by Simon Archer
As I dug through the debris, Rachel came up beside me. “What are you doing?”
“Someone’s trapped in here! Help me!” I shouted at her as I worked my way further into the building.
Rachel immediately pulled stone and wood up, sending the pieces flying behind us. With her help, we moved a large chunk of rubble and uncovered a young vampire who had been trapped. She had fainted and lay unmoving, even after Rachel shook her furiously, so she scooped the young vampire up in her arms and carried her from the house.
The family that she had been helping yelled for her to put the unconscious vampire in the cart. We thanked them, and then Rachel and I continued our mad dash through the streets, helping anyone we could get to the evacuation point. I darted in and out of buildings, looking for any stragglers and found a few lost and trembling faerie children with dirt on their faces. With all the tenderness I could muster, I led the children out of their home, not wanting to stop and think about what happened to their parents.
I helped the children into another cart and gave the vampire who was pulling it a nod. I saw the sad yet stern look in his eye and recognized it as the realization that he was now responsible for these kids and that he would give his life to protect them. Other people were helping the injured into carts and then would take turns pulling them through the streets as they navigated around rubble and bodies.
Even in all this chaos, the people remained strong. They helped each other every chance they got, and that solidified in me that no matter what, as long as we had each other, we would be okay. Even in all this death and terror, we would carry on and take care of each other.
Maybe Constanta wouldn’t be totally lost. Some part of it would always live on, as long as we managed to survive.
When we were satisfied that we had saved all that we could, Rachel and I raced to the northern edge of the village where a mass of terrified people waited for us. We pushed through them, trying to encourage each one until we were at the front of the group. They looked to us, with wide, teary eyes for our next steps.
“We must move as fast as we can,” I yelled to the people. “We’re going north around the castle where we will then evacuate the West Village and flee Constanta. We’ll go southwest, to the coast, and we’ll start over.”
No one shouted protests to this plan or said anything for that matter. Everyone was silent, except for those who cried and sobbed.
“It’s the only way we will survive,” Rachel stated firmly, but there was a resolve in her voice that carried out over the crowd and fell down around them like some kind of powerful magic that comforted them, at least a bit.
Some of the villagers had rescued scared horses or found them trying to escape the destruction of the village, and those horses now carried the injured or elderly or pulled carts and carriages full of more wounded and old villagers. We rearranged some of the riders so that we could send a couple of young wraiths ahead of us to the West Village.
“Tell them to escape the kingdom through the west gate. Wait for us there!” I called out to a wraith, and with a nod, he and the other rider took off at a break-neck pace.
Rachel and I led the Eastern Villages north as quickly as we could, but we had a lot of injured people and young, terrified children with us. Although we stayed far away from the battlefield, we could hear the distinct sounds of war. Shouts and cries echoed up to us, and I wondered how Anix and Rozmarin fared. We also heard a low booming sound like rumbling thunder, and I knew that awful noise must be coming from the Drakhon.
As we continued our trek, I kept an eye out for any demons that may have strayed from the battlefield, but we luckily never saw any, but I feared we were not moving fast enough, and if our army fell too quickly, the demons would surely find us. We still had to evacuate the whole West Village, which would take as long or longer than the East Village, and every second we remained in Constanta was another second closer to death. I wondered how bad the west side had fared, and I hoped it wasn’t as bad since the zombies had entered Constanta from the east, and soon, I saw the buildings of the village’s northern end.
Before reaching the West Village, Rachel and I sent the group of villagers to the safety of the western gate to meet up with any West Villagers that had already evacuated. I found it cruelly ironic that they would now be safer outside of the walls than in.
Rachel and I continued on into the shabby streets of the West Village. Although it had not suffered as much destruction as the East Village, signs of a zombie attack were still there. The run-down buildings were crumbling even more, and bodies were strewn about the streets. Rachel and I ran through the village, calling to anyone that could hopefully hear us looking through buildings like we had done before.
The wraiths we had sent ahead from the East Village charged their horses up and down the streets. They shouted at the top of their lungs for everyone to evacuate to the west gate. One of the wraiths, looking like a child himself, had a young werewolf sitting in front of him that he must have rescued from the rubble. When the wraiths saw us, I nodded at them to convey how grateful I was for their help. With brave young wraiths like them with us, we would figure out our new lives, no matter what happened.
We rushed up and down the streets, helping more injured people into carts, rescuing people from collapsed and burning buildings. Even as I tried to calm my nerves and keep focused, I kept thinking about Rozmarin and Anix. In all the chaos, I could no longer hear the battle sounds, but I thought I could still feel the earth vibrating from whatever terrible thing it was the Drakhon was doing.
I wanted to fly back and see what was happening to my friends. I wanted to return to the battlefield and sweep them up, even if they protested. I wanted them to come with us, to leave all this behind, and if they wouldn’t, then I wanted to stand and fight with them. Guilt ran through me as I continued helping more villagers to the west gate. All of us, the ones fleeing Constanta, we would make it. We would be okay, but two of my friends were already dead, and the others were fighting against demons.
