The Woodward Academy, Year 8

Chapter 13: May - Feral Moon

"Tanya, pull your men back to the terrace level," David said.

"That will give them free run of the dorms, not to mention a foothold on the mountain," Tanya objected.

"Tanya, we've got about three hundred people, to fight off four thousand.  We cannot stand toe to toe with them for every piece of land.  We have a huge mountain to play with, and we're going to use every inch of that to draw them in, then annihilate them.  The rim around the Monster Moat is simply too narrow, too restricted, for decent fighting.  We'd be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.

"We'll make our first stand on the terrace, where we've got plenty of room to maneuver."

"Okay, you're the soldier," Tanya agreed.

David snorted.

Emile asked, "Should we turn off the rock lifts?"

"No.  We need them to move around ourselves.  Plus... I have a little surprise in store for any weres who try to use them."

Emile nodded.

"Goliath, as soon as they're on the mountain proper, you and your men may act on your own initiative."

"Understood, Vocator," Goliath said.

"In fact, if you want to knock a few of them off while they're climbing, you go right ahead," David said with a grin.

Goliath actually smiled at him.

To the others, David said, "Come on, we've got to get down to our positions.  Lord Woodward, if you see anything important, give a shout."

"By your command, Vocator," he replied.

David snorted at that, too, then led Tanya and Emile down the tower.  They exited onto the roof of the keep.

"What are we doing here?" Emile asked.

"Waking a slumbering giant," David said enigmatically.  He moved over to a small platform, the use for which Emile had never guessed at.  David stepped up onto it, then raised his wand above his head.

David spoke loudly and clearly, and his wand issued forth a brilliant green light.  "By the authority of the King of Callamandia, bestowed to me in this time of crisis, I command you, Castle Woodward, awaken!"

As the light from David's wand intensified, the two ladies felt the castle shudder.  In front of them, they saw the spacing in the battlements close down until they were little more than slits.  Looking, they saw that the ones on the castle's outer wall did the same.  Out of sight, the large glass windows in the keep's edifice disappeared, replaced by cross-shaped slots, used for firing out of, from inside the keep.

The castle's four statues in the courtyard no longer sat facing the four compass points.  Instead, they had shifted across the ground, all facing toward the castle gate.  The portcullis remained raised, and the drawbridge remained down.  Those things were handled individually.

Down on the other levels, the Sentinel Trees awoke.  No longer was their job to save students, but to harass and assault the enemy.  The weres would find an unpleasant surprise when they reached the rim of the mountain.  The tendrils of the defensive plants descended out of their limbs, now snaking across the ground and wriggling through the air, seeking enemies.

Down in the Monster Moat, splashes and growls were heard as the few ancient monsters that still lived there awoke and made their presence known.  The flock of awks, which had been floating in the Academy Moat, took wing and headed south for safety.

Firebird Dorm and Thunderbird Dorm also changed.  Their doorways were now barred, and their windows were covered over.  Though the other dorms had no protections, the first two dorms constructed were built with the memory of the Vrudenans in mind.

With the shift from peace to war complete, David lowered his wand and stepped off the platform.

"That should give us a little help," David said.  "Come on."  He hurried back into the tower, and made his way to the ground floor and out into the courtyard.

"Emile, I want you to stay here.  You're in charge of the faculty."

"Shouldn't we be down with the students?" she asked, fretting.

"I don't expect fighting on the terrace or the Academy level to last long.  We are going to be in retreat from the very beginning.  I need a force here at the castle to be in position, ready, when we arrive.  Also, tell Prof. Rutherford to have all the electricity generators brought out and put along the top of the curtain wall.  I'll need them later."

Emile nodded.  "Good luck," she said.

David grunted.  "That'd be a first," he replied.  Looking to Tanya, he said, "Let's go."

The two of them ran for the stairs leading down to the Academy level.  It would take them minutes just to clear the stairway, even running.

Sam and Prof. Blackstone soon joined Emile.

"What do we do?" Sam asked.

"This is not my thing, Samantha," Emile said shakily.  "If anyone has any ideas, I'm listening."

Prof. Blackstone said, "Perhaps we should take position up on the walls.  That way, we can fire at them as they come up the stairs."

"The only place we'll see clearly is near the gate," Sam said.

Emile nodded.  "I think a few of us ought to climb the towers.  That way, we can keep track of what's going on below."

"I'll ask Professors Whitaker and Van Titan to take a tower each," Sam said.

"Thank you.  Have the rest of the professors come out and join us near the gate."

Sam turned and headed into the castle.  Walking up the steps was now a somewhat nerve-wracking experience, as the lava-stone steps were glowing intensely orange in their cracks, and it was clear what would happen should those steps open up on you.

As they ran across the courtyard, Emile said to Prof. Blackstone, "Harry, if you've got any ideas, don't keep them to yourself."

"I'm no more prepared for this than you are, Emile," he said.  "I just hope David knows what he's doing."

"Doesn't he always?" she asked.

Harry grunted at that.

 It took nearly twenty minutes for David and Tanya to make it all the way down to the edge of the terrace.  The werewolves were getting close to the rim, but hadn't made it yet.

"I thought the whole point of building this mountain was that they wouldn't climb the damned thing," Tanya grumped.

"Won't doesn't mean can't," David reminded her.  "They don't like climbing.  It doesn't mean they can't do it.  And they're feral right now.  Their only thought is to get to their enemy.

"That's us, in case you're unsure."

"Thanks, I was pretty clear on that one already," she told him.

David moved back and forth along the edge of the terrace.  He saw several dozen werewolves already on the rim.  As he watched, there were suddenly several fewer werewolves on the rim, because the Sentinel Trees grabbed them and flung them into the sea.  Even those trees that were hundreds of feet from the cliff managed to fling their victims into the ocean far below.  The weres immediately blasted at the trees with their weapons, and it didn't take long before all of the ones nearby were dead or dying.  David frowned in anger.  Several students tried to blast at them, but their spells died in mid-air.

"Don't bother trying to hit them right now," David called out to the students.  "Your long-range spells will not be working, remember.  Don't waste the effort.  When you see them start to leave on a rock lift, you send up a blue spark, to let me know."

He went along the rim, repeating the message so that everyone heard him.

I could really use Gwen's Segway right about now... David thought to himself ruefully.  The mountain was a huge amount of space to cover.

Off to David's left, he saw blue sparks in the air.  He rushed over and looked down.  He saw two rock lifts, crammed to capacity with at least two dozen werewolves each.

Tanya had joined him.  "So, now what?  They'll be here in less than a minute..."

"Oh, no they won't.  The nice part of now being the controller of the castle..."

David held out his hands, palms up and fingers gripping as if he was holding a ball in each hand.  He then slowly turned his wrists until his palms were facing downward.

Down over the moat, the two rock lifts suddenly rotated until they were upside-down.  The protective bubbles vanished, and nearly fifty weres plummeted to the water, fifty feet below.  At least half of them didn't survive.

"Attack my home, will you, you motherfuckers?  We'll see about that," David snarled.

More blue sparks drew his attention, and he headed in that direction.  For twenty minutes, David ran back and forth, until the weres learned to stop using the rock lifts.

"They're swimming for it now," Tanya told him as he came back to her.

"I figured they would.  Still, I think we just took out at least three, four hundred of the fuckers."

"Yeah, that only leaves us, what, thirty-six, thirty-seven hundred more?"

"Yeah.  See?  Now it's a piece of cake!" David told her.

"Hah!" she said.  "I don't think I like your sense of humor at the moment," she told him.

David patted her gently on the shoulder, and then moved along to see what the weres were up to.  They weren't great swimmers in their hybrid form, so only a few had even made it to the inner rim.  Several dozen had been taken out by the monsters in the moat, but even they had their limits, and there were simply far too many werewolves for them to keep up.

Looking around, David spotted several large rocks.  One by one, he levitated them over the edge, and then he accelerated them down toward a climbing werewolf.  He missed with the first one, but the were was so scared that he fell off the cliff and broke something when he landed, thirty feet below.

David's second rock was a direct hit, and that body tumbled off the cliff, splattering itself all over the inner rim.

Those around David, who had seen what he'd done, started to mimic the technique.  The weres were still too far away for spells to hit them directly, but things like levitation were very short-range, and worked just fine.

A shadow winged past David, and he turned to see what that was.  He followed it down with his eyes until he realized it was Goliath.  He and the other gargoyles had joined the fight, and Goliath was ripping apart werewolves left and right.  Several of them started blasting him with energy balls, and he had to retreat.  One or two blasts were nothing to him, but they were hitting him with a dozen at a time, and even he wasn't completely immune.  He took to the sky, where he was more maneuverable.  This reduced his effectiveness, but vastly improved his longevity.

David, seeing that the students had picked up the tactic well enough, stopped throwing rocks himself.  He moved along the rim, looking for other opportunities, and keeping an eye out for problems.  For the moment, the battle was stable.  Things would probably remain that way until a large number of weres made it onto the terrace.

Jailla winged down and thudded onto David's shoulder.

"You should be under cover, bird," David snapped.

"There are werewolves climbing the other side of the mountain," Jailla said, ignoring David's rebuke.

"Shit.  How many?"

"Hundreds."

"Fuck.  Okay, go, up, out, away, back to the castle... just get the hell away from right here!"

Jailla winged off to continue his reconnaissance.

"You guys!  Come with me!"

A group of about fifteen students ran with David.  Crossing the terrace took minutes, even at a dead run.

"Shit," David muttered.  There were, in fact, hundreds climbing the north face of the terrace cliff.

"Take them down with rocks, just like on the other side."

As the students started doing that, David considered what else he could do to dissuade the attackers.  He looked to his left and saw Byron Hall, the cafeteria, and an idea came to him.

Pulling his mirror, he dialed, and said, "Food Services".

A pixie popped into being.  "How can I help you?"

"I need every ounce of cooking oil you have."

"Sir, that would be hundreds of gallons."

"Good.  I need all of it."

"Yes, sir."

The pixie popped out of existence.  In about a minute, barrels of cooking oil appeared next to him.  All told, there were ten of them, which was four hundred gallons of oil.

David popped the top off the barrels of oil, and pointed his wand.  He cast, "Tapamana sopechny!"

The students moved away from the barrels.  The heat coming off them was intense.  David then misted the oil from one barrel, so that it was almost like an aerosol.  Floating it over the edge of the cliff, he allowed it to drop naturally, which it did slowly, due to the small size of the droplets.

When it got to where he wanted it, David shouted, "Okina hono ventus!"  A huge gout of flame erupted from his wand, and it touched the edge of the oil cloud.  The oil cloud, already at its own flashpoint, erupted immediately into a massive fireball.  Four dozen werewolves fell off the cliff face, their bodies engulfed in flame.

David had ten barrels of oil, and he performed this maneuver ten times, killing several hundred more werewolves.

He called to the students, "Keep doing whatever you can.  When they start to reach the top, back away.  Do not try to hold ground.  Make your way to the lifts, and send up red sparks.  Send them high; they've got to be seen on the other side.  Don't be a hero; we have lots of room to retreat.  Keep up the good work!" he hollered as he ran off, to check on the other side of the mountain.

He hated to do it, but David needed the time he was wasting.  He faded to ghost form and shifted into Haven.  Doing this, he could glide across the mountain in almost no time at all.  He shifted back to solid form once he'd arrived.

"Shit.  They're almost to the top," David said.

"Yeah.  Now what?  We're just about out of rocks, and there are still thousands of those assholes."

"Looking for aquamanders!" David shouted.

Four students turned and came to him.

David just pointed.  "There's the waterfall.  There's the Vrudenans.  Introduce them to each other."

"Yes, sir!" the one student said with a grin.  The four went over and began to manipulate the river cascading over the edge of the terrace.  They splashed out huge plumes of water, washing dozens of werewolves off the cliff and back down to the Monster Moat.  Waiting for them at the bottom were the Abaia and two other creatures that David didn't know the names of.  Those weres weren't going to survive their fall, one way or the other.

"Great work, guys!  Keep it up as long as you can!"

"That's a great idea, but it's only going to catch those close by.  And you can see, they're already trying to avoid the waterfall," Tanya complained.

"So long as we keep them reacting to us, we're in a good position," David said.  "If we let them start playing this their way, that's when we're in trouble."

Tanya nodded.

David looked down, and tried to judge distance.  He leveled his wand.

"Valk Mammut!" he shouted.

A gigantic blast of lightning emerged from his wand.  He saw it fizzling, and by the time it hit anything, it was barely a valk keskmisay... but that was enough to fry the bastard it hit, and knock the guy next to him off the mountain.

"Not quite yet," David said, "but soon..."

"Think we're close enough for energy balls?" Tanya asked.

"Couldn't hurt to try, but don't go all out with them.  You don't want to wear yourself out now.  We know they're going to make it onto the terrace.  If you're out of juice at that point, they're just going to run right over us."

Tanya nodded, then lobbed a small energy ball down the side of the mountain.  It smacked a werewolf in the face and exploded, taking his head with it.  The body claimed two more werewolves on its descent to the ground.

"Nice," David told her.  "I have to go check on things.  Keep this up.  You're doing great!"

"Right," Tanya said, not believing him.

 David ran along the line, firing a few spells here and there, but mostly he was watching the weres and encouraging the students.  He could see the weres getting closer and closer. 

He came to a section with weaker students, and the werewolves were nearly to the rim.  David pointed down at the approaching weres and shouted, "ODRAZIT!"  Several of them looked up from the sheer volume of his cry.  They then issued cries of their own as the spell shoved them, pushing them off the mountain.  Two dozen werewolves turned into three dozen by the time they hit the ground, a hundred feet below.

