The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (77 page)

“It’s the palace evacuation klaxon!” the page replied, running up to Trisfelt.

“Evacuation?” Trisfelt asked.

The page nodded. “Lord Gandros has sounded the alarm to evacuate; apparently there is a major arcane battle going on in the grand foyer that is liable to cause death and generalized mayhem!”

“Worse than when the demons all exploded from the basement?” Trisfelt asked.

The page shrugged. “Apparently. Everyone needs to evacuate. You should see lit runes near stairwells with directions on where to exit. Gotta run!”

“Crap!” Trisfelt cursed. He needed to make sure the students got out. He prayed to… he had no idea whom that they were all close together.
Where was Hilda?
He hoped she was at home.

~

Randolf finished his carved pentagram and was finally able to glance back to the battle. Things were not really going well for Exador; at least, he was not making any progress. Ruiden was a sword, a very sharp, very hard metal sword. In a sword fight, you fought to wound and kill the wielder of a sword, not the sword itself. Thus, Exador had nothing to actually attack; he was fighting a self-wielding weapon.

There was really nothing Exador could do with another sword to wound Ruiden. While Exador was also heavily armored, his armor had joints so he could move his limbs. This presented a weakness that the greater demon had used consistently against Talarius. Ruiden seemed to be using this weakness fairly successfully against Exador. Every so often one of the sword’s blades would bypass Exador’s guard and strike at a joint. Shortly thereafter, a flash of light would occur; presumably a healing spell. Actually, considering that Exador was going up against four blades, and the sword’s gymnastic skills were quite formidable, it was quite impressive how few such hits Ruiden managed to get in.

“How far away are you?”
Randolf asked Crispin over the link.

“I have to get all the stuff outside our wards. Once I’ve got it all out, I can teleport it all to the foyer. I need about two more trips,”
Crispin replied.

Randolf glanced over to Lenamare and Jehenna. Jehenna was busy casting a protective circle around herself and Lenamare. That was a good idea, Randolf thought. Lenamare was the keystone to the city wards; he needed to be protected. Assuming he got the wards up, that was.

At that very moment, Lenamare looked up towards Gandros. “Where in the Abyss is Damien?” Lenamare shouted. “I can’t reach him and he is a key part of the wards!”

Gandros shook his head. “No idea! What about the rest?”

“They are scrambling into place!” Lenamare shouted.

This was not a good way to communicate! Randolf quickly began casting communication links to the other councilors, with the exception of Exador, naturally. Tureledor was the first to connect.

“Should I launch an attack, or allow Ruiden to keep Exador distracted while everyone else gets into position?”
Tureledor asked.

“Let’s get everyone into position and get protections up. If we go full arcane, the damage area is bound to get worse!”
Randolf replied.

Davron and Gandros came online at that moment.
“We are working to ward the foyer; we will need to be able to contain the damage as much as possible!”
Gandros said.

Randolf looked; sure enough, the two were making their way around the edges of the foyer, working on trying to create containment wards. They should consider installing permanent runes to make such containment systems easier to bring up. They were really starting to have too many deadly events around here, Randolf thought to himself.

Lenamare came online with the link; Jehenna was still busy casting various protection spells around the two of them.
“Damien is not responding; I have everyone else. You’ve studied the wards; do you think you can take his place?”
Lenamare asked Randolf.

“I can try, with the wards in their current state, the destabilization should be minimal,”
Randolf replied.

“Let us go for that, then. Even once you are in, it’s going to take me a bit to get everything back up. Particularly with both of us up here rather than down there,”
Lenamare said.

~

Master Hortwell and Zilquar banged on the door of Sier Barvon. “Open up!” The two wizards shouted over the klaxon. Finally, after a few minutes the door opened.

“What the Abyss? What is that damn racket?” Sier Barvron complained. “Loud enough to wake the dead!”

“But not you!” Zilquar yelled.

Sier shrugged. “I’m a deep sleeper.” He stuck his head into the hallway. “It’s louder out here! What the hell is it?”

“Do you not attend any of the emergency preparedness meetings?” Zilquar asked in disbelief.

“I’m always prepared, so there is no point in going,” Sier stated.

Zargoffelstan snickered behind Hortwell, who shook his head. “Well if you did, you’d know it’s an evacuation klaxon!”

“Evacuation? Why?” Sier shouted over the klaxon

“Gandros ordered it after Ruiden cleaved Exador in twain!” Zilquar shouted back.

“Well, that seems a bit rude,” Sier said with a shocked expression on his face.

“Exador thought so too, and now the two are dueling it out in the Grand Foyer,” Hortwell yelled.

“How do you out duel a self-wielding sword?” Sier asked loudly. “What do you aim for?”

“That’s exactly the problem! Exador is going to realize that at some point, give up and start blasting the demon dung out of everything!” Zilquar yelled.

“So, we are sure he’s an archdemon then?” Sier yelled.

“Well, how many wizards get cleaved in two at the waist and re-form in a blaze of fire, fully armored with a large sword?” Zilquar replied at the top of his lungs.

“Seems like a fair point!” Sier conceded. “What now?”

“Gandros is putting up a containment field around the foyer; we need to put one up around the entire palace in case it expands beyond the foyer!” Hortwell shouted.

“Abyssal arthritis, that’s going to be a pain!” Sier stated, shaking his head. He gestured for them to lead the way.

~

“Lilith fornicator!” Exador screamed at Ruiden as the archdemon fell over after losing his balance when Ruiden sliced his right leg off at the hip.

Randolf looked up in surprise upon hearing the loud clatter of the archdemon falling over. He had just gotten into the wards and was working with Lenamare to stabilize them after the handover.

“Enough with this farce!” Exador screamed as he engulfed himself in flames that seemed to grow higher and higher.

