by Matt Russell
"I will," Kota said, and a touch of steel had returned to his voice.
Keema nodded and disappeared behind a cluster of spears. Kota watched him in silence. His father's words seemed to have granted him a measure of peace, but it had to battle against an overwhelming sense of doom and responsibility that could not be expunged.
Gretis took a slow breath, then said: "The nathret told you your tribe would be killed to get under your skin—to throw you off balance."
"I know," Kota said in a solemn whisper. "Seeing that does me no good though." He turned and stared into her eyes. "He didn't trigger my animus—even though he was a demon. You know what that means, don't you?"
He had figured it out... all of it... Of course he had. For all of Kota's primal strength, he was a wonderfully intelligent young man. Gretis met his eyes and said: "It means he can slip around you on the battlefield without you even knowing."
"He can kill my whole tribe," Kota said, his voice low and grave. "The spears won't do anything against his demonic sorcery, and once I catch the stink of the more primal demons, I'll go into a frenzy and won't be able to think about protecting anyone."
"And you know why he wishes to slaughter your people." It was not a question.
"He understands what I am," Kota said, gazing down at the leaves at his feet. "You've been warning me for years about how dangerous I could become if I ever let myself be consumed by anger. The nathret wants to push me to such rage that even if I survive the onslaught of demons, I'll lose myself." Kota raised his right hand in front of his face and gave a little flick of his fingers. The hooked claws appeared instantly, warping out from his nails into sharp talons. "If he can make me into a feral beast, his kind won't have to worry about me anymore. I'll cause such a ruckus that the Starborn will come—my old friend, Cassian, and perhaps his brothers and sister. They'll kill me. They'll have to."
“Kota looked up at her again, and there was pain in his silver eyes as he gestured to the caves and said: "I want you to promise me you'll protect them—not me—when the time comes."
Gretis felt her throat constrict. This was all wrong. "Kota, you cannot fight an entire army of demons on your own."
"I have to try," he said through clenched teeth.
Gretis could not speak just then. It was impossible to tell him that his life was worth more than that of his tribe, but it was... He was meant to fight in the apocalypse—to stand between the darkness and the light in the most important battle the world would ever see, yet he had been manipulated into certain death through his love for the people who raised him. Kota’s life would end this night because... he was such a good man. Gretis felt as though her heart were going to burst from her chest.
"I know you're burning to tell me to flee," he said. "I thank you for not saying it." He swallowed. "You've always been so kind to me."
A pair of tears welled up in Gretis's eyes. "I was horrible to you in the early years."
"Never," Kota said, grinning his wonderful smile. "I loved every minute of our training." He started to say something else, but then his eyes widened. He turned toward the forest, his right hand dropping smoothly to the hilt of his sword. "They're coming," he whispered.
Gretis shook her head, whipping the tears from her face. She could not yet feel the demons approaching as Kota could, but if he said the enemy was coming, then they were. After a few tense heartbeats, she heard the sound of crunching and snapping in the distance—the noise of a large group crashing through the forest. As she slid her sword out of its hilt, some part of her mind flashed to the last moments of her childhood, when the Denigoth army was approaching the edge of her city. "They will not be able to breach our walls," her father had assured her in a voice that had almost seemed calm. They were the last words he had ever spoken to her. Shortly thereafter, the horrible slaughter began upon her beautiful, tranquil home. The shamalak behind her had far less protection than her own people had had, and the enemy coming was far crueler.
Just as Gretis began to sink into despair, she felt the energy of Kota's animus burn like roaring fire in defiance of the demon horde. She turned and glanced at him. His lips were curled back, bearing his fangs that seemed thicker and longer than they had only a moment before. Veins stood up on his neck, around his eyes, and his limbs were trembling with dangerous excitement. Each breath he took was like the rumbling growl of a forest cat. He had not given up! Kota’s spirit had come alive, and it would fight with everything that it was. This was the truest courage she had ever witnessed, and she found it stoked the flames in her own soul. She turned back toward the wall of trees, gripping her weapon and seeing that perhaps the fierce pounding of her heart was something to be embraced. This would be the fight of her life!
