The Demon City

by Evan Currie

  The demon’s eyes barely had time to widen before Jol snapped the hammer across in a vicious arc that snapped his head around and cracked the bones in his neck and jaw. He tumbled over, the din of fighting above him growing vanishingly quiet as he struck the ground.

  *****

  “Scour the demons for weapons,” Elan ordered as she stepped over a fallen demon’s corpse. “More will be coming. We have to move.”

  “Who the hells are you?” a belligerent voice snarled in her direction, causing Elan to half turn back to see who’d spoken.

  It was a big man, dirty, as the slaves were wont to be. He was holding a jagged sword that had seen its best days several decades past, but it was dripping black ichor and other materials that passed for demon blood, so Elan gave him a brief nod in respect for his ability, if not his manners.

  “My name is Elan,” she said coolly. “Yourself?”

  In the corner of her eye, highlighted by the ocular induction unit salvaged from her armor, Elan saw Brokkr barely suppressing a laughing fit. He looked ridiculous leaning on the wall like that. She rolled her eyes, turning her focus back to the man who had yet to answer her and was surprised to see that he looked taken aback.

  “What?” she asked, planting her staff in the ground, leaning on it as she stretched slightly and noted the demon gore that had spattered her arm.

  She wiped it away as best she could, then did the same to her face with the back of her fist, grimacing as she noted the smear left on the back of her hand. Lovely. This filth is going to take hours to get off if it dries.

  “I meant who are you to be giving us orders, little girl?” the big man asked, having recovered from his surprise.

  Elan cocked her head to one side. “You object to taking their weapons?”

  “What? No!”

  “Then you don’t believe more will be coming?” she pressed.

  “That’s not the point!”

  She shook her head, confused. “You have a point?”

  Brokkr’s laughter set off several others, igniting a hysterical wave of snickering that swept around them, which seemed to drive the man into a red-faced silence. Elan, assuming he was done, turned away from him to survey the situation a little more closely.

  Her first hint of trouble was Brokkr ceasing his laughter and stiffening straight up, his expression turning thunderous.

  She turned her head just slightly, the optical system picking up movement in her periphery. Elan twisted, sweeping her staff up and around, and intersected the jagged blade in midair, deflecting it off and down into the ground. She held it there with the leverage of her staff, instinctively driving a left jab into the man’s nose and rocking his head back.

  Her follow-through was to step into his position, snap her foot up to the back of his knee, and kick down, taking the tall man down to one knee. She barely refrained from stomping into the strike and shattering said knee, instead merely sweeping the staff shortly across his temple and sending him toppling to the ground, sprawled across a fallen demon’s body.

  Silence filled the entire open area as she stood there, looking around.

  “Well?” she thundered, shocking everyone. “Pick up the weapons!”

  Everyone scattered, rushing to search bodies and retrieve weapons as Brokkr approached her with his amused air having returned.

  “That was bracing,” he told her, grinning damn near ear to ear.

  Elan scowled at both him and the one who’d attacked her as he lay there in pain. “Why would he attack me?”

  “A combination of things,” Brokkr responded casually, too casually for her liking. “You humiliated him, in his eyes, and he felt that he was more deserving of command than you.”

  “Command? I am not in command of any of this,” Elan protested. “There is barely anything to command!”

  “That is not how they see things,” Brokkr assured her. “However, you handled it well.”

  “You barely did anything,” Elan scowled. “You could have helped.”

  “Wasn’t needed.” He shrugged. “And ’sides, my brother and I were never warriors, girl.”

  “What were you?” She frowned, remembering Kaern. She had assumed that they would have been like him, and he was certainly a warrior.

  “Smiths,” Brokkr answered with a simple shrug. “Weaponsmiths of late, but we started out with more peaceable lines.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  That made some sense.

  “We need a plan,” he told her seriously. “Otherwise, flailing about will end in tears when that summoning circle is completed.”

  Elan nodded grimly. “I know. I know what I have to do . . .”

  “What of them?” Brokkr gestured about.

  Elan glanced down at the man who’d attacked her, booting him lightly and eliciting a groan. “You think he was a leader? Some of them seemed to be looking to him.”

  Brokkr chuckled but nodded. “Aye, most likely.”

  “Great.” She grimaced, dropping to one knee and wrapping a hand in filthy hair, yanking him around so she could slap him across the face. “Hey! Jackass! Wake up.”

  The man moaned and, after two more slaps that she enjoyed more than she should have, blinked and opened his eyes.

  He looked up at Elan, who was glaring down at him, and started violently, only to be held down by his hair.

  “Stop struggling, idiot,” Elan snapped. “We need to have a talk.”

  “Who the hells are you?” he snarled up at her.

  “Covered that. Elan,” she said, tapping her chest. “Now who the hells are you?”

  He snarled at her, only for Elan to drop her staff across his throat and push down.

  “I’m Stephan!” he choked out after several seconds, slapping his free hand on the ground.

  “Good, now get up,” Elan said, straightening to her feet and kicking his blade away.

  She stepped back, giving him room to climb to his own feet. Stephan did so, rubbing his throat and glowering at her as he did.