"Pichac, bara, odrazit!  Use them!  They're low-power, but they work!  Anything you can do to push them off the wall.  Let gravity kill these motherfuckers for us!"

The students took his advice, and a lot of weres were getting killed.

"It can't be this easy," Tanya said when David was once again beside her.

"Don't worry, it's not," he replied, pointing to their left.

A large group of weres had made it onto the terrace by coming up the sea side, where the number of students was low.

Probably nonexistent now, David growled to himself.

"To the left!" David shouted to let the students know.  Looking in the other direction, he said, "Get ready to pull back!"

"Shouldn't we kill as many as we can this way?" she asked.

"Keep in mind we've got one more shot at this.  They have to make it up to the Academy level before they'll have stairs to use.  But we have to break free in time for our forces to use the rock lifts."

"Right."

"In fact...  You guys!" he said, pointing to a group of about twenty.  "Head for the rock lift now.  Wait for everyone to gather before moving.  If any of your spells will reach, go ahead and try to attack from up there, but we have to disengage carefully.  Go!"

The twenty guys were quickly at a dead run for the rock lift.

"You organize the retreat.  I'm going to see if I can't cut down their numbers a little," David said.

"Be careful," Tanya pleaded.

"Don't even know the meaning of the word," David told her as he put away his wand and drew his sword.

David ran headlong into the weres.  Three were decapitated before they could even react.  Now, however, he was surrounded.  His blade flashed and twisted as he spun, kicked, punched, and then thrust, slashed and parried.  Some of the weres were carrying the short-handled spearlike weapon they used, but most were going hand to hand, or using energy balls.  David couldn't have cared less; they were dying by the numbers.

The problem was just that: numbers.  David had already killed twenty or more, but it made no difference in how many were on the terrace.  They were coming over the edge faster than he could kill them.  He started to make his own retreat toward the rock lifts.

"BEHIND YOU!" someone screamed.

David didn't take the time to turn, he just ducked and rolled, coming up to see a huge werewolf had tried to bash his head in with a metal mace.  David leveled his sword at the werewolf and lasered out an energy bolt that pierced a hole right through the werewolf's heart.  And that of the were behind him.

Lunging and thrusting, David finally got clear of the mass of weres.  He saw Tanya ahead of him, and made his way to her.

"The students?"

"All on their way.  It's just the security force down here now."

"Then let's get the hell clear," David said.

Tanya signaled, and the entire group headed off for the nearest rock lift.  They had to fight the weres while they waited for it to return; it had just delivered some students to the Academy level.

David used several lightning blasts to keep the weres at bay while the security team boarded the rock lift.  He jumped on at the last second, just before the rock started to ascend.

He found himself next to JoAnne.

"Fancy meeting you here," David said with a grin.

"This is not the kind of action I wanted to engage in with you," she told him.

"Sorry about that."

"You will make it up to me," she told him.

"Yes, ma'am!" he barked, then stuck out his tongue.

She quickly leaned forward and sucked on his tongue, kissing him passionately until the rock lift made it to the next level.

"Hell, I'll fight a thousand more of these bastards for another one of those," David told her.  JoAnne blushed, then rushed off to take up position.

David looked down.  The Sentinel Trees on the terrace were already burning, and the werewolves were climbing the cliffs now.  They were moving faster, having learned how vulnerable they were in the climb.

"Aquamanders!  You have an entire moat to use!  Use it!"

Soon the moat water was sloshing over the side in various streams.  Werewolf after werewolf fell to their death, piling up at the base of the cliff.  But no matter how many died, there were still thousands more coming.

"I swear these fuckers are being cloned at the base of the mountain as we fight," David said to himself.  He zapped three of them with a lightning spell, then took another two down with energy balls.

In a moment, Tanya was again at his side.

"Any idea how bad we've been hurt?" David asked.

"Down by about thirty."

"Shit," David said.  Out of a force of only 300 total, that was a huge amount.  And fifty of those 300 weren't even in combat yet; they were waiting up in the castle.

"Goliath!" David yelled as the giant gargoyle flew past.  Goliath heard him and wheeled in the air, landing next to David with a thud.

"You needed me?"

"Have you seen the demons?"

"Yes.  They are waiting down on the Monster Moat level."

"Can... do you gargoyles have any chance of taking out a demon?"

"A better chance than these humans do," Goliath said.

"Then... give it a try.  We need our spells back.  If we could attack these assholes at five hundred yards, they wouldn't stand a chance.  But we're stuck letting them get too close, and then we can't cast fast enough to stop them!"

"We will do what we can.  Be aware that two or three of these demons are very powerful, and we may not be able to beat them at all."

"Any little bit helps," David said.

"As you say."  With that, Goliath leapt into the night sky and was gone.

David looked around.  He could barely see anybody's face.  There was a full moon, but it was in descent and halfway to the horizon already.  Further, his vision had been degraded by all the flashes and the fires.  He reached into his pocket and dialed.

"Kippy," he said.

"You're calling Dean Lengel's personal pixie?" Tanya gasped.

"I need someone in charge," David said.

Kippy appeared in front of him.  She said, "Jacob Marley, I presume?" referencing a joke David had made to her years ago.

David chuckled.  "Exactly.  Kippy, I need every firefly on the mountain.  We need light out here."

"Will do!"  With that, she popped out.  It didn't take too long before fireflies began bursting into luminescence, filling the area with light.

"Hell yes," Tanya said.  "Now we can see the mother fuckers!"

"Yeah, well, what I want to see is a bunch of dead motherfuckers!" David said, and sent three energy balls hurtling down the cliff.  They took out two werewolves each.  It wasn't enough, but it was satisfying, nonetheless.

 David ran back and forth along the rim.  He was growing winded, and knew he needed to find a better tactic for monitoring the battle, but there wasn't one readily available.

"You know how to use one of these?" someone asked him.  The man was holding a SkyRider.

"Where'd you get that?"

He pointed to the student center.  "There's a rental facility in there, remember?"

"Shit!  No, I didn't!  Go grab them all!  And give me that!"

David dropped it on the ground and hopped on.  This was not a favored mode of transportation for him, but it would do, given how much faster it was.  He zipped along, nearly falling off twice, but used his speed to surprise the weres, blasting at them as he zipped by.  He looked down at the terrace, and it was virtually crawling with werewolves at this point.  He saw a group of werewolves that had just made it over the rim.  Some students were backing away.  David shouted, and they all dove to the ground.  He pivoted, and his SkyRider slammed into the chest of the lead were.  David's sword took care of the rest of them.

David spun around to head back the other way, and saw that the group of students on SkyRiders were moving rather chaotically.  He made his way over to them, and motioned them to him.

"Move together, you guys.  Back each other up.  Work as a team.  You're fast, you're mobile.  Try to surprise them.  Come up from behind.  Just remember, SkyRiders cannot fly, they can only hover.  If you go over the edge of the cliff, you're going to wind up down there.  The drop won't hurt you, but the werewolves sure as fuck will.  Go!"

The group zoomed off, working more together now.  He watched to see them take down an entire group of ten or so weres, but then he turned back to his own tasks.

A werewolf was squared off with Tanya, and she was holding her own, but he could see she was concerned.  He pulled his staff and enlarged it.  As he flew by, he nailed the werewolf in the back of the head.  The hit was so hard that the were's neck snapped instantly, and the body dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Tanya hollered her thanks, but David was already well past her, looking for other trouble spots.

Instead of turning around, David made a full circuit of the Academy level.  It was clear that the weres were now using all sides to ascend the mountain.  It was also clear that, in a few minutes, they would be topping the level in force.

David started ordering groups to disengage and head for the castle stairs.  Some were reluctant, but most broke off immediately, seeking the safety of the castle.

The security force was, once again, the last group.  David hopped off his SkyRider, but kept hold of it.

"How are we faring?" David asked.

"Not good," Tanya said.  "We're down to less than two hundred, if the count is accurate."

"Shit," David said.  "Okay, well, let's move back."

"They could destroy these buildings..." someone said.

"If they kill all of us, they can destroy these buildings at their leisure," David retorted.  "We are their target for the moment.  Let's not be one that stands still."

With that, they all made their way past Beckett Hall, and onto the inner rim of that moat.  In a few more minutes, they came through the castle gate.

David stood in the middle of the entranceway, and lifted his hand in front of him.  The drawbridge immediately began to raise, and everyone sighed in relief when it thudded firmly into position.

David stepped back some, and then lifted both of his hands, and pushed downward.  The portcullis - the iron grating that would cover the opening in the wall that was the gateway - slowly lowered into position.  Only when it was firmly seated into the ground did David turn.

When he did, he saw Emile, Sam, Prof. Blackstone, Endora, Cat, Prof. Phillips, and Miss J, all waiting for him.

"We have a bit of a breather," David told them.  "We broke off before they were coming over the rim in huge numbers, and they'll want to take the stairs in force, to try to overwhelm us."

"David, seriously... can the castle hold against this many?"

"They have nothing with them, weapon-wise, that can break through the drawbridge and the portcullis, which means they're going to have to scale the walls to get in here.  Unless, that is, they have some method for breaking in that I don't know about.  In any case, for right now, we've got... maybe a half hour before we're going to be in any serious danger."

Just then, the gargoyles winged overhead, moving rapidly toward the castle.  Larger shapes suddenly appeared, and they alit on the battlements of the outer wall.  These were beings easily as large as Goliath, every one of them.  Their skin was dark red and leathery.  Not all of them were muscular, but those that weren't looked wiry and agile.  They were demons.

"Of course, I could be wrong," David said with a frown.

"Oh, shit," Emile breathed in fear, trying to control her panic.

"They're just sitting there," Sam said.

"Not their fight," David replied.

"Then why are they here at all?"

"They're helping the weres, but I suspect their help only goes just so far."

"Should we attack them?" Prof. Blackstone asked.

"I think that would be an exceptionally bad idea," David replied.  "They may not be willing to fight directly for the weres, but I'd be willing to bet they'll fight back if attacked."

At that point, Tanya reappeared.

"How many?" David asked.

"Two hundred eighteen."

"Fuck."

"Two hundred eighteen... what?" Cat asked.

"That's how many people we have left," Tanya said.

"We started with over three hundred!" Cat gasped.

"I'm aware," Tanya replied.

"And now you know why I didn't want us to stand and fight down there," David said.  "It was too easy for them to pick us off.  We took a damn good number of them down with us, but we're still on the ass end of this thing."

"You think we could just retreat into the castle and wait it out?  If reinforcements are coming..."

"Do you have any idea how hard it would be to attack this mountain with three thousand-plus angry werewolves sitting on it?" David demanded.  "At this point, unless those reinforcements are from the 101st Airborne, they aren't going to be worth a damn.  This is our fight."

"Perhaps... surrendering should be considered?" one of the other professors, who had come up during the conversation, offered quietly.

"Surrender is not an option.  What is in this mountain cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the Vrudenans."

"If they kill all of us, they will have it, anyway," the professor pointed out.

David looked at him.  "If it goes that far, I will destroy enough of the mountain that they cannot reach the item before reinforcements arrive en masse."

"You think you can destroy a whole mountain?" the professor scoffed.

"I don't have to destroy the whole thing.  Just about a one-hundred-foot sphere of it.  I can do that.  Might take me a while, but I can do it."

"Here they come!" one of the professors called from up on the wall.  David ran up the stairway and looked down through the crenelations.  What he saw was a mass of shoving and pushing bodies.  They filled the rim around the moat, and more were trying to crowd into place.

"Fuck me," David muttered to himself.  "Well," he said, "They can't get any more up there than that."

"No," a voice said next to him.  He looked and realized it was Prof. Rutherford.

"Where is Lyssa?" David asked, concerned.

"At home, thank God."

"Good."  Turning, he called down, "Hey, Charlie, throw me that SkyRider, would you?"

Prof. Phillips grabbed it and tossed it up to David.  David waved, and then turned, climbing up onto the top of the wall.

"What are you going to do?" Prof. Rutherford asked.

"Are those electricity generators running?" David asked in response.

"Yes.  They have been since I brought them out here."

"Ever wanted to see what happens when you mix aquamandy and electromandy?" David asked.

"You're not."

"I am.  And they're going to wish I hadn't.  Might want to keep your head down."

David hopped onto the SkyRider and pushed off.  He descended quickly, but safely, until he was mere feet above the moat.  The weres were firing at him, but they simply couldn't hit him, as fast as he was going.

David concentrated, and soon a mist of water vapor was floating just above the moat.  The weres eventually stopped firing at him, for they didn't understand what he was doing, and he wasn't an apparent danger.  They returned to firing at those up on the castle wall.

David now faded to ghost form.  It was necessary to do this safely.  Gathering the electrical energy in the air, he directed it into the water cloud surrounding him.  The electricity reacted with the water vapor, electrolyzing the water into hydrogen and oxygen.

David pivoted on his SkyRider, and made sure he was in the middle of the cloud.

"Eat shit and die, motherfuckers," David said.  Gathering a huge amount of electricity, he released gigantic sparks from each hand.  The spark ignited the hydrogen/oxygen mixture, and an enormous fireball erupted against the wall of the castle.  The resulting explosion hurled hundreds of werewolves off the cliff.  Those that remained were on fire.  David had been dumped in the water when he lost his balance due to being shocked by the force of the blast, but he was otherwise unhurt, being in ghost form.  Unfortunately, his SkyRider floated away over the cliff, so he could not reproduce this tactic.  He swam to the edge of the moat and climbed out on the rim.  A flaming werewolf ran at him, but David spun and then kicked him in the side of the head.  The were fell to the ground and tumbled, rolling right off the edge of the cliff.  Looking around, he saw that there were already weres who had been waiting below, climbing up onto the rim.

I think I should probably get the hell back in the castle now...

