Daughter of War

by Brendan Wright

  The demons reached her, and she was kicked and grabbed in a chaotic frenzy from every direction. Shouting surrounded her, and heavy boots slammed into her back, her legs, her face, her stomach. Her screams turned to tortured sobs, and she prayed to the Creator to save her.

  "Please," she choked out between vicious kicks, "save me!"

  The shouts turned from anger to sudden fear around her. The kicking stopped, and for a few seconds the air filled with thuds, grunts and screams. Pera kept her eyes closed, praying to the Creator through the chaos, dimly thinking it's working! The sounds halted abruptly after no more than a few seconds, and Pera was left in a heavy silence that felt even scarier than the shouts and kicks of her attackers.

  She opened her eyes slowly, coming face to face with a dead monster. She scrambled to her feet, backing against the wall away from the thing's corpse. But her foot caught on another dead monster, and she looked around her. The corridor was full of corpses. Somehow they had all died in a matter of seconds. The Creator. It had to be. There was no other explanation.

  Her thoughts ended there as her gaze reached the other side of the corridor. Another monster stood there, staring at her.

  "No," she said. "No, no, no!" she bolted down the corridor, back towards Tyra, towards safety. Thudding footsteps sounded behind her, inhumanly fast and growing close. She screamed, closing her eyes just as it reached her. It snatched her mid stride, yanking her forcefully backwards and sprinting back towards wherever it wanted to take her. She screamed, but could do nothing to break its grip. Dead monsters appeared on the ground below her, growing smaller as she was sped away.

  "Please," She prayed again, "Please save me!"

  "I am," the monster said.

  Riffolk

  He moved into the room carefully, gun up, eyes scanning every surface. The underground lab held no mysteries to him; he knew every inch of it as well as he knew each of his inventions. He knew there was someone here; he'd suspected a spy for a little while, and a sudden drop in energy output from the lab meant that the spy was tampering with equipment. He was constantly monitoring his project via a hand-held controller; it was connected to his main lab, the underground lab, and his mansion. They'd gotten past his traps and detection equipment, but he was ready now.

  "I know you're in here," he said. "I have many security measures in place. Whoever you are, you will not escape with your life. You've just – Ah. Hello."

  He'd been searching intently as he spoke, and spotted a dark, unclear figure hunched upside down on the ceiling.

  "One of the Shenza assassins, I presume?"

  "I'm no assassin," the figure said, "but I will kill you if I have to."

  A woman. Interesting. He knew women were treated equally to men in many places outside Ermoor. Then again, there were many places where they were below men as well. He didn't trouble himself with learning the cultures of savages, so he hadn't realised Shanaken was in the former group. A woman assassin wouldn't pose much of a threat, although her ability to stick to the ceiling was a surprise.

  "Feel free to try," he said, and when she didn't reply, he fired the gun.

  She bolted to the floor so quickly that for a second she simply disappeared. He trained the gun on her again, but she'd already unsheathed her blade and stood ready.

  "What... are you?" she asked, her face showing genuine confusion.

  He didn't bother answering, and she refocused, shaking off whatever had bothered her.

  "I will kill you if I have to, but murder is not the mission."

  What game is she playing? He thought. First the odd question, then denying her reason for being there in the first place... Riffolk found himself intrigued, if not a little annoyed.

  "What else would you be here for?"

  She pointed her blade at the tank in the centre of the room, and the movement almost made him fire again. Instead, he smiled.

  "Do you know what it is? What it will do to your people?"

  She didn't react at all, just staring with blank stupidity. Of course, he thought, I expected too much from a savage Shenza. He sighed.

  "No, of course you don't. Well, it seems we have a decision to make."

  He offered the choice between a fight, or safe passage. Then he toyed with her a while, letting her know he'd known about her presence the entire time she'd been snooping around. When he left the choice to her, he watched her closely, and she moved into a combat position.

  He moved first, reaching into his pocket for the security remote he kept for emergencies. A pitch black circle appeared in front of the Shenza woman, and he fired at her. He grabbed the remote and pressed the button just as the circle smashed into him, sending him flying backwards into the door behind him. For a few seconds, bright spots invaded his vision, and then there was nothing.

  Mara

  Fog smothered the quiet streets of Ermoor. Colourful lights blurred and mixed together, turning what would have been an ominous dark alley into a beautiful cascade of colour. Mara gripped her cloak, pulling it closer over her shoulders. As beautiful as it was, the fog was still freezing cold. Her steps tapped lightly on the smooth pavement, seeming to fall flat on her ears instead of echoing through the night. Glancing around, she snuck down another alley, moving as quickly as she dared through the fog.

  She was alone. Outside. The thought still hadn't quite settled in her mind, but blared behind her eyes like the colourful lights pulsing through the fog. Sneaking out like this was incredibly dangerous for a girl, but the thrill of imagining herself outside in the dark without a man for protection had made her stomach flutter and her heart thud in her chest. It had been imagination at first, of course; pure fantasy brought about by boredom and inebriation. But it kept returning to her mind, until finally the thought alone wasn't enough to excite her any longer.