We evacuated the West Village, and the stream of terrified villagers followed Rachel and me from their ruined homes across the green fields and to the west gate. We passed under the already opened portcullis and through the cool tunnel of the wall. As we exited the other side, the group from the East Village was there waiting for us. Rachel and I made our way to the front of the group, now doubled in size with those from the West Village, and we began our long, somber journey southeast.
I turned around and looked at the mighty walls of Constanta one last time.
41
Christoff
After releasing the light from within me, the blast that destroyed all the zombies within Constanta and the supernatural zombies under the BloodDrake’s control, my vision went dark, and I swam in an endless night for what felt like an eternity. I called out, to Rozmarin, to Rachel and Anix, to Aerywin, and to Sahar.
The thought of my friends filled me with warmth, and I prayed that my sacrifice for them, and for Constanta, was enough to stop the hordes from destroying everything I loved.
I lay in the dark, wondering if this was hell or death, and then like after my fight with the BloodDrake, I felt a slight tugging at the corners of my mind, and then I heard a voice.
"You are not yet finished, Light-Bearer," whispered the voice. I felt it inside my head, and it wrapped around me like a cloak. And then a flash of light pierced the darkness, and a shining white figure appeared with arms outstretched towards me.
"Take my hand," the figure beckoned.
As I reached out, wondering where this being of light might take me, I thought about Sahar and wondered if she was also in this place.
"Can she come?" I asked the form, somehow understanding it knew my thoughts, my very being. The figure nodded and then opened a door.
I awoke, screaming, body radiating with fire and light, and heard the shouts and screams from below. As I peered over the side of the castle, I saw the terrible carnage that lay
below. I thought about Sahar, and deep down, I knew she was fine, but I didn’t have time to go to the lab to check first.
I felt a peace about the sorceress even as I ran as fast as this resurrected body would allow me, down through the castle and into the fray. And that's when I saw Rozmarin get slashed across the side by one of the demon’s inky blades.
“No!” I cried and launched myself toward her until there was only one demon caught between us and both of our blades sliced through the beast, mine through its neck and hers through its abdomen until it fell apart in three large chunks. And then, she was in my arms. When we pulled back, we immediately were forced to resume fighting, though, this time, it was back to back.
“How?” she breathed as I hacked off a creature’s arm that had been swinging towards me. Its shriek filled the air, and black blood covered my torso.
“It was the light. It… spoke to me,” I replied. “It's hard to explain.”
Whatever the how or the why was, I did not care. I was simply grateful for it, even though the demons would likely massacre us, anyway.
“We are completely outnumbered. Are all of the zombies gone?” I asked.
“Yes, they all turned to ash. The BloodDrake’s offspring rose from that ash and…” Rozmarin’s voice trailed off as I blocked a blow that came from overhead.
“Shit,” I swore. Then my gaze dropped to the castle before I tore my eyes away so I could face my next incoming opponent. “And the people? Are they evacuating?”
“Rachel and Aerywin will lead them outside of the walls to find another place to settle while we hold them off.” Rozmarin’s voice rang with sadness that infuriated me.
Then, with all the pain, and rage, and love, and pride that I had accumulated over the past few months, I let out a war cry that echoed for miles and miles.
“For Constanta!”
Soldiers, far and wide, injured and uninjured alike, returned my cry so loudly, so fiercely that it would permanently become a part of the earth so that anyone who dared to tread on this field would hear the echoes of it for centuries to come.
“For Constanta!”
I didn’t know how long we kept been fighting. It could have been minutes, hours, or days. The never-ending stream of vicious demon-like creatures coming from the Drahkon’s gaping mouth would be the end of Constanta if we couldn’t stop it.
Rozmarin and I continued to inch our way towards the beast, but Anix and a few of her troops had gotten there first. The winged soldiers were able to cut their way through the flying demons, and they attacked the creature now, trying to penetrate its thick, scaly skin with their weapons, to no avail. That was until Anix shot towards the creature’s open mouth and jammed what looked like a ten-foot-long spear through the creature’s slitted snout. A loud, reverberating roar echoed through the hills as the creature’s hand came up to swat at the pain, but Anix was already up and gone. The creature’s mouth closed, crushing the demons that hadn’t left its mouth yet. Finally, the river of demons stopped flowing.
Anix and three of her other troops did it again, this time with longer spears and while its mouth was closed. When the creature reared up, I could see the bottom of the spears poking out of its chin, the wide points acting as a clinch to keep the creature from pulling it out.
Brilliant. Anix was brilliant.
Screaming continued to ring out around me, soldiers dying by the thousands, but maybe, just maybe, we could end the creature before it went after the rest of Constanta’s people.
The Drahkon rose to its feet, and it was almost half the height of the castle at its full stature. Dread and hopeless despair washed over me as it swiped at the flying gargoyle and faerie troops like flies. It took a single step sideways and crushed dozens of soldiers. It kicked its other foot and sent a dozen more flying.
I did an assessment of the battlefield, of our numbers, my heart sinking to the floor. Lower even, if that were possible.
