I looked up. Gone were the menacing hues of purple and crimson that loomed over Scorro. Now, the sky was an ominous shade of deep grey, whipped mercilessly by a fierce wind that was infected with the stench of death and madness. A slaughter was unfolding on the streets, and it was worsening.

Chaos and destruction had taken hold of the town. But… There was also a presence. Like something was sitting on my shoulder and looking over me. I could almost feel its pressure, but there was nothing, no one, there.

I looked down and in my right hand was the maul that I had just summoned from somewhere. I held its hard handle, black with countless symbols and what seemed like runes etched on it. The head of the maul, flanged and spiked, rested on the cracked stones of the square.

The weapon was weightless and lightless, almost smoldering. Holding it felt familiar. Much more familiar than anything I’ve felt these last few weeks.

“I am here again… reunited at last,” boomed a voice, but it came from inside my head. It was piercingly sharp and cold, but not cruel and without malice. As it continued to speak, the sharpness dissipated and softened, and I felt like I was talking to an old friend.

“Friend…” the voice said. And although the voice was softer and not as invasive as before, it was still another consciousness inside my head. “You never called me friend. I am Goxhandar. But… Where am I? Why did you leave me—”

But there was no time.

The loud explosion had drawn much attention from the savages. They were just feasting on the prey they had just caught—some city guards who were protecting some merchants, who were now themselves ripped apart limb from limb.

Five of them looked up at me. Their eyes were black and soulless, their gaze pierced into me with a seething hatred that made my blood boil. They leaped and snarled, wild and hungry, and their bodies were contorted and twisted into grotesque mockeries of what they had just been—human. But there was little of that left in them, barely more than a beast in mind and body, a predator.

No, they weren’t beasts either. Beasts don’t murder or hate. These savages did. They were maddened murderers that needed to be put down. An intense rage flowed through me. It was unlike anything I’d felt before, not even comparable to the rage I felt in Veneiea.

I understood my purpose very clearly. I wanted to drive my maul into them. I wanted all of them dead and crushed under the Blood Maul.

“Crushed,” the voice repeated. “Yes, crush them! Crush them all. I will help. It will be as it has been for a century!”

The pain in my left hand was still lingering from the spell, and I held it close to my side as if it was injured. But on the other hand, was the cold and rough shaft of the Blood Maul.

“Careful, Master!” it said again. “The warlike cattle comes again to challenge you. Steady yourself, you are still weak!"

As I stood my ground, three raging savages charged towards me with bloodied arms, their fingers spread like malformed claws. They stumbled over corpses and the ruins of stalls, tents, and wagons to get to me quicker, howling and shrieking with eyes as black as a moonless night. But I stood straight and waited.

I… thirsted for their death.

Before the first of them had reached me, I felt a pull on the shaft of the maul. I understood and fell into an almost dream-like state where my mind was blank, hardly thinking, or barely even conscious of what my body was doing. It was acting on instinct, with skills that I did not know I had.

I saw the individual drops of blood on their maddened faces when I swung.

It was an impossibly quick and wide swing that came so fast that none could react before the spiked head crashed mercilessly into them. It swept through all five, and a pink mist erupted in the air as the mangled sacks of meat were hurled fifty paces away into the unfolding chaos.

As the maul flew along my left side, I loosened my wrist and effortlessly swung it over my head, the shaft coming to rest on my right shoulder, where I still felt the invisible presence. It was content, almost happy.

“Jonas!” I heard a sudden cry that was not in my head. It was Florencia. She was now even further than she had been before, stumbling back towards the town hall’s entrance. The once sturdy scaffolding was now engulfed in flames that blackened the stonework.

Jace and Iskander were there, even further back, their swords also held ready and running red, and before them lay bodies, some smoldering, others merely cut to pieces. I felt their fear on my tongue—sweet and powerful. They held the line in front of the guards, who stood behind their little shields, hiding their eyes and faces to the danger.

They still held strong, but drew ever more attention from the lone bestial stragglers who saw their resistance, weak and panicked, such as it was.

“Jonas, run! Come here!” Florencia cried and waved me to join her, her blonde hair flowing wildly, and for a moment, her golden aura shone brightly. I blinked, and it was gone.

Then came another cry of desperation.

