by Evan Currie
Caleb snarled wordlessly, kicking the legs out from under the next closest demon, hearing bone crunch as he did. The demon was still in midair, in the process of falling, when Caleb hit it with a double-axe-handle overhead blow that collapsed its chest cavity and drove it into the ground. He stepped over the body before it fell still and grabbed up his sword where it was sticking upright from the chest of the demon he’d killed earlier.
“I’m on it,” he growled, striding through the gap and breaking into a sprint as he now had a clear run to the stones.
*****
The overseer watched the fighting range across the field, wondering just where all the humans had come from in the first place.
I thought this region had been cleared by Lord Arhoth. Her Lady is not going to be pleased with his work, he thought.
The humans were giving a good accounting of themselves too, though that accounting would not be enough to win the day. There was a notable exception, one that might just be troublesome enough to tip the scales, and that was the one that attracted his focus.
The human was wearing some sort of armor, assuming it was human and not a traitorous demon or one of the forsaken. Tel had been around long enough not to be too quick to jump to conclusions. He knew well that humans had existed who could do what he was seeing, though it was odd that the human would have such armor and be using a simple-appearing sword.
Tel watched as the human killed off perhaps a dozen or more of the more pitiful demons under his command, letting their sacrifice show him the skill of the warrior. He settled the grip of the axe in his hand and began to walk across the field as he recognized the human’s goal.
Mildly skilled in the use of his weapon, Tel noted as he saw the casual grip the warrior held on his blade. But he’s intentionally leaning into the power of his armor rather than using that skill. Foolish.
Skill couldn’t be replaced by power.
When you tried, at best you wore yourself out quicker than you should, no matter what advantages you might have. To intentionally waste energy by forgoing the skills you had worked and bled to acquire was the height of arrogant foolishness.
Tel decided that the human was young. A properly fell warrior would know better, but a young pup full of himself and playing with a new toy . . . well, that was another story.
He grimaced slightly as the human killed a pair of demons with his armor-shod hands, then stepped over the bodies to retrieve his sword from the body of a third. There was a certain style there to be admired; if nothing else, the youth knew how to put on a show. It had clearly intimidated many of the others around him, but Tel hadn’t been picked at random from the circles’ hordes. He was a fell warrior himself and had killed many humans more skilled than this one over the centuries.
Hefting his axe as he strode into the human’s path, Tel twisted to stand face on to the human, checking his advance on the rune-master.
“Your charge ends here, human,” Tel rumbled, his voice deep and gravelly as he called across the stone and sand.
*****
Caleb fell back a step as the big demon he recognized as the overseer stepped into his path.
Unlike most of the demons that he’d fought so far, the overseer could almost be mistaken for a particularly large human. His skin wasn’t quite right, and there were bone protrusions that made his nature eminently obvious, but he was close enough to be of concern. The rule he knew was that the closer to human a demon looked, the more power it was likely to be commanding . . . unless it was one of the poor bastards just undergoing the beginning of the change.
This one was clearly well past that level, which meant Caleb was facing a serious threat.
Caleb shifted the grip on his blade and considered his options for attack as he began to absently step in one of the footwork patterns designed to draw the enemy out and into his own sphere.
“Smart, human,” the demon said, a rasping, raw chuckle filling the air. “Not so fast to charge into my axe, I see. I’m almost disappointed. I prefer my enemies stupid and dead.”
Caleb didn’t answer him, recognizing the attempt to draw him out in turn. He brought his blade up in a defensive position that would allow him to move to the offense in a split second if needed and continued to work, trying to circle the demon.
That idea went right out when the demon moved into his circle with a quick motion, forcing Caleb to back off or be caught inside the arc of that big axe.
“I told you, human, your charge ends here. Come through me or not at all; there are no other options for you here.”
He’s going to make me fight on his terms, Caleb decided grimly.
That closed a lot of the options that he’d been hoping to exploit. He wasn’t going to retreat, and that meant that he was going through.
Caleb shifted his stance and kicked off the ground with a powerful lunge that turned into a full charge as he reversed the sweep of his sword and struck out at the demon. He wasn’t surprised when the big axe came up to easily deflect his sword blade away, and he turned with the redirected force and dropped into a crouch as the demon’s axe flashed out to cleave only air where his head had been.
He swept his sword around and chopped for the demon’s legs with force to bisect a thick tree trunk but was disappointed when the demon opted to step back out of range of the swing before it could strike home. That ended the brief clash, as the demon was now out of range also, so Caleb slowly rose to his feet and glowered at the overseer from behind his helm.
He’s skilled.
In fact, the demon was likely more skilled than Caleb himself was, as much as the young man hated to admit it even to himself. He was also clearly stronger than a human by a significant margin, to judge by the size of the axe he wielded. Caleb didn’t know how much stronger, but it was clearly enough to offset at least some of the advantage of the armor.
Briefly he wished Elan were there. The weapon she carried would likely have won the day easily, but there was little point in wishing for the impossible.
