Wars of the Underworld

by Olivia Ash

  Other races and demons moved to stand between her and Zagan. Demons, warlocks, and witches.

  Her own army closed ranks behind her. She held up her hand.

  This was it. She had prepared for this day. Anticipated this outcome. And now she was going to fight with everything she had in her.

  “Charge!” she commanded, forming a fist and lowering it toward her side. She held her sword forward, at the ready, and rushed the gate.

  As planned, Hobson opened the gate to let her and her army through. As soon as they collided with Zagan’s army, she peeked and saw that he had also closed the gates and raised vines with thick, sharp thorns on either side. It reminded her of rolled razor wire.

  She smiled. Once everything was said and done, she should give Hobson a nice, long vacation.

  Hobson caught her glance and nodded, a solemn expression on his face. Sadie nodded as well then turned to join the fight.

  Demons lurked, moving toward her, taking their time. Whether or not it was because they anticipated Sadie to be slow, or because she inherited Hecate’s power and they were scared, she wasn’t sure. She took the opportunity of their slow advance to conjure vines from the ground, creating thick half-walls and surrounding them on either side. Though they hacked at the vines, it bought her more time to use her magic and set them all on fire. And she did so by conjuring a ball of blue flame in her hands and tossing it at them.

  Their screams carried over the harsh clashing of swords and war cries. Sadie then turned to her next foe. A witch, judging by the looks of her. The woman had glowing hands of green smoke-like substance and attempted to suffocate Sadie with the smell of poisoned decay. It clung to the back of her throat, like a cork, blocking her airway and ability to breathe.

  The amulet in her chest warmed and energy pulsed through her veins, increasing in intensity and heat as Sadie focused on remaining calm despite not being able to breathe. Purple electric energy shot from her fingers into the witch’s chest, burning her from the inside out. The witch’s body crumpled to the ground in a heaping, charred mess.

  Burned flesh and blood tinged the air as she faced off with a skeleton and goblin while her army fought against Zagan’s forces around her. Smoke grew in thick, billowing clouds that hovered over the ground, burning Sadie’s eyes and making it difficult for her to keep an eye on where Zagan stood.

  As it was, he barely moved, easily dismembering anyone that got close to him.

  She swung her shadow sword at the goblin and sliced the creature in half just under its ribs. When she turned to the skeleton, she conjured her fire sword and forced as much flame and heat into it as she could, so she could handle them the same way she had when she first fought against them.

  Once she had rid herself of her opponent, she searched again for Zagan. The faster she could get rid of him, the quicker the fight would be over. And she was ready to be done with him yesterday.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Mordecai

  Mordecai watched as a demon approached him. Ugly fella with a giant scar that covered the bottom half of his face. His eyes swirled with red as he stared down Mordecai with the intent on killing him. He seemed familiar to the demon prince and wondered from where in his childhood he saw this demon. Shaking that thought away, he also noticed a couple of warlocks flanking the marred demon. He was surrounded.

  He smiled to himself. Challenge accepted.

  He morphed into his shadow and dodged the first attack from a warlock that tried to cut off a limb as the tip of the weapon barely grazed his arm. He shifted into his demon form and looked at the tiny scratch along his bicep. Little beads of blood dotted along the thin line. The first warlock then lifted a gloved hand and shot bolts of lightning toward Mordecai. He quickly summoned a shadow shield and deflected the attack and then conjured his staff. Using it, he dispatched of the warlock by plunging the base of his weapon into his mouth and out the back of his head.

  Setting his gaze on the second one, the side of Mordecai’s mouth angled up and he held a hand toward the second warlock, beckoning him forward. The warlock pulled on two daggers that heated to bright lava red. He charged, and the demon prince side-stepped out of the way, using his staff to catch the warlock’s feet and sent him tumbling to the ground. Reaching with his hand and his shadow magic, Mordecai used his shadow to squeeze the man’s heart to a stop.

  Too easy.

  The demon roared.

  “Oops. Did you need them?” Mordecai feigned guilt and said, “So sorry. Good help really is hard to find these days.” He shook his head.

  Two more piddly demons showed up to attack from either side of him. He expertly decapitated one and dismembered the next with a few expert blows and a shift in his staff.

  Still too easy.

  He almost laughed at how easy it was.

  A sensation prickled through him. He was just being toyed with. Kept busy. He rolled his eyes, becoming bored with the charade. Two goblins, a skeleton, and a demon approached and attacked him from all angles. It sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. Well, instead of him becoming the pun, he once again, disabled each of them.

  The two goblins were foot soldiers at best. Sort of the pawns of a chess game. He switched again into shadow and thickened his substance, choking them out, asphyxiating them. The skeleton was simple as it was together by pure will of its master. Knowing his father, they too were disposable, and he wouldn’t put much energy into keeping them around longer than was necessary. He shifted to demon form and used his shadow staff to knock its head from its shoulders, then easily dislocated each limb, batting them in different directions across the field.

