by Evan Currie
Ser’Goth’s wings were pushed back, flapping painfully in the gale-force winds as her impromptu magical field sheltered her from the worst of the effects. There was a brief pause, silence as the air in the square was thinned by the force of the explosion, then the lower pressure sucked air back in from the city with nearly equal force. She remained planted in place by sheer will alone, while around her demons and humans alike were being rolled and tossed like leaves in the storm.
As the maelstrom calmed, she looked around for the source of the attack. Motion against one of the buildings caught her eye, and Ser’Goth turned as a figure broke out of the shadows and charged into the square. Forewarned by recognizing the nature of the attack, she had no issue determining just what she was facing now.
The figure was slim and shorter than she was expecting, but the armor was distinctive, and she had no doubts that she was looking at an authorized human warrior.
Ser’Goth saw the weapon extend in her direction and reacted instinctively as it fired again, three more pellets of negative matter spitting right after. Tapping into the arcane, she extended her hands out just as the pellets tore through the air directly after. Shimmer pulsed out from her, and this time under her own power rather than that of the runic wards, the pellets froze in midair.
She looked past the frozen death, straight at the figure who’d fired upon her, and snarled as she twisted her hands and then snapped them out, sending death back to its instigator.
*****
Elan was stunned almost into indecision as her attack was again frozen in midair, this time by the large demoness with only a flick of her taloned hands. So stunned was she that she almost reacted too late as the pellets were flung back in her direction.
Unable to check her charge, Elan let her back and head bend away as her legs ran on, forward-kicking up and into the air. The first pellet flashed by her face only inches from her visor. As she twisted to avoid the second, it clipped by her shoulder. She continued into a full backflip, narrowly avoiding the third as it tore past her right knee.
Completing the flip, Elan landed on her knees in a fast skid across the stone as she mentally commanded her weapon to change.
Sliding the last few feet to her target, Elan swung her blade up and stabbed with as much power as she could at the lower torso of the large demon.
She came to a jarring stop as the demon leaned in and clapped her large hands together, trapping the black blade in place and driving the pommel back into Elan’s armored chest.
The girl stared up, eyes wide behind the armored visor as she stared directly into the flaming gaze of the seven-foot-tall, winged demon glowering right back at her.
“You have caused me a great deal of trouble, little pest,” the azure-skinned demoness growled in a guttural tone that vibrated with power. “It is long past time that I dealt with you in person.”
Elan really had nothing to say in response to that, so instead, she pulled hard on the pommel of her blade and used the leverage to lash out with a kick to the demon’s right knee. The strike landed home, buckling the knee inward and causing the demoness to stumble and lose her grip on Elan’s blade. Now free, Elan twisted her feet back under her and jackknifed upright, already swinging the carbon-black weapon at the demon’s throat with killing intent.
However, the demon recovered quicker than Elan would have thought possible and merely began twisting casually out of the path of the blade and stepping back as Elan weaved a complex pattern of attacks with each step forward.
After several seconds and just as many strikes, the demon seemed to grow bored of the action and casually avoided a slash with ease before stepping into Elan and shouldering aside the next strike with a blow to Elan’s inner arm. With her attack frozen in place by the counter, Elan tried to move back to clear enough room to try again, but she was too late to avoid the low strike that slammed into her sternum and lifted her feet right off the ground from the force alone.
Eyes bulging inside her armor, Elan barely heard the sneering tone as the demon held her there with a single hand, talons curling into the armor just sufficiently to allow her a purchase on the smooth surface.
“Pitiful,” the demon mocked. “I expected more, to be honest. I know not where you came by that armor, but it is clear that . . . authorized or not, you are no human warrior. Those who wore that before you would be ashamed of your showing.”
Elan struggled to lift her weapon as she was held there in the air, but even as the carbon blade rose up, the demon seemed to make a decision. The winged demon’s free hand cocked back as she drew in a sharp breath and then snapped forward in a blow so fast that Elan didn’t even recognize something had happened before the world just exploded around her.
The expulsion of breath in a demonic war cry was followed almost instantly by a smashing force that blew Elan clear out of the demon’s grip, throwing her back in a spinning arc as red filled her vision. Her flight came to an abrupt halt as Elan smashed into the stone of the building behind her hard enough to leave a spiderweb of cracks from the impact as she slowly slid to the ground and fell forward onto her face.
For an interminable time, Elan lay there, groaning and entirely uncertain as to what had just happened, let alone how she might recover from it. The armor kept her breathing, even as her chest and lungs screamed in pain with each influx of oxygen, but there was little more she could do but just lie there and twitch.
She heard the clacking sound of nails against stone and managed to twist enough in place to see the demon stalking slowly and purposely in her direction. Will alone allowed her to slowly roll over and get her legs under her as she climbed to her knees. She was almost unsteadily ready to climb to her feet when the demon arrived in front of her and casually backhanded her with enough force to the helmet to throw Elan in a rolling sprawl over a dozen feet to her left.