Caleb flipped his blade over his wrist a couple of times, casually starting to circle again. His motions were intended to disguise his intent and hide what he was thinking, as a good fighter would be able to read a lot from the tension in his muscles alone if he left them nothing else to focus on.
The demon just laughed at him and turned to stay face on, once more leaving the initiation of action up to Caleb.
So he initiated.
*****
Merlin observed the fight, opting not to distract the boy as he determined the level of combatant the large demon represented. It was clear that this was definitely one of the larger threats, and Merlin wasn’t honestly certain whether Caleb was up to the task.
For the first time, the elemental intelligence wished that arming the boy with a real weapon had been an option. Unfortunately, like the armor, sidearms were gene-locked, and unlike the armor, Elan hadn’t asked him to unlock one for the boy, so he hadn’t.
It had seemed like a wise choice at the time. Arming one child with a weapon of that nature was bad enough, but given the situation at the time, Merlin hadn’t really thought that there was much worse damage she could manage . . . especially since she had mentally limited herself to using it in the blade form that was a tiny fraction of its potential power, at least initially.
Giving a pubescent boy the power to blow up practically anything he wanted seemed downright stupid.
Perhaps I should have considered that needing that firepower and not having it was far worse than the opposite.
Old rules were fine for the time in which they’d been made, but it was clear that those times were past.
Live through this, boy, and I’ll see you properly equipped . . . and trained, Merlin amended carefully. Some old rules held true in any situation, after all.
Helpless.
He hated it, but he was standing there and could do nothing but watch and wait.
*****
Simone snarled as she hacked her b
lade through the tough hide of the demon she’d engaged, earning a howl of pain and a stumbling step as it tried to get away from her before collapsing as its life fluid poured out over her feet.
She looked to the right and left, getting an idea of the costs of the fight so far, and realized that it wasn’t really particularly encouraging. She didn’t know how many they’d lost, but a lot of the men and women who’d come with them to fight were down and bleeding, and the demons now seemed to have them outnumbered.
A glance up the field told her that a few of the slaves had tried to rise up with the distraction but not enough to make a difference. Caleb was behind the lines, far enough away that she barely caught glimpses of him from time to time. She worried as she recognized that he was holding off his charge now, and there was a lumbering demon with a massive axe facing off against him.
Don’t die, Caleb, she thought desperately as she threw herself back into the fight, trying in vain to turn the tide she knew was now against them.
“Hold them back!” she yelled. “Rear lines! Regroup!”
Simone put her weight into the fight as people rushed forward to pull out the wounded, and a second line got into place to renew the assault.
We need to turn this around. We can’t win this on the defensive, damn it!
Her heart was dropping, though. She had been in enough fights to know that turning this one around was unlikely now. It would be close, but the demons were stronger than they’d believed. Close would not be enough . . . yet there had seemed few options before and fewer of them now.
Simone heard a coughing roar, an inhuman sound, and almost ignored it. It was far from the only inhuman sound on the battlefield that day, but it was accompanied by screaming and it came from behind her. Her blood ran cold as she risked a look over her shoulder.
Men and women were scattering, falling on their backsides as the jungle behind them exploded with wildlife. Large cats, boars, and things crawling came rushing out. Her heart froze in her chest, but then the lead animals just ignored the people as they ran past. One big black cat charged right toward her and flung itself into the air as Simone twisted to avoid it.
It wasn’t aiming for her, however, and two hundred pounds of jungle cat slammed into a demon coming up to attack her with a force she did not want to contemplate, sending both rolling to the ground as she tried to wrap her mind around what she was seeing.
It was one thing to watch over Merlin’s projections, but the real thing was something else entirely.
She lifted her blade up, twisting it to catch the light, and called out as loudly as she could.
“Push forward! The demons! Kill the demons!”
*****
Merlin watched over the battle, stunned beyond words and nearly beyond thought as he watched the intervention of animals and insects into the fight. Earlier, upon watching the enraged fighting between the local fauna and the demonic threat, he had assumed that something the demons had done with runic engraving had somehow generated a field that drove the animals to a rage.
Now it was clear that they were intentionally bypassing, and even saving, the human fighters as they went for the demons’ throats.
He’d never seen anything like this in the entire run of the war, though there had certainly been isolated cases where animals were known to attack and kill demons . . . but then they’d been known to do the same to humans who violated their territory as well.
No report ever had wild animals intervening of their own free will to support a human engagement with demonic forces.
Merlin had no idea what was going on, and the situation so totally defied his expectations that he had no idea how to best take advantage of the shift.
*****
Caleb hit the ground on his back, skidding along the stone as a ringing between his ears seemed to drown out everything around him. He lay there for a moment, staring up at the blue sky above and wondering if it was always that blue or if he had taken a bit more of a hit than he thought.
Well, that didn’t work, he thought as he struggled to sit up, working his jaw and shaking his head as the ringing slowly dropped off.
