«There’s something out there.» She touched her fingers to the skin of his neck so he could feel the sick horror coiling inside her.
«Demon.» His eyes glowed and their focus went slightly hazy. Around them, she sensed as much as saw the change in her quintet as each warrior woke, and their hands crept towards their steel.
A split second later, the two guards laughing softly by the perimeter of the camp fell abruptly silent. She turned to see them fall to the ground, bodies limp, throats gaping. There was no sign of whatever had killed them.
«Stay close to your quintet.» That was all Rain said to her before his shout ripped the stillness of the night. “Fey!Bote cha!” Blades at the ready!“Lu’tan, ti’Feyreisa!”
Warriors leapt to their feet, magic blazing. Fey’cha flew into the darkness. Her quintet closed ranks around her as Rain shot skyward on a jet of Air, summoning the great magic of the Change.
whatever was out there still did not show itself, but from all around them came a strange whirring thrum, like a thousand cats purring.
“Shields!” Gaelen cried.
“Air masters, deflect missiles!” Bel shouted alongside him.
Bowstrings, Ellysetta realized. The purring sound was bowstrings, hundreds of them, released in near-perfect unison from a close distance. Her quintet ringed close, spinning a canopy of steel and magic over her head. The rest of thelu’tanhefted steel war shields high while Air masters spun a whirlwind to disperse the incoming arrows. Thesel’dormissiles were too numerous. A dozenlu’tanfell to the enemy’s fire, and scores more flinched as barbedsel’dorshafts sank deep in their flesh. Overhead, Rain’s vertical ascent ended abruptly as black shafts, far thicker than standard arrows, slammed into his golden war steel, piercing his chest, hip, and thigh.
“Rain!” she cried as he dropped from the sky. Instinctively, she lurched towards him.
«Stay with your quintet!» he commanded. His Spirit voice throbbed with pain.
He landed hard, but leapt to his feet in an instant. With both hands, he griped the thicksel’dorshaft protruding from his chest and yanked it free. Ellysetta cried out as pain seared her senses, but Rain just set his jaw and pulled the second missile free from his hip, then the third from his thigh. He dropped them on the ground at his feet and spun a small weave of Earth and Fire to stop his wounds from bleeding.
Ellysetta wept. The need to go to him was overpowering, but he was already wading into battle, blades drawn, teeth bared in a snarl. Red Fey’cha flew from his hands into the darkness.
Something else rained down along with the arrows, and the cold, sickly sweet stench of Azrahn filled the air. Black shadows rose up from within the circle of gathered Fey, as if night itself were attacking. All around,lu’tanwent gray, their glowing essence siphoned away in an instant. Lifeless, their bodies dropped to the ground without a sound.
“Demons!” Warriors near the fallen men shouted the warning. “Five-fold weaves, Fey!” Powerful weaves flared to life, but between the demons, their invisible attackers, and the hail ofsel’dorarrows raining down, Fey were dropping at alarming rates.
“Where are they?” someone cried. “Flames scorch it, I can’t see anything!”
“They’re using the Brotherhood’s invisibility weaves, like they did in Orest,” Gaelen shouted over the din. “If we can find the ones spinning the weaves, we can bring them down.”
“Fat lot of use that is,” Tajik snarled. “If we can’t find therultshartsshooting those jaffing arrows, how the scorching Hells are we going to find thebogrotsspinning those weaves?”
“Well, we’d better do something, and fast,” Bel snapped in reply. “Because they’re slaughtering us like sheep in a pen.”
On the west flank, a red Fey’cha struck the holder of one of the invisibility weaves in the throat. A body sprawled in the grass, Fey in appearance, except for the scar that ran from temple to the corner of his mouth.
“Dahl’reisen!” thelu’tanclosest to the body cried. The deaddahl’reisen’s invisibility weave winked out, revealing a company of Elden archers and three blue-robed Primages. “Dahl’reisenare holding the invisibility weaves!”
The warrior who’d slain thedahl’reisenfell to his knees, shrieking as if his skin were being peeled off his body. Fey could not kill other Fey—not evendahl’reisen—without losing their own soul in the process, but thelu’tanhad bound their souls in service to Ellysetta. They could not becomedahl’reisen. Apparently, however, they still felt the agony of taking a life that had once been Fey.
“Blessed gods,” Ellysetta wept as an echo of his agony ripped across hislute’asheivabond. Even protected by twenty-five-fold weaves, she could practically feel her soul being ripped asunder. She fell to her knees and pressed her hands to her temples.
“Ellysetta!” Bel cried.
«Shei’tani!»
She clenched her jaw and fought to keep from screaming. «It’s not me. It’s Lathiel. He’s in such pain. Oh, gods, it hurts. It hurts.»
“Fey!” Rain shouted. “Sel cha!Unless you see your target, throw black, not red! They havedahl’reisenwith them!”
Behind the slaindahl’reisen, the now-visible Elden archers fired a barrage of arrows towards the Fey, while two Primages loosed large, blue-white globes of Mage Fire as cover. The third Primage spun Azrahn to open a portal to the Well of Souls. Fey’cha rained down upon the Eld, but the Mages and most of the archers leapt to safety into the Well before the Fey daggers hit their marks.
At the sight of the Mages, hot anger sparked to life deep inside her, and a familiar voice hissed,Vengeance. Vengeance. Make them pay for what they’ve done.She clapped frantic hands over her ears and cried, “Stop it!”
Another demon spawned barely two man lengths from her, and twolu’tandied before her quintet vanquished the dark thing with blazing tenfold weaves.