He knew it wasn't safe to open the gate.  He looked up at the wall, and then focused his attention carefully.  Taking a deep breath, he teleported himself, until he was standing beside Prof. Rutherford.

"Holy hell!" she shouted.  "What did you just do?"

"Which time?" David asked with a smirk.

"How did you get here?"

"Teleportation," David said simply.

She stared at him in awe.  "And... that down there..."

"Hydrogen explosion.  That's why you don't want to go mixing aquamandy and electromandy."

"Can you do it again?"

"If I can get another SkyRider," David confirmed.

Just then, however, the tactic became useless.

The largest of the demons suddenly blasted a gigantic energy ball at the castle entrance.  The portcullis, the drawbridge, and a good portion of the gatehouse were suddenly missing.

"Oh, fuck," David said.  "Stay up here.  You can target them better that way.  And don't forget to keep an eye on what's going on outside.  They might try to play some kind of trick."

"Right.  Good luck."

"Does it look like I'm having any?" David demanded, then ran down the stairs, pulling his sword as he went.

Though there was a huge opening in the castle's defenses, the werewolves still had to cross the moat.  That meant swimming, and then climbing out, and it was a good way for the humans to pick off dozens of them.

Unfortunately, dozens more made it inside.  David didn't join in the group at the water's edge, but instead moved into the middle of the courtyard, taking on those that had surged through.  He swung and thrust, taking down were after were.  A larger one managed to tackle him, pushing him to the ground, but David bent his back and rolled until he wound up with the werewolf under him.  David's dagger took care of the rest.

Jumping to his feet, David looked around.  What he saw was utter chaos.  Werewolf bodies covered the ground, but he saw plenty of human bodies, as well.  Frowning, he reached out with his sword and sliced the head off a passing werewolf.  Three came at him at that point, and he leapt at one, slicing its throat.  He pushed off that one and spun in the air, kicking the second one in the face, breaking its jaw and sending it to the ground.  A magically augmented stamp of the foot, and the were's brains were no longer inside its skull.

The third were looked like it was trying to decide on running, but David didn't give it that option.  He blasted out an energy ball that engulfed the were, vaporizing it over the course of several seconds.

With that accomplished, David moved on, eager for more enemies to kill.

As he neared the steps into the keep, he noticed several people standing up near the doors, looking out the sides of the stair canopy to watch the battle.  He recognized one in particular, and made his way up the stairs.

"Miss J," David said with a smile.

"David," she replied, smiling back at him.

"I know you have no ability to fight,"

"Fairies don't use spells," she confirmed.

"Is there any way the fairies can help us?"

"There is only one thing, and we can only do it once.  The ground wouldn't have the necessary energies after that."

David said, "We're outnumbered at least ten to one in this courtyard right now, with more just waiting to pack themselves in here.  Whatever you can do for us would be great."

Miss J nodded, and then turned to go.  David gently grabbed her arm and turned her back to face him.  He leaned in, and they kissed passionately for a moment.  She smiled at him when he let her go.

"I missed that," she said.

David grinned at her, then said, "Go on, do whatever it is you can.  Good luck!"

"You too!"

David ran back down the stairs, jumping down onto a werewolf and ramming his sword clear through the beast's chest.  David jumped back, yanking his sword out and landing on solid ground.

Suddenly, David saw something happening along the ground in the courtyard.  It seemed as if things were growing and slithering.

Growls and snarls were heard from the werewolves as they found themselves immobile.  Vines had popped out of the ground, twisting their way up the werewolves' legs and holding them firmly in position.  The fairies had provided the defenders with a plant trap.

The werewolves started blasting at the vines, and that did free them, but while they were doing that, they didn't protect themselves from the humans that blasted them into Haven.

David took his own shots, taking out an entire group of twenty with one extended beam of energy from his sword.

As the werewolves died, more moved in to replace them.  Those vines which hadn't yet found targets were soon gripping these newcomers.  The other vines withered and died, unable to support the effort to move and grow at that pace any longer.

Still, it got us... what, two or three hundred dead werewolves?  I'll take it!

David couldn't dwell on that victory, however.  The werewolves who had just stormed the courtyard were fresh, having only had to cross the moat, while the humans had been battling for quite a while.  He once more headed into the mass of twisting and slashing bodies, his sword slipping this way and that, taking out attacker after attacker.

A larger were jumped at him, and David had to leap aside, rolling back to his feet to avoid being caught on the ground.  He squared off with this were, who was at least seven feet tall, and muscularly built.  He carried a larger than usual spear-weapon, and he tried to crush David's head with it.

David blocked the strike with the blade of his sword, though the impact was felt all through his arm.  The were struck again and again, his weapon glowing a deadly red color.

On the fifth strike, David blocked as he had been, but his arm just kept moving.  The horrendous cracking noise told him why.

His sword had just been broken in half.

David stared at it for a second, dumbfounded.  This was a second too long with a large and angry, still armed, werewolf in front of him.  As he looked up, the werewolf had raised his weapon for a final strike.  David had no time to get out another weapon.  He had just started to turn, in an attempt to avoid the hit, when he heard, to his left and above, a sound that sent shivers up his spine.

When did the dinosaurs show up? David thought to himself in shock.  What he had heard sounded like the roar of a T. rex, right out of Jurassic Park.

What descended out of the sky, however, was a very irate Cupcake.  Her front hoof caved in the werewolf's skull, killing him instantly before he could finish his stroke.  The werewolf's weapon grazed David's temple as the body fell, making him slightly woozy, but a quick spell fixed that.

"God, am I glad to see you," David said, patting her neck.  Jumping onto her back, he pulled and elongated his staff.  "Keep your wings folded, girl, but let's go get 'em!"

Cupcake whinnied loudly.  David was startled when the cry was echoed all across the courtyard.  The entire pegasus herd had come down, and they were attacking the werewolves with their hooves.  Several of the students mounted the pegs, and soon there was a cavalry troop running back and forth across the courtyard, cutting down werewolves with ferocity.

David was quick to become a part of that charge.  As Cupcake galloped along, David swung his staff, breaking the necks of several weres, outright decapitating others.  He started blasting them, sending spells out the tip of his staff.

Another large werewolf suddenly jumped in front of Cupcake.  She reared up, kicking him in the chest.  This were, however, was wearing armor, and her kick did little more than knock him backwards.

David's spell nicely evaporated his head, however, and the body fell to the ground.

David patted Cupcake's neck, and then slid off, turning to face her.

Calling out loudly so he could be heard, David said, "Riders, DISMOUNT!"

The students on their pegs slid off them and continued the fight.

Turning to Cupcake, David said.  "You saved me a lot of pain there, girl.  Thank you.  You did wonderful.  Now, I want you to go home.  Take the entire herd, and head for Pendergrast Manor, where you will all be safe."

Cupcake whinnied.

"I know you want to help me, but I will be more focused if I'm not worried about you.  You've done your part.  You did great.  Now, do your duty to your herd; get them to safety."

Cupcake nuzzled David, and then nickered.  David stepped back, and Cupcake leapt into the sky.  A loud whinny from her, and the other pegs took flight, as well.  David watched as they disappeared into the night.

A werewolf, who thought to sneak up on him while he was distracted, was within feet when David casually lifted his staff and blasted a hole clean through him.

"I'm not that preoccupied, shithead," David said to him as he fell to the ground, dead.

With that, David waded back into the battle.

As he was thrashing with two werewolves, David suddenly felt something thud into his back.  He turned his head fractionally to see exactly who he expected.

"Hey, JoAnne.  How goes it?"

"Oh, loads of fun," she said sarcastically and out of breath.  "How many more of these fuckers are there?"

"Forty, fifty thousand," David said.

"I meant here!" she snarled.

"What makes you so sure I didn't?" David retorted.

"Gah!" she screamed, and then plunged her sword through the head of the were she was fighting.

"Shouldn't these guys be using more magic?" she asked.  "All they're trying to do is slash at me!"

"Are you complaining?" David demanded.  "They're feral.  They're not thinking clearly.  If they were, we'd already be defeated."  He swung and snapped the necks of two weres at the same time.  A huge fireball sent another fleeing into the crowd, setting three more aflame as it ran.

Tanya soon joined the two, and together the three worked, guarding each other's backs while they fought off the oncoming wave of werewolves.

When Tanya screamed, David pivoted and grabbed her arm, yanking her out of danger before he even knew what the real problem was.  He saw the blood on her shirt, and once he'd thrown her to the ground to get her out of range, he continued his pivot, moving his arm outward with his staff in it.  The staff hit the werewolf who had hurt her with such force that it ripped his head right off his shoulders, a portion of his spine ripping out with it.

"Ugh," JoAnne said, seeing what had happened.

"Fucking animal," David spat.  He turned and helped Tanya up, then examined the wound.

"Go get that patched."

"I'm fine."

"Go get that patched!" David ordered in a voice that brooked no argument.  "If you lose too much blood, you can't fight.  Get it patched and get back out here.  I need every warm body I can get!"

"Yes, sir!" she said, and hurried off.

"I'm gonna spank her for that," David growled.

"Yes, sir-sir-sir-sir-sir-sir-sir!" JoAnne hollered gleefully.

"You'd enjoy it too much!" David replied.

"Damn straight!" JoAnne said, and then gutted the were attacking her.

After a while, the two separated, to head into different areas of the battle, to help out those less skilled than themselves.

 David fought on for another twenty minutes, taking out a dozen werewolves in that time.  Suddenly, to his right he heard a familiar voice, and turned to see something that made his figurative blood run cold.

A huge werewolf, the biggest he'd seen so far, had just backhanded Sam.  She staggered back, and David could tell she didn't have her bearings yet.  The werewolf was ready to pounce.

David pounced first.  He leapt at the were, slamming into him full force and knocking him to the ground.  David punched the werewolf in the face, and then leapt off him.  He went over to Sam and grabbed her by the shoulder.

"You okay?" he asked.

She threw her arms around him and kissed him strongly.  They kept it brief, lest they get caught unaware.

"You saved my ass.  Again," she said.

"We do not have all weekend for you to say thank you!" David replied.

Sam blushed.

As David turned to look, the were who had attacked her was just rising.  David let go of Sam, and stood in front of her.

The werewolf lunged, but David side-stepped and kicked, causing the were to gasp and groan in pain.  David then slammed his fist into the side of the were's head.  He heard the creature's jaw break.  The were snarled in rage.

"Fuck you," David said and drove his knee upward into the were's face, further shattering facial bones.

Pulling his staff and elongating it halfway, David then swung it downward, right onto the were's knee, shattering the bones there.  The were dropped, rolling on the ground in agony as the shattered bones in his leg grated against each other.

David put away his staff and pulled his wand.  He pointed it at the werewolf.

"Moyo wanundi wanga," David snarled at him, using a spell he had used during one of his darker missions.  He wanted to make a point.

An ear-splitting wail issued from the werewolf, and his hands grasped his abdomen.  Other weres, and the students, started to look, wondering just what was happening.

"You don't get to touch this one," David told the dying were, and those close enough to hear him.  "If you try, I will take your soul."

As David finished speaking, the werewolf's liver slid between his hands and floated up in front of David.  David stared past it, into the werewolf's eyes.  He held up his hand and then, still gazing at the werewolf, slowly closed it into a fist.  Though the liver wasn't anywhere near David's hand, it was crushed into a misshapen mass, and then fell into the were's groin, hitting with a loud splat that David found quite satisfying.

The werewolf's eyes soon closed, unable to remain conscious thanks to the loss of blood through the huge gaping wound in his side.

The angry growls around them told David his message had gotten through.  He turned to Sam.

"You might want to get clear now.  It's time for these bastards to meet the real David Stroud."

"What are you going to do?" Sam asked.

"Exactly what I've been trained to do," David said.  "Kill werewolves.  Go on."

Sam quickly backed away as David turned to the werewolves and clicked his tongue.

"C'mon, you pussies.  Take your best shot!"

Four weres charged David, a feral scream issuing forth from each one.  David's staff broke the neck of the first before it was within arm's reach.  He then faded quickly to ghost form and let the remaining three pass through him.  He spun, cracking open the skull of a second before fading back to solid form.  He blasted a third with an energy ball, and the fourth was killed by a blast from the tip of his staff.

"This is unwieldy," David said, mostly to himself.  He stowed his staff, and, before the weres could take advantage of his unarmed state, pulled his dagger from an inner coat pocket.  He then yanked his wand, sending sparks across everyone within fifteen feet.  The weres hesitated; even in their unreasoning state, they could sense David's power.

It was too late for them to back away now, however.  David lunged, and the first werewolf had his throat slashed from artery to artery.  At almost the same moment, another had his head blown off by a spell.  

David pushed off the ground and kicked one were in the head, sending him to the ground.  As he landed, he planted his one foot and then kicked another were in the nuts.  While vaporizing the painfully distracted one, he stamped his foot down onto the face of the one on the ground.  Both were dead instantly.

A group of ten werewolves tried to surround David, but he leapt upward, kicked one in the face, used that face to push off into a flip, and flipped all the way over the remaining group.  Three of them then fell to energy balls, and a fourth to a blast from David's wand.  When the rest finally turned to him, he aimed his wand and said, "Valk tohuto!"  The blast of lightning fried all of them in a few seconds.

David felt the attack coming from behind, and he dropped to the ground, rolling to be face up as the werewolf flew over him, intending to tackle him.  David flipped his dagger around in an instant and rammed his left hand upward, burying his dagger deep into the were's abdomen.  The were screamed in pain and hit the ground hard, while David yanked his dagger free and rose quickly.  Another two quick slashes ended the life of another werewolf, and David moved on.