  “Attack me again,” she said with a pleasant smile, “and I highly recommend you don’t miss, because I’ll end you and leave you rotting here with the demons. Clear?”

  “Crystal,” Stephan answered sourly.

  “Good, because we don’t have time for this idiocy,” she growled.

  Honestly, who attacks a fellow human in the middle of a fight like this? Elan thought in annoyance more than anything.

  “The city dies tonight,” she said, jabbing him lightly in the chest with her staff. “The only question left now is whether we kill it or if they do.”

  “You can’t kill a city, girl.”

  “Oh, I can,” Elan said seriously, “but that leaves a major problem.”

  “Other than your insanity?” he grumbled unhappily.

  “Yes. All these people,” she gestured around, “are going to die if someone doesn’t lead them to safety. You’re nominated.”

  “Pardon me?” he blurted, unbelieving.

  Elan looked over at Brokkr. “I think he’s too stupid to do the job.”

  “Kill him then.” Brokkr shrugged. “We’ll find another.”

  “Wait a second!” Stephan threw up his hands. “I just don’t understand what you’re talking about. Why me?”

  “For reasons I cannot fathom,” Elan rolled her eyes, “these people were looking to you after the fight, until you decided to be an idiot, at least. So you have drawn the task.” She looked over to Brokkr. “You know where to find the entrance to the old command center?”

  Brokkr nodded. “’Course.”

  “Good.” Elan looked back, pinning Stephan with a glare. “He’ll show you where to go. You gather everyone you can find. I’ll be sending more down, but you only have a few hours before everyone dies.” She jabbed him again with the staff, pushing him back a couple of steps. “You asked who I am. That was the wrong question.”

  She spotted a group that had begun to gather around them, listening quietly as she faced off w
ith the bigger man.

  “W . . . what was the right question?” he asked, confused but recognizing the situation he was in . . . to a point, at least.

  “You should have asked where did she come from?” Brokkr filled in, far too happily for Elan’s taste, but she nodded.

  “W . . . where did you come from?” Stephan asked, looking as though he was uncertain if he wanted to know.

  “Not the city,” Brokkr answered for her, “and she can get you all out. Do you really need to know more than that?”

  Elan looked around, seeing the eyes around her widen and hearing murmurs start, and she suddenly recognized the position she was in.

  How did I get here again? she wondered.

  “How do we know that’s true?” Stephan demanded suspiciously.

  “Go to the command center with Brokkr, and you’ll find out,” Elan snapped, having a sense of time running out on her.

  “That is a point. However,” Brokkr said, “the center will be locked down, won’t it?”

  Elan nodded curtly. “A moment . . .” She stepped back. “Are you listening?”

  “Of course we’re—” Steph grunted as Brokkr jabbed him in the ribs with the top of his axe.

  “She’s not talking to us, idiot.”

  “Let them in when they arrive,” Elan said before frowning. “I don’t care. Let them in. We’ll sort them later. There’s no time for this paranoia here, and you know it. Alright. Good.”

  She looked back to Brokkr.

  “You’re cleared.”

  “Good.” Brokkr nodded, then hesitated. “About my brother and Jol . . .”

  “I’m heading there now,” Elan promised. “Just save as many as you can.”

  “Aye, lass,” he said. “We’ll do just that. Come on, idiot, let’s go.”

  With some prodding and grumbling, Elan and Brokkr got Stephan to help get the rest moving in the right direction, with promises to gather up everyone they could along the way. After a few minutes, Elan was standing alone in the open, wondering about her life choices as they’d brought her to this.

  Against all odds, I must have done something right.

  She grinned and jogged off in the direction where Merlin had located Jolinr and Sindri.

  *****

  The feeling of dark, sickly power emanating from the standing stones chilled even Ser’Goth’s bones, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

  Everything chooses this moment in time to explode. She wondered at the dark irony of that, but until it was all over with and she was standing on the bodies of her enemies, there was little more she could do than fight.

  The city was in riot, a nearly unimaginable circumstance just days earlier.

  For all that, they were nearly at the end of the line too. The riots were the last gasp of a dying people, who had too long cowered in the stocks for this to make any difference. When the elder came through, the city would be a sacrifice to appease the greater power. She would oversee the final moments of this world as a human planet and then find another front line to take command of.

  There was almost an unending list to choose from. This universe was a trunk dimension, from which infinite stable branches existed. That was why it had been such a high priority in the first place, as the strategic value alone was nearly impossible to overestimate.

  Most universes produced relatively few stable offshoots, though all produced near infinite splits. Most merely existed for a time, perhaps a fraction of a second or a billion years, and then they would inevitably rejoin with the primary. Those splits were of almost no value; even a billion years was no time at all to the circles. Stable universes had value, and those that produced stable universes were priceless.

  Next time, she would pick a nice dead-end but stable universe. One of no strategic value, yet with enough inherent value to be a feather in her cap as ruler.

  That was for later. First, there were things to deal with.

  Three demon runners converged on her from different directions, bringing news. Ser’Goth nodded to the least panicked-looking.

