Hero of Fire

by P. E. Padilla

  “I can’t believe Arkith would allow such a perfect place to hide enemies this close to his walls,” Kate said.

  Koren swiveled his head back and forth, checking for demons or traps. “It’s not so unlikely. We’re in Hell. Fighting like we are accustomed is not ordinary here. The walls are enough to show might and enough of a deterrent for most other powerful demons who would try to attack Arkith, but subterfuge is not common here between demons with power.

  “The demons are simple when it comes to warfare. Grab the closest blunt object and pummel your enemy to death. That’s if you don’t go with the attack they almost always choose: slashing with their claws and biting until the enemy is dead.

  “Arkith is more sophisticated than that, but he is also still within his lord’s domain. He wouldn’t imagine that another demon would try to breach his walls like we are trying to do.”

  “I guess that’s good for us then,” Benedict said. His eyes shifted to Visimar and he winced slightly as if expecting to be ridiculed, but Visimar simply stared at the man, his eye twitching.

  “Here is what we have to do,” Koren continued as if Benedict hadn’t said a word. “Everyone take out your firestones and huddle in close to the wall. I’ll see if I can trigger them.”

  “Trigger?” Peiros said.

  “Yeah. I’m not even sure if it’ll work, but with the affinity I achieved with my stone with all those weeks of being near it but not able to touch it, I think I might be able to push the energy in the right direction. It will be up to the magic itself to do what needs to be done.”

  Peiros shrugged and moved in close, holding his firestone to everyone else’s.

  Koren put his hand above the stones, but didn’t touch them. He closed his eyes.

  Kate felt something like a wave of heat pass over the hand holding the stone, but nothing else. The stones sat there, dangling from their cords, all in a bunch. A faint red light flickered within them, as always, but nothing else seemed to be happening.

  Koren cracked one eye and glared at the stones. He closed it again, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

  His brow furrowed.

  Several minutes passed with no apparent success. Kate was about to pull her stone back and tell them they had to figure something out, and then she felt it.

  Heat radiated from the mass of stones. She would swear it even radiated up the leather cord to her hand. Where the flickers of red used to be, there was a brighter light, almost orange, pulsing in each of the firestones. They surged in time with the others.

  Without any further warning, the stones flared and bright light exploded away from them.

  Toward the wall.

  It was surreal. There was no sound, but as Kate watched, the section of the wall beside them blew out as if it had been hit with a massive stone from a trebuchet.

  The brilliant red gleam subsided and, somehow, Kate had not been blinded by it. She could clearly see the six foot hole in the wall right in front of them. It bored clear through to the other side of the massive block.

  Koren slumped, but wore a small smile. “I think we have our way in.”

  Kate was fatigued, too, though she had done nothing to be so. She shook her head and peered through the hole in the stone. It must have been what Koren warned them about, that the stones would take some of their own energy and use it.

  If feeling a bit tired was the tradeoff for boring a hole through solid stone, she’d take it. Gladly.

  “No time to rest,” Benedict said, pointing.

  Four demons had come to investigate. They must have been close when the portion of the wall ceased to exist. The stones hadn’t made a sound, had they?

  Kate loosened and tightened her hand on her shield handle while sliding her grip on the hilt of her sword. She drew it as she sprinted into motion, charging the demons ahead of her.

  She was the team’s commander. She would be the first to go through, to engage the enemy.

  Kate and the demons clashed just on their side of the midway point of the tunnel that had been drilled in the wall. Her shield and sword effectively blocked any further progress of the demons, and despite their heavier forms, Kate’s power won out.

  The demons had slid almost to a halt when they saw the crazed, red-haired human with a death mask charging at them at full speed. When Kate slammed into them, she knocked the first two back into the other half of their group. They went down in a tumble.

  Kate ran right over them, slashing savagely as she did so. Her blade opened up one demon’s throat completely, spraying everything around it with its sticky, green blood. With the backslash as she passed, Kate opened up the belly of another of the demons. She continued on, only stopping when she reached the mouth of the tunnel. She stood there, waiting to see if other demons were coming, looking back only once to be sure the rest of her team finished what she had started.

  They had. Peiros and Benedict were right behind her and finishing off the demons.

  Kate scanned the inside of the fortress. It looked as she expected it to: a wide space between the walls and the main structure and its towers. No demons in sight, but she was sure that would change shortly.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Koren said, stepping up to her. “Charging?”

  She winked at him, but then realized with her mask on, he most likely couldn’t see it through her dark eye holes. “Of course. They were easier to take care of in the tunnel than if we had let them come out. At least, they wouldn’t have as much time to sound an alarm. Did they sound an alarm?” That last had been directed at Peiros, who had just joined them.

  “I heard no telepathic communications. I think they saw the hole and reacted. They may not have called us to any other demon’s attention. Good thinking.”

  Koren rolled his eyes.

  “One question,” Kate said as she watched Visimar help Jurdan through the tunnel. “Why were there essentially no demons at Thozrixith’s fortress, but there are some here?”

