“My pleasure.” Dion opened herself to the power of Armes, holding the disc high to spread a golden radiance over the stones and beyond. By that time, the Ghantishmen had reached the foot of the hill.

They were much like men in many respects. The color of their skin was unnaturally grayish and pale, and she knew they could see in the dark like a cat. They wore hauberks of yellow-white scales, bone treated somehow to become metal-hard, and they had axes and maces each made from a single piece of the same material. Their faces were manlike, though. They could and had disguised themselves to seem human, but Dion would never be fooled. Man, after all and despite so many faults, was a race of the Light, blessed by Armes and destined for great works. The Ghantishmen, as with so many other things that had a man’s shape without a man’s soul, were of the Dark. If they were not minions of Darvezian then they did his evil work anyway, beasts in human form.

When the Light reached them they eddied back a little, shielding their sensitive eyes and baring long teeth. There were a dozen of them come to see what the lights were, and one at the back held a long bone staff and must have been one of their dark priest-magicians.

For a moment it seemed that they might not come and brave the Light of Armes, caught in indecision. Harathes took matters into his own hands, then, seizing the initiative before the Ghantishmen could rally. Shield to the fore, he was charging down the hill with his keening battlecry, Cyrene was after him, sword raised to the shoulder preceding her into the fray.

Dion advanced, seeing the lead three Ghantishmen go down before the assault, caught off guard. Their mage-priest raised his staff, and she felt the Dark power gather there. He was not her equal, though, and she hurled the Light of Armes at him. As with the spiders, the Ghants’ fellows in Darkness, the searing purity of her power tore through them. There was a brief moment when their magician held her, staff directed outward, fighting to contain her strength, but then she had broken him, blasted him down with sheer righteousness.

The two warriors were holding their ground now, the momentum of their charge spent. Lief would be skulking at the edges, looking for somewhere tender to insert a spear or a dagger. Dion advanced, the Light springing from her fingers, seeking out the Dark wherever it could be found, demoralizing and blinding the enemy, making openings for her companions’ steel.

Half the Ghants were down before the rest fled gibbering into the darkness. In the aftermath of the fight, Dion realized that all was quiet on the hill above them.

“Penthos?” she asked. For a terrible moment she thought that one of the Ghants might have crept past them to put a knife in the magus’s back.