, General Bragg, she answered.  Send for Kang immediately, General!  This Demon is not a general you take for granted!  And have Sarraya inform Tarrin she is here!
	General?  That womans leadin the enemy army?
	And she will do it flawlessly, General Bragg! Dolanna warned.  Have Kang join us immediately, General!  It will take both of you to best this one on a battlefield!
	That didnt seem to be necessary, for Kang was thundering in on his Pegasus as fast as the animal would carry him.  Dolanna, is that who I think it is? he shouted before he got there.
	It is, General Kang!
	Recall all available reserves from the Iron Mountain AT ONCE! Kang boomed in a mighty voice.  Binter!  Binter!
	It was sudden chaos as Kang issued twenty commands in the span of two heartbeats, and without consulting General Bragg.  The Dwarves seemed reluctant at first to obey, but a voice that cracked like a whip motivated them into obedience, as Kang issued his orders in a blistering voice that would make his own mother jump to obey.  Kang quickly reorganized the entire front line, and pulled them all back behind the log wall.
	Sarraya! Kang screamed.  Sarraya, go back to Tarrin and tell him that ShazBaket is commanding the enemy army!  We need him down here with us immediately!  Binter, pull back the Vendari and the Knights behind the front lines and be ready to move quickly to any part of the lines where youre needed!  And send a runner to recall Tsukatta immediately!  Hes with the third reserve brigade!
	This goes against our plan, Bragg protested.
	We need to change the plan, Kang spat.  Ive faced this one before, Bragg.  Shes as dangerous as they come.  We made our plans based on the assumption wed be facing a human general!  This ones smarter than any human general the One has at his disposal, and shes not going to make this easy!  We can still win, but its not going to happen the way we had it planned!
	Its so nice to be appreciated, a disembodied voice purred maliciously between the Arakite and the Dwarven generals.
	I hope you brought lots of corpse carts, ShazBaket, Kang grated in reply.  And youre a fool for revealing your ability to eavesdrop.
	Oh come now, Ive looked forward to this moment for years, Kang, she answered eagerly.  Ive never forgiven you for defeating me at Suld.  I know it was you who commanded the armies.  Now Im here to exact my revenge by defeating you and your Dwarven alliesand Ill do it without any additional help.  What does it prove to beat you when I know your plan?  So go ahead and make your plans, make sure I cant pick them up.  I want you to come at me with everything youve got, human, and then Ill grind you into the dust.  Ill show you, Ill show EVERYONE, that I am the superior commander! she screamed hysterically.  Today I regain my respect!  Today I prove that no human can defeat me on the field of battle!  Come, Kang!  Come and taste your death!
	There was protracted silence.  Kang looked back to the magicians, and Neh nodded as if to say that ShazBaket could no longer hear what was being said.  I think shes a bit irritated, he said with mild amusement, but his face was grim.
	Yeve faced her before, eh? Bragg asked.
	He nodded.  Many years ago.  She came this close to winning that battle, he said, holding his thumb and forefinger a hairs breadth apart.  Shes one of the most brilliant military minds Ive ever had to face, Bragg, and I wont deny it.  If you wanted a war, my friend, you just got one.
	If yeve fought her before, then Id say that ye should have complete command, he said with respect in his voice.  Ye have the advantage of experience.
	Thats gracious of you, General, Kang said with a grave nod.  But I didnt beat her alone last time, and I wont beat her alone this time.  We had quite a few gifted strategists that day.  In actuality, it wasnt me who beat ShazBaket that day, it was Queen Keritanima-Chan Eram.  She made a critical tactical decision on the battlefield that turned out to bring us victory in the end.
	Well, be that as it may, what do ye suggest we do?
	First, force her to commit her Demons to the battle.  She has them hidden somewhere.  And theres only one way that we can do that without exposing our forces to her numerical advantage.
	All of them looked back to the Iron Mountain, their eyes affixed to the summit.
	He parks himself between us and the enemy.  Shed be a maniac to send her human soldiers with him standing in the way in dragon form.  He just has to be close enough so the magicians can assist him when she sends her Demons to attack.
	Aye, thats sound thinking, Bragg agreed with a nod.
	Uh, Kang, Ulger said grimly.  You think Sarraya got up there yet?
