There weren’t as many screams echoing through the town as a proper battlefield. But the sounds of people suffering were perfectly clear, even over the whistling wind and the distant crackling of fire. Civilian targets weren’t as common, not whole unaligned settlements like this, though snatching up individuals happened every day. But in a war-torn land with no laws to protect them, the weak made easy prey for the desperate and bold. With a ruler, the right ruler, maybe Monem wouldn’t have met this fate.
If we’d wanted to save the remaining villagers, those not yet fled or killed, the move would be to sweep across what passed for the bandits’ front line. Hit them hard and fast, as the old cliché goes, and add loud to the mix. Armed resistance would catch swift attention if they’d been planning for civilians, and they’d converge on us to see who was fighting back. If we’d had Gia killing bandits left and right, it wouldn’t even have been difficult.
But I wasn’t doing this to save the town. Charging out like idiots was how you got killed, and I meant for my own to survive. First, importantly, we had to get the lay of the battlefield.
“Uvaia, I need to know, can you spot any of theirs in the sky?” I asked my sharp-eyed harpy, hanging back inside the inn’s doorway and watching for movement. Whether we could claim the sky for a scouting advantage would make a huge difference in this fight.
“I’m looking, I’m looking…” Uvaia whispered, neck craned back as she looked skyward. She gasped after a second, looking at me. “There is one, there! Not a harpy, but avian, not our body shape.”
Damn. In the day, at my best, I might be able to shoot them down, but night-blind and one-handed my crossbow would be useless. “Alright, everyone stay hidden. How are they moving? Sweeping over the town, using any pattern?”
“Flying away,” Sedum suggested. Right, this could be a civilian making the smart choice to flee the coop.
“They’re flying around in a big circle,” Uvaia murmured. “Not too high, or too fast.”
I bit my lip. Surveying the area, doing their own scouting. These were competent bandits, if that was what they were. “And you’re sure that you couldn’t take them out by yourself–” Seeing her look at me with big eyes, I aborted that line of thinking. “Never mind.”
She smiled weakly at me. “I’m not a fighter, Anthurium. I was never good at hunting, even back with my tribe.”
Even knowing her for a week, I couldn’t be surprised at that. “All right, fine. Keep an eye on their movements, we can dart between buildings when they’re circling away from– wait.” Now I had an idea. “You’re not a fighter, but Crassula is and she’s small enough to carry. Try and lift her real quick. Just her, no weapons,” I said, gesturing to them.
Both women shot each other a dirty look, but Crassula set her axe against the wall and Uvaia jumped up, talons grasping Crassula’s shoulder pauldrons and hoisting her vertically. “Erf, yeah, she’s kinda heavy but I can get her,” Uvaia told me, wings flapping rapidly as she hovered now.
I gestured for her to set Crassula down. “Do you think you could fly fast enough holding her to get up there and reach the flyer, before they turn around to see?”
“I, I guess?” She looked startled, biting her lip. “But my wings aren’t silent, Anthurium. They could hear me coming and then get away.”
Damn it. So close. A gust of wind blew my hair into my eyes, and batting it back I paused. “Would the wind make it harder to hear you, by chance?”
“It… actually would.” A small smile spread on Uvaia’s face. “It’d still be risky.”
“I’ll take the risk. And if they attack you instead of fleeing, Crassula can defend you.” I glanced at the goblin. “How heavy is your axe?”
She held it out to me. I took the haft in my hand and nearly collapsed on the spot. “Fucking hell. How do you lift this?”
“Goblins built better.” She was grinning at me. Bitch.
“Well, smartass, you’re leaving it with me. We can’t weigh Uvaia down that much if she’s ferrying you.” I yanked out my dagger and handed it to her hilt-first. “Take this instead. We’ll need to time this carefully.”
I saw Gia wince as she looked at the blade, but as I caught her gaze she quickly turned away.
“Speaking of, should we really be waiting so long?” Sedum asked in an undertone. “Any moment they could come around over to the inn.”
“Let them. All they'll see is an open door, not armed resistance out on the street.” I took a deep breath, looking at my harpy. “Uvaia, you’re the only one who can do this. But I know you can pull it off, okay?”
“Crassula the one needing to actually kill them,” Crassula pointed out. I ignored her.
“I’ll do my best.” Uvaia swallowed, holding my gaze. A faint smile touched her lips, and she leaned in towards me. “Kiss for good luck?”
My cheeks warmed. I was very conscious that Gia was standing right there. “Maybe after the battle.”
“All right, all right.” Uvaia took a deep breath, eyeing the sky, and launched herself and Crassula into the air.
