Authors thoughts
My first time writing anything in english. I'm quite proud of the result. I hope for critique to improve my writing.
I normally struggle writing but recently I have used AI prompt to help me over hurdles. A tremendous help and for the first time since my teenage years I had fun writing something.
The Cover art is created through openart.ai. It really struggles with swords and likes big pauldrons.
Conscript Yale was ordered to scout a cave not on the map. He was armed with the empires national arms, short sword and buckler made out of blessed steel and clad in a red and black brigandine. A brigandine was the fusion of a scale armor and leather armor giving excellent protection from all but the best weapons. An open helmet, greaves and bracers completed his kit.
The fact that he was being sent on a mission alone without any real parameters irked him. He was only a conscript and shouldn't even be on this mission.
Yet the battalion general believed, Yale was destined for greatness in the military and put him in a patrol group. His captain didn't like the way he looked and so he was sent on another mission. Illegal but neither of these two cared.
Yale pushed his shaggy black hair from his eyes and squared his shoulders as he stood in front of the dark cave. It was cold and shady as the cave was located on the north side of a mountain. A good 20-minute run from the camping place of his company. He looked around trying to find an excuse to leave but only saw a few trees. Maybe if he was a trained scout or at least was from the country side he could have seen the sign of danger but for him all looked natural. But he was a city child and never learned to read the surroundings.
He felt dread looking into the cave but couldn’t find a reason for that. "There was no helping it. If he died here, his family would at least get a big bonus. If he didn't follow the mission, he would be court martialed and maybe even his family home could get into trouble" He thought and casted one of his cantrips. A Light ball started hovering above his head. He coursed loudly squared his shoulders and started moving into the cave.
The moment he set foot deeper into the cave he knew he was in deep shit. The air smelt wrong, like rotten eggs, the ground was scorched, and bones littered the ground. He cursed his stupid captain and general. He wanted to run but his fathers’ voice appeared in his head. "Rules and regulations. Follow them to the dot, get away with a lot." That was his father's motto and it stuck with him until his dying day. Even his mother, the noble Lady Aurora, said it when she scolded him when he was caught for mischief.
A plan appeared in his head. He moved toward a bone larger than his leg. This would be his justification for turning around and not scouting the rest of the deep cave system. "Everything that was able to hunt an animal as large as this was too dangerous to face alone." Yale thought as the camouflaged devil hound barreled into him.
His head was only saved, as he was just bending down to pick up the bone. Claws capable of ripping through even praetorian plate armor missed his head by a hairs breath.
He was thrown to the ground, but a life training enabled him to roll with it and was standing before the hound got its footing back.
Despite their names devil hounds were demons from hell and not devils. Its fur capable of changing its color, giving it strong camouflage abilities. Ones in combat it combusted turning it into a living hell. The monsters’ fur combusted, and its eyes were full of hate. Yale shivered. The way the creature moved was unnatural. It was as if it was a living corpse, animated only by the will to kill. The devil hound was the most dangerous creature he had ever faced. Its flames burned with a red-hot intensity that almost seemed evil. Its flame felt like needles piercing Yales skin, but he knew he couldn’t outrun this beast and attacked.
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Yale took his sword and started hacking the devil hound before it could turn around. His blessed sword bit deeply into the demons’ flesh disabling its right hind leg. The hound's body convulsed, and its eyes turned completely black as it howled in pain. The creature was powerful and fast. But tight caves were not its favored terrain. It preferred open spaces where it could charge and pounce, rip and tear, retreat and do it all again.
But Yale had taken control of the fight, giving the animalistic beast no chance to bring in its superior combat attributes. With one leg disabled it was unable to properly face Yale and was cut down in seconds.
Blood and gore sprayed from its mouth after Yales sword punctured its stomach ending its life. The hound howled with all the strength of its burning soul as it, the soul, fled to the infernal home realm. Its howls were filled with a demonic bile that sprayed blood and viscera all over the cave.
The hounds death was confirmed as the world started cleansing itself of the demonic infestation and the hound started burning in holy flames. These flames were completely harmless to Yale, actually feeling good on his skin. His whole body prickled comfortable as some of the regained world energy was used as a reward for Yale.
"What now?" he muttered to himself as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve not believing that he had just soloed a demon. A feat that only few persons in the empire could claim as their own. Taking part in killing a demon was something the world rewarded by strengthening the person, unfortunately for Yale this needed a day or two to take effect.
The world his questions answered as two more devil hounds and a demonic satyr entered the cave from the entrance Yale entered from. Yale paled and wanted to scream at the unfairness of his life. "This is going to be bad" Yale thought as he looked at the group with their demonic eyes staring at him. "I am as good as dead."
The satyr was a creature of pure evil. Nothing about him was good. He was a sentient demon that thrived on suffering making it even more dangerous as the hounds. His deep crimson horns were the size of a man's hand, his tail was a whip, and his skin was the color of night. He wore no clothing, showing bulging muscles and deep scars that raked his torso. An infernal twisted great sword was in his hands.
Demons weren’t known for talking or mercy and the fight started with the satyr spiting a ball of fire after him and the hounds pouncing toward him.
With a near suicidal split-second reaction, he casted a super charged cold snap cantrip on the fire ball, extinguishing it and jumped straight through the gap between the pouncing hounds. He turned, spin kicking the surprised satyr in the face and hamstringing one of the hounds in the same movement. The hound yowled and crashed to the ground and the satyr staggered back with a broken nose.
The other hound turned around and pounced at him, but he got his sword and buckler up in time and guided the beast jump into the descending sword of the satyr. The twisted sword bit deeply into the hound, crushing its shoulder blades. A near inhuman feat that Yales bodies, would be paying off for the next few days
Yale acted before the satyr could recover his guard and got into the guard of the satyr slicing the demon flesh open, dodging and weaving through the desperate flailing of the satyrs’ strikes, finally forcing it to drop its hellish swords. The satyr tried to grapple him, but he simply took a step back and sliced half of its left hand off. Its claws and enormous strength were useless if it couldn’t even touch Yale. His short sword and buckler created a beautiful but deadly dance, abusing his superior range, cutting, and bashing the hellish demon to pieces. He dodged a final spit ball of fire, rammed his deep sword into the monstrosities mouth, stepped back, and with a last swing he beheaded the collapsing creature. Over the course of the short fight he had pushed the demon away from the crippled hounds but now turned around and finished them off with two quick stabs.
‘I survived? how? These 4 should have been enough to rip through a company, 30 trained men without problems. How could I ever have killed them. I'm just a lowly conscript" were some of his jumbled thoughts after piercing the last hounds’ head. He stood there in a cave with 4 burning demon corpses and stared laughing hysterical. He had never felt a wave of euphoria like that. Demons were literally soldiers from hell invading the mortal realms. Each one was magical and far stronger than an ordinary soldier. And Yale was not even that, just a conscript serving his mandatory 2-year trip. And he had soloed 4 of them.
His laughter mixed with gasping coughs as he tried to catch his breath. Maybe 30 seconds fighting had left him winded like he had just sprinted a kilometer. He coughed into his sleeve and wiped his brow.
He had expected the satyr to be stronger. But maybe the general was right, and He was destined for greatness? Yale rolled his eyes. Or maybe these 4 demons were weakened and he was just an ordinary man that could return to his wife and child once his mandatory conscription was over.
He grabbed a bag from his backpack and collected the satyr head and front paws of the hell hounds. That should be more than enough evidence and started jogging back to the rest point of his company. He just hoped that he found his way and nothing more would happen on the path back.