A solid wall of weres rushed at David, angry screams and growls filling the air.  He simply faded out again, then ran past them.  He reappeared, but not in solid form.  Two weres tried to attack him, but they ended up thrusting their weapons through him and killing each other.  He slashed at two more, killing them, and then hexed a third, crushing his neck with a tendril spell.

David kept up his movements, his speed increasing as he went.  When he saw a small group of students, about a hundred feet away, who were facing off with two dozen weres, he concentrated, and teleported himself into the middle of them.  The weres froze in terror at the being suddenly in their midst, while the students jumped in surprise, until they realized who it was.

David didn't wait for anyone to react, but kicked out at one werewolf, shattering his knee.  Meanwhile he rammed the blade of his dagger into the eye socket of a second were, and blasted a hole into two others with his wand.  The students backed up slightly to give him room, watching him completely destroy the group of weres that had given them so much trouble.

When David watched the last were of the group drop, the students cheered.

"Now, you do that!" David said with a grin and moved off, immediately attacking another small group of weres.

The students looked at each other and one said, "He was kidding, right?"

Another said back, "I sure as hell hope so!"

They shrugged, and continued to assault the weres that came their way.

David was moving in a blur now, and a lot of the wizards had pulled back, trying to keep track of what he was doing.

Prof. Do, who was standing beside Sam, asked in awe, "Why does he even need our help?"

Emile said, "Sooner or later, he's going to have to slow down.  He doesn't have limitless energy."

"And when he does, we're going to have to be there to fill in until he recovers a little.  Watch out!" Prof. Thropp said.  She leveled her wand as Sam ducked, and soon another werewolf was without a head.

"Nice save," Sam told her.  Endora just nodded.

"Let's get back to it," Emile said.  With that, they all headed back into the battle.

 David twisted, flipped, spun, kicked, dived, rolled, leaped, lunged, slashed, fired, and generally beat the hell out of the weres at full tilt for nearly a half-hour.  By the time he was required to stop, another two hundred werewolves lie dead on the ground.  It was getting tricky to maneuver; where there weren't bodies, there was blood.  A lot of blood.

David hollered out, "Clear the center!"

The students and teachers moved as quickly as they could out of the way.  The werewolves weren't taking orders from the enemy.  That was to their detriment.

"Conflagro!" David shouted.  The same energy balls he had used to destroy his art gallery now blasted forth, frying everything within a hundred feet to a cinder.  This included another dozen werewolves.

David stood, a bit winded, watching the battle.  No weres attacked him; they had seen what he was capable of, and the newer ones hadn't spotted him yet.

Emile came up beside him.  Sam was on his other side.

"You okay?" Emile asked.

"Just a bit out of breath," David said.

"I thought you didn't breathe," Sam said.

"Yeah, well... when you're working that hard, it's more like panting than breathing, anyway," David said.

Sam and Emile chuckled.

In front of them, about fifty feet away, six werewolves were taking on two students.  Just as one student went down, David sent a magical shockwave out of his wand which threw the weres to the ground.  The remaining student was able to cut the throats of all of them, then waved to David.

"Anyone got any idea how we're doing?" David asked.

"Oh, well, you're doing fine," Emile said.  "I'm not so sure about the rest of us."

David snorted.  "I meant numbers-wise."

"I haven't been keeping track."

David nodded.

Suddenly, David saw something pass overhead.  It was just a glimmer of reflected light, too high and fast to see clearly.

A dozen more appeared just like it, but still David couldn't make out what it was.  As the objects circled back, however, they moved lower.  Just low enough that David understood what he was seeing.

"HUMANS CLEAR THE COURTYARD!" David shouted at top volume.

"What's going on?" Sam asked.  She had been watching the battle, and hadn't looked up yet.

David didn't answer her until he was sure his order was being followed.  Then, he just pointed upward and said, "Air support has arrived."

As the students got out of the way, the dragons wheeled once more, dropping down very low this time.  Half of them blasted fire into the courtyard.  The other half attacked the weres still outside on the rim of the moat.

David and the other students cheered as dozens of weres were turned into barbecue all at once.  Other weres fired up at the dragons, but they were fast, agile, and very hard to hit.

One of the dragons peeled off from the group.  He was smaller, and he dove straight at David, pulling level only ten feet above the ground, then circling in for a soft landing.

"Bispy!" David cried in recognition.  "Happy to see you here, though I don't understand why you are..."

"This is your home," Bispy said.  "You are a friend to the cave dragons.  We will help you defend your home.  In a limited fashion."

"I'll take whatever help I can get."

"It has come to our attention that you have passed your test."

David frowned.  "For now, I guess."

"Use what you have learned, and it will not overcome you in the future."

David nodded.

"Learn this, as well, David of Woodward," Bispy said, using the phrase for a reason, "Have you ever looked closely at Kalagasakalayo?"

"Huh?"

"Everything happens for a reason, David.  And dragon society works together."

With that, Bispy nodded, then launched himself into the air, wheeling up to join the rest of his clan.

While Bispy and David had been conversing, the dragons had flambeed nearly a hundred werewolves.  Once Bispy had returned to their ranks, however, they gave one last pass, and were gone.

"What the hell was that about?" Sam wanted to know.

David looked down at the bracer on his arm.  Given to him by the Mononagu Clan of cave dragons at the end of his fifth year of school, it was made of silver with gold accents.  It housed his wand, and was capable of producing a fiery buckler out of a spiral design.

Looking closer, David studied the patterns.  Suddenly, he realized that there were places where the pattern seemed to stop abruptly... at slight indentations in the metal.

"Aw, come on, really?" David said.  He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the five crystals of the primal aegis.  He blasted a nearby were into vapor for getting too close, then went back to his puzzle.

It didn't take much doing to figure out which crystal matched which indentation.  As David touched the crystal to its proper place, silver prongs morphed out of the bracer to hold it securely in position.

Once the fifth stone was secured, a brilliant golden light emanated from all of the accents in the design, including the spiral.

"What was that about?" Emile asked.

"When I figure it out, I'll let you know!" David said with a grin.  "Right now, I think we have more troublesome things to concern ourselves with."

The three of them waded into the battle.  Sam was relying on energy balls almost exclusively.  Emile used paralio hexes, and David would follow up her move with a killing stroke of his dagger.  The two moved rapidly through a small group of weres, until a dozen weres started firing on them.

David stepped in front of Emile to prevent her from getting hit.  She saw him wince in pain.

"You're hurt!" she said.

David grimaced.  "I'll be fine," he said.  He spun around, a fireball in his hand.  It left his palm with such ferocity that it almost seemed to leave a trail behind it.  When it hit the were who had attacked him, it burned a hole straight through him, and knocked the were behind him to the ground, where another student finished him off.

"My god, look at your back!" Emile said.

David flexed his shoulders to make sure everything still worked.  "It'll heal," David said dismissively.  "I don't have time to worry about it right now.  Can you two support each other for a while?  I think it's time for me to get serious again."

"Please be careful, David!" Sam cried.

"Don't even know what that means!" David shouted as he rushed back into the crowd.

Sam and Emile looked at each other in concern, then they turned to fight off more werewolves.

 David put away his dagger and wand, and drew his staff, now elongating it to its full six-foot length.  He spun and twisted, breaking bones and cracking skulls wherever possible.  For the moment, he was focused on helping the students and professors, keeping them safe and letting them take out the weres.  He thought this might be a more useful tactic; he would expend less energy, keep his colleagues alive, and maybe end up killing more weres in the long run.

As David had just snapped the neck of one were that was trying to attack one of the students, he heard a feminine scream close by to his left.  He shoved a student out of his way, and nearly put his staff right through a were's head to clear his path.

Once he'd reached the sound of the noise, he found Prof. Thropp lying on the ground, her blouse torn to shreds.  Her breasts were fully exposed, and had bloody claw marks on them.

Standing over her was a somewhat smallish werewolf, who looked pained, and was whining.

"Try it again, you bastard, and I'll rip the goddamned thing right off!" Prof. Thropp snarled.

David reached down and helped her up.  "What happened?" he asked.

"This piece of shit was trying to rape me!  In the middle of a damned battle!"

"And you..."

"Kicked him in the groin when he knocked me down," she said with a vicious grin.

David couldn't help but chuckle.  He turned to the were, and then back to Endora.

"You didn't hit him hard enough.  You're supposed to do it like this," David said, then turned and spun his staff.  The end of it came up and connected so hard with the werewolf's testicles that at least one of them was pulverized.  The werewolf howled in agony and dropped to his knees.

"I don't want a blowjob, you piece of shit, I want you to die!" David screamed.  Another swing of his staff, and the were's skull was caved in.

Turning to Prof. Thropp, David said, "You gonna go get your shirt fixed?"

"No time!  There are too many of these assholes!"  She grabbed her wand and waded once more into the battle, her bare tits swinging as she blasted at the werewolves.

David just shook his head and moved on, cracking more skulls as he went.  He found himself at the edge of the battle, and looked up to see Goliath, who seemed actually winded, which was something David had never before witnessed.

"What's happening, Goliath?" David called.

Goliath turned and dropped to the ground to speak with him.

"We have managed to take out three of the demons.  I have lost four men doing it."

"Shit."

"Yes.  They have us highly outnumbered, Vocator.  If we attempt to attack the werewolves, we get harassed by a dozen or more at once.  We're not effective.  We will continue working on the demons for you."

"Good luck," David said.

Goliath flew upward and slammed head-on into one of the demons.  Both of them tumbled over the castle wall, and David heard the splash in the moat on the other side.

"Fuck," David breathed.  "How many more of these bastards can there possibly be?"

With that thought, he switched back to his dagger and wand.  They were lighter, and therefore used less energy to wield, plus the moves he could do with them were smaller and more efficient.  Given that he still had thousands of enemies to kill, that was important.

Once again, he plunged into the warring mass.

The battle raged on, and eventually, David found himself fighting next to Tanya.

"You got a number?" David asked.

"Ours, or theirs?"

"I don't think I want to know theirs," David told her.

"We're at about a hundred sixty."

"Holy shit," David gasped.

"Yeah."

"How's the security department doing?"

"Me, JoAnne, and three others."

"Fuck," David growled.

"Do we have a Plan B?" Tanya asked.

"No," David said flatly.

"Joy.  What the hell?"

Suddenly, a group of blue coats appeared along one side of the courtyard.  The upperclassmen weren't wearing their uniforms, so David didn't know who these people were.  Suddenly he realized where they had come from.

"Shit!  Come on!  Those are younger students!"

"How would they have got here through all those weres?"

"They used a secret entrance," David said.  "Fuck!"

David and Tanya had to fight their way toward the lower class students, who were falling by the numbers.  David estimated about fifty of them had emerged, and they were already down to thirty.

Two professors, neither of them familiar to David, interposed themselves between the students and the weres.  The werewolves fired simultaneous blasts, and each professor was hit by at least six shots.

David screamed in rage, and a blast of lightning burst from his wand, landing in amongst the werewolves, vaporizing any it hit, and incapacitating all within ten feet.  The students, taking their opportunity, blasted at the weres, but half of them either weren't capable of killing the weres, or had no stomach for it, as their spells did almost nothing.

David and Tanya arrived at that point, and David's wand and dagger dispatched the remaining weres in the group with speed and power.

"Watch my back," David said to Tanya as he wheeled on the students.

"What the fuck do you assholes think you're doing?"

"Hey, this is our school, as well, and we will defend it," one said, his attitude rather arrogant.

"Doing a bang-up job.  Just wonderful!  Get your motherfucking asses back down that ladder and stay put!  You're going to get yourselves killed!"

"I am not in the military.  I do not need to take orders from you," the boy said.

David decked him, knocking him cold instantly.

"You.  You.  Take him into the castle.  The rest of you, get your fucking asses back down that ladder.  NOW!"

The group of students headed toward the bakery.  David couldn't keep watching, however, as Tanya tapped him on the shoulder.  He turned to see a dozen werewolves coming their way.

David blasted two before they got close, and Tanya took out another.  Then they were within melee range, and David started to slash and stab, blasting with his wand as he had the opportunity, and cutting throats, stabbing at hearts and eyes, and one were who pissed him off just a little too much got a dagger right to the groin.  He screamed like a girl before David slit his throat and watched him fall to the ground.

David stopped to take a breath, and he saw what looked like a professor, wandering around in a daze.

"What the fuck?" David asked Tanya, pointing.

She looked, then looked back at David and shrugged.  "Maybe he's been injured?"

"I'd best go check."

David moved that direction, having to take out several weres along the way.  Just before he reached the dazed individual, a werewolf pounced on him.  The wizard screamed bloody murder until the were bit into his throat, then the wizard's yell turned to a gurgle.

David ran over and kicked the were in the ribs, sending him rolling across the ground.  David looked down at the dead professor.

"Aw, dammit...  Tell me you killed somebody else, too, please?" David asked the werewolf

The werewolf just growled and lunged.

"That'll work, too," David said, and slammed his dagger right into the werewolf's heart, ripping it in half.  The were dropped on the spot, dying quickly.

To the dying werewolf, David said, "Thanks for the assist.  I couldn't have killed you just for killing Prof. Hellerhan."  David then stomped on the were's neck, snapping it and making damned sure he was going to die.

He took one more look at Prof. Hellerhan's body.  "Good riddance, you fucking asshole."  With that, he turned back to the battle.

 The fight continued, with werewolves continuing to swarm the courtyard.  Only a few hundred of them would come in at a time, and that meant there were still a couple thousand waiting outside the castle walls.  The professors had been attacking those on the outside, but they'd gotten smarter, and were now hiding on the stairway, instead of along the rim.  This meant that most of the professors were now down in the courtyard, fighting the battle directly. A few remained up on the wall to watch for surprises.