Maybe two seconds later, a pair of horned figures rounded the house in front of us, fan-bladed polearms in their hands. I couldn’t make out their features easily, but the silhouettes made me think satyrs. “Sedum, I’ll need you for this part,” I told the innkeeper, turning towards him and stopping short with a blink. He was already gone.
The man was fast. He covered the ground between us and the bandits before they knew he was upon them, and I saw one swing their halberd at him, bleating in alarm. There was a splintering crack and the bladed end landed in the grass beside us, as Sedum grabbed the bandits’ heads in either hand and slammed them together with a thud. One went down, the other reeling and stumbling back, trying to bring their weapon to bear. They didn’t manage it before his fist struck the bottom of their chin, and I could swear I saw the second satyr lifted off the ground before they landed.
“Whoa,” Gia whispered beside me, staring. “Can a lot of people here do that?”
“Not like that, they can’t.” Our odds without her fleshwarping might be better than I expected.
The orc looked back and gestured me over, and I followed. Gia came along, which I wasn’t sure if I wanted, but it was probably best to have her where I could keep an eye on her.
“Didn’t want to let them call in their friends, aye?” Sedum asked me, breathing hard. Two goat-legged half-man demons lay on the ground.
“My thoughts exactly. Good work.” Satyrs indeed, thoroughly down for the count, though something bothered me as I looked down at them. I just couldn’t put my finger on exactly what.
“Are they, um. Dead?” Gia asked, looking more gingerly at the fallen pair.
“From a couple hits like that? They’ll have a headache in an hour, but I doubt they’ve buggered off just yet.”
Gia sighed in relief. “All right, that’s good.”
“We did it, he’s dead,” Uvaia reported, fluttering down and dropping Crassula beside us, and Gia flinched. Uvaia herself didn’t look shaken, which surprised me a little. “I’m almost sure of it, at least. Crassula stabbed him and he dropped out of the sky.”
That was a genuine relief. “Well done,” I told Uvaia fondly. Someone would probably notice their ally’s involuntary skydive, but we still held the aerial advantage now. I took back my bloody dagger from Crassula.
“Y-yeah. Good… job, both of you.” Gia showed them one of the least happy smiles I’d ever seen. Crassula still seemed to appreciate it.
“What now?” Sedum asked me, as Crassula darted back to get her axe. “These couple weren’t tough. Why not clean up the rest of them, save who we can?”
“Be glad they didn’t have a chance to get you horny for them.” I had intended to ambush them to avoid that, but Sedum bulling them over had worked out, too. “Satyrs aren’t frontline combatants, they can evoke lust even from a distance or intoxicate with a touch. I wouldn’t have sent them out like this, but the halberds must have been to buy them breathing room…” I frowned. This felt increasingly, uncomfortably familiar.
“That’s a lot of talking and not an answer,” Sedum told me, eyes narrowed. “Are we doing this or not?”
I growled at him. “I’m thinking. But my point is no. You’re decent in close combat, but draw attention and you could get fucked up from a distance. We don’t know what other demons they have.” I paused, looked at Uvaia. “Did you manage to identify any others?”
“I saw silhouettes, but couldn’t tell what except the owlfolk in the air,” she said, shaking her head. “But there was a big one in the back, by the road, not moving.”
Satyrs and a birdfolk. And they’d all felt familiar. I hoped I was wrong, but these might not be just bandits after all. “We advance north, assume for now that’s the leader. If we have the chance, capture one to verify it. Do you know how to handle a halberd?” I asked Sedum.
Sedum looked at the fallen weapon, jaw clenching up. “I’d rather not.”
“If you’re trained with polearms, take it anyway. You look like you know how much reach matters.” I took a breath. “Crassula, Sedum, in front. Uvaia, keep an eye on our surroundings from above. Short chirp for enemies ahead, short-long for foes to our left, long-short for them on our right. If you think we’re about to be attacked, just yell my name.” I reconsidered. “Not my name. Just yell.”
They followed my orders, Crassula once more with her weapon of choice, even if Sedum looked more grudging about it. “Be careful,” Uvaia warned me before flying up again.
I looked back at Gia, who was clearly uncomfortable, even if in this darkness not much else was clear. “You’ll be fine,” I told her, a little grudgingly. Should I give her a weapon? Would she even use it if I did? “Attacks bounce off you, remember?”
“I know, I know,” Gia said, wincing. “It’s just scary, that’s all… I’m okay. Let’s keep going.”
