The rest of the group were slow in responding, and that was to their final misfortune, as Simone charged in amongst them, blade slashing from one to another with lightning motions that left the entire group twitching on the ground as the black blood drained into the flagstones beneath them.
Simone panted, shaking her head as she glanced around and got her bearings. Whatever had distracted the bulk of the forces still outside the walls had bought them time, but she had to gather the city’s remaining defenders and organize them before everything was lost. She grunted, wincing as pain lanced through her legs and back, her body complaining bitterly about her exertions, but had no time to listen to it as she pressed on.
*****
A deep hammering roar echoed through the temple, followed by a fearful whimpering as Elan and Caleb moved among the cowering people, eyes and ears open as they looked for any unwelcome tagalongs that might have snuck in. So far they’d not found any, and Caleb believed that they had gotten lucky there, as he couldn’t imagine a demon not being noticed in the press of people.
Elan was less convinced, but still somewhat hopeful. The lack of hysterical screaming would seem to support Caleb’s belief, but she had no intentions of leaving any of those…things at her back if she could help it.
The deep, reverberating thuds on the door kept her looking over her shoulder as she searched. She just didn’t know if they would hold for long. She didn’t know what they would do if the doors failed, other than fight and likely die, but Elan could only hope that Simone and the town’s other defenders would stop the attack before that happened.
Never again, she decided, however. I will not trap myself like this ever again. Better to fight and die in the open air than cower here like animals in a snare.
“Everyone to the back!” Caleb called out. “If the door fails, we’ll need the room!”
Everyone shuffled willingly to the back, eager to get away from the groaning wood and falling dust of the big doors. Elan, Caleb, and a few of the armed people that had been pressed to the front of the wave that had retreated into the temple were left at the front of the space then, in the flickering shadows of the oil torches as they stood there with weapons in hand, waiting.
The door boomed and shuddered, shaking the air and making them all jump.
“It won’t hold,” one of the men said, shaking his head. “No chance.”
“Then we fight,” Caleb responded, his sword gripped in two hands as he stood and watched.
Boom.
The door shook, rock dust breaking loose from the hinges and drifting down across the lit torches.
Elan hefted her stave in hand, bracing for the inevitable, just as the door was struck again and the hinges were sheared clear from the stone, sending the huge wooden slabs inward, where they fell with a reverberating sound that shook them all to their cores.
A wave of figures followed the falling doors, surprisingly fighting the whole way and so intermixed that it was difficult by times to determine whether friend or foe. Elan was shocked to see that there were still humans standing and fighting in that mass of demons, but the chaos of the moment swept her up before she could do more than reflect briefly on it. In a moment, she and Caleb and the rest were buried in the fighting and there was no more time for such thoughts.
She’d never experienced such a press of people around her, but this time Elan had no time for the discomfort she often felt in crowds. She immediately pushed into the mass, staff in hand, and met the more obvious of the enemies with a flurry of blows backed by all the strength she could muster.
She found quickly, however, that in such a crowd her stave was far from an ideal weapon and was limited to short strikes and bodily weapons. Knees and elbows were more often used to bring down a foe, then she would dance back and let someone else with a shorter weapon rain down the final death.
Chaos reigned, however, and Elan had no idea if her efforts were gaining them much of anything as the temple filled with more and more fighters.
*****
Blood dripped steadily onto the ground from his hand as Kaern leaned heavily on his sword, nothing but death around him for a hundred feet or more.
Ninth Circle scum, he thought derisively as he straightened up.
Those who were still early in the Change were useful to those who desired shock troops, as they were generally available in overwhelming numbers, had a deep thirst or hunger for blood or flesh as a general rule, and were possessed of a vicious temperament due to the constant pain the Change inflicted on them.
They were also like wheat to the thresher, however, against a skilled warrior. It would inevitably come down to whether or not the demons ran out of numbers before the warrior grew exhausted and made a mistake.
This time, the enemy simply hadn’t brought enough bodies to the sword fight.
He looked around, unsurprised that the demonic general had taken the chance to leave the area. Higher level demons were acutely aware of their mortality when in the presence of those who could end it, but even with that, Kaern was aware that the general hadn’t fled entirely.
The sound of fighting and the glow of fires could still be heard and seen from the shadowed walls of the city. Kaern hefted his blade from the blood-soaked mud and rested it idly on his shoulder as he walked out of the circle of the dead, picking his way to the road that led into the now-destroyed gates of the city.
The bodies and destruction strewn about the gates were as he expected from such an attack. Mercy was not a trait held by the majority of demonic species. They were too cowardly to entertain the idea of extending it to potential enemies.
Mercy was a gift of the strong, compassion a fire that was the antithesis of the icy cold of fear. The majority of demons lived in fear, were ruled by it. They had no comprehension of anything else, and thus were incapable of the emotions humans habitually bestowed upon one another and everything around them. Not that humans were entirely immune to such things, of course—Kaern had met more than a few who were as worthlessly subsumed by their own baser fears as any demon might be—but he had known many more who were not.
From such fear, destruction was inevitable, and now he walked through the proof of it with his blade dripping ichor while he himself bled from more than a dozen wounds.
It was all a familiar scene for him, one he had seen more times than he could remember…or wanted to, for that matter. It was just another place destroyed by the disease that was spreading slowly across the universe, swallowing everything good and clean in its passing.
*****
Elan spun, whipping her stave about with vicious force until it slammed into the head of her target, sending the demon spinning to the ground with force to crack bones twice. At some point in the fight she’d found a corner that left more of an opening in the flow of fighters around her, giving her room to move finally and room to really make use of her weapon. She stepped into the next attack, snapping a kick into the head of the fallen demon to follow through and make sure it was down, blocking a strike from another source with the stave as she did.
The fight had forced her back, deeper into the temple as people screamed, fought, and died around her.
The demons would pay for the ground they were taking, of that she and Caleb would make certain, even if others cowered, but Elan had no doubt that they would take possession of what they paid for just the same.
She grunted as a blow to her stomach lifted her off her feet and threw her back, skidding to a stop as she struggled to get her stave up again to defend herself as the demon just rushed in and blew through the weak protection she had managed.