  “Thozrixith is a demon lord,” Koren said. “He has no need for others to guard his fortress. Only another lord would dare to set foot in his domain without his consent. Arkith is not as powerful. There are others who would squabble with him, so he needs to guard his fortress if he’s away. I’m hoping he’s here, though, which would also explain the presence of his troops.”

  Jurdan reached them, leaning heavily on Visimar. Kate wondered if they should leave him outside the fortress, in some secluded space.

  “No,” Jurdan said. “I know what you’re thinking, Kate. I will go with you. I may still be of some help. Besides, there are things out there that will eat me if I’m there all alone. I’m actually safer with you.”

  She gritted her teeth. Neither option was good. “Fine. Just…be careful.”

  His wan smile almost reminded her of the old Jurdan, the healthy Jurdan. Almost.

  Despite his months of torture and privation, Koren Merklen stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Kate in the front of the team. They systematically cleared the area between their makeshift tunnel and the closest door to the main structure of the fortress.

  Kate marveled at the man. His motions were smooth and strong. If he was this efficient after all he’d been through and using another man’s shield and sword, what kind of fighter would he be with his own weapons when he was well-rested?

  She did not forget, either, that he had no firestone. He stayed close to her or to one of the other members of the team, but the protection of the stones fell sharply with distance.

  Yet he blocked and he cut, and the two of them carved a path into the corridors of Arkith’s fortress. Maybe the slight enchantments on the weapon and shield helped.

  The others scanned the areas they had just vacated to make sure they were not attacked from behind.

  And they helped Jurdan. He had fired a handful of arrows, but each one seemed to need more strength than he had to give. Kate wanted to shout at him to stop fighting, to focus on keeping up with them, but she could not take his
dignity away from him. He had already given so much.

  They found themselves in a small chamber in the fortress. The bodies of six demons lay on the ground, one still twitching until Benedict drove his sword through its eye.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” Kate asked Koren.

  “I think so. A lot of it is fuzzy. I was tortured here as Arkith performed his experiments on me. I think if we go into the corridor on the other side of that door and take the third door on the right, it leads to the tower where his workshop is.”

  “Do you feel your firestone there?” Peiros asked.

  “I…feel something,” Koren said shakily. “My feelings are jumbled here. I don’t know if it’s because of what I suffered or if Arkith’s magic is somehow interfering. I won’t know until we get there.”

  The others looked ragged, with a few small wounds each from the close-quarter fighting. Combat in hallways definitely gave the demons an advantage because they used their claws and teeth rather than the longer weapons that had to be used carefully lest they strike the stone of the walls. Kate had suffered a few tears in her clothing as well, though none had made it through her armor. Yet.

  The situation was not ideal. They were exhausted, hadn’t eaten enough food or drunk enough water, and were in strange territory.

  They would continue, though, now that they were so close.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Koren pushed himself from the wall he was leaning against. Aurel got up from the floor and helped Jurdan to do so. The others drew their weapons. Rest time was over. It was time to get back to work.

  Luckily, the demons seemed to be in disarray. The team had killed more than thirty, but only in groups of a half dozen or so at any given time. It seemed like they were either completely disorganized…or they were sacrificing a few of their own to lead the humans into a trap.

  Kate didn’t want to think about that.

  “No thoughts?” Kate asked Peiros.

  “I have sensed nothing,” he said. “It is like they are the dumbest of beasts, which is saying something because the average demon is little more than an animal in their thinking. I do not understand it, unless…”

  “Unless Arkith isn’t here,” Koren finished, “and these are simple servant demons left to take care of the fortress.”

  “Yes,” Peiros said.

  “I hope that’s not true,” Kate said. “As much as I don’t feel like fighting a mage right now, I would feel better about the time and blood we have spent if we can kill him before he can finish his weapon.”

  “I’m torn, too,” Koren said, but then tilted his head. “Oh, that’s not right. I want to cut that bastard into little tiny pieces. I hope he’s here, regardless of what it costs or how hard the battle is.”

  Kate stared at the man for a moment and then shook her head. She guessed she could understand his opinion, even if only part of her shared it.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she said, hefting her shield and moving toward the door.

  While they traversed the next several rooms and the hallways connecting them, there was no sign of other demons. It was too quiet. Kate wasn’t comfortable with the situation.

  As she scanned the hall ahead of her warily, trying to detect any movement or any places on the walls or ceilings that could be used to attack them, she spoke to Koren.

  “Did we get them all?”

  “Not on your life,” he answered, focusing his gaze on the hall immediately in front of them.

  “Then why haven’t we seen any demons?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they have set a trap for us. Maybe they have fled to some place of safety where they won’t be assaulted by the monsters in the masks. You can’t forget that creatures on this side of the door know of the death masks and that they identify the Black. They know the masks mean someone who wants to kill them, someone who can kill them, is present. Don’t think that cowering in a corner is beneath at least some of the demons.”