We advanced. Some more yells of pain or roars and snarls of triumph came on the wind, but though blood and bodies were underfoot, no one alive crossed our path.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
I was starting to think we might reach the leader without more skirmishes at all, when the ground erupted up under my feet, in a spot Sedum and Crassula had just passed.
My reflexes saved me, but they sure as hell didn’t come with coordination. I frantically threw myself to one side as a horned, whip-flexible snake strangled the empty air where I’d been standing. I landed hard on my injured arm, and my vision lit up with pain as Sedum and Gia shouted, alarmed.
“Knew the feel of your footsteps, Commander,” the cerastes hissed at me, more venom in his words than could be contained in his fangs. Though I wished I'd been wrong, I recognized his voice; Capensis was this one’s name. These bandits had indeed worked for Phlox. “Finding you here is a stroke of luck. You killed the Obsidian clan. Now its remnants can return the favor.”
He lashed out at my fallen form, lightning-quick. Gia threw herself in the way.
My shout for her to stop was halfway off my lips – Sedum or Crassula could die for me, not her – when Capensis rebounded off her with a startled hiss, and reality asserted itself. Right, she could do that.
“A-Ann, run!” Gia stammered. The demon snake struck at her directly now and she screamed, covering her head. This attack met with just as little success, but when Capensis skittered forward and coiled around Gia’s ankles it did work, somehow, and she yelped as I pushed myself to my feet. This was a terrible time to be crippled.
Crassula stepped up and swung her axe at the snake, but he flitted aside from the blow and snapped at her face, drawing a screech from the goblin as his jaws pierced her cheek. She struck out blindly with a hand and Capensis flicked his length out of the way, before Sedum swung down his polearm and the snake detached from her face to evade, two bloody punctures dripping beneath Crassula’s eye. She let out a startled burst of what sounded like gibberish as it wrapped around her neck.
“Get off of her!” Gia cried, legs still tangled up but grabbing at Capensis’ sleek body with her hands, but the cerastes slipped out of her grip with ease. She made a desperate noise of frustration.
“Damn unwieldy things,” Sedum grunted, pulling back his halberd with a look like he was sorely tempted to drop it. “Must be rustier than I thought.”
“It’s not the weapon, they’re just really flexible, and have great reflexes,” I relayed tensely. “Good at dodging, hard to land a hit.” Cerastes were a bitch to fight in physical combat, and I’d made full use of it in Phlox’s army. Especially in numbers, as while one could trip up multiple enemies they had limits to their – wait.
“You’re not going to kill me like that,” I taunted the serpentine demon, backing up after a quick gesture for Sedum to wait. “But fine, if you’d rather contend with my minions, I’ll gladly take the chance to escape.” I took a few hurried steps, looking back over my shoulder.
Capensis hissed at me angrily and unwrapped from a gasping Crassula’s throat, coils sliding off of Gia. “No, you don’t get to live!” he shouted, stretching out to reach me with gleaming fangs–
And with the cerastes stretched taut and focused on one dimension, Sedum’s halberd sliced down and sheared him in half.
I let out a shaky breath. I hadn’t had time or means to give direct orders, without the snake himself overhearing, so that had been a gamble. I’d had to rely on allies I’d never trained or fought with to take my cue and see the opportunity. “Good work,” I told Sedum, as the demon’s two halves flopped in their death throes on the ground.
“Don’t mention it. You two alright?” He nodded to Gia and Crassula.
“Crassula will live,” Crassula rasped, rubbing her throat. My night vision had adjusted enough to see the streaks of blood running down her face.
“I’m not hurt, I think,” Gia said, eyes wild and breath coming hard. “God, what kind of snake was that? How did it move like that?”
“Talk as we go, we made a lot of noise,” I said, gesturing them away with me. “More will converge on our location soon.” Uvaia chirped once, short, overhead, and I tensed. “In front!”
There was a rumbling as the ground shifted, and a big clod of earth flew at us out of the dark.
Sedum struck out faster than I could react, hitting the missile bare-handed and breaking it into pieces and a dirt spray, but the second caught him in the chest and knocked him down with a grunt.
Peeking around a building’s corner were the stone-rimmed brows of an oread, and I’d guess a second if I’d been their commander too. Oreads’ control over earth was fine, but they needed windup time for it. Fitting for sloth, and why I’d insisted on pairs to cover each other’s backs.
“Crassula,” I called, pulling behind the house’s wall and beckoning sharply for the goblin to circle around the other side. “Hydrangea, get them!” Much as I hesitated to use Gia in this capacity, so far she’d been better able to take hits than any of us. Besides, even if something failed a missile of dirt wouldn’t kill her. I was lucky Monem wasn’t built on stone.
