n chopped it down in a quick motion.  NOW! he boomed, and the flagman raised both flags, crossed them, then snapped them down in a brisk motion.  That was accompanied by a blaring blast of a horn, so loud that it carried over the din.
	In unison, every Dwarf able to do so dropped to one knee and presented his or her shield in a defensive posture.  Tarrin and the Knights and Vendari did not kneel, but Tarrins wings suddenly flushed with blazing, incandescent white light, drawing every Demonic eye to him, and causing an instantaneous reaction.  As one, they all surged at the Were-cat to stop him from unleashing that power, from doing whatever it was he was supposed to do that was so dreadful that it would cause all the Dwarves to seek protection against it.
	But Tarrin was not the focal point of this planned tactic, he was only the diversion.
	They all heard it clearly in just seconds, the clear, powerful voice of Miranda, chanting in the language of the gods.  But she was not chanting a spell, she was chanting an ancient prayer, a ritual, a formula, one that the Demons knew all too well.  Many of them froze for a critical moment, trying to assess this lone Priestess and determine if she had the power to carry that ritual to its conclusion.  Many of them ignored her after that second of assessment, turning to kill more Dwarves, but the stronger of the Demons, the wiser, they did not.  They howled and screamed and plowed through the Dwarves that were kneeling at their feet, trying to reach Miranda before she could complete that ancient prayer.
	Those that managed to get through the lines of the Dwarves found themselves slamming headlong into an invisible wall made of solid Air.  Behind Miranda, hands raised, was Lorak, defending Miranda with his Elemental magic and giving her the time she needed to complete the ritual.
	Unable to physically reach her, and defended from magical attack by Phandebrass and the spell engine, the Demons turned and started to flee.
	I call upon the light of my goddess, the Wavemistress Kikkalli! Mirandas voice cried out, Somthuri demathetro modiacious!  Amran jemtachi gyathra!  Mirandas voice began carrying behind it a choral quality, as if it was no longer just one voice who was speaking.  There was another voice behind hers, beneath it, and that was the voice of Kikkalli herself.  I abjure ye, creatures of darkness! she said, her voice almost visible in the air with its power, and no longer did it carry any hint of Miranda.  This was the voice of Kikkalli directly, as she spoke through her daughter, through her Avatar, and directly manifested the holy might of her power into the physical world.  Let the light of the gods cast ye back into the shadows from whence thou came!  BEGONE!
	Mirandas body exploded with a light that shone with such purity that it could not be anything other than divine.  That divine light radiated out from her in all directions, and whenever it touched the flesh of a Demon, that Demon simply evaporated, its form consumed by the divine wrath of the Wavemistress and banished back to the Lower World, the remnants of them fading in the summer breeze like fog burned away by the morning sun.  Demons squealed in agony even as their voices faded into the light, becoming distant, as if they had fallen into some unimaginable void and tumbled away.  That light struck Tarrins wings, and then, inexplicably, they too began to glow with the same divine light, as if capturing that power and infusing it into themselves, and they too glowed with the same damning radiance that destroyed any Demon which that light touched.
	In the span of a few heartbeats, it was over, and there was an ominous silence.  Every Demon that had come over the rampart was gone, their forms melted away by the power of the light of Kikkalli.  Kang had played his trump card, and that was the fact that, through Miranda, he could call directly on the power of a goddess, and that kind of power was something against which a Demon could not stand.  Kikkalli had destroyed the Demonic attackers, and Kang had labored to bring them in so he could destroy as many as he could.
	That act did not come without cost, however.  As the light faded, Miranda slumped, and then dropped to the ground.  The stress of having her mother push her aside and use her was too much for her to bear, and it effectively removed her from the rest of this battle.  Anayi soared in from her sheltered place of protection against that attack, gathered her up, and whisked her away, rushing her back to the Iron Mountain so she could rest safely.
	Reset the line! Kang boomed, snapping the Dwarves out of their reverie.  They all returned to their feet and quickly reassembled at what was left of the palisade, as replacement pikes were passed down with new Dwarven troops to replace the fallen, as the dead and injured were quickly carried off the field to be tended to behind the lines.  The balor that was still behind the line moved to stop over the rampart, but it quickly put up a massive hand and squealed in pain, then turned and fled back out of sight.
