by Greg Dragon
Alysia considered his words. Even though giving up Euphoria was not an option, she wondered why he was so obsessed with the sword, and how it was he knew that it had a twin named Bliss. “Who sent you for me, Arlan Fo? I will spare your life if you tell me. Give me a name, and back out from the cave, and I will collect my friends and find my way out. But I’m only offering you this once. Just give me a name and keep your life.”
Arlan Fo laughed. “You can barely stand. We walked miles today, beyond what you seem used to. Plus, you’re favoring that side, which lets me know that you are injured. Come on, girl, do not be foolish now. Hand me the sword. Your friends are in trouble. They will have assumed the worst and are probably trying to crawl back.”
Alysia had heard enough. He was right about her being tired and in pain from her fight against the Archon, but the fury inside her pushed the discomfort aside and made way for action. She thrust the point into his chest, running forward with a scream as she shoved it all the way to the hilt. When her hands touched his moist, clammy chest, she expected him to burst into ashes or fall while his life’s blood seeped out. But the brute didn’t seem fazed as he grabbed her upper arms and thrust her away from him hard.
The shove from Arlan Fo threw Alysia back into the cave wall, causing a gash in her head. She couldn’t move, but the ring sprang to life and wrapped her arms and chest in armor. She had a headache unlike anything she had ever felt before, and when she looked up to see what was coming next, she could see the demon struggling to pull her sword out of his chest.
That was when Bortex sprang into action. He got up on his hands and feet, then mustered the strength to stand. In a smooth motion he grabbed the hilt of Euphoria, drew it out, and tossed it down where it clattered on the cave floor. His hands found the throat of Arlan Fo, and their locked, big bodies looked like titans dancing in the torchlight.
Alysia tried to reach for the sword but her body didn’t want to obey her. With every attempt she had to reel back. Eventually she slumped down by the wall, gripping her head, one finger touching the gash in her scalp.
Bortex lost the grip on Arlan Fo’s neck and the demon slammed his fists into his face one after the other, again. Alysia’s friend fell down to one knee but grabbed the other’s legs and yanked up, causing him to fall down, hitting his head against a rock. He mounted the fallen demon and slammed his own fist into his face. He slammed another and kept on punching, but Arlan Fo had his hands up, deflecting them.
Alysia inhaled slowly against the pain and probed the air for the magical field that Lenorela told her about. She found it quickly, which surprised her, but she didn’t know what to do with it. Come on, CeeCee, she thought to herself. Your friend is dying, trying to protect you. The waves of the magic felt very strong, entering her orifices and flowing down into her limbs, and then back out again.
She focused on her rage, willing herself to move, and with so much pain that she saw stars, she found the sword. The magic was still around her when she thought of Euphoria. She thought of its strength and what it did to demons.
Tiny sparks of light emanated from the blade as she did this, and she focused more on the sword, realizing that through it, the magic was finally listening. She raised Euphoria above her head and approached the fighting titans.
She hadn’t seen until now that Bortex was not moving and blood was seeping from his mouth. Arlan Fo was rising when she dashed forward, cutting into him, but this time bringing the energy and the magic that had finally listened, causing Euphoria to cut through his torso like mere foam.
Blood exploded everywhere instead of ash, and the angled cut glowed on Arlan Fo’s body before his top half slid to the ground with a thump. Jumping from the open wound was a smaller demon, sleek and black in appearance. Alysia didn’t hesitate in rushing forward to get at him, but when she raised the sword he began to beg, stammering for her to show him mercy.
“I-I was j-just following orders! They bade me take the sword from you … they cannot know that I failed them. Spare me please and I will—”
Alysia would have loved to know who “they” was, but it was not to be. Bortex stood up suddenly and twisted the demon’s head violently to the left, almost tearing it off in the process. Alysia exhaled. The pain and the exhaustion rushing back to her, and she fell on the floor and passed out.
