Weavespinner f-5

by James Galloway

  Tarrin had never thought to try that before, but it was more than possible. The power of both forms of magic travelled through the Weave, and while it was in the Weave, it was subject to the power of a Sorcerer. Since it was not a spell, it was more of a trick, it was not one of the things he'd picked up when he was turned.

  Tarrin swept a weave of Mind through the entire grounds, searching. They were everywhere. Demons literally surrounded his position, nearly two hundred of them. He couldn't tell what type they were, only that they were Demons.

  He moved swiftly, drawing his huge black-bladed sword out of the elsewhere. "Allia, show me your swords," he told her quickly. Without a word, she drew them from under her loose shirt and presented them to him. He worked with what he was feeling from the Weave, reaching into it and suddenly pulling, pulling at any Wizard or Priest magic he could find. There was always that kind of magic in the Weave, either active or faint traces left behind when the spells finished their journey. Like a vast broom, Tarrin raked his power through the Weave, collecting up every tiny bit of that dormant energy he could find within his reach. And he had a much greater reach than the Circles formed around the grounds. A vast resevoir of Wizard and Priest magic was drawn in by his power, and he summoned the power of High Sorcery. His paws exploded into Magelight, and he touched each sword with a glowing finger, building an intricate semi-weave that mimicked a strand into both of her swords, then poured that energy into them. It acted like a temporary vessel for the magical power, lasting as long as the matrix of the tightly as he'd woven the seven strands around the metal of the blades kept its integrity. But the weaves, anchored to the metal, extended just out of it, making the swords glow with a brilliant light. The edges of that nimbus of trapped energy was razor-thin, giving the swords a lethal cutting bite.

  "They can hurt Demons now," he said, releasing his grip on the resevoir of energy, and immediately sensing every Circle on the grounds tap into it. The Weave shuddered as the Circles fed off his accumulated power, and the sounds of sudden explosions and sharp detonations echoed and re-echoed across the grounds. "Come on, let's go deal with this," he said grimly.

  Not like that! the Goddess commanded. They need your power right now, kitten, not your sword!

  Before he could reply, a Whisper reached him. Tarrin, you've got to give us more! Ianelle demanded in a hurried, desperate manner. We can't draw out much more on our own!

  Where is Jenna? he demanded quickly.

  Fighting her own battle in the city! she replied urgently. Quickly! We've nearly depleted what you gave us!

  He knew immediately and instinctively what he had to do. "Sarraya, stay with Allia," he ordered. "Keep an eye on each other, and remember that only Allia can do any real damage."

  "I can be of use, even if I can't fight directly," Sarraya said quickly.

  "Then do it," he said, putting a weave of Air underneath him. "Be careful," he told them as he quickly lifted off the ground, standing on a platform of his own power, rising up with shocking speed, rising up over the battlefield. He could see it now. Pockets of fighting surrounded the seven towers, heavy, intense fighting as groups of Knights, Wikuni Marines, and Arakite Legions surrounded lone or small groups of many kinds of horrid Demons. From human-like armored half-breed Cambisi to those huge vulture-like ones, even two of the four-armed, pincer-handed dogheaded Demons like the one he'd fought in Dala Yar Arak. Big ones, little ones, all of them ugly, and all of them killing humans with almost wild abandon, swinging black-bladed weapons or rending with teeth and claws or killing with crushing blows of raw power. Circles of Sorcerers, each led by a Sha'Kar, struck at the Demons almost recklessly, driving blasting, incandescent bolts of pure, unrefined magical power into them. The bolts exploded when they hit Demons, annihilating the creature, and occasionally accidentally catching up the warriors trying to pin them down in the magical firestorms, killing and injuring their own. The Sha'Kar were trying to minimize the friendly casualties, but what they were working with was raw and volatile, and they didn't have an exacting control over the power they trying to wield.

