I am not my uncle!
I swung my blade and killed two of them with one stroke.
So much blood. Arboris and the others were approaching in a V-shaped formation, Arboris in the lead. The dragons were already attacking in full force, now that my friends were out of the way. They were blasting with sound that shot kobolds and trolls and keiler flying up into the air to crash back into the ground, where they remained, motionless. And the fire-breathers shot out their flames, burning the enemy into submission.
As I chopped away at the keiler, I realized something was wrong. There were two missing from behind Arboris. Woltan and Elias.
Woltan?
Gerard. We found him on the other side of the tree. I’m with Elias. We need help. He has conjured a demon.
There was a great roar then, that knocked everyone askance.
It wasn’t a dragon, either.
It’s a djinn and he’s bigger than Adalbjorn.
I turned to Ulrike. We need to get your father back in the tree and help them.
The others had arrived. Arboris and Cullen and the twins put their backs to each other, and then we were fighting on all sides, the king standing between us.
Ulrike nodded. Now is the time. Connect with me kinsmen, and I will speak a word of power. She reached out and touched my hand. Her sword hand moved her blade, and she spoke a word, mid-stroke, and the word moved out of my mouth, and came from the twins and Arboris as well.
Zuruck!
A blast of force hit all around us, and the enemy fell ten paces back among themselves, in a shrieking jumble of keiler and kobold. Only one troll was left standing. My blade spun, and the Troll fell.
To the tree! The tree mother will heal him.
We ran then, Arboris carrying Ulrike’s father, his twin nephews Lars and Gustaf on either side, Cullen behind, me ahead with Ulrike.
We stopped short right at the entrance of the tree.
There were demons at the tree base, large and red and amorphous. To my two eyes they looked like large red blobs, but when I opened my third eye they were gigantic, and clearly focused. Almost as big as the dragons, taller than the lower tree branches, they were covered with teeth and claws. Their great arms reached up around the tree, keeping any energy from going in or out, while their great teeth gnawed at the tree trunk, and their clawed feet tore at the roots down in the ground. They smelled horribly strong of sulfur, of death and of decay.
That is why more of my kinsmen have not joined the fight. They are trapped in our tree, suffocating under this demon stench.
Lars and Gustaf uttered a cry of rage.
To Our KIN! To the TREE MOTHER!
They ran forward and hacked at the demons, their blades drawn.
But it was like blades running through smoke. Their blades hit nothing, did no damage. Then a mouth reached out from the demon, and bit one of the twins on the arm. He screamed, and his twin screamed, and then they were both down on the ground.
I drew my sword. There was a word of power, somewhere, that I needed. Carolina came into my mind. She was not smiling, and she did not block my vision.
These are upper level demons. I cannot destroy them, and neither can you. The best you can hope is to banish them to another plane, and to do that you will need the combined will of all of your sorcerers here and your dragons. There are the two you can see, and a third attacking Woltan and Elias on the other side of the tree. Your blood knows the song that will send them out of this plane, but they will only go if more voices sing it. You must bring everyone in with you, together.
Yesenia, Woltan, Dragons, Friends, join your minds with me!
I felt the dragons tune in, Woltan and Elias came in last, fighting their demon with all their strength, and then I opened my mouth, and I felt their mouths open too, and nothing came out…
The demon in front of me turned its eyes to me, and laughed. Your uncle sends his greetings, little one.
I felt rage, the rage of the wronged, as my blood moved within me. The connection was breaking up, but I held on and pulled it tight and opened my mouth a second time and this time song radiated out from my whole body. The land shook with it, the great voices of the dragons thundered my song so loud that the rock deep beneath the topsoil shook with it; the tree rocked with the song but did not break, and everyone in the field was frozen, friend and enemy, caught up in the music.
Then there was a great howl. One, then, two, then three, and then I felt what could only be a great rift in the planes. There was a tearing, and a pushing. The demons howled one last time, and then they were on their way out of this