How odd, she thought, wondering just what it all meant.
Smooth walls, rough walls, none of it made much sense to her…but it seemed to mean something to the girl, and the girl had spent time with Kaern.
Simone remembered what she knew about the enigmatic man…sort of…she knew as Kaern. She’d spent years with him, on and off, and knew annoyingly little about him personally. She knew he wasn’t human, of course. He didn’t go out of his way to advertise the fact but nor did he bother trying to hide it. Many of the most dangerous demons were nearly indistinguishable from humans, but so were some of the least of the demons, as well as many of the hybrid abominations they used to sow discord within human communities.
Whatever Kaern was, he wasn’t one of those, however, and he lacked the few signs of a younger demon just starting the Long Change, as it was known. He never showed any signs of the mental stress or physical shakes the newly changed did, the way the Change broke men and turned them to beasts.
He was older than anyone else knew, anyone else alive, at least. Even she didn’t know his real age, and it was a question Kaern avoided with skill and humor when it was broached.
He knew more than he let on, however, and if he’d let any of it slip to the girl, Simone would give her a chance.
But not tonight.
“Come then, Elan,” she said finally. “It will be dark soon. It’s time to return home. We can examine this later.”
Reluctantly, Elan pulled back from the offending wall and followed Simone out of the temple. Before she walked out the large, gaping maw of the place, she cast one last, annoyed look back into the flickering interior, then sighed and followed Simone.
The sun was low in the sky when they arrived back at the home, and Simone sent Elan into the house, telling her to clean up before the last meal of the day. The soot, dirt, and grime of the temple walls had never killed anyone, but there was little reason to test them.
Caleb was still out back, running through his sword drills, dark-dust-matted and sweat-slicked hair pushed back out of his eyes as he pushed through his exhaustion. She eyed him carefully, noting that his stance had slipped only slightly from earlier, and found herself approving. He was nearly old enough to take his own place in the world, to survive in the harsh environment that would be his inheritance.
Elan as well, she reflected, sighing. The girl had been trained well by her parents. Simone could see the touch of both mother and father in her, in her every action. She was surprised that Kaern brought the girl to her, really. He knew she looked after orphans, but normally they were younger when people dropped them off with her.
Elan was almost…hell, she was ready to take her own place. She’d proven that when she hunted down the demons that had slain her parents, whether she’d won that battle or not. Any slip of a girl who could do what Kaern had described, and survive it, could handle the more mundane challenges the world might send her way.
In some ways, though, Simone was almost saddened by missing the chance to have a real impact on the girl’s development. She was her parents’ daughter, though, and that was more than most of the children Simone cared for would ever have.
“Caleb,” she called, “it’s almost time to eat. Clean up. I do not want to smell you at the table, clear?”
The boy looked at her and flashed a grin against his sweat-stained face. “Clear, Simone!”
He wrapped his blade quickly and ran into the house, leaving Simone to turn and look out to where the sun was dropping down toward the sea.
It was blood red, casting a dim light that was only growing dimmer as the orb sank into the sea. Once, Simone remembered, as a little girl she had thought that the setting sun was beautiful.
Now it just signified the loss of what little defense the light offered, and the arrival of the monsters that stalked the night.
*****
The city was shadowed by the deepening red of the sun as it set into the sea behind it, oil lamps and wood fires flickering into existence as Venadrin watched from where the general had called a halt to the march.
“On the green flash, we march on the city,” the general proclaimed, casting a gesture toward the sinking of the sun.
Venadrin eyed the dimming orb, deciding that he had some time yet before the final march would begin, and he turned away to check with his own squads.
“Were the sentries I designated silenced as ordered?” he asked the closest demon, a curled and broken thing that practically walked on all fours rather than upright like an actual person.
The thing nodded quickly, its head moving unnaturally enough to make Venadrin ill.
“Yesss,” it hissed at him. “All sssentries were sssilenced.”
“Good. Carry a command,” he ordered. “The siege begins when the green flash of the sun signals nightfall. On that signal, eliminate the remaining sentries along the inner perimeter. The closer we can get before we’re noticed, the shorter this siege will be.”
“Asss you command.”
The misshapen thing, a Ninth Circle demon well into the Change…more damaged by the demonic magics coursing through its body than anything, scampered off to deliver the command as ordered. Venadrin hated dealing with those things because he knew that he was seeing the future of the human race in that crippled form.
When the war was ended with certainty, humans would be the next species to undergo the Change. Generations would be crippled by the chaotic, demonic magic that induced that deep transition. Eventually, of course, humans would progress, becoming lower and lower circle demons and assuming the power that came with that advancement, but he would not live to see it.
Not in any form he truly wished to endure, at least.
The Abyss with all them, Venadrin swore silently. He had no love for humans or demons, so be damned to them both. The only thing that mattered to him was himself, but he couldn’t see a path out for even a single person. In the end, a crippled life was better than an early death.
Whatever evil beast that had created the black-hearted world that he now stood on was certainly no better than the worst demon, or Venadrin himself. He had no illusions, Venadrin did not. He knew he was as evil as they came, and he was fine with that. Despite what the pitiful wretches of humanity clung to, Venadrin knew that if there was a Creator, one only had to look around at the world He had created to know that He was just as evil as Venadrin or the worst of the demons.
Nothing else explained the hell that had come upon them all.
A roar went up among the demons as the green flash was spotted. Venadrin had missed it, but he was aware that human senses only caught the flash rarely. For the demons it was a different story. As the demons surged forward, Venadrin took his place at the head of his column of weak demons and the many humans who had joined him on the winning side.
The final battle called.
*****
“Did you hear that?”
The sentry on the outer wall paused as he called out to his companion, looking back the way they’d come.
“Hear what?”
The dull question annoyed him, but then he’d come to expect no less from his patrol partner. Contrary to what the city council put forth to the masses, the men and women who patrolled the walls were far from the best and brightest.
“I thought I heard a scratching sound,” he said, waving his partner to a stop as he walked over to the edge of the wall. “Maybe something was blown against the wall. Just give me a moment to…”
His breath caught in his throat as a pair of glowing eyes looked up at him from the shadowed side of the wall, shock keeping him from calling out in alarm as the eyes suddenly surged toward him and a spindly, deceptively fast body came up the wall and lunged into him. He was thrown back as claws slashed at his face and throat, stopping all but a gurgling noise from escaping.