Hero of Fire

by P. E. Padilla

  The constant banging and clanging on the shield mixed with the scent of burned flesh still in the air and the throb in her shield arm every time the metal obstacle was struck. She stepped back to rally, but Thozrixith continued to press her, whirling the staff as if it didn’t weigh anything.

  The rapidly multiplying dents in her shield indicated otherwise.

  Kate dove at the ground, tucking her shield against her shoulder and pushing her blade out so she wouldn’t roll over it. She had to get some space to counterattack.

  That damn staff chased her body as she tried to roll away and struck her leg in mid-tumble. She was barely able to right herself and roll to her feet. Even then, her right leg started to buckle when she tried to put her body upright again. Her ankle felt like it had been crushed, and putting weight on it seemed to grind the bones together, making her vision go white with pain.

  Kate didn’t know what was going on at the gate, if her team had gotten clear, or even if she was about to be attacked from the side or behind by the other demons that were running to aid their lord. All she knew was that if she didn’t find a way to combat the demon’s staff, he was literally going to beat her to death. He hit her as hard as a kicking horse.

  Think, Kate, think. She spun and ducked behind her shield again.

  Clang! Clang-clang!

  Kate’s breathing sped up, her anger building. She fumed that she could be handled so easily. She just wanted to…

  But no. She clamped her will down and forced herself to slow her breathing.

  If you can get your opponent to go into a rage, you’ve all but won the battle, Dante had told her. Anger and fury may fuel stronger attacks, but it eliminates good defense. Always keep your head. Always.

  She tucked her body further inside the shield and closed her eyes for half a moment. Her internal eyes focused on the battle, zoomed out to look at it from another angle, from above. She saw the dervish of an opponent tirelessly slamming his staff into her defenses. She might as well have been hiding behind a rock with no weapons in her hand for all the good her training and gear were doing her. She needed to think, to outwit her foe.

  She needed to do it now.

  Kate snapped her eyes open and saw the blur of the staff coming in for another strike. She tracked its angle, calculated the exact trajectory, plotted its path.

  Then she threw all that information out and focused on her instincts.

  Battle was a sacred rite for her, a meditation. She sank into herself and allowed her senses to open up. This battle was like any other. She had prepared for this her whole life. She was not about to let this horned bastard take away her satisfaction at completing her mission. If she died, so be it. But she would take him down first.

  Kate threw her arm out, angling her shield just so. When the staff came in, she turned the shield ever so slightly.

  Enough for the end of the staff to catch in between two of the teeth on the edge of the shield.

  For just a second, the demon’s weapon stuck, all the energy gone out of it. Kate took that opportunity to thrust her sword at him.

  The demon released the staff with one hand and twisted to evade the blade. It barely grazed him, and though Kate tried, she couldn’t wrench the weapon from his grasp. He pulled the staff toward himself and regained his two-handed hold, twisting his hips and freeing the weapon while leaping back a few feet to give him space.

  Kate did no real damage, not physically, but something had shifted. She saw it in his glowing, yellow-orange eyes. He knew he had lost the mental advantage. He knew he had a fight on his hands.

  Thozrixith charged in again, the staff a blur. This time, Kate maneuvered around, batting the staff aside with both shield and sword, not allowing herself to get trapped as before. Shapes moved in her peripheral vision, so she’d have company in mere seconds, but she was holding her own, defending herself and occasionally launching an attack that kept the demon lord wary. For the first time, he was having to fight defensively as well as offensively.

  The staff swung around, almost too fast to see. Kate raised her shield to block but somehow, in mid-swing, the demon stopped the staff and lunged, projecting it forward for a vicious strike that could probably have punctured her abdomen.

  But it didn’t land. Kate slammed the shield down, deflecting the staff slightly, just enough to give her the fraction of a second she needed. Turning toward her left—toward the staff—she angled her sword down and used the force of her spin to deflect it away more forcefully with a dull clang. That left her opponent with both hands to the right of his center, away from Kate. She continued her spin, not only pushing the staff away but using the shoulder and elbow of her sword arm to knock the demon’s arms aside, too.

  Kate raised her shield as she spun, angling it so her arm was nearly vertical. Completing a full turn, Kate brought the shield down diagonally with all the force she had left in her body, with her arm, shoulder, entire core, and her spin lending it power.

  The serrated edge of the shield bit into Thozrixith’s chest high on his left side and continued down to the top of his hip on the right side of his body.

  He screamed and loosened his grip on the staff.

  It didn’t matter.

  Kate, still using the momentum from the spin, drew her right elbow as high as she could and angled the sword down.

  With the last of the energy from her turn, she drove the tip of the sword into the demon lord’s chest, just below the collarbone. The angle sent the sharp steel between ribs and straight through the demon’s beating heart, tearing it apart.

  Thozrixith, the demon lord, would-be hero of the demon forces, stared at Kate wide-eyed as the staff fell uselessly out of his hands. His mouth opened, and it looked as if he was going to speak.