  Worries of his family was pushed aside as he rose to the very top of the Tower, over it, looking down on the combatants like they were tiny figurines. He backed up until he was nearly in the center of the Tower, and he distinctively felt it when he made contact with the major Conduit that rose up from the crystal dome at the very center of the Tower's top. The endless power of the Weave reached out and grabbed him with that contact, literally dragging him into the Conduit, and he felt its power race over him, around him, through him, making every bit of his body tingle and buzz like pins and needles as the power reached through him. As the Goddess reached through him, directly through him, using him as an instrument to do her bidding, just as she had done during the battle against the ki'zadun. He felt himself being shunted to the side as the power of the Goddess joined with his, and he felt her unfathomable energy touch him. Shrinking back from the immensity of her, seeking shelter from her might in the feeble shell of his mortal form, he tried to look away from her terrible beauty, tried not to experience the thrilling, terrifying, awe-inspiring sensation of being directly linked to the power of a god.

  An amount of power so vast it would have destroyed him had he tried to wield it himself rose up out of the Conduit, causing the huge pillar of magical power to suddenly blaze with light brighter than the sun. As it had done when he was being turned, the entire Weave around the whole city of Suld suddenly became visible, glittering, glowing strings and strands of energy that crisscrossed the streets, the buildings, the ground, the sky, covering the cityscape with a multitude of glittering lines of magical power. Tarrin could only snap his head back and gasp as that power touched him, infused him, then flowed through him, reaching out into the entire Weave as the Goddess' invisible hand cupped the totality of her precious creation and twisted it, wringing all the otherworldly magical energy within it like a maid wringing a washcloth and funnelling it to the Tower of Six Spires.

  She wasn't done. He could sense it, though he tried not to look into and through the connection that now existed between his mind and her godly intelligence. With a speed that made him look like an untrained Novice, flows of power, hundreds of individual spells, lanced out him like arrows shot from a bow, visible lances of magical power that erupted from the blazing pillar of light that was the Conduit and rained down all over the Tower grounds. Their targets were not the Demons, they were the grim, courageous humans fighting against invincible foes to give the Sorcerers a chance to destroy them. In that blink of an eye, in that one instant, several hundred spells were woven through him, snapped down with blazing speed, and then released. Every spell activated unerringly, performing a trick similar to what Tarrin had done for Allia, as every human defender's weapon suddenly began to glow with a bright white light, a light that would allow the weapon to deal true harm to the Demons they were fighting.

  In that touch passed information, and he understood the reason for her actions. The strictures in place would not allow her to interfere directly. She could not destroy the Demons unless they directly threatened her icon. But she could act indirectly, and that was exactly what she did, by giving those defending the Tower grounds a fighting chance against their invulnerable opponents. The only way in which she could directly interfere was when it concerned the Weave, her domain, and she had done that as well by gathering up all the alien magic that her children would possibly need in order to repel the Demonic invasion.

  Her touch retreated from him, the door between his mind and her power closed, and he understood why they had needed him. Only a sui'kun could do what she just did. He and Jenna were the only ones she could have used to take direct action the way she had.

  The draining effect it had on him was stunning. Swimming in a haze of bone-numbing weariness, Tarrin felt his own power slip, until the only thing holding him up was the power of the Conduit itself. She had used him as her vessel, her hand in the real world, but much of the pow
er that had been unleashed in the material world had come from him . It would have killed anyone not a sui'kun instantly. His heart racing, his breathing shallow and as rapid as the drumming of a running rabbit's feet, Tarrin somehow managed to get himself out of the Conduit, where he crashed limply to the roof of the Tower. He had no idea how long he lay there, concentrating only on sucking in as much air as he possibly could, wondering if he was going to die laying there on that rooftop of utter exhaustion. He felt like the Goddess had ripped out a piece of his soul, and he could barely find the energy to breathe, let alone move. His heart began to falter slightly in its rapid beating, and the power of his regeneration began to falter as well as it too was drained, trying to draw up power from the All to enact recovery, but lacking the strength to do even that.

  Then tiny hands were on him, and from their touch came an angry, invigorating strength. Tarrin gasped as a blast of warmth flowed through him, delivered by the tiny hands of Sarraya, flinched, then scrambled up to his paws and knees, fumbling with the sword that was still in his paw, miraculously retained through it all. Though it was a welcome sensation, it came in a vast wave, as if Sarraya were trying to make him explode with the excess energy she was sending into him.