The first wave came then. Six demons in black armor with gray, tiger-like faces emerged from the trees, their eyes glowing blood red. Kota bolted at them instantly, kicking up a spray of dirt. In the blink of an eye, he came at the foremost of the demons, which had an ebony-black blade raised over its head. The sword came at Kota, and his own sword knocked it to the side with enough force to throw the demon to the left. Without hesitation, he delivered a diagonal slash, slicing the creature it in two at the navel. The young warrior was moving so fast! Before his first victim had hit the ground, he had knocked away another ebony blade and cleaved the head off the second closest enemy with a one-handed slash while his opposite hand brought up a dagger behind his back and blocked the edge of a battle ax. Kota whirled on this attacker, slicing through both its legs just above the knees. The demon let out a scream as Kota kicked its dismembered body at two of its comrades, knocking them off balance. With a snarl he whipped at the three of them, silver blade moving so fast it could only be seen in glints of light. Gretis ran forward to cover his back, gaping at what she was seeing. Kota was a hurricane of steel and death! Demon limbs flew sloshing about in the air.
By the time she got to him, the blur of motion had ended, and Kota stood over the creatures, his face and chest dripping with their dark blood. He turned and looked at her, and she could swear his silver eyes were glowing in the darkness. He raised his sword and pointed it back toward the caves and managed to snarl out a single word: "PROTECT!"
Gretis sensed motion from the right and turned to see a battle ax spinning directly at her. Kota moved into its path in a blur and caught the thing by the handle with his left hand. He glanced back over his shoulder and growled: "GO!" so loud that his voice resonated in her bones.
She turned back toward the caves and saw, with horror, that a few of the tiger-faced-monsters had moved around them. Arrows were flying from the archers in the trees. One struck a demon in the shoulder. The monster snarled and tore the projectile away, and then started bounding straight for its source. Gretis broke into a desperate run. Behind her, she heard roars and screams and the sound of metal meeting metal with incomprehensible force, but none of that could be allowed to matter at the moment. She had her target.
As Gretis whipped over the wet grass, her hand moved to the grip on one of the daggers pocketed in her vest. She yanked it free and then called upon her animus to feel out the trajectory, angle, and distance, and then execute a precise throw. The blade whistled from her fingers and struck the base of the creature's skull an instant later, burying itself up to the hilt. Her victim stumbled forward mid-bound and began to gyrate and thrash upon the ground. Supernatural though the demon was, its flesh still obeyed many physiological principals, and she had just sliced directly into the connection between its brain and the rest of its body.
Gretis sprang over the battlefield and came upon the creature, watching it jerk for half a heartbeat before she focused the energy of her animus into her sword. There was a swell of power in the metal, and perhaps a high-pitched whine as she slashed through the steel-hard bones of the neck. With a black spray, the head rolled free of the body.
There was no time to savor victory. Enemies were everywhere. Gretis glared around and saw at l
east ten of the snarling monsters coming at her in the night, eyes burning red. Their beastly faces displayed nothing but hatred and bloodlust. Three were coming from the right, two from the left, and five head-on. They let out monstrous roars as they raised their black weapons.
I die then... The words whispered up from the pit of her soul, yet just as they did, she heard a grizzly crunching sound behind her followed immediately by an ear-splitting scream that could only have been emitted from the throat of one of these tiger-demons, and she felt a wild grin touch her face. Kota was still alive, and he was fighting on! She slid her sword back into its scabbard and ran her hands up the front of her vest, drawing a throwing knife between each of her fingers in smooth, fluid motion. Then Gretis shut her eyes and gave her body over to her animus. It had no fear at all, even now. The ancient spirit simply perceived the oncoming threats and reacted. Her left hand flicked, and the first blade flew away. She felt but did not see the dagger spin in the air and burry itself in the eye socket of the nearest beast.
