by Callie Stone
“No you’re not,” brayed another, strangely aged-looking fairy, staring at us with baleful eyes. “You’re with them.” It was not clear who or what she meant by ‘them’.
“We aren’t with anyone,” I replied, trying to be as nice as possible. “We’re just trying to help.”
“They destroyed our home,” said another elder fairy. A somewhat more youthful fae, who to my eyes resembled an adult man, clutched their hand. It was not clear whether the gesture was out of affection or momentary fear.
“We’re really sorry about that,” I said. “We didn’t know there were...people here.”
“Please,” he begged, his voice weathered and raspy. The sound made the skin on my arms prickle and crawl. “You’re one of the good ones, yes? You’re here to help?”
“We are,” I said, attempting a smile of reassurance.
He did not look comforted. “We’ve heard that one before,” he said. “They told us they only wanted to help too. And then they destroyed our forest.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Artois,” he replied. His eyes darted nervously around the group, before he turned and started shouting in a different language. I didn’t understand a word he said, but the others seemed to understand. They shuffled backwards nervously.
“What did you say?” I asked.
Artois’s eyes met mine. “I told them to leave,” he replied. “We don’t need help from the likes of you.”
Before I could query what exactly Artois meant by that, that jarring, discordant voice I’d heard a moment ago rang again from the back of the gathered crowd of fairies.
“Let the prince speak!” it bellowed. I had no choice then to look to my teammate and former prince of this kingdom, Troy.
Not all of the fairies seemed to recognise Troy, wearing only confusion on their faces as he solemnly stepped forward. It had been hundreds of years after all.
“You were a disgrace!” the voice shouted again. This time, the owner came into view. Wearing clothing made of animal hides and sporting a long, flowing white beard, he shuffled out with a wooden walking stick. He was one of the oldest fairies I had ever seen, which said something, and he stared Troy down with a look of fierce hatred.
“You were the shame of our kind,” he continued.
It was Troy’s place to defend himself, whatever his transgression was. Yet, as commanding as he had been just moments earlier, Troy just cast his eyes towards the broken branches and long-dead leaves beneath his boots in shame.
And he said nothing.
“Why have you returned?” the old fairy asked, his gaze still fixed on Troy. “Speak up!”
Still, there was silence. The other fairies seemed unsure of how to react. Some looked downright apoplectic, as if Troy had committed some grave crime just by returning. Many just looked afraid, not wanting to stir controversy.
I cleared my throat, trying to summon some semblance of a commanding presence. “Let him be,” I implored them, surprised at how simultaneously tired and angry my voice sounded.
“Leave him alone. He’s not worth it,” one of the elder fairies commanded, building from my sentiment but gravely insulting poor Troy. Slowly, everyone seemed to relax, although the old fairy still glared at him.
“Bah! Foolish child,” he growled, somewhat mystifyingly.
“Why are you gathered here?” Alexander queried the fairies as they let us pass. “Because, there are few places which are still safe from their shadows,” one answered.
“They burned down our forests!” another cried.
Troy stood by, still under watch. The others seemed to wait for him to say something, though he himself looked uncertain now.
“They are bringing now the days of…”
“Our brethren are being slain by them as we stand idly here! We should…”
I could not make out all of their words, sadly, but it was apparent that they were at odds with each other. Their voices rose in anger, and I did not think that it would take much to have them turn on one another. I coughed loudly, trying to rise above their voices.
But my cough, and all of the long-suffering voices of the fairy folk were utterly drowned out by the monstrous bang which jarred the clearing and the entire section of forest around us.
“What in the world is going on out there?” a jarred, shrilly petrified fairy cried in response to the sound.
6
The Stench of Hell
Natasha
“We’ve got to help.” I started, racing forward towards the entrance of the clearing. But just as I reached them, one of the demons burst through the undergrowth.
It was an ugly, black beast which raced towards us with frightening speed. I only saw the whites of its eyes and the burning red of its nostrils as it snorted at us.
Its skin was coal-black but shone with a disquieting glimmer in the moonlight. It looked almost polished. Its arms—and it became clear as it drew closer there were more than two of those—were long and spindly, displaying an ungodly reach.
Everything about it made me think spider: The way it moved, the way it held its jaws forward like a pincer.
I was never a fan of spiders.
Before I could take in more details, the demon had leaped into the air, flying over our heads. I spun around, summoning the willpower to not let the beast’s arachnid presence directly above my head distract me from summoning all the angelic firepower that I could without wasting more than a half-second’s worth of concentration. I managed a small, pale white glob of effervescent power directed at the spider-demon’s midsection. The fireball ended up grazing the bottom of one of its legs as it dove in for landing somewhere near us.
The fireball lit up the bramble around us, and I could see we were surrounded by a plethora of spider-demons. A weak fatigue bloomed within me from summoning the fireball, but it passed as I noticed that the demon who’d jumped was also quickly recovering from my attack, racing forward to grab me with its jaw. I had just enough time to secure the magic feather I had in my bag. I sidestepped its lunge, activating the feather into its sword form and sending a plume of flames into its rows of eyes before jabbing the sword up at the underside of its exoskeleton-plated head.