  He burbled and coughed up blood, spattering Kate’s face with the green ichor. She locked eyes with him, only inches away, her sword still in his body, until the glow in his large orbs faded and then finally disappeared.

  She pushed against his body with her shield and pulled her sword from what was once a living demon lord. The body slumped to the ground, just another corpse in the centuries-long war against the humans.

  Kate’s ankle failed and she knelt on the ground, driving the point of her sword into it to keep herself from falling completely. She had done it. She had killed Thozrixith and Arkith. She had completed her mission. She smiled tiredly, the demon’s blood making its way into her mouth. It tasted like putrid flesh mixed with metal, a perversion of even the taste of real—that is, human—blood. She spat.

  That’s when she noticed that she was surrounded by demons. Not the normal grunt demons, but elite and commander level demons.

  Well, it had been good while it lasted.

  40

  Kate tried to put a little weight on her injured ankle, but it wasn’t having it. As the battle rush subsided, all the pain came flooding back into her body. The ankle was at least broken, if not shattered. The ribs that were cracked or broken made it difficult to breathe. Her burned arm was excruciating no matter how she moved it and even when she let it stay perfectly still. She was pretty sure the demons had somehow snatched patches of her hair out, judging by the type and amount of pain in her scalp.

  She wasn’t in any condition for a nap, let alone fighting an army of demons surrounding her. But then, if it was easy, where would the fun be in that? Kate’s lips cracked into a smile. As her lips slid over her teeth, she felt—and tasted—more of the demon blood. She grimaced, spat again, and then resumed her smiling.

  It was time to call it done. The battle, the mission, her life, all of it. She’d go out with style, fighting like a demon herself, taking as many of them with her as possible. It was as good a day as any to die, and a better day than most for killing her enemies.

  Kate Courtenay limped into an upright position, lightly touching the ground with her right foot—the injured one—but didn’t put weight on it. She swung her sword down toward the ground in an arc, splashing most of t
he blood from the blade. The blood she had just taken from the demon lord.

  “Are you ready to try me?” she yelled at the demons. They looked at each other, then back at her. With a cacophony of screeches, they closed in on her.

  She bashed the first demon in the face with her shield. The impact made her scream in pain at what it did to her burned arm. At nearly the same time, she flipped the sword around in her hand, changing to a reverse grip and slicing downward at another demon trying to intercept her. Keeping the blade close to her arm, she was able to imbue more power to the strike.

  The sword cut the demon down the middle of its chest all the way down to the crotch.

  Utilizing the momentum from the strike, she flipped the sword around to her normal grip and, continuing the same fluid motion with a figure eight movement, sliced the blade into another demon’s face with a backhand slash and cut yet another demon in front of her with the teeth on her shield.

  She continued, with each strike making her less aware of her pain. Little cuts joined the injuries she already had as the demons swarmed her, but she continued to pivot and strike, block and counterattack, defend and attack. Somehow, she seemed to be putting weight on her injured ankle, but tried not to wonder if it would collapse at any second.

  Kate wasn’t sure how long she fought, but she recognized that she was being pummeled and slashed with claws more and more often. She was getting slower. Two of the demon commanders were attacking her at the same time, one with a huge sword and the other with a massive hammer.

  She deflected the sword and saw the hammer coming at her from the edge of her vision. There was no way she was going to be able to move fast enough to evade it, and even if she got her shield under the blow, the pure force of it would probably break her arm and tear the shield from her grasp.

  It was time. Time to die.

  With her last act of defiance, she drove her sword into the eye of the sword-wielder, resigning herself to the fact that she would be crushed in the next few seconds. It had been a good battle. She hoped someone had seen her and would relate to her family that she had died a good death, that she had ended her career and her life completing her mission.

  In short, she hoped her family would be proud of the way she went out.

  A massive clang sounded right next to her ear, making her flinch where even the incoming hammer could not. The huge head of the demon commander’s hammer sank into the ground next to her.

  The demon had missed? How was that possible? And what had that noise been?

  Kate swiveled her head, almost delirious with exhaustion and blood loss.

  A death mask was inches from her face, a pair of steel grey eyes staring through the eye holes at her. The mask was Jurdan’s, the elongated white demon face with the centipede on the cheek.

  Kate blinked repeatedly, trying to understand.

  “Thought you might need a bit of help,” Koren Merklen said. “It’d be a shame if you couldn’t make it back for the party we’ll be having tonight.” One of the eyes winked.

  All around her, Kate saw black armor and cloaks and, more importantly, death masks. There must have been more than ten of the Black surrounding her, killing demons with each of their attacks. Some she recognized as members of her team, but there were others she couldn’t quite make out in her current mental state.

  She stood up as straight as she could manage. Her ankle protested, her ribs threatened to take all her breath, and a dozen other wounds stabbed her with their displeasure.

  But she stood.

  Her hand still on the pommel of her blood-slick sword, she clapped her fist to her chest in salute.

  And then she promptly fell as her ankle gave way.

