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The others nodded and then Daemona was gone, moving in a blur as she ported in behind the huts.
She was behind the closest hut. Hugging its edge, she crept around until she was inside. There were dirty bedrolls piled on the floor, a table shoved into a corner, and an odd collection of bones heaped upon it. Crowding the bones were jars of curious liquids in all colors imaginable, and other jars with obvious disgusting items like eyes and organs. Daemona didn’t want to think about any of the body parts belonging to a Succubus, let alone a lousy human, and hoped it was all “eye of newt” and the like.
There were several brooms leaning along the wall and Daemona determined that they would be perfect kindling to set the hut aflame. Daemona lay two brooms together, took out her steel and flint, and produced sparks like tiny stars.
Someone opened the tent flap and maroon twilight splashed inside across Daemona’s guilty hands.
The figure was short. It wasn’t a dwarf; it was a little girl. Her face was dirty with soot, save where tears had run the darkness down and away. She was wide-eyed with shock. Daemona guessed she must be one of the children taken from nearby villages, kidnapped and forced to become slaves for the witches. Perhaps they eventually became witches too, but no, not so young. Daemona’s mind reeled at the implications in a whirlwind encompassing a fraction of a second.
“I’m here to help,” Daemona said, almost as surprised as the girl.
The girl was frozen, clutching her broom.
“I’m just making a distraction.”
The girl’s lip trembled in fear.
Daemona reached toward her. “I’m a friend.”
The girl’s piercing wail could have been a banshee’s. “Heretics!” she screeched.
Daemona grabbed her and clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. The alarm had been heard by everyone.
Cries erupted from outside the tent, and Daemona could only hope that Harlin and Ghul Lykos were making do with the new surprise distraction.
Using her multitasking skills from years on the street, Daemona continued to hold the girl under her arm while simultaneously lighting the brooms on fire and dashing them over the hut, catching oil lamps and parchment aflame. Then, as the smoke threatened to choke both of them, she ported out of the hut.
Black smoke-like centipedes raced up the cracks in the thatch hut as flames licked at the peak of the conical roof. The girl still struggled, but she was so small and weak that Daemona had no trouble retaining a grip on her shoulder.
A hideous crone suddenly loomed from the shadows pointing a wand at Daemona. Light crackled at the tip and a beam shot forth, but Daemona was faster and ported away and behind the crone. She let go of the girl and used the flat of her blade to crack the witch across the skull.
Daemona grabbed the girl’s collar as she attempted to bolt away.
The crone staggered but wheeled around and raked hideous nails across Daemona’s exposed arm. “A pox on thee,” rasped the witch.
The cuts burned on her skin far worse than they should have, and Daemona wondered if it had been a pox curse, rather than just a scratch.
The witch brought her wand up for another spell when her sneering face suddenly went blank and she toppled over with an arrow in her back.
Daemona couldn’t tell if it had been Harlin or Ghul Lykos, but she saw movement in the thick bushes not far away.
More arrows flew from the shadows, catching witches like pincushions, yet more witches appeared from the huts, cackling and screeching like banshees.
Lightning lanced across the clearing and blackened bushes, but there was no sound, no cry of pain. Daemona hoped that meant her companions were fine and had moved rather than become incapacitated. She couldn’t allow herself to think it could be any worse.
Another witch raced around the other side of the hut and almost bumped into Daemona. “They’re trying to steal Esmerelda!” she cried to her fellow witches as she brought her wand up like a fencing blade.
“I don’t have time for this,” muttered Daemona as she ported away, dodging the arcane blast of green energy that zipped beyond where she had just been standing and shattered a tree behind.
The witch looked about, puzzled, then down at her own wand as if it were responsible for her foes’ disappearance.
Daemona ported behind a witch and said, “Hey ugly.”
The witch snarled and whipped around, blasting with her wand as Daemona ported away. Daemona put herself between the other witches, who were now casting dark magics at each other. Green lightning and purple rays flashed back and forth furiously in weird entanglements. The witches screeched in horrible agony until all went suddenly silent.
“That was amazing!” shouted Ghul Lykos. “You got them to destroy each other. Brilliant!”
“And she even has a prisoner to answer questions for us,” said Harlin as he stalked from his hiding place to where Daemona still held the littlest witch.
