Seiren's eyes flew open. A stomach-twisting and familiar scent of cinnamon reached her nose. She snapped up in bed and threw her covers off. Dawn had barely broken; the bell signalling the end of curfew mustn't have rung yet. Before her bare feet even hit the icy stone ground, the city's emergency alarm rang. Maura and the other mage bolted up, ready to engage.

"What was that?" said the other mage.

"Hannans," snarled Seiren. She took a split second to hurl her night dress off, shove her tunic over her head, stamp her feet into her boots and, ensuring her pockets were full of chalk and paper, sprinted out. She barely made it up the spiralling stone steps before an animalistic screech pierced the sky, making her wince and cover her ears. Footsteps and authoritative orders echoed along the stone corridor before she burst into the courtyard. The sun wasn't even up. The sky was mostly deep navy, extending and morphing into rice yellow and bright orange in the far distance. Dark shapes moved in the sky, wings flapping. Seiren couldn't make out any details.

Until something sparked and an explosion of fire shot straight at her.

Her body locked up. Her mouth fell open. She could only watch as the inferno raced down, the blindingly white centre opening its jaws to devour her body.

Move! Seiren! Madeleine shrieked in her head. Seiren was numb. Her limbs would not obey her.

Her vision engulfed in white.

There was a single clap of hands. A rush of water streaked past her and rose in a wall. The flames collided, releasing acrid smoke in all directions, knocking her almost off her feet. Stumbling, she inhaled a lungful of the stench; she retched, her eyes watering.

A short figure darted in front of her and clapped again, sending it colliding against another streak of fire tearing down from the skies.

"Move it!" hollered Rowan over his shoulder, not glancing at her. Seiren sucked in a breath and dashed towards the nearest stone arches. She coughed and wiped away tears and saliva, squinting up at the skies. Bits lit up as streaks of fire ripped through the clouds, followed by wide wings. Shouts echoed from all four corners of the spacious courtyard. Explosions of light followed burst and flash magic shooting straight for the summoned demons dominating the air. Rowan clapped, summoning wall after wall of water to block off further fire attacks, protecting the fleeing citizens.

A shape darted down from the sky. Wings stretched wider than the length of one train cart, its crimson red eyes glared down at the people and its mouth opened, preparing a devastating attack.

There was another clap behind Seiren. All she heard was a crackle. Lightning shot past her and struck the huge demon squarely in the chest. The world became bathed in stark black and white. The creature emitted a squeal, its eyes rolling. With a ground-shaking rumble, it crashed onto the floor, bringing nearby people to their knees.

A tall man wearing a wide-brimmed black hat strode past Seiren, clapping and generating more attacks -- not lightning, but explosions so fine and white-hot they resembled bolts of lightning -- that hurtled into the sky, changing directions in pursuit after the remaining demons. Seiren's mouth fell open. Tahir Portendorfer's hand stretched upwards; the flash was wholly under his control. The arrow of white light struck another demon. For a split second, its body lit up. Blood vessels appeared dark against its ignited body. Webbed wings burst into flames against lanky arms. Its puffed out chest smoked at its point of contact with the flash magic. It screamed and spiralled downwards, landing beyond the wall.

The scene sent shivers down Seiren's spine. What immense power and destructive potential, far outstripping anything she could do with burst or rune magic.

Another creature plummeted down and smashed onto the floor. One gigantic wing slammed into the wall of a nearby building, sending cracks spidering up the surface. Seiren whipped out a violet rune and sprinted towards it. She got there just in time, slamming the paper on the wall's surface and snapping her fingers. The energy soared out, flooding the cracks and sealing the wall together before it collapsed. It was all she could do; rune magic was not good in airborne combat.

Her mind started to work again. Protocol was evacuation of civilians from danger areas when the alarm sounded. She slipped light runes into people's hands as they rushed past so they could see the way as they fled into the city centre. Babies cried as fireballs rained from the skies, most of which were negated by the burst and flash mages' magic, but some still struck, blowing holes in the walls and collapsing houses. Shrapnel flew everywhere.

"Why are our walls breached?" hollered Brigadier General Grader, appearing on one of the mounted platforms on the wall. He took in the scene in one quick glance. Seiren followed his line of sight. The winged creatures continued to assault from the skies, barely held at bay by mages; soldiers assimilated the runed weapons and awaited orders. Civilians continued to flee, their paths protected by mages.

"I don't know, sir! The night guards said they never saw them coming!"

"Impossible!" he snarled. "East patrol: get your men in order. I want those things blasted out of the sky. North patrol: secure the walls and shoot any Hannan on sight. South patrol: get those civilians out of here. Move it!"

It was impossible for the guards not to see the Hannans coming. Every blink, every sneeze was under the guards' scrutiny.

Runed cannons fired, hurling modified cannonballs into the air. Most of them disappeared into the night; it was impossible to see if they hit. Seiren couldn't understand how they could aim. There was almost no warning before the next attack. All she could see was the glow of a fireball before the creatures spat it from their mouths. One cannonball made contact and exploded into shards of metal, piercing the bodies of the creatures. Waves of water followed, protecting the weapons from enemy attacks.

