Miranda gave him a beaming smile. "It's not often a girl gets complimented on her mind and her cleavage in the same breath. I feel honored."

"Save it and tell us what's going on," Jula said impatiently.

"Well, we all know that this is a battle of magic," she told them, pointing to the image in his magical disc. "Triana's sending that thing out first, because only the Demons can do anything about it, since its sheer size makes most magic useless against it. That keeps them pinned with the army. As soon as it starts stomping on the enemy, Shiika is supposed to summon the Demons that hate the Demons on their side, and hope that they'll get in the first shot while the Demons are trying to slow down Triana's little surprise." She tossed her hair back over her shoulder. "With any luck, they'll keep the Demons too busy to break down the walls, and that'll force the ki'zadun to attempt an assault to compromise the wall."

They watched through the magical viewing disc as the Elemental lumbered across the empty no-man's land between the walls and the amassed army, but the Demons did not move to attack the great hulking monstrosity. They all suddenly rushed forward in a single wave, a terrifying howling mass of anticipation, going right by the Elemental.

"Oh dear, Darvon was afraid that might happen," Miranda said soberly. "It's a good thing he planned for this possibility. Shiika should be conjuring up the Demons working on our side about now." She chuckled humorlessly. "I never thought I'd say that."

"It's like the Blood War all over again," Jula said nervously. "Demons fighting on native soil, but this time, they're going to be fighting one another."

In a great shower of sparks and smoke, Demons began to appear outside the city walls of Suld. They were of the same basic types as the Demons charging towards them, and there were very nearly as many facing them as there were charging forward. Tarrin immediately had a very bad feeling about this. He trusted Shiika, at least after a fashion, but he wasn't sure about this. For a long moment, it hung there as to what the summoned Demons were going to do, until they too surged forward in hideous cries of hatred, seeking out that particular Demon they had been summoned to destroy.

They clashed on the fallow farmland outside the city, and it was horrendous enough for them to hear it in the courtyard. Screaming, shrieking, howling monsters attacked one another with claws and fangs, fists and pincers, not even trying to battle with magic. Tarrin found himself repulsed by the scene as the creatures tore into one another with absolute wild abandon, knowing that even if they were destroyed, it would do nothing but send their spirits back to the Abyss unharmed. Black blood flew, even as bits of putrid flesh and even entire limbs were torn from Demons, to disintegrate into that horrid black ichor that burned and melted into the ground. For long moments it went on like that, until ki'zadun Wizards stepped up and began attacking the opposing Demons with magic. Wizard magic could affect Demons, as it was what was used to bring them to their dimension to begin with, and with their help, the ki'zadun's Demons began turning the short, ugly battle in their favor.

"Damn," Miranda muttered. "Phandebrass said that would happen, but they didn't want to listen to him. I told them to put a few Wizards at the wall."

"Now what?" Tarrin asked.

"Now the walls brace for the Demons," she replied. "They'll tear a hole in the wall and enter the city. Our troops have been told to let them go by without attacking them, and then prepare to meet the assault of the troops that will come in behind them. The Demons are going to come straight here, and this is where the Wizards will attack them."

But things didn't quite happen that way at first. In a sudden withering storm of projectiles, many of the Wizards attacking the Demons were felled by arrows. Tarrin looked up from the disc, since they had come from above, and he saw the Aeradalla. They were very, very high over the battlefield, well out of range of any magic or missle, so high up that the winged creatures on the other side would have to climb for a long time to reach them. They were firing down on the Wizards, using their superior vision and their outstanding skill and knowledge of firing their crossbows at extreme distances. They had probably been circling up there in the darkness before sunrise, at least a longspan over the battlefield, waiting for their opportunity to attack. The Aeradalla had taken their shot, and now they all turned and dove back over the city wall as winged creatures simply appeared just behind where they had been-the winged Demons-and then dove to give chase. Tarrin realized for a moment that there was nothing to stop those flying Demons from reaching the Tower-

– -and then they began to fall from the sky.

Tarrin used the viewing disc to get a view of it. Shiika and her Cambisi had appeared in the midst of the flying Demons, those vulture ones and the ones with the horrid tusks, and they assaulted them with what looked like long spears. They had appeared out of thin air within striking distance, then they drove the spears into the backs or sides of the Demons, and then vanished to attack the next. The Demons suddenly scattered in every direction, some of them vanishing just as they had appeared, but those that did not, those that kept after the Aeradalla, were systematically eradicated.

"Shiika used something to keep the Demons from teleporting into the city, but she also figured out a way to allow her and her daughters to get around that," Miranda told him. "If they're over the city, they can slaughter any flying Demon and probably get away with it without being touched." He saw what she meant. There was one particularly large one over the city, and all six of them were attacking it with their long spears, jabbing it again and again. Every time it tried to turn on one of them, that Cambisi simply vanished from sight, to reappear somewhere else and just within the reach of her long spear. The six of them harried the monster mercilessly, until a large gout of black blood erupted from its neck, and the thing began to dissolve into black ichor even as it fell from the sky.

"I didn't know that they could do that," Tarrin said in surprise. "They never used that power against me."

"Only Shiika can teleport. She said that could use a spell to give her daughters that power for a limited time. Shiika said that the Cambisi don't have any of the Demonic powers in our world. They'd have those powers in the Abyss, but not here."

"I wonder why."

"Well, you can track down one of those Demons and ask it," Jula said shortly.

Tarrin felt a sudden influx in the Weave, and realized that Jenna had begun to assemble her Circle. Jula gasped and looked up, then stared at Tarrin in surprise. "What is that? The Weave is, I don't know what it's doing."

"Jenna is building the Circle," he said grimly. "She's getting ready to attack."

Jesmind came over and looked into the disc. "It looks like they are too," she announced, pointing at the disc's image. The landbound Demons had destroyed their attackers, but at a massive cost. There were only about twenty Demons left on the battlefield, and all of them were showing the extent of the viciousness of their fight with their own kind.

"She's not going to attack. She's supposed to erect a Ward that will eliminate all magic except Sorcery that tries to cross it, and smother any magic except Sorcery from being used within it. Those Demons didn't use magic against each other, but they will when they attack the wall. Jenna is supposed to stop that, force them to try to tear down the walls with muscle instead of magic."

"Clever," Jula said appreciatively.

"When she finishes the Ward, then she's supposed to start destroying anything not a Demon that tries to come at the walls."