He stabbed his sword into the next, at the chest level and through the heart, and shoved with all his strength until it stumbled back and impaled the one behind him on his blade as well. Their joint struggles sent the pair to the ground, cursing and scrambling at one another until the first died. Kaern left them to it while he focused on the final beast.
It was an anticlimactic finish as the demon howled and leapt at him. He simply sidestepped and crushed its throat with a ridge hand.
It was dead but still a threat until it fully realized it, so Kaern threw a knee into its face and sent it to the ground with crushed nose, cheek, and jawbone.
Only then did he take a moment to survey the area and, once satisfied, jerk his blade out of the two demons on the ground, making sure to twist it to ensure that they would be dead in short order.
He turned around slowly, feeling something was off but unable place it.
I’ve heard that sound before. He frowned, trying to place the odd sub-audible whine that he could feel in his teeth more than hear.
Kaern was still trying to place it when a far more familiar sound caused him to twist and bring his blade up to parry a whistling strike that had been aimed to take his left arm off at the shoulder.
His blade crackled with lightning, but it was the cold black of the other that surprised him.
“I haven’t seen one of those weapons in five centuries, at least,” he said casually, looking down at the armored foe with real surprise in his eyes. “Full augmentation armor as well? Did a hole open in one of the Ley trinaries?”
“Kaern?” The slim and short figure fell back, carbon sidearm blade dropping slightly. “What are you doing here?”
He dropped his blade tip entirely from surprise as he recognized the voice. “Elan? Where in all of holy creation did you find those? I guessed that you had a high-ranked ancestor, but this is a bit much, even for a convergence of the fates.”
“What are you talking about? And answer my question, damn it,” the girl snapped at him. “What are you doing here?”
He sighed, looking around. “I was trying to buy Simone time to escape with as many survivors as I could, but I do fear that I failed. There’s plenty of the filth around the city, but none of the upper ranks, I’m afraid.”
Though he couldn’t see her expression, the quizzical body language was easy enough to read as she stared at him for a moment before saying anything.
“You came back,” she said finally.
“Aye,” he answered.
Elan stared for a moment, but it was quickly clear that he wasn’t about to offer anything more.
Elan gave up, for the moment. “We noticed the demons in the city. Where did Simone go?”
“South. What happened when you activated the transport?” he asked in turn.
“How did you know about that?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“I arrived a hair too late to stop you, but I watched as you engaged a blind transport. Not smart, girl,” he told her dryly. “And now it is you who needs to answer my question.”
“Tell him nothing. He is a demon,” Merlin’s voice ordered her in no uncertain terms.
Elan hesitated. “I know that, but this is Kaern!”
“We have no confirmation of his allegiances,” Merlin said.
“Huh? What does allegiances mean?” Elan asked, confused.
“We don’t know what side he is on.”
“He saved me,” she protested, “and he helped Simone…. I…I don’t care if he’s a demon.”
Kaern smiled softly, amused by the girl’s petulant tone, as much as he appreciated the sentiment. “I thank you for that, Elan. Judging from the one-sided conversation I’ve been privy to, I can only assume you’ve made contact with one of the ancient command computers…”
“Computer? Why I never!” Merlin muttered, indignant. “I am no more a computer than you are a monkey, little girl, no matter what this jumped-up intruder believes.”
Elan frowned, confused, her head cocking to one side.
“What’s a monkey?”
Kaern chuckled. “They’re another breed of animal, distantly related to humans through an ancestor even more ancient than your civilization. Don’t worry about them. They’re not native to this area. You’d fine some if you went far enough south, I suppose…and only one of the Elemental Intelligence systems would be so prideful as to compare you to a monkey, if what I’m guessing is correct…so, given our location…”
He pondered for a moment before his eyes widened.
“Oh my. Avalon survived?” he whispered. “That is a shock.”
Merlin’s voice was silenced for a moment before he came back. “Who is this person?”
“He’s Kaern. He saved me,” Elan said firmly. “That’s enough.”
Caleb arrived, running and panting as he skidded to a stop with his blade ready, despite clearly being out of breath from chasing her. Kaern looked over at him, partly sympathetic and partly impressed. “She left you in the dust, I suppose?”
Caleb glared at him briefly before deciding that he wasn’t going to have to fight immediately and let his blade drop to the dirt while he leaned over and sucked in several deep breaths.
“Buck up, lad, you’ll never keep up with someone in augmentation armor,” Kaern said cheerfully. “But it says a lot of you that you’d try.”
“What…what’s going on?” Caleb asked between breaths.
“I believe we were just settling whose side everyone is on and that there’s not much point in trying to distract the invasion anymore,” Kaern said, his tone darkening, “if there ever was. The main cohort has broken camp and moved on. Either back to the demons’ main territory or they’ve gone after Simone. I fear the latter.”
“Simone?” Caleb straightened. “We have to go after them.”
“And we will,” Kaern promised, looking to the lightening sky, “but you two have given us another option I’d not believed we had. New plan, children. Come, we have lives to save.”
*****
The sun had risen over the horizon and the heat was already starting to climb rapidly as Simone rode hard on the straggled group of refugees she had been saddled with. A few had already fallen, health problems and old age toppling them. Others had tried to carry them, but she’d vetoed that in a hurry. Few, if any, of the group were remotely in good enough shape to accomplish that feat, and they’d only drop themselves if they tried.
Instead they’d had to take up valuable time to construct rough litters to drag them. She had a few extras made while they had the chance; the odds were good that they’d need them, but it was all she could do now to keep some of the lazier bastards from faking an injury.
She cast worried looks over her shoulder, back to the city that loomed a little in the distance. She knew Kaern would do what he could to hold the demons’ attention but doubted it would be enough. The attack was a sign that the lord had decided to finally finish what he’d begun so long ago, and his patience with upstart humans was at an end.
She did not know how many humans were left alive across the world but suspected that the numbers were terrible and frightful in how low they must be.
We may well be the final gasp of our kind, she thought sadly as she trudged along, heading south and hoping for any sign that death would pass them by this time.
Perhaps it was time for humanity to vanish into history. She and her kind had been hanging on for a long time after it really should have all ended. There had to come a time when they finally slipped and fell into the Abyss, after all.
Perhaps today is that day.
*****
“The prisoners won’t be able to keep up this pace for long, General,” a Fourth Circle demon hissed to the general as the big beast of a demon looked on ahead.
“If they fall, they’re food,” the general growled. “We will not permit this group to escape.”