by Thomas Green
All the joins of the limb dislocated within that instant. She lifted the demon, hurling it over her head. The creature flew thirty feet before it crashed into the wall with a thunderous boom.
Luna scanned the arena. The enemy team ran split into halves, each going for a single bridge. With a smirk on her face, she darted toward the group of five, where a man was tracing arcane symbols into the air.
She blasted forward, reaching the man before he could finish the spell. Her shoulder sunk into his chest, crushing bones and smashing organs. He flew away like a rag doll. Luna spun and slit another man’s throat with her claws, ignoring the blades of the others that slashed her flesh. Before he hit the ground, she ducked and shattered the knee of another man with the back of her hand.
The two remaining opponents leapt backward to the bridge to gain distance. Luna smiled at the Rapacious Reavers, who were dashing toward them. They will handle this.
She spun and bolted toward the other group of her enemies. Before she reached them, they threw away their weapons and fell to their knees with hands raised above their heads.
As the beast retreated from her body, Luna stopped her run and gazed upon the tribunes. She saw the faces of Yvonne and her team, pale and stiff. I hope they got the point.
She ducked and scratched the symbol of the sun, of Alnil, into the ground. May you find peace. With a pleased smile, she headed toward the cleaning room as she needed to scrub the blood off her before it dried up completely.
Luna washed, suffered through their team’s awkward celebration party, and walked to her cell. Before she reached the room, she slid away, heading to the infirmary. As she suspected, she found there the demon of the team they fought.
The creature’s eyes widened when she saw her enter while its face turned pale. With a satisfied smirk, Luna confirmed there was nobody else inside and closed the door behind her, sealing them with a latch, stretching her mouth from ear to ear, revealing the monstrous fangs beneath. Her eyes met those of the monster, and the pungent smell of the creature's piss filled the air.
The beast entered her body. Luna smiled and scratched the symbol of the sun on the wall. “I hope you didn't think I was done with you.”
***
After she had eaten, and the beast let go of her, Luna wanted to return to the temple, but the meeting space was in her cell, so she went there instead. She spent the rest of the day and the entire evening cleaning her clothes, patching the holes in her armor and soaking everything in lavender perfume. With her mud brown hair arranged into a bun, Luna sat by the side of the bed, waiting for Miranda.
The door opened without a sound, revealing a hooded figure. Black robes, a matching hood and a featureless white mask over the face hid the person entirely.
Yet the smell of myrrh already reached Luna’s nose, sending her heart into a frenzy. “Hi!”
Miranda entered the room, measuring Luna with a long stare. “You look ready.”
Luna grinned. “For you, always.”
“Good.” Miranda threw a satchel onto the ground. “This contains seven aether charges. Each will explode at midnight. That means you have two hours to place them. The mission plan is simple. There is a long tunnel under the arena complex. You are to go through it, overcome the guards and get in.
“You will enter an underground laboratory used by the slavers. They experiment there on people and keep the uncontrollable ones in five pens. One bomb for each gate, two spares for whatever you fuck up. Now comes the critical part. They do regular checkups on the gates every half an hour, so you need to attach the bombs after their half an hour to midnight checkup.
“After you place the charges, run. Three large tunnels lead into the city from the lab. You run through the left one. Not the right one, not the middle one, the left one. Did you understand everything I said? Hmm?”
This is not what I was looking forward to! Luna forced her face into a smile, trying to hide the disappointment. “Demons, bombs, the left tunnel, correct?”
“Yes.” Miranda disappeared into thin air, vanishing in a blink of an eye.
Luna’s heart sank. This is not what I expected at all! With nothing better to do, she picked up the satchel and headed to where Miranda told her.
The tunnels below the arena complex sprawled for miles. She kept descending until she reached a long corridor where she saw the light of torches at the end. She flexed her legs and darted forward.