The battle grew more chaotic by the second. A sword came slashing from behind, and Gretis’s leaped upward, her feet barely clearing the ark. She somersaulted over several of her attackers' heads and came to a smooth drop behind them. Move faster! She rose in a whirl, each of her hands sent a dagger flying. One took a demon in the back of the knee while the second sank into the base of a particularly large demon's neck. This one dropped to the ground, already convulsing.
"Is that the best you can do?" she shouted. It was a damned fool thing to say, but her blood was running hot in her veins.
Almost immediately, a chilling answer came as a psychic hiss in her mind:
Gretis suddenly detected a swell of corrupt energy far beyond that of the creatures around her. It was above her. Time almost seemed to slow as she looked up and saw the utterly titanic horror descending from the night sky.
"Oh gods," she rasped, the words spilling from her without thought. The tiger-like giant was bigger than Rakathon had been—much bigger! It floated down on wings that blotted out sections of the stars. The clawed feet touched almost gracefully down on the grass perhaps a dozen paces in front of Gretis, and the creature cast its burning red gaze down at her. She thought she saw a vague amusement as the black lips drew back, revealing teeth that could rip away the top third of her body in a single bite.
There was no point in trying to fight such an enemy, nor even to run, and perhaps the Archdemon had a strange power to keep her from acting, for she stood transfixed as it drew a sword that seemed sufficient to knock in a castle wall and cocked it back for a strike.
A roar so loud it shook Gretis’s bones erupted across the battlefield. The monstrous fiend turned its head, as did Gretis. Kota stood amidst a sea of eviscerated demons, sword raised. His eyes glowed unmistakably now in a brilliant silver-blue that lit up the night around him, bathing the remains of his victims. Gretis gaped. How many had he managed to kill in the last few moments! Thirty? Forty?
The Archdemon covered the thirty paces between itself and Kota in two quick strides, raising its blade to answer Kota's challenge. No! Gretis screamed inside. Kota stood possessed by his animus, unable to turn away from a foe that hopelessly outmatched him. A memory flashed of the moment Gretis had tried to parry a single slash from the Demon Lord Rakathon and was hurled back into a tree so hard her spine had nearly broken. The creature rushing at Kota was far stronger than that!
Gretis stared in horror as the Archdemon cocked back its massive weapon and brought it down in a diagonal slash. Kota swung his sword in response. The two blades clashed, and the sound was something like thunder congealed with an avalanche of heavy stone all focused into one great ‘CLANG’ that jolted every bone in Gretis’s body. Yet... to her utter bewilderment... the tremendous ebony blade was knocked back.
The Archdemon’s features seemed to take on a look of shock. Gretis could hardly wrap her mind around what she had just seen. Even if Kota could match the incalculable strength of the monster before him, his body—so much lighter and smaller—should have been knocked to the side like a hard-kicked pinecone. Could his animus somehow root his form to the ground? And as she rolled this in her mind, it also registered that the heavy weapon the demon brandished would have had far more inertia than Kota's human-sized sword, and to counter that force, Kota would have had to swing with even greater strength! Was that even possible?
A second diagonal slash from the Archdemon's sword came immediately, and Kota knocked it away with another explosive block, and then his left hand moved in a blur to his belt and whipped back out toward his opponent. A dagger flew into the monster’s neck so fast that the handle disappeared within the fur. There was a gurgled roar of pain, and then the Demon Lord made a low sweep with its sword. Kota leaped up fully above the creature’s head, and he hurled a second dagger which struck somewhere in the thing’s shoulder. The Archdemon roared and slashed, and Kota managed to block the tremendous blade once more, but this time his body went sailing through the air. He disappeared into the darkness of the forest, and Gretis heard several loud cracks like the sound of tree limbs snapping.
"No!" she shrieked as the Archdemon let out a triumphant cackle and dropped to all four paws on the ground, facing the direction Kota had been thrown. It somehow kept a grip on its sword as ghastly black claws bit into the dirt. Then the monster arched its spine and charged toward the trees.
