by Eric Vall
“Come at me,” I challenged as I bared my teeth at the demon, and my heart pounded inside my chest.
The demon cocked its head a full one-eighty like some possessed owl, and its snap-trap jaws flared open in an aggressive hiss. It dawned on me the extent of my swordsmanship only recently included slicing fruit just before the Frankenstein Reject barreled at me like a bat out of hell.
“Oh, shi--”
Tick, went my pulse, and for the first time I felt how the air seemed to thicken as time slowed down just a fraction…
The demon lunged, and every muscle was articulated in high definition so I could almost predict exactly where it would land. I stepped to the side, kicked one of the demon’s back-bending knee joints, and then brought my blade up.
Tick.
Time resumed just as the demon’s leg collapsed, and its tentacles lashed down on the blade protecting my head. I shoved the demon away, and then I slashed my saber across its torso.
It cried out like a squealing boar, and I noticed that instead of black ichor dripping from its wounds, the demon was dripping clumps of ash instead. I almost forgot I had the Goddess’ blessing now, which gave me the ability to mortally wound the demons if my conviction was strong enough.
I didn’t know exactly what made some of my attacks more powerful than others, but I could think of no stronger feeling of conviction than defending someone I considered a friend.
“Aleeex!” Arvid shouted as he snatched the wounded demon up in his three clawed grip just before it tried to jump at me again. With a bellow, Arvid slammed the demon against the stones over and over like a jackhammer breaking ground until the demon stopped making noise.
I looked around for the other demon but noticed it had also been smashed into a messy pulp a little ways behind Arvid.
Damn. Who knew the gentle giant had it in him?
Suddenly, a sense of urgency tingled up my spine like ants marching along my nerve fibers. The feeling that I’d forgotten something important consumed my mind, and I let everything else fade as some deep-set instinct took over me.
Operating almost on auto-pilot, I ran over to each of the demon corpses and plunged my saber through both their hearts. The ashes clung to the blade when I removed it, and the urgency I felt disappeared when I knew they would be left to smolder instead of being allowed to respawn next time.
“You alright, Arvi?” I asked the sloth-man as I wiped the sweat off my forehead.
He gave me a slow smile and a tiny nod.
“Heearrrrrowwwl!” came a sound I would recognize anywhere as Zoie’s Princess Xena battle cry.
A demon suddenly came crashing through one of the manor’s upper windows and landed right between Arvid and me with a sick splat. Before it could even groan out a death rattle, I stabbed it clean through the heart and gripped the saber with both hands as it struggled in vain to get away. It seemed like my saber was cooking the demon from the inside, and I felt the handle of the sword heat up a fraction under my palm.
I looked up in the direction of where the demon came from and narrowed my gaze. If I remembered correctly, the broken window was one of the ones in the library on the third floor. If Zoie was in the library, then she must have been up there helping Jenner.
Sure enough, Jenner’s fuzzy ears popped up just before his gray face peered through the broken window. Zoie’s face also leaned out over the top of him, and she shielded her eyes from the red glare as she looked to the sky.
I tried to follow her eye line and squinted upward until I spotted a black shape flying against the purple sky. It looked like a person on the back of a majestic pegasus, and my awesome eagle-eye vision was able to see it was actually Rylan astride the winged creature.
Rylan circled once overhead, and then he landed something that had six horse shaped legs, four bulbous eyes like the manapillars, and beautiful orange and black wings sprouting from its back that reminded me of a monarch butterfly.
I didn’t know when the shock of seeing these overgrown insect animals would wear off, but I would admit this world’s beasts of burden seemed to come straight out of the high fantasy novels I used to adore as a kid.
Way cool.
“Asher Alex!” Rylan cried out as he hopped off the back of the butterfly pegasus.
“What are you doing here, Rylan?” I asked just as Zoie and Jenner entered the courtyard, each armed with a katana and a small dagger respectively.