  The hulking form of Aurel picked her up gently and helped her regain her feet.

  “I cannot carry you, Pretty Kate,” he said. “There are too many demons and I need to fight. Can you walk?”

  “I will,” she said.

  “Then I suggest you do so,” Koren interrupted. “There are too many of them. We need to get the Hell out of here.”

  And they did. With Kate in the middle, all but dragging her injured leg, the group carved their way through the rapidly mounting demon forces toward the gate.

  Kate hurried, but she watched in horror as, one after another, black-clothed figures began to fall to the overwhelming numbers. They still had more than a quarter mile to go to the gate, and though many of the demons were afraid of the men with the death masks, they still attacked in greater and greater numbers.

  We’re not going to make it, Kate thought. It saddened her to think that these men had come for her and by doing so had given up all their lives for her single life. She wished she could cry, but her body didn’t seem to be responding to anything normally. Something deep in her mind told her she was in shock, but she didn’t even know what that meant. All she knew was that they were all going to die.

  The Black fought bravely, each cutting down handfuls of demons, but there were too many enemies, and eventually the press of demon bodies was keeping them from using their weapons effectively. Kate slashed and thrust her sword at some of the monsters, but it was only a matter of time until they were completely overwhelmed.

  She shared a look with Koren, then with Aurel. She wished she could tell them how sorry she was.

  “Shield wall…push!” a voice shouted, prompting Kate’s head to snap up toward the sound. “Shield wall…attack!”

  Somehow, more than a hundred red-cloaked soldiers were within spitting distance of Kate and the others. On command, they fell upon the back of the pack of demons trying to finish off Kate’s group. Half of the monsters were dead before they realized they were being attacked.

  The Reds cut down the unsuspecting demons and formed up around the group of Blacks.

  “Shield wall…hold!” the voice shouted again, and Kate finally placed it. It was Phileas Darknoll, her drill instructor from Faerdham Fortress, standing nearly in front of her with his shield in line with the others.

  “Get behind us,” he growled at Kate. “We’ll get you out of here. None of these slimy, slug-faced, scab suckers are going to stop us.”

  Kate blinked at the man. What? How was he there? What did he want her to do?

  Koren took one of her arms and Aurel took the other. They maneuvered her into position, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, she wasn’t fighting for her life. She still had her shield and her sword in hand, but there were no enemies. She was in a protective box made of the shields of the Reds.

  “Shield wall…retreat,” Phileas boomed. The squad seemed well trained. In an orderly manner, they backed up toward the gate, another squad covering them so other demons didn’t flank them.

  And then sunlight kissed Kate’s skin. She stepped through the gate and into her own world again.

  Tears she didn’t know she had remaining in her flowed from her eyes as she looked at the scene before her. There was what looked like the entire force of the Order, rank upon rank of soldier, in formation. The front ranks maintained a shield wall, fighting the demons that were still coming through the gate, while those behind them waited. As she watched, they rotated, the rear ranks coming forward to take a turn while the others stepped back for a well-earned rest.

  She and the remaining Black were absorbed into the shield wall and then into the back ranks, a small pocket opening up for them to move. Before she knew it, they were beyond the front lines and blue-robed figures swarmed them to render aid.

  They were safe. Or as safe as they could be in a world with demons invading.

  Kate pushed her way through two of the Blues who were trying to check her wounds. One of them said something, but she didn’t hear exactly what he said. Her eyes were fixed on the small platform in front of her, one of the stages where officers stood to yell commands to the soldiers. This particular one was empty, but she planned on changing that.

  She tried to take the shield off her arm, but some of her skin was melted to it. Th
e weak pull she had attempted caused pain to rip through her arm and up into her shoulder, ending in her head and making her dizzy. She stopped for a moment, closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth. She tottered, but one of the Blues put his hands on her upper back to keep her from falling over.

  When the wave of nausea and pain subsided, she turned to thank the man and then clambered up on the platform without trying to remove her shield again. They would have to rip it off her skin, something she did not look forward to, but that would come later. For now, she had to see what was happening. Her ankle made the climb even more difficult, but she managed it.

  The sun was high in the sky, glaring down over the assembly in front of Kate. She realized she still had her mask on. It helped to shade her eyes from the sun. She had gotten so used to wearing it, she had to reach her hand up to touch it to confirm it was indeed still there.

  She quickly forgot about her mask when she surveyed the battlefield.

  The forces arrayed against each other were more numerous than she had ever seen before. The entire Order must have been on the field, including all the Black. Besides the knot of Black she had just come from, she could see them scattered throughout the battle, each one doing their jobs to keep the shield wall from collapsing. As she watched, one of them went down. She thought she saw some kind of blur and then the man dropped as if he was unconscious. The demons nearby quickly ripped him to shreds with their claws.

  She blinked, not believing what she had just seen.

  But it was not all bad news. Even as she gazed to the gate, she saw section after section of the shield wall holding and even advancing. Kate had never seen the officers pushing the men forward like that, pressing the demons to the very gate.