Arvin felt a chill run through him. He swallowed nervously. “It thinks… that I’m the one who hurt—
Davinu passed the knife to one of the clerics and grabbed the edges of the gaping hole he’d just cut in Glisena’s bloody flesh. “Now,” he shouted. “Pull it free.”
One of the clerics plunged his hand into the wound and seized hold of the demon. He pulled, his free hand braced against Glisena’s pelvis, and the demon suddenly came free. It was tiny, the size of a newborn child—but instead of legs, it had a thrashing tail fully twice the length of its body. It had six arms, a full head of sulfur-yellow hair and an upper body like that of a mature woman, with full, round breasts.
““Marilith?” the cleric holding it gasped. He had grabbed it by one of its arms and fought to maintain his grip on the blood-slicked flesh. The demon twisted violently, its tail lashing and flicking blood. A twisted pink cord spiraled down from its naval into Glisena’s stomach.
Davinu seized the cord and motioned for the other cleric to cut it with the knife.
The demon twisted, knocking the knife out of the cleric’s hand. As the cleric scrambled after the knife, the demon wrapped its tail around Davinu’s neck. “You annoy me,” it said in a voice deeper and more malevolent than any mortal man’s. Then it constricted.
Davinu clawed at the tail that was choking him. “Cut… cut….”
Behind him, the shields that had been circling through the air clunked to the floor.
Foesmasher drew his sword and lunged forward, slashing at the cord, but missed. His blade whistled through the air, narrowly missing the cleric who was holding the demon.
The demon slithered out of the cleric’s grip, then thrust all six of its hands out at once, as if fending off foes. Tendrils of shadowy darkness sprang into being around it and coiled themselves around its body. Foesmasher shoved the cleric aside and thrust at the demon, but the tendrils coiled around the weapon, halting it. The darkness slithered up the blade and licked at Foesmasher’s bare hand, and the baron dropped his sword. Foesmasher backed away, his fingers moving creakily as he tried to force his hands to obey him.
Davinu’s face purpled.
“Swords!” Arvin shouted. “The demon’s going to use magic to—”
A loud whirring noise filled the air as thousands of tiny blades sprang into existence, forming a curtain of steel around the bed and enclosing Glisena, Marasa, Arvin, and Davinu inside it. The remaining clerics screamed as the blades slashed into them. The whirling weapons clattered off their breastplates but sliced into exposed arms, legs, faces, and throats; five of the clerics fell, mortally wounded. The remaining three staggered back, screaming, bloody but still on their feet. Foesmasher, well behind them, was still struggling to pick up his sword; the demon’s magic seemed to have sapped the strength from his arms.
Outside the chamber, fists pounded on the magic-locked door. Arvin could hear the muffled shouting of the soldiers.
The demon, its tail still wrapped around Davinu’s throat, glanced around the room.
Davinu leaned back—dangerously close to the whirling blades—pulling the birthing cord taught. “Cord…” he choked. “C-c-c….”
“You cannot banish me,” the demon gloated in a voice like thick, bubbling blood. Not while I am bound by—
“Shivis,”Arvi n shouted, summoning his dagger into his glove and leaping forward. The demon tried to twist aside but failed. With a clean stroke, Arvin severed the birthing cord.
Davinu staggered, the demon still wrapped around his throat. Blades clattered against the armor that shielded his back; one sliced through an unprotected spot near his shoulder, leaving a deep slash. He recoiled from the whirling curtain of steel and struggled to speak the words of the prayer that would banish the demon—Arvin could hear them echoing in Davinu’s thoughts—but there was no air in his lungs.
“Marasa,” Arvin shouted. “Banish the demon!”
Marasa, busy with Glisena, ignored him. She threw something to the floor—the afterbirth she had just pulled out of Glisena’s wound—and pressed the two edges of the wound together, chanting a healing spell. She realized the danger—Arvin could hear it in her thoughts—but without a restorative spell, now, Glisena would bleed to death. Just a moment more, and Marasa would cast the banishing spell.
A moment they didn’t have.
Davinu collapsed, unconscious. The demon released him and coiled its tail under itself, rising like a rearing snake, the lowermost pair of its six hands resting on its hips.
