'D'ivers!' Kulp bellowed, one hand grasping Duiker's telaba and pulling the historian back to where Sormo stood as if dazed.
Rats scampered over the soft ground, shrilly screaming as they attacked a writhing bundle of snakes.
The historian felt heat on his legs, looked down. Fire ants swarmed him up to his thighs. The heat rose to agony. He screamed.
Swearing, Kulp unleashed his warren in a pulse of power. Shrivelled ants fell from the historian's legs like dust. The attacking swarm flinched back, the D'ivers retreating.
The rats had overrun the snakes and now closed in on Sormo. The Wickan frowned at them.
Off where Bult crouched slapping futilely at the stinging wasps, liquid fire erupted in a swath, the flames tumbling over the veteran.
Tracking back to the fire's source, Duiker saw that an enormous demon had entered the clearing. Midnight-skinned and twice the height of a man, the creature voiced a roar of fury and launched a savage attack on a white-furred bear – the glade was alive with D'ivers and Soletaken, the air filled with shrieks and snarls. The demon landed on the bear, driving it to the ground with a snap and crunch of bones. Leaving the animal twitching, the black demon leapt to one side and roared a second time, and this time Duiker heard meaning within it.
'It's warning us!' he shouted at Kulp.
Like a lodestone the demon's arrival drew the D'ivers and Soletaken. They fought each other in a frenzied rush to attack the creature.
'We have to get out of here!' Duiker said. 'Pull us out, Kulp –now!'
The mage hissed in rage. 'How? This is Sormo's ritual, you damned book-grub!'
The demon vanished beneath a mob of creatures, yet clearly remained upright, as the D'ivers and Soletaken clambered up what seemed a solid pillar of stone. Black-skinned arms appeared, flinging away dead and dying creatures. But it could not last.
'Hood take you, Kulp! Think of something!'
The mage's face tightened. 'Drag Bult to Sormo. Quickly! Leave the warlock to me.' With that, Kulp bolted to Sormo, shouting in an effort to wake the youth from whatever spell held him. Duiker spun to where Bult lay huddled five paces away. His legs felt impossibly heavy beneath the prickling pain of the ant bites as he staggered to the Wickan.
The veteran had been stung scores of times, his flesh was misshapen with fiery swelling. He was unconscious, possibly dead. Duiker gripped the man's harness and dragged him to where Kulp continued accosting Sormo E'nath.
As the historian arrived, the demon gave one last shriek, then disappeared beneath the mound of attackers. The D'ivers and Soletaken then surged towards the four men.
Sormo E'nath was oblivious, his eyes glazed, unheeding of the mage's efforts to shout him into awareness.
'Wake him or we're dead,' Duiker gasped, stepping over Bult to face the charging beasts with naught but a small knife.
The weapon would little avail him as a seething cloud of hornets swiftly closed the distance.
The scene was jolted, and Duiker saw they were back in the dead oasis. The D'ivers and Soletaken were gone. The historian turned to Kulp. 'You did it! How?'
The mage glanced down at a sprawled, moaning Sormo E'nath. 'I'll pay for it,' he muttered, then met Duiker's eyes. 'I punched the lad. Damn near broke my hand doing it, too. It was his nightmare, wasn't it?'
The historian blinked, then shook himself and crouched down beside Bult. 'This poison will kill him long before we can get help—'
Kulp squatted, ran his good hand over the veteran's swollen face. 'Not poison. More like an infecting warren. I can deal with this, Duiker. As with your legs.' He closed his eyes in concentration.
Sormo E'nath slowly pushed himself into sitting position. He looked around, then tenderly touched his jaw, where the ridged imprint of Kulp's knuckles stood like puckered islands in a spreading flush of red.
'He had no choice,' Duiker told him.
The warlock nodded.
'Can you talk? Any loose teeth?'
'Somewhere,' he said clearly, 'a crow flaps broken-winged on the ground. There are but ten left.'
'What happened there, Warlock?'
Sormo's eyes flicked nervously. 'Something unexpected, Historian. A convergence is underway. The Path of Hands. The gate of the Soletaken and the D'ivers. An unhappy coincidence.'
Duiker scowled. 'You said Tellann—'
'And so it was,' the warlock cut in. 'Is there a blending between shapeshifting and Elder Tellann? Unknown. Perhaps the D'ivers and Soletaken are simply passing through the warren – imagining it unoccupied by T'lan Imass and therefore safer. Indeed, no T'lan Imass to take umbrage with the trespass, leaving them with only each other to battle.'