Chapter Six
When consciousness came back to Alysia she was lying next to the dying torch. Her head throbbed painfully as if her brain was too big for her skull, and her mouth was dry and tasted like copper. Lying next to her on the opposite side of the torch was Bortex. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving, and she reached over and touched his arm to see if he was merely sleeping.
His skin was cold to the touch so she knelt in order to check his vitals. There was a light pulse, and he was breathing, but he was hurt badly and would need serious help, fast. Alysia felt out of options and afraid, so she thought about everything that she had learned since coming to Yalem.
The first lesson that came back to her was that Yalem was not held to any time. Portals ran back and forth to various realities around the demon world, and some could skip back and forth in time to these places. She remembered Lenorela taking her into the library and showing her how to follow one of Chaos’s portals, but they were only able to do this whenever a gap in the ether allowed them to.
She wondered if there was a way to open a portal in order to keep Bortex safe until she got help. She would go inside to a non-world like the one that Chaos had brought her to and there he could rest, frozen in time, until she was back in the village. She would reopen the portal to retrieve his body and bring him there with her. But even if this was possible, it was the strongest magic, and all she knew was what Lenorela had taught her.
Her head throbbed, a debilitating pain that forced her hands up, and she began to wonder if she would die, as well. She climbed to her feet and grabbed the torch, walking back into the blackness where Arlan Fo had emerged. She saw his tunnel, a black mouth in the side of the wall, twisting away into nothingness. She stepped into it, still holding her head with the other hand, and walked its length until it opened up into another tunnel.
Alysia couldn’t tell how long the trip through the tunnel took, but the whole time she worried that she had chosen the wrong tunnel, and this one was leading her away from her friends. When she finally emerged after what felt like an hour, she found herself on the edge of an underground cliff, leading down into nothing. The cliff wall was flat and smooth, but Alysia inspected the floor and reasoned that this used to be a walkway of the castle, something that used to be high up, possibly connecting two towers.
She hugged the cave wall and inched in the direction that she assumed would align her with the old tunnel. Her hunch was correct and she almost cheered when she shone the flashlight on two figures huddled by the wall where the walkway ended.
“Amarah?” she asked, her hand leaving her head to find the hilt of Euphoria.
“CeeCee?” said a weak female voice.
Alysia confirmed, so they walked up to one another, each unable to comprehend the situation.
“CeeCee?”
She held up the torch and examined the male, only to see that it was Cyrio. He hopped up quickly and got in front of Amarah defensively and then she heard the noise behind her. Spinning and bringing her sword up defensively, she came face to face with Orwan, his hand raised with a jagged rock in it, getting ready to brain her.
He dropped the rock and hugged her tightly. She lowered the sword and went limp in his arms, overcome with emotion. “That damned Arlan Fo,” she whispered to him, “Bortex is hurt. We need to get him help and—”
Orwan held her away for a moment, took her torch, and walked around to examine her head. “You’re not well either, Alysia … don’t move.” He reached in his pack and brought out a small flask and then handed it to her. When she made to drink it, he motioned for her to take it easy and then reached down and tore
a length of cloth from his shirt. Taking back the flask, he doused the cloth in the clear alcohol and then muttered a few words in a strange language as he held it out in front of him.
The fabric took on a strong smell, sweet and heady, and Alysia wondered how, since the liquid in the flask was vile and smelled more like liquid ammonia. He finished his spell with words that she could understand. “Lords of Ert, watch over your little sister and place the light of healing into her, guided by my hands.”
He then wrapped her head in the wet cloth, and the pain intensified, causing her to grab his hand and dig her nails into his flesh. Orwan held on, though Alysia fought, but she could feel the liquid disinfecting the wound in her head. Her head had been like a balloon since the fight with Arlan Fo, but now it felt normal again, and the pain began to fade away.
“Oh, sorry, Orwan!” she exclaimed when she saw what she had done to his arm.
“It’s fine, CeeCee. I’m just glad that I could help you in time. Now, tell us what happened to our brother back there.”