“Get what?” Gia asked me incredulously, as I paused and a thought clicked into place. As a matter of fact, an assault like this against armed and dangerous opponents wouldn’t be sufficient at all on its own. But to pin them down or distract them while others took up positions…
“No, wait, Crassula, stay here!” I shouted, before a bloodcurdling roar filled the air and a black dog nearly the size of a house charged out of the darkness. A barghest.
Crassula turned before yelping and stumbling back as the barghest snapped at her, and pinned down between a charging lupine and a couple earth nymphs I chose the latter. I jumped back out of cover as the barghest charged, barely missing me. Another flying near-rock came my way for it.
Gia tried to jump in the way of the earth projectile but missed completely, and this one hit me in the stomach, knocking me down and leaving me gasping for breath. Gods, if my shoulder wasn’t messed up I could use my armor. The barghest hadn’t gone for the kill seeing me and Sedum fallen, at least.
Hang on, that didn’t add up, and it wasn’t the only strange factor. A guardian of goblins hadn’t hesitated to attack Crassula, it hadn’t made direct contact with any of us, and most importantly, Phlox’s clan hadn’t had any barghests.
“Throw something at it,” I hissed at Sedum.
He looked up from pushing himself to his feet, staring blankly. “What?”
“Wood, rock, beer bottle, anything! Aim for its head, I can’t try like this.” I gestured uselessly.
He shrugged and picked up a clump of dirt, throwing it at the barghest as it turned to face us.
It did not duck as a normal creature would with an object flying at its head, and though I couldn’t see perfectly, I was almost sure the dirt flew through the beast’s cheek with no resistance. The “barghest” roared and its mouth opened. In the wrong order.
Hypothesis confirmed. “It’s a trick. That’s a piru, they’re minor demons who bend light to look like stronger creatures,” I told Sedum, smirking. It could have seemed to appear from nowhere, before Uvaia could warn us. And the roars would come from being paired with a jackalope, known for sound mimicry but evidently not perfect timing. “Sweep your polearm through the lower body, you should strike it. Crassula, as you were.”
She bobbed her head and disappeared around the house to ambush the oreads, and Sedum advanced on the fake barghest with a grin. Another projectile flew our way, but Gia managed to swing her arm into its path and it burst, dirt showering her and making her yelp. But things had turned in our favor again, we were coordinating well…
A pair of strong limbs grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms. I was pulled back against a hard muscled chest, swearing as pain spiked in my shoulder and fear filled my throat. Damn it, damn it.
“It is you, isn’t it, Commander? I thought that was your scent,” a low reptilian voice hissed in my ear, and I shuddered as a tongue brushed against it. “You left us in quite the dangerous situation. Now, how should I pay you back for it?”
Grasping my dagger in my weak hand, I stabbed at the lizardfolk’s arm, but the tip of his tail flicked my blade aside. Stupid extra-limbed demons. “A little help–!” I called, trying to keep panic from my voice. Crassula and Sedum were out of reach, Gia was still a pacifist. Hot breath washed over my hair, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Gods, of all the ways to die…
A high, ringing screech pierced my ears. Then a wet crack sounded out, a jolt rocked my body, and the arms holding me abruptly slackened. I pulled free of his grip as the lizardfolk fell away and hit the ground with a thud.
Uvaia had saved me. Her talons were gouged into the lizardfolk’s head, deep enough that she must have hit him at high velocity, and the corpse’s neck was at a sharp angle from its body. “Are you okay, Anthy?” she asked me, pulling free with a wet squelch. Her claws were stained dark with blood and likely bits of brain, but her eyes were full of nothing but concern.
My fluffy harpy was a killer, then. Well, she’d picked a damn good time to show it. “I’m fine.” I took a breath, glad she couldn’t hear how fast my heart was beating. “I thought you weren’t a fighter?”
“I-I’m not. This is just how all of us learned to hunt. Break their neck, one quick kill.” She smiled nervously through the dark, wings flapping.
She’d also said she wasn’t good at hunting, but I’d leave that to address later. We had a new combat asset. “It’s certainly effective. Well, if you’re willing to do that, get back up there and I’ll signal you if I need it.”
Uvaia’s face fell, but she nodded assent. I realized belatedly that she’d hoped for more, and opened my mouth as she spread her wings. The words were rusty on my tongue from disuse, but… “Thank you, Uvaia.”
That made Uvaia start, but her face lit up in a smile before she took off.
