KESTREL watched Gaspar's demons zoom in for their first attack and held his breath. His pulse raced. What he had chosen to do was right, but he could not keep the chilling reality of the most likely outcome from his thoughts. Even with a score of wizards from each of the realms of men, fey, and skyskirr, Elezar's forces were spread far too thin. The hastily constructed inner sphere of lesser devils that faced the lightning djinns was outnumbered at least three to one.
Kestrel pressed his foot down on the unseen blackness beneath him, still not quite believing it was there. He and the legion of reticulates stood in relative darkness on what Elezar had called an unoccupied node. Scattered throughout the realm were many such points, the prince has said, loci that remained fixed in the sky and did not fall toward whatever tugged on everything from below. On them, the djinns and lesser devils accumulated and weaved their meager treasures of matter, transforming the blank nothingness into elegant distractions that forestalled the great monotony. Kestrel pushed aside the wonder of it all. For now, although surrounded by Gaspar's forces like the rest, Abel and the others were ready to act in synchrony, and that was all that mattered.
Near the center of the spheres of converging attackers, not far from Astron's lair, Elezar blazed with a brilliant light, no longer hiding, but daring Gaspar to come forward. In the direction of Palodad's domain Kestrel had deliberately posted the fewest of the defenders in the hopes that, when the lightning djinns did swoop for the kill, their path would be directly through the middle of the two lines of waiting warriors.
The already-bright sky suddenly blossomed into splashes of intense color. Simultaneously, Gaspar's lieutenants unleashed bolts of searing energy at those who rose to fight them. Kestrel saw two devils and a smaller demon immediately enveloped in crackling tendrils of plasma, their shrieks of pain blotted by the rumble of the blow. He clenched his fists. Soon, one way or another, he would experience the fate of the hero.
More demons streaked outward, ducking past the spray of ichor and bone and launching strikes of their own. Behind them, broodmothers beat the air with heavy wings, carrying wizards in their outstretched talons. Gaspar's lesser devils swooped in behind their lieutenants, eyes wide with the choice of targets and sticky drool streaming from their chins as they contemplated the lust of battle.
Bursts of light flashed into incandescence. Kestrel had to shield his eyes with upflung arms. Three more defenders exploded in balls of boiling flesh, then a half dozen more. The deep booming laugh of Gaspar's lieutenants resonated with the rolling echoes of the explosions.
Still Elezar's defenders rose to meet the attack. The broodmothers climbed unrelentingly upward and the wizards they carried projected their wills. Kestrel saw the arm of one of Gaspar's lieutenants suddenly jerk in a spasm. A half-formed streak of energy sputtered and flew wide of its mark. The djinn scowled and turned his head to launch another bolt at the one who had interfered with his thoughts. Before he could, a brown-skinned devil soared past his outflung arm, blasting out with three sharp stabs of crackling pain. Elezar's smaller devils closed in on the mightier djinns. Even tiny imps harried them in vicious swirls, biting earlobes and cheeks when flailing hands could not keep them away.
But then a random blast ricocheted from a defensive shield and struck a wizard from the realm of the skyskirr squarely in the chest. One of Gaspar's minions shook his head at the sudden release from sluggishness. With a wild yell, he waved to the others, indicating whom they should attack.
All around the enveloping sphere, the word passed as fast as the bolts of plasma. Elezar's demons were ignored; the strikes were aimed at the broodmothers and the loads that they carried. The defending demons swooped to intercept the new focus of attack, but the first were blasted out of the way. One wizard fell, then two more. The others tried to maintain their concentration, but each misdirected bolt now did not stray as far from its intended target. The uprush of defenders halted. Gradually they began to give ground.
The warriors on the dark node stirred uncomfortably, but Kestrel indicated for them to be still. He glanced at Elezar and then back to the crumbling defense. Just as it looked as if the thin surface of protection would be pierced in a half dozen places, he saw the prince give the sign. The broodmothers and other demons along the deliberately weakened corridor suddenly turned in mid-flight and began to dive. With wings folded, they plunged toward Elezar, shooting directly between Kestrel and the two lines of reticulates.
For a moment Gaspar's minions hesitated. Then, with a shout of triumph, they came plunging after. The lieutenants saw the collapse. As Kestrel had hoped, they abandoned their own battles to join in the destruction of Elezar the prince. In an undisciplined riot, the mighty djinns circled to where the resistance had suddenly become nonexistent and poured down the corridor, striving to be the first to strike a blow at the one who waited below.
Elezar released two tremendous blasts of power of his own just as the first of Gaspar's devils sailed into Kestrel's midst, forcing them to stop and hastily throw up their wings to shield off the blast.
"Now," Kestrel shouted. "Demon of many heads, close your ranks just as we have planned."
The reticulates on the ends of the two rows nearest the djinns smartly heeled and rotated their lines inward. Like the lid of a box, in synchronized step they closed off the path to Elezar, presenting a perfect repetition of the lines that flanked the demons on either side.
More of Gaspar's lieutenants raced up in a flurry of wings. Crashing into one another, they looked puzzled at the silent lines of men linked together and marching in perfect step.
"And the bottom," Kestrel shouted when the last of a dozen had come. "Seal the one remaining means of escape and then they are ours. What can be the hope of a single djinn, no matter how mighty, against a foe with eight score heads and twice as many arms with which to unleash his awesome power?"
Kestrel bit his lip as he peered over Abel's shoulder. The lines of reticulates swung shut just as had the ones in front. For a precious moment, none of the djinns within the box moved or released any of their energy.
"Yes, eight score bodies all connected into one," Kestrel prattled on. "It must be so. Look at the unity in movement. Surely that would be impossible if each were somehow disjoined. One hundred and sixty torsos and hence one hundred and sixty times the strength. You have met your superior, minions of Gaspar. Surrender now so you can observe the extent of this power."
Kestrel reviewed his logic quickly. The demon mind freezes with the unusual, and it does not immediately consider the possibility of falsehood. With just a moment's more hesitation, a major part of Gaspar's strength would be neutralized.
"Inward with swords drawn," Kestrel commanded. "They will not resist one obviously mightier, one who cannot be brought down, no matter what happens to a single limb."
For a moment the lieutenants remained silent and unmoving, almost mesmerized by the cadence of the reticulates' march. Then one shook his head. What looked like a jagged bolt of blue lightning arched from his fingertips toward the warrior who was closest.
The reticulate exploded backward from the line with blood boiling from his chest, but he did not cry out. The line immediately closed and, in perfect cadence, resumed the march inward toward the puzzled djinns.