 its high-pitched keen.  Tarrin pulled in his wings as the shadow dragon streaked towards him, and both dragons inhaled sharply as the other came close to being in range of breath weapons.  They hurtled towards one another at incredible speed, but despite that speed, both knew instinctively when the other was in range of their breath weapons.
	The blue dragon unleashed a single bolt of lightning, highly controlled, from its maw, which arced across the space as straight and true as an arrow.  But the Shadow dragon closed its eyes, and its form was lost in the dark shadow of the cloud above them.  Its outline became murky, hard to make out, and then it was completely gone.  The lightning bolt arced through empty air, sizzling up into the cloud above.
	It was gone!
	Tarrin banked hard, unsure of what had just happened.  There was no sense of magic about what the enemy dragon did, it was like it simply melted away!  Those night-colored scaled had simply been swallowed up by the shadows of the storm cloud over them!  He didnt have much time to think about it, for his experience with monsters and creatures with the ability to Teleportwhatever it did wasnt that, but he wasnt taking any chancestold him where and how it would be most advantageous for the enemy to attack, and wasnt going to fall into those traps.  Instead of climbing, he put his wing over and began a steep descent, sacrificing the advantage of altitude because that was what he should do, get higher than the enemy.  A high-pitched screech from overhead told him that he had made the right decision, for he looked up and saw that dragon now
	diving right at him!
	He had no chance to turn in time.  The night-scaled dragon struck him like a catapult stone, ramming him from above with its smaller, lighter body, slamming him out of his flight path.  Long black claws ripped into his sleek blue scales, sending blue scales, blood, and bits of tissue flying as the shadow dragon attacked the joints of his wings, trying to disable his ability to fly, even as the spines that ran down the ridge of his back punched into the softer belly scales of the shadow dragons torso.  Tarrin was pushed down into a steeper and steeper dive as the dragon sought to tear through the tendons that gave him control over his wings, even as the blue dragon thrashed under it to keep it from getting a clear strike.
	Tarrin reacted out of instinct.  His whip-like tail careened in and slashed the shadow dragon directly across its left wing, ripping a bloody rend through the membrane almost halfway up to the bone.  The dragon screeched in pain and let go, kicking off to keep Tarrin from hitting it again, for if he slashed a deep enough cut through that membrane it would cripple the dragons ability to fly.  Tarrin heard the shadow dragon blast out its breath in a strong whoosh, and in terror he realized that he had nowhere to go.
	It struck him directly.  The shadow dragons breath weapon wasnt fire, or cold, or lightning, or acid, or anything Tarrin would have expected.  It was solid shadow, dark as pitch and colder than the touch of Jegojah.  It stuck him with little physical force, enveloping him quickly like a cloud of fluff, but in that touch it sought to rip out every iota of warmth within his body.  He thought to tuck in and dive out of it, he thought to bank away, but the cold literally paralyzed him, and his mind was sent spinning into a shock, as if it had been dunked in icy water.  There was nothing but bright lights popping behind his eyes as he lost the ability to see or hear or taste or smell, and the only thing he could feel was the biting cold that reached inside of him and sucked out every bit of his warmth.  That cold touched him, touched him to the soul, and leeched away the warmth of flesh and spirit both.
	He literally fell out of the inky cloud, for he was suddenly too weak to move.  The cold had drained him of his strength, and he found it hard to think, hard to move.  The ground hurtled towards him with shocking speed, but he could barely move, even as his mind understood the danger.  He barely managed to get his wings out, which arrested his downward momentum as he arched out of the dive.
	Tarrins belly scraped the ground, grating away the grass and leaving a long scar of torn earth as he just barely managed to pull up in time, as he felt his strength slowly flow back into him, the icy cold pushed away by the boundless energy of the divine soul inside of him.  Just as the All had once reacted to the kiss of a Succubus so many years ago to replenish energy stolen from him, his divine soul reached into his mortal coil and brought back sweet, wonderful warmth to his muscles, burning away with the purity of heat the dark, tainted cold that the dragon used as a weapon.