	I doubt it, Ulger.  Why?
	Because here he comes! he shouted, pointing to the sky.
	They all looked up and saw a huge dragon descending from the mountains peak.  But where usually golden scales would shimmer in the morning sun, now blue scales shone in the dawns light, and a sleeker head, with more slender horns and a more rounded snout, topped the draconic body.  The blue dragon bellowed a keening cry full of rage and fury, and it adjusted its speeding dive to angle itself directly into the forces of the enemydirectly at ShazBaket.
	He knows she is here! Dolanna screamed in fear.  Kang, Tarrin is out of this battle!
	What do ye mean? Bragg asked as Kang swore sulfurously.
	Tarrin and the Demoness have a long personal history, Dolanna answered.  He will stop at nothing to kill her, no matter what it takes.  The very sight of her puts him into a rage!  He will ignore all commands until she is dead!
	Well, at least hell keep her busy, Kang said darkly.  She might have trouble leading her forces with Tarrin chasing her around the battlefield. Set pikes and prepare to stand fast! Kang boomed.
	DolannaI think ShazBaket made herself noticeable on purpose, Kimmie said fearfully.  I think she meant to draw Tarrin out.
	I know, dear one, but there is nothing we can now, she said fretfully.  She will send her Demons after him.  We can only hope he is strong enough to escape the trap she has baited with her own body.

	With a roar that thundered across the valley, the blue dragon screamed over the reserves and the front lines of the Dura, creating a powerful backdraft of wind with his passing, so low to the ground that the tips of his wings nearly brushed the hillsides that formed the narrow valley between them.  He careened into flat plain beyond those hillsides, his maw open and ready to swallow the Demon whole.
	She gave an evil smile, but that smile turned to a horrified expression when the boundary of Tarrins Ward, centered on himself, that prevented Demons from using their innate power to teleport away, washed over her.  And then she sensed the second Ward created within the first, a Ward that would kill any Demon who touched it.
	But that Ward touched ShazBaket, and seemed to waver, to encounter some vast power that rose to oppose it.  It buckled under the pressure of that massive power, and then was broken.
	ShazBaket was protected by some strange power, and that protection saved her from instant death.
	Even without the instant death, the power that protected ShazBaket from the killing Ward did nothing to disrupt the Ward that prevented her from teleporting to safety.  The Demoness turned and desperately lunged aside even as Tarrins jaws snapped shut, moving just fast enough to save herself from a much more agonizing but no less final instant death.
	The dragon crashed into the ground, unable to pull out of his dive, moving with such speed that he slid almost a quarter of a longspan, losing scales as his massive form plowed the ground.  An entire formation of the Ones soldiers vanished in a cloud of dust and an earth-shaking crashing roar, crushed and mangled into unrecognizable forms by the tons and tons of weight that drove them beneath it.
	For a moment, there was stunned silence, only the echoes of the impact with the ground bouncing off the mountains to the north.  The cloud of dust expanded and ascended into the air, but then it suddenly shuddered, contracted, and then was torn apart by massive wings.  The blue dragon appeared within the remnants of the cloud of dust, its sleek form marred with patches of lost scales, and gruesome dark stains that were all that was left of some of the soldiers that were crushed under it when it slid across the earth.  There was nothing but a deep, wide scar in the grassy plain leading to the dragons form.
	Almost as soon as Tarrin regained his feet, hundreds of Demons simply appeared all around him, but beyond the perimeter of his Ward, some hundred spans away in every direction.  Demons of all kinds, from demi-Demon manes even to two mighty balor, forming an encompassing ring around him.  Every single one of them was armed with a twenty span long lance, the shafts made of wood or bone or metal or other materials, but all were capped with a three-barbed spearhead that was sleek and deadly, specifically made to punch through the scales of a dragon and get hung up inside the flesh by the barbs.  Human soldiers lost their discipline and fled in terror as the dragon regained its feet, struck by the terror that little races felt facing a dragon, or perhaps terrified of the Demons that were now among them.  Either way, they ran in every direction that would take them further away from the dragon.
