*****
Caleb was wheezing as he slowed from a ragged jog and examined the scene in front of him. There were bodies everywhere, demons and humans. The humans mostly looked intact—they had their limbs, at least—but the demons had been diced.
“Whoa,” he mumbled, walking through the scene until he noticed that not everyone was dead.
Most, actually, seemed pretty alive. A group of shackled and bound people were all pressing as far to one side of the field as they could get within the limits of their bondage. Caleb looked them over skeptically for a moment before speaking.
“What the hell are you all doing?” he asked between deep breaths.
“Getting away from the monster,” a tired-looking little girl said, her eyes flicking across the field.
Caleb twisted his sword off his belt and looked in the direction she had, focusing on a figure he’d barely noted before because it wasn’t moving. Now that he was looking close, he realized he recognized her.
“Elan!” he yelled, rushing forward. “Elan! Are you alright?” He slid to a stop, skidding along on his knees as he let his blade drop, and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Elan!”
She took a deep breath and shuddered, letting him know she was alive at least. He looked around, trying to figure out what the hell happened. She didn’t seem to have any extra holes in her, but he knew nothing about how the armor she wore worked, just that it was beyond his comprehension.
He shook her gently. “Come on, speak to me. Are you okay?”
“They’re dead. Gone,” she whispered. “I…just realized it.”
“What? Who?” He looked around again. There were a lot of people he didn’t recognize, but maybe someone she’d known?
“Doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “Nothing matters. They’re gone.”
“Come on, Elan!” he hissed urgently. “This isn’t you.”
She lifted her head finally, and maybe looked at him. He couldn’t tell through the armor she wore, which masked her effectively. He hoped she was looking at him, at least.
“I killed him,” she said. “Didn’t change anything. I knew it wouldn’t, but I hoped it would.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Caleb said. “Killed who?”
She gestured over her shoulder, but didn’t turn. Caleb rose up on his knees to look over her head and spotted the body. Without a head, it was difficult to identify, but he was pretty sure he recognized the armor. The head was faced mostly away from him when he spotted it, but it was enough for him to figure it out.
“He had it coming,” Caleb said seriously. “He chose demons over us. He murdered.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sorry I killed him, Caleb. I just wanted it to mean more than it did. It should have meant something… I…it just felt like nothing. He murdered my parents, he left me to die in the desert…in the end, he was just one worthless excuse for a… He wasn’t even worth hating, Caleb. What do I do now?”
“You fight,” Caleb hissed. “We fight. There are still people to save. Simone. Kaern.”
He got up, walking away from her to grab an axe that had been tossed to the ground.
“This isn’t about hate, Elan,” he said as he walked to the chained people. “It’s about hope.”
A few swings of the axe busted the chains, and Caleb looked down at the people.
“You owe her,” he told them. “She’s offered you hope when she has none herself. Get up. Grab a weapon. We have work to do.”
“There are children here!” a woman objected.
“What am I?” Caleb asked angrily, then pointed to where Elan was kneeling, “What is she? I’ve had a blade in my hand since I was six. She just saved all of you! The demons don’t care if you’re a child or not…or do you think the fate that they were dragging you to was somehow preferable?”
The shivers he saw pass through them was enough to answer that question.
“If you’re too young to pick up a weapon, hide,” Caleb advised. “Everyone else…fight now, or die later. I don’t care which.” He turned around, walking over to Elan with slow, measured steps. “I wish you could rest, but there is no time.”
Elan didn’t move for a long moment before slowly nodding and pushing herself to her feet.
“Okay,” she said dully. “One more. I can do one more.”
Caleb nodded. “Where’s Kaern?”
“He went on ahead, asked me to save them,” she said with a nod to the former captives, who were slowly getting over their fear of her.
“You did that well,” Caleb told her with a grin, “but now we’d better catch up to him.”
Elan wrapped her fist tightly around the blade she had used to kill so many and nodded, a little more firmly. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”
*****
Simone paused in her direction of the withdrawal, looking up the banks to where she saw a fight erupt with furious action. It took several moments before she realized she was looking at Kaern as dozens of demons charged his position, somehow managing to hold his own against them.
The distinctive tendrils of lightning that flowed from his blade as he fought were visible even in bright daylight, occasionally reaching out to strike down a foe from beyond the reach of his sword. She swallowed, understanding that he had just stepped into the middle of the trap that she had foolishly walked her people into.
Thank you, friend.
Then she returned to directing the withdrawal.
“Watch for the rear guard!” she ordered. “They will have a force to close the door on us!”
Those words were practically prophetic, though she needed no seer to drag them up from her mind. As they continued to push back, they ran into a significant force trying to stop them, but it wasn’t large enough.
“Loose arrows!” Simone ordered.
Fletched wooden shafts with iron tips whistled through the air and fell upon their targets, piercing demonic flesh and bone. Those that struck true to the heart killed most of the demons they hit, but many merely wounded and a chorus of angry screams rose up. The demons snapped off the arrows and charged the human ranks, only to be met by steel and iron as the two sides clashed.
*****
Kaern hacked and hacked with his blade as he slashed his way through the pitiful demons that made up the front ranks of the lord general’s force. The fodder was just there to absorb damage, so that was exactly what he was dealing them as he worked his way slowly up the hill.
The lord general had focused entirely on him, which was the intent, but it was clear that was going to be costly for him personally in the very near future as Kaern watched elements of the personal guard forming up above him.
This is going to hurt.
He slew the last demon within reach of his blade with a diagonal slash that sent the misshapen body of the creature tumbling down to befoul the river below them, then set his gaze up the hill and began walking.
Pain was an old friend. Kaern was determined to introduce that old friend around as much as he possibly could.
*****
“Why is this bastard plaguing me!?”
The lord general was very near to throwing a fit of rage as he watched the Forsaken he believed to be the one known as the Wanderer fighting his way toward the top of the hill. The Forsaken had retired from the war ages ago. They had acknowledged the loss of this world when even the humans, beaten though they were, had refused to do so.
It made no Circle be-damned sense!
Now, of all times, with the last independent humans in the entire continent about to be brought to heel, and now this one chose to show up.
The lord general strode to the ridge of the hill, glowering down as the swordsman again began to march in his direction.
“Why?” he demanded, his voice reverberating with the power that was in his nature. “After all these years, why do you plague me now?”