	By the fires, what a weapon!  That dragons breath weapon was, in its own way, the most dangerous breath weapon of any dragon!  Had he not been who he was, he would now be too weak to fight!  Even if the cold of the breath weapon didnt kill outright, its strength-draining cold would ensure that the victim was incapable of fighting back aftwards!
	And it had touched him.  In that touch, everything that was the shadow dragon was open to Tarrins inner eye.  What it did, that trick where it melted away, that was a natural ability of the creature, the ability to become one with shadow and move through it, exactly the same way that Tarrin could become one with fire and use it to move from one place to another.  It had the ability to control shadow as well, moving it, changing it, manipulating it to its own ends.
	And it was not a Demon.  It was a dragon.  If it came from the Abyss, that just meant that it lived there.  There was nothing Demonic about this creature, its bloodline was pure, it was to the very core of its being a dragon.  But, in its own way, that made it even more dangerous.  Tarrin had weapons to use against Demons that wouldnt work against a dragon.
	It was smaller, but oh was it dangerous.  Tarrin had a newfound respect for this adversary.
	He had touched it, he now knew what it could do, and that knowledge gave him an understanding of what he had to do to defeat this creature.  It was not a creature of direct confrontation.  It was like Miranda, it was a creature of guile and deceit, saving the physical confrontation for that moment where it would be most advantageous, just as it had attacked before by trying to rob him of his ability to fly.  It would stalk him, use its ability to control shadow to try to trick him, then it would attack in a way that maximized its advantage.  And it would certainly try to get into a position where it could use its breath weapon again without retaliation.
	The first step to beating it was that breath weapon.  He looked back and saw the rain coming, and smiled inwardly as he banked towards it.  That cloud the dragon breathed would not fare well in a thundering downpour, hed wager.  And the lightning would work to his advantage.  He could get an instant recharge off it, and blue dragons could attract that lightning; it was one of their natural abilities.
	It was time to start using his brain, and force the shadow dragon to play the game by his rules.

	The first contact with the restored lines of the Dura was sporadic.  The more nimble of those first human soldiers managed to pick their way across the tortured wasteland between the rampart and the palisade, dodging the steady rain of arrows and crossbow quarrels that fell on them from behind the Dura lines.  They made contact with the Dwarven forces, trying to get past the pikes and spears and push into the lines.  Those first humans were skewered or chopped down by the front line, who were armed with swords and axes rather than pikes, but there were five humans to replace every one that fell.  More and more, faster and faster, those humans, screaming war cries and rushing to avoid getting trampled by those coming from behind, crashed into the lines of the Dura and were quickly rebuffed.   The bodies fell where they were, unable to retreat, unable to pull back, unable to move forward, and almost immediately a pile of bloody corpses began to amass outside the palisades remains.  Human soldiers were quickly running atop their own dead as they charged the line with almost mindless ferocity and utter fearlessness, lost in the religious hysteria that had whipped them into a frenzyor perhaps they were simply more afraid of their Demonic leaders than than they were of death.
	Though sporadic at first, the Dura and their allies found themselves trying to hold back a virtual sea of seething, furious humanity within minutes, as more and more of the human armies crossed the wasteland and pressed the line.  Humans were literally stacked two deep on the pikes, pushing up against the shields with their bodies even as they tried to stab at the Dura through the gaps between their interlocked shields, and still more pressed in from behind like some kind of living tidal wave.  The magicians behind the lines held their spells as Dolanna and Lorak shouted commands, as Kang barked orders and pointed at a part of the line with his sword, which caused Tsukatta to rush forward with a company of reserves behind him.  That part of the line began to press inward, and then, like the opening of a lock, a single human soldier managed to drive his sword through the visor of a Dura soldier, and his fall broke the line.  That single small gap suddenly got pushed wider and wider apart as humans poured into the gap, three men replacing every one the Dwarves chopped down.  Dura looked to the hillsides and the withering fire of their archers, but they saw the hillsides crawling with humans, and their archers fighting hand to hand with them, unable to assist.  The archers behind the lines kept a steady rainbow of steel and wood flying over the front lines, but their arrows and quarrels were not managing to slow the advance, only reducing the numbers that reached the lines by a pitiful amount.