Apart from the dead, his troop strength was down because some people simply had to take a break.  Around fifty of his student fighters were inside the castle, resting, along with five professors.  They would rotate back in when they felt up to it.  What that really meant was he had less than a hundred fighters in the field at this point.

David himself was starting to tire.  He'd been fighting for three hours straight now, with some very active periods in that time.  He couldn't stop, however.  He was the only one on the scene who had any experience in controlling a battle, and it would be up to him when to make a change to their strategy.

His attacks on werewolves, however, were getting slower.  He was battling one now that had managed to evade him for over two minutes.  He lunged, and missed for the fourth time.  The werewolf didn't, however.  As the were jumped out of the way of David's attack, he managed to swipe his upper leg.  The weapon that the werewolf was using had a sharp edge along its spearhead, and it cut into David's thigh.  David screamed in pain, and nearly dropped to the ground.

Turning, David thrust out his wand and blasted a full-force energy beam at him.  The werewolf lost his head, literally.

With that, David turned.  He took a step and realized he was going to have to be very careful for a while.  He could ghost himself to heal faster, but his spells were much slower that way, and interacting with solid objects took its own toll at this level, so it would prevent him from being as effective in battle.  It was a catch-22 situation, and David just had to deal with it as best he could.

As he fought on, he found himself fighting next to Sam.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"I'm still alive," she replied.

"I'll take that, for now," David told her.

"Thanks," she said.

"When did you last get a break?"

"Just came off one," she said.

"Yeah?  When?"

"Don't remember," she said.  Her words were coming out as gasps.

"Well, once we kill these bastards, go take another one."

"No time."

"Make time," David ordered.  "You're of no use to me dead."

"That's not what Penelope says," Sam teased.

"Very funny," David growled.  "I'm serious, Sam.  If I have to knock you out myself and have you dragged into the castle..."

"Okay, okay.  I'll go.  Geez, you're grumpy."

David snorted.  "You need to have a talk with my friend Vivian, if you think I'm grumpy now."  David blasted the head off another werewolf.

"Uh-huh," she grunted, killing another were herself.

"Do you have any Alyer Base down in your workroom?" David asked as he continued to fight.

"You know I do.  We always keep a lot of it on hand."

"I need you to conjure it up into the castle," David said.

"What fo-David, look!" Sam said, pointing.  He looked, and saw a gang of four werewolves bearing down on Emile.

"I'll take care of it.  You get to the castle!  And get me that potion!" David told her, and shoved her in that direction.

David tried to run as fast as he could, but his leg was still a problem.  He didn't get there as fast as he should have.  He saw one of the weres throw his spear from a distance of fifteen feet.  He knew it was going to hit her right in the face.  He had only one chance.  Uttering a brief enhancement spell, he leapt.  He turned so that he would be facing her as he flew past her.  As he did, he grabbed hold of her.  Just as he grabbed her, something thudded heavily against his shoulder, and he winced.  The two of them tumbled to the ground together, Emile thankfully not seriously hurt.

David rolled to his knees and yanked his wand.  A large hole suddenly appeared in the chest of their attacker.  David then turned his attention to the other three.  They tried to retreat, but he didn't give them that option.  Soon, they were all heaps of dead were flesh littering the ground.

"Are you okay?" David asked Emile, looking down at her.

"Thanks to you.  That was aimed right for my head.  I... froze, I guess."

"It happens," David said.  He grabbed her hand and helped her to a sitting position, then she struggled to her feet.

David tried to rise, but his injured leg protested.  He screamed and fell again.

"You're hurt!" Emile screamed, and knelt beside him.

"Previous injury," David said.

"David, I know that spear had to hit you..."

"Glanced off my shoulder.  Little pain, but nothing bad.  This was done by some other asshole a while ago.  Excuse me a second."

David exhaled sharply, fading to ghost form.  He stayed that way for a count of thirty before fading back.  Rising now, he winced slightly, but stayed upright.

"It's not healed, but that would take too long.  It's at least usable now."

Emile hugged him strongly.  "You saved my life," she said.

"Will this get me an automatic A when I get back to school?"

Emile grinned at him.  "No."

"Well, what the hell did I do it for?" David asked jokingly.

"Because you're a nice guy?" Emile offered.

David nearly coughed, his snort was so hard.  "Yeah, sure, Emile.  Right.  Go take a break and recover, okay?  I think it's time to play a couple more cards in the deck."

Emile nodded.  "Good luck."

"Thanks.  Oh, Emile!"

"Yeah?"

"Tell Miss J I need the fairies to grow me some roses real quick."

"Roses?  Now?" she asked.

"It's important!" he said.

"Okay..." she said, and dashed off toward the castle.  David turned and evaluated the battle.  Things were not going well.

This is going to take quite a bit of energy, but hopefully it'll wipe out a few hundred more of these fuckers...

David moved to the center of where the four statues had stood previously, and spread his feet.  He faced forward and cast his arms wide.  

"Woodward Defenders, Advance and Engage!" David shouted.  Everyone around him briefly turned to look at him, unclear of what he was doing.  They, after all, were already pretty engaged.

Suddenly, the four statues, which had stood immobile but facing the castle's gatehouse, now shuddered and shook, as if waking from a long sleep.

The first to move was the phoenix.  It took flight, despite its stony body, and immediately attacked a werewolf.  The weres hacked at it with their weapons, but it was a stone statue; their weapons merely bounced off.

The pegasus moved next, and its granite hooves caved in many a were skull, its wings knocking others down and breaking bones.  The peg did not take flight, but instead galloped around, stomping on the enemy.

The sphinx leapt, its wings confounding the enemy as its razor-sharp claws tore into them.  The weres tried to run, but the sphinx was fleet of foot, and as they tried to run from it, they stumbled into something even worse.

The griffin was the last to move, but when it did, it let loose a screech that sent necks disappearing into shoulders.  It leapt, and its massive beak started tearing limbs loose from their host bodies, and crushing skulls between its powerful jaws.

The four guardians of the castle moved through the crowd of werewolves as the wizards cleared the way, taking a breather while the magical defenders of Woodward Castle did their job.

Tanya and JoAnne ran up to David.

"David, are you seeing this?" JoAnne enthused, motioning.

"Shh," Tanya said.  She saw the look of utter concentration on David's face, noted that he was keeping utterly still.  "I think he is having to control them."

"Holy shit... four at once?" JoAnne gasped.  "Damn, he's good."

Tanya grunted, and then the two turned to watch the havoc being wreaked by the four statues.

Finally, the last of the werewolves present in the courtyard was dead.  There were, of course, more waiting to take their place, but David was at his limit.  David slumped, and Tanya caught him.  As David lost his focus, the four statues fell, breaking into pieces as they hit the ground.

"I need a breather," David groaned.

"I don't doubt!" Tanya said.  "Help me get him to the steps.  He can rest there."

"Why not in the castle?" JoAnne suggested.

"Do you honestly think he's going to let us take him off the field of battle?" Tanya replied.

"Mmm... maybe not," JoAnne agreed.

"It's not nice to talk about me like I'm not here," David said, stumbling along between them.  "I'm not yet dead."

"And you never will be, so we're not waiting for that!" JoAnne told him.

David grunted.

They got him to sit down on the steps, and the three of them observed the battle.  They, too, were taking a bit of a breather.

"The security force?" David asked.

"You're looking at it," Tanya told him.

"Fuck.  How many?"

"About one ten.  That includes those not currently fighting.  Out there?  Maybe seventy."

"Shit," David said.  "I've got to think of something more."

"You need to take a break," Tanya told him.

"Yeah, well, I can think while I'm resting," David said.

Tanya nodded.

As David watched, he saw Cat and Charlie fighting side by side, taking down the werewolves.  He smiled briefly, happy to see them still together, even if it was in a fight for their lives...

As he sat thinking about Cat, he remembered one of the tricks he'd had to use while helping her fight her husband.  Could he make use of it here?  He didn't see why not...

David rose, feeling some stiffness in his leg muscle, but he ignored that for the moment.  He moved into the crowd, finding a clustered group of weres.

"Back toward me," David told the students in the area.  They did, and soon the weres were all facing them.

"Tortoise Nervosa!" David shouted.  A blue light filled the air in front of him, and encompassed a region about twenty feet on a side.  It contained at least a dozen weres.  Weres that were no longer moving with any noticeable speed.  The field was the same one he'd used in Cat's kitchen, to contain the bugs her husband had planted there.

"Well, don't just stand there," David said to the students.  "Kill the fuckers!  Do not enter the field yourselves.  Use spells to take them down."

David held the field together as the students used energy balls and other short-distance spells to take out the trapped werewolves.

Once the last were had fallen, David let loose the spell.

"Come on," David said.  The students followed him, and they lured in another set of weres.  David quickly re-enacted the field, and another dozen weres disappeared from the battlefield.

Suddenly, someone appeared on his right and left.  He looked to see Cat and Charlie.

"Hey, guys.  Fancy meeting you here."

"Good to see you, David," Charlie said.

"Yeah," Cat said.  "We've got this, if you want to go tackle something bigger..."

"You know the spell?" David asked.

"I heard you," she said with a grin.

David smiled.  "Okay, then."  He put his hand on Cat's back, and on Charlie's shoulder.  "Good luck, you guys."

David headed back into the battle.  He was slowed by his injuries, so his fighting was a little off.  His shoulder hurt quite a bit, despite what he'd told Emile.  His leg was burning, and the spot between the shoulder blades where he'd been hit early on wasn't feeling wonderful, either.

Nothing for it but to get this shit over with...

David felt something brush by his leg.  He looked down, and did a double-take.

"Oscar?  What the hell are you doing here?  Not a great place to be, buddy.  Good place for a tabby to get hurt."

Oscar, the school's mascot cat and the bane of Coach Hall's existence, meowed in an angry sort of way, and then looked at the weres, hissing.  He took off at a dead run, straight for one.

"What the hell is he doing?" David wondered to himself.  "Has he gone nuts?  He can't seriously think he can take...on...a...what the fuck?"

As David was talking to himself, Oscar began to grow in size.  With each stride, he got larger, more muscular.  By the time he'd traveled thirty feet, Oscar was the size of a full-grown tiger, with the fangs and claws to match.  Oscar let out a fearsome growl that seemed to shake the air.

Werewolves nearby turned toward the sound, and then tried to flee.  Smart wizards took advantage of their distraction, and killed many.  One unfortunate were caught Oscar's attention.  Oscar pounced, and pinned the were to the ground, digging in with his claws.

Suddenly, Oscar bent forward, and David heard a familiar gurgling cry, only this time it wasn't coming from a human being attacked by a were.

David smiled grimly.  Take that, you fucking animal.

With that victim on his way to death, Oscar raised his head and looked for a new target.  He found one, and pounced.  His leap covered a solid twenty feet, and the were never saw him coming.  Another were leveled his spear at Oscar, but David was faster, and the were felt the wrath of a lightning spell.

One after another, Oscar tore into the weres.  He'd taken down twenty of them before a group of them got together, with the sole purpose of taking him out.  David directed students to stop them, and he himself took out four of them, but sooner or later, the inevitable happened.

It was one lone energy ball, and it slammed into Oscar's side full force.  The big cat was thrown ten feet before he even hit the ground, and he slid for another fifteen before coming to a stop.

David rushed over to the big cat's side and knelt down.  Oscar was still breathing, but it was labored.

"Which one of you knows a levitation spell?" David demanded of the nearby students.

"I do," one girl said.

"You lift him.  You four, go with her to make sure she makes it to the castle.  Madame Abernathy is with Healer Hall, who is set up in the Great Hall.  GO!"

The students lifted Oscar, and off they went.  David looked around angrily for the were who had fired the shot, but in the darkness and the chaos, it was impossible to tell who it had been.

To handle that particular injustice, David killed ten more weres with energy balls.

Suddenly, something thudded into his back.  David was sent sprawling, and he felt claws digging into him.

"Want to play, do you?" David snarled, and faded to invisibility.  He stepped back from the were and returned to solid form.  He then plunged his dagger into the base of the werewolf's skull.  The were dropped like a rock and didn't move again.

"Fucking asshole.  Now my knee hurts, too."

David tried to stretch his body out a little, to loosen up the sore spots, but the sore spots were beginning to mount, and the stretching wasn't terribly effective.  He moved around the edge of the battle now, trying to find new ways to attack the weres, new things he could do to them.

Sam appeared at his side after a while.  "I got Alyer Base up here, and Miss J says the roses are ready.  What's it for?"

"You don't know what Alyer Rose does?" David asked in surprise.

"I can't remember every mixture, David," she chided gently.

"It's a freezing potion.  I used it to help Cat when she was having trouble with her husband.  Come on," David said, running toward the castle.  "Can you conjure up some small flasks?  Like... maybe a half-pint size?"

"Sure, no problem.  What are you doing?"

"Making ice grenades."

Sam just looked at him curiously.

"You'll see.  I'll need help to do the job, anyway."

The two ran up into the castle and down to one of the classrooms.  Miss J had several bundles of roses on stems, and there was a huge jar of Alyer Base on a desk.

"Okay, what I need are just the petals," David told Miss J.  About... oh... like... half a dozen flowers' worth of them.  Just pluck the petals and set them on the desk next to the jar."

"Okay," Miss J said.  She frowned at having to disfigure the flowers, but knew it was for an important cause.

"What do I need to do?" Sam asked.

"I need those flasks."

"You want beakers, or flasks?"

"No, I need the lids."

Sam nodded, then closed her eyes.  She conjured up a couple dozen small jars from her workroom.

"Those work?" she asked.

"Perfect."

Once Miss J had plucked the petals, David scooped them up in his hands.  Sam unfastened the lid on the large jar of Alyer Base, and then David dumped in the petals.  With the lid screwed back on, David and Sam picked up the jar together and shook it furiously, to dissolve the petals.  Soon the mixture was a deep green color.

