With renewed intensity, I ran through the field, cleared by the corisseri honor guard. Every yard and patch of land was now marred by the gruesome remnants of battle—corpses strewn about, severed limbs, guts, and other pieces I could not recognize lay all around me. The sour and nauseating stench filled my nostrils and made my legs wobble.

But I pressed on and as I went, drew strength from the fallen, and unleashed it as a terrible psychic fire. Ahead, I saw my target.

“There is the commander,” I told Goxhandar, but very quickly I sensed something was off. “Do you feel it, Goxhandar? This one is not strong enough to be a demon! It’s a host. This can’t be Vranik!”

“We do not know that for certain. But I do sense that this demonhost is a meek one. It is no stronger than the one we bested in Scorro, while we are multitudes greater than we were then. Their kind have tricks to play still. I advise approaching with caution, Master.”

I nodded to myself once more. I was ready and alert, and as I pushed onward, the protective plates of overlapping bone moved around with such ease that I could run and jump and swing the maul as if I wasn’t wearing anything at all.

The attention of the demonhost was towards the bridge, where Orsin and his honor guard—the mightiest of the corisseri—were holding back the retreat. I wondered why the host had not noticed my advance, as all the very air around was wreathed in pale pink flames.

The creature itself looked so foul and corrupted that its entire presence was disturbing. My blood boiled and I felt a righteous rage wash over me.

“Such insolence!” I thought to myself.

In its grip, it clutched a colossal club, fashioned from dark wood, and rusty spikes were hastily driven through it. Its shape was that of an unholy amalgamation of man and toad, some grotesque hybrid that stumbled around quickly on its long and slender legs.

The mouth of the foul creature hung dumbly open, filled with tiny jagged teeth in a stupid grin. And its round eyes resembled bubbles upon water that stuck out hideously from its malformed skull. As it moved, a syrupy shadow clung to its form and around it, and as I drew closer, a suffocating stench of rotting fish filled my nostrils.

But despite its long and withered legs, the demonhost moved quickly, and with a strange blur hiding its movements. It ignored my advance and commanded the precious few troops that it had left to make an attack on the bridges.

But suddenly, with a jarring turn, it charged at me!

Immediately a shadow fell upon my thoughts, and a cold chill ran down my spine. Cold sweat beaded my forehead and I felt an overwhelming need to surrender and flee.

“Florencia be damned, and all the rest! I must escape. There was no hope of victory!”

“No!” I broke the foul psychic spell, dispersing such pathetic thoughts into the wind.

As the demonhost turned to face me, three corisseri took the opening to attack its exposed rear. They had their swords ready, but before a single strike was made, a wild swing came out without a warning. All three were killed in an instant. Limbs and helmets and pieces of their war horses were flung everywhere, and where the colossal club hit the ground, it sent chucks of earth and rocks flying.

I stormed the demonhost before it could lift the club again.

“You come and challenge us?” I heard the piercing voice of the demon speak straight into my mind. “You have no idea—”

But I had no patience to hear the taunting of a demon or its pathetic, cowardly host.

While running, I raised my left arm once more and directed another blinding bolt of psychic lightning toward the parasitic host. The pallid, greenish skin burned black and sizzled, and the creature staggered and recoiled. A horrific shriek of pain erupted from its repugnant mouth, and all slaves to its will turned and ran to protect it.

In its moment of weakness, two corisseri tried for a charge. But an impenetrable veil of darkness enveloped all three, and after a blink of an eye, the darkness lifted.

The brave cavalrymen had vanished.

The demonhost did not speak another word. Instead, it charged at me with blinding speed, and I couldn’t follow its vile arms and legs. If it would strike, I didn’t know if I could even evade it, so I unleashed another bolt of psychic lightning. The air around me was now crackling with static and the smell of wet earth.

My attack hit true only a moment before it could attack. More skin scorched and burned off its foul body. It stumbled and staggered, then raised its massive club above its toad-looking head. Its eyes were pitch black and hideous.

Its strike descended with speed, and I could barely dodge to the side before it came down and hit the ground with a low and deep thud, its rusty spike buried deep. Using the momentum of my dodge, I gathered all my strength and swung the Blood Maul upward.

In the singular moment before my counterstrike was about to connect, I saw a strange transformation in the demonhost’s eyes. The blackness cleared up into a polluted grey, and a terrible realization seemed to dawn upon that foul creature—it was about to experience pain beyond its wildest nightmares.