“Don’t just stand there, Troy!” I cried, parrying a leaping demon who was lunging at him.
Troy managed to catch the hilt of my sword as I pulled it out of its body, spinning and slamming the flat of my blade into a trio of demons who brandished their own claws at me.
“Thanks!” It was surprisingly easy to fetch the handle of the sword as Troy relayed it back to me.
Troy leapt back into action, almost gliding into the acrid air with astonishing grace and speeding directly towards an oncoming battalion of arachnid demons.
With a proper weapon finally in hand, I flung my holy sword in a full circular motion just above my head to make work of several disgusting little monsters who thought it a good idea to fly, or rather, straight towards me using sickening little silky, slimy appendages to sail at my head. Before I laid them with a single swing of my sword, that was.
I used the flat of my blade to smack away several claw-laden limbs from my vision as I heard the panic of fairy-folk still nearby. With the wall of small demon monsters mostly cleared from my own line of sight, I could see that Michael had shifted into the shape of a giant fruit fly, which was enough to distract several of the dumber arachnoid demons to give Kieran time to pounce and tear their thorax-like midsections apart with wolf-like precision.
Stepping towards them, I dispatched what appear to be two of the last spider-demons, hovering nauseatingly in front of me, with two elegant swoops of my holy blade.
“Thanks, Natasha!” called out Kieran, ever the gentleman, leaping away from his newfound prey.
“No problem,” I answered warmly, smiling at him.
Alexander managed to incapacitate the last group of the smaller-clawed demons in hand to hand combat without even needing to use his fangs, but as the fo
rest clearing was finally cleared of the demon onslaught, it became clear that Troy took care of the lion’s share of spider-monsters, tossing several of them to the ground from beneath each arm.
It also became clear that the fairy-folk had continued to watch, huddled together from a distance by the edge of the clearing. In the aftermath of the battle, there was a moment of silence as our eyes met.
“You’ve won this time,” a familiar voice broke the silence. “But know that you are not welcome here, especially…him.”
Well, this was just a pile of bullshit, I thought, and I had to let them know.
“This man, this fae,” I shouted, pointing to Troy, just helped to save all of your lives. He put his own life at risk for all of you. Who gives a fig what happened however damned long ago?” I paused, staring at each of the little fae folk in turn. “If I were you, I’d be thanking him, not threatening us.”
They stared back at me stonily, and after a long moment, their leader turned and they all shuffled back through the trees until they were out of sight.
“Well,” Michael deadpanned, “that could have gone better.”
“I know what needs to be done,” said Troy, breaking his own silence at last.
“Oh, and what’s that?” I asked him, my hands on my hips. “Maybe thank me for defending your honour continuously?”
“We need to rid the kingdom of monsters, now,” he replied.
“You mean rid them of Zavier and Kalgin? Yeah, good luck with that,” scoffed Michael.
“That is mad, you know that?” added Alexander.
“Zavier’s gone,” said Troy. “That’s what the girl, Amelia, told us. I know the language here. It’s the same but different.”
“How can you possibly know what she meant?” I asked. “She spoke quickly and we didn’t have time to discuss it.
“She said Zavier is gone. That is what I know.”
“I don’t trust Amelia,” said Michael.
“I understand,” said Troy. “But...she wasn't happy with the way things were run either. And she is wise. That’s why they sent her to speak to us first.”
“A child?” Kieran asked incredulously.
“That’s right,” Troy answered simply.
I looked at my teammates.
And she was there. Amelia. I almost jumped when she appeared. She was just there, by herself, looking at me. “Are you ready, Natasha?” she asked, her voice much kinder than before.
“Amelia!” I said, in a much less pleasant tone than hers.
“You won’t need those,” she said, gesturing to my teammates.
“But I do need them, sweetheart,” I told her. I mean, awkward, they were right there.
“Very well,” said Amelia. “They will never tell you, the elders, or anyone, but Zavier and his sire have left this realm. The others are too proud, or too dense, to ask for help. You can free us, tonight, from the shadows of the dark ones.”
“Thanks for the tip. We’ll do our best.”
“Do your best to come to the palace tonight. They will be waiting for you.” And she was gone. I turned to my teammates.
“Well,” I noted. “That was weird.”
“What was that all about?” asked Michael.
“I don’t know, but we should go to the palace. That was just a warm-up, but the real battle’s just ahead. I mean, I wasn’t ready for it either, I still haven’t eaten today.”
“Don’t change the subject,” he said. I rolled my eyes and started walking into the wood and in the direction of the hills which I’d recognized from earlier that day.
It only took us a few minutes to make our way through the forest and to what remained of the kingdom’s civilization. The streets were mostly empty yet full of disembodied demonic howling and braying, not to mention a sparse smattering of demons scuttling the darkness.
And I, frankly, was in no mood. “Stand back,” I announced to my teammates, suddenly.
“We already heard your stomach growl,” said Michael.