“The Lord Asher has sent me with his fastest canterfly, to summon you and Lady Zoie to the Village,” Rylan rattled off like machine gun fire. “The demons came with the red sun, and chaos has broken out. The demons are going to destroy the city, and Gavlain Mec needs any who are willing and able to help fight against the scourge.”
Zoie and I exchanged glances, and I knew we were on the exact same page without uttering a single word.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Take the Lord Asher’s canterfly,” Rylan said as he pulled the butterfly pegasus closer so I could mount the beast’s saddle. “Prosper will get you there the quickest. Just follow the smoke into the town square.”
“Good work, Rylan,” I said as I offered my hand so Zoie could swing up and sit snugly behind me.
“Use the reins to steer, and the commands are up, down, forward, and back,” he instructed.
I opened my mouth to ask some follow up questions, but Rylan smacked the backside of the creature.
“Fly!” Rylan shouted, and Prosper the canterfly took off in a short gallop before leaping into the air with two strong beats of his black and orange wings.
“Ahhh!” I yelled, and Zoie clutched me tighter around the waist with a gasp.
I still had the saber in my right hand, and it made gripping the reins a bit of a juggle. I could have asked Zoie to take my weapon, but I didn’t want to risk her grip around me slipping for even a second. I really needed to ask about one of those nifty back scabbards that Zoie favored when I wasn’t busy trying not to fall out of the sky.
Poor Prosper hovered directionless in the air for a moment until I managed to get a good hold of the reins in my left hand.
“Woah, boy!” I said and steered us around so we were facing the village.
A plume of black smoke billowed up like a beacon, and I heard Zoie gasp again from behind me.
“Prosper, forward!” I commanded with a flick of the reins.
Prosper galloped through the air at a breakneck pace, and I wondered just how strong Rylan had to be under that weedy exterior to keep control of such a powerful beast. Already, my left forearm was aching with the strain it took to hold the canterfly back from surging through the air at speeds too fast for Zoie and I to maintain our grips.
The sounds of monstrous bellows, desperate screams, and fierce battle cries rose up around us as we got closer to the fray, and I tried to hone my sharp vision for a place for us to land.
About two streets away from the main action going on in the square, I spied an alley clear of any street debris. It would make a great runway in a pinch, so I pointed to it with my saber.
“Prosper, down!” I ordered.
The canterfly unrolled his butterfly-like muzzle and whistled as he tossed his silky black mane. There was a pair of feathery antennae on his head in between his two horse’s ears, and they trembled a moment before he began to descend in the direction I indicated.
“Good boy,” I said as he came in for a landing. I patted the side of his neck, and he extended his muzzle back from its tight coil so he could lick my wrist with his long skinny tongue.
“Ew.” I grimaced and wiped the slime off on my pants, and then I hopped down when Prosper trotted to a stop. I helped Zoie down and then patted Prosper on his flank. “Fly home, boy!”
Prosper whistled again, reared back on two of his six legs, and then launched himself into the air.
Sharp screams floated above the buildings, and Zoie and I took off in the direction where the sounds of carnage seemed to be getting louder.
We turned another corner, and suddenly Zoie and I burst into the square and straight into utter chaos.
Many of the stalls and shops lining the central hub of the village were either smashed up or in flames. Among the smoldering demon corpses, several of the bodies that dotted the ground belonged to the Natavians. Their throats were ripped out as they gazed blankly at the red sky, and their red blood looked black under the sick sunlight as it stained the street.
In the very center of the square was where the battle was frothing in all its violent fury. Many Duelists fought back-to-back in twos, and I noticed a Duelist with a shining Stone was typically matched up with a Duelist with a dark Stone. That way, the Duelist with Mercedes’ shining blessing could ash any fallen demons they managed to cut down together as they all sliced through the scourge. It was a clever strategy, and I grabbed Zoie’s wrist as I led us to the center of the action.
“Guard my back!” I ordered Zoie, and then I spun around with my saber held out at the ready.
“Yes, husband!” Zoie unsheathed her katana from her scabbard, and then I felt her back bump against mine.
It was perfect timing because a demon grew out of the ground right behind me, and I sensed more than saw Zoie gut it with her blade.