  "Enough!" he gasped, feeling his heartbeat start to slow, felt heat and vigor spread out into his arms and legs, felt strength return to muscles that had been completely depleted of energy. "I'm alright!"

  "That was quite a show," Sarraya said without humor. "Can you move?"

  "I can move, but I'm tapped," he grunted. "I couldn't weave a candle lit right now."

  "Come on, let's get down there and do what we can," she said. "Whatever you did turned the tide, but they still need help."

  Sarraya picked him up with a Druidic spell and carried him over the ledge. Tiny points of bright light littered the grounds below, glowing weapons that had suddenly turned the Demons from wild attackers to desperate defenders. Knights, Legionaires, and Marines pressed them from every side with those killing weapons, striking back blows that had been rained upon them, and any Demon that tried to disengage from the press was vaporized by an incandescent, ragged bolt of raw energy unleashed from a nearby Circle, Circles that were tapping into the vast energy that the Goddess had gathered for their use. Sarraya literally let him free-fall for several seconds, as the ground raced towards him, the fighting figures grew bigger and bigger, but he had no fear. He trusted his tiny companion utterly, and he knew she would slow him down before he hit the ground. A black-skinned cambisi, a male with blackened, bloody armor, was backing up from a Knight and two big cat Wikuni Marines, his armor actually affording him a protection that many Demons did not enjoy against the newly dangerous weapons wielded by their enemies. The half-breed Demon was backing up directly under where Tarrin was falling, putting his back to the white stone wall of the Tower for protection, completely oblivious to the doom that was descending on him from above. Tarrin gripped his sword in both paws and coiled it back over his head, arching his back and tucking in his feet in a position that Sarraya would instantly recognize and understand. He wanted her to slow him down, but not too much.

  Luck probably was with the three pressing the Demon, for a black-furred panther Wikuni looked up and saw Tarrin dropping like a missle of death, sword readied to strike, and he jumped back quickly. The other two saw his act and did the same, not wanting to give the Demon a hole to exploit, and that got them out of the way. He felt Sarraya's power pull on him mere longspans above the ground, and the sudden deceleration worked with him as his entire body uncoiled like a released spring, whipping the sword over his head with such force that it literally cut the air, making a ripping sound as it went. The sudden deceleration gave the sword even more power as momentum pulled it down as the rest of him suddenly went slower than the sword, and only his inhuman strength kept the sword from ripping out of his paws.

  The sword's edge hit the Demon right in the center of its burgonet helmet, and the alien metal split like paper. The power of the blow sent the black-bladed weapon right down the centerline of the Demon's body, and the sword, with the awesome power of the falling strike behind it, literally cleaved the Demon into two perfect halves. The sword, with so much force that the metal armor offered no resistance, went on to bury itself to the hilt into the ground under the Demon, as tendons and bones in Tarrin's paws snapped from the strain of trying to stop the weapon after it had done its job. Black blood exploded from that perfect line sliced right down its middle, between its eyes, right down the middle of its nose, and then two halves slid against one another with the slick blood helping them along, and then crumpled to the ground limply.

  Pausing a second to let his regeneration repair the damage to his paws, he pulled his sword out of the ground, cleaned of the acidic Demon blood by the earth it had cleaved along with the Demon, and stood up with glowing green eyes and a flat, implacable expression. The only recognition he gave the Demon he had just bisected was to wipe some of the burning, smoking black blood off of his face. He felt it burning at him like acid, but then Sarraya was there, using a Druidic spell to strip the black blood off of him and the three defenders before it could eat into their flesh.

  Raising the undamaged sword blade- nothing seemed capable of harming his prized black-bladed sword!-he gave the two Wikuni and the Knight a calm look, a look of utter, complete, and icy resolve. This was not a time to rage. This was a time to let his cold human fury do its work, focusing him on what had to be done and not worrying about things that would distract him. They gaped at him for a moment, then the Knight laughed ruefully. "That's one way to do it," he remarked.

  "We're not done yet," he said. "Come with me."

  "As you command," the panther Wikuni said instantly.

  Ianelle, report, he Whispered. That didn't require any real energy to use.

