Time to be a fool.
His blade whispered as it cleared the leather harness riding on his hip, metal gleaming against the moonlight as he surged from his cover and charged into the middle of the shaman coven as the glow of their growing eldritch power crested.
A scream of surprise more than pain announced his presence as he cut down the closest from the back, sending the twisted man to the ground with blood so dark red as to be black splattering the ground and coating his blade as Kaern kept his motion smooth and constant. He twisted and swirled his blade around as another turned in his direction and calmly bisected the magic user as lightning crackles began to flow along the blade.
A bolt of eldritch energy crackled through the night air, caught on the lightning-covered blade and absorbed instantly as Kaern cut down the source in the next moment.
Three of the coven lay dead or dying in moments, the rest scattering in all directions as Kaern stood in the middle of their circle, alone with his sword crackling in the night. He spun to face the demon horde as he twisted his blade and drove it point first into the ground, loosing the lightning he had stored. Crackling tendrils danced out from the epicenter he stood at, reaching out for the fleeing shamans and burning them down in their paces.
There was a silent moment, more illusionary than real, he suspected, as the general in charge of the forces glowered at him across the battlefield and Kaern glared right back.
Kaern could see forces starting in his direction, only to be held back by a gesture from the general as the big demon stepped forward himself.
“You are no human. I can see the demon magic flow from you,” the general called. “Why side with them? Why betray your kind, human lover?”
The laughter seemed to come from nowhere, building from nothing until it was the only thing anyone could hear, and there was no question of its source. Kaern laughed derisively, scornfully, at the question posed to him.
“I have no love of humans,” he said finally. “They are arrogant and destructive beasts, and those are among their better qualities. No, I side with them for other reasons.”
“What then? What price buys your betrayal?”
“Betrayal?” Kaern asked, stepping forward as the eldritch glow of the shamans’ circle coalesced further and descended around him. “You have the unmitigated gall to ask me the price of my betrayal?”
There was no one here to worry about harming if he cut loose…so Kaern cut loose.
The power surged, striking out and slaughtering a group that had thought to be flanking him, leaving nothing but smoking remains filling the air with their stench.
“I walked the gardens of Eden, abomination! I knew the face of the Creator, when creation was young,” Kaern snarled as the power built again. “Your kind cost me that. I am no traitor. The treason was committed by your kind a long time ago. I would not join you then, and I will not now, but I still pay for your treason…”
His words struck the general as though the blows were physical in nature, and the hulking demon fell back a step with each word while Kaern strode forward.
“Kill him! Kill him!” the general screamed, shock and near terror on his face.
Kaern continued to speak as the demon forces charged him, barely seeming to notice the distractions as he cut them down with a crackling blade.
“You call me traitor.” His voice was calm, but somehow carried anyway. “But what I truly am is betrayed. Forsaken. Do you know that name, demon? The name we call ourselves?”
Finally his words were lost in the tide of foes that descended on his position, blocking Kaern from the general’s sight as he settled in for a grim battle.
*****
Simone roared as she swung her blade down, cleaving through the head and shoulder of the closest of the shambling monstrosities scaling the section of wall she was defending.
Where are they all coming from?
In the back of her mind she couldn’t help but wonder how a force this powerful had gotten as close as they had. Lookouts and forward scouts should have seen and reported them at least a day’s march away, particularly given the general loss of power and skill that most of the demon sort suffered under the burning rays of the sun above.
To time their strike with the setting of the sun, as they clearly had, the force had to have marched in plain daylight across miles of open badlands, or they had to have been sitting just outside the perimeter for a whole day, waiting for the sun to descend into the waters on the horizon. Either of those options should not have been possible.
Of course, as she continued to hack away with as much force and as little finesse as she could manage, that was a question for another time.
An explosion of light to her left caused Simone to flinch away, opening her flank to a sudden charge that bowled her over and to the ground. Her sword clattered to the stone as she barely got her hand up to hold off the snapping jaws of the diseased beast that was growling and snarling at her while it tried to get its teeth around her throat.
Arm straining such that the muscles were popping under her skin, Simone held it back as she pulled her dagger and drove it up with as much force as she could manage. The thing above her flinched and tensed but otherwise continued its attack as she continued thrusting with strike after strike into its belly and chest.
Simone had heard from Kaern and others that things such as she was struggling to fight off had once been a people, as humans were. That she was perhaps looking into the future of humanity as she locked eyes with the dead black orbs in the sunken visage of the enemy both sickened and horrified her.
Death would be better.
With each stab of her dagger, the beast weakened as its black-red blood gushed out over Simone until she could finally buck and twist to throw the thing off her. She scrambled on hands and knees, lunging for her sword as the fighting continued to rage around and above her. With the blade pommel in hand, Simone rolled back to her feet and risked a glance to the source of the light that had distracted her.
In the dark she could see little in the distance, but lightning was crackling down and amid the flashes she spotted a mass of roiling life surrounding something she couldn’t see. It was away from the city, however, and that meant it wasn’t of any interest to her just then.
She turned her grim attention back to the fight just as a concussive blow shook the wall, and an unnatural silence descended as everyone paused to see what had happened.
“The gates!” the call went up. “They’ve breached the gates!”
Simone blanched, looking back over her shoulder briefly in time to see the demon forces flood into the city past the final defensive line.
The children! she thought desperately, but that was the only thing she could spare as the press of invaders descended on her again and the desperate battle raged on.
*****
“Come on, move in to the back,” Elan urged as another group of children were herded into the depths of the temple.
They’d been gathering up as many as they could, trying to get the youngest off the streets in the confusion of people running one way and the other. Some adults had joined them, helping keep people together, but mostly it had just been her and Caleb running nonstop and doing whatever they could manage.
They had a few dozen children and a handful of adults gathered when the screams and sounds of fighting that had been raging in the distance suddenly seemed to come from much closer.
She froze, eyes searching down the long, narrow street for movement. Elan stepped cautiously out, one hand resting on the hilt of her blade as she leaned into the stave held in her other hand. Motion in the shadows caused her to tense, then her eyes widened before she turned and screamed, “Caleb!”