“Thanks!” I shouted, and as one we switched positions so I could finish the demon off with my saber through its chest. Ashy fissures branched out from my blade like a fast-acting poison, and they crackled through the demon’s body.
I kicked it off my saber, and it fell to the ground as it smoked and writhed with a shrieking groan.
Suddenly, a large figure leapt over Zoie and me and decapitated the demon clean through with one swing of a double-headed axe.
The impressive figure then stood to his full height, and I could see it was the ram-lord by his shaggy mane and the way his horns curled around each ear. Gavlain Mec nodded at me over his shoulder and then raced off to help Asher Sskern.
The lizard-man was challenging six demons at once with something that looked like a barbed bloodvenom whip from D&D. The whip tore chunks of flesh from the demons unlucky enough to come into contact with Sskern’s deadly aim, but it didn’t deter the rest of the abominations from coming closer.
Sskern was doing a decent job keeping the demons at bay, but it was clear he was tiring. It seemed as if the second he would cut down a demon, another one would be there to take its place.
“Die, Moon-spawn!” Sskern howled and thrashed his whip above his head.
“Ambassador, behind you!” Mec shouted, and he threw a dagger at a demon in mid lunge for the lizard-man’s back. The dagger landed right in the demon’s disgusting exposed throat as it snapped its jaws unproductively and fell onto its back. Mec and Sskern then teamed up and guarded each other’s rear in a practiced dance of strike and counter-strike.
Zoie and I decided to come to Sskern’s aid along with Asher Mec, and we both roared out a battle cry of our own.
Two smaller demons broke away from trying to gang up on the fearsome upper-level Duelists, and they charged Zoie and me at full tilt as they shifted their targets to us. One of the demons squared off against me while the other tried to attack both of us from the side.
Zoie and I had no choice but to separate from our back-to-back formation so we could defend against the onslaught of flailing medusa tentacles.
I saw Zoie do a back handspring as the second demon tried to lash out at her with its front limbs, but then I lost sight of her as my own opponent rushed at me with a squealing roar. I was forced to leap back and guard my right flank as an extra-long tentacle zipped toward me with a sharp looking barb dripping a thick black ooze. The pointed tip pinged off the flat of my blade like a dart, and I shuffled back even farther out of the tentacle’s reach.
“Shit!” I gasped as my brain tried to remind me that, just a few days ago, I’d been a normal minimum wage college graduate from Earth, and I wasn’t really supposed to be a Vampire Hunter D killing machine.
When the demon struck again, I was ready for it, and I slashed through the fleshy rope just before that wicked point could stab me in the heart. The end of the tentacle arced through the air and left droplets of steaming black blood spraying in its wake. Some of the blood sizzled as it hit my exposed face and arms, but I didn’t have a chance to wipe it away when the demon suddenly reared at me like a raging bronco.
I blocked my head with the saber, but the blow from one of its strong spider-limbs unbalanced me, and I fell back onto my ass in a move that had each joint in my spine zinging with pain.
The demon pounced on top of me, and I barred it with the flat of the saber as it pushed me down on my back. Its fucked up split jaws dripped down on my face, and the smell of rancid flesh burned my nostrils each time it breathed. My stomach churned, and my arms shook with the effort of keeping its mouth full of razor-sharp fangs away from my jugular.
“Argh!” I growled through clenched teeth and pushed up as hard as I could as if I was bench pressing the demon away from me. The saber’s sharp edge was cutting into my left palm, but I ignored the blood as it rolled down toward my elbow, raised the demon high enough to get a leg underneath, and kicked it off me.
My saber clattered away from me when the demon went flying, and I hurried to my feet in order to get it.
The demon recovered just as quickly as I did, however, and squared off against me with its spider-legs tensed low as it got ready to pounce. Its tooth-filled maw dripped with putrid saliva, and my heart banged against my ribs when I visualized in HD just how quickly my throat could be ripped out.
Tick, went the beat in my chest.