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And then the Blood Maul hit. With a deafening thunder, it crashed into its ribcage and sent its entire body flying up and away. The very earth beneath me trembled as dirt, grass, and blood erupted into the air in a gruesome maelstrom. The sheer force of the impact left my ears ringing, and a swirling dust of clouds enveloped the battlefield around us.

I took a brief moment to look around me. Only a few savages were left alive nearby, their frantic attempts to rush to their captain’s aid thwarted at every turn by the corisseri. Captain Viccorio Orsin’s honor guard was everywhere, and under their watchful eyes, any potential gatherings of the enemy were swiftly foiled.

The demonhost was now wounded and struggling. It rose to its feet, its knees wobbling, and it howled with an impotent rage.

I leaped backward to create some distance, as Goxhandar kept telling me to be cautious. “Before I kill you, demon, tell me where Vranik is!”

“Vranik?” asked the demon in a screeching voice.

“Your master Grasd Vranik! Where is he? Tell me now!”

“Vranik is not my master!” laughed the demonhost, and launched itself at me.

This wild attack took me by surprise, but that quickly faded when I saw just how slowly it now moved. In its injured and pained state, it had become a lumbering and clumsy beast.

I easily sidestepped the two frantic, ravenous attacks it did with the great club, its movements now pathetic and predictable. I brought the Blood Maul with a wide sweep into its legs, shattering the toadlike legs in pieces. It unleashed another guttural, wild cry that echoed around in the Poscale fields.

“Then who is your master?” I asked, my voice loud and cruel.

The creature writhed and squirmed, its wretched form now mangled and broken, but it spoke nothing. I dragged the maul through its lower abdomen, its spiked flanges ripping open even more of its flesh. Desperate and hateful wails of pain sounded from its throat.

All around it, the remaining savages joined in on the pained chorus. They stumbled and staggered and cried out, falling over each other, only to be trampled over by the corisseri.

“It is the Great Lord!” the demon groaned, as I drove the Blood Maul deeper into its chest cavity. How it could still talk, I had no idea. It tried to claw into safety, but its body was held in place by my maul. All it could do was dig the dry dirt.

In an instant, as quick as a lash of a whip, its head jerked upward, and our eyes locked. There I saw the deepest of black hatred.

The demonhost’s voice was laced with venom and spite. “Curse you and all your pathetic kind! How can you even hope of winning against us, or the Great Lord? All your lands will be ours and everyone you know will become our slaves and then die, weak, broken, and pathetic! We have already conquered so much of your pitiful world that you can never withstand out—”

It coughed up a dark and smoldering blood that seeped into the dirt. A black blotch lingered there.

I knew it was taunting me, and couldn’t resist.

“If that is true, then how come I beat you this easily?” I leaned closer to its disgusting face. “You couldn’t even hit me once. Now go back and report to your great lord Rufasmos. Die!”

The demonhost didn’t even see my deathstrike coming. It was a wide, sweeping arc that came down on its grotesque skull, shattering it into shards of bone and putrid flesh. Green mucus and chunks of sickly pink sprayed out in a gruesome display, showering my armor. But the moment it had done so, it evaporated from the bone plates as it had never happened. Meanwhile, the toad-like body of the dead demonhost cracked and crumbled into a pile of reeking filth on the fields of Poscale.

A weighty exhale sounded, and I saw the dark shadow of the demon finally escape the ruined prison of flesh and fade into the sunlight. The demon was no more, and up above, the shadow lifted.

Onto the fields, a quiet silence descended, and as I looked around in exhaustion, the battle was dying down. Almost none of the brutes or savages could put up a fight. Captain Orsin and his resolute corisseri were regrouping and making short sorties over the river to pursue and vanquish the remaining enemy stragglers. None who came to attack us reached very far. All were killed.

“Let them all meet the same fate as this one!” I heard Orsin cry out, his voice ringing as he struck another enemy down with his long mace. “Today is ours, corisseri! Victory for the Crown! Victory for home!”

Then I turned my attention toward colonel Piasno’s disciplined men and the Lienor volunteers, as their lines marched in formation, and advanced over the ruined field. They trod upon the fallen and ended the lives of all the miserable and wretched. I wasn’t too surprised to see no savage knew how to ask for mercy.

The battle was won.

In the distance, coming from the Vaecca estate, I saw small figures, dressed in red or white or teal, run onto the fields. They set to work, painstakingly dragging the wounded and maimed away to their healing tent. Among these blessed apothecaries, I sensed the faint whisper of magic, and I knew many of the injured would be healed of their ailments.

With a heavy sigh of relief, I removed my helmet and breathed the sour air again. I threw