Order of the Fire Box Set

by P. E. Padilla

  The beast was down, the threat ended, but Kate felt uncomfortable. Though everyone else’s attention was on the creature, waiting to see if it would move again, she looked to the gate.

  Hordes of demons were pouring through.

  “The gate,” she screamed at the officer. “They’re coming through the gate.”

  The man looked to her, ready to give her a tongue-lashing, but then he noticed her arms swinging and pointing at the gate. He turned and his eyes doubled in size.

  “The gate,” he shouted. “They’re coming through the gate. Shield wall, form up. Archers, nock. Archers draw and fire at will.”

  Arrows flew toward the coming mass of demon bodies, but they didn’t have much time. Soon, the enemy was among the shields, and the archers could do nothing but try to pick off those demons still close to the gate or risk injuring their own troops.

  Kate looked at the stair, and her heart dropped. The reserve units were at the bottom, with no way to get to the top. The demon’s carcass blocked the stairs at the bottleneck, effectively trapping those at the top and preventing those below from helping.

  Officers and sergeants screamed back and forth up and down the stairs, each having their own idea how to clear the obstacle. A captain finally took command from the group below and started the men pushing and pulling on the massive corpse, striving to clear at least a small pathway.

  Meanwhile, the demons were making a joke of the partially formed shield wall. They twisted in between shields that were not placed correctly and tore at the soldiers holding them. A few went down at a time, opening up even greater holes, allowing more demons to get through.

  Kate was horrified. Her trainers had explained what would happen when a wall broke. She had even seen it happen during the shield wall push contests. Those things were nothing compared to what she was now witnessing. Without their primary tactic, the Reds had no defense against the demons. The monsters were tearing the men apart almost at will.

  She took a step toward the edge of the platform, fully intending on joining the fray, but a noise caught her attention off to her left. It sounded like a cheer. A human cheer.

  A swirl of black announced one of the Black brothers joining the fray. He strode through the soldiers manning the shield wall as if they weren’t even there and was soon beyond it, in the midst of the demons charging in.

  Kate watched as the black-clothed and cloaked man with the death-face mask flowed from enemy to enemy, cutting them down as easily as if he was harvesting wheat with a razor-sharp scythe. It was a different man than she had seen before, his death-face mask a twisted parody of a wolf, but he fought just as effectively.

  The demons rallied and swarmed him, but before Kate could even exhale the breath she had been holding, he spun free, slashing with his sword and shield—all of the edges of which appeared to be sharpened rather than just the serrated sections like on Kate’s shield—and made his way free of the mob. In his wake, piles of dead and dying demons lay, the ones not quite finished twitching wildly.

  A shout rose up from the shield wall as they scrambled back into place. Kate’s heart leapt. How could one person be so powerful? Captain Wills must be crazy to want to disband the Black. This one member of the Order was going to save the day.

  A roar shook the air, causing Kate’s whole body to vibrate. Beyond the demon fodder, a larger demon, a commander, stomped toward the Black brother. It was bigger than the regular demon soldiers, with massive curved horns on its head. This one’s face was more bestial than human, with a wide snout and a mouth of sharp teeth splitting its face. The same type of midnight-black eyes as on the smaller demons, oversized for its head, stared out and fixed upon the man in black before it.

  Kate had read about this type of demon, too. They were one of the few more powerful demons who passed through the gate. The others were so affected by the large firestones that they almost never came through.

  Not so with the demon commanders.

  Some of the commanders used magic, though popular wisdom said that they could not use their powers effectively in the vicinity of the firestones. Even without, though, the creatures were formidable. They, unlike the typical demon the shield wall faced, used weapons.

  The Black brother finished off several of the lesser demons as he waited for the commander. He seemed calm, in control, keeping his eye on the larger foe while cleaning up the area for his upcoming battle.