  “For some reason, I don’t find that too reassuring. It doesn’t…feel like they’re hiding.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Koren said with a smirk. “I just thought I’d try to be optimistic about things.”

  Kate formed a small smile of her own. “Don’t change the rules on us now. The last thing we need is for you to get all rainbows and sunshine.”

  Koren snorted. “Keep your eyes open. We’ll find them. We’re getting close.”

  A few minutes later, Koren stopped in front of a set of double doors. “I’m not sure what this room is, but the only double doors I saw were for large and important rooms. This is not Arkith’s laboratory, but we should check it anyway.”

  “Of course,” Kate said.

  Koren placed himself to the side of the door and jerked his head toward the other side. Kate got the hint and put her back to the wall to the side of the other door. Meeting the Black legend’s eyes, she nodded.

  Koren swept his gaze to the others to make sure they were in position. They apparently already knew the procedure because they were spaced at what seemed to Kate to be ideal interval for attacking any demons that might come through the doors. She thanked their fortune that demons didn’t use projectile weapons.

  Peiros stared at the door as if he was trying to catch it on fire with his mind. When he relaxed his concentration, he shook his head slightly to Koren. Good, no thoughts from anything on the other side of the door. That was probably good news.

  Koren nodded his head in a three-count. On the third nod, he threw the door open and knelt quickly to peek into the room.

  Nothing happened.

  Koren dodged back behind the door and Kate took a turn looking into the room at her normal head height. Just because the demons hadn’t used ranged weapons before didn’t mean they never would. Varying the level they were looking went a long way in keeping from being struck too easily.

  Koren was right about one thing: the room was large. It was also vacant of any living thing. Kate breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Arkith’s bed chambers,” Koren said.

  It wasn’t too tough a thing to guess. A massive bed dominated one section of the room, and chair and a table were arranged in another part. There weren’t any decorations other than some sort of runes scrawled on the walls, but it still was strange to Kate. The dim grey light of Hell filtered through a set of massive windows, giving the room an eerie cast.

  Who knew demons even slept in beds? Or sat in chairs. The team had seen furniture as they explored the fortress, but it didn’t really hit Kate until she saw the bedroom. Were the demons really all that much different than humans? Other than the whole thing with them wanting to eat every human they met. It was a troubling thought.

  The others swept into the room, trying to find anything that might be of use. There was nothing. It seemed that the mage didn’t even read in his chambers.

  After their search, which only took a few minutes, they returned to the hall and continued.

  Kate was exhausted. It wasn’t only the lack of sleep, the small rations of food and water, and the combat. Being constantly on alert against attacks was taxing. She almost wished for a good, straightforward battle.

  She was sure she’d get her wish, soon enough.

  The still corridors were almost eerie as the black-clad and masked figures ghosted through the halls. A pall of silence had fallen upon the fortress, it seemed. An unnatural silence.

  The kind of silence that begged the question of when the floor would drop out from under them.

  They checked doors as they went, peeking into rooms or adjoining hallways but never seeing anything. After what seemed like miles of hallways and several level changes using the wide, stone stairs they found, they came to a place Koren actually recognized.

  “I know this place,” he said as they stood before a massive set of double doors. “This is Arkith’s main laboratory. It’s where he started his testing on me, his torture, before he was called to Thozrixith’s fortress and my ordeal
was moved there. If there is any place in the building he would be, it would be here.”

  “Is there another door going into or out of the laboratory?” Kate asked.

  “No. There are several sub-rooms, for storage and other things, but these are the only doors out.”

  “Good, then he has no place left to hide. Is there anything we need to know about the mage before we burst into the room?”

  Koren scrubbed his hand through his greasy hair and beard. “He’s a mage. No matter what other demons are in the room, even if it’s Thozrixith himself, we need to kill Arkith first. If he had time to prepare his magic, we’re in trouble. Especially those of us without a firestone.”

  Kate had almost forgotten Koren’s stone was gone. He had been so smoothly keeping in close proximity to one of the others during all the combat, their biggest liability had slipped her mind. As she thought back to the battles they had waged, her respect for the man’s skills increased. She could see him in her mind flowing from movement to movement, making little adjustments when the closest firestone started to move away from him.

  There was so much she could learn from him. Not just about Hell, either. He was a legend and hero of the Black for a reason. For many reasons, rather. She wanted to learn about those reasons, and maybe emulate or develop them herself.

  “Right,” she said. “Kill the mage first.”

  “You can’t miss him. He’s the one with the glowing hands, sometimes with fire coming out of them. He also wears a belt with several scrolls hanging from it. And he doesn’t use weapons.”

  “Got it.” Kate turned to the others. “You heard him. Identify Arkith and focus on him first, until he’s dead, then use standard battle protocol. Is everyone ready?”

  Before anyone could answer, a clacking sound echoed in the hallway, immediately joined by another similar sound.

  Kate whirled to find a dense mass of demons charging at them from the direction they had just come.

  Kate leaped toward the sprinting monsters, shield up. She wanted to get in front of them to delay them for at least a few seconds so the team could organize and attack.