	Then Phandebrass struck.  That hole in the line became empty as the Wizard stepped forward and used his magic, causing a savage blast of fast-moving shards of ice to rake through the humans who had managed to get over the palisade, literally tearing the soldiers apart.  The surge was halted by that single spell, and the Dura closed the hole.
	But the magicians werent done.  A brown-haired Elementalist used her magic as well, and before them, the rushing mass of human soldiers, screaming in anger and challenge, suddenly cried out in surprise as the ground beneath them became suddenly soft and pliable, the hard-packed earth and torn sides of craters becoming as soft as mud, sucking under their feet.  The charge of humanity was stopped almost in its tracks as ever soldier in the no-mans land between the rampart and the palisade suddenly was knee-deep in a thick, sucking, hungry mud that would not break its grip upon them.
	Those struggling to get free of the mud did not do so for long.  Much to the horror of the Dura, they saw the humans coming over the rampart hesitate, then, as if by some unspoken command, start using their own men as bridges over that gooey trap, trampling upon their own and pushing them deeper into the mud to get across and to the Duran lines.  Those that struggled too savagely against being trod upon were quickly executed by those above, sacrificed to become little more than a stepping stone for those behind.
	Never before had the Dura seen such mindless fanaticism out of their human foes.  They had fought them many times, and always before they had displayed quite normal traits for any sentient race, among them a regard for both their own lives and the lives of their companions.  But this was almost terrifying, to see them killing their own with callous disregard, and it made the Dura on the front line nervous and tentative when the first of those treading on the backs and heads of their own soldiers reached the palisade.  Perhaps the reason for that fanaticism breached the rampart quickly after the first of the humans reached the palisade, that six-armed Demoness, pointing at the line with one of her ornate swords and shouting aloud for them to attack without mercy.  One of the huge lizard-thingsVendari, they were called Vendaribellowed in challenge to that voice, a massive monster of a creature wielding a huge warhammer, pointing the head of it at her and saying something in a language none of them understood.  The Demoness hissed defiantly, and then she rushed forward with her troops, obviously intending to join the battle personally.
	Behind the Demoness a series of robed figures appeared, and at their arrival, all the magicians behind the lines reacted.  Dozens of spellsbolts of fire and lightning, beams of light, fiery missles, black arcs of energywere unleashed at them from the magicians, sizzling across the air and striking true.  The rampart at the feet of those robed figures erupted in a gout of dust and flying dirt, but the fringes of some kind of protective magical barrier were clearly visible through the dust as it actively repelled the magical attacks.  Those robed figures began to cast spells back towards the Dura, but those reciprocating bolts and beams and arcs went over their heads and attacked the magicians.  But just as the magicians failed, so did those robed figures, as their spells changed directions and were sucked into the strange glowing pinwheel which seemed to rotate over the head of the white-haired Wizard.
	The Dura quickly lost track of the doings of the magicians as the humans again crushed into the lines, coming harder and faster than before, such an incredible press that the line was forced backwards, driven back by the sheer force of their numbers.  But the line did not break, did not fail, this time backing up at Kangs command rather than try to hold fast and risk another breach like the one before.  But one step became two, and two became four, until the front line found itself nearly ten paces from the palisade, the orderly line bulging in several different locations as Dura fell and those behind quickly stepped up to take their places before the humans exploited the hole and tried to break the line.  The Dura held the line with all the valor and determination for which they were famous upon two worlds.
	But they were in no way prepared for ShazBaket.
	She was careful not to assault the line where the Vendari and Knights were stationed.  She struck not in the middle, but at the extreme east side of the Duran lines, almost against the valley wall.  The marilith swept the pikes and spears from doing her harm with contemptuous swipes of her six weapons, then crashed into the Dwarves with an eerie, haunting grin of eager anticipation, her weapons immediately setting to the task of slaughtering any Dwarf within reach.  The Dura withered under her assault, and immediately a hole was opened in their lines, a hole that was deepened by the Demoness as she advanced.  She pushed spans behind the line, then reared up on her snake body and brought forth fire from two of her hands that gripped sword and axe, then projected it into the Duran lines.  The shrill shrieks of those on fire split the din of the battle, as some charred and died where they stood, some convulsed on the ground, and some broke and fled trailing flames, trying to push through the press of other Dwarves around them.  That act widened the breach and allowed more humans to pour in, until the armies of the One had an established penetration of the lines.  The marilith continued moving in a straight line along the valleys edge, pushing deeper and deeper in, trying to drive through the Duran forces and breach into their reserves, using the valley wall as an anchor to which her forces clung, preventing the Dura from flanking them.
