“Open the hole!” he ordered above the fray. “Clear a path!”
In flashes as the battle continued, Caleb could see Simone’s red hair through a mask of demons, humans, swords, and claws. He angled his attack and threw himself into the fight, sword rising and falling with a vicious, hacking rhythm as he cut a path.
They were lucky with both surprise and tactical position on the enemies, but also in that they were facing the lowest of the low. Caleb had seen hints of how the upper levels fought, was well aware that he was nowhere near that level, and had no wish to be responsible for a worthless slaughter of his own people.
They did not go through untouched, however. He saw people fall, blood flowing to muddy the already wet dirt at their feet. Human blood mixed with demon ichor, leaving them stomping through an unholy mix as they killed and fought with iron, steel, and even sticks and stones.
If they were to die here and now, they would die in the blood of their enemies and comrades.
Caleb didn’t know if that was a good thing, or merely a necessary evil, but it was enough for him.
Bleeding from claw gouges and worse, Caleb broke through the demon line over the bodies of those he’d slain. He barely refrained from striking at a guardsman who was so covered in blood and ichor that he barely looked human, and saw a similar moment of hesitation on the other man’s face before they both turned and threw themselves once more into the fray.
“Hold the path open!” Caleb ordered, then looked over his shoulder to the weary guardsmen. “Get the people through! We’ll not be able to hold them forever!”
“He’s right!” a familiar voice called over the cacophony. “Move them through!”
Caleb looked to his left to see Simone fighting up beside him and grinned. “Good to see you. Lovely day, isn’t it, Simone?”
She looked at him, wry amusement on her blood-spattered face. “You’re a long way from an old hand at this, whelp. Save the act for if we get out of here.”
“When we get out of here, Simone,” he yelled over the fighting. “Get it right.”
She shook her head slightly, smiling as she blocked a blow and then countered with a pivoting slice that relieved the demon of his arm. “If you say so.”
They had the hole open, and people were flooding through like a giant wave, running through the shallow waters of the river’s edge. The price was seen on the bank as far back as the fighting had begun: bodies littered where they had fallen and blood-soaked mud that was up past their ankles as they fought.
The price would be—in fact already was—dear, but not paying it was unthinkable, so Simone, Caleb, and the rest held the line as the refugees escaped.
“They’re almost through,” Simone said, sometime later, maybe hours…maybe minutes…maybe just seconds. Honestly, her sense of time had vanished into the ether. “We need to break off ourselves.”
That was going to be easier said than done. The demons were fighting ferociously and clearly had no intent on giving up their prey, no matter how many of them fell in the process.
“Where’s Elan? We can’t leave her!” Caleb objected.
“She went to warn Kaern,” Simone yelled back. “Told me to get everyone to the sea and find some rocks if I didn’t want to die out here.”
Caleb shot her a look through a mesh of claws and iron. “She said that?”
Simone nodded, grunting as a claw scored along her ribs and opened a bloody furrow in her flesh. “She was pretty certain of it, actually.”
“Shit,” Caleb swore. “Okay, we need to break off!”
“You just said…”
“If Elan says we need to be at some rocks, then we need to be at those rocks! Run!” he ordered over the cacophony of combat, then threw himself all the heavier into the line, knocking back a dozen or more as his weight sent some falling back into others. “Run!” Caleb cast a look around, snarling, “Run for your lives!”
*****
Kaern spat blood as he knelt on the patch of ground he’d fallen to after being thrown across the hilltop.
“Six.” He coughed a laugh out, grinning through blood-covered teeth as he looked up.
The demons, all of whom looked nearly as bad as he did, surrounded him warily as he slowly got to his feet and leaned heavily on his sword.
A slow and steady percussion caused them all to pause and glance to where the lord general was clapping, an expression of amusement on his face.
“You are as good as your reputation, Wanderer,” he said clearly. “It’s a pity you and your kind turned on us.”
“Never turned on you,” Kaern correct with a shake of his head. “Refused to turn on Him.”
The lord general snorted. “You think your Creator cares what you do? If He ever did, He doesn’t anymore…or He’s dead, eons past. What good creator would allow what you’ve seen happen, to universe after universe? Only a sadist would allow the Change to even exist, you know that as well as I.”
Kaern snarled, unable to answer that charge with anything that convinced even him. His own faith was long since shot; only his stubborn pride kept him true to the oaths he’d sworn once, so very long ago. Perhaps it was possible that the Creator was dead—maybe the one true God had a limit after all—but Kaern’s honor did not.
It was the only thing he had left to call his own, and no one would take that from him.
He lifted the sword from the dirt and held it out, unwavering. “I swore to protect, to council, and to comfort His children on my eternal soul. My soul may have been ripped away by your ungodly betrayal, but my honor never was. I decide my path. Not you, not Him, and sure as Hell’s Nine Unholy Circles not the Abomination! ME.”
“So be it.” The lord general lifted his own blade, turning to the remaining six members of his guard. “End this, and him. We have work to finish.”
Kaern stepped back, intercepting the first strike on his blade, and lashed out with a kick that doubled over the demon attacking from behind him. The third strike slipped through, however, and tagged his shoulder with a blow that tore the leather armor he wore, drawing a bloody furrow in his shoulder.
He threw up another block, then his head was rocked to one side from a blow and he stumbled.
The demons were on him in an instant then, pummeling and clawing and biting as he struck out as best he could. The pressure of the fight forced Kaern down to one knee, his sword arm pinned down while his free one sheltered his face.
Then, in a flurry of motion, the weight was lifted off him and he found himself blinking at the sun in his eyes as he looked around.
Two of his attackers had been sent flying across the hilltop, impacting a tree and rock respectively, while the rest had backed off warily and were clearly reevaluating the situation. Kaern twisted his neck until it cracked as he got back on his feet and glared over at his “savior.”
“You’re supposed to be helping Simone,” he grumbled.
“She’s not the one who needs help,” Elan told him dryly as she stood between him and the majority of his attackers.
“I had it under control.”
Elan looked back at him, and while he was unable to see her face under the armor fabric she wore, her entire body practically screamed, Who do you think you’re kidding?
He sighed, rolling his eyes, “This isn’t your fight, child.”
“If not this, then what?” she asked simply.
With no response to that, Kaern steadied his grip on his blade and the two got ready to move.
*****
The lord general, who had taken a step closer, studied Elan’s form with wide eyes.
He had not seen armor of that type in centuries. As he understood things, there should be no human alive who could wear it any longer. If he were to judge, in fact, he would swear that this one was very young. The Forsaken’s use of the word “child” would seem to support that, though it was, of course, difficult to be certain.