He looked down at the sword in his hand and grimaced, noting that it had been bent almost thirty degrees when he’d used it to block the axe that had almost ended his life. He couldn’t make himself regret the weapon’s sacrifice, but it still pained him to see his reliable blade look like that.
Caleb climbed to his feet and looked over to where the demon was smirking at him, waiting for him to recover, with a total arrogant confidence that . . . sadly, Caleb had to admit was probably not misplaced.
That didn’t mean he was giving up.
He gripped the blade on either side of the bend and glared over the sword at the demon as he strained and slowly bent the iron sword back almost straight.
A casual flip and twist of the sword in his hand told him that while the balance was a little off from the damage, it wasn’t too bad . . . especially not with the strength of his armor taking up a lot of the difference. He started forward again until a commotion distracted him.
Both Caleb and the demon overseer half turned, surprised to see the tide of the battle turning as great cats and other beasts of the jungle joined the battle on the side of the humans.
“Huh?”
Caleb didn’t have any other response to what he was seeing, just a slightly bewildered acknowledgment of it. That might be all the reaction he needed anyway. He turned back to the fight at hand, stretching his neck a bit as he continued to flip the blade around his wrist with a casual, easy motion.
“Come on then, human,” the demon growled. “It seems I can no longer play with you. Time to die.”
“For one of us,” Caleb agreed, speaking for the first time. “Let’s see which.”
The two hefted their weapons as one and charged.
Chapter 22
“So what is this thing anyway?” Elan asked, holding up the cylinder as she followed Brokkr through the back alleys of the demon city.
She had experienced enough over the past while to know better than to make silly assumptions about something someone had implied had more to it than appearances, and the etchings she saw on it reminded her of the runes she’d watched etched in stone as well as the ones Brokkr himself had put on her armor to effect a measure of repair.
“Sindri’s backup,” Brokkr grunted, not looking back at her as they walked. “Just give it a flick while putting a bit of intent to it.”
Elan started to flick the cylinder before pausing, confused. “Intent? How would I do that?”
Brokkr just shook his head. “Same way you changed that weapon of yours. Humans were pretty close to discovering their own language for communicating with the universe before you lost the war. A lot of your toys were just a few hairs away from magic in all but name.”
Elan looked at the cylinder curiously for a moment before following his advice and flicking it, thinking change as hard as she could at the same time.
It bucked in her hand so hard that she almost dropped it as the small bit of metal suddenly snapped out to just over five feet of solid steel, digging into the stone of the wall next to her and tearing a chunk out of it in the process. She flinched as a shard of stone nicked her forehead but managed to keep from dropping the weapon. She turned it over in her hand, considering it briefly. It felt . . . oddly light in her hand.
“It’s a staff.” She blinked, a little surprised. “I have some training with a staff.”
“Good; I expect you’ll need it,” Brokkr told her, gesturing up ahead of them. “There’s an old communications hub under that building ahead. We should be able to find a link to the city’s main communication trunk there.”
Elan nodded, more focused on testing the feel and swing of the staff in her hand. She casually flipped it around her wrist a couple of times, then smoothly rotated it from one hand to another, bringing it to a halt behind her shoulder, when she winced as it contacted bone with a sharp rap.
“Be careful with that.” Brokkr glanced back at her. “Sindri inscribed those runes personally, and he’s quite good at what he does. As I recall, he dumped mass into the underverse but maintained the effect. Tricky bit of rune work that, as it’ll cause it to hit like a much heavier weapon despite not tearing your arms off in the process. He didn’t put any discrimination on it, though, so if you hit yourself in the head with it, you might live to regret your carelessness.”
Elan jerked slightly, extending the weapon away from herself as she looked at it askance. She’d nailed herself more than once with her training staff back when Simone was teaching her, and the idea that she might do more than give herself a nasty bruise with this one suddenly worried her.
“Are you serious?” she asked, uncertain.
“Of course I am.” Brokkr rolled his eyes. “I have no interest in joking with you, girl. Don’t be afraid of it, but do respect the weapon. You don’t casually throw a sharp blade around, do you? Or play with that sidearm you had?”
Elan shuddered.
Merlin would have flayed her alive if she’d done the second, especially within Avalon.
Brokkr nodded curtly at her reaction. “Well, treat that no different. It is a weapon, to be respected by its wielder and by those you face with it. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Elan hesitated but then nodded in return. “Okay.”
Brokkr turned his attention away from her and gestured to the building in front of them. “Come. Let’s find you that communications line.”
*****
The city was burning.
Jolinr found himself honestly stunned by that. He’d never seen the like in his life, and he had often been at the center of whatever possible trouble there was to find. Everywhere they looked, there were slaves raging against the demons, and often winning where they had been faced with the weaker examples of their oppressors.
“What happened?” Jol asked, wondering at it all.
“Revolution, Jol. It ferments below the surface where it can’t be seen,” Sindri answered as they watched the mess unrolling before them. “The harsher the society, the more powerful the revolution will be when something brings it to the surface.”