	But that steep hillside could serve both sides.  Kimmie broke off from battling the Wizards of the Ones forces and turned to deal with the breach, a single magician tasked to stopping the penetration, and the Were-cat quickly took in the situation and selected the best means to go about it.  She threw a handful of pebbles into the air and chanted loudly and strongly in the language of magic, then completed her spell with a stab of both paws towards the breach.  The spell was not aimed at the enemy forces, but instead at the hillside behind them.  Her spell caused the earth to shake, and then caused an explosion of dirt and rocks to erupt from the hillside higher up, but just under where the Duran archers and the human climbers were engaged in furious hand to hand combat, blasting out a section of the hillside and creating a landslide.
	It wasnt deep or large, but it was large enough.  It was no avalanche that came down the mountain, but the shower of dirt and rock was moving fast enough to sweep the feet out from under the humans that were caught in it, right where the Dura had set up their front line, just behind the palisade.  The Dura tried to swarm over that landslide almost as soon as it had ceased, quickly killing those humans who had been knocked down by its power, but they and everyone else stopped for just a moment when they heard a thunderous detonation high above and well down the valley, which made them all turn to look.
	Just as the rain hit the front line, they saw it.  The black dragon was locked in savage claw-to-claw combat with a brilliant blue-scaled dragon, as lightning thrashed around them, and struck the blue dragon repeatedly.  They were easily visible because there was a brilliant nimbus of light that surrounded the blue dragon like the sun, a kind of inner radiation that was almost too bright to look upon, a light so bright that it illuminated the clouds above and the ground below, taking the place of the bright sunlight which those clouds were blocking.  The detonation was some kind of spell that one of them cast, and it was apparent to all that not only were they fighting tooth and claw, they were fighting spell for spell, as magic was cast back and forth between them even as they sought to rip the life from one another.  The two thrashed in the air, locked in physical combat even as each hissed and spat the words of magic at one another, wobbling erratically in the air as they tugged and pulled and raked.  A sudden swarm of hailstones rained on them, obviously magical in nature and not a product of the storm, pounding the blue dragons back as the night-scaled beast pulled itself under its larger foe, but the blue caught a clawhold on its foe and completed its own spell, which caused the night-scaled dragons head to bob dangerously and caused its actions to become erratic as it fought off some kind of effect that wasnt readily visible.  The blue raised its head and unleashed its breath weapon into the air above it, a wide fan of arcing lightning bolts, but the rain caught the blast and deflected it in every direction, even caused it to arc back into the two dragons.  That blast made the black-scaled dragon let go and veer off, then bank frantically as the thunderstorm above unleashed its own lightning, lightning which directly struck the blue dragon!  But instead of hurting the beast, it seemed to be absorbed by it, then it turned its head and immediately unleashed another blast of its own breath weapon, this time a tightly compact blast of intertwined lightning bolts, again diffused by the rain and spread out.  But even with that diffusion, the attack missed as the night-scaled dragon dove towards the ground, seemingly free of whatever affect that had gripped it seconds before, as tendrils of pure darkness seemed to start to ooze out from between its scales, leaving behind itself a trail of liquid night as it streaked towards the ground, then disappeared from sight behind the valley wall.  The blue dragon hovered high in the air for a moment, its voice audible over the rain and the shouting as it chanted in the language of magic.  The nimbus of light around it had started to fade noticably, but at the conclusion of that spell it rejuvenated itself, became bright as the sun once more, and the blue dove down and out of sight as it chased its quarry.