“I think we are about to experience full archdemon!”
Randolf yelled over their communication link.

“Really getting tired of demonic invasions,”
Jehenna said; she had come online a few moments earlier.

“We are almost there on the foyer containment spell!”
Gandros said.
“Zilquar, Sier and Hortwell have rounded up some other senior wizards and they are working on a palace containment spell!”

“Where is Alexandros?”
Tureledor asked.

“I got a reply that he is coming, but not sure how fast he can get here,”
Gandros said
. “He said he had to get some components together.”

“I hope they’re worth the wait, because this could get ugly fast!”
Jehenna said.

Exador’s flames were now nearing the high ceiling of the foyer and a form—a very large form—was appearing. It appeared to be about twenty-five feet tall and probably eight feet across the shoulders. Large pinioned wings, very unlike typical demon wings, appeared on the demon’s back. Other than that, Randolf realized quickly, it looked just like Exador.

“Sword!” Exador roared at Ruiden. “You have pissed me off more than anyone has in a long time. Not even Lenamare could annoy me as much as you have!”

Randolf noted that Lenamare, still working on ward stabilization, frowned, possibly insulted by the comment.

“Since you were forged in metal, I will assume fire will not be useful against you, nor lightning. So how about cold?” Exador suddenly inhaled and then pursed his lips and blew—in fact, he whistled—directly towards Ruiden.

Randolf blinked his eyes, realizing that he could actually see Exador’s breath, as if on a very cold day. No, he corrected himself, the breath was frost. No, now it was ice and it slammed into the sword golem as a solid blast of what appeared to be liquid ice? Or ice water? Randolf was not sure, but what was clear was that Ruiden was now completely buried, hidden in a very solid mound of ice.

There was a loud clanking noise as Crispin and a large pile of gear suddenly appeared behind Randolf. Crispin went to work quickly to distribute objects in their correct positions.

“What is this?” Exador asked. Apparently, he had heard the noise of the arrival, even over the klaxon. That was very good hearing, Randolf decided. He glanced up at Exador.

“Randolf, my employer. What does your catamite have there? It looks like demon-binding equipment,” Exador thundered.

Randolf turned to face him. “Well, my no longer trusted employee, you are astute, I will give you that. Much brighter than most of the demons I’ve bound.”

Exador looked at him as if he had just lost his mind. “Most demons that you have bound? Have you ever bound a single demon?” He chuckled. “And now you think you are going to start with me. You have clearly become unhinged.”

“Perhaps,” Randolf said. “However, I have begun to question your loyalty. You have been absent way too much recently. I am beginning to suspect you may have other allegiances than Turelane.” He was trying to buy time for Crispin to get things set up; he could not leave the pentagram he was in without breaking it.

Exador tilted his head and stared at him. “You are definitely acting oddly; you have not been possessed by the demon the sword was looking for, have you?”

“No, I am afraid not. I am just rather tired of your scary wizard routine. I think it’s time for you to move on,” Randolf said.

Exador laughed. “So what, are you firing me?”

“Got it!” Crispin shouted. Randolf shook his head; the djinn should have said that over their link.

Crispin’s shout got Exador’s attention. “Ah, Randolf, sending a boy to do a man’s work?” He shook his head. “That sounds like you.” Exador waved towards Crispin and a giant bolt of lightning flew from his hand and struck Crispin with a loud crash of thunder. As the flash cleared from their eyes, it was clear that all that was left of the boy was a smoking, extremely charred corpse. More like a pile of charcoal.

Randolf heard gasps of shock over his link with the others. His fellow councilors knew how he felt about Crispin, even if they did find the apparent age difference in their relationship to be morally questionable. Randolf stared at the corpse and then turned back and looked up at Exador.

“You probably did not want to do that,” Randolf said calmly.

Exador laughed. “What? Are you upset I broke your toy? What are you going to do about it?”

Randolf shook his head slightly. “No, I, personally, am not that upset. Thus, for the moment, I am not going to be doing anything about it. And for the record, you did not break “my toy” so much as piss it off.”

Exador stared at Randolf in puzzlement for a moment, not understanding what he meant. Randolf gestured with both hands to the four fireplaces along the two side walls of the foyer. Exador turned his attention to see large plumes of smoke and ash pouring from the four fireplaces, streaming through the large room towards Crispin’s crispy corpse.

“What is this?” Exador asked, puzzled.

Randolf chuckled; the other wizards in the room not busy casting spells also stared in surprise as the four large streams of smoke, soot and ash converged on the corpse into a single black cloud; a cloud that swirled upwards higher and higher. A cloud fed by four fireplaces containing hundreds of years of soot and ash, as well as a deep elemental affinity to fire, air and smoke.

The cloud began to crackle with small lightning bolts as Randolf resumed speaking. “And you did not simply piss
him
off; you will have pissed off his entire race. You know an attack against one is an attack against all, do you not?”

A booming laughter filled the room, emanating from the black cloud of soot over the now-hidden catamite’s corpse. The smoke and soot from the fireplaces continued to stream unendingly towards it, the streams then bending and rising directly up above the site of Crispin’s charred corpse. The upward streaming cloud was now as tall as Exador, and began to form a cross-like shape. At about waist height, the cloud suddenly lightened and changed.

Within moments, the upper half of the cloud had formed the upper torso of Crispin, or an older, more mature and hugely muscular version of Crispin. His gleaming muscles shone through the sleeveless, open front vest, and rock-hard abdominal muscles showed above a red sash that separated the human-appearing torso from the black cloud.

“Master,” the new Crispin said, nodding to Randolf, showing those below the top of his very elegant, formal red turban. “This infidel has tried to damage your property.”