	Tarrin, yer wings! Darax said with surprise.  Theyre still glowing with that light that Lady Miranda used to banish the Demons!  They cant stand it!  Darax chuckled with malicious glee.  Inform Kang at once!
	It might not last long, Tarrin told him as he could feel under his armored feet that ShazBaket was preparing something, probably another charge of her Demonic minions.
	Use it while ye can, me friend!  Go after that Demon! Darax urged.  Get em before he can get away!
	A wise idea, Binter agreed.
	Yeah, Tarrin nodded, and he surged forward in the air, carried by the power of his wings, until he landed on the earthen rampart.  The balor was still running away, and Tarrin flared out his wings to their full wingspan and presented them garishly to the enemy army, letting them see the echo of Kikkallis power still trapped within them.  The balor seemed to not be affected by the light as it fled, but that was probably because it wasnt looking at it, Tarrin reasoned.  It was just an echo of that original power, much weaker, just strong enough to cause pain to any Demon who looked upon it.  The balor had spread its huge wings and taken to the air, and vanished from sight almost as soon as Tarrin drew a bead on it and prepared to use his wings to kill it, getting beyond the Ward that prevented teleportation.  But, before he could decide whether to press the issue, the glow faded from his wings, causing them to return to normal.
	But from that vantage point, he could clearly see ShazBaket moving her human forces into position.  In fact, he saw only a handful of Demons in the enemy army now.  She was not going to attempt to assault the Dura with Demons again.  She was sending in her humans.
	Theyd done it, at least for now.  She was either out of Demons to use, or was not willing to risk the ones she had left in a second attempt.  Miranda had devastated the Demonic invaders with a single attack, so now she either only had humans left, or was saving the Demons she had in reserve for a later maneuver in the battle.  He saw that she was also calling up those collared Wizards shed summoned while trying to kill him, no doubt bringing them to try to counter the magical firepower they had supporting them.
	Poor ShazBaketshe had no idea that Miranda could do what she did.  Thus far, her planning and execution had been exemplary, had used her resources wisely and well, and had even risked her own neck to try to draw Tarrin out and kill him, but a lack of intelligence about her opposition had crippled her efforts thus far.  He may hate her, but he had to respect her.
	Wait.  Tarrins eyes widened as he stared at what he was seeing, and what he was seeing was that the entire human army was starting to move.  Every last one of them.  ShazBaket was not holding anything back in reserveshe meant to assault the line with everything.  But that was crazy!  They all couldnt fit in the valley!
	No, it wasnt crazy.  By throwing everything into the valley, shed have those forces that didnt have room to engage right there and ready to start trying to envelop the Dwarven lines if they managed to push them back.  She was holding the majority of the army back in reserve, but she was putting them potentially in harms way, risking attacks on them by keeping them close enough to quickly close the trap if her charge succeeded.  It was a gamble, but ShazBaket was both clever and cunning, and she obviously believed that it was an acceptable risk to take.
	He also saw that she was thinking creatively.  Large numbers of soldiers were dispatched from the main host, and those men rushed towards the steep ridges to either side of the valley, where the archers were entrenched, and began trying to climb up.  The archers started turning on those men, firing at them from their elevated positions, but there were a great many of them, and they were climbing with a desperate frenzy, and utterly without concern for their own lives.  No doubt that ShazBaket had made any number of dreadful promises about what would be done to those men if they failed to take out the archers, and they were more afraid of that then they were of death.
	Actually, they were going to succeed just by their attempt, he realized.  The archers couldnt focus on the main army so long as they had to defend their own positions from the climbing enemies.
	Tarrin lowered his sword and considered what was before him.  With the Demons being held back, they were going to try a more conventional attack on the Dwarven line that probably had as much a chance of success as the Demon assault had, by sheer force of numbers.  He knelt down on the rampart and pondered why shed sent the Demons first, instead of trying to send the humans first and then sending the Demons to support them, and then he realized that the Demons actually had had a very strong advantage.  If not for the fact that theyd hastily prepared weapons able to harm Demons, they would have been able to tear through the lines of the Dwarves literally unimpeded.  Sending the Demons now seemed like a foolish venture, but given what information ShazBaket had had at the time she made the decision, it was a sound one.  But, after seeing that when she sent the manes, why did she send the second assault?