Time slowed as the demon sprung from its predatory crouch.
Tick.
I sprinted at it dead-on in one, two, three steps…
Tick.
Now that Zoie called my attention to my time-trance power, it was getting a little easier to recognize when it would manifest. I was now able to be conscious in the earlier stages of my fight/flight response. There were still a few kinks to work out, though.
For example, time resumed about two seconds too early and threw off my pacing when I tried to dive under the demon’s jump. One of the writhing tentacles lashed me against my side, and the lethal tip of its toxic barb tore a hole in my shirt.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I hissed as I crawled toward my sword only a few feet from me. I heard the shrieking roar of the pissed off demon just as I gripped the hilt of the saber and jumped up to the balls of my feet.
When the demon came to attack me again, I took a step and slashed it twice with my blade just like I practiced on the woot fruits.
One slash was across its throat where the demon sprayed me with more hot ichor, and the second was across its abdomen where its innards spilled out and on to the ground. When its guts hit the cobblestones, they crumbled into dust bit by bit like spent coals, and the demon staggered back with what seemed to be shock on its ugly face.
It opened its mouth and snarled, but before it could pounce on me again, Asher Sskern’s barbed whip wrapped around half its bifurcated mandible and ripped off the demon’s jaw. It gurgled and curled in on itself as its whole head started to smolder, and then it was still.
I nodded my appreciation to Sskern, and he grinned a toothy gator-like grin.
“I knew you were a fierce warrior, Brightwood!” Sskern said in a jolly booming voice as if this were all just a fun holiday, and then he twirled around and cracked his whip as more demons rushed the middle of the square.
“Duelists!” Asher Mec’s voice roared above the cacophony. “Form ranks and push the scourge back into the alleyways!”
In a massive coordinated effort, all of the Duelists formed a circle in the middle of the square. Then, bit by bit, we all expanded the fight outward so the demons were bottle-necked back into the narrow streets surrounding the village hub.
I lost track of Zoie in the chaos, but I didn’t have a chance to really dwell on the fact when I was busy guarding other Duelists and t
aking out any demons that managed to struggle out of the alleys.
One tiny demon about three feet in height managed to slip through the legs of a tall moose-like Duelist. The demon extended its long-barbed tentacle, but before it could take the Duelist out, I swung my saber and sliced through the lethal tip.
The demon yowled like a cat that got too close to a rocking chair, and then it scuttled around so it was facing me. It tensed as if preparing to leap on me, but at the last second it spied something over my shoulder and jumped over my head instead.
I spun around just in time to see a little boy with curly brown hair and antlers zip around a corner, and then the demon as it chased after him.
Not on my watch.
I tore off after the demon through a maze of streets and narrow passages until I came to a fork in the road. There was a signpost in the crux of the fork with a helpful arrow pointing down each path. The right arrow had the image of what looked to be the palace on it, and the left arrow had the symbol of the spiral sun I learned to associate with the Goddess Mercedes.
Now, the only question was which side to pick.
A high-pitched scream from my left solved that mystery, and I followed more and more signs with the sun logo until I ran into a large temple-looking structure.
The temple was painted gold and turquoise, and at the top of a marble white staircase was that famous statue of Mercedes holding up a silver star. There were probably dozens of brilliant stained-glass windows, but the only thing that remained of them now were rainbow colored shards left jagged in the open frames.
I ran up the stairs, past the statue, and heaved open the heavy silver door with my left hand.
When I entered the temple, I noticed the demon skittering up the spiral staircase that sprouted from the center of the giant mosque-like chamber.
“Help!” the little boy shouted as he tried to run up the stairs as fast as his little legs could carry him, and the demon hissed as it scaled the outer spiraling banister.
“Hey, asshole!” I hollered up at the demon as I took the stairs by twos and threes. The demon ignored me, the little shit, so I pushed harder until I stumbled out onto a catwalk structure that branched out all around in eight directions. The little boy and the demon raced down the scaffolding directly in front of me, and I tried not to look down as I ran across the narrow wooden beams.