There was a fire that burned in my closed palm with a dark pink color, but without heat, and it was only held aflame through my rageous willpower and intent. It was, perhaps, the rage itself that fueled it. I did not know. All I knew was the anger gave me a very clear focus and concentration.

Luckily, I had convinced Florencia to move back to safety. She now stood beside Iskander, leading the remaining brave guards of Scorro, who held a half-circle formation in front of the town hall main door. A shivering captain Molin, who had to show his strength in this critical moment, held his position next to Jace Vialisios, who seemed to speak words of encouragement to the men.

There was now a dead quiet upon Scorro, except for the roaring flames that had now engulfed a dozen buildings. I saw Florencia try to extinguish the fire from afar, but she could only hold the inferno at bay.

Some stragglers found their way to the town hall, where Florencia and Iskander cut them down with little trouble. It seemed that most of the corrupted thralls of the demonhost were dead, and whoever was left alive was hiding.

I stood alone with Goxhandar’s presence on my shoulder, right where I held the maul.

Deep and rumbling steps approached, and the day grew dimmer. The wind died down, and I smelled a foul, sour smell come with the secretary. The vicious demonhost appeared in sight on the other side of the ruined square. None of the brave guards ran, inspired by Jace’s words.

The creature advanced with measured steps.

Pasquinne’s eyes were black as night, set deep into its oversized skull, and as our gazes met, I felt an icy cold wash over me. It penetrated my soul, and I felt my thoughts ripped open by the demon. All of my hopes and fears and deepest dreams were there, totally bare, for the creature to read and mock and try to use against me. All of my instincts were screaming at me, telling me that this creature was something incomprehensibly wrong.

First came the desperate thoughts of escaping and leaving Scorro to its fate, to watch the town burn down from the distance, and leave the demon to rampage through the countryside, reaping a countless toll of death.

Then came the fear that all hope was lost before the demon, that this creature was a being of such terrifying power, that there was no point in even fighting back. It would be utterly pointless. We should bow down and cower, for there was no winning against such a monster. The best course would be to beg to be killed quickly, for that would be the most merciful.

But these terrors were false. They were a trick that the demon played on my mind, to win the battle even before a single strike was made. But to me, they were like a child throwing pebbles at a wall, hoping to unmake it. And like pebbles, those pathetic tricks bounced off of me, leaving me unharmed.

I saw the creature take a careful step forward, the ground shaking, and the air around us moved strangely. Its deep-set eyes almost pulsed with darkness, but there was something odd in its movements. They were not as confident as before. It held back, as if unsure of what would happen next.

“Do I sense hesitation?” I thought more to myself than anything or anyone in particular.

“There is indeed an uncertainty in the heart of the demon,” Goxhandar replied, seemingly listening in to all my active thoughts. “The psychic attacks it spews are ineffective, and I would guess that has never happened before for the creature. See how its movements are careful and measured. See how it jerks—the host and the demon are in pain and great discomfort.”

“Why?”

“It is because of your enchantments of warding that you have woven into your flesh and soul.”

“Excuse me?”

“I apologize,” Goxhandar said. “Your state of forgetfulness is something I must grow accustomed to. I cannot speak too precisely about the sigils of protection because of the limits you have put upon me. But you must have noticed the scars and blood-ink that is forever marked your skin. These are powerful warding spells that you have created and imprinted onto yourself, meant to cause the demon and their lesser kin uneasiness and discomfort. For the lesser thralls, your mere presence alone irritates them greatly. They move slower and their thoughts are distorted, where they act and attack almost without thinking. In some rare cases, the sigils may even cause pain to demons because they have not encountered such a being before. I suspect this is the case.”

“Good,” I said. “Let it suffer.”

“Yes.” Goxhandar was gleeful. “Let it suffer!”

I jumped, pushing myself forward with my right leg, balancing the jump with the left, and landed close to the demonhost.