	A look back at the sweating, panting Shadows explained her tactic.
	 ShazBaket had used the Demons to wear out the magicians, he reasoned.  Now she was sending the humans with her own support Wizards behind them, after the defending magicians had to expend a great deal of energy protecting the line from the initial assault.  The power of the magic of the defenders coupled with their defensive positioning in the narrow valley was their primary defenses against the huge numbers of troops she had behind her, so she had used part of her army to exhaust that defensive resource.  Tarrin had thought that she would use the humans as pawns for the Demon part of her army, but she had done the exact oppositeshe had used the Demons as pawns for her human forces.
	She was damn clever.
	He knew what the next order was going to be before Kang even shouted out the command.  And he knew what ShazBakets counter was going to be as well.
	Tarrin, go! Kang boomed.  You know what to do!
	He did, buthe pondered the idea of attacking ShazBaket directly, to try to disrupt their chain of command.  Kang wanted him to attack the enemy armies in dragon form, and ShazBaket would counter that attack by using the Demons she had left, as well as her Wizards, countering overwhelming physical force with magic.  It was what she attempted to do when she tried to bait him outthe real threat hadnt been the Demons with spears, they were nothing but a diversion, an annoyance to hold him in one place long enough for the Wizards to try to kill him using magic.  Unfortunately for them, Tarrin knew that that was going to happen, and had taken protective measures to stop it. He had just enough emerald dust to cast the anti-magic shell one more time, and he needed to save that for the right momentprobably when his life depended on it.  And he didnt want to just repeat his earlier trick, because theyd be expecting it.
	His job was to cause chaos in the enemy ranks.  He was going to use dragon form to do thatbut couldnt he accomplish the same objective by simply going after ShazBaket?  There was little doubt that he could get at her, and hed only have to contend with whatever Demons she called up to protect herself from him.  But even that might be enough to disrupt her chain of command, because shed be too busy saving her own neck to command the army
	A distant rumble got his attention.  He looked up, and saw a thick bank of clouds rolling in from the west, almost over them now.  It was a weather front, and there was a rain curtain starting to slicken the mountains and hills west of them, with a few flashes of lightning illuminating the clouds briefly.
	The storm was here.
	Return, Tarrin said quietly, absently.  All four of his Elementals quickly made their way to him, surrounding him, awaiting his commands.  You know where it is? he asked, tapping the ground meaningfully and looking to the Fire Elemental.
	It nodded.
	Good.  You four stay with Binter, and obey his orders.  He knows the battle plan, and will know how to best use your abilities to help the army.  Tell him he has command of you.  Explain that to him, and tell him that he needs to relay the order to the Fire Elemental, he said, looking at the Water Elemental.
	She nodded, then inquired as to his plan of action.
	The storms here, he answered, then looked to his Fire Elemental.  Dont go past the rampart, not for any reason, he warned, and it nodded in understanding.
	All four of them cautioned him to be careful.  He nodded to them, and then spread his wings and pushed himself into the air.  He streaked out over the rampart and up into the air as ShazBaket moved her forces forward, a lone attacker preparing to attack an army of over one hundred thousand.  He knew that ShazBaket could see him, and was almost certainly expecting him to change into a dragon and park himself on the valley floor, serving as a huge obstacle between the two armies, something he was sure she already had a plan to circumvent.
	She wouldnt expect this.
	Instead of hurtling forward, he shivered in the air, and then raced straight up, towards the clouds above.  Higher and higher he went, until he was thousands of spans above the ground, and the lower edge of the dark, boiling clouds was just a few hundred spans over his head.  Tarrins wings flushed with the incandescent white light that marked his connection to the Weave through his sword, as it reached back through the dimensions and touched on the power of Niami.  In a heartbeat, his wings glowed so brightly that they were almost painful to the eye, and Magelight began to appear around his armored paws, the power of High Sorcery.
	A power that, at its pinnacle, could directly affect the weather, the most powerful natural force in the world.
