by Simon Archer
After fighting off the initial wave, when we managed to get a short break from the battle, Adriana had tried to comfort me.
“None of us could have seen this coming,” she argued with me.
“I should have known better. I should have kept our forces here to protect our people.” I sat on the steps of the castle with my head in my hands.
Adriana put a bloodied hand on my shoulder. “I would have done the exact same thing you did after receiving the SOS from the east. Anyone would have sent the troops to help them. This isn’t your fault.”
The events leading up to the attack replayed over in my head. We had word that the eastern kingdoms needed help, and I immediately sent soldiers off to help. Maybe Adriana was right. How could I have known the hordes would break through the walls? None had since we’d erected the walls after The Great Purge, but I still was angry with myself. I was angry, sad, horrified, and so many other emotions. So much was going wrong in such a short period of time. My kingdom and my people were crumbling before my eyes, and although I was doing all that I could to stop it, it wasn’t enough.
As I stalked across the bloodied field, I cut down zombies and growled orders to my troops to reform the lines for an all-out assault. My soldiers, as eager for blood as I was, fell in line behind me as I crashed over zombie corpses, enjoying the feel of their skulls crushed beneath my feet.
That was when a dark figure came up beside me. It was Rachel with fire as in her eyes. She carried her great blade at her side, and when she turned, our eyes met. Her dirt-covered face had lines of clear spots where the tears had rolled down her pale cheeks, but I saw no more signs of sadness in her. Now, it was all rage, rage and fury that matched my own.
I snarled and lifted my greatsword as we marched forth toward a mass of the creatures. All I saw was red and their swift, impending destruction by our hands.
“Forward, soldiers!” I screamed.
We charged forward as a single unit and clashed with the brainless creatures. In great swinging arcs, I curled my blade back and forth, drawing lines of red across the rows of the undead. Rachel screamed and yelled as she sent her Wol Do flying through the horde at a startling speed. Out of all the council members, Rachel was probably my closest match in a physical battle. She was truly terrifying with her large blade and her black hair whipping around her face as she gracefully spun back and forth, killing zombies swiftly.
I had been fighting zombies for many years, but this horde was different. Instead of just the rotting forms of humans, as zombies had been since the outbreak, these were the decaying corpses of faeries, werewolves, and even gargoyles. I collided with one such creature, and even I would admit that seeing the large rotting frame of a gargoyle before me had me rattled. I plunged my sword into the creature's torso, and then, as I pulled the blade back out, I swung it high. With all my force and weight behind it, I sliced the blade through the gargoyle’s thick neck, successfully removing its head from its stinking body.
As I fought on, now fully covered in layers of blood, dirt, and sweat, I saw my friends in each of these monsters as supernatural and human zombies alike stumbled toward my troops and me.
Sahar was already dead, but would Rozmarin be next? Or Rachel? Aerywin? Christoff?
Not if I could help it.
I slashed down another two zombies and then turned to stab another. Rachel leaped up beside me and sent her blade soaring up into a zombie’s jaw. Its eyes glowed red as it growled at her, but when her blade connected its face, the creature's head exploded in blood and brains. She moved onto the next one, and the next, and the next.
The sounds of their moans and groans grew louder and louder even as we dispatched them one by one, and I realized we were now completely surrounded on all sides. My soldiers, Rachel, and I were caught in the center of a wall of zombies, and they pressed in on us on all sides. We were flies caught in the spider’s web.
All we could do now was to fight until we dropped or until every last one of them was dead.
So that’s what we did. We slashed and sliced and yelled, but we did not give up. The horde seemed to keep growing as new monsters took the places of ones that had fallen. My arms ached, but I kept moving my greatsword as fast as I could into zombie after zombie.
Just as I feared I was reaching my limits, a blinding light flashed over the land. I instinctively ducked down and shielded my eyes from the light hoping the zombies would stop their assault for a moment. Light evaporated just as fast as it had appeared, and when I stood up and looked around me, my jaw dropped.
Ash. I was surrounded by ash where the zombies once were. Whatever that light was, it had disintegrated the beasts. We had won!
Rachel and I ran toward each other and clashed together in a victory embrace.
“Let’s go find the others!” Rachel exclaimed.
“I’ll take you up to the tower. Then I’ll find Rozmarin, and we can meet you there,” I told her.
I opened my giant wings, and with Rachel in my arms, we took off into the air.
39
Rozmarin
As the haze finally lifted, rising and evaporating into the humid air, my vision and the view of the surrounding lands returned. Still, I did not move. Not until I heard the flapping of wings behind me and Anix’s incredulous, gruff voice. I could still hear her heavy breathing from the exertion of battle.
“All the zombies in the kingdom are dead, Your Highness! There was a blinding light, and they just turned to ash.”
When I finally sat up and twisted around to look at her, black ichor covered her, and several minor injuries marred her body. Her eyes fell to the crumpled figure in my arms. When they rose to meet mine once more, there was grief and understanding there.
Peace does not come without a price.
