The Daylight War

Without his warded cloak, the woodies caught sight of him as he moved beyond the protection of the wards and began to stalk slowly his way. Rojer ignored them, not even bothering to raise his fiddle. Above, a wind demon’s cry split the night.

Amanvah and Sikvah stopped at the porch rail. ‘Enough of this foolishness!’ Amanvah snapped. ‘Come back inside!’

Rojer shook his head. ‘You don’t give me orders, jiwah. Come to me.’

‘The Evejah forbids women to enter the naked night,’ Amanvah said.

‘And to let other men see us unveiled and in colour! The Damajah has women stoned for this,’ Sikvah cried. He glanced back and saw her hunched over, trying to cover herself.

The demons were closer now, tamping their legs, muscles bunched as they prepared to spring. Unafraid, Rojer finally turned to them and lifted the bow in his crippled hand.

Demons were creatures of primal emotion. Manipulating those emotions was the key to controlling them. Right now, their entire attention was fixed on him. Rojer took hold of that feeling and enhanced it, projecting concentration in his music.

Here I am! he told them. Focus on this spot!

Then he stopped playing and took two quick steps to the side. The demons shook their heads, confused at the way he had vanished, and Rojer began to play once more, enhancing that feeling as well.

Where did he go? I don’t see him anywhere! he told the demons. They began to frantically scan the area, but even as their gaze swept over him, their frustration at being unable to find him remained. Rojer stepped carefully around them, keeping a casual air to his Jongleur’s mask.

‘I could say the Evejah also commands you to obey your husband,’ he told his wives, ‘but the Evejah hasn’t been where we’re going. Female Jongleurs wear bright colours, and you are in the green lands now. Inevera would have to stone every woman outside Everam’s Bounty.’

A crowd was forming at the porch rail. Gared was there, weapons in hand, as was Leesha and Wonda with her warded bow, a cluster of townies, and the three Sharum. The women hesitated, but then Amanvah huffed, drawing herself to her full height, and strode out to join him, Sikvah at her heels.

‘Dama’ting, no!’ Kaval cried.

‘Silence!’ Amanvah snapped. ‘It is your rash action that has brought us to this point!’

Gared and the warriors moved to follow them onto the square, including Enkido, who now held a spear and shield.

‘Stay behind the rails, Gar,’ Rojer called. ‘That goes for the rest of you, as well. We need no spears tonight.’ The Sharum ignored him until Amanvah whisked a hand at them. They retreated, but looked ready to ignore her command and leap into the night if the demons got too close.

The woodies did fix on the women, but they had tested the wards around the square and knew they were out of reach. Rojer took that feeling, and held it. He tilted his head, taking his chin off the wards in the demons’ direction to aim the music their way.

They are warded, he told the demons, even as his wives crossed into the open, unprotected area. You cannot touch them. There will be light and pain if you try. Seek other prey.

The demons did as instructed, and as Amanvah and Sikvah came to him, Rojer led his melody into the opening notes of the Song of Waning. Immediately they began to sing, accompanying Rojer’s lead in harmony, an echo and a highlight that increased the effect of his playing manifold. With that power, he wove a spell of music around the three of them that made them invisible to the corelings. The demons could smell them in the air, hear them, even catch fleeting glimpses, but the source of their senses was gone, their eyes slipping away from them again and again.

Safe from assault, Rojer added another layer to the tune, and Amanvah and Sikvah picked it up immediately, sending a call out into the night. Slowly, Rojer lifted his chin, revealing more of Amanvah’s wards. His wives put hands to their throats, manipulating their chokers in some way, and matched him as his volume increased.

The sound carried far, drawing first the locals around the square to their windows and porches. Lanterns appeared, shedding dim light over the cobbles. The folk looked on in stunned silence as the song did its work, drawing every demon in the area.

They came slowly at first, but soon there were more than a dozen corelings in the square. Five wood demons stalked, snuffling the air, seeking victims that could not be found. Two flame demons shrieked and cavorted, trailing orange fire as they raced from one end of the square to the other, unable to pinpoint the source of the music, but unable to resist its call. Above, three wind demons circled in the sky, their raptor calls echoing in the night. Two field demons prowled low to the ground, bellies scraping the cobbles as they tried to stay invisible for the hunt. There was even a stone demon – a smaller cousin of the rock, but still bigger than Gared, who was near to seven feet. It stood as still as its name, but Rojer knew it was extending every sense to seek them, and that it would explode into motion if he were to allow them to be seen.

Leesha had described the power of the mind demons, the vibrations in her mind forcing her to act at their bidding. Perhaps music had a similar effect, Rojer mused. Perhaps an attempt to mimic that power was why music was first created, why some melodies brought forth the same emotions in any who heard them.

Such was the power of the Song of Waning. Rojer had sensed it the first time his wives had sung it for him, a power akin to his, but … faded. Lost in the thousands of years since it was last needed.

But now Rojer brought that power back to life. Under his direction, the song’s insistent call kept the demons’ attention on something they could never find, to the ignorance of all else. If they had wanted, Gared or the Sharum could have walked right up and struck at them. A blow would break the spell and give the demons an immediate threat to respond to, but from a Sharum spear or Gared’s axe, a single blow could easily cripple or kill.

But Rojer had spoken true when he told them weapons were not needed this night.

He began the first verse of the song, Amanvah and Sikvah singing of the glory of Everam, and threaded in his first spell, one he and his wives had practised many times in their carriage. By the time the refrain came, the women wordlessly calling to the Creator, the demons had forgotten their hunt, dancing to his tune like villagers spinning a reel at solstice.

They carried that on into the next verse, when Rojer changed his tune to another practised melody. He began to stroll casually about the square, his wives following him. The demons trailed them like ducklings following their mother to water.

He let this go on through the refrain and the verse that followed, but added a note to signal his wives to the abrupt change about to come. As the verse ended, the demons were in the position he wished, and the three of them spun, hitting the demons with a series of piercing shrieks that had them howling and running from the square like whipped dogs.

They were almost out of range when he began the next verse. The corelings stopped short and froze in place like hunters trying not to be seen, lest they frighten off their prey. With contemptuous ease, he raised their tension until they could not bear it any longer, running about the square slashing and snarling, desperate to find the source of the music and put an end to it.

Rojer continued to lead them, offering false hints of where their quarry lay. There was an old hitching post outside the wardnet. He draped music over it.