"Now, we just dole it out into the small jars, and we'll be ready," David said.

Sam and David worked together to magically move the liquid from the big container to the smaller ones.  Once they were finished, having about eighteen jars of potion, David whisked them away to his Conjuring Room.

"Come on," he told Sam.  "Thanks, Miss J.  I'm sorry for making you do that to the roses."

"I'll be okay," she said somberly.

David and Sam headed out of the castle.  David headed for the castle wall, and then ran along it.  The battle seemed to avoid the wall; perhaps the demons made the weres as uncomfortable as they were making David, just sitting there, staring, except when they were being attacked by Goliath and the other gargoyles.  David wondered how any being could stand up to the gargoyles for so long, but then he reminded himself that demons were... demons.

When they reached the wrecked gatehouse, David conjured three of the jars into his hands, and gave them to Sam.

"Go up on the other side of the gatehouse.  We're not aiming for the werewolves here in the courtyard.  Throw it at the weres on the steps.  If we can clog the steps, we'll seriously slow them down in their attack!"

"Great idea!" Sam said.  She gave David a very quick kiss, then dashed across to the other side of the opening.  David watched her start up the stairs before he ran up the set on his side.

Once up on the wall, David looked out, seeing weres ducked down on the steps, trying to hide themselves from stray energy balls and other attacks.

Not today, assholes.

David conjured up one of the jars, and he lobbed it into the air.  He pointed his wand at the jar and waited for it to be right over the steps.

"Arbelong tuwuhs!" David shouted.  A light streaked out from his wand and hit the jar.  The jar exploded into a million tiny pieces, and the liquid inside dispersed as a mist.  He heard Sam do the same thing on her side, only she'd aimed a little further down the steps, as she had a better angle.

David watched as the werewolves froze solid.  This was unlike Sevat Wintergreen, which would freeze a person, but magically keep them alive.  Every were that had just been iced was now dead, a frozen statue blocking the path forward.  There were so many of them that the only way the weres below them would be able to get past was to push the frozen bodies off the steps and to the ground below.  David didn't know if they would shrink from doing that to their colleagues or not, but either way, it would take time, and time was what they needed.

Sam appeared at his side shortly.

"That was brilliant!" she said.  "It'll take them all day to clear a path!"

"I doubt that," David said, "but it will take them a while, and that's a good thing.  We need a breather."

"What do I do with these other jars?"

"Just hang on to them.  Come back up here in a little while, and see if they're making progress.  If they are... slow them down again.  It's too dangerous to use this in the courtyard.  We might get some of our friends by accident."

Sam nodded.  "I guess it's back to it, then."

"Yeah," David said.  With that, the two headed down the stairs into the courtyard.  The quicker they could dispatch the remaining weres, the longer a rest they would have.

 David weaved his way through the chaos, killing where he could, until he'd reached the steps of the castle.  He then turned back to face the crowd.  He used the castle as a mental reference to keep track of the battle.  He saw JoAnne and Tanya off to his left, and so he headed over to join them.

"If we can get rid of this group, we should have a break," David told both of them.

"That'd be nice.  What the hell time is it, anyway?" Tanya asked.

"You don't want to know," David told her.  "It would only make you even more tired."

Tanya grunted as she blasted a werewolf into the hereafter.

The three fighters drew a lot of attention from the weres, and a large group of them attacked, trying to take down the really dangerous enemies.  The weres' numbers dwindled quickly, however.

Unfortunately, one of them got lucky.  A ball of magical electricity fired by one of the smaller weres impacted JoAnne in the side.  She was thrown to the ground, twisting as she fell.  David didn't bother with a spell, but sent an electrical bolt straight out of the air, removing the werewolf's head.  The few remaining weres were dead in short order.

David ran to JoAnne and rolled her over.  Tanya stood over them, watching for more werewolves.

JoAnne was still alive, but it didn't look good.

"Shit.  We need to get her to the castle!" David told Tanya.

JoAnne gripped his arm, so he would look down at her.  "Don't waste your time.  I can already feel myself slipping."

"Don't say shit like that!" David demanded.  "Do you know how many people I care about I've lost already?  I don't want to lose you, too!"

JoAnne smiled at him, and coughed.  "David, you're a demighost.  For us, this isn't good-bye.  I'm just changing form.  If you want to visit, just come here.  I'm not leaving Woodward.  I like it here."

David smiled softly at her, running his hand along her cheek.  "I'm sorry I let this happen."

JoAnne grunted.  "Let it happen?  Fuck, David, if you tried any harder to prevent this from happening, you'd have probably blown a fuse!"  She coughed a couple more times.  "You have done, and are doing, the very best you can.  Now, c'mon... I want to be doing my second-favorite activity of all time when I pass, so kiss me."

"Second favorite?  What's your first?"

"We don't have time for that.  It comes after the kissing," JoAnne told him.  "Now get down here."

David pulled her up to him instead, holding her in his arms as he pressed his lips to hers.  She immediately thrust her tongue into his mouth, and the two tongue-wrestled for a long moment.

Slowly, David felt the urgency slip out of JoAnne's kiss, and finally, her head titled back, and her final breath escaped.

David very gently set her down on the ground.  He looked up, and he saw her standing there in ghost form.  He was not surprised to find Gabriel standing next to her.

"No offense, but I would really like to stop meeting you for a while," David told Gabriel.

Gabriel smiled gently.  "Perhaps someday soon," she said.

"You and your colleagues have to be as exhausted as we are," David said.

"No, not that bad, but we have been quite busy.  And I dare say that will remain the case for quite some time.  Now, I will help your friend adjust to her new status.  You, I believe, have work to do, so that I may have less work to do."

"See what I can manage," David told her.  He turned to JoAnne.  "You really plan on staying here?"

"Damn straight," she confirmed.

"Then at least wait for me to be your first ghost lover?"

JoAnne smirked.  "I was counting on that!"

David smiled.

JoAnne suddenly got as serious as was possible for her.  "It was truly an honor fighting at your side, David."

"Same here," he said somberly.

"Now go give those fucks hell for me!"

"Will do."

David turned then, and JoAnne faded out of view.  He looked at Tanya.

"We've got to try something else," he said.

"Like what?" she demanded.  She was sad at the loss of her friend and lover.  She understood, though, why JoAnne had focused on David.  He had always been her first choice, and he was the one who would feel responsible for her death.  It was stupid, it was counterproductive...

But it was very much David.

David looked down at his arm.  "I need to figure out how this goddamned thing works."

"What thing?  I thought you knew how to work that."

"It has more than one use, apparently," David said.  "But dragons, being dragons, don't like writing instruction manuals."

Tanya snorted.

"Go take a break for a few minutes," David said.  "Let me see if I can work this out."

"Okay.  David," she said, getting him to look up at her.  "There was nothing you could have done."

"Keep telling me that," David said seriously.  "Someday, I might believe you."

Tanya kissed him gently for a second, then moved off toward the castle.

The werewolves had been killed off, and so David did, in fact, have a bit of time to work out how the primal aegis was supposed to work.

"Well, let's start with the basics," David said.  "Ogon shechit!"

Suddenly, David's fiery buckler spiraled into being.  He noticed, however, that it seemed a little different.  Along the spiral, he saw inner spirals, as if there were vortexes within the fire, caused by wind currents.

David ended the shield, and then decided to try something else.  He thought of rocks, instead of fire.

"Ogon shechit," he said again.  Suddenly, a portion of the ground pulled away and rose up in the air, spinning itself into a round shield, the same size as his fiery buckler.  It settled in the same location, as well.

"Interesting," David said, intrigued.  He ended the spell, and the dirt fell away.  Once again changing his thoughts, he chanted the spell again.  This time, a whirling disk of electric charge formed.  Anything that touched that would certainly be killed instantly.

Water and air were likewise formed into shields with mere modified intent and a spell.

Finally, he decided to see what he'd get if he thought about all of the elements, all at once.

"Ogon shechit," David said firmly.

Ground rose up as fire blazed out of his bracer.  Water was pulled from the air, and the entire shield was spinning due to a vortex.  The earth and water merged into mud, and the fire superheated the mix.  Sparks crackled along the edges of his new buckler.  The heat coming off it was intense, and only Kalagasakalayo was saving David from injury.  No one else could have gotten within five feet of him.

As he ended the shield, he said, "Very cool, but not very useful.  It only protects one person?  That wasn't worth the effort.  Especially not since the person is me...

"Maybe... maybe the shape is as malleable as the material?  What should I think of..."

David started very simple.  He thought of a door-sized "wall", a shield that he could basically stand behind, instead of carry.  A thought and a spell, and what he had envisioned was before him.

"Okay... let's make it move," he said to himself.  A few thoughts and swishes of his arm, and the aegis was slipping along the ground, back and forth.  David made it swivel, and then tilt back and forth.  After a bit of concentration, he was able to make it bend into an arc.

Finally, he let it collapse.

"Okay, assholes," David said with an evil grin.  "My turn."

While David had been working out how to use the aegis, one of the demons slipped off the castle wall.  He flew downward, and swept across the steps leading up to the castle.  With a windy blast, he shoved all of the iced bodies off the stairway, clearing a path for more werewolves to rush up.

Sam started to head for the gateway, thinking to use more Alyer Rose on the werewolves, but David's voice stopped her in her tracks.

"All humans, retreat to the castle!  Students, professors, all of you!  To the castle!  Go!"

Sam turned in surprise.  She hoped David knew what he was doing, but obviously he had a plan, and she didn't want to interfere with whatever it was.  She trusted him completely; this was something he knew how to do.  It was something he was good at, however unfortunate that was for him.  She rushed for the castle, stopping only to help a fallen student get up so they could make it into the castle as well.

David saw the werewolves swimming across the moat.  He started to walk, almost casually, toward the gate.  He faded to ghost form, so that he could not be touched.  He couldn't use the primal aegis in this form, as his bracer didn't work.  But he didn't need the aegis just yet.

By the time David reached the gateway, another four hundred werewolves had managed to enter the courtyard.  Of course, there was no one for them to hurt at the moment.

David stood on the edge of the platform that had once attached to the drawbridge.  Becoming solid, he immediately formed the primal aegis into a solid wall of earth.  He shoved, first inward, throwing dozens of weres to the ground inside the courtyard.  That would give him the time to do what he was going to do next.

Turning, he then spun the wall, so it faced the stairs.  He shoved it outward and downward, clearing the steps as far as he could see, flinging at least a hundred more werewolves out into space.

David then went back inside the courtyard.  A dozen weres tried to rush him, but he spun the aegis around, slamming it into the from the side.  He continued rotating it until it hit the castle wall, with them in-between.

David collapsed the aegis for a moment, only because he wanted to change its form.  The weres didn't know that, however, and started to attack.  He was their only opponent, and so all four hundred of them were focused on him.

The primal aegis was soon back, however, as a barrier of crackling electricity.  David swiped it left and right, and another hundred werewolves lay dead on the ground.  Once again, David collapsed the aegis, so he could easily walk forward.

"My god," Emile said, watching from inside the castle.  "That thing is incredible!"

"Why didn't he do that from the beginning?" one of the professors demanded.

"He didn't know how," Sam told them.  "He didn't even know how to put it together until the dragons showed up."

Tanya said, "He needed that little breather we had to figure out how to make it work."

Prof. Phillips said, "He should make short work of the weres now."

There were murmurs of agreement all around.

Out in the courtyard, David had walked toward a group of weres.  They were wary of him now, but he didn't have his fancy shield at the moment.  They started to converge, but slowly.

When the number of them within thirty feet of him reached about fifty, David suddenly reformed the aegis, locking all of them inside with him.  The aegis pulsed in its ultimate form: a massive wall of boiling hot mud, with electricity crackling over every inch of its surface.  Being within ten feet of it was uncomfortable.  Within five was debilitating.  To actually touch it was instant death.

David pulled his staff.  He could crush them all without this, but someone had to pay for JoAnne's death.  These fifty had been elected.

Though slower than normal, these werewolves could have sworn they were being attacked by a tornado.  David's movements were swift, sure, and deadly.  In a mere minute and a half, every single werewolf was a corpse.  David collapsed the aegis, and looked for his next target.

The weres, seeing him emerge completely unharmed, were growing a bit anxious.  As he approached, they shrank back.  This wasn't wise, as it gave David time to consider his next move.

Forming the full aegis into a curved wall, David isolated a group of sixty or so.  He used the aegis to push them toward the castle wall.  With them trapped between the two walls, David suddenly slammed the aegis into the castle's curtain wall.  Every werewolf inside was instantly vaporized.

David sensed that the demons up on the wall, watching, were starting to get antsy.  He was worried about that, but he couldn't deal with them.  That was Goliath's job.  He still had about three hundred werewolves to deal with.

Watching this maniac wipe out a quarter of their number, the remaining weres' anger overrode their good judgment.  They charged at him.

David simply faded to ghost form.  The weres ran at him, passing right through him.  It took a full minute before they stopped trying to attack him.  At that point, David became solid, and immediately formed the aegis, recreating the circle barrier from before.

The werewolves, realizing they'd been duped, now growled in one voice, and pressed in on David.

David gripped his thighs, breathed out, and teleported himself through the aegis, out into the courtyard.

Oh, good.  I wasn't sure that would work, David thought to himself.  Turning to face the aegis, he rapidly contracted the circle down to a point.  The screaming from inside was brief.

David collapsed the aegis, because it was easier than reshaping it.  He reformed it into a curved wall, and, with a little "convincing", maneuvered about a hundred of the werewolves into another circular containment.  This one, however, was close enough to the castle that the defenders could look down into it.  They started firing spells down on the werewolves, and so David let them take out some of their frustration.  He'd done it often enough; he understood the need.