  The demon commander reached its intended target and swung its great axe, the blade nearly as big as the human it would be pitted against. It clanged against the human’s shield and nearly ripped it from the Black’s grasp. If it wasn’t for the man spinning to deflect much of the force of the blow, Kate figured it would have.

  As he spun, the soldier of the Order lashed out with his sword, scoring a shallow cut along the demon’s forearm. It looked down, noticed the line of green on its dark red flesh, and grinned. Its long tongue flicked out to lap up some of its own blood, and the smile widened.

  The next few seconds were as intense as any combat Kate had seen. The demon, nearly twice the size of the man, swung its axe with a speed and strength that shouldn’t have been possible for such a huge weapon. The Black, for his part, moved like a mongoose, dodging, deflecting, and counterattacking with his own weapon.

  Neither seemed to be able to get the upper hand until, suddenly, the demon twisted the axe in its hand and struck downward with the flat of the blade, making it impossible to dodge completely. The force of the blow was taken entirely on the shield.

  The Black brother’s arm snapped as the shield was mangled and torn away from his grasp. Through his pain, he tried to jab at the demon’s eye, but his thrust was blocked with the axe shaft.

  Another twist of the axe head, and the blade cut cleanly through the human’s sword arm, cleaving it from the man’s body.

  A collective gasp rose up from the humans watching. Kate was surprised to realize her voice joined the tumult.

  Time stopped in that one, horrific moment.

  Kate reached out, as if she could by some means stop what she knew was going to happen. She saw clearly the axe drop from the demon commander’s hand. The Black brother’s eyes tracked it as it settled to the blood-soaked earth. He lifted his head to look into the demon’s eyes.

  The demon casually reached down and tore the masked head off its body in a gout of blood. Red blood.

  The demon threw the head at the shield wall, picked up the body, and sucked on the empty neck.

  It was so quiet, Kate could hear everything. The head thumping off a shield and falling to the ground. The demon slurping, sucking out the blood from the Black’s twitching body. The clatter of chain mail as the Reds in the shield wall shifted. The sound of several humans vomiting added to the symphony of woe and loss.

  Then the silence was broken by hoots and howls from the demons. In their blood lust, they clawed at the ground and screeched in their disgusting language.

  Kate knew what would come next.

  The shield bearers looked toward each other, and Kate could see it in their wide, frantic eyes. They were ready to bolt. Something had to be done.

  The huge demon roared, and the air shook with the force of it. A few in the shield wall dropped their shields to put their hands over their ears, eyes wide and darting.

  The replacement troops were still trying to get past the huge demon carcass on the Great Stair, and there were no other black cloaks to be seen anywhere. If something wasn’t done quickly, at least some of the Reds on the shield wall would turn and run, leaving openings for the demons to get through and slaughter the rest of them.

  Kate hopped down from her platform, tearing her robes off as she went—revealing just a tunic and trousers made of rough, thick material—and calmly strode toward the line. She reached down to the corpse of one of the Reds and scooped up his sword as she went. Two steps later, she kicked a stray shield up into the air, snatching it with her left hand, slipping her arm into the handle as she m
ade her way toward the front of the shield wall.

  The demon roared again.

  This time, the other demons added their own growls, screeches, and chittering to the cacophony. A few of the Reds did actually turn and start to run away.

  Kate swung the sword to gauge its weight and began to jog, the task made easier without the bulky robes or the chain mail she would have usually been in during battle. By the time she reached the demon commander, she was at a dead run. She pushed off hard with her right foot and flew toward the monster.

  The demon’s black eyes locked onto the foe and its mouth twisted into what could only be half hatred and half confusion. It scooped its axe from the ground and brought it up to block the flying human’s attack.

  The ring of steel meeting steel echoed across the field, silencing the demons. They were too busy watching the battle to attack the Reds, and the Order soldiers were too caught up in the action to move, either to attack or to flee.

  The demon’s axe deflected Kate’s blow, but the momentum she had built up knocked the weapon away. Before landing on the ground, Kate slashed at the demon’s face with her shield, scoring a cut from its left eye down across its cheek.

