evening grew around them, a steady, stealthy creeping darkness accompanied by the whisper of wind, and faint voices. Ruhen and his protector faced the stiffening breeze in silence until they were fifty yards from the gate and the only visible souls there, all the more obvious for their bright white clothes. A scent of age came to Ilumene on the breeze, the dry and musty chill of a tomb, the silence and patience that was Azaer, reaching out into the twilight and luxuriating in the precarious balance between one moment and the next.
Ilumene smiled as he felt Azaer’s presence surround them both: tiny, delicate touches down his neck — the lightest imprint of a spider footstep, the brush of a fly’s wing — while the twisting threads of shadow in his soul blossomed into dark buds.
In the distance shapes as yet unformed advanced towards them, discernable only as wisps of movement. With each advancing second of evening, the daemons came closer to the Land, and in their wake the howls of the damned echoed. The deepening blue sky was overlaid with a bloody red haze and the shadows of roiling smoke- clouds. Ilumene drew his sword as Ruhen stood and stared, transfixed by the sight of figures coalescing out of the evening air.
Already they could make out individuals, coming on two feet or four, clothed in bright cloth, or plates of bone and chitin, armed with claws and teeth or rusted, hook-edged axes and swords. They marched not with threats or shouts but with a near-silent intensity of purpose and halted when they were no more than forty yards away from Ruhen and Ilumene.
The leader of the pack was a tall beast that stood on a dog’s hind legs and carried a pair of ornate axes. Its muzzle was drawn back into a permanent snarl by iron chains set into its cheeks, shaping its skull into a blunt wedge.
‘Leave this place,’ Ruhen called to them, his child’s voice carrying clearly through the evening air, but it seemed to be followed by strange whispers that raced in all directions like zephyrs through long grass.
The daemon regarded Ruhen for a long while as its fellows hissed and gnashed their teeth. ‘Give us tribute and worship and we will let you live.’ Its voice was a threatening growl, and sounded like random noises that just happened to form human words.
‘No tribute,’ Ruhen said plainly, ‘no worship. This is a place of peace. Your kind are not welcome here.’
‘What are you to make such demands?’ the daemon barked, the anger in its voice echoed by the dozens at its side.
The clamour of their howls hammered at Ilumene’s ears so intensely that for a moment he wondered if he’d missed Ruhen’s reply. Then he realised the child had said nothing; he was waiting patiently for the chance to speak. Inexplicably, the daemons stayed where they were, and eventually they quietened. Peness’ daemon-guide had claimed the warband was thirsty for flesh and blood, that nothing would stop or slow them until they were sated, yet not only had they failed to attack, but they stood well back of the little boy and his single protector.
‘My name is Ruhen,’ he said, ‘and your death stands in my shadow.’
To emphasis the point Ilumene raised his sword, but he was one against dozens.
The daemons started to advance on them, their jaws open and weapons held ready.
‘The Circle City is under my protection,’ Ruhen continued, as if oblivious to the danger closing on him. ‘I will not allow you to harm its people.’
When the leader of the daemons only snarled and increased its pace, Ruhen made a small, dismissive gesture with his hands. ‘So be it,’ he murmured.
From their hiding-places the Harlequins burst up to attack, their white masks shockingly bright in the deepening gloom. They moved as one, converging on the daemons in seconds, weapons already moving for the kill. Ilumene charged the dog-legged daemon with a yell, reaching it at the same moment as a young warrior whose slender sword caught the daemon’s raised left arm.
Ilumene ignored a blow from the daemon’s axe on his shield, instead pushing inside its guard and smashing up at its dog-muzzle with the pommel of his sword. The blow snapped its head back and Ilumene wasted no time in chopping down into the daemon’s arm. He followed it up with a thrust into its gut and the daemon vanished just as the blow struck. The Harlequin had already passed onto the next daemon, striking with blinding speed. The Harlequins moved in a complex dance, each one aware of where the others were, each one constantly in motion.
Ilumene held back, aware his own style, however effective on a battlefield, could not fit into that dance. He marvelled at the bloody ballet being executed before him as eighty Harlequins, a slim sword in each hand, slashed and pirouetted their way through the mass of lumbering beasts in concentrated silence, always moving, each step fluidly transforming into the next lethal strike. Some fell, unable to avoid the wild sweeps of the huge daemonic weapons, but the majority continued in their silent dance. The daemons were now striking out in wild, uncontrolled frenzy. Blows were coming from all quarters, but none of the Harlequins stayed still long enough for the daemons to focus: it was impossible to find one foe to face before that was replaced by another, identical and just as deadly, moving in from a completely different direction.
One monster raised itself up on its hind legs and flexed great talons, ready to swipe down at whatever stood before it, only to have a dozen long cuts appear, circling its belly. A black-clad Harlequin appeared quite suddenly before it, momentarily stepping out of the main dance and into a solo. The daemon roared like a bear, but even before it smashed its taloned paws down on Venn, half a dozen more cuts had been torn through its shaggy hide. Venn dodged the claws with ease and slashed again at the daemon’s flank, each strike cutting to the bone amidst a shower of ichor, then he rammed the point of one sword into the leg-joint and sliced it away entirely.
That done, Venn returned to the dance and vanished into the storm of swords, even as another Harlequin appeared in front of the daemon and sheared through the bony protrusion under its eyes. A third exposed its teeth with a deft cut to the cheek, then another came, and another and another. The daemon howled and tried to protect its face, but the Harlequins had already switched focus to its supporting leg, and cut after cut flashed into that knee-joint until, within a matter of seconds, that too was sheered through and the daemon flopped to the ground, helpless.
One, a lithe daemon with reptilian eyes and a grey spiny coat, tried to batter its way through to Ruhen. It moved with abrupt, darting steps, avoiding the worst of the blows, but it found Ilumene moving to intercept instead as it dodged free of the Harlequins.
The daemon tried to feint one way and nip past, but Ilumene, seeing its intention, threw his shield towards where it was heading, then brought his sword around behind his body and hacked cross-wise at the space he’d just left. Even with a spiny claw outstretched for protection, the daemon was smashed off course by Ilumene’s heavy sword. It staggered a step or two, its arm shattered by the blow, by which time Ilumene had made up the ground and with a great roar of triumph chopped through its neck.
Ilumene looked up to see Ruhen with a small smile on his face and the shadows in his eyes racing with delight. His lips were slightly parted, and Ilumene saw him breathe in the stink of the dying daemon’s blood with relish, but before the soldier could return to the fight a sound came from behind the boy and he raised his sword again as they both turned — and wonder fell across Ruhen’s face. Scores of people were streaming out of the city, then the stream became a flood of men and women, soldiers and shopkeepers and labourers, all barrelling towards the mass of daemons, shouting with outrage, crying ‘Byora!’ and ‘Ruhen!’
They brandished whatever they had been able to find: spears and swords, cleavers, knives and clubs: a poor army, but in seconds it was two hundred people, then three, all racing towards the battle without a thought for their own safety. They threw themselves on the remaining daemons even as the Harlequins continued their own lethal dance.
Ilumene gaped at the unexpected turn of events, nearly dropping his own sword in surprise. The population of Wheel had been watching them from the walls — he had expected that — but their love of Ruhen ran so deep that they would attack a horde of daemons? He laughed, long and loud, as more and more of Byora’s poorest ran into the fray.
Ruhen was staring in thrilled silence; his delight at the daemon’s death had paled into insignificance compared with what was plain on his face now. As the people of Byora stabbed and battered and pulled down the last of the daemons, the shadows all around them deepened until there was nothing left to kill and darkness shrouded the victors.
