looked away from the once-human faces of the macabre assemblage and swiftly prayed for a peaceful end, a deliverance from such a fate.
Many were thankful for the downpour that washed away most of the undead stink and left the smell of fresh rain. Some, Eli noticed, openly wept tears of a sorrowful rage, a saddened anger that was beyond mere words or reasoning. Of those undead who were familiar to her, all hailed from Logfell in the north. Beside her, Zakar looked to the sky, squinting past the rain and searching the clouds. He nudged her arm with an elbow and Eli followed his gaze. Only then did she hear a strange, steady noise through the rain. Her eyes widened as the sound registered in her brain. She caught a glimpse of a dark shape, diving and turning through the sky on massive beating wings. 'The sky!
Watch the sky!' she yelled, turning left and right, making sure that bows were up and spears were close at hand. The clouds churned above, easily hiding more of the flying creatures-several wing beats could be heard when Eli listened for them. She drew her bowstring back, an arrow already nocked and ready to let fly. One of the winged beasts was getting closer. Zakar cried out, his booming voice in her ear. She turned to match his aim. It banked low, a dark silhouette of horns, batlike wings, dangling clawed arms, and burning feral eyes barely a heartbeat away. Arrows bounced off its tough gray hide and it roared in annoyance. The sound drowned out everything else, making even the thunder seem gentle. Zakar cursed as his arrow failed to puncture the devil's wing. Eli exhaled and loosed her own arrow, watching its flight, sucking in a breath as it bounced off a claw, useless. Her field of vision became a blur of movement. Chaos erupted as the hunter to her left screamed and a splash of warmth washed across her face.
The smell of blood and smoke, like burning rocks, filled her nose. She raised her bow, covering her face as the beast's lashing tail swung toward her. The bow splintered in her hand and the tail slammed into her chest. A multitude of streaming stars danced before her eyes as she fell from the wall.
'Look at them. Bows and blades against magic and death.' Morgynn watched the battle's first moments dispassionately. 'Pitiful. Their savage shamans summon wood and grass against me.' Quin barely heard the sorceress's words, his mind clinging to the dim hope that escape might still be possible. The spell had numbed his limbs, but his thoughts raced. Examining his surroundings, he searched for any advantage in the range of his limited vision. Each time he did so, his eyes came to rest on the gleam of polished metal beneath the bones.
Eli's tale had flashed through his mind so many times that he'd come to call a nearby skull Ossian. But the dim hope of the shield was too fantastic and out of reach. Not yet, Ossian, he thought. I'm not quite there yet. Morgynn pulled herself closer to the images taking shape in the ripples of rain and her own blood. Concentric circles spread across the bowl's surface. Quin saw the scars along her arms and shoulders squirm slightly, vibrating in tune to her tapping against the sides of the bowl. A tightness slipped into Quin's chest and his temples throbbed as warmth radiated from Morgynn. His breathing became shallow and quick. Tiny lances of pain stabbed at the back of his eyes. 'You can feel it, can you not? Her power, her blood calls to your own.' Khaemil had quietly come to stand behind him, whispering as they both watched Morgynn in the throes of her magic. 'She is no longer human, barely a woman anymore. She is the spell itself, a pulse in the Weave. You have accepted a fool's errand, sweetblood.' The tower shook again, this time more violently. Cracks appeared along the ceiling and walls. Morgynn's strange influence disappeared from Quin's body. He breathed as deeply as he could. The surreal silence of the storm outside added to the sense of vertigo and nausea he felt as the sorceress calmed and stood straighter. Khaemil walked around Quin to observe the battle. Morgynn patted Khaemil's arm and turned back toward Quinsareth. He noticed that the bowl still revealed the battle, even without Morgynn's concentration. He committed that fact to memory and braced himself for her attention. 'It appears you have failed them, aasimar, or perhaps just her. Yes, you have failed her,' Morgynn said, her nonchalant tone needling, seeking some weakness in Quin's blank opal eyes. 'The false prophecy has come true and the Hidden Circle shall fall. Their only hope lies in the nightmares of an old woman.' She reached for his face with a graceful hand, whispering words of magic that tingled across his skin as she rested a single fingernail on his lower lip. Her eyes were solid orbs of reddish black. Her voice, when she spoke again, echoed itself, each syllable chasing itself as it passed her lips. 'Speak, once more before you die. Let me hear you as I end you.' He felt his jaw loosen again, felt his throat rush with blood as the power to speak was restored to him.