	Flows of all seven Spheres raced out of him and surged into the storm, tentatively at first, but more and more and stronger and stronger after that initial contact, a contact to assess the power of the storm, its direction, and the natural factors that were going to affect that direction and intensity.  Tarrin wove a stunningly intricate and awesomely powerful weave into the thunderstorm, his flows reaching longspans away from him as they wove into the fabric of the storm itself and began to take control of it, began to influence it.
	There was a rumble of thunder, and the storm suddenly surged ahead, even as it began to rotate around Tarrins form, as his power drew it in and caused it to reform and intensify.
	Even from that distance, even despite the fact that he was not a Demon, he clearly heard ShazBakets telepathic orders.
	HES TRYING TO USE THAT STORM AGAINST THE ARMY!  STOP HIM NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES! her mental voice echoed through his mind.  She must have sent out that command with such strength and concern that it caused him to hear it.
	ShazBaket had personal experience with a suikuns ability to affect the weather.
	But it was too late now.  He was completely in control of the storm, and its power was now his to command.  Winged Demons appeared all around him, vrock and nalfeshnee and Alu and chasme, even the last remaining balor, who appeared so close to him that it immediately lashed out with its whip.  Tarrin swept his arm to the side, which caused a wall of wind to blast down from the clouds above and deflect that scourges nine tails.  The balor suddenly burst into flame as it lost its temper and spoke three words of Wizard magic, tracing a pattern in the air before it with the tip of its sword, but it got no further.
	Fireflash, who had managed to hold his position nestled in between the horns on Tarrins helmet through the entire battle, launched himself at the balor like an avenging Revenant, hissing and growling.  He lanced right at the monsters face, then released a strong blast of his greenish gas breath weapon right in the balors face.  The mighty Demon shuddered, then its sword fell from its numb fingers and it dropped out of the sky like a stone.
	Timely, little one, Tarrin chuckled as he turned to face a halberd-wielding vrock.  The vulture-headed Demon dove at him with his halberd, but an ear-splitting CRACK-BOOM vibrated the very air around them as a bolt of lightning issued forth from the clouds above and struck the Demon right between the wings.
	Normally, a Demon would have nothing to fear from such an act, for storms were a natural aspect of the world in which they were in, and therefore they were immune to their power.  But this storm was shaped by the hand of a Sorcerer, which was a non-native magic, and gave every aspect of it, from the lightning right down to the wind that blew and the rain that fell, a slight touch of alien magic that gave it the power to do a Demon true harm.  The vrock literally exploded in a puff of feathers, black blood, gore, and flames, falling to the earth even as it melted away into that grisly ichor.
	But there were a great many of them, and most of them could use magicand Tarrin couldnt use his anti-magic shell and control the storm at the same time.  He was also not safely behind a Ward that would keep them from doing what the balor had tried to do, appear within striking distance of him and immediately attack.  He had to move quickly or they were going to kill him.
	He wove a simple spell, a solid shield of Air that he placed over him, and then wove deeper into the storm, affecting how it operated.  He called forth a blinding fury of rain, which poured out of the cloud in a massive deluge that made it hard to see anything ten spans past ones own nose.  The shield of air kept the rain off of him, and the rain bought him some time as the Demons tried to see through it and fly through the heavy rain and gusting wind to get at him, concealed him and made it hard for them to see where to teleport to, keeping them from appearing and instantly attacking him.
	He continued his weaving, however, causing some of the rain to be blown back up into the cloud, where it would freeze and come back down.  But he kept pushing it up, and pushing it up, and pushing it up, as more and more layers of ice formed on them, until he had caught up in the winds of the storm a nice supply of good old hail.  He kept that held back, however, as he caused the storm to drift out over the approaching human armies, as the rain line crossed over the front ranks of the marching soldiers as they moved into the pass.  He felt Fireflash get back on his helmet, and also slithered aside as a chasme streaked by him, trying to impale him on that long spike sticking out of the front of its face.  He moved again reflexively, which literally saved his life as the same Demon vanished from sight and reappeared directly behind him.  Had he not moved, it would have skewered him in the back.  He turned again, and felt something clang against his armor, and felt a heavy blow strike him in the side, which spun him around.  A vrock had raced by and swung its glaive at him with everything it had. The weapons blade had shattered, sending a cascade of metal fragments spiralling towards the ground below.