	Their disappearance caused the fighting to erupt once more with even more savagery.  The Dura struggled to close the hole and trap those who had breached the line, and for long moments there was unorganized, chaotic fighting on top of the landslide as Dura and humans fought in a jumbled mass, trying to secure the area for their side and organize coherent lines to prevent it from being retaken.  As they did that, ShazBaket continued her forward push, spreading her human forces that were behind that melee thinner and thinner as she drove towards the far end of the valley along the wall.  Her forward movement was almost completely unchecked as she raced ahead, slaughtering Dura like a reaper harvesting wheat, leaving a long trail of the dead behind her as her humans filled the space she left behind.
	Until she met Tsukatta.
	The samurai warrior reached her when she had nearly gotten halfway to the far side of the valley, joining the battle with an undulating warcry, holding a sleek katana in each hand.  The human waded into combat with the marilith with neither hesitation nor reserve, engaging her confidently.  The Demoness at first simply sought to sweep the human out of her way, but her attempt to simply kill him with a cascade of attacks with all six weapons nearly cost her her head.  He parried all six of those attacks with ease, and she was out of position to defend when he turned that parry into a sweeping slash directly at her neck.  She slowed to a halt and tried again, using a complicated and deceptive series of slashes, stabs, and feints with all six weapons to confuse her opponent and leave him open, but he again parried every attack with ease, and saw through her feints and correctly predicted exactly where and how the true attack would be executed.  She was shocked when he turned aside the axe blow meant to carve a deep hole in between his ribs with both of his swords, then stepped up and kicked her directly in the abdomen, just above where her snake scales began, and kicked her so hard that it left spots in her eyes.  She slithered back and out of range as those two weapons tried to carve a V in the front of her neck, literally scissoring off her head had it managed to land.
	She engaged the human again, using every weapon she had to its utmost, seeking to swarm the human under her six weapons and do him in, but found herself becoming frustrated and flustered by this strangely armored human.  Every attack was parried or evaded, and she was quickly put on the defensive by his two weapons and his feet, as he used his arms and legs in addition to his swords to combat her.  She quickly became unsure what was coming next, whether he would attack with his swords, or try to kick her, or if his elbow or knee would come seemingly out of nowhere and strike her, seeking any vital or sensitive area. How could he hold his own against her!  He did not move with superhuman speed, and though he seemed stronger than a human should be, he was not much stronger than she.  But her every attempt to overwhelm him with martial prowess or simply outnumber him with her six swords against his two was met with defeat, as the human simply saw through her feints or was prepared for her attacks, and she found herself heavily challenged to meet his answering forays, for his swordwork was exacting and brilliant, the two weapons weaving before him with such stunning complexity that it seemed that there were fifty blades whirling between them.
	So dazzling was the martial challenge before them that Dura and human both paused fighting one another to watch, captivated by two masters of the art of war locked in deadly combat with one another.
	As she fought him, she realized that his advantage was not speed, or strength, or magic, it was experience.  This was a warrior so well versed in his art that it gave him the capability of battling a mighty marilith in her own realm of expertise, armed combat, and give her a serious challenge.  This human, she decided, would be a much better slave than a trophy.  She could find many uses for someone of his ability and skill.  And when she was done with him, there was always his soul to claim.
	And then there was another!  ShazBaket nearly lost her head when a dark-skinned female joined the fray, one of those cursed Selani, and then a white-haired male whose hair was plastered to his head and face by the heavy rain, both armed with swords.  Her intelligence from when she was on Sennadar marked these two as Var and Denai, personal friends of that damned Were-cat Tarrin Kael.  They joined with the human warrior and attacked the marilith with utterly perfectly aligned attacks, each unconsciously aware of the other two as they attacked in a perfect symphony of lethal, dizzyingly complicated and swift strikes with sword or katana.  The marilith found herself giving ground to avoid losing her head to those deadly swords, as the air around them rang with the continuous chime of metal against metal, as the Demoness was put completely on the defensive.  Six ornate swords and axes worked feverishly to stop the four swords and two katanas of her adversaries, as her snake body began to slither backwards to give her more room.  The three of them managed to stop the Demoness advance, but a marilith had more weapons than just swords.