  She had put on the darkest and warmest clothing she owned, dressing in the dark so the servants wouldn't notice. The balcony that came off the master bedroom faced Riffolk's private gardens; no guards or servants patrolled there. She had lowered herself gracelessly to the dew-covered ground, grinning and trying to stifle giggles as she imagined her mother and father's face if they ever saw such an unladylike display. Running through the gardens had been a thrill on its own, the trees and plants that were so beautiful by day turning to dark, aggressive shapes reaching at her through the gloom as she ran.

  That had been the first time. She snuck into the gardens every night that week, simply running breathless through the gloom, terrified and ecstatic. The fear and excitement dwindled with each night however, until she decided to try wandering the streets.

  Getting out of the Hayne property was far more difficult than simply walking into the private gardens had been. The only way out was through the front door, the rest of the grounds closed off from the public by a high metal fence. Most of the servants slept the night through, but some were always up and about. Avoiding them was fairly easy. The servant guarding the entrance to the mansion wasn't so easy to get by. He remained alert, drinking coffee and staring out into the night. Mara had paused in the massive lobby, stuck and wondering what to do, when suddenly a crash had shattered the silence, echoing through the lobby and scaring her almost to death. If she hadn't thought to dash behind one of the pillars lining the outside of the room, she would have been seen and questioned. But from the safety of her hiding spot, she heard the servant come in from outside and rush to the source of the sound.

  Angry but quiet whispers floated through the lobby, and when she was sure the servant was quite occupied, she snuck out from behind the pillar. The main door had been left ajar, and, smiling at her good fortune, she had left the mansion.

  Now, rushing through the fog, she realised she had no idea where to go. She couldn't visit anyone without a man to escort her. She couldn't be seen by anyone. With limited options, she was confined to alleyways and quiet streets. Cold, damp, alone and scared, she suddenly realised how stupid she was being. The excitement of only a moment ago vanish
ed, and she stopped walking in the middle of an empty street.

  The beautiful street lights, which created fuzzy halos in the fog, went out. Mara gasped, staring desperately in every direction. All she could see was the now dim fog. She'd turned around too many times, and not a speck of light told her where the streets lay.

  Panicking, she decided it was time to return to the mansion. She took a few tentative steps, then stopped again, tears filling her eyes. Without excitement pushing her forward, the thought of walking through the city alone at night was suddenly overwhelming. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly and lowered her head, trying to think clearly. She stood that way for a while, and the cold slowly chewed through her layers of clothing, biting first her skin and then through to the bone. Shivering, she started moving just to try to warm up.

  A deep, loud grating sound sprang up from somewhere nearby and Mara screamed. She backed into a wall and slid down until she sat on the cold paved street, huddled and crying. A loud clang followed the grating sound, echoing through the fog, and Mara whimpered. Nothing happened for a few excruciating moments, and then, to her utter horror, footsteps beat the smooth streets. Footsteps that were growing unmistakeably louder.

  Pera

  The corridor gave way to another dark tunnel, then the tunnel turned straight up into a tight circular shaft. The monster's breathing remained regular despite its speed. The vertical tunnel seemed to go for miles. Stuck in the monster's arms, facing down, Pera could only stare in horror as the ground disappeared into an endless black void. They sped up the tunnel for what felt like far too long, until finally a loud grating sound assaulted Pera's ears directly behind her head, followed by an overwhelming clang.

  She was swept up into a nightmare; a wide open space, cold and alien. It was bright, horrible jarring twinkles of colourful light stabbed through the air from above; but that wasn't the worst of it. What made it nightmarish was the air itself; thick, white, and horribly cold, it obscured her vision and filled her lungs. The monster kept running, its footsteps now thumping on solid ground. After a short time, they slowed to a stop, and Pera heard panicked breathing in front of the monster. Then she was dropped to the freezing ground. A frightened, tiny voice spoke up out of the gloom:

  "What are you?"

  The thick white air pressed in on her, speeding her heart up and clogging her throat. She pushed herself to her hands and knees, glancing around in fear; but the monster was gone. Instead, a young woman sat against a wall, staring at her in astonishment. She was dressed all in rich black clothing like nothing Pera had ever seen. This place had to be the afterlife. There was no other explanation for the ghostly air, the monster, the woman in such strange black clothing. She had literally been carried by a monster into death.

  But this woman... she was obviously not Tyran. Was she some kind of servant to the Creator? A dead soul from some other world or time? Or worst of all, was she simply one of the monsters dressed in human skin? The terror was building in her mind and her heart, and she felt herself losing grip. She forced herself to ask the one thing she was terrified to know.

  "Are you one of them?"

  But the thick air finally took her breath completely, and blackness seeped into the edges of her vision. She saw the woman's lips moving, but the black swept in and took her before the words reached her ears. She didn't feel herself hit the ground.

  Mara

  A demon flowed out of the fog, dragging a filthy, emaciated woman effortlessly in one hand. It wore jagged red and orange armour that seemed to be made out of fire. Its face was the same colour as its armour, glaring at her with a vicious, inhuman snarl. Mara had never seen anything like it; wouldn't have been able to even imagine it. The demon ran straight to where Mara crouched against the street wall, and dropped the woman at her feet.