With one more kiss to Chris’s cold cheek, Anix and I flew to the ground level where thousands and thousands of people awaited. In my overwhelming haze of grief, I had not noticed that the people had begun to cheer. Relief for my people warred with the growing ache in my soul, and I could not stop the chanting in my head. Christoff was dead. My mate, dead. Dead.
Even as people came up to me and patted my back or kissed my hands to express their appreciation, all I could see, every time I blinked, was my mate’s lifeless body.
“Rozmarin!” Anix said, snapping me out of my inner torture. “The people are waiting for your okay to go home. I can have the troops send wagons around the--”
It was not a particular sound that had Anix pausing mid-sentence, but a feeling. The entire field quieted, even the humans sensing that something was wrong. When I turned my face towards the sky, dark, angry clouds were rolling in, the temperature plummeting drastically. The ash that littered the field below, made from the dead bodies of the zombies, moved. Not in the air, but along the ground. It slithered along the grassy field and collected into one giant pile.
My people and I watched in horror as the pile of black ash pulsed. They were smaller pulses at first, but each one grew larger and larger until the pile of ash finally burst open.
What emerged from the black hole was a thing of nightmares. Its massive black horns atop its triangular-shaped head were the first parts of it to appear. Next were its eyes, black and bottomless, an abyss of destruction and chaos. As the rest of its giant, hulking body rose from the ashes of the dead zombies, cries of terror and despair rang up around me, and the people started fleeing into the castle.
How could this be? Christoff had banished the zombies, only to have them reform into… whatever this was.
The creature’s long, sharp fingers clawed at the ground as it pulled itself from its hole, creating massive grooves in the earth. The earth shook with the force of the monster’s sheer weight when its giant, taloned feet hit the now-frigid ground. Anix and I stood side by side, stunned as the creature pulled itself completely from the gaping hole.
We had not planned for this. We had no war strategy for this. No evacuation plan. We had nothing.
“I am Drahkon, son of the BloodDrake,” a sinister, genderless voice bellowed. Though it was hundreds of yards away, I knew that its voice could be heard for miles. “Courier of chaos and destruction. The spell holding me has finally been broken.”
Without another word, it knelt down to its hands and knees, dropped its jaw to the floor, and then, dear gods, and then, thousands of gruesome, horrifying creatures came charging out of the monster’s mouth. Some of them were only as tall as my knees, and others were ten feet tall. They did not carry weapons because they were weapons. Some had horns and ran on all fours while others sported wings and black, oily blades for hands. Each of them dripped with unearthly darkness like they had emerged from a giant vat of oil.
My gaze shot to Anix’s, and I saw everything I needed to know there. She was not ready to give up yet. She would fight. I gave her a single nod, and she started sending the orders out. Form the lines. Defend the castle.
The first line of troops met the incoming onslaught of monsters at the bottom of the hill, some on foot, some in the air. Cries of pain and agony went out around the battlefield as soldiers died… and died… and died.
Too many. There were too many of those awful, demon-like creatures. Even as I looked to the Drahkon, creatures continued to flow out of its mouth like a never-ending portal from hell.
We needed to kill the Drahkon, or at least stop it from creating more of those things. I burst into action, my wings appearing at my back, and within a few seconds, I was at Anix’s side once more as she continued to issue out her orders.
“We must target the Drahkon. We must at least distract it so it cannot create any more of those… demons,” I said, and Anix nodded in agreement. That was all the confirmation I needed before I was flying through the window of my study. As expected, Rachel and Aerywin were there, hovering over a map. When I appeared, they looked up at me, eyes wide. I could hear fearful voices throughout the halls, and the pained cries of soldiers and monsters alike filled the battlefield, echoing towards the castle.
“How is this possible? How could we not have seen this coming?” Rachel hissed urgently. She glared at me then. “I warned you that the BloodDrake would not leave this earth without unleashing chaos. I warned you. And now you have subjected the entire kingdom to its offspring.” She paused for a moment, looking behind me. “Where is the boy?”
That yawning cavern in me stretched, seeking the warmth that my mate had provided. It met nothing but more darkness. I did not have to say it. At one look at my expression, Rachel’s eyes grew impossibly wide, and she leaned onto the table for support.
“Dear gods,” she whispered. “We truly are doomed. I assume that his sacrifice is what destroyed the zombies?”
I nodded my confirmation as a realization ran through my head. If we failed to save the kingdom from this monster, Christoff’s sacrifice would have been for nothing. My eyes rose to hold Rachel’s, letting her see the last shred of determination and hope for my people that I had left in them.
“I need you two to evacuate the people while the troops and I hold off the beast and its creatures.”
Rachel and Aerywin both rocked back on their heels in surprise. Rachel was the first to respond. “No.” Her tone was flat and resolute.
I closed the distance between me and my desk, leaning onto it as I explained. “There are no more zombies. The lands outside of the kingdom should be safe and free of any true threats, at least for a fair few miles.”
“But our home is here in Constanta.” This came from Aerywin. Her sharp, green eyes shone with unshed tears as she realized that this might just be our only option.
“We have rebuilt our lives and the lives of our people before. We can do it again. Without borders this time,” I said, a small, sad smile forming on my lips. Though I said we, we all knew that I meant them.