  Whatever you did, it's working, she answered as Tarrin and the three behind him ran towards the North Tower, where a pocket of Knights and Legionaires were surrounding a trio of strange stocky Demons with slimy, shiny skin, webbed feet, and frog-like heads filled with huge teeth. We're starting to kill them off as fast as they're appearing.

  Are they Teleporting in?

  They can't do that. Their powers don't work on the grounds. They're appearing around the fence and running in.

  Take the power the Goddess gave us and build a Circle big enough to surround the grounds with a barrier, he ordered. If we can stop them from pouring in, we can kill the ones already here. The humans and Wikuni are getting the upper hand now, they won't need your help except with the cambisi.

  And they were. As they ran towards them, the Knights and Legionaires managed to spear one of the trio of Demons, which staggered and fell out of sight, as the remaining two turned their backs to one another and flailed wildly with their webbed, clawed hands. Without their invulnerability, the Demons were suddenly unarmed and soft targets, with only teeth, claws, and occasionally strength or size to use to fight back. Only the armed, armored cambisi would present a real threat, for they were all expert swordsmen and enjoyed the benefits of their armor.

  As you command, honored one, she replied immediately.

  Get Darvon to form up at the entrances to the towers, he added. We can't let them get into the towers.

  He's already done that, she replied, and then she retreated from him.

  The quartet stopped advancing on the group when a Knight ran his sword through one of the Demons, and the exposed back of the other suddenly bloomed a spear shaft between its shoulder blades as a Legionaire skewered it from behind. They weren't alone long as one of the big ones, a glabrezu, howled in fury and advanced on them, its bloodstained pincers on its outer arms clacking in horrid anticipation. Behind it advanced a pair of cambisi, the night-skinned, scaly looking humanoid half-breed Demons brandishing bloody swords, using the much larger fullblood Demon as a shield.

  Tarrin had them spread out with sharp movements of his paws, then raised his sword in both hands and squared off
, challenging the glabrezu. He'd fought such a beast before, and he was aware that they were very fast, very strong, and were very dangerous. But then again, so was he. It bellowed when it reached them, and Tarrin barely registered the sound of steel on steel as the Marines and the Knight engaged the two cambisi as he slid aside of a plunging thrust with the sharp ends of its pincers on one huge arm, like a spear aimed at his chest, then ducked under the wide, sweeping blow of the other. The Demon recovered from its lunge fast enough to knock wide Tarrin's attempt to stab it in the lower belly; it was odd to fight an oppenent taller than him. He only came up to the Demon's chest. Unfazed by its defense, Tarrin reared back and swung his sword in a massive sidewards blow, turning it back in the same direction from which it had been deflected. The Demon tried to block it with the bony pincer, which usually would be an effective shield, but it had never faced a weapon like Tarrin's. The weapon didn't seem to be magical, but its edge was incredibly keen, and the inhuman power he could put behind it gave it awesome cutting ability. The majority of both bony pincers spun away from the arm in a wide arc as the Were-cat's sword neatly severed them, then Tarrin lunged in with the sword low to get inside the inevitable retaliatory strike from the other outside arm. He ducked under the two smaller taloned hands that ended the arms that stuck out of the front of its chest as they reached out for him, seeking his eyes, spinning slightly as he reversed his grip on his sword with one paw and let go with the other, so the blade extended from the outside of his gripping fist rather than the inside, which was the standard holding grip. Ducking down as much as he could, one paw on the ground to give him stability and lower his profile even more, Tarrin continued to move forward, slithering between the giant Demon's spread legs. It hunched over, its good pincer-arm aiming down to stab him with the sharp ends, but then it howled in a high-pitched, agonized keening as Tarrin's shifted sword sliced across the side of its leg, severing the tendons and muscles in the knee. Tarrin cleared out from under it as its lamed leg crumpled under its weight, and then, with a savage snarl, he flipped the sword back around into a proper grip and lashed out with it at the Demon's unprotected lower back, shearing through its spine and sending a good longspan of blade through its body. The Demon collapsed to the ground, its upper body swaying grotesquely without any bone to hold it to the lower part of the body, but Tarrin was on it before it could even roll over. With a vast overhanded chop, he separated its doglike head from its body with one precise, well-aimed blow.