His muscles tightened, blood pounded in his ears, and he tried not to think of the death Morgynn had in mind for him. He felt as if he were boiling inside, or at least beginning to. Summoning the will to form words beyond the pain of her touch, he spat them through clenched teeth. He stared defiantly into twin pools of blood that darkened as he watched. 'Prophecy or not, witch,' he began as spasms rolled through his chest and the cloying taste of copper spread across his tongue, 'I am here!' Morgynn tilted her head and smiled. The words of a spell rose to her lips just as Khaemil's voice interrupted her. The alarm in his deep baritone drew her attention reluctantly away from the aasimar's impending fate. 'Lady Morgynn, something is wrong.' His eyes, reflecting the crimson glow of the scrying waters, looked to her in concern. 'The bathor are not moving.'
Zakar yelled orders above the sounds of battle. Archers ducked and continued to pepper the massive devils with their arrows, distracting them as the Ghedia cast spells from behind the wall. Tiny bright blue spheres burst across the devils' wings and chests, singeing where they touched and causing roars of pain that deafened all within earshot.
Lesani took a handful of acorns from a pouch in her robes. Chanting the magic to change them into lightning missiles, she hurled them into the face of a diving devil. The beast shook its horned head madly, nearly blind, and crashed into the top of the wall. Tumbling over the side, it screeched and clawed at its scorched flesh. Armored men in dark robes and masks advanced from the enemy flanks. They guarded other men in similar garb, whose hands waved and voices chanted.
Several had attempted to burn the gates and walls with balls of flame, to no avail. Zakar scowled as arrows fell just short of the spellcasters, stopped by an invisible barrier of whistling wind. 'This is a wizard's battle, not a warrior's!' Another roar turned him around to see one of four devils hovering over a mass of upturned spears, looking for a place to land inside the walls. More of the Ghedia's ensorcelled acorns and seeds deterred the beast. Elisandrya disappeared as the devils pressed their attack. A few hunters cast worried glances behind the wall, seeking her in the mud and rain.
Zakar yelled to them. 'The time for honoring the dead will come,' he bellowed. 'Now is the time to avoid joining them!' In a brief moment of silence between thunder and crackling spells, the gentler tones of a soft sound arose-something familiar and rhythmic, lost again as disorder resumed. Zakar turned at the sound. Something caught his eye, but he was forced to turn back. Firing an arrow beneath a passing devil, he cursed as it ignored the slight scratch and flew upward to dive again. Elisandrya choked on rain as she gazed up at the battle through blurry eyes. Lightning blinded her and mud sucked at her body, foiling her weak attempts to pull herself up. She'd barely seen whatever had thumped her from the wall, but she was determined to face it again. A stabbing pain in her chest forced her to lie back in the mud for a few breaths. Arms grabbed her shoulders, dragging her as she gasped for air. Her breath, knocked from her lungs by the devil's fearsome tail and her fall, came back slowly. Consciousness came and went. The stars faded from her eyes and left her nearly blind, wondering if she would recover. Blackness gave way to dazzling light, then streaks of blue flashing into the air nearby. She blinked and cautiously inhaled, wincing at the pain in her chest. A strange sound filled her ears, like a singing chant, a choir of voices speaking spidery words and harsh syllables. A hazy figure appeared before her, looking down and saying something unintelligible. Hands pressed against her stomach and warmth flowed through them. A burning passed through her torso, removing her pain and soothing her shaken nerves.
The figure spoke again, becoming more distinct and more familiar, the voice making sense as it called her name. 'Eli! Are you all right?
Eli!' Dreslya! Eli thought, then pushed herself up. Her chest felt numb, but she was otherwise uninjured. Her sister helped her to stand and embraced her shoulders. Several hunters ran past the pair, shouting for reinforcement on the right. Devils pounded against the thickened walls, the impact of their fists shaking the ground but having little effect. 'I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!' Dres cried in Eli's ear then released her, looking about as the battle against the devils raged and spells were cast by the Ghedia. 'We had to wait. It was the only way!' Elisandrya looked about and saw the assembled oracles. A dozen of them stood in a circle, holding hands and lost in concentration, chanting softly and straining with the effort. Their white robes were wet and stained with mud, and they shivered in the cold, but they held their arcane rhythm. A dozen more stood close by, watching the sky warily