	Tarrin made the first move.  He drew in his breath, a deep sucking sound like the rush of wind in a cave, which caused many of the Demons to surge forward almost in unison, levelling their spears at his glittering sapphire scales to try to impale him from every side.  They knew what that act heralded.  Nearly all of the higher Demons, instead of rushing forwards, began to chant in the language of Wizard magic, preparing to either attack or defend using the only asset available that might stop the breath weapon of a dragon, or stop a dragon from using it.
	But most of them were not fast enough.  With a snap forward of the neck, Tarrin unleashed a blast of intertwined bolts of lightning from his maw, which immediately fanned out to form a wide cone of devastation.  That cone was aimed directly in front of him, and it spread out in a wide arc that electrocuted dozens of Demons of various types, Demons that tried in vain to escape the blast.  He sustained the breath weapon, turning his head to the right as his body turned with it, killing more and more Demons as the ones behind and to the flanks rushed in to skewer him.
	But dragons had more weapons than just their breath weapon.
	Outside of the breath weapon, the singular most dangerous asset a dragon possessed when used against the little races was the tail.  Turning to the right caused his tail to lag behind the turn of his body, and then that two hundred span long appendage suddenly careened around his body, moving so fast that it made a crack sound like a gigantic whip.  It extended out like a gigantic sword, and many of the Demons at his rear flanks, who were so intent on impaling him with their spears, never saw it coming. Most of them were ripped in half by the sheer power behind the blow as that long tail whipped around his rear quarters, sweeping them aside like so much wheat harvested by the farmers scythe.  Those that reacted fast enough either dove to the ground or used wings or some other ability to get out of the way.
	The Demons that were on his left flank were the only ones left to attempt to impale him with their spears, but they found that he was ready for them.  Even as he turned, he brought his belly low to the ground, then folded down his left wing and pushed it against the ground well away from his body.  The Demons suddenly found their spears striking the membrane of his wing, not the scaled hide of his flank, punching through the skin of his wing but unable to find purchase in his side.  The wing flinched and shuddered as dozens of spears drove through the membrane stretched between the bones, but then all those Demons found their spears torn from their hands as the wing snapped upwards, taking those spears with it.  The barbs in them caused them to stick fast to his wing, and the Demons were not strong enough to keep hold of them.
	His turn and counterstrokes prevented a vast majority of the Demons from reaching him, but he didnt stop them all, and he had done nothing to prevent those Demons utilizing magic from completing their spells.  Several vrock and nalfeshnee who had used their wings to avoid his tail landed on his back, and drove those spears down into his armored hide, their points piercing his scales and finding yielding flesh beneath.  Those Demons casting spells completed them in a staggered procession, and the blue dragon found itself being pounded by magical missles, struck by rays of intense cold, or cones of fire, or jets of corrosive acid, or fast-moving shards of stone that cut as deeply as an arrow fired from a Sulasian longbow.  Those magical effects raced towards the dragon
	and then simply fizzled away before striking his scales.
	Those Demons who were knowledgeable in the ways of magic immediately understood what had happened.  Protecting the dragon was a Wizards spell called the anti-magic shell, an aura of utter anti-magic that destroyed any spell that entered into its area of effect.  It had no effect on Wards of Sorcery that were  outside of the area of effect of the anti-magic shell, which prevented the shell from disrupting the Wards. It also had no effect on the dragons breath weapon, which was a natural ability.  The dragon couldnt regenerate the magic that powered its breath weapons, but it could use the breath weapon that magical effect had already created.  He was simply using up his charge, and so long as the shell was in place, he couldnt recharge those reserves of lightning power.  It was a layered defense of multiple orders of magic, all designed to protect the dragon from its most dangerous enemies on the battlefieldthe Demons.
	The blue dragon whipped his head around on that long, serpentine so he was looking down his own back, then unleashed another blast of intertwined bolts of lighting.  Those bolts struck his scales and danced along them like water on a sizzling fry pan, doing him no harm, but when they struck the Demons on his back, still holding onto their spears to try to drive them deeper and deeper into his flesh, they found targets not immune to their formidable power.  Those Demons on his back were electrocuted by the power of his breath weapon, and all were thrown from him as if struck by a gigantic hammer, smoke issuing from their fur, scales, or mangy skin.