  "What are you?" Mara regretted asking the question the moment it left her lips, when the demon's eyes bored into her own. It pointed to the woman on the ground, stared intently at Mara for a moment, then abruptly disappeared.

  The woman moaned and struggled to her hands and knees, looked around her quickly, then up at Mara as though she were as strange and terrifying as the demon that had brought her here.

  "Are you one of them?" the woman whispered.

  "One of who? Who are you? Mara said, but the woman slumped to the smooth cold pavement and lay still.

  After wandering the streets for what felt like years, Mara brought the woman to Riffolk's mansion, finding the main entrance curiously unguarded and none of the lights on. She remained undisturbed through the entire mansion, despite the noise she made trying to half drag, half walk the woman through the corridors. By the time she reached a spare room near her bedroom, she was sweating and breathing heavy. She lay the woman on the bed, aghast at the filth and smell. Bringing some water in from the closest bathroom, she filled a pitcher and left it next to the unconscious woman. Then she returned to her bedroom, removed her dark clothing and underclothes, and washed herself until the woman's smell was gone. She threw the clothes in the bin.

  A soft knocking woke her up the next day. She sighed, blinking, and made sure she was covered by the bedsheets.

  "Enter," she said. A servant slipped through the crack in the door and took a few tentative steps into the room.

  "My lady, I'm terribly sorry, but your visitor is quite unwell," he said. The servants all had the uncanny ability to balance fear, respect, and a prim sort of arrogance in their voices at all times. Mara frowned; she never had visitors. The only time a stranger had ever come into the house who wasn't there to see Riffolk was the disgusting woman from her odd dream last night. It had to have been a dream, of course; demons weren't real. Neither was magic, except for the miracles performed by God himself. The Devil, though... He was real. Mara pushed the thought away.

  "I don't understand," she replied to the servant, "I don't have a visitor."

  The servant looked terrified; they were trained never to question their lords and ladies, but he was clearly under the impression that she did indeed have a visitor. She sighed again.

  "Very well, what is wrong with this visitor?" She asked. The servant fidgeted, remembered himself, then stood straight again.

  "She is starving, my lady. Living in conditions too poor to maintain good health. We must summon a doctor at once."

  "The... the woman from last night was real?" The servant's face turned as pale as Mara's must have been.

  "Yes, my lady, she is real. And... she is dying."

  Riffolk

  He woke before the Shenza did, groggy and furious. The remote had done its job; when he stood and cast his eyes over the room, his robotic sentinel stood directly in front of the assassin, her blade in one of its multifunctional claws. She was trapped by the snare he'd set at the ceiling grate. The roof traps were set up to automatically extend downwards after being activated, bringing the victim close to the floor.

  Taking her sword from the sentinel, he stared up at the open grate on the roof. She had to have come in from there, but the trap didn't go off on her way in. She'd clearly done something different on her way out, but Riffolk had no way of knowing what it was. Perhaps the spell that turned her into a shadow... Or perhaps there was some other kind of Shenza magic involved.

  Either way, he was going to find out. He had her now. Whatever it took to understand their magic; he would question her, torture her, test her limits, and then dissect her. He was looking forward to it. She stirred, and he waited until he was sure she'd seen the sentinel before speaking.

  "I did warn you. I may not have a magical sword, but I can assure you the weapons I've designed are far more deadly."

  "You have no idea how deadly Shadow Magic is, Hayne."

  Her confidence was ridiculous. He'd seen reports of the Shenza's capabilities in battle, of course, but most of it could be put down to fear and adrenaline. A lot of the feats he'd read and heard described could also be achieved through technology. Or deception. He had no doubt they were form
idable on the battlefield, in their home country; but a single Shenza, bound and unarmed? And a woman to boot?

  Riffolk didn't laugh often, but the Shenza's empty threat was too much, and he couldn't help himself. But as he started laughing, she burst out of her bonds, the black circle shield appearing on her arm again; in an instant, she dropped, rolled and sprinted past him. She moved so fast he barely felt the sword get snatched from his hand.

  The sentinel reacted faster than he did, stepping around him and firing at the woman as she ran. A heavy thunk sounded as her magic shield buried itself in the sentinel’s triangular eye. She leapt in an impossibly high arc straight over it, bringing her sword down with both hands. The sentinel collapsed, completely dead; years of hard work and dozens of separate inventions, destroyed in a matter of seconds.

  He pulled his gun and fired, over and over, reloading as he went. She leapt up to the ceiling and launched off it in one motion, streaking over him faster than he could keep up with. He saw a brief spray of blood as she flew though, and triumph joined with his fury for a moment.

  His victory lasted until the Shenza landed somewhere behind him, and before he could turn around, she smashed into him with the magic shield. He stumbled to the floor, whipping around to face her as quickly as he could, and catching the shock on her face as he raised the gun.

  He'd lost focus on the weapon and forgot to reload. Its dry click ignited a storm of helpless fury in his mind which threatened to drown his vision in a sea of burning red. He threw the gun away, disgusted at himself and the woman. Staring into her eyes, he prepared to die.