“What sorcery is this?” he demanded, his own voice loud and challenging. “What is its purpose, Seraphic? What is it you are asking of these people?”

“Only what I was told to ask,” the demon replied at once. “That they should follow me out of the valley to their new home! That I should bring them to where the Hawk waits.”

Pogue Kray exploded. “Are you mad? Take the people of Glensk Wood from this valley where they are safe and secure out into a country filled with monsters? Where the Drouj are waiting for us, an entire army of them? This is what you claim you were told to do?”

“I claim it, and I stand behind it! All are free to do as they choose, but those who believe will come with me!”

“No one will go with you while I am council leader!” Pogue Kray was incensed. “You claim to have spoken to the Hawk? Where is your proof of this? Where is the evidence of this bestowal of leadership? Why should you expect anyone to believe that you are chosen for this mission? Because you say it is so? Because you are the Seraphic? You expect people to risk their lives on nothing more than your word?”

The demon turned away from him and pointed again at the torches. This time they exploded instantly into ash and were gone, plunging the assemblage into darkness lit only by the faint light of moon and stars. Murmurs and shouts turned to screams.

The demon turned back to Pogue Kray. “Do you doubt me still?” He turned to the frightened people around him, to the vast crowd that had begun to shrink away from him. “Do any of you doubt me? Would you test me further?”

He saw doubt flicker in the big man’s eyes as he turned back, but then Pogue Kray took another step toward him. “It will take more than fire tricks and charlatan magic to make anyone follow you, Skeal Eile. I should have put an end to your games a long time ago. But it is never too late to correct an obvious mistake. Stand down from this platform!”

“It is you who should stand down,” the demon hissed at him.

Pogue Kray reached for the Seraphic, but the other caught his wrists and held them fast. The members of the village council backed away in fear as they saw their leader rendered helpless in a grip Skeal Eile should not have been capable of maintaining against a man who was ten times his better in any test of strength.

The demon bent close to his captive and let him look into his eyes. Pogue Kray thrashed helplessly, his face twisting with frustration. “You are a fool,” the demon whispered. “But you will serve as an example of what happens to those who doubt my calling!”