Seiren followed the civilians away from the airborne monsters. The screeches from the sky creatures and thumps of cannon-fire died away. The people whispered amongst each other, fear and anxiety on their faces. Soldiers kept them in line and moving. Light runes marked the way across the city still bathed in darkness.

From not too far ahead, fresh panicked yells reached her ears. Guttural snarls emanated from beyond the wall. Seiren pushed past the crowd, slipping out of the reach of guards that went to stop her, and dashed to the base of the wall where she'd stood only days before. Without a pause, she threw the metal gates open, stepping into forbidden territory. No guard was going to give her trouble right now. She tore up the stone steps; her muscles ached as she ascended. She'd no idea they were so high up. The yells became louder as she approached. Her breath hitched when she reached the top.

Her legs wobbled and she would almost have fallen over if she hadn't clutched the side of the battlements. The ground dropped into an endless abyss before her eyes, the side of the stone walls swallowed by the stomach of the night. Although the sky began to lighten as dawn approached, there was no end to the fall.

Small lights moved about at the bottom, so tiny she could almost trick herself into thinking they were tiny luminescent insects, but she knew better.

"You shouldn't be here!" said one of the guards, spotting her.

"I'm a mage," said Seiren in a short voice, emulating Maura Woodbead. "Are you going to save your city or tell me off right now?"

To her satisfaction, he snapped his mouth shut and nodded.

"Now, what's happening?"

On cue, someone else shouted behind them. Seiren whipped around. Black arms reached up from beyond the wall and tugged a soldier off the precipice. His screams became fainter as he plummeted.

"They're climbing the wall?!"

"That's not possible! Our walls are runed to slide on contact. No demon-summoning magic or physical force could overcome--"

Duck! Madeleine screamed out of nowhere. Seiren dropped at once, her face almost slamming onto the ground. A swoosh over her head told her something must have taken a swipe at her. The agonised scream of the soldier she was talking to told her that something would have resulted in significant damage had it made contact. Something warm spattered across her face. She wiped it with her sleeve and rolled away before moving onto all fours. The soldier had gone. A spray of blood on the ground was all that remained.

The assailant clamped its clawed hands over the edges and pulled itself up. A huge head followed, with blood red eyes and circular black pupils. Sandy scales covered its body, sleek and shiny in the torchlight.

It had the stumpiest legs Seiren had ever seen. It reminded her of that mud horse she'd created for the hospital children back in Bicknor. If one of its claws was not the length of her arm and its head the height of the sweeping metal entrance gates, the scene would almost have been comical.

Its eyes swept around. It didn't seem to have spotted Seiren yet, with her still crouched on the floor. More scuttling noises came from beyond the wall and more of these slinky, short-limbed creatures poked their heads over the edge.

A gunshot cracked through the air. Seiren jumped. One of the creatures hissed. The next shot from a soldier further down the battlement struck it in the eyeball. Blood spurted out of its socket. It screeched and fell back, tumbling into the abyss whence it came.

Seiren took the moment of distraction to attack her runes to the rubble at her feet and threw them beneath each of the demons, and snapped her fingers. They glowed orange and burst into flames. The sudden burst of light and heat startled the creatures. Some stumbled backwards, plummeting to their doom. Some snarled, attacking the flames. Several further bursts of orange rune coupled with bullets soon forced them back down again.

Not too bright, then, thought Seiren, narrowing her eyes. Not unusual; in fact, very typical of Hannan summonings: reptilian and brainless. The smell of cinnamon was overwhelming. Just how many summonings had taken place? It was impossible to tell, even if the murky darkness faded to give way to day. And how are they defying the runes that prevent climbing?

Throwing another cluster of orange runes at the nearest demon and sending it flying to its death, Seiren gripped the edge of the wall and peered down again, swallowing the wave of nausea and the drop of her stomach. Dawn broke, showing the snow-covered rocks that littered the ground several hundred metres below. There must have been at least a hundred people standing below, the size of grains of sand, clustered in small groups. There was a puff of black smoke from the group immediately below Seiren. The same, short-limbed, thickset creature appeared, large enough to flatten in one effort all the Hannans that brought it to this world. It stared up at her. The Hannans swarmed around it. Small bursts of light -- a familiar shade of purple -- surrounded their bodies. When the colour faded, the creature scrabbled forward, latched its claws into the stone walls -- and ascended.

Beneath it, the runes infused into the wall -- dotted at regular intervals across the surface -- activated, pulsing waves of violet. When the waves hit the demon, Seiren expected the magic to either propel it off the surface or at least send it skidding down towards the Hannans again.

To her great surprise, the waves hit the demon and bounced off. Almost as if... as if...

As if another rune negated it, whispered Madeleine in a horrified voice.

Seiren's heart skipped a beat.

"That's not possible," she said out loud, her voice hoarse.

Scarlet eyes locked upon her, the creature clambered up for the kill.

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