Stunned and hurting, Elan flopped over onto her back from her side and stared up at the sky through the cage of the tall spires of the city buildings. Everything was going black around the periphery of her vision, but directly above her the sky was blue. It struck her oddly then that it was a nice day, a strange thought to be having in the center of the demon-infested city.
She again heard the footsteps clacking against the stone and knew she had to move.
She just didn’t know if she had the strength.
Her muscles screamed as she forced herself over onto her side and then got both arms underneath her and pushed. Elan again got to her knees, on all fours as she fought the urge to void her stomach. It seemed a bad idea with the visor sealed over her face. Of course, it was also possible that she simply didn’t have the strength to throw anything up at that point. Everything hurt so badly that she didn’t know if any of her muscles were fit for something as exerting is vomiting.
She was still trying to gather the strength to climb up off her knees when she heard the cadence of the approaching footsteps grow quicker. Elan managed to twist her head and look at her foe just as the rushing demon entered her charge with a vicious kick that caught Elan directly in the midsection. The force of the blow lifted her off the ground in a high arc that peaked almost twenty feet in the air before reversing and sending her crashing back to the stone square.
Now unable to move aside from involuntary twitching, Elan watched from her back as the demon approached with a more casual gait.
The azure-skinned demon came to a stop and stood over her, looking down with something between amusement and almost pity. Elan wanted to curse, to strike out, to do anything, say anything, but she simply didn’t have the strength. So instead she just lay there as the demon bent over, reached down, and closed her talons around Elan’s head.
Elan felt her body being lifted from the stone by the grip on her helmet, her feet dragging until they too were lifted clear from the ground. The demon’s other hand reached up and wrapped around her throat, taking up some of the strain, while all her body could do was hang limply underneath.
Stress c
racks suddenly appeared in her visor as the demon’s hand closed tightly, talons popping through the armor as spiderweb fractures raced across the surface. The material screamed as the demon pulled her hand back and tore into the visor and helmet, exposing Elan’s face.
Elan found herself face-to-face with the azure-skinned demoness, staring at each other from mere inches apart. The demon grinned widely as she leaned in, laughing darkly in a guttural tone that practically vibrated with power.
“You’re a child,” she said with some wonder, “just a mere child. How, I wonder, did you ever manage to acquire the weapons you have? You play with things you cannot possibly understand, and it shows all too well.”
She tossed the fractured visor to the ground, letting it clatter across the stone without a thought as she reached back up to slowly pass a single talon across Elan’s face.
“Pretty little thing,” she said, amused. “Another time, child, I would have enjoyed . . . entertaining you. As things stand, however, I sadly don’t have time.”
She lifted Elan a little higher by the throat and slammed her talons into the carbon armor, tearing at the material until it gave way and sheared apart. Piece by piece, the armor was removed, leaving Elan wearing only scraps and the undershirt she had worn since Kaern presented it to her what felt like a lifetime earlier.
Elan forced her breathing to calm, forced down the terror that gibbered in her hindbrain, and tried to remember what the book had told her. She reached down deep into herself, looking for the power that the book had assured her was there but she had not yet been able to find for herself. Power she now needed desperately.
Your toys will fail you when you need them most, child.
By definition, when they fail . . . will be when you need them most.
All the warnings she’d heard from Kaern, the brothers, and Simone echoed in her mind as she felt a single talon dig into her neck and draw blood.
After everything, Elan couldn’t believe that it was going to end like this. Uselessly, surrounded by demons, and unable to do a damn thing about it.
Stink of prophecy.
What total nonsense.
Elan hung limply as the demoness licked her blood off a talon, smiling widely.
“Tasty, child. Very tasty,” the demoness told her. “Not really my food of choice, but you would be a tender morsel for many of my subordinates. You might even enjoy the ministrations of some of them, though that is something of a long shot. Humans are such interesting creatures, after all. Still, you’ve caused enough trouble . . . now say goodbye, child.”
No.
Elan opened her eyes and looked into the glowing eyes of the demon.
Not like this.
She refused.
The black future would not come to pass if it was within her power.
She refused.
Elan reached deeper, breaking through the emptiness she had always found, and there it was.
Power.
*****
Ser’Goth jerked her head back as the child’s eyes suddenly blazed with white light so pure it burned her own red glowing orbs. The girl in her grip twisted just as suddenly, cocking her arm back, and a word of power tore from the child’s throat as her arm struck out to hammer Ser’Goth’s sternum.
The shock of hearing a human utter a word of power stunned her almost as much as the force behind the surprise blow as she felt herself lifted off her feet and blown back away from her prey. Ser’Goth lost her grip on the little human as the pair were blown apart, and she was thrown hard into the wall of a building across the way with enough force to crack the glossy stonework before she tumbled to the ground.
Ser’Goth caught herself on one knee, bracing her hand against the ground as she looked up to see the human fall face-first into the stone ground after bouncing off the opposite building herself.
Well, that was unexpected, the demoness thought as she rose to her feet and started to march back across the way.
A human using even a single word of power was almost unknown. There were stories, of course—stories existed for everything—but aside from those far-fetched legends, so far as she was aware, this had never once happened.