I turned back to the battle, and saw Sedum pinning a dark-skinned piru to the ground, barghest guise dispelled. Beyond, Gia looked frantic as she waved her hands at Crassula, holding what I assumed to be an oread since the barrage had stopped.
I looked around quickly with my aura sense, I did not want to be surprised again, but no more familiar-feeling auras were nearby than I could account for. One we hadn’t spotted was relatively near, but I was willing to bet that was the piru’s partner.
And there were far fewer auras around than when I’d looked in the inn. This wasn’t a simple raid for supplies; most of the village’s life had simply been snuffed out. But I pushed that to the back of my mind. Win and survive first. Dwell on the consequences later.
“You wanted one to question, right?” Sedum asked me as I walked up. The little forest sprite looked up at me and I saw recognition on his face.
I recognized this one, too – I’d worked more closely training the irregular operatives than normal soldiery, and Boquila was one such. “I did. Crassula, Hydrangea,” I called, beckoning them and kneeling down to speak. “Hello, Boquila.”
“Strategos.” He grimaced up at me. “Did you really betray us like they said?” His blank white eyes were hard to read.
“Who is ‘they’?” I asked, dodging the question. “Who are you working for now?”
“I don’t need to say anything to a traitor.” His voice was harder now.
Well, I’d expected that. Gia and Crassula approached, and I looked up. “Lady Hydrangea, with me. Sedum, Crassula, this one’s partner is over there,” I pointed in the direction I’d sensed, and saw Boquila’s blank eyes go wide. Got him. “Deal with her with any force you deem necessary.”
“No!” Boquila started struggling frantically in Sedum’s grip. “Don’t hurt Byzantina!”
I held my hand up for them all to stay, tuning out the alarmed look on Gia’s face. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll spare you both.” I’d already hoped to keep those alive who I could, anyway. Turned to banditry or not, we could make use of them.
Boquila wavered, but gave in. Just as I’d thought. “Taraxacum is the one in charge. We’re the only ones who got away from Aconite. And we’re on our own now, so he wanted to make more of us stronger, like him. That’s why we attacked this place.” He made a pained sound, squirming in Sedum’s grip. I inferred Sedum hadn’t liked that. “He, he did say you betrayed us, but he wasn’t the only one!”
I blew out a breath. Taraxacum was a manticore, the strongest among the tribe we integrated and correspondingly their lieutenant. Without Gia’s fleshwarping, he would not be easy to take down. “Understood. Crassula, go find the jackalope, tell her we have her partner. Bring her here, unharmed if possible.” I didn’t take my eyes off Boquila. “And where is Taraxacum now?”
“In the north part of the village.” Boquila groaned. “He told us to bring him the other townsfolk. The ones who didn’t get eaten. By the others, not me!” he added hastily as Sedum’s grip seemed to tighten again.
I did believe him there. Piru had natural talents for disguise Arts that nearly qualified as shapeshifting, but their bodies were frail, small and weak. Feeding on hearts or souls was enough for demons to gain power, but without trickery piru weren’t likely to even get a chance at that. “I believe you.” I made an ‘ease off’ gesture to Sedum.
Sedum had a dark look in his eyes, still, but he seemed to obey and the little demon sighed with relief. “That’s our target, then. What’s the plan? Take him down, save whoever we still can?”
“That’s not a plan. That’s an example of why I make the plans.” It could be our goal, certainly. I assumed Taraxacum had wanted some slaves to serve his warband, and there was no reason not to save them from that. Getting there, on the other hand… “Taraxacum is a manticore and a deadly fighter. Try to fight him head on and you’ll get riddled with spines before he rips out your throat.” I glanced at Gia. “He’s a lion-dragon-scorpion, essentially.”
Her eyes went wide. “So what do we do?”
“That depends on you. Without you, he’s likely too strong for us to beat in a fair fight.” It would be possible, but very dangerous. Even if we did win, I expected at least one of the others would die.
Gia swallowed. “I… I can try to help shield you guys again–”
“You know that’s not what we need.” I held her gaze. Even the kindest demon queen would need to kill time and again. “That’s not what those people need. We’re the only ones who can save them from him.” Gia had expressed interest in saving the town. This was it. Would she have what it takes?
Gia stared at me for a second, emotions running high across her face, before she squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t. I wish I could, but… I’m sorry, Ann.” Her voice was low and flat, heavy with self-loathing. But that didn’t change her answer.
I let out a slow breath. I supposed I'd need to find more drastic measures to take. “Well, then. It’s fortunate for us,” I said, looking around and spotting Crassula dragging a jackalope over by her long bunny ears. “That I have not the slightest intention of fighting fair.”