  “Report.”

  “Rioters have been contained along the south section, my lady. However, more forces will be required to secure the city there.”

  Ser’Goth nodded. “Return. Tell them to hold until relieved.”

  He ran off, leaving her to turn to the other two.

  “You two look worried. Talk.”

  They exchanged nervous glances, then one stepped forward. “Human leaders have taken over the rioters to the east, my lady. They’ve pushed our forces back . . . We lost dozens of stronger demons and scores of—”

  “I don’t care about the weaker losses.” She cut him off. “Who are the leaders?”

  The messenger looked nervous. “My lady, you know him . . . it is . . .”

  “Jolinr,” she hissed, cutting him off. “I should have ended him a long time ago.”

  She looked aside, then back to the other demon.

  “And you?”

  “All demons in the west sector have been . . . killed, my lady.”

  “What? How?”

  “We don’t know.”

  Ser’Goth was perilously close to losing her temper, and she knew it. She closed her eyes, calming herself until the rage turned cold, rather than burning hot, and finally opened them.

  “Send our remaining forces to the west,” she ordered. “I will go to the east myself.”

  “My lady!”

  “Silence!” she snarled. “Jolinr is mine to deal with. Go, convey my orders.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  She saw them off before extending her wings fully and pumping them hard, lifting into the air. Once airborne, she circled a few times to gain height and then turned off to the east.

  She had an old pet to bring to heel.

  Chapter 25

  Elan slid along the ground, trying to slow herself with her hands, barely keeping stable as she plummeted down the incline.

  “I could have stayed aboveground much easier!” she snarled, irritated beyond belief.

  “Yes, but this allows you to do multiple things at once, and as you said, time is running short.” Merlin’s unnaturally calm voice bugged her then for some reason.

  “Right, right,” she muttered, slipping off the incline and falling a short distance to land in the dark. She straightened, looking around. “Where am I?”

  “Maintenance tunnels,” Merlin responded. “Turn to your right and proceed straight from there. I will guide you to the flood control junctions.”

  Elan twisted to the right and took off at a run, heading down the long and surprisingly large tunnel. “This is huge. What did they do here again?”

  “Primary maintenance,” Merlin responded. “It meant large machinery much of the time, as the pylons that hold the city up are quite massive, even by the standards of the day.”

  Elan didn’t really want to know what kind of machinery existed that needed this much space to operate in, but then she had little enough experience with machinery of any sort. The transport system was the closest she’d gotten to any sort of understanding of the ancient technology, and even that was less than the most basic understanding.

  “Be careful. Your scanners are detecting motion ahead.”

  “Demon?” she asked, uncertain, though she didn’t slow her pace.

  “Unknown,” Merlin replied. “However, it would seem likely.”

  “Great.”

  Unfortunately, the damage her armor had taken—effectively the complete destruction of it, that was—had also destroyed almost all the advanced scanners. She only had the basic visual systems, which, according to Merlin, were the least effective ones because they were, in large part, crippled by using her eyes as the primary scanners.

  Still, Merlin could see more than she could, so she would take what help she could get.

  “Target is a hundred yards ahead. Unknown motion is increasing.”

  Elan just redoubled her speed, running head
long into the dark. The time for caution had long since passed, which suited her just fine because she’d never been one for caution in the first place.

  Something lunged at her out of the darkness, and she only spotted it because a tiny gleam of light reflected off dark eyeballs at the last moment. Elan reacted by going low as the lunge brought the figure over her, then snapped upright and leveraged the staff between its legs. She spun it over and slammed it into the ground with a vicious force, drawing back her weapon to stab down and finish the fight.

  She pulled the blow at the last second, her eyes locking on the terrified face of a boy not much older than she, staring up at her.

  “Merlin?”

  “Human. Or as close as I can say, given the current lack of scanners,” he answered instantly.

  Elan snarled but rose away from the boy and glanced around. There was movement in the darkness; she could see it now, if only barely.

  “Get up,” she ordered.

  The boy got to his feet hesitantly. “You’re . . . not a demon?”

  Elan shot him a glare that could easily have been mistaken for demonic, but she’d likely have killed anyone who suggested it.

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “Hiding.”

  “Stupid,” Elan muttered furiously.

  “The demons—”

  “Not you,” she snapped. “Me. Damn it, how many are down here?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” he stammered.

  “Merlin, we’ll kill thousands!” Elan hissed, shocking those listening. “We can’t.”

  Merlin’s voice echoed in the corridor, startling everyone, including Elan, as he spoke in the open.

  “Anyone remaining in the city by morning will be dead anyway. The elder are coming. You know this.”

  “But . . .” She looked around helplessly.

  “Send them to the command center and complete the mission,” Merlin ordered. “There are no other options.”

  Elan screamed, scaring everyone around her, but nodded.

  “Fine,” she snapped, turning to the boy. “You, gather everyone you can. Merlin, can you guide them?”

  “I can,” Merlin confirmed, “from point to point, at least.”

  “I’m not going anywhere you tell me to!” the boy said. “You’re one of them, you’re a—urk!”