Sam had run up to the roof, and she took one of the jars of Alyer Rose.  She lobbed it into the enclosure, yelling, "Arbelong tuwuhs!"  The jar shattered, and soon the remaining werewolves were all dead.

"Good idea, Sam," David said to himself.  He let the aegis collapse, and then conjured one of the jars he was carrying himself.  A throw and a spell later, and many more werewolf ice statues came into being.

He didn't have time to do it a second time, as the remaining weres tried to attack him.  He got annoyed by that, and so he formed the aegis into a simple earthen wall that arced around them.  They slammed into it and were thrown backward.

David continued to corral them, maneuvering the aegis and making its opening smaller and smaller, until he had positioned the aegis such that the only way out of it was up the castle steps.

"What the hell is he doing?" Prof. Do asked.

"Giving them a hell of a choice," Prof. Phillips answered.  "Remain trapped, or die."

The werewolves weren't smart enough, in their feral state, to realize that death was a possibility.  All they knew was they were trapped, and they saw a way out.  The weres rushed up the steps.

When the first were reached the door to the castle, the stairs came alive.  The solid black granite stone that had been covering the stairs vanished, and only the malignant orange magma beneath them remained.

Instantly, howling filled the air as the werewolves were burned to death.  The magical magma was intentionally colder than normal, to make the pain and suffering worse, as a deterrent to anyone who saw the results of it.

There was a way out of this trap, however, and half a dozen werewolves found it, only to be cut down by David and his wand.

Once the screaming stopped, David collapsed the aegis.  He knew that more werewolves would be entering the courtyard.  In fact, he was curious as to why they weren't already there.

Suddenly he was blasted off his feet from the side.  He went tumbling across the yard, cursing the entire way, until he finally came to a stop, looking up to see what had attacked him.

"Oh, fuck," he said.

 The "what" in question was a fifteen-foot tall demon about the size of an elephant.  Only David had never seen an elephant with muscles that big, claws that sharp, or huge horns sticking out of its head.

David blinked hard as something slammed into the demon from the side, wrapping around it like a whirlwind.  After a while, he realized he was seeing Bushmaster, the winged serpent gargoyle that David more than once faced down in this very courtyard.  David had only ever found one way to beat Bushmaster, and those statues were gone.

The demon, however, gave it his best shot.  He beat on Bushmaster, and blasted at him.  This just made Bushmaster angrier, and the serpent began to constrict.  David heard snapping as the demon's bones broke under the tightening assault of the snake.

Finally, Bushmaster raised its head and, with a hissing growl reminiscent of an alligator, it bit off the demon's head.

The demon's body went limp immediately.

As Bushmaster was uncoiling from his prey, however, a huge blast came from another direction, and Bushmaster went reeling through the air.  He slammed into the castle wall, and slumped to the ground.  Two other gargoyles went after the demon that had attacked Bushmaster, while David ran to see if he could offer any aid to the giant serpent.

Aid was obviously not a possibility.  Bushmaster's eyes were open, but unseeing when David reached him.  The once mighty creature was no more.

David turned and added his strength to the attacks the gargoyles were leveling at this particular demon.  David fired a laser-like blast right at the demon's head.  It didn't kill him, but it blinded him, and the gargoyles attacked relentlessly.  Soon, the gargoyles began to tear at the demon's body.

Goliath alit beside David, his landing somewhat harder than normal.  It was clear that he was nearly exhausted himself.

"How are we doing?" David asked seriously.

"There are now six demons left."

"How many were there to start with?"

"Twelve."

"And... how many men do you have?"

"Including myself... six."

"Will that be enough?"

"No."

"Shit."

"A suitable epithet for our situation," Goliath informed him.  "I must continue the fight.  We cannot let them rest, or they will regain what strength we've taken away.  I am sorry, Vocator.  We have not been the protection you were promised."

"No one expected this, Goliath.  You can't be blamed for not having enough men."

"Thank you.  Good luck to us both."

"Yeah," David said.

Goliath took to the air, and was immediately blasted by a demon.  David shot out a lightning bolt at the demon, which took its focus off Goliath, but unfortunately brought its attention to David.  David was soon running, ducking, twisting, turning, diving, rolling and ultimately becoming invisible to get free of the demon's wrath.

While that demon had been preoccupied, however, the gargoyles had managed to kill another one.  It had cost them two men to do it, however.  The demon that had been antagonizing David was the next to fall, and his death thankfully only cost them one life.  But it was now four demons, and three gargoyles.  It might have seemed fair, given that one gargoyle was Goliath, but the largest of the demons was twice Goliath's size and had far more magical ability.

David remained in ghost form for the moment, trying to see how he could help out.  At an opportune moment, he became solid and lobbed a massive energy ball at one demon.  That allowed Goliath to break the demon's arm, which ultimately led to his death.  The match was now even, three to three.

Unfortunately, these three were the ones that remained after six hours of concerted attack by a team of the world's fiercest fighters.  They were no slouches, and taking them out wasn't going to be even remotely easy.

First one gargoyle fell, then the other.  Goliath was all that was left.  David became solid at that point, and did what he could to help his friend, but it wasn't working.  These demons were simply too tough for simple tricks to work, and David didn't want to draw down on his own power too much, for fear that he wouldn't have enough when the werewolves rejoined the battle.

Maybe it's time for a little fire support...

David moved to the steps of the castle, and levitated the two huge cauldrons from where they sat on either side of the doors, out into the courtyard.  These cauldrons contained a magical blue flame that never went out.  Why they sat there had been a mystery to everyone alive, until now.

David stood between the cauldrons and faced away from the castle.  Raising his hands, he screamed, "Webildek sitement!  PONTIAC!"

The flames in the cauldrons bloomed upward like blowtorches, and then they arced over.  Twisting back and forth three times, the flames then formed a circle in the air.  That circle began to elongate, and turned into a tube.

A rush of wind and a huge, booming groan filled the courtyard, and suddenly red flame was everywhere.  The blue flame tube collapsed, and everyone saw, soaring into the sky, Pontiac the firebird.  David could hear the gasps and cries from inside the castle.

Pontiac wasted no time, but immediately blasted at the demons with his fire.  David could feel the heat from where he stood, and it wasn't even aimed in his direction.  The demons were quick, however, and were doing their best to avoid the flame.

Remembering a legend he'd heard about, David held out his hand, palm outward, and breathed out gently.  A strong wind came up, and started to swirl.  The firebird's flames were caught up in the wind, and it started to rotate.  Soon, a gigantic whirlwind of flame sat in the middle of the courtyard.

The demons cringed and shied away, but David's aeromandy was just as fast as they were.  He followed them as they twisted and jumped away.

He finally caught the slower of the two, and once stuck inside, David kept the flames circling around the demon.  Slowly he contracted the vortex until it contacted the demon.  The screams of the demon echoed across the land, heard for over a mile as it burned to death within the inferno.

While the second demon was distracted, Goliath tackled him, and then threw him into the fiery tornado, as well.  David kept up the attack, and soon both demons were gone.

The one remaining demon, however, was enraged.  He blasted a huge ball of energy at Goliath.  The gargoyle was engulfed, and his body exploded in every direction, a scream of agony echoing across the courtyard as he disintegrated.

David angrily directed the whirlwind onto the last demon, but it seemed to have no effect.  The demon climbed down off the wall and strode into the middle of the courtyard.

"You're going to have to do better than that if you want to be rid of me, demifool," the demon growled.

David let loose the whirlwind, letting the fire tornado die out.  He signaled to Pontiac, who flew down, blasting the demon with one last blaze before winging off, back to his home.

While the demon was distracted, David took the opportunity to conjure up three more of the ice grenades.  He cast a charm on himself, and threw them as hard as he could at the demon.  They shattered against him, and froze portions of his skin solid, but they didn't cover him completely.

The demon bellowed in pain and anger, and he lashed out at David with an energy tendril that caught him across the chest, throwing him thirty feet into the castle wall.  David was able to cushion his impact, but he dropped to the ground, dizzy, weak, and a bit confused.

How the fuck do we take this thing down?

Those in the castle fired on the demon from their points of refuge, but it fired back, and its attacks were strong enough that even what leaked through the firing slots was enough to do damage.

David struggled to his feet, casting caput calitatem to clear his head.  He turned to the demon and started to rapid-fire energy balls at him.  The demon snarled and fired his own attack back, but David jumped out of the way, rolled to his knees, and blasted him with an energy beam this time.  The demon quivered from it, but nothing more.

"If this is all you have, demifool, this is going to be a short battle."

One way or another, that's a guarantee, David thought to himself.  Because if I don't kill you fast, you are definitely going to fry my ass.

Even that momentary thought nearly got David hurt, as the demon fired magical flame at him.  David rolled clear quickly, and reformed the primal aegis into its buckler shape.  He didn't use its ultimate form, but stuck with a "fire and lightning" form, that was basically his fiery buckler surrounded by electric arcs.

"Your fancy toys cannot save you, demifool.  Nothing made by mere dragons will stand up to my power!"

"Could you perhaps stop yammering and get on with it?" David retorted.  "Why do bad guys not know how to shut up?"  With that, David sent a lightning bolt right at the demon's chest.  It had little effect, other than some scorching on his skin.

"That tickled," the demon mocked.  "Try this one."

The lightning bolt that the demon sent was twice as large as any David had ever produced.  Though he was able to dive out of the way of it, he could feel its power wash over him as it went by.

The attack was stopped by a couple of energy balls David sent at the demon's head.  The demon ducked out of the way of them, then sent a surge of energy flying at David.  There was no way to get out of the way of this, and David was tossed off his feet and tumbled along the ground for twenty yards.

David went invisible before he rose, and limped back to his original position.  The knee he had hurt in an earlier fight was now really protesting.

The demon suddenly nailed David with another energy ball.

"Did you think I couldn't see you?" the demon mocked as David went rolling again.

The castle defenders fired down a dozen energy balls on the demon, to at least give David a chance to get back to his feet.  The demon barely noticed them, though he did take a moment to fire up at the castle, so they achieved their goal, nonetheless.

David conjured up three more of the ice grenades and lobbed them at the demon.  This time, he used the spell, turning the jars into a mist of icy potion.

The demon generated a massive fireball, which vaporized the potion, preventing it from doing anything to him.  He then threw the fireball at David, who tumbled clear.  The energy ball the demon sent immediately after that, however, slammed into David while he was on the ground.  It shattered his left arm, making it nearly useless.

David cast an illusion, filling the air with pixies.  The demon ignored them, lashing out his energy tendril again, and throwing David to the ground once more.

"Your baby tricks aren't going to work, you helpless fool," the demon said.

Up in the castle, everyone was watching in dread.

"What happens if that thing beats David?" Tanya wondered aloud.

"We're all screwed," Sam said darkly.

"Isn't there something we can do?" Emile asked.

"Not a damned thing," Prof. Blackstone muttered.

Back down in the courtyard, David struggled to get to his feet.  The injury on his leg was becoming truly problematic, and of course the knee that hurt was on the other leg, so neither of them was working very well at the moment.  He finally managed it, and he sent a huge blast of energy at the demon.

The demon was finally rocked back slightly.  "So, the infant has some teeth," the demon sneered.  "But not enough!"  He blasted at David, throwing him to the ground once more.

"Give it up, fool!  You will eventually be so battered that you cannot rise.  You cannot kill me, you were never that good!"

As David lie on the ground, bruised, dazed, and frustrated, a vision came into his head.  It was clearly from Jailla, who was flying surreptitiously around the demon.  David wasn't sure what Jailla's purpose was, but David watched.  He examined the demon from every angle through Jailla's eyes, looking for he knew not what.

A weakness would be good, David though bleakly.

The demon, noting David's lack of movement, jeered, "Giving up, infant?  If you surrender now, I promise I will leave your human friends alone..."

David struggled insanely hard to get to his feet again.

"Even if I believed you, just because you would, doesn't mean your buddies waiting down the stairs would.

"But more to the point, no demon's word can be trusted.  You would lie to your own mother, if you had one."

"Too true, too true," the demon said with glee.  "Well, I guess I'll just have to finish you off, then."

The demon clapped his hands and a magical blast wave went hurling in every direction.  David was thrown thirty feet before he hit the ground, where he rolled for another fifty before coming to a stop in a heap.

"Now, time to have some fun with the demifool, before I level this mountain and everything on it!" the demon said with a malevolent laugh.  Then he started to chant.

Up in the castle, Miss J heard him, and said, "Oh, no..."

"That isn't what I think it is?" Endora asked her.

Miss J nodded sorrowfully.  "Philconer's Despair."

"Oh, my god," Emile said.  "We have to stop him!"

Prof. Do snorted.  "You can't stop that thing!  I will not throw away my life to no purpose!"

"You do whatever you like, Orrin," Emile snapped.  "But you're putting your remaining sixty or so years against David's eternal damnation.  Pretty damned selfish of you, I'd say.  Especially given how many times he's probably saved all of our lives tonight!"

With that, Emile left the room at a run.  All of the others, including Miss J, followed her down the stairs.  Shortly after that, the professors burst out the front door of the castle.  They all headed left, to where David lay, crumpled on the grass.  Miss J moved right.

As the professors all gathered around David, they could see the beam of magical energy linking him to the demon.

Prof. Whitaker, who had come down from the tower long ago, asked, "What the heck is he doing?"

"It's Philconer's Despair," Emile said.

"What is that, exactly?" Prof. Whitaker asked.

"It's an awful fate.  Especially for a demighost," Sam said.

"What's it do?" Prof. Whitaker asked.

"We need to be stopping it, not explaining it!" Emile cried.  They all turned and fired at the demon.

