Acting quickly before she could stop herself, Aliisza conjured magic again. She brought forth a hollow hemisphere of stone, cobalt in color. She positioned it in just the right place so that the inverted bowl engulfed the fiend. The stone, with the demon inside and beneath it, dropped away.
Aliisza vomited and saw blood spray from her mouth. No more, she pleaded with herself. You can't take this!
Have to. Can't let Kaanyr win.
Fighting against the excruciating pain, Aliisza quickly began a third spell. Before the other two demons could draw close to her, she completed the magic, summoning a large ball of cerulean fire that burst around them.
One of the remaining two fiends went limp and fell away, but the other survived the conflagration and came on.
Aliisza hardly noticed. She curled into a fetal position, her body shaking from the excruciating pain. She plummeted from the sky, slipping from consciousness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Garin launched himself at the hulking glabrezu and raised his mace high. He swung the blessed weapon down with all of his might, aiming at the demon's head. The fiend, seeing what was coming, brought an arm up to block the blow, but Garin's ferocity was too much. The mace crashed into the demon's limb and drove it downward. The head of the mace struck the glabrezu, though it was not enough to crush the fiend's skull.
The demon staggered down to one knee, still using its arm to protect itself. Nilsa writhed at its feet, sobbing.
'You are finished!' Garin shouted. He brought the mace back overhead for another strike. The fiend punched outward with its other pincer and slammed it into the angel's gut. Garin shot backward, the breath knocked from him. He dropped back to the ground, gasping for air.
The glabrezu reached down and slipped its pincer around Nilsa's neck. It grinned at Garin.
The angel stared at the beast as he tried to draw regain his breath. 'No,' he wheezed. 'Don't!'
'You're pathetic,' the demon snarled, 'and weak. Your days of self-righteous demagoguery are over!'
No! Please grant me this, the angel prayed.
Garin channeled every bit of divine power he could find. He drew it from within, calling on Torm's link with him. He also absorbed it from the ground beneath him, the essence of the deity's will made manifest.
Raw energy surged through Garin. His body crackled, straining to hold and focus it. In a heartbeat, he was filled to overflowing. He could not contain the staggering force. With a cry of elation and agony mingled together, he unleashed a holy blast.
Blinding light erupted from the demon, surrounded it. A column of divine retribution shone upward into the heavens above. The burst was so brilliant, so dazzling, it filled Garin's sight. He flinched and brought his arm up, but he could not cover his eyes. The glory of the radiance overwhelmed him.
When the smiting faded, the glabrezu was no more. A circle of scorched ground smoked where the creature had been before. Nilsa lay sprawled there, shuddering.
Garin went limp, completely exhausted.
I am yours, blessed Torm, he thought as he collapsed to the ground.
As the angel tried to regain his strength so he could tend to Nilsa, he could hear the battle still raging all around him. He glanced to the side and saw the ground still disgorging demons. The remaining archons were much fewer in number than they had been. They struggled to hold lines, and often, the demons surrounded them completely, creating islands of the hound warriors in a sea of seething, chaotic fury.
When such an island began to collapse, the archons would vanish, reappearing instantly in a more coherent line along the demons' flanks. In that way, they managed to stave off destruction.
But they were losing ground.
Garin got to his hands and knees and crawled to where Nilsa lay. The wounded angel shuddered as she cried. Garin reached her and pulled her to him.
'My wing,' she sobbed. 'It took my wing.'
'Shh,' Garin replied. He examined the stump of her ruined appendage and saw that it still bled freely. He could sense that Nilsa was weak from blood loss. Grimacing in effort, he channeled what little power he had left into a flow of healing energy. He directed the divine salve into her body, staunching the flow of blood. It was a trickle of his usual efficacy, but it would save her life.
I'm sorry it's not more, he thought, saddened. I am spent.
Nilsa ceased most of her writhing as the soothing powers ameliorated the worst of her pain. She sagged in Garin's arms. 'My wing,' she repeated in a near-whisper.
'We've got to get you off the battlefield,' he said. He turned and peered one way and then another, seeking some able body to help him.
The archons were drawing back, losing the field. A few of them-perhaps a dozen-seeing the angel down, teleported to the pair. 'Captain,' one said, 'we're being overrun. We need to pull back and summon reinforcements.'
Garin nodded. 'She can't move. We have to get her out of here.'
'How?' the archon asked. 'What do you wish of us?'
'Carry her,' Garin said. 'Back, to our own lines.'
The archon nodded. 'You two,' he said, pointing to two of the warriors, 'lift her. The rest, fan out, keep the rabble away. Let's go!'
Garin grabbed the speaker by the arm. 'You have to get word to the commanders. You have to let them know that we have lost this position. I won't leave her, and you can travel faster. Do you understand?'
'Yes,' the archon said. He vanished.
The remaining eight archons formed a loose circle around Nilsa and her bearers. Two took point, four watched the flanks, and the remaining two brought up the rear. As a group, they made their way back, away from the edge of the world where the gashes in the ground belched up more demons. The ones already there pursued the archons, running to surround them.
'Faster,' Garin said, feeling his strength beginning to return. 'I'll clear a path.'
He moved to the point and blasted the closest fiends with a word of power. The screaming, clamoring demons fell back from his efforts, and the archons surged into them, hacking and slicing them.
More filled the void.
'Don't stop,' Garin said breathlessly. He watched as the divine force sent them scattering like leaves before a wind. 'Keep moving!'
The group trotted along, step by step. An archon fell on the left side, and the group closed in. One of those of the rear guard took a wound and had to fall back into the circle. The group closed again.
Nilsa found some of her strength and ordered the archons to put her down so she could join the fight. She carried her ruined wing under one arm and walked, using her own divine power to channel aiding energy into the hound warriors. She healed them where she could.
Still more fiends came, redoubling their efforts to get at the celestials. Madness blazed in their eyes. Garin could see their hunger, their desperation.
We're not going to make it, he realized. But we will take many of them with us, he vowed.
The trotting became walking. Then each step went a little bit slower than the one before.
The group stopped making progress at all. The circle tightened, and the demons, gibbering and laughing, squeezed together, fighting to get closer.
The fighting went on. The fiends' bodies piled waist high. The archons used them as a barricade, climbing atop the makeshift wall to keep the demons from gaining the heights. Garin used his wings to hover, delivering aid where he could.
'We will hold them to the last of us,' one of the archons said over his shoulder.
'Leave me,' Nilsa called, from the center of the makeshift fortress. 'Do not sacrifice all these good soldiers for me!'