On the other side of the square that was now littered with disfigured corpses of men, women, and worse, I saw the young guard from before. Private Larn had gathered at his side some ten guards and held a narrow space between a few merchant booths, and behind them were precious few civilians who managed to escape. They stood behind the shield wall, huddled close and desperately crying for salvation.

The shields of the guards were raised and swords were bloodied, but I could almost taste their saccharine fear even from this far away. Before them was a deranged pack of those savages, wildly jumping and feinting an attack, all the while they were laughing, or what sounded like laughter, but was nothing of the sort.

“Keep away, you devils!” private Larn yelled, voice breaking and shaking, and banged his sword on his shield. The brutes were tormenting them, not attacking out of rage.

So they have some intelligent thought left in their minds; I thought.

“Intelligent thought? No. Only half-thoughts and malice, no cunning, nothing that could be called sentience. Nothing more than a herd to cull,” the voice said. “Catch their attention, throw something at them, and they’ll charge us. We shall break them apart.”

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Goxhandar…; I thought. The maul was talking to me as if it was there with me.

“Yes,” the voice said again. “I am Goxhandar, the Blood Maul, as you named me in the beginning. We shall continue our legacy of carnage even here, in this strange, airy realm.”

My mind was torn in three directions. I felt a need to advance toward the Pasquinne-thing, but Florencia needed my help, and the hapless private Larn was about to be overrun.

The decision was made for me. The murderous savages taunting private Larn took from the ground, the bloodied limbs and flesh, and threw them against the shields of the guards. Desperate cries followed, and cruel laughter. I saw and felt that their courage was about to run out.

“Get their attention,” Goxhandar said, and the pressure on my right shoulder grew hotter.

I looked to the side where lay a large, square timber that had been broken off from a nearby counter frame, and reached out with my hurt hand. The pain still lingered in my bones, and with a thought and twisting of my wrist, the jagged piece of wood flew wildly into the pack of brutes. Immediately after, the bone-deep ache pulsed and crept up to my shoulder joint, digging itself deep.

But I had no time to dwell on it, as the wooden log struck one creature, split open its skull, and dropped him dead in an instant. The rest of the herd let out a deafening scream of rage, their necks snapping in my direction, and they charged, now no longer caring about private Larn.

I found their thought pattern odd. They could taunt and even play with their prey, reveling in the misery they inflicted, but they also forget what they were doing entirely the next moment when some other stimuli were offered.

Private Larn was quick to act. He commanded his small group of survivors to retreat to an abandoned building—a tailor workshop with intact windows. They broke the door off its hinges to get in, and then barricaded themselves in, hoping for salvation. At least that was taken care of for now.

A dozen or more creatures of hate and hunger ran at me, and for a moment I felt my own rage burn through me, but that faded. A cold logic and methodical thinking took over, and I noticed every detail that I saw around me, and in the back of my mind, I heard the words repeating: “Crush them! Break them!”

Before the first naked and bestial savages were in arm’s reach, I made a step forward and felt a pull on the haft of the maul. Gripping it tightly, the swing came out with lightning-fast speed, and in an instant, I sent half of them flying through the air, and far away they fell dead, their bodies gruesomely torn apart by the spikes of the maul. The sound of bones snapping and muscles tearing echoed, and I felt nothing but joy.

“They are weak. Slow.” I heard the voice again.

I felt another tingling pull run through my fingers, and I relaxed my wrist. The maul almost moved by itself, only gently guided by my hand. It spun over my head and swung low, and mowed down the remaining attackers even before they could take a step back. This time, as bone and organs were crushed and shattered by the impact, I felt an even greater pleasure.

In awe, I watched as the bodies fell to the ground twenty, thirty, and forty paces away. All who attacked me… attacked us, were felled, dead, broken, and in shock. All except for one who was still alive. I walked over to her and stared at the woman, how her black eyes twitched and how she coughed up a foamy blood.

“Let her writhe in pain,” Goxhandar said gleefully, and I did just that. I kneeled beside her, carefully taking in the last moments of her life. She was naked from the waist down, dressed only in a brown and black loincloth, and entirely covered in ritualistic scars. Countless symbols had been burned into her skin, connecting with each other and creating a sickening maze. There were no thoughts left in her mind, only an emptiness, but she still dug her nails into the cobblestones, scraping her fingers red. And then her eyes glazed over, and she died.

