The stave clattered to the ground as Elan was again thrown back, slamming into the wall behind her as the breath exploded from her lungs and she painfully gasped, trying to fill them again. Through bleary eyes, she saw the demon charging again and just managed to twist out of the way as the blow missed her head and shattered the stone behind her.
Pelted by shards of stone, bleeding from her face and neck, Elan struck out with a kick that impacted on the demon’s thigh and staggered it slightly but only momentarily before it recovered. She went for the blade on her hip, ducking under another blow that cracked stone as she loosed the blade she had taken from the bandit from its sheath and brought it up in a slash from low to high that opened the demon’s flesh up like rotted meat.
She kicked the body aside as it fell in her direction and forced herself to her feet, putting a hand behind her to brace on the wall as she finally managed to suck in a breath of air.
The air filled her lungs as her hand fell farther than she expected and, rather than hitting stone, landed on a smooth, cold surface that almost instantly seemed to suck all warmth from her hand before growing warmer and becoming almost burning hot.
Light erupted around them from all angles, that same perfect light she remembered from the Redoubt Kaern had taken her to. Light that annihilated all shadow and seemed to come from every direction at once.
Cries of shock and surprise were lost in the hissing screams of the demon forces as they involuntarily flinched back from the light, trying to cover themselves, but were faced with it from every angle imaginable.
Elan didn’t have time to think about it, as she saw a chance and charged the closest demons to her, sword held high.
“Now! Take them while they’re distracted!” she screamed as loudly as she could.
Shaken from their surprise, the remaining human forces descended on their opponents with a vengeance, and in seconds only humans remained living within the perfectly lit Redoubt.
As the sounds of violence ended, the people who had survived looked up and around from wherever they were, confusion and wonder pervading their senses.
“W…what happened?” Caleb asked as he stood over three demon bodies, blood dripping from his blade as he held it still at the ready.
Elan turned to him, uncertain what to say, but started as she noticed something.
“Caleb, step back!” she ordered.
He did so, bringing his sword in closer for a swing if he needed as he looked for the threat. When none immediately showed itself, his attention was drawn to a slight motion in the corner of his eyes and he spotted smoke whisping off the bodies he had been standing over.
“What?” He blinked, confused.
“Move away from the bodies,” Elan said. “Something is happening.”
In another situation, the adults present might have objected to obeying the orders of a teenage girl, but any such thoughts fled when faced by the icy blue eyes glaring out at them from a face covered in blood and gore. The smoking bodies on the floor certainly didn’t hurt her authority on the subject, either, Elan supposed as she pulled her soft shirt up over her nose and mouth and knelt near the closest body.
“Something is burning them,” she said. “Is this normal for demons?”
Her father hadn’t mentioned it if it were.
Caleb shrugged. “I dunno. Never seen any this close. Simone would probably know.”
Elan rose to her feet. “Simone isn’t here.”
She turned around, looking to the busted stone wall behind her. “There’s something behind the stone…”
Caleb gingerly made his way over to her, along with several of the adults, to look for himself. The wall behind the wall was black and smooth and reflected the image of Elan and himself back as they looked upon it.
“What is it?”
Elan shrugged, reaching in, only for Caleb to grab her arm and stop her.
“What if it’s dangerous?” he asked.
“More dangerous than the demons?” she asked, incredulous, pulling her hand free. “This was built by our ancestors. If it kills me…well, better by their hand than by a demon’s claws.”
Again, she reached in and, this time intentionally, Elan touched the smooth surface of the wall. She hissed in surprise as it lit up at her touch and characters appeared on the wall. She could read the characters, but the words made no sense to her at all as she struggled with them.
“What does…‘override’ mean?” she asked, sounding the word out slowly, and nearly jumped out of her skin when the image changed again.
The black changed to white, and more characters appeared, but she could make very little sense out of any of it. Certainly Elan knew some of the words, and most of the characters…not all, but most…but the combinations of them made no sense to her at all.
“Does anyone understand this?” she asked, casting a desperate look over her shoulder.
Caleb was no help. He looked more adrift than she was, and even the adults behind her had looks of total bewilderment on their faces.
Reluctantly, Elan withdrew her hand and watched as it turned back to black.
Whatever it was, this wasn’t the time.
“We need to find out what is going on out in the city,” she said, turning away from the wall. “This will have to wait.”
*****
Simone screamed as she wrenched her blade from the side of a particularly large and annoyingly tough demon, wincing as she felt a sharp pain lance through her chest. She hoped she had only bruised a rib when she’d been thrown by the beast, rather than breaking one, but in either case she had more to worry about for the moment.
Her worst fears were made real when she located the largest grouping of demons at the town center, right around the temple itself, and as she got closer, she could see the doors had been destroyed. That left the interior open to assault, and from the sounds she could hear, there was a particularly large one in progress.
It was suicide to go down there, even if she were at her best. Hell, at her best and in her prime, which she hated to admit had been a few years in the past, it would still be suicide. She had been the one to send the kids in there, though, and that was something she couldn’t allow to eat at her. The city had fallen, or would inevitably. She would see her charges safely through the violence, or she would fall with it.
Simone was striding forward when a hand gripped her shoulder and yanked her back. She reacted instinctively, her curved sword arcing around in a lethal swing intended to take the head of whoever had laid a hand on her.
The dark figure simply stepped into her swing, however, and shouldered her sword arm lightly to throw her off.
“Peace, Simone,” a familiar voice said.
She found herself looking at Kaern’s visage as he stepped out of the shadows, glancing between her and the crowd of demons.
“What has you readying yourself for a death charge?” he asked simply.
She jerked her head toward the temple. “The children are there.”
Kaern cast his gaze in that direction, his expression darkening. “Well…that’s not good. Okay, together then and…”
He was cut off abruptly as a flash of light blinded both of them and set a scream rising among the demons. His expression flashed between confusion and recognition as he realized what he was looking at.
“You built this city around one of the old security depots?” he asked, shocked.
“Around what? That’s the temple.”
Kaern choked. “Temple? You worship there?”
He had to fight to keep from laughing at her. Frankly, the idea of worshippers in one of those old depots was absurdly amusing to him. The amusement left him when he considered it, though, as he rather expected that…toward the end…a great many of those within had done a great deal of praying, for all the good it did.