	The draconic eyes that turned on the nearest balor werent filled with mindless rage, but instead a cold, calculating, cunning and seething fury, the cold anger of the human lurking within Tarrin, an anger that only made him more dangerous.  ShazBaket had sought to lure him out and drive him into a rage, which would make him easier to kill.  Tarrin had used that assumption against her, and had managed to wipe out two thirds of the Demons she had summoned to deal with him after drawing him into combat.
	With an ear-splitting roar of defiance and fury, Tarrins head lanced forth, extending along that ninety span long neck to almost instantaneously close the distance between the dragons body and the balor.  The creature registered this action and moved to evade the dragon, but it was simply not fast enough.  It vaulted into the air even as Tarrin adjusted his aim, and those massive jaws snapped shut on the balor, impaling it on six-span long teeth and crushing it into an unrecognizable mass of dissolving black ichor inside the dragons mouth.  He spat out the acidic mass contemptuously even as he turned and drew in his breath once again, turning on those Demons that had been on his left flank, the ones that now no longer had the long spears that were now embedded in his left wing, spears with which to try to kill him.  Those Demons turned and fled, by either foot or wing, and as soon as they escaped the Ward that stopped them from teleporting, they vanished from sight, fleeing certain death.
	Without their magic, not even Demons were a match for the awesome might of a dragon.
	The only ones left were the stupid ones or the overly brave ones among those who had not lost their spears and had evaded his lightning and his tail, but had not fled. They continued to try to get close enough to use them, but the dragon proved that it was as swift as it was powerful.  Landbound Demons evaded swipes of his forepaws and his lethal jaws, while the Demons who could fly tried to contend with his sail-like wings and whiplike, lashing tail, which sought to swat them from the air and also served to prevent them from getting to his body.  They were working together, the Demons on the ground trying to distract him so the airborne ones could get in a killing blow, trying to turn him so a flying Demon could get over one of his blocking wings and dive down to try to drive a spear through his spine or neck.  Several times, the dragon had to quickly move to avoid one of these dives at him, hissing in pain and anger when another spear was driven into him, and another, and another, as each diving Demon tried to strike him in a vital area, but only managed to lose its spear as the dragon moved and allowed it only to wedge itself into its flesh.  The Demons on the ground tried to rush up and spear him from underneath every time he contended with a Demon diving at him from above, but those that tried were often crushed to the ground by a forepaw, or killed by that whipping tail.  They also kept his attention as the flying Demons rearmed themselves by picking up the spears of the falllen, laying all over the ground, and then returned to the air for another attempt.
	The dragon tired of their tactics and retaliated by rearing up and pounding his wings in the air, over and over, repeatedly flapping them with such power that the tortured earth around him suddenly issued forth huge clouds of stinging dirt, dust, and bits of roots and grass that were driven with the force of a sandstorm before the power of his wings.  The flying Demons could suddenly no longer see even a form as monstrous as that of the dragons in the thick soup of dirt and dust that had been kicked up by his wings, found their eyes painfully clogged with dust and grit, and found themselves flying blind.  The loud whoosh of the wings even defeated any attempt to navigate the blinding dust with sound, filling their ears with nothing but the beating of the wings against the dust-choked air.
	They did hear, however, the sudden intake of breath.
	They tried to flee, but had no bearings from which to take to escape.  Those on the ground and those in the air turned in random directions, trying to escape the Ward that prevented them from escaping using teleportation, but it wasnt fast enough.  The dragon raised his head, then unleashed his breath weapon once more.
	Not at a target, not in any specific direction, but up, and Tarrin used his control of that breath weapon to make it as wide as possible.
	The flying dust and dirt diffused that blast of bolts of lightning that this time were not intertwined, scattering the lightning, breaking the bolts apart into smaller arcs as the airborne material served as a perfect conductor to spread the charge out.  The entire cloud of dust and dirt suddenly became charged, lightning arcing through it in a wild storm of furious bolts, as the cloud of dust provided the lightning a path to ground and caused jagged arcs of lightning to cascade down from the top to the bottom in a discordant, almost frighteningly beautiful display.  The Demons within the dust cloud were electrocuted instantly, falling to the ground and dropping from the sky, leaving only the dragon, who was himself immune to the power of his own breath weapon.