But, my teammates did as I told them, as usual, and stepped behind me to clear a wide berth. This time, it did not take much to gather a furious blast of angelic light and spew it forward into the demon-laden streets ahead of us. The shockwave travelled out in a semicircle pattern, obliterating the capabilities of remaining monsters before the heat and light ridded that realm of any remaining sight of them. I realized it was probably going to be the most powerful shot I could safely or reasonably manage that evening.
“There.” I restarted my path through what remained. “That should do it.”
“I’m gonna start calling you Ms. Tzar Bomba,” joked Michael.
“Tzarina,” I corrected. “And that was only a few demons. We should head inside the palace now.”
Along with the brief wave of exhaustion which flowed through me for a second or two after letting forth the blast of light, I could not help to feel a bolstering little glow of pride as I heard the footsteps of my teammates readily following my lead into this particular battle.
“Through the courtyard, you say?” asked Alexander.
“Yes,” I said. “Straight through to the palace doors.”
“And what then?”
“I don’t know, rid the building of all those bastards and get home so I can finally flipping eat something?”
I led my team into the courtyard, which was still littered with statues from centuries of fae kingdom history, many of them defaced by the demon occupiers. In the centre of the courtyard was a large marble fountain, dry and cracked. In its moonlit surface I caught a glimpse of my own reflection. I looked pale and worn out, looking less than royal in my current state. This would have to change; we would take care of things and they could rebuild. Even if they continued to treat Troy unfairly, we needed him on our team anyway.
“Call out to them,” I instructed Troy. “Let them know that we’re here to help, that they can lower their guard.”
“They’ll find that pretty hard if the demons get to them,” said Alexander.
“We can take care of them, too,” I said. “Now call out.”
Troy stepped forward and called out in a loud, clear voice.
“Hello! We are friends, newly arrived!”
We were greeted by the now-familiar chorus of the tormented, deep within the palace walls. There were some genuine-sounding cries of half-formed words, but it was becoming more obvious that many of the wails were ghostly creations of devilish powers, meant to perturb and disorient.
“Straight ahead,” I said, my hunger and growing annoyance with the treatment Troy was receiving, motivating me to take control and get on with it already.
After passing through the broken palace entrance and massive front hall, we walked into what appeared to be some combination of a throne room and a museum, a mix of gaudy furniture and priceless works of art, sculptures, and tapestries. And everywhere, there were paintings—Fae lords and ladies, famous warriors, ancient heroes from myths and legends. But the room was much too still, too quiet.
“Hello?” I called.
A scream came in response. Not the tortured scream of a demon, but the terrified scream of a human captive.
“Let’s go,” I said, drawing my sword.
We entered a long, dark hallway. In the low light, I saw a figure pacing in front of a cell. It was a demon, but much smaller than any we had fought before, its skin strangely pale and delicate-looking.
“Hello?” it said. “Are you more prisoners?”
Brandishing my magic feather once more, the demon guard hissed as the feather morphed into a sword with its usual volley of flame. Instead of fleeing, the dumb thing took a run straight for us, but I was just able to cobble the will for another small, white blast of angelic firepower aimed straight at its chest.
The guard went sailing into the cell wall with a quite final-sounding thud, conveniently unlatching and opening the cell door after smashing into it.
We looked into the cell. Inside, there were two figures,
one huddled against another. As our eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a young woman with frazzled blond hair, matted like a nest of overgrown stress and suffering. Beside her was a similar-looking young man whose chestnut hair was sporting what must have been recently acquired streaks of grey running from his hairline all the way back across his scalp. The woman clung to him shivering as he stood upright, as still as a statue with glassy eyes staring forward at nothing.
“Who are you?” asked the man in a creaky, measured monotone.
“I’m Natasha,” I said. “And I am here—we are here—to help.”
“I’m Heather,” said the woman. “He is…” her voice caught itself. Something about the story she was trying to tell, even as a mere introduction, was triggering some unspeakable horror in her voice and her eyes.
“He’s my fiancé,” Heather continued. “We were on holiday in Germany, hiking the Black Forest, then we were on our way to ski the Alps, just for a day. We’d been saving up. And William proposed.” The young woman fought the best she could to keep her voice from breaking. “We were captured by the demons days ago. They’ve been... torturing us.”
“We’re here to free you,” I said.
“Who’s we?”
“My friends and I are dedicated to saving you,” I said. “My name’s Natasha,” I repeated, hoping to create some connection of simple conversation to help the poor souls regain their grip on reality.
“We need to get out of here,” bawled Heather, wild sobs rising in her throat.
“We must be quiet,” I told her softly. “Demon guards may be nearby. Stand back.”
I readied my sword and smashed the lock on another steel door adjacent to where the couple stood. The door creaked open, revealing a dark room. I crept inside, ready to fight. A dim light flickered on, revealing the ravaged bodies of men and women shackled to the wall, barely holding on to their wills or any semblance of energy to remain upright.
I brandished the sizable blade of my holy sword, demonstrating that my team and I were not only there to help but we meant business indeed. “Don’t fret. We’re going to take care of this.”