Nearly a quarter of our army was slaughtered, and the death toll was climbing, still as we met the demon army with less and less resistance. Even then, our troops did not falter, did not turn back or retreat. They knew what was at stake: their families. They would die to give their families a fool’s shot at survival.
At that point, the only hope we had left was to slow the demons and their much larger counterpart down while our people ran south. When I finally had time to glance back at the castle through the constant onslaughts, it was empty. Rachel and Aerywin had successfully evacuated the castle. Good.
White-hot pain shot through my shoulder, rendering me too breathless to even cry out. When I looked, there was a long, inky, black blade stuck straight into my flesh, attached to a demon that had snuck up from the side. At the smell of my blood, Rozmarin whirled around and detached the demon’s arm from its body before running her blade right down the center of its deformed figure. Then, she started covering for me, giving me time to pull the blade out.
Before I could overthink it, I grabbed the base of the creature’s detached shoulder, as close to the arm-blade as I could, and gave it a hard yank. A cry of pain came from my lips, and I could feel my body warming, already working on stitching the wound back together.
I could feel the strength of my new body guiding me through the battlefield with far more ease than my old body had. The muscle memory that my training instilled in me was still there, and it had taken me a few minutes to adjust to my new speed and strength, but I couldn’t deny that this body was an asset in this situation.
Another slice of pain shot through me, this time from my upper leg. A small, stubby demon had sliced into it and was moving in to do it again when I brought my blade down right through its skull. I pulled it back out, and it collapsed to the blood-soaked earth.
Rozmarin cried out behind me, and when I turned around, another demon had attached itself to her arm before she carved it open until it let go. The pained cries of soldiers assaulted my ears.
Losing. We were losing.
No matter how much more skilled our fighters were, no matter how much of themselves they gave to save their loved ones, the demon army simply had more. Far, far more.
Rozmarin and I met each other’s eyes, a world of emotions swimming in both of our gazes. At least if we died on this battlefield, we could die knowing that we did everything we could. We sacrificed every single drop of blood to buy our people more time. My siblings and my mom could live a life without borders or zombies. They could be free.
Just as Rozmarin and I turned to face the next of our limitless opponents, a horn rang out in the distance from the east. When Rozmarin and I looked up, in the distance, past the evergreen trees, past the colorful rooftops of the East Village, and past the wall, the sky had darkened.
The giant, dark cloud moved quickly towards the castle, casting shadows over the land. Soldiers and demons alike paused to watch the dark cloud approach. Closer and closer it came until, as it rolled over the East Village, I realized that it wasn’t just a giant, dark cloud. They were flying supernaturals, and below them, non-winged soldiers marched in formation. Two midnight-blue-and-silver flags flapped in the wind, attached to a tall pole held by the grounded troops.
The reinforcements. The troops that we had sent to offer reinforcements to the nearby kingdom had finally returned. But it wasn’t just midnight blue and silver flags that appeared. As our troops crested over the thirty-foot wall, other colors appeared too. Red and yellow. Purple and gold. Black and silver. Blue and white.
Not only had those troops come back, but they brought reinforcements of their own. The eastern kingdom’s armies had marched west to return the favor. Every single last soldier they could spare, and with a swathe clear of zombies due to my strange power, they arrived just in time.
Holy gods. Rozmarin’s hand found mine, and my gaze slid to meet hers. Tears lined her silver eyes. Whether they were tears of joy or relief or gratitude, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps all the above. It took me a moment to realize that my own eyes stung with em
otion.
With tears streaming down our faces and infinite love for our people filling our hearts, Rozmarin and I lifted our weapons to the sky and let out a triumphant battle cry. The fierce, booming roar that echoed across the battlefield, across the kingdom, had the earth-shaking with its intensity. And then, the soldiers in the distance were charging, on foot and in the air.
Thousands upon thousands of soldiers poured onto the battlefield. Demons and soldiers clashed, steel ringing out, and flesh meeting flesh. The first of the reinforcements to cut through the flying demon horde and strike the Drahkon was Adriana. Her familiar, dark wings surrounded her body as she torpedoed towards the creature’s black eye, her sword arm extended out before her. The impact of her blade when it met the creature’s giant eye made a sickening squishing sound. The creature’s responding shriek shook the ground as its hand came up to bat at Adriana, but she was too quick.
Soon, hundreds of troops swarmed the Drahkon’s head. A distraction. It was a distraction, but before I could open my mouth to say something to Rozmarin, she was already pulling me sideways. Not towards the creature, but not towards the castle either.
“Where are we going?” I shouted over the roar of battle.
Instead of answering me, Rozmarin whisked me into her arms, wings out, and took off towards a hulking figure ahead of us.
Anix. She stood with dozens of other troops, all huddled in a group. Battle still raged around them, but the reinforcements had distracted the demon horde enough that they were able to form a pocket for themselves.
When we finally made our way into that pocket, I saw that they were passing along multiple long, thick, corded ropes, each of them hundreds of feet long. Anix was describing a formation strategy to trip the beast and restrain it to at least buy us time to figure out how to kill it. Rozmarin and I immediately joined the effort.