	The armor had stopped the weapon.
	But still, that was too close.
	His wings suddenly became so bright that they shone through the heavy rain of the storm, and the Magelight around his paws flowed up and around him, until his entire body was covered with the wispy nimbus.  He used that power to reach into the storm and start affecting it, feeding it power it did not otherwise have in order to create weather effects he wasnt going to get out of a storm of that size and intensity any other way.  Massive flows of Air and Water were sent into the storm, latching into its core and suddenly inundating the storm with power, tremendous power.  The gray clouds thickened visibly, going from a dark gray to black, as they blocked most of the light from the sun above them even as its edges expanded and cast the valley below into an ominous darkness.  The wind blowing out of the storm suddenly turned cold as ice, a deadly warning for all the Demons struggling to reach the Were-cat that was causing the storm to intensify.
	Before the Demons could reach him again, while they were distracted in that split second when the storms wind changed, he released the hail.  Chunks of ice as large as a childs fist suddenly erupted out of the cloud, striking with stunning force, even breaking the light bones of the Alu and tearing holes in skin from jagged edges.  The dozens of flying Demons were hammered by a relentless onslaught of pounding ice, literally battering them out of the air and forcing them to teleport away to keep from getting beaten to death.  That hail slammed into the front ranks of the human army, forcing them to raise their shields to protect themselves from the deadly barrage, but they continued marching forward.  More and more of them moved into the hailstorm, using shields to protect themselves, but then they all began to trot, and then to charge forward.
	Clever girl.  She was trying to get her army engaged with the Dura before Tarrin got up enough energy in the storm to be able to do anything serious, force him to risk killing Dwarves if he used the storms power.  It would take time to get up something massive, like a tornado, and she was going to try to break the Duran lines and
	it came out of nowhere, stuck him squarely in the back, something so massive that it almost knocked him out when it struck him, causing him to lose his control of the weave, and lose control of the storm.  All light vanished as he felt something try to crush his armor, then he realized dimly through a swimming haze that he was inside something.
	Inside the mouth of a gigantic beast!
	Pain assaulted him when he felt the armor squeal and bend in protest, as massive teeth sought to rip him apart, crush him.  He just barely managed to register seeing Fireflash woozily wobble away, literally flying between two gnashing teeth the size of an anvil and escaping from the maw of whatever gigantic beast had him in its mouth.  He reacted out of instinct, reflex, causing his body to melt away into flame, and then vanish in a puff of smoke as he became one with fire and transferred himself to a fire elsewhere, the fire of his Fire Elemental.  He reformed himself, the flame rising from the Elemental and twisting into his humanoid form, and then the fire blew away, leaving behind flesh and bone.
	Suspended in midair, Tarrin stared upwards in awe and disbelief.
	Diving down on them, with the angry sky roiling and rumbling, as the weaving he had done to the storm was interrupted, causing the storm to writhe like a dying snake as the natural forces he set into motion lost their direction and their power, was a dragon.  But this was like no dragon hed ever seen before, because it had scales the color of the darkest night, making it look like nothing but a murky silhouette against the angry sky with two glowing red eyes all there was about it that gave off any light whatsoever.
	It was a shadow dragon!
	We have dragons in the Abyss too, ShazBakets voice chided inside his mind, directed right at him.  Did you think I wouldnt be ready to stop you when I made my charge?  Now let the mortals fight, Were-cat.  My friend wants to play with you.  Im sure you wont disappoint himbecause if you do, hell play with your Dwarven friends instead.
	Tarrins sword blazed with angry flame, a reflection of his anger.  A Demonic dragon!  That, that witch!  But he should have expected nothing less from her!  She had tried to bait him out and kill him, then used her Demons like fodder to wear out their spellcastersand now she had the perfect counter to keep Tarrin from wiping out her army, by forcing him to fight her shadow dragon, taking him out of the defense of the Dura by forcing him to keep the shadow dragon from killing them.  She had come to this battle with a plan, and thus far, it was working.