  Now the demon. He had been a trainee of Mordecai’s back when his father wasn’t trying to murder all his sons. He had trained the kid himself. There was a hint of recognition in the boy’s eye, but not enough to keep Mordecai from killing him. The old trainee attacked, using one of Mordecai’s best moves, which impressed him. Sadly, he never showed the kid that he could counter his own attacks. He shifted to shadow, turned, and used the kid’s horns as a brace support for his staff, snapping the kid’s neck with a single jerk.

  The body fell limp to the ground, and Mordecai spared a moment of pity for the kid. He had gusto, which Mordecai appreciated. But his life was wasted on a foolish demon’s petty desire to corrupt and dominate absolutely. He spat on the ground and turned.

  Now it was time to take care of the next group of assholes in dire need of reckoning.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Damien

  Damien took out another one of his father’s soldiers and paused to look around for the next unworthy foe. He breathed in deep.

  Fear.

  The scent coated the battle grounds with a thick permeation of putrid sweat and blood. Shouts echoed through the battle and screams reverberated through his body. There were so many bodies strewn across the ground, so many of his father’s soldiers compared to Sadie’s. The odds seemed to stand at ten-to-one. How did his father accumulate so many? Better yet, why bring such a large force?

  He shook those questions away. After all, Zagan killed one of his owns son just to keep the throne. His moral compass didn’t exactly point north. The means of the battle only suited his father for the benefit of trying to defeat Sadie.

  Damien would sooner have his father’s head on a pike before seeing harm done to her.

  He searched for her and found her holding her own. With each foe she downed, another came in its place, but she still held firm. Perfectly poised and never wavering in her movements. He smiled. That’s my girl.

  A group of demons hailed him. He turned his attention to a group of eight demons slowly approaching with their swords pointed at him. He shook his head.

  The leader of the little pack didn’t seem to know what he was doing, or who he was dealing with as he and his buddies charged forward. They started hacking at him with their swords.

  Too sloppy.

  Damien didn’t dare jump in and disarm even one
of them just yet. He would likely lose a hand or an arm, or somehow be shredded to pieces. It was chaotic. This group of demons didn’t know the pommel of their sword from the hole in their asses. No. He wouldn’t attack just yet. He would wait until they wore themselves out and then take care of the mess.

  Until then, he continued to dodge each attack, helping to wear them down. That was until they got too close and sliced him on the chest. He stepped back, stopped, and looked at the cut. He ran a finger along the trail of blood that dripped down his abdomen. His fingers came back stained red.

  Furious, he looked at the demons as they halted in their reckless assault to watch him examine the cut. Taking the opportunity, he took their weapons from them, using each against its owner to quickly behead, remove a limb, or shred a torso before he received another gash.

  Once he fully dispatched of the group, Damien searched for his brothers, observing them hacking through row after row of demons themselves. He found his father who drew closer to Sadie, seeming eager to face off with her. His gaze found Sadie, and she had turned to face his father. She too was eager. Damien knew that all too well. He couldn’t blame her.

  Before he could join her side, to help ward off demons and other soldiers of his father’s, another group of demons approached him. This one more cautiously.

  Now, here’s a challenge I can accept. He smiled and held his sword at the ready.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Steele

  A few of his old succubi allies approached and Steele lifted an eyebrow.

  “Oh, Steele, let us come back to you.” One of them said.

  Steele frowned and shook his head. He was still angry with them for leaving, for blaming Sadie for the death of one of their own, even though it was Hecate’s doing. “Not gonna happen.”

  “But we miss you,” another said from his side.

  He snapped his head in her direction and noted that another approached from behind him. Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. This tactic was all too familiar to him. Succubi were more than just sex fiends who gained power and life from those they lay with. They were also vicious fighters with razor sharp nails that could rival any blade he had the opportunity to work with.

  “Please, Steele. Let us be with you.” They all seemed to talk at the same time with different begging pleas.

  Steele clenched his fists. He reached into one of their minds and saw that Deseree wanted more than just revenge against his woman, but his head on a silver platter for leaving her and siding with a murderous human pretending to be queen.

  Now that will never do.

  He pulled out a few daggers and readied himself for the attack. They would get close enough to rub on him, make cooing sounds, then stab him in the back, literally. They would continue to slash and hack at him until he was nothing more than a bloody mess on the ground.

  At least, that’s what they thought.

  He took a dagger and threw it into the throat of the succubus in front of him, made a one-eighty, and stabbed the other dagger in the heart of the one approaching from behind. Next, he faced off with the ones at his sides, dodging and evading their claws while they let out ear-splitting screams.

  He pulled on the sword strapped to his back and kicked one to the ground while slicing the hand of the other. More screaming filled his ears, drowning out his thoughts. He shook his head to focus and clear his mind as he sliced the head of the screamer and pointed the sword at the one still cowering on the ground.

  “You were pledged to me,” he said, voice dark and booming as he forced all the rage he felt into his words. “My bidding overrules your queen’s. Harm a head on anyone under my protection, including myself, and I will see to it that your kind will only be read about in history books and talked about in fables. Do I make myself clear?”

