The steel door yielded quickly to captain Sullivan’s kick. The knights poured into the room beyond.

To their surprise, the other side of the door was deserted of any souls, but fully furnished. The hallway opened to many chambers, within each there were wardrobes, beds, tables and many such homely arrangements. But they searched every corner of each room and found no cambion. Then at the end of the hallway, they came to a spacious room. In the middle was a long table, and long benches lined its either side. Arranged on the tables were wines and plenty of fresh fruits. Dark purple liquids still filled some mugs. At the end of the table was a big brown cake, a cherry placed on top of it.

“How rude,” chuckled the elder Fahlecain, “They don’t even care to invite us to their party.”

On the other side of a room, there was a steel door much like the one leading into these living chambers. With another kick, captain Sullivan revealed behind it a rough tunnel. Whoever were in this room partying must have fled that way.

Hector surveyed the table. Now it was clear that no more combatant would be found tonight. The waves of demons were all those cambions could muster against a raiding force. Then the cambion themselves, most were able males, launched a desperate ambush on them to buy time for those who could not fight to escape. They had missed the chance to kill the last of the cambions.

Captain Sullivan cursed, then he looked over and beckoned the knight who was holding the old cambion over. Then he grabbed the old thing again, and gave it threats, “Stop whining! Speak only to what I ask. Which way does that tunnel lead?”

The old cambion groaned, then he took a deep breath as if to finally reveal the information they needed. Then he pursed his lips and spat on the captain’s face.

Hector observed grimly his captain, knowing well how he would react.

“It’s just an old thing,” said Hector.

But the captain didn’t have the mind to heed his word. He shoved the old cambion away and drew his sword. With a clean cut, he severed the wrinkled head.

Just then, a muffled sound came from inside a closet right next to Hector.

Someone leapt out of the closet raising their weapon high. But their movement was slow and clumsy, it proved no trouble for Hector to reacted in time and sidestepped the strike. He swung his sword fast at the assailant’s throat. Blood gushed from its wound. It collapsed. Hector took the step back and he found that it was a female demon. She was still alive, but only barely.

Pressing her throat to stop the gushing blood in vain, she crawled to the headless body. Her hair was as grey as the old headless cambion's. Her limbs were thin and old. Her weapon now lying uselessly on the ground was a simple iron poker. Why she left her hiding place and attacked an armed knight with a poker, Hector could guess the reason. Though he would never know for sure, for she had already drawn her last breath while embracing the dead body in her hand.

The scene made Hector sick. He wasn’t sure if he could stomach these sights any longer tonight. He knew they were nefarious beings, those that murder men. But as they lay there with their eyes no longer red, one could barely tell the difference from a poor human couple. His eyes could not discern them from the human elders walking the streets and churches of men.

Slaying them was his job. But always they said, he was never knightly enough. Perhaps the reason was this.

Suddenly an urge to puke came over him and Hector staggered. His hand leaned on the table. The cake was right before him. As he looked at the cake, he thought for no reason, but convinced as if all evidence had been laid out before him, that it was a birthday cake, and this table here was for a birthday party. For whom he did not know. He found it funny in a morbid sense – here under this dark and menacing mountain, deep in those ghastly tunnels, among hellish demons, there was a birthday cake for a birthday party.

The room expanded wide and long in Hector’s vision. He saw the world distorted. Try as he might, he could not focus. But he opened his eyes with great effort and look away from others to hide the pallor of his face, pretending as if checking out the room.

Captain Sullivan’s voice sounded far away. He was barking orders. Then his voice came nearer to Hector, until it was upon him.

“You hear me, dimwit?” Captain Sullivan roared in Hector’s ear, “take your mind to the mission. Think it’s time to idle? To take some rest? Move now! Tonight we shall hunt for the last of them!”

“Yes sir,” Hector answered not as firmly as he intended to, “a bit of a headache is all.”

Right, he thought, it was his duty. He was no stranger to bloodsheds. Those cambions… the old cambion couple, they were demons in truth, if only half-demons. His duty as a knight was to stand as the protector of the human race. His hands were trained to do things normal people could not. How could he waver?

But then something in him asked: how could he not?

“I’m good now,” said Hector, “and ready.”

When he looked up to the rest, only captain Sullivan and the younger Fahlecain had not left the room.

“Then work your feet,” the captain barked.

“Not so fast.” The one who spoke was the younger twin.

“What? A migraine now? Do I need to bash your skull in too?”

“Not quite,” Fahlecain replied pleasantly, “my nose caught a delicious thing during your little chat.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Then he turned away with a smirk on his face. With his sword ready in hand, Fahlecain lunged at the wall opposite of the cabinet. As his sword pierced the wall with surprising ease, they heard a shriek coming from behind it. Fahlecain withdrew his sword and the wall collapsed Another fake wall.

Two figures stumbled to the ground. One was embracing another. They looked rather young. Both seemed to be young girls with one no older than ten and the other in her late teens. They lay shivering on the ground. Their deep red hairs were full of dirtied by the fallen wall.

“How many more of those damn things are hiding in this room!?” exclaimed Sullivan.

“Those are the last,” Fahlecain assured him as he approached the girls. He lifted the older girl’s face with his boots, who stared at him with a mix of fear and anger. Her breathing was hard and the little girl in her arm was crying. Fahlecain’s strike had left a deep wound on the girl’s arm. She must have shielded the little one from the attack.