	Surging forward, Tarrin lost his form to the fire once more, becoming a part of it, and then he reshaped that flame into a form of his own choosing.  The fire grew and expanded, twisted and writhed, until it held the shape of a dragon, and then it billowed out and vanished to leave behind flesh and blood and bone.  The sleek blue dragon landed on the ground over the trench and rampart as the skies above flashed with lightning, and thunder rumbled across the valley.  The storm Tarrin had created still had all its energy, but now had no guiding force.  It would complicate the battle because it would be intense, a powerful thunderstorm that would dump heavy rain and wind and lightning on the battlefield, might even spawn a tornado, for it had the energy to do so if the conditions were right for it to form.  As a blue, any lightning that might strike him would do Tarrin no harm, and his great size would protect him from the worst of the wind and the rain, just as it would for the shadow dragon.  It would make flying tricky, but would pose no real danger.  Huge wings thrust him into the air, and he launched himself at the shadow dragon with a thunderous roar, even as the shadow dragon gave out a keening, screeching cry and turned to dive directly at him.
	Below the two dragons, below the storm, Kang prepared his lines for the impending charge of the mariliths armies, as the cunning Demoness herself slithered behind the main assault force with a sword or axe in each of her six hands, preparing to join the battle in person, eager to begin the slaughter.
	Two clashes were about to shake the world itself, one above, and one below, dragon against dragon, general against general, and either of them had to potential to determine the future of the world.
	And above them, writhing and gathering itself, was the rogue storm created by Tarrin and then broken free of his guidance by the attack of the shadow dragon, preparing to unleash all the energy Tarrin fed into it upon the land below.

Chapter 15

	Darkness was shattered by the brilliant flash of lightning, illuminating a chaotic scene of controlled insanity.
	Tens of thousands of human troops rushed through the narrow valley that was the Duras defensive position with tens of thousands more waiting, charging towards a trench lined with stakes, beyond which stood the army of the Dwarves and their unusual allies who maintained their position behind the remains of a palisade made of logs.  No reserves were being held back; those who had not yet moved were simply waiting for the chance to rush forward behind their compatriots.  The human troop leaders were confident that their Demonic allies had won them the battle, had weakened the Defiled and the Damned beyond the trench and had tired out their witches.  To their thinking, all it would take now would be a charge of the Duran lines, to break them and allow their superior numbers to overwhelm their dogged, frustratingly competent adversaries.  They were very wary of the Demons who were among them, but the strange female Demon who led them was a strong, brilliant commander, and they took faith and morale from her ability to lead, even if she was Defiled herself, one of the unholy slaves that would serve the will of the One until he no longer had use for them.  The armies of the One charged across that narrow valley as crossbow quarrels rained down on them very sporadically from the valley walls, as only a few of the archers tried to slow them between shots at the climbers that were trying to overrun their elevated positions.
	The first men among that charge reached the trench, and followed the paths of the Demons that had come before them, lanes in the trench clear of stakes.  They surged over the rampart, and hesitated just a moment to survey the land before them.
	A jagged, cratered, blasted wasteland with small fires burning here and there, and wafts of evil black smoke rising from the ground.  And beyond that, rows upon rows of armored Dwarves, pikes set and ready to receive them
	There would be no hurried charge across that ground.
	But, there was no turning back now.

	High above the bipeds, another clash was about to commence.  The night-scaled shadow dragon was diving at the climbing blue, using altitude to its advantage as it rushed at its larger opponent.  The blue dragon kept a close eye on it, for it remembered its lore about these dangerous monsters.  Part dragon, part shadow, they dwelled mostly on planes of existence other than the material plane, wherever there was shadow and an absence of the guidance of the gods of good.  This one came from the Abyssbut it wasnt a true Demon.  Much like a Hellhound, it was a product of the Abyss, but lacked the bloodline that made it a true Demon.  Just like Forge, this monster lacked the basic powers of the Demonteleportation, the ability to create darknessbut it was a dragon, which meant that it had the strength, the size, the power, the intelligence, and of course, the breath weapon.
	It dove straight at the blue, wings folded back, glowing red eyes narrowed, neck locked.  Tarrin turned to meet it head-on, shrieking a thundering cry of challenge and rage, which the shadow dragon answered with