While they fought, Sam said, "Once Philconer's Despair is enacted, the victim will slowly lose his mind.  Literally.  Every day after it is cast, the victim loses two days of his memory.  He loses yesterday, and then the most recent day before that, that he can still remember.

"Eventually, the victim has no memories left at all.  And they can't get new ones, because they are always forgetting yesterday.  After the curse comes to full fruition, the person's head is completely blank.  They don't know who they are, they don't know where they're from, they don't have any sense of family, friends, country...

"This is bad enough for a normal person.  The spell does, in fact, break at the point of death.  But David is immortal.  Imagine living as a blank slate for millions of years!"

"My god," Prof. Whitaker gasped.  "How do we stop it?"

"We've got to get him to break the connection.  If he loses it for even a second, he's got to start all over again.  David needs a little time to heal," Emile said.  "So we're just going to have to take this bastard down for him."

Prof. Whitaker looked dubious, but she turned and fired at the demon.

The demon was annoyed at having these little piss-ants interfering with his plan.  He took away just enough energy from his attack on David to fire at them.  One of the professors had a shield up, but that wouldn't hold forever.  It wasn't long before one of the professors on the edge was thrown aside by the demon's attacks.  She screamed in pain briefly, then lay motionless on the ground.

"Prof. Webster!" Tanya gasped.

"Goddammit," Emile growled, surprising everyone, for she rarely cursed.  She doubled her attack on the demon, but it didn't seem to be having much of an effect.

For David's part, he was unable to move, thanks to the curse being applied to him.  The power of it had his body frozen in place.  He was struggling mentally, trying to fight off the effect, but once Philconer's Despair had begun, it was virtually impossible to break free of.

The professors were doing their best, but one by one, they started to succumb to the demon.

"You fools cannot save him!  Save yourselves!"

"The only way for us to save ourselves, is to save him," Tanya snarled.

"Then you are all DOOMED!" the demon retorted gleefully, and blasted at her.  She dove out of the way, firing an energy ball at him as she fell.  It had no effect, but it made her feel better.

Suddenly, dozens of people came pouring out of the castle.  They immediately started firing on the demon.

"Gah!  More flies!" the demon screamed.  He fired at the students, and hit two of them, but there were a lot more coming.  Finally, David was surrounded by more than fifty students and professors.

"I will destroy you all!" the demon roared.

"He's right.  He will.  We haven't got the power to kill him," Prof. Blackstone said.

"We have to try, Harry!" Emile screamed.

"I agree.  I'm just telling you what's going to happen."  With that, he turned and fired a huge gout of lightning at the demon.  This hurt him bad enough that he took every bit of power he could spare, and fried Prof. Blackstone to a cinder.

"Harry!  No!" Emile cried.  She blasted away at the demon, but she wasn't even as powerful as Harry had been.

"We need David," Sam said.  "He's the only one with a chance to take this fucker down."

"I don't think David can move," Tanya said.

"No, not while the spell's got him," Sam confirmed.  "We've got to break that spell's hold on him.  It's our only chance."

"You're serious, about what that demon is doing?"

"Dead serious, Tanya.  I can't stand to think of what David's life is about to be like."

"And the only way to stop it, is to break the connection?"

"Yes.  But we have to hurt the demon bad enough to make him stop, and he's not going to!"

"No, there's another way," Tanya said.

"How?  Killing David isn't an option, even if we could!"

"All we need," she said, putting away her wand, "Is to interrupt the beam."

Saying so, and before anyone could grab her, she stepped into it.  Her body was instantly grabbed by the beam.

"Tanya, no!" Sam screamed, reaching for her. 

Emile nearly tackled Sam.  "If you touch her, you'll die with her!"

Students pulled David out of the spot he was in, just in case Tanya was thrown clear.

"But now she'll suffer David's fate!" Sam screamed.

"No she won't.  The spell wasn't cast on her."

"Then what's happening?" Sam asked, calming down.

Tanya was stuck in the beam, her body obviously tormented.  The demon now realized his real target had been lost, and his anger was washing over Tanya.

David struggled to sit up, and he saw Tanya, shaking and shuddering in agony.

"TANYA!" he screamed, trying to rise.  His body didn't want to support him, but he forced everything to do its job through sheer force of will.  He made it to his feet and moved toward her, but stopped a few feet away, lest he get hit by some of the spell's energy again.  "No..." David sobbed.  "You shouldn't have done this!"

"Don't fret, David," she said as calmly as she could.  "We all have a part to play in life.  This is mine.  Could you do me... just one favor?"

"Anything, you name it," David cried.

Tanya turned, and her look grew angrier than David had ever seen her.

"KILL THAT MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD!"

With that, Tanya's body vaporized.  The demon screamed in triumph.

"You have all merely delayed the inevitable!" he roared.

David stepped up with the professors, joining the line.  "Every other person, form a shield.  The rest of you, your strongest version of valk.  Target his knees, if you have that level of control."

"NOW!" David screamed.  "VALK MAMMUT!"

A six-inch-wide bolt of lightning blasted out of David's wand.  It streaked in an almost perfectly straight line, unlike a normal valk spell, which zig-zagged through the air.  David's spell slammed hard into the demon's knee.  It was joined by a dozen other valk spells, and the demon screamed in pain, dropping to one knee, unable to rise.

"The other knee!" David hollered.

Everyone switched to the other side, and the demon screamed and twisted, trying to get out of the attack.

"Now any joint you can easily hit!" David told them.  "Move in!  Move in!"

As a group, they all marched in step, closing in on the demon.  Three dozen people were all they had left, but they were all blasting the demon with every bit of strength they had.  The demon was roaring in agony, twitching and shuddering, trying to break free, but too weak, now, to manage it.

David stepped right up to the demon, and then raised his shattered left arm.

"Ogon... shechit," David growled.

Along the entire length of Kalagasakalayo, on every piece of gold, electric arcs appeared.  They soon joined together, coating the entire bracer in electricity.  The sparks and shoots flowed down across David's hand, encasing it in a brilliant violet-white shine.

"This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you," David told the demon snidely.  "Because it's going to fucking KILL you!"  With that, David slammed his fist, full force, into the demon's face.  He screamed in agony as he continued to push, driving his hand into the demon's head.  He pushed and pushed forcing his shattered arm to do his bidding, until he was able to open his fingers, and wrap them around the demon's spine.

With a massive shout of triumph - mixed with a fair helping of pain, David let loose the energy in his arm, and it pierced through the demon's nervous system.  The demon jerked and twitched, his limbs no longer under his control.  For over a minute, David electrocuted the beast.

Finally, wanting to make absolutely sure the deed was done, David planted his foot on the demon's chest to hold him down, and then yanked as hard as he could, a spell augmenting his strength.

The demon's spine ripped free of his body, and David let go of it when it was jutting almost straight up through the wound David had created.

"You can stop now," David said to the others.  They all let loose their spells, and cheers soon filled the air.

"See?" David said to Emile, gasping for air he didn't need.  "Piece of cake."

Emile just laughed and hugged him.  Sam soon followed, as did a whole bunch of other people.

Suddenly, they heard growls and howls coming from the entrance.

"Oh, shit," Sam said.  "We forgot about the other werewolves.  We need to-"

David just put his hand on her arm.

"What?" she asked.

"The demons are gone," David said.

"So?" she asked.

David turned and walked a short distance from the others, limping as he did.  He pulled his wand, and then shouted, "Valk Mammut!"

The six-inch bolt leapt out of his wand and traveled the entire distance across the yard.  When it landed, it killed five weres outright.  David wiggled it around, ending up killing three dozen before he let it loose.

"We can kill these fuckers from within the castle, if we have to," David said.  "But I think we can stand right here and blast the lot of them to dust."

The students and professors lined up, shoulder to shoulder, and started to do just that.  The weres, feral and most of them not that great at magic to begin with, couldn't even get close enough to be a threat.

After another six hundred had died, the spirit went out of them.  They started to retreat, back down the stairs.

"Don't let them leave unaccosted," David said.  "Make them pay for every step they take toward the mountain's edge."

"That seems rather cruel," one of the professors objected.

David just looked up at the man.  "Someday, Professor, I'll tell you what I've seen werewolves do to innocent women and children.  When you're done throwing up, maybe you'll understand.  The Vrudenans need to be taught never to step foot in Callamandia without an invitation ever again.  Taking down these few thousand will prevent us from having to do this over and over again every hundred years.  Ultimately, it saves Vrudenan lives, as well as our own."

The professor looked unconvinced, but made no further arguments.

"You really need treatment," Emile said.

David snorted.  "What do you think Annie's going to do for me except fret and cluck her tongue?"

Emile frowned; he was right.

Just then, Miss J appeared.  "David, you need to come with me."

"Okay," David said.  He was too tired to question her, or challenge her assertion.  He just got up and limped along behind her.  Getting up the stairs into the castle was annoying, but he managed.

Miss J led him into the Great Hall, and directed him over to one side, where Madame Abernathy was standing with a distraught look on her face.

David made his way to her and looked down.  Jailla was lying on the table, not moving.

"Jailla?" David gasped.  "What happened?"

"I zigged when I should have zagged, as you would say," Jailla replied weakly.  "When that bastard let loose that last attack on you, I got caught in the blast."

"Goddammit!  I told you to stay under cover!" David growled at him.

"You needed my help," Jailla replied calmly, though his voice showed how much pain he was in.  "And you saw the vulnerability, didn't you?"

"Yes, I saw it.  We took him down.  We got him."

"Good.  Then it was... worth it," Jailla said.

David turned to Madame Abernathy.  "Ellen?  He's going to be okay, isn't he?"

Ellen's face was ashen.  She shook her head.  "There's... nothing I can do, David.  He has physical and magical injuries.  There's not enough time for me to fix it.  He's... I'm sorry, he's..."

"No," David gasped.  "No."  Turning to his familiar, he picked him up and cradled him in his arms.

"You asshole.  If you had listened to me, you'd be okay now!"

"And you would not be," Jailla replied.  "Nor would a lot of other people.  I did what needed to be done.  I admit, I didn't expect the consequences."

"I'm so sorry, Jailla.  So sorry..."

"Take heart, David.  You don't need me any longer.  You have a family now.  Go to them.  Love them.  Let them love you.  They can now do for you what I have tried to do."

David was crying silently.  "I don't want you to go," he said.

"That choice has been taken out of our hands, I'm afraid," Jailla said, his body twitching in pain.  "David... I hate to ask this of you, but I need you to help me."

"Help you?" David asked dumbly.  "If I can fix this, just tell me how!"

"It can't be fixed, David.  It can only be ended."

David immediately understood.  "No, Jailla.  Don't ask me to do that..."

"David, it hurts.  Every part of me is on fire.  I can barely breathe.  Please. Do this for me."

David held his friend even more tightly, tears rolling down his face.  He couldn't speak anymore, but he nodded in assent.

"One last thing," Jailla said.  "There's something I'd like... after I'm gone."

"What?' David managed to choke out.

Jailla told him.  David just nodded.

Finally, after a very long moment, David said, "Though I may have a magical pet at some point in the future... You will be my only familiar.  I love you, Jailla."

"And I, you, David.  Remember, you are my wizard.  Where you go, I will always be there."

David hugged Jailla tightly, and muttered the appropriate spell.  In seconds, Jailla's life was gone.

After David had done the other thing that Jailla had requested of him, he left the room.  No one moved to stop him.

David wanted to climb the tower, to be alone, but he didn't dare make the attempt in his condition.  Instead, he walked back out to the courtyard.  He stepped out into the bright sunshine of a warm, late-spring day.  The sun had been up for some time now, though nobody had really been paying attention.

David still heard magical blasts and shouts in the distance, but there was no fighting on the castle level.  David estimated, from the sounds, that they were still down on the terrace.

There was nothing more for him to do, and so David simply wandered the courtyard, limping from body to body, turning them face-up with a spell - he didn't dare kneel down in his condition - making sure their eyes were closed, and then crossing their hands over their chest.

When he came to a pair of them holding hands, he gasped.

"Oh, god, no... Cat... Charlie..." David cried.  "What the fuck am I going to tell the kids?  Oh, shit..."

David collapsed at this point, heedless of his injuries.  He fell to the ground and simply lay there in a heap.

It was a long time before anyone found him.  When the two of them did, they helped him into a seated position, and then sat down on either side of him.

"It couldn't be helped," JoAnne said.

"Do you know... how?" David asked her.

"Fighting werewolves," she said with a shrug.  "They were trying to protect each other, and... they weren't successful."

"At least they died together," David moped.  It was not sufficient consolation to the day.

"They died for a cause they believed in," Tanya said.  "Their love."

David turned to her.  "And what did you die for?  That was stupid," David scolded.

Tanya looked at him, her eyes growing soft.  "I also died for love."

David looked at her in shock.  She leaned in and kissed him, the two sharing a soft, intimate moment in the middle of an obscenity.

"Get a room!" JoAnne finally said, in her usual sarcastic fashion.

"I've got one, but I can't get there in my condition, so here's good enough," David told her.  He stared at Tanya.  "Why didn't you say something?"

"Because we were going in two different directions, and there was no point in adding misery to that.  But I couldn't let that happen to you... not when I had the power to stop it."

"But now you're..."

"Dead?  I suppose.  Not like I had much of a life.  Especially not after you left.  I know you already have one ghost lover, David... but if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to make it two."

"I'm thinkin'," David said with a smile and a nod to the ghost on the other side of him, "You're actually talking about making it three..."

Tanya blushed.  Even in ghost form, that was cute.  Grateful that his demighost body allowed him to, he embraced Tanya strongly this time, and the two just held each other, while JoAnne sat and stared into the distance, trying to ignore them both.