“Hold! Who’s there?” a shout came from the end of the tunnel. Before the two guards could draw their weapons, Luna was already at them. She rammed her shoulder into the one at her left, spun and sunk her claws into the man at the right. The men collapsed to the ground, gurgling on blood. Luna finished them with two swift kicks, crushing their skulls.
She scratched the symbol of the sun onto the wall. May you find peace. She searched them for keys, finding multiple rings. Without a sound, she opened the door, slid in, locked behind her and broke the key.
Luna would have been disgusted if she hadn’t seen a similar laboratory back in Grimdawn. Tables with chains, dried blood, and horrifying looking tools filled the area. The guards were passive, and the lights were dim so she could stalk through the tunnels and caverns with no real effort.
She remembered the paths, and the layout mapped itself within her mind. She toured through the complex in about half an hour. There wasn’t much that surprised her. Prisons, storages, corpse pits… the laboratory had it all.
What shocked Luna was the lack of cages with successful experiments. She found the pens an hour later. A narrow path led her to a barely lit circular cavern, from which three tunnels opened, while five gates rimmed its walls.
All the guards assigned to this place were huddled by a small fire at its center, playing dice. Luna slid by the wall toward the nearest pen. She climbed the side of the gate and peered in. Inside stood a mass of beings, pressed upon one another with no space in-between. The creatures were pale, naked and covered by hair. Their frame was humanoid, but their faces were but a massive, fang-filled mouths while long claws tipped their fingers and toes.
Luna estimated there to be at least a hundred, but couldn’t see the end of the cavern. With eyes wide, she reached into the satchel and pulled out the first charge, a sizeable sticky mold. She latched it into the gate and proceeded to the next pen. Within minutes, she had placed all seven charges onto the five gates and hid in the shadows by the wall.
She turned inside herself. Okay, that was easy… why do I have a bad feeling about this?
‘Because she might have set you up.’
She frowned. Nonsense. Miranda would never do that!
‘Wouldn’t she? The bombs are meant to destroy the gates, not to kill the creatures so they will swarm into the tunnels, which lead to the city.’
Where the Order’s soldiers are waiting to slaughter them.
The beast chuckled in the way Luna didn’t like. ‘Are they?’
I don’t like this topic, Wolfie!
‘That doesn’t make me wrong.’
No! Miranda wouldn’t do that.
‘Of course.’
Anyway, we’ve got a different problem. Which tunnel is the left one?
The beast scoffed while thinking of a tunnel. ‘That one, obviously.’
That’s because we came from that path. What if we entered through the steps over there? Luna motioned toward a staircase. Then the left one would be this one.
‘…’
There are three entrances to this cavern, each of them makes the left tunnel a different one. Which one did Miranda mean when she said I should use the left one?
The beast withdrew from her mind in silence.
How helpful. Luna shook her head to calm down. An explosion echoed through the cavern as the charges went off. Thousands of roars burst through the air.
Luna bolted toward the nearest tunnel, not caring about left and right anymore. The pale mass of the creatures swarmed out like a flood. She dashed through the tunnel but s
aw the creatures were catching up. These things are way too fast!
She forced her strength into her legs to speed up. The monsters still kept up.
The orange light of flames flickered before her. Passing a broken gate, Luna bolted out of the tunnel. A small square opened before her, which lay split by a fortification filled with Palai soldiers.
A loud boom thundered through the air. Luna’s stomach exploded with pain, stopping her mid tracks. She collapsed, not feeling the bottom half of her body.
The monsters were at her. They ran over her without noticing her at all. Thousands of clawed legs stomped onto her, crushing her into the ground. Luna huddled up to protect her head. She couldn’t count how many times did the claws step on her. They shattered her bones, smashed her muscles and shredded her clothes, skin, and flesh.
Screaming with pain and despair, Luna focused on regenerating her organs. The main mass of the creatures passed her. From the corner of her eye, she saw one of the demons ducking above her. He opened its fang-filled mouth and bit into her arm, tearing out a chunk of flesh.