“You just expect us to leave you here to die? Our army is outnumbered. You cannot kill the beast,” Rachel snapped. “When you fail, it will only come after the rest of us.”
“Then at least I will have bought them time,” I snapped back. Then, taking a deep breath, I ran my hands through my hair, feeling the weight of my responsibility crushing down on me.
Rachel continued to stare at me, tears now forming in her eyes too. She knew as well as I did that we had no other options. They had to at least give our people a chance. They had to try. This was her duty, and I knew that she would not fail me. I trusted her to follow through with what I could not. My gaze softened, and I reached across my desk to grab both of her hands in mine.
“You are my second-in-command. I would trust no one else before I trusted you.” Except for Chris, but he was no longer here. I had to rub my chest to chase the ache away at that thought. “You and Aerywin are their only hope. Head southwest until you reach the sea, where the weather is warmer. Crops will be easier to grow there for the humans, and I have always regretted not settling near the sea. With this section of the zombie armies cleared, you may be able to start over there.”
The two women were both crying now, as I raced through my last words to my friends. When I finished, I shared a long, tearful hug with each of them before I was out the window again, and they went straight to work mapping out their evacuation route.
I trusted them to give my people a life worth dying for.
As soon as I landed on the battlefield, the sounds of war filled my ears, and a sense of deja vu hit me. This was not my first battle, but it may very well be my last. I pulled my blade from its sheath at my hip and worked my way through the army of demons to get to the Drahkon. It still was lying down, immobile as more and more of those horrible creatures came charging out of its mouth.
There were so many of them. This would be pillaging, an ugly, gory massacre. We would lose.
40
Aerywin
With tears blinding me and streaming down my face, I wrapped my arms around Rachel, and we took off out the window and into the oppressive sky. I felt my friend tremble as she silently cried with tears falling from her darkened eyes. It was rare to see the tough vampire this vulnerable, and something about our horrifying situation, and seeing Rachel lose it made me want to give up. Almost.
As we soared over the battlefield, the terror of what was happening struck me again like a cold punch to my gut. That thing, the demon, or the Drakhon, was lying on its back, and streams of black demons flew out of its mouth. I had never witnessed something so utterly terrifying. As I carried Rachel over the battlefield, my heart pounded madly in my chest, and my skin prickled with goosebumps as I watched the blood-curdling birth of hundreds and thousands of demons.
Hell had unleashed itself on Constanta.
My head spun. How had we gone from the terror of zombies to this? Only minutes before, we had been celebrating the zombies’ defeat thanks to Christoff’s humble sacrifice, and now, demons were spawning in the center of our kingdom. Perhaps, worst of all, was that Rachel and I had been ordered to flee with our people, leaving Rozmarin and Anix behind. I wasn’t even sure what they would be able to do against such terrible enemies. It was hopeless. I knew that. Still, some part of me wanted to fight and die beside my comrades.
That was selfish, though, because the people of Constanta still needed me.
All we could do now was to get as many people as far away from Constanta as possible.
I steadied my racing mind and focused on the task in front of us. Rachel and I could not fail, or all these sacrifices would be for nothing. I flew us to the East Village first, and when we touched down, chaos surrounded us. Fire consumed whole buildings, while other structures crumbled down into the streets. Many people lay dead
with gruesome wounds from the zombie attacks. The hordes had come from the east, and so the village was the first place the monsters struck as they poured into the kingdom like a dark and terrible tide.
Anyone who had survived the initial onslaught fled through the streets like mad with whatever belongings they could carry. Rachel and I sprinted through the chaos, calling through the madness for everyone to evacuate to the north of the village. The plan was to take the people up and around the castle, as far away from the battlefield as possible. There, we could then link up with the West Village on the other side and continue our journey southwest, out of Constanta.
But then what? Rozmarin said we could rebuild, but how would we ever manage to do that after losing so much?
I tried not to think about Rozmarin and Anix out there still fighting against those demons. I silently prayed that they would somehow manage to escape and meet up with us far away from the horror, or better yet, the two warriors and our army would defeat the demons. I wiped away more tears as I realized the Light-Bearer’s sacrifice had all been for nothing. He and Sahar lay dead as did so many of our people. How could any of us continue our lives when so many had died?
Constanta had been the only home I’d ever known, or at least the only place I’d ever lived worth calling home. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, and if Sahar, Anix, and Rozmarin weren’t with us, how could I ever call any other place home?
As I wrestled with these thoughts and emotions, Rachel ran off to help some people load an elderly werewolf into a cart. If Rozmarin didn’t survive, the burden of leading would fall on Rachel’s shoulders. I had no doubt she would be a good leader, but I feared that losing Rozmarin, Rachel’s best friend, might be too much for the vampire to handle. We had all already lost so much, and now this.
A scream rang out to the right of me, shaking me from my depressing musings. I whipped around to catch the aftermath of a burning building that had collapsed on itself. Someone was inside. I raced over and felt the extreme heat radiating from the destruction, and more screams came from the fiery pit of rubble before falling eerily silent.