	To those outside, there was a moment of eerie quiet, only the echoing thunderclap of the breath weapon bouncing back from the distant mountains.  Every eye was on that cloud of dust, and every eye flinched when that roiling mass seemed to shudder, then to buckle, and then exploded outward.  The forces of both armies then saw the blue dragon sitting sedately where it had been, head slightly bowed, as four strange forms moved quickly around its body, laboring to remove the spears that had been driven into him.  Each one was singularly unique, an amorphous mass of coherent air, an amalgamation of earth and stone that walked on two legs but had arms that would drag the ground, a winged gorilla-like construction made of pure fire, and a sleek humanoid mass of water that had fifty-span long whip-like appendages protruding from its back.  They all watched as those four things removed the spears stuck in him with both haste and efficiency, pulling them out of his back and flanks with fast jerks, pulling them out of his wings by pushing them all the way through the holes to prevent the barbs from further tearing the membranes.
	In response to this, more and more Demons appeared a distance away, armed with long spears, but behind them appeared a large number of humans, dressed in black robes and wearing collars with chains attached to them.  More Demons appeared, and more, and still more, until there were thousands of them on the field.  It was an entire formation of Demon-kin, manned primarily with the mindless, four-span tall sexless beings called manes, the weakest of all Demon-kin and what served as the numbers and the expendable arrow-fodder for their battles.
	Unable to use his rage against him, ShazBaket was resorting to sheer numbers to overwhelm the dragon, and calling on those human Wizards who had been enslaved after they summoned a Demon one time to many, and lost their souls to their former servants to break the Ward preventing teleportation, as well as to try to disrupt the anti-magic shell that protected him from their magic.
	When the last spear was removed, the dragons form suddenly dissolved into fire, then evaporated like smoke, leaving behind Tarrin Kael, holding his burning sword in both paws, hovering some hundred spans above the ground.  They watched as the fire of his sword danced along the blade and then jumped down his arms, touching on the black metal bracers that had adorned his wrists for many years, activating their final power, the power that he had never before until that day had the need to utilize.
	The bracers shuddered, then seemed to explode, becoming a fluid mass.  That fluid mass rushed up his arms with amazing speed, then covered over his chest, his torso, his hips, over his back, flowing down his legs, until all of his body except for his head was covered by the undulating, liquid metal.  That metal shuddered once more, and then shimmered with magical light for a brief instant.
	When the light faded, Tarrin Kael was adorned in a suit of black armor patterned after the armor of the Knights of Karas, upon the chest of which was the shaeram of the order of Niami contained within the chest of a dragon whose wings flared out and over his shoulders, shoulders which showed the etched relief of the sword and spear symbol of FaraNae on one shoulder, and the hammer symbol of Karas on the other.  The armor covered every square finger of him except for his head and his wings, and it glittered in the light of the morning sun.
	The armored Were-cat took up his sword in both paws and raised it over his head, which suddenly blazed forth with incandescent white light, the light of Magelight, the visible indication that Tarrin was reaching back into the realm of Sennadar and making a connection with his goddess, with his mistress, with his friend, with Niami, and it showed that she answered that plea for help without hesitation.  Tarrins wings flushed with that same color, until they were painful to look at with the naked eye.  The Magelight flowed down the hilt of the sword and covered his armor-clad paws, flowed down from his wings to dance along his back, until his entire body was outlined in a nimbus of wispy white magical energy.  That erratic nimbus seethed and writhed, and then it snapped into coherence, forming the concave four-pointed star which represented a suikun at its full potential, where mortal and god were joined in power, joined in mind, joined in soul, and united in a common interest.  Through Tarrin, Niami could now channel unlimited power into this battle, for when suikun acted within the desires of the Goddess of the Weave and with her direct blessing, their power was almost unending.
	The Demons did not wait to see what was going to happen.  They vanished in unison, guided by the telepathic commands of the marilith ShazBaket, and then reappeared at the edge of the Ward that prevented them from teleporting within its boundaries.  The instant they appeared, they charged forward with all the speed that their legs or wings or tentacles or hooves could carry them, seeking to reach the Were-cat before it could finish whatever he was doing, something that could potentially be catastrophic.  As the Demons charged, the enslaved Wizards all began chanting in the language of magic, working to breach the Ward that prevented the Demons from reaching him instantly, for he was too far away to affect directly with most magical spells of battle.
