at the demon master Caderan. From the Gedri's fingers shot out a blinding gout of black flame, and I am certain that Rishkaan died even as he fell—but still he fell, all the size of him, falling like the end of the world down upon the demon master.
Caderan screamed, like a beast that sees its death come upon it, and tried to run. He might as well have tried to outdistance the dawn. He cried out only once as he died, and my heart rejoiced in the sound.
My heart was afire, Fire rippled through me and burst out of my throat with a roar. Rishkaan may have been my adversary in Council but in his dying he was my brother in blood, and I would destroy this other of the Gedri vermin or die trying.
When Kédra bespoke me, telling me that Marik and his servant stood at bay before Akhor and Rishkaan, I told him I would leave that minor matter to them.
When Akhor cried out to me that a demon slave, a rakshadakh, was his enemy, I ran from my chamber and was in the air before I could think. So short a way, but once I was in the air a thought did come to me. I bespoke Kédra.
"Khetrikharissdra, I charge you as Keeper of Souls to stay out of this battle.''
"Father, no!" he cried, entreating.
''It is not your father who speaks, it is the Eldest of the Greater Kindred and the Keeper of Souls," I replied sternly. "Should I be killed in this battle you will become the next Keeper, you alone beside myself have the gift of the Kin-Summoning. You will not risk losing that in battle.''
"Father, I beg you!" he cried, his heart in his voice. I knew how he longed for vengeance, but I could not permit.
"Obey me in this, my son," I said, more kindly. "I do not charge you by your fealty, but by your love. I lost my beloved, I will not see my son die before me. And above all, Kédra my son, you have a youngling newborn. He will need a father.''
And I was there.
I couldn't believe what I saw. Marik was laughing, the bastard. He watched Shikrar arrive even as Akor attacked him, and he was laughing.
Dear Goddess. Akor!
Even as I watched, Marik sent the deadly circles flying from his hand, one after another, each a little worse, each striking Akor in a new place, wounding him more deeply than the last.
Four of them followed the first, striking Akor unerringly even as he flew. He fell from the sky before ever he came within reach, streaming blood, great gouges in that glorious silver hide.