  The green ichor oozed down onto its neck and into its mouth, but it didn’t revel in it this time. It glared at her as if it didn’t know where she had come from and hoped to send her back. Kate wasn’t sure how she knew from its twisted visage; maybe it was projecting its thoughts to her. If so, she was looking forward to hearing more.

  Let him look, she thought. I’ll be the last thing it will ever see.

  The demon circled the axe around and chopped at Kate, but she wasn’t where the weapon slashed. She dodged to the right and pushed on the blade with her shield to deflect it, driving its head deeply into the ground.

  With almost casual grace, Kate slammed the spikes on her shield into the demon’s forearm, rotated her hips, and brought the sword down on top of the demon’s head. Her strike was so powerful it sheared off one horn completely and took part of the skull with it.

  Kate never stopped moving, circling the sword into a backhand cut deeply into the right side of the demon’s neck. The motion changed in the blink of an eye into a precise thrust into the demon’s chest, between the bony armor within its skin, and then out just as quickly.

  The demon thrashed at her with its bare hands, claws searching for flesh to rend. When it swiped at her in a low horizontal slash, Kate leapt into the air, tucked into a front flip, and then extended her body just in time for a final strike. Her uncoiling frame, led by her sword, came down on the demon commander like an explosion, cleaving its head in two as the sword continued on until it caught on the breast bone halfway down its chest.

  Kicking the already dead demon from her sword, Kate whirled and lopped off her foe’s head as the body fell.

  She gritted her teeth and growled, swinging her sword to flick the green blood from the blade. When she turned to look at the mass of demons, she only saw fear.

  They were not cheering now.

  Kate let out a primal yell and threw herself at the mass of twisted bodies before they could recover. Her shield swung and battered at the demons as her sword dealt out death to everything around her.

  Some of the demons made an attempt to rally, a few even scoring slashes that, if Kate had been wearing her armor, would have been turned aside. The simple clothing under her robes made poor protection, though, and the brown of her pants and white of her tunic were soon splotched with red.

  Still she kept fighting.

  The Reds were slow to react, but Kate perceived outside her main focus that someone was yelling orders. In her peripheral vision, the wall formed up again. It mattered little to her. The battle rage was on her, and she intended to make these monsters pay for their transgressions.

  The demons soon realized that to be anywhere near Kate meant instant death. It started with a few, and then more, and then all the demons turned and fled, sprinting for the safety of the gate.

  And Kate continued to kill them. Facing her or fleeing, she killed them.

  Her vision swam, and then there were no more dark bodies around her. She was surrounded instead by clinking mail and red cloaks.

  She shook her head and blinked several times. When her vision cleared completely, there was not a live demon in sight. The gates, only twenty feet from her, closed with a clang. She looked back toward the stairs, and the city, and the castle, and she smiled.

  Then she collapsed into unconsciousness.

  22

  Snatches of images passed before Kate’s eyes, and strange sensations accompanied them. Blue robes, jostling, speech—some of it firm—the touch of water on her skin. She bounced back and forth between wakefulness and the cold, dark comfort of sleep.

  And then she knew no more.

  Kate woke with a start. She opened her eyes too quickly, and the light blinded her temporarily. She squinted, trying to figure out where she was.

  “Ah,” an older man’s kindly voice said. “I see you have awakened. I did not expect it for at least several more hours, but then, you are not the average young woman. Or even the average soldier.”

  Kate put her hand up to shade her eyes. Her muscles protested, and a few sharp lines of red-hot pain flared in her shoulder.

  “You’ll want to move carefully,” the man said. “You had several cuts, some of them fairly deep. I have sewn them back together, but they will be tender as they heal, and you will not want to tear them.”

  Blinking rapidly, she cleared her vision enough to recognize some of what was around her.