The little girl fearfully looked at the knights. Then she saw the dead bodies of the old cambion.

“Joanna! Joanna! Grandpa and grandma are…!” she cried.

But the girl named Joanna buried her little sister’s head in her chest, hiding her from the terrifying view. She glared at Fahlecain with even greater hatred.

“Oh how I love my job,” said Falecain. A merry grin widened on his face as he grabbed the older girl’s hair and tore her from the little girl. There he stood with the girl hanging from his hand. Joanna struggled in vain against his superhuman strength. Then he returned his attention to the one under his feet. The little one spotted his face and cried in terror.

With a better look at the little girl, Hector could see how young she was, much younger than he thought. No older than five or six. Too young. Way too young.

“Don’t!” Hector shouted and stepped forward. While doing so, he realized in his hand a brandished sword.

“What now?” Fahlecain turned to him, surprised and annoyed.

“Look…” he struggled to find a reason for his intention. And failed to think of a way to convince the sadist. “She’s a child! She can’t harm anyone. And it should take many more years until she turns into a full-fledged demon, if she would at all.”

On the side, Sullivan was simply watching. Hector knew the captain was the kind to never interfere with infightings between knights; the guy would let his men fight it out. Even so, the captain would not let them hinder the mission for much longer. Then he would kill those girls. Sullivan certainly would, Hector thought in terror.

“So… you wanted me to… let them go?” asked Fahlecain.

“Yes!” answered Hector, “lock them up until they reach the age, only then…”

“Well, you have a point there,” Fahlecain stood pondering, “I heard cambions only have a chance to turn into demons when they reach the age of eighteen. And those things seem quite younger.”

“Right!”

“One problem, dear Hector!” continued he, “you are correct and all. But too bad, I hate it when you are correct.”

With a sudden movement, Fahlecain threw the girl in his arm to the other side of the room. Then with the same hand, he took out a knife on his belt, bent down and slashed the little girl’s throat.

The sister’s echoed the room and madly she crawled madly to the small figure lying in a pool of blood.

Fahlecain laughed. He laughed hard, staring with great delight at both the girls and Hector.

“Look at you!” cried Fahlecain, “you should have seen your face. Precious! Oh, my sides. Oh, dear Hector, how I love this moment!”

Hector’s mind went blank. He had stood there watching the murder of a child. Simply watching.

Then he felt his feet moving. His body fell into a stance, his sword before him.

He found himself greatly outmatched. The Fahlecain twins were renown soldiers. Their skills with the swords were as masterful as nimble feet. Even as Hector shortened their distance, Fahlecain had already had his sword ready and his shield raised high. His was a round shield, and though he was not armed as light as Hector, he had more experiences in combats between men.

His shield met Hector’s piercing strike head-on, but he did not allow the impact to linger. He leapt backwards, to lessen the striking force. But Hector rushed in without a moment's rest. As he ran with quick steps, he worked up a spell, “iron and rock of the earth, be in my steel!”.

Once more, he brought his sword down. It struck with a heavy noise, and even Fahelcain’s bones shook. The shield bent and cracked. So it was discarded. With his free, but trembling arm, Fahlecain drew quickly his dagger and flung it at Hector’s chest.

An ethereal buckler materialized on Hector’s left arm, and blocked the dagger. Then with it, he shielded Fahlecain’s sword strike. Hector took a step back. Fahlecain did the same. The ranger had successfully destroyed his foe’s shield, but lost his element of surprise.

Then the sound of a drawing sword came from behind him. A glance back revealed the captain with his weapon in hands, though the man had yet to make any move.

“Enough of that now. The mission comes first. Go kill each other at another time. Stop. Now!”

But neither moved. There was only one voice echoing the room: the sister’s voice. She was clutching the little girl in her arms, wailing. Then Fahlecain once again approached them.

“Got that, Hector?” Fahlecain said taunting as he eyed Hector, “there are still more to kill tonight. Can you not see I am merely doing my duty?” He said so, but Hector knew that sadist wanted nothing more than a legal reason to murder a fellow knight.

“I would hate it, though,” he went on, and now was upon the girl, “to have it over so quickly. Where’s the fun in that?”

Hector could barely match one. Fighting two of them was out of the question. But had he another choice?

He stepped forward once more. There was no more going back. It would be a hopeless battle. If he was doomed to fall this night, so let that be it. He could not watch another innocent living being killed tonight. The wails in the back fueled his steps, and it darkened his heart.

He thought of the first cambion he killed early in the night, who was a simple guard, armed simply with a sword, never did expect death tonight. So was the desperate ambush, the people that threw themselves to death’s embrace to give the rest of the cambions a chance to survive. Then he thought of the old man who had chosen to fight despite his frail body, and the old woman who had not escaped with the others. Then the young girls, too young to have seen much of the world. Demons they were, but soulless they were not. Yet they too would meet the same fate when Hector had mustered his last futile breath.

Then Hector prayed. All spells are prayers.

“O night, mountainous shadow, underground blackness, be with us!”

At once, the whole room fell into darkness. All candle lights were covered in black, though they were burning still, no light from them could illuminate the unholy darkness filling the room. The world turned lightless.

Mistress fortune had smiled her grim smile on Hector’s prayer.

“You bastard!” shouted the captain. Fahlecain hissed.

Now came Hector’s last struggle.