	And she used those weapons.  She slithered backwards very fast, just enough space to give her time, and then shouted in the language of magic.  She screamed only one word, but it was a word of such mystical power that any who had the ability to hear it was struck by its force, the power of the Word of Stun.  Everyone around her, human, Dura, and Selani all, shivered and flinched, and then were knocked backwards away from her by the power of that mystical utterance, knocked to the ground where they lay senseless, unable to move or act or think.
	All save one.
	The wicker-armored warrior stood before her, the only standing human, Dura, or Dwarf within twenty paces, his swords held low at each side and the eyes behind that gruesome visage on his mask looking directly at her.  There was a mystical symbol glowing on the front of his armor, a power she recognized as being laid into it by a Wu Jen, a mystical user of magic from certain universes who shared a culture similar to that from which this warrior had originated, a sigil that deflected the power of her mystical word and protected him from its effect.
	Behind him, the scaled Vendari who had shouted his challenge at her was reaching them, a monster of a creature, the size of a glabrezu, wielding a massive warhammer, his green scales glistening as the thundering downpour streamed water over him.  There was another, wielding a huge axe, and yet one more, holding a huge two-handed sword, and these were not opponents to take lightly.  ShazBaket knew what Vendari were, and knew that one of their most potent weapons was the fact that they were extremely hard to affect with magic.  With three of them and that magnificent human warrior, she would be hard pressed to hold her own against them.  ShazBaket was arrogant, but she was not stupid.
	Now, perhaps, was the best time to end this.  She had achieved enough penetration.
	With a single telepathic command, it began.
	The hillside exploded outward with dust and dirt and rock, dust and dirt that quickly fell to earth within the rain as mud, and large numbers of stubby, barrel-like creatures called Xorn erupted from the earth itself, each with three arms and three legs distributed at regular intervals along the circumference of its body, and an eye between each of its arms, with a maw on its rounded top.  Each of those creatures was a denizen of the Elemental Plane of Earth and enslaved to the Demons cause, and each of them had in one of its three hands the hand, pincer, tentacle, or claw of a Demon.  Xorn had the power to walk through earth and rock, and they could take with them anyone that they were touching.  And at the forefront of those Demons was the balor that had survived the initial assault.
	In the blink of an eye, ShazBaket had dozens of Demons at her side, every one of the surviving Demons from the attempts to kill Tarrin and break the lines of the Dura, deep behind the lines of the Dura.  The Were-cats Ward prevented them from teleporting in or out, but there were other ways to use magical travel to achieve optimum surprise.
	The balor was the first to act, and that was as it was meant to be.  It would be unleashed upon the enemies now that Tarrin was locked in combat with the shadow dragon and their magicians were busy fighting the enslaved Wizards.  The balor was nothing more than a force of furious destruction, chaos personified, and it easily filled that role by standing at the forefront and leading the Demons as they rampaged through the lines of the Dura.  The great Demons charged right at the human warrior, but it was one of the Vendari that stepped up to meet its charge, the hammer-wielding one.  The balor tried to project its aura of fire, but the thundering downpour smothered the flames as quickly as it could create them.  It was nonplussed, however, meeting the Vendari with its jagged sword and brutal whip confidently as the scaly beast took up its hammer in both hands and met its charge without so much as blinking.
	In moments, a pitched battle raged around the breach, as the rest of the Vendari, Knights, and Selani reached the area, where the strongest of the Demons battled with the best of Sennadar in a furous melee that might decide the outcome of the battle.  Two Knights, one Vendari, and one Selani were already dead by the time the last of the Knights joined with battle.  The balor and marilith, the two mightiest of the Demons, had their hands full with a single Vendari and a single human warrior, as the remaining Demons and the otherworldly mortals battled in a furious frenzy that left the Dura watching a little dumbfounded, so dumbfounded that a thunderous series of detonations back near the center of the original line did not attract their attention.  Steel and magic clashed with claws and fangs as the titanic forces struggled against one another, with casualties on both sides.  A glabrezu crumpled and fell decaying to the earth, victim to a Selani longsword, as a huge Knight was impaled on the glaive of a vrock and tossed aside, even a