  The man was stooped, with barely any white hair on his head, and wore blue robes. The chirurgeon. She had seen him before, though she had never needed his services.

  “Wh…” Kate cleared her throat of the layer of dust that seemed to be in there. “What happened?”

  “You saved us all,” another voice said, one she recognized. “You killed that big demon. The one even the Black couldn’t kill. Then you carved through their army like they were made of butter. Oh, then you passed out from all the blood you lost.”

  Kate turned to see Wilfred’s smiling face. His robes were shredded and had blood stains in many places.

  “This young man carried you down the stairs and to my rooms, demanding you be treated before anyone else,” the chirurgeon said. “He was rather fierce about it.” The man’s rheumy eyes twinkled as he winked at her.

  “I…uh…you were hurt,” Wilfred said. “And after saving us all like that. I wasn’t about to let you die from something as stupid as slow blood loss.”

  “Thank you,” Kate said to him and, accepting a cup of water from the chirurgeon, repeated to him, “Thank you. How long have I been here?”

  “It is less than a day,” the old man said. “You needed mending, rest, and fluids. You will require several days, possibly weeks, until you are completely healed, but you should be good as new in no time.”

  “The gates?” she asked.

  “They closed,” Wilfred said. “Right after you trounced the demons and they ran for their lives, the gate closed again. It hasn’t opened up today, as far as I know. I doubt it will for some time.” He smiled widely, cracking a bit of blood on his face. It didn’t look like it was his.

  “It was something to see,” the chirurgeon said. “Wilfred, here, carrying you with you bleeding and with more than a hundred people following. It looked like a royal procession.”

  “Or a funeral,” Wilfred said, chuckling nervously.

  “Or that,” the old man agreed. “Fear not, though, my dear. You were really in no danger of dying, not unless you continued to bleed for many more hours. From what the others have told me happened, you are surprisingly unhurt.”

  “That’s because she’s the best warrior in the Order,” Wilfred said. “I’ll never forget how you kicked that shield up and charged the big demon. They’ll be telling stories about it for decades. You’ll be more famous than Bernar Giron, more than Kore
n Merklen.”

  “Oh, stop,” Kate said. “You know how much I had been itching to get into battle. I finally got a chance. I just hope I don’t get in trouble again for it.”

  A scuff of a boot and the creaking of the door caught everyone’s attention.

  A man stood in the doorway, dressed all in black with a black cloak and a death mask hanging from his belt. If the man himself wasn’t familiar, that mask was. It looked like an elongated imp’s face, sharp teeth and red tongue recreated in striking detail. It was Bernar Giron himself. Kate hoped he hadn’t heard what Wilfred had just said.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Bernar said, his voice deep but smooth. Calming.

  “No, no,” the chirurgeon said. “Our heroine here has just woken up. I expect she’s going to want to jump out of bed and start training or some such nonsense.”

  The man smiled, the expression barely shifting the lower half of his face. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Good. You are doing well, Kate?”

  “I…yes, I think so.” She was wondering how he knew her name. She knew of him, of course, one of the heroes of the Black, though relatively new to his fame. “I’m a little sore and tired, but hey, it beats the alternative.”

  “Quite,” he said. “Captain Phrixus wanted me to check on you. He invites you to go and speak with him when you are able.”

  “Captain Phrixus Achard? The Captain of the Black?”

  “Yes, the very same.”

  “I can go now, if it is convenient,” she said.

  “It is. I can escort you, if you like.”

  Kate looked to the chirurgeon. The old man rolled his eyes and waved toward the door. “You might as well. Walk carefully. I’d not want to have to sew up the cuts I’ve already stitched once. And make sure you eat soon. And drink plenty of water. Not ale or wine. Water. I have given Wilfred a salve you can put on your cuts to keep them from getting infected and to ease the pain. And I will want to see you in a few days to make sure you are healing correctly.”

  Kate smiled, and the top of her head felt like someone had torn her hair out.