A rich, metallic scent of blood filled the air. It was only then that I noticed that most of the cries of pain and desperate screaming had died down. There were only a few shouts that came from the left, from the town hall…

“Jonas,” was the shouting.

“Jonas!” it came again, but a guttural grunting drowned it out.

Florencia stood there, alone. Jace and Iskander were further back, holding a formation with the guards. I saw her long coat billowing wildly in the strong wind, ripped and torn here and there, and her braided hair was in utter disarray. Her skin was covered with a few drops of blood, and some spots of dirt, and glistened from sweat. She had tried to reach me, to help me, but was now frozen in place, her longsword pulsing a dim orange. I could see and feel her fear, and how her lower lip trembled.

Standing between us was a savage, unlike the rest.

He was naked, his muscular body covered in ritualistic scars and tattoos, and his arms were covered in fresh and dried blood. His face, from what I could see, was a grotesque mixture of a human and rabid dog, his sharp teeth bared and drooling in a menacing snarl. I could even smell his sweat and bloody stench.

“Jo—” Florencia’s voice trailed off as our eyes met. And in that instant, a flood of panicked thoughts overtook my mind. Her frantic mental chatter consumed me, and I could not speak.

“She knows you, and you know her. You care for her,” Goxhandar said, but I could not reply. “You wish to help her? Why?”

“Together,” Florencia said telepathically, squeezing a third voice into my head. I had no time to negotiate. “3… 2… 1…”

With fierce determination burning within us, we charged forward as one, almost mirrored in our movement. The dog-beast turned to face me, snarling and baring its teeth. I locked eyes with the creature, and in unison, we both dashed to the right.

In three long jumps, we were at the brute’s feet. Before the creature could even react, the Blood Maul came sideways, crashing into its legs with a deafening bang. At the same time, Florencia swung her sword, her blade slicing deep with deadly precision.

With her first swing, she chopped off the beast’s left arm, sending it tumbling to the ground in a bloody heap. She took a step forward, past the beast, and made a backhand slash that cut a deep, smoking gash into the creature’s torso. Blood spurted out in a hot, sticky spray, and the beast let out a guttural howl of pain.

The Blood Maul was still in motion, and I redirected its path toward the beast’s head that loomed over us. With a thunderous overhead swing, I shattered its skull in an explosion of gory blood and brain matter.

Then there was silence, and I only heard the wind storm through the square and the cracking of the fire.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

I barely broke a sweat, but Florencia was gasping for air and needed to take a few deep breaths before she could even speak. Her eyes were darting around, jumping from me to the maul I held, to the creature we had just broken.

“Jonas—” Florencia’s voice was trembling.

Her shoulders were shaking and her eyes were wide open, pupils dilated. I turned towards her, my grip on the maul loosened, and I threw it on the ground beside me. It fell with a deep thud, cracking the grey cobblestones that were stained with blood. The flanged head dug itself deep into the dirt.

A quiet deepened, and I could only hear some cries of pain here and there. But further away, there was still the unmistakable wild screaming of the unworldly creatures.

The once-beautiful city of Scorro was now in ruin, the square was littered with debris and… bodies. That was gut-wrenching. There were hundreds of bodies, all laying still and lifeless, frozen eternally in their final moments of terror. There they lay, torn apart, and half-eaten by creatures that should not exist.

I looked at the town hall, with its grand facade now nothing but black-smeared and cracked, and its roof had caught fire and was now going down in flames. Five adjacent buildings were also alight, walls crackling and popping as they burned. The smoke was thick now, blanketing the sky and casting a gloom over us.

“Are you alright?” I asked Florencia again, wiping some blood off her cheek, and she recoiled at the touch.

“I’m,” Florencia stuttered. “I’m fine. One almost got me, but Iskander saved me.”

“Where—” I started, but she cut me off.

“Jonas, what in Iscia’s name is this?” Florencia stuttered, her mouth agape as she pointed to the maul that was now coating the ground with black dust. She could not hide her shock.

“Goxhandar,” the voice said again, and the pressure on my right shoulder increased, and I could almost see a shadow in the corner of my eye, but Florencia saw nothing. “I am Goxhandar, the Blood Maul, and I am soulbound to the great demon hunter.”