  The succubus nodded and whimpered, holding her hand up to shield an oncoming attack, as though that would truly help her.

  “All succubi are banished from this land. Any found so much as a stone’s throw from the barrier will be punished by death. Be gone and never return.”

  She nodded and scampered away.

  He looked over the battle field and the utter chaos that was destroying everything in its wake. He had to do something more than just pick off the demons that strayed too close to him. Something more than just an ordinary illusion. He needed to make the tables turn in their favor.

  He had an idea.

  Standing off to the side, away from the fight, Steele smiled to himself. In his mind, he created an image of he and his brothers and Sadie fighting the army his father brought. He focused on all the details, which took great concentration. He didn’t want anything to tip off the other side to what he was doing.

  As he solidified the image in his mind, he changed a few of the soldiers to share the image of him, his brothers, and Sadie. That would give the real “them” reprieve from the constant fighting.

  Satisfied with what he saw in his mind, he pushed the image out, stretching it over his father’s army in the form of Sadie and his brothers charging with her army.

  With the illusion set, Steele took a moment to watch as his father’s soldiers turned on each other, mistaking each other for the enemy.

  He laughed and shook his head. He loved his skill. It came with its fair share of entertainment. But he couldn’t sit around and let his brothers and Sadie have all the fun. Jumping into the fray, he picked off the outliers, and those who tried to backstab anyone on his side. This way, he was still helping to defeat his own father’s army, and he could also still maintain the illusion he had set.

  DAMIEN

  After taking care of the next group of demons, he made his way toward Sadie. With his father closing the gap between him and her, he moved more urgently. His father would do anything, stop at nothing, to defeat his woman, and Damien would sooner kill himself than face a day without her. And it was that thought, that he couldn’t stand to be too far from her, which drove him forward. He needed to be closer, so he could jump in and save her if need be.

  Once he got within a satisfactory distance from her, he checked on the location of his brothers.

  Steele was to his left. He smiled as a group of Zagan’s soldiers turned on themselves. He stared at the group a little harder and could see through the smoke the haze of an illusion surrounding them.

  Damien nodded in approval. Very clever, brother.

  Kaiser was on the other side of Steele, fighting fire with fire. Kaiser had the fight in the bag as the warlock he fought struggled to maintain the upper-hand. The warlock lost control over his weapon and was set on fire. Not missing a beat, Kaiser stepped on to the next opponent.

  Mordecai was to Sadie’s right, shifting in and out of shadow form, making a couple of demons mad and dizzy before dealing the final blow to each of them.

  Astrid was behind Sadie, with a couple of her coven sisters at her side, using her magic to keep Sadie safe. A demon approached from either side and Astrid flicked her wrists toward both of them, sending a bolt of lightning to each. Their bodies fell mid-step, in a heaping, smoldering mound.

  Damien nodded.

  This fight was what they had prepared for, and soon they would all be free of his father’s tormenting ways. Sadie would be accepted as the new demon queen, growing her power and army as well.

  A group of five goblins surrounded Damien. He quickly worked to rid himself of them, so he could move on to the next group. He looked up right as he saw Sadie flying through the air. His eyes shifted to his father, laughing with wind swirling around his feet.

  No.

  He just blew a gale of wind into Sadie and he couldn’t see where she landed.

  Rage filled him, boiling over, throwing him into a murderous fit. Charging, he killed anything in his path. The only thing that mattered to him in the moment was killing his father and making sure Sadie was okay.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Sadie

  The force of the wind that blew into her kno
cked her from her feet. It sent her back so far that she hit the iron spires of her fence surrounding her fortress. The air was knocked from her lungs, and her head had banged against something hard, creating dots and black clouds in her vision. The staff fell from her grip.

  She fought against the endless confusion fogging her mind as she focused on her four demon princes that had rushed to stand in front of her. Their backs were turned toward her, and she wanted to tell them to stop. But she couldn’t force the words out.

  Struggling to get back to her feet, she fought against the weight of her body and commanded her legs to move, but it was like she had gotten cement poured over her. Every movement was sluggish and delayed, and she couldn’t get her vision to clear. Somewhere, someone called her name, but the sound was too far away.

  She wasn’t going to go down so quickly. She couldn’t let this be the end.

  As her vision began to clear, she realized her men were protecting her, guarding her against the attacks of their father. Astrid’s voice had become clearer and a warmth spread through her chest from her amulet. A cool sensation coated her head and she realized Astrid was murmuring words of healing.

  Sadie’s feeling returned to her and she stood. Zagan marched toward her men, launching fire, wind, rain, anything he could think of to get his sons out of the way. They blocked each attack and stood strong.

  But she couldn’t let them get hurt for her.

  She picked up the staff and took a few deep breaths, rolling her shoulders to alleviate the stiffness and the ache from the fall she had just endured. She called on her amulet’s magic, shooting tingling sensations through her body. She stepped around her men.