As she shrieked with pain, the beast roared into her mind. ‘Let me take over.’
Go! Luna invited the spirit in. Its spirit filled her heart, spread through her bones and veins, but stopped when it reached the broken section of her spine. As her attempt to shift failed, the beast could only withdraw from her body.
The demon dug its fangs into her side, tearing out another mouthful of her flesh. Two more creatures approached. One bit off a piece of her thigh while the second one ripped muscles from her shoulder. Luna kept screaming in pain, covering her head. Hundreds of footsteps echoed from the tunnel. A second wave of the demons approached fast.
I’m sorry… Wolfie… I don’t have enough strength to try anything.
‘It’s all right… we’ve had a good run.’
A sharp shriek pierced the air, and black flame blasted through the space around Luna. The demons twisted in flames, turning to ashes within a moment.
Miranda landed above her, her crimson hair glistening, her face wearing a vicious smile.
The second wave was almost at them. Luna focused whatever she had left of her strength to speak. “Run… leave me… behind.”
Miranda didn’t answer, loosening the weapon from her belt. A sickle and a steel sphere connected by a chain, fashioned to look like a snake eating the world.
Run! I’m not worth… dying for. Luna could not speak anymore.
The mass of the demons approached in a tide. Miranda launched forward the steel sphere, crushing the skull of the nearest creature. As with a life of its own, the chain sprung back before she flung it at the next demon. The tide swallowed them, anyway.
Miranda stood her ground, swinging around with the chain, kicking, slashing with the sickle, weaving between the claws.
Luna lay beneath her and stared as Miranda danced the dance of death. For what felt like an eternity, Luna gawked in disbelief at the carnage above her.
The world stopped still. Miranda towered above her, covered in blood. Her black leather armor was torn to shreds, her left arm hung lifeless by her side, and her jaw was disjointed, almost ripped from the rest of the skull. Yet Miranda’s eyes shone from among her blood-drenched hair like two emerald suns.
Clanging steps ran to them. Miranda spun to launch the metal sphere toward them. Luna heard a shield shatter and Merewen shout, “It’s me! It’s over!”
Miranda whirled to swing the steel sphere. Merewen swatted the strike with her hand and all the others until she reached Miranda and caught her in a hug. Miranda kicked around for a good minute before she finally slacked and collapsed atop Luna. Relieved, Luna gave in to the sweet embrace of darkness.
29
Luna
Luna woke up wreathed in pain. Yet not as much as she had expected. The mixed scent of blood and incense punched her nose. What happened? She was supposed to be choking on her own intestines, but she felt sort of okay. Sore, hurting, but with no missing limbs.
She forced her eyes to open and blinked a few times to clear the bloody haze. With her vision still blurry, she saw Merewen setting by the side of her bed and the frame of an old man towering above her, his decorated robes glinting in the light of flames. The man looked a lot like Archbishop Nashimaeal. Because he was.
Luna formed an awkward smile. “Thanks.”
The archbishop smiled, his fingers tracing arcane symbols above her.
“I am so sorry,” Merewen whispered from the other side of Luna’s bed.
Luna turned to her, seeing her gentle face wore an expression full of guilt. “For?”
Merewen conjured one of the fakest smiles Luna had ever seen, for there was no hiding for the sadness in her eyes. “I am the one who shot a hole into your stomach.”
She one-shot me. No matter how Luna looked at it, that arrow did her in. A single shot that dispelled all illusions Luna had of her own strength. As she tried to hide her disappointment with herself, she said, “it’s alright.”
Merewen did not cheer up. “It’s not. I broke your spine, pierced your stomach and shattered the nearby organs. You would have been unwounded if I didn’t mistake you for a demon. I am sorry.”
“Well… it was a good shot.”
Merewen didn’t as much as hint a smile at the poor excuse for a joke attempt. “I am sorry. I wanted to tell you that and that if you ever need anything, I will do what I can when you let me know.”