The demon-beast was massive—twice as tall as I—and much wider, with asymmetrical muscles building its mass greater than any living being should be. Through its skin grew grotesque bones of black and rot-green that twisted up and around each other, almost like writhing maggots, and the demonhost was entirely covered in them. Some were as large as my forearm, while others were tiny like worms.

The Pasquinne-thing recoiled at my sudden advance. It took two quick jumps backward, cracking the cobblestones under its hoof-like feet. There was something odd about the beast’s movements. It seemed to move faster than anything I’d seen before, yet it wasn’t actually moving faster at all. I could follow all that it did with no trouble. And stranger still, as it moved, light reflected strangely off of it, and a trace of black-green dust followed its unnatural grace.

Then my knees buckled and I almost fell to the ground.

From the beast came a foul stench of decomposition that overwhelmed my senses entirely. It felt to me that the corrupted air penetrated my clothes and even my skin. I wanted to tear my clothes off, burn them, and scrub my skin clean and raw under scalding hot water.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

So pungent was it that my mind lost focus, and I feared that there were no natural means that could wash the stink off. I sensed Goxhandar’s silence, but a buzzing tingle ran through my fingers, hinting that it was still here and ready.

Then a thought overtook my mind and I lost control. I was so thoroughly insulted by the demon’s existence in my world, the audacity of it, that I could not hold back.

“Careful, master,” Goxhandar said, sensing my growing rage. “For a cornered demon is more dangerous than a surprised one. Proceed carefully—”

I sprang forward mid-sentence and caught the demon-kind by surprise. Its dead-black eyes widened and the swing of the maul came so fast, it could not even react.

My right arm twisted, my elbow brought down, and I swung. The flanged spikes of the Blood Maul came with a wide arc that headed into the ugly hooved legs of the demonhost. But I faltered. I did not see coming from behind his malformed torso a simple, straight punch that shot out almost just as quickly as mine.

Its fist was almost the size of my chest, and before I could even understand what had happened, two loud, bone-crushing bangs rang through the square. The force of the blow lifted me off my feet, and I flew back like a sack of dirt through the air, dropping the Blood Maul into the ground, where it cratered the stones underneath, and buried itself deep.

I crashed through a shop window, and into the interior where everything had been trashed some time before. My body slammed hard into a wall, and I fell down into a pile of broken glass and jagged, splintered wood. A sharp pain enveloped my entire upper body, neck, and arms, and something warm and wet began to flow into my left ripped sleeve.

I gasped for air, steadied myself, and tried to ignore the pain. I had also a cut above my ear, where it bled as well, and the collar of my shirt and jacket quickly soaked through.

But then came a blood-chilling scream that cut through the air, and my ears rang painfully.

Limping out of the store and grimacing, I kicked a roughly cut square timber out of my way. My ruined and ripped jacket was covered in shards of glass and wood splinters, and I hastily swiped them off, marveling at the prismatic reflection the glass gave in the odd light around me. My leg had a dull ache in it, and I felt the bleeding on my arm and shoulder cease but for the cut on my scalp.

To my amazement, I saw the Pasquinne-thing thrash about wildly, its massive head was whipping back and forth, saliva dripping from its gaping jaws through jagged teeth. It was looking for something, and I quickly realized what it was.

I had utterly ruined its leg with my maul. The force of the impact tore it off, leaving instead a bleeding stump.

It let out a guttural roar of pain, but that one was almost pathetic compared to the previous. I could taste its confusion and growing fear, and it was sweet as honey for my rage. It filled me with a dark joy to see the hoof-like leg laying in pieces all around the demon, and from the ripped stump bled a black, viscous liquid that seemed to fade out of existence before it hit the ground.

I raised my arm and summoned Goxhandar into it again, and the Maul obeyed. The demonhost looked up at me, its eyes now filled with an unmistakable fear.

“I told you to be careful!” Goxhandar said with little emotion.