	They werent going to make it.  Tarrin dropped to the ground as his Elementals got behind him, and the concave star of the Goddess of Magic turned red, and its boundaries began to shimmer and undulate as Tarrin wove a weave of pure Air on a massive scale, a weave he had used many times before, a weave that was as devastating as it was easy to create.  In the span of two heartbeats, the weave was charged to its full potential, as that shimmering, chaotic flux of red energy seemed to freeze, and then contract around him to form a perfectly smooth, ruby-colored dome of magical light.  Most of the Demons slid to a halt, then turned and tried to flee back out of the Ward, trampling one another while the manes had not reacted to the command to flee, and continued to shamble mindlessly forward with their long spears in their hands.
	There was an earth-shaking BOOM that heralded the release of the spell, and everything in front of Tarrin simply vanished as a rush of air raced away from him at speeds that defied rational explanation, creating a shockwave of pure air that was so powerful that it shattered stone, liquified flesh, and pulverized teeth and bones into dust.  Demons simply vanished into a black spray of ichor as that shockwave blasted into them, sending a wall of dust, dirt, bits of rock, and the sundered remains of the Demonic horde roaring away on the wake of that shockwave of air.  That shockwave savaged the area before him, losing power and energy as it traveled away from him, until it was nothing more but a hurricane-force wind that knocked the enslaved Wizards from their feet, sending a roiling cloud of caustic dust into the formations of human soldiers that were set up well away from the Were-cat and the Dura, and had even while they fought been ordered to move back, to give them room, to save them for the fight with the Dwarves while the Demons and the dragon traded blows.
	Fire may be Tarrins element, but his fort in Sorcery had always been an affinity for Air weaves.
	But the opposition scored its own victory in that exchange.  Tarrin felt the integrity of his Ward shudder, and then tear as one of the enslaved human Wizards managed to complete his incantation even after getting knocked down, using a spell that destroyed magic within its area of effect, one that would affect a weave of Sorcery.  The Ward preventing Demons from teleporting close to him came down, removing his last significant defense.
	The black metal of his armor became fluid once more, then flowed up and over his face and head, then solidified once more to form a sleek helmet patterned after a dragons head, complete with backswept horns adorning the top of it.  He raised his sword in both paws as his Elementals flanked him, the blade burning bright with fire, and levelled it directly at ShazBaket, who was a considerable distance away, well behind the front formations of her human army.  The distant marilith fumed visibly, and turned to issue some kind of order to the last surviving balor that was now standing beside her.  But before that balor could do anything, fire enshrouded Tarrin, and then consumed him, leaving behind nothing but his Elementals, who themselves quickly vanished.  The Earth and Water Elementals submerged into the ground, the Air Elemental winked out of sight, and the Fire Elemental vanished in a puff of smoke.
	A column of fire erupted on the earthen rampart not far from the forces of the Dura, a column which seemed to freeze like some kind of sculpture.  It then flowed back into itself, changing its shape as the flame molded itself into the form of a humanoid being, at least until a section of the fire flowed outward and formed large, impressive wings.  The flame shuddered and then billowed away, leaving behind flesh and blood and bone and metal, the towering Were-cat in his black armor, wings flared out as if to shield those behind him from the numerous forces positioned on the far side of the narrow valley.
	Although the powerful Ward Tarrin had created the night before blocked a Demons ability to teleport, it did nothing to prevent him from using fire as a gateway to travel from one place to another.  Tarrin was once more behind the protection of a Ward that would stop the Demons ability to teleport, their most dangerous ability, and this Ward, much larger, much stronger, much more carefully woven together, would be nearly impossible for them to break.  This Ward carried within it powerful protections that would destroy any attempt by a Wizard to dispel it or tear it.  It was literally a creation of Niami herself, woven through him the night before, and no mortal would be the match of a gods creation.  So long as he was within the protective safety of his goddess magic, he would be just fine.
	One by one, his four Elementals reached him, remanifesting themselves, flanking him to stand with him in defiance.  But it was a fifth presence that surprised him a little.  He glanced to his left to see a lone Dwarf wearing heavy plate armor, enamell