"I thought you were dead!" he gasped.

"It's possible to kill through the mind, but it's not easy," she said to him with a sudden grin. "It just took me a while to shake off the defeat, that's all. I guess I must have looked dead." Her grin faded as she realized that he was weeping. "Tears, for me? I'm very touched, Were-cat," she said gently. "But a little misplaced. I took on the marilith through the mind, knowing that she wouldn't be able to kill me with her swords. And I knew someone would come along behind me and keep her from finishing me off," she winked. "You know, the desperate defense of the fallen sacrificial lamb, and that sort of thing."

Tarrin laughed helplessly. Goddess, but Demons were cunning little things! "Thalia, you're just like your mother."

"Thank the pit. At least that means that I was paying attention when she taught me."

Tarrin laughed again, and then they struggled to help each other up. Tarrin was exhausted, totally drained, both physically and emotionally, after everything that had happened, but the result did seep through that as he saw the fruits of their labor and preparation. The enemy forces had been destroyed on their side of the fence, and the survivors were fleeing back into the city, leaving their screaming comrades still trapped on the fence behind. The loss of the marilith had crushed the will to fight out of them, and now they were running away in a full rout.

At least on their front, the battle had been won.

Now it fell to Kang and Darvon to win their battles, and the war would be over.

The battle at the breach in the fence was pitched and furious.

The remaining Wizards for the enemy were all concentrated there, and they used their magic liberally to burn at the palisade, to force the defenders away from the breastwork long enough for the soldiers crawling across the ditch to gain a foothold on that side of the ditch. The Sorcerers were taken aback by the flurry of magic, but then formed a Circle with Sevren leading and choked off the Wizards' powers, eliminating their advantage. It turned into a bloody stalemate as ki'zadun and the defenders exchanged blows over the palisade, neither side able to gain enough of an advantage to either push the attackers back or breach the lines of the defenders.

But that changed when Shiika and her lone Cambisi daughter entered the fray. Safe from Wizard spells, they waded over the palisade and attacked the ki'zadun with swords, and proved to be as devastating to the ki'zadun as the marilith had been against the Knights and Vendari. Neither of them even bothered to defend themselves, they hacked wildly at the men before them. They were invulnerable to the weapons of their enemies, and that protection proved fatal for the men facing the two Demonesses. They cut a huge swath through their opponents, pushing the ki'zadun back to the ditch where they were fighting. It went on like that for long moments, until the two of them pulled back to the defender's side of the palisade and took a short break to rest.

The stalemate raged even as the bodies began to pile up on both sides of the palisade. Kang engaged the enemy personally at the center of the lines, taking his own turn at the forefront of the breastwork to keep the enemy on the other side of it. The short Arakite proved to be a deadly warrior, a master of his longsword and the doom of every man who came up against him. Kang was a fencer, using his sword in light, delicate movements to brush aside the opposing weapon and deliver a lethal stab to the throat or chest, or a killing slash over the head, neck, or upper belly. The ground on the other side of the palisade from Kang began to pile up with the bodies of his opponents, and with his help, the line remained strong and unbroken.

About that time, one Wizard appeared to be up to something. It was a tall, emaciated man that looked like a walking cadaver, wearing black robes and carrying a black steel rod. He rose it up and began to chant in a strong voice, and it was apparent from the shocked looks on the faces of the Sorcerers that this was magic they couldn't counter. When the realization that this was the one that rose all the undead that Darvon's men were currently fighting reached through the lines, there was a sudden tension on their side. But the Knights and Vendari were too seasoned, too well trained to run away. They simply prepared themselves to face a newly populated force with plenty of undead. But when they realized that the dead on their side had been carried off the field, behind the lines, there was a sudden panicked call to decapitate all the dead before they woke up to attack them from behind.

Kang swore. If they raised all the dead, his forces would be surrounded!

For several seconds, it hung there, dead silence except for the chanting of the thin Wizard. But then a strangled cry issued forth from beyond the fence, then another, and then another, and the thin Wizard suddenly stopped chanting, and it was apparent that he didn't do it because the spell was over. A figure exploded from the ranks of the men around the thin man, a man wearing armor that was polished so much that it shone brilliantly in the noontime sun, almost like polished silver. The Wizard seemed to recoil from the armored warrior in the worst way, looking to be in total terror of the man, and then he turned to run from him. But the armored warrior moved with blazing speed, was upon him in five steps, and slashed that sword down the back of the Wizard. The Wizard shrieked in agony, fell to the ground and writhed in intense pain, trying to reach behind him to the wound. A wound that, Kang saw when he climbed atop the palisade and watched, bled with such profusion that it had to be unnatural. The armored figure stood over him, cackling in glee, then sliced him again on the side, then again on the arm, then again on the leg, light wounds, little more than scratches, that bled so liberally that it looked like the blood was fountaining out of the man like a geyser. Absolute silence swept over the field, except for the cackling of the man and the screams of the Wizard.

"Jegojah, he knew the Sorcerers would block yer magic, yes," the armored man hissed in delight. "Does it hurt, Kravon? Promised ye, Jegojah did, that Jegojah would bleed ye and watch ye die. Oh, and promised, Jegojah did, to cut ye for the Were-cat." He put a boot on the Wizard's neck to stop his thrashing, then dropped the tip of his sword down and, quite deliberately, raked it across the eyes of the Wizard, putting them out. "Now then, Jegojah hopes that ye don't die too quickly. Too long has Jegojah waited to avenge himself against ye, yes. Entertain Jegojah, Wizard, before we both go on to our final reward."

The wizard thrashed on the ground with his hands over his face, blood spewing from between his fingers like a crimson waterfall. As they all watched, Vendari, Knight, ki'zadun, Sorcerer, and Wizard alike, the thrashing and convulsions of the man on the ground grew weaker and weaker as a pool of red formed around him, soaking into the cobblestones of the street. The man's pale skin became pale white, and he moved with only the feeblest jerks, whimpering incoherently. And then he moved no more. The blood stopped flowing, flesh turning gray, and Kang realized with some reserve that somehow, every drop of blood had been leeched out of the man's body.

There was only the cackling laughter of the armored man, and that abruptly stopped. The man saluted the defenders with his sword and called to them. "Tell the Were-cat that Jegojah got their man," he said to them. "Tell him that Jegojah, he wishes him good luck and Gods' speed on his journey. Tell him that Jegojah bids farewell."

And then the man simply collapsed.

They watched his body crumple to the ground, and nobody did anything for a very long moment. And then, like a sudden tide, all the Wizards on the far side of the field turned and began to run away. Seeing their Wizards break, the footsoldiers turned and fled back over the ditch, back out of the breached fence, running without formation or discipline out into the city. It was a rout.