Alysia relayed the events of the fight with Arlan Fo, from him ambushing them to Bortex saving her life after she had been thrown against the wall. Amarah was so angry that her eyes literally glowed in the dark. It was moments like this that reminded Alysia that she was in the demon world now, and not in a parallel world with humans like her.
Cyrio didn’t need to hear any more once she was finished, and after he hugged her, and looked over her head, he led them back along the cliffs to the tunnel that Alysia had described. The torch sputtered out when they got inside, and they had to feel around in order to navigate it. They stopped after a while, and Amarah fumbled inside of her pack. Soon, a tiny ball of light grew in her palm, reminiscent of the one that Lenorela showed her.
She held it up above her and muttered a few of the foreign words that Orwan had used. It stayed floating, hovering above her wherever she moved. They picked up the pace and kept getting faster until they were running down the tunnel. Bortex was loved, and he was Cyrio’s brother, so the chance of losing him was something that stayed fresh on their minds.
After thirty minutes of running they reached the first tunnel, and the stench of the dead demon hit them like a splash of water in the face. Cyrio went around the corner, and Alysia slowed down, anticipating Cyrio to scream out in fury. But there was no scream, no sounds of crying, so she hurried over to see what was going on.
The three Erts were on the ground kneeling around Bortex, and each were diligently working on separate things. Orwan was pouring alcohol out onto a cloth, very much like he had done for her head wound. Amarah was making a paste of sorts from the demon’s blood, and Cyrio was leaning over, whispering to his brother in the same strange language from before. The triad worked on the big man for many moments while Alysia watched closely, wishing she could help but unable to determine what she could do.
She moved away from them and walked down the tunnel into the darkness and towards the entrance. The large boulder that Bortex had rolled in front of the entrance was still there, but it was now nighttime outside. She sat by the boulder and stared through the crack at the night sky, letting her body truly rest after an entire day of stress and exhaustion.
She didn’t know for how long she had slept but when she opened her eyes the sky was red outside. Amarah’s light was gone and Alysia panicked, wondering if something had happened to them. She struggled to her feet, filthy but rested, and found that her eyes had grown accustomed to the lack of light. She saw them then, four shadows leaning against the wall, and Bortex was the only one snoring.
Relief and happiness flooded her emotions, and she covered her mouth because she wanted to scream. But when she saw the lifeless pieces of Arlan Fo and the demon that had been inside of him, guilt reared its ugly head, causing her to feel foolish. Lenorela had told her a tale about Bliss and the Bandit King, and she had become obsessed with finding it. How stupid was she to believe that in a world like Yalem, whose vastness and depth she was still ignorant of, she would find a fabled sword?
Her obsession had almost killed a good and necessary warrior for the Erts, and she had put three others off of their mission. Now they were here, exhausted and tired, inside of a cave that sat above a wicked, old castle. Who had sent him, this Arlan Fo, who would set her up in order to steal Euphoria?
She thought of Chaos. The demon lord would never touch the sword, and seemed visibly disturbed by it when she met him. Lenorela? No, that made no sense. The witch was her friend, and had given her a ring that had saved her life several times. Why even question her friend when—
There was a noise from the entrance, and then the sound of someone pulling at the boulder. Red light spilled in, and Alysia prepared herself for what was to come.
“Amarah,” she said, somehow knowing that her friend was awake. She backed up to where they lay, her left hand balancing the weight of Euphoria.
“I hear it, CeeCee,” she replied.
Knights and Demons
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About The Author
GREG DRAGON has been a creative writer for several years, and has authored on topics of relationship, finance, physical fitness and more through different sources of media. In particular, his online magazine has been a source of much pragmatic information, which has been helpful to many. As a result, his work continues to grow with a large and loyal fan base.
This Florida author brings exciting action and drama to his written work. His storylines keep readers engaged with characters that come to life from the beautiful celestial scenes of science fiction, to the gritty world of urban drama.
See Greg’s author page at gregdragon.com or keep up with his latest books and appearances through email.