“Yeah, I know,” I snarled back. “The punch came out of nowhere.”

“A scared demon is dang—”

“How about a terrified demon?” I asked, and psychically hurled a broken beech log at it with only an ungraceful jerk of my left hand.

The demon-thing jumped back in fear, holding itself upright with its left arm, leaving only the other one to defend itself with. The jagged timber flew by its head, barely missing it.

“A terrified demon is a glorious sport,” Goxhandar said with renewed vigor. “I feared you might be hurt and we must end this quickly.”

“It was only a scratch,” I said to the sentient weapon and limped ahead.

“Some of your ribs might be cracked. Take it slow and carefully, your powers are yet asleep!”

I jumped forward again, flying froglike ahead, and landed in front of the terrified demonhost. The uncontrollable rage still burned hot within me and I found it impossible to savor the moment.

The demonhost expected I would say something, or parlay with it, or anything else. Instead, I swung Goxhandar carelessly, aiming at the creature’s supporting arm that held the weight of its entire upper body.

The beast knew the strike would be fast. It even jumped back much sooner than it should have. But even that did not matter—the reach I had with the long handle of the maul—the low swing shattered its other arm into pieces of rot-smelling meat and bone. Then, I guided my weapon around and up, aiming at the body of the beast.

The Blood Maul came down and crushed itself into the upper spine of the demonhost with a thunderous bang that shook the ground and cracked stone, and my ears popped at the massive air pressure. Dust exploded upward and around, and again, the ground underneath us cracked and broke.

I had utterly broken the body of the demon and its host, and I was overjoyed with a sickly, too-sweet joy over the suffering. And the best part was—it was not yet dead. It writhed in pain, and twisted its body and neck, trying to crawl into safety, but the weight of the maul held the creature in place.

With a slight limp, I came forward and stopped an arms-reach away from the grotesque head of the demon-Pasquinne.

I could not read the thoughts of the creature, and my eyes locked onto its void-black ones, searching for a hint of weakness or vulnerability. There was not a single clear thing I sensed in the consciousness of the demon, except for an all-encompassing desperation to keep its life.

I had a tingle on the back of my neck, and a sudden, powerful realization that the demonhost was about to try for a last-ditch attempt at killing me or at least try to injure me. Almost like a parting gift. This was the understanding I took from the demon’s mind.

Trying for a surprise, it did a wild, wide punch that was nothing more than a gamble than a measured attack. And to its utter amazement, I jumped back even before I saw the twitch in its muscles.

“I am inside your head, demon,” I said out loud, and the demon behind the black eyes of the creature trembled in fear. It did not understand how this could happen.

“Die now,” I only whispered, and summoned the maul into my hand again. It happily obeyed, digging itself free from the pulped body.

“Yes, master,” I heard the blood-hungry voice of Goxhandar almost dance with a delight that I now shared with it. “Kill it, kill it now before it escapes—”

“What?” I only managed to think, before a puff of black air escaped the body of the secretary.

A great and looming shadow ripped itself away from the failed flesh and spun wildly upward, and I heard in my head a thousand threats of death unimaginable. Then, with a soundless whisper, it faded out of the world and there was no more demon before me.

Scorro would live and prosper again.

I looked down at the broken man before me.

The body of secretary Pasquinne immediately deflated. The bony growths that had once been its armor withered and fell off, breaking like porcelain on the stones underneath. Its muscles shrank, and the skin hung loosely, like massive curtains on a flimsy frame. His face became a macabre mockery of a man, with yellow and cataract-ridden eyes that were open in utter disbelief at the turn of events.

It should not have ended this way! I heard his thoughts, his very final realization of the gruesome fate that was about to come for him before I plunged the Blood Maul into his skull with an overhead strike.

With an explosion of hot red blood and pink pulp of brain and a sickening crunch of bone, the worthless traitor was dead and in the main square of Scorro, there was nothing else but the quiet of the dead and the roaring of wild flames.