Chapter 25: The Shape of Battle.

The sound of the horn split the night in two. I had heard many warhorns in my time, and they had carried a different weight. The weight of ten thousand demons moving as one.

The sound of this horn was different. It carried a single high note, one that seemed to fill the space we were all in. The warhorns of my horde had a rather simple purpose -to announce that we were here, and that all resistance was meaningless. I thought the message of this horn was just as simple. We are already here.

The soldiers moved before the shrill note died. Every man and woman in the column was on his feet and armed within three breaths. Whatever else I thought of these people, their soldiers were drilled. I would give them that much. I hurriedly pressed the egg back into the satchel, feeling its warmth through the cloth. It pulsed once and I pressed it tighter against my side.

“Formation!” The Inker’s voice cracked across the camp. The man had hurried out of his tent, and both of his marks were blazing -the horned shape and the plant. “Men! Form a damned ring around the Consecrated! Nothing touches them! If its between protecting them and death, then I hope you all remember the oaths you took!”

Many of the soldiers surrounded us at that. No soldiers became four soldiers, and then four became six became eight, and they formed a wall of silver armor on every side of us. The firelight from our modest camp caught their weapons and made them gleam. This was a cage, of a kind. One meant to protect us, rather than do anything else.

“Lys.” Ash was beside me, her sword already drawn. Her voice was low and steady. “Stay close.”

“I am not the one who needs protecting,” I said. This was not entirely true. My mana reserves were not what I would have liked. I hadn’t had time to draw it in properly. I had enough to use Ruin or Bloom almost a dozen or so times, little more. I felt the egg pulse again. Perhaps Ash’s unneeded concern was not quite so unneeded.

The first attackers came from the treeline to the west. I saw them before the soldiers did, because I had spent centuries watching things emerge from darkness. They were not what I expected.

They were humans, that was the first thought. But they were strange for humans. They had brightly colored hair in fiery reds or deep blues or forest greens. Even some bright pinks. They had eyes that glowed in the night and skin that was just a shade too bright or dark. No humans I had seen had ever looked like that. Demonbloods, that soldier had muttered. I suspected this was what he meant.

There were two dozen of them, perhaps more, pouring from the trees in a loose formation. They wore mismatched armour made of leathers and scavenged pieces that did not match. Their weapons were similarly varied and similarly shabby looking.

Their marks were far more impressive. The closest fighter was a Demonblood woman with hair the color of ash and the faintest nubs where horns might have been. On her forearms, her two marks went beyond simple Lines. The ink had spread in branching patterns, outward from the central stroke. Many of the soldiers around me had marks like these. They were the next stage from Line -I was sure of it.

More fighters followed her. A Demonblood man with gleaming silver eyes. He was tall and had a glowing red mark that had filled into a solid shape on his left arm. It was in the shape of a flame. His sword was wreathed in a fire that burned deep red, and the fire was not separate from the blade. When he swung, the arc it cut through the air shot forth gouts of fire that traveled in the same arc.

To his left, I saw someone else, a girl, one who couldn’t have been much older than Sara, riding a massive green wolf made of light. The wolf darted forward like a thing alive. It dodged attacks from the rear and lunged at unsuspecting men. Its motions were fluid, and the little girl was laughing. I could not help but suspect that she was not controlling this creature. The wolf snarled, and one of the nearest men simply fell to his knees, though there had been no attack that I could see.

Even here, even now, the hunger for knowledge in me was sharp. These people carried power I did not yet understand, arranged in stages the Inker had refused to share with me. The silver soldiers themselves had their own matching powers as they met the line of Demonbloods, in as many varieties. At least two men’s bodies were wreathed in strange blue flame as they charged forward.

“The mana,” Ash whispered next to me. Ash had felt it too then.

“It’s heavier,” I whispered back.

The power these fighters, and all of the soldiers, wielded was denser than what we had been drawing from the air. It was not quite as heavy as the mana of the old world, but it was thicker than anything I had felt in this time. There was a weight to it. No, that was the smallest part of the strangeness. All of the mana around me had a flavor. I did not know mana could have one. The air tasted of fire and wind and lightning and other things besides.

This had to be what the Inker had called Essence. The power he had refused to explain on the road. Whatever it was, everyone but the two of us had it.

The battle was not kind to the warriors who came from the forest. For all their different powers, the fighters were both outnumbered and outcoordinated. The silver soldiers fought in groups of three. One man would charge forward, one man would cover him from the rear with long range attacks. One man would stand between the two, offering support to whichever needed it.

The fire-swordsman cut down one soldier and a second closed the gap before the blood had hit the ground. The first soldier was already healed, his entire body glowing with brilliant green light.

The girl with the green wolf was driven back by two men working in concert, lightning arcing from their outstretched fingers. Another one was covering both of them, keeping the wolf from flanking either. The girl had to pull back, lest she get surrounded. Everywhere I looked, the outcome was the same. These Demonbloods had impressive powers, and yet they weren’t nearly impressive enough. It was a rather pitiful attack.

The soldier standing directly in front of me buckled backward. A sharp spear of rock had pierced his silver breastplate, lifting him off his feet and pinning him in the air. Blood sprayed in a hot, messy arc, dotting the dirt inches from my shoes. The spear retreated. He hit the ground and did not rise.

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For a fraction of a second, the ring around us broke. A Demonblood man with wild blue hair met my eyes through the gap, raising a rusted axe. The axe was glowing blue. I could hear the crackle of lightning from the steel. Damn it. I raised my right hand.

Before he could swing or before I could use Ruin, Ash stepped into the breach, her sword parrying the blow with a screech of steel. She was pushed back, but she’d bought time. A heartbeat later, two silver soldiers stepped up, ran the attacker through, and the wall closed again.

I stepped back, my heart beating faster than it should have. “You alright?” Ash asked, having to shout to be heard.

“Yes,” I said. I did not need her help…but I did not mind it. I watched past the perimeter again.

More of these attackers died. I watched them die, until their two dozen had been cut down by a fourth.