“That one.” He gestured. “Take her alive. And kill the Forsaken already!”
The human and Forsaken stiffened, forgetting their banter as his demons charged in again. The pair met them, blades to claws, as the lord general watched. The Forsaken was weakened, and while the arrival of the girl child had reinforced his will somewhat, the signs of his faltering were still clear.
She…had the power of her forebears, he had to admit, but none of their skill.
She used her weapon like a barbarian would wield his.
Crude, certainly effective enough, but wasteful. Even with the armor she wore, those actions would wear her down in short order. He calmly watched as another of his guard was hacked down, noting everything in the actions of his enemies before he decided it was time to intervene himself.
His blade, a gift from the lord master himself, was the equal of any weapon known and certainly more than a match for even the weapons of the former human warriors of this world. The necromantic aura of the blade would cut the girl down, through any armor the humans had ever made.
He wanted her alive, however, so he determined to merely…cripple her.
*****
Elan grunted as her blade caught a blow aimed for her head, and for the first time, she felt her bones rattle despite wearing the armor Merlin had gifted her. The strength of the attack rattled her from her arms through her body and down to her feet, where she was pushed back a foot, even as she dug in against the strike.
“Careful!” Kaern snapped, shouldering her attacker heavily while fighting off another two. “These are not the same filth you were mowing through down below. Don’t try and match them strength for strength. They’ll pick you apart, lass!”
Elan stepped back, feeling the stinging blow still ringing though half her bones, and just nodded.
“Kaern, we have to get out of here!” she yelled. “We don’t have time for this!”
“I don’t think our playmates here are going to be happy if we try and leave the party early,” Kaern shot back, grinning weakly.
Elan took a swipe at one of the demons, who easily jumped out of range before slashing back at her. She had to throw herself aside to dodge the attack, landing in an awkward roll and scrambling back to her feet.
“You don’t understand. We have to leave,” she stressed. “Mer—”
Her words were cut off when the lord general suddenly appeared in front of her and smashed Elan with the flat of his blade. The blow was hard enough to lift her clear off the ground as the whole world seemed to shake and vibrate, sending Elan hammering through a foot-thick tree trunk with splintering force.
She felt her armor stiffen up such that she couldn’t move, but even being unable to fold herself around a tree, it still felt like she’d just fallen a thousand feet and slammed into bedrock.
“Lass!” Kaern roared, tearing through the defenses of the demon he was fighting and vaulting over shattered trees to get to her side. “Lass! Are ye okay?”
His brogue was filtering back as he reached her, sliding to a knee at her side.
Elan was convulsing on the ground, sucking for air that just wouldn’t come. He realized that she’d at least had her lungs emptied by the blow, perhaps even managed to crack ribs despite the advanced armor.
A glance up told him that their opponents were picking their way toward them through the debris she’d left in her path. He considered the options, but frankly only found one…not that it was a good one.
“Time to go, right ye are, lass,” he ground out as he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. He hoped that she didn’t have any internal injuries that he was aggravating, but the alternative was worse so, as she’d said herself, it was time to run.
The lord general looked on in rage as the Forsaken took one more glance at him and his guard as they struggled toward him…and then turned and fled.
“After him!”
*****
Simone and Caleb stared as they reached the shoreline or, rather, where the shoreline had been.
“What happened to the water?” Caleb asked, expression stricken.
“I…don’t know.” Simone swallowed.
They were looking at a low tide, the likes of which neither had ever seen. Sand flats were visible practically as far as they could see, aside from patches and pools of water that remained behind.
People were murmuring, fear building, and Simone knew that she had to get a control of things before that fear turned to something worse.
“Alright, we’ll worry about it later!” she yelled. “North! Look for the rocks we were told to find. Quickly, now! Quickly!”
Getting that many people moving was a monumental task, but they’d been doing it so much by this point that they had things well in hand.
Having demons literally chasing them didn’t hurt in that, Simone supposed.
They ran north, pushing the column as hard as they could, Simone and the guardsmen at the front searching for the rock outcropping that Elan had said they couldn’t miss. Simone didn’t know about that, because she would have expected to have seen it the first time they passed, and she didn’t recall that.
And yet, it didn’t take long before one of the scouts let out a yell.
“There! See it?”
Simone pushed through some people and stared, not understanding how she hadn’t seen it the first time. When they first passed by, perhaps the top few feet had been sticking out of the water. Perhaps.
She knew the water would be gone. What the Hell’s Circles is going on here?
Simone hesitated, looking around as she tried to understand what was happening.
Caleb didn’t. He nodded ahead. “If Elan said make for the rocks, we make for the rocks. Come on!”
He strode on ahead, causing Simone to break out of her hesitation. To those who were looking at her, she nodded firmly. “He’s right. It’s death to stand still. We make for the rocks.”
*****
At the rock formation, Caleb stopped and examined the scene before anyone else could catch up to him.
He quickly spotted the smooth, flat surfaces that spoke to him of the temple and the place that they had been taken by the light, even through the moss and dirt that marred its surface. He nodded, understanding why they’d been sent there, though he was far more worried by the lack of water than he’d put forward.
Magic was something he had seen in his life.
Demons could throw fire and pain. They could freeze a man’s blood or cast down the walls of the city. Those were things he feared but understood in a vague sort of way. He had seen human magic users do similar feats, though there were few of those left, as they were the first people the demons had killed whenever they captured prisoners.
Making the ocean vanish, however, that was not magic the likes of which he had ever even imagined.
I hope you know what you’re doing, Elan, he thought as he looked around, trying to find a way inside what he was almost certain had to be another place like the temple.
Simone and the others arrived behind him as he looked, but Caleb didn’t even look their direction.
“It’s like the temple,” he said. “We need to find the entrance.”
“Everyone, start looking,” Simone ordered instantly, casting a worried gaze behind them for any sign of pursuit.
Though she saw nothing, unnatural sounds could still be heard from deeper inland. The threat was far from gone.
*****
Kaern raced through the underbrush, ducking and dodging to either side as he tried to stay ahead of his pursuers. With Elan balanced on his shoulder, he was certainly not maneuvering as fast as he might under normal conditions, but the demons behind them were far from their own ideal environment as well.