A boulder the size of a cow flew out of the forest and struck the Demon Lord in the face, resulting in an explosion of crag and dust that managed to knock it fully onto its back. Kota sprang from the trees in a magnificent arching leap and landed on the monster’s chest, thrusting his sword deep into the sternum. The thick metal armor that covered his enemy’s torso seemed to mean nothing to his strength, for he yanked his weapon out and then stabbed again, then again, then again, burying the blade to the hilt each time. The Archdemon gurgled out cries of pain as black blood spurted up from its wounds, and Kota continued to hack and stab. He cut his way up the chest and then raised his weapon up over the throat. Gretis felt raw spiritual energy gather in the sword and the blade erupted in blue fire.
A bolt of lightning came from somewhere in the darkness and struck Kota in the chest with PFFT sound that sent him tumbling over the wet grass toward the caves. Gretis let out a scream and bolted across the battlefield toward him. Fear set her animus afire, and she moved so fast that the world around her blurred. Even so, she registered the dark smoke that was puffing off Kota's scorched chest. He had burned away too much of his animus's power in the fight. It had not been able to protect him.
As fast as Gretis was moving, the surrounding demons got to her pupil first. He rose just as a black arrow struck his shoulder. It ripped through his flesh and came out the other side. Kota roared and stumbled back. One of the lesser demons rushed at him, leaping and bringing its sword down at his skull. He managed to bat the attack away and slice the creature in half at the waist, but a second enemy came from behind. Kota whirled, but too slowly, and a lateral slash bit into the side of his right leg.
"BASTARD!" Gretis screamed, coming upon the demon and hacking open its stomach. Before it could even stumble back, she had its head off. Blood spattered on her skin as she turned to face more of them. Kota’s life must be saved! Gretis was ready to fight and die to protect him. Still, her animus-sense detected leaking blood from multiple points on his body, and there were so many enemies left. Her eyes panned across the battlefield. The Archdemon was slowly rising from the grass. The black blood that had been gushing out only a brief moment before now barely trickled.
"You could never have won," a cruel voice said from her left. Gretis cocked her head and saw the nathret standing only a dozen paces away, his right hand raised in front of him, palm up, as an orb of green fire the size of a head floated above it. He cast her a smile bathed in emerald light and said: "I offer you your life, S
ansrit witch. All you need do is kill the vermin behind you. Just cut his throat."
Gretis grunted in anger and flung a knife at the nathret's chest. In an almost relaxed motion, he gestured with his left hand, and the dagger altered course into the side of the mountain. She gritted her teeth, then hissed: "You and I in single combat. Let us fight to the death."
"You wish to purchase that shamalak a few extra moments of life?" the nathret laughed. "Why? Why die for him?"
Because I love him more than my own son, Gretis thought. She said nothing though but took a step toward. "Face me!"
The nathret grinned. "You silly little wretch. I have no honor upon which you can play. You have already shown me how quickly you can move. What reason would I have to let you dance around my magic when it is so much easier to make you come to me?” He raised his right hand, and the blazing green orb he had manifested rose with it, seeming to aim at the mouth of a cave. "Come!" he shouted, and ten of the tiger-demons rushed immediately to his side. "If she moves to attack me, cut her down, and then the warrior behind her." The nathret gestured toward the cave mouth with his eyes and said: "There are thirteen vermin children back there. Shall we see what their flesh smells like when it burns?”
"I'm sorry, Kota," Gretis hissed through her teeth, "It was an honor to be your teacher!" She sprang at the cluster of demons before her, weapon raised, knowing that this was the last moment of her life.
Her leap was cut abruptly short, and she was forced back down to her feet by a hand on her shoulder from behind—Kota's hand. Gretis glanced back and saw him with eyes shut, his head lowered. Then she felt a surge of energy. It was strange... like communing with the spirits. What was he doing? The feeling was subtle at first, but then... Gretis gasped aloud as she felt a doorway to the spirit world rip open—no, dozens of doorways! They were all around, and as they opened, power came rushing out.