“Thank you. Is Miranda okay?”
“Mostly—” Merewen started.
A soldier burst into the room. “General! I bring an urgent report!”
Merewen sighed. “I must go.” She rose and walked to the man.
Luna felt like a little kid as she stared at the steel-clad Merewen. She turned to the archbishop. “How is Miranda?”
He smiled. “She will live. As of this moment, she is recovering within her chambers.”
Luna looked around. There were dozens of other beds in this room while each had contained a more or less wounded soldier. “Did we succeed?”
“Yes, I suppose we can call it like that. The city guard has arrested the slaver chief, John Leker, we have killed the creatures to the last, freed the prisoners from their cells, and we have lost zero men. Although there are still hundreds of injured so there might be causalities.”
Luna tried to move her hands and, to her surprise, she could. She examined her body to find everything was where she expected. The aether she absorbed from his healing fed her spirit as well, so she was neither backlashing nor hungry. “How did you heal me so fast?”
“It is not my first time doing this.”
“Thank you… doesn’t an archbishop have something better to do than heal soldiers?”
Nashimaeal’s face remained calm, keeping the faint smile. “I know of no other place where I can save this many lives. Your spine should be complete, please try to move your legs.”
Luna could. The moving hurt like hell but was not as bad as being eaten alive. “Thank you. I will be fine now, so I guess you can go tend to someone who needs it more.”
He rose. “May the sun shine upon your path.” Nashimaeal walked to the wounded soldier across the room, sat on a stool and started working his aether on the unconscious man.
Luna got up and gathered her belongings. The armor was due for severe repairs, but otherwise, everything was there. She threw the archbishop another glance and realized his robes bore marks of claws and his face a fresh scar. Luna dressed and left the large tent.
She stood within a courtyard of the Palai barracks. The moon shone from above, illuminating the stone building with its gentle light.
The beast entered her mind. ‘Where do you think you are going?’
To my room, where else?
‘Miranda will be backlashing, so we need to go warm her up.’
Luna turned red. There’s no way we can do that.
The beast forced itself into her, conquering her body without another word. C
ontrolled by the spirit, Luna slid into the shadows of the wall and crept to the side of the barracks. The old stone covered with wood was easy to climb. She soon reached the top floor. While she pushed through the pain bursting through her, Luna snuck toward the round window at the head of the building. With a gentle move, she opened it and peeked in. Within her mind, Luna kept screaming at the beast to let go of her. It didn’t, ignoring her as if she was but an annoying mosquito.
She sniffed. The stench of blood and myrrh filled her nose, making her heart pound wildly, and butterflies swarm through her stomach. Luna slid into the room.
In the moonlight, she saw the chamber featured an empty table with two chairs, a line of wardrobes, two exits and a bed covered by a pile of furs.
The furs shifted, and Miranda’s sharp voice echoed through the air. “Sneaking into my place through the window? Do you have a death wish? Hmm?”
Luna’s heart melted as she heard Miranda’s voice while her legs turned to lead. The beast, however, kept her voice calm and confident. “I figured I would skip the guards.”
“Why are you here?”
“To help you recover.” The beast made Luna walk toward the bed, undressing. Miranda lay hidden between the furs. Herb soaked bandages wrapped her body, leaving her left eye, right hand and hair as the only visible parts.
Miranda looked to the side. “I don’t need your help.”
“I will give it, anyway.”
“Knock yourself out. I will be lying in bed for the next couple of days. How do you plan to help me with that?”
The beast was halfway done undressing Luna, who kept screaming in her mind, more embarrassed than she ever remembered being. “I will keep you warm.”
“You are kidding, right?”
“No.”
“I will call the guards.”
The beast forced Luna to smile. “I will eat them for the midnight snack.”
“They will get you.”
The beast pierced her with a sharp glare. “Not before you recover.” Luna pushed the spirit from her body, regaining control. She turned red while gazing into the ground.