Ser’Goth moved more cautiously now, but it seemed that wasn’t necessary as she approached the unmoving human. The girl’s last blow had taken everything she had to give, it seemed, and she was on the ground and semiconscious at best.
Ser’Goth knelt by the child’s body and wrapped her left hand in the girl’s hair, dragging her upright while watching for any sign the girl was faking. Her eyes were barely open and rolling listlessly, causing Ser’Goth to snort.
“Impressive, child,” she said, her tone smoother as she was tapping less of her demonic strengths. “I retract my earlier critiques. Your forebears should be proud. Now, however, it is time for you to meet them.”
Ser’Goth drew a wickedly curved dagger from her bodice armor and brought the weapon up to the child’s throat. It was almost a pity to slay what might make an impressive servant and eventually even more impressive demon herself, but now wasn’t the time to be playing with risks.
The blade of the dagger had just brushed the child’s throat when a blur of motion caught Ser’Goth by surprise. She started to turn just as a blinding pain and hammering blow struck her jaw and sent her stumbling.
That broke bone! she thought, stunned by having been blindsided by the blow. She stumbled away, clearing room between herself and her attacker as she blindly warded off further assault with her free hand, but nothing happened. In a few moments she managed to straighten and blink the pain from her eyes as she cast around for the source of the attack.
*****
Jolinr couldn’t believe what he’d just done.
I struck her!
He was almost sick to his stomach at the thought. He’d been at the lady’s nonexistent mercy for so long, the idea of having attacked her evoked an actual physical response. He ruthlessly shoved it down as he knelt by Elan’s body and shook her desperately.
“You have to get up!” he hissed urgently. “She’ll recover! We need to get out of here now!”
Elan groaned, twitching a little as she tried to wake from her stupor. Jol shook her again, urging her as best he could, trying to get her to move.
He wasn’t prepared for the dry laughter that sounded over his urging, sending a chill down his spine as he looked up to see her, the object of so many of his emotions for so very long, looking at him from a couple of dozen feet away with an amused expression.
“Well, well, well,” Ser’Goth laughed, hiding a bit of a wince as she rubbed her jaw where Jol had struck her with all the strength he could muster to put behind his hammer. “So the handsome human toy finally grew a pair, did he?”
Ser’Goth cocked her head to one side, looking between Jol and Elan.
“Was it her?” the demoness asked, looking mockingly hurt. “I’m surprised at you, Jol. That little slip of a girl is somehow more to your taste than I am? I’m hurt, truly.”
Jol ignored the way the demoness rubbed her free hand across her body as she spoke, wrapping his own hand around the handle of his hammer and dragging it across the stone ground as he rose to his feet and stood over Elan’s fallen form.
“You need to get up,” he hissed downward. “You need to get away.”
Elan moaned, shifting slightly as she tried to move. He chose to take that as her having heard him and turned his focus to Her Ladyship, a grim expression on his face.
“After everything I’ve done for you, everything I’ve overlooked,” Ser’Goth said, smiling at him, “you choose to pick another girl over me, Jol? How . . . ungrateful.”
Jol summoned up all the rage he felt, using it to overpower the fear that even in his pride he had never been able to completely banish in her presence.
“I’ve been wanting this for a long time,” he forced himself to say and was inordinately pleased to find that his voice didn’t shake as he did.
He just lif
ted his hammer and took a deep breath as he faced off against her, settling himself as he felt his fears empty out of him and a fierce excitement replace it.
I should have done this a long time ago, he realized.
“My pretty little boy is all grown up,” Ser’Goth said mockingly as she began walking toward him, adding an intentional sway to her hips that hadn’t been there before.
A growl distracted them both, and they glanced around to see the demons that had been blown off their feet by the explosion of the initial attack closing in on them. Jol shifted his grip and twisted as he tried to keep them all in sight but was surprised when Ser’Goth shouted out to them all.
“Leave him!” she ordered, her expression fierce now. “He is mine.”
The demons paused, then stepped back as Jol turned his focus back to her, and she began to close on him again.
“Oh, Jol.” She smiled at him. “You didn’t think I’d let anyone else have the entertainment of killing you, did you? After all the times I watched you kill those lesser demons, all the times I wondered if you would finally grow a pair big enough to try your hand at killing me? Oh no, this is a day I have been long grooming you for, Jol.”
She grinned, practically ear to ear, her sharp teeth on display as she spread her wings and arms wide but didn’t stop her approach.
“Come on, then, Jol!” she shouted. “Entertain me!”
Jol waited for her to be less than ten feet away before he moved, then he lunged forward while swinging his hammer in an overhand blow that was as powerful as it was obvious. He made no effort to hide his intent, fully expecting her to be entirely contemptuous of his strength and make no endeavor to dodge.
He was proven correct as Ser’Goth lazily intercepted his blow on her arm, a flash of light and a powerful crack startling them both as she was driven back a step. Jol pulled back his hammer and swung again.
Ser’Goth was not so cavalier on the second blow, using her other arm to deflect it as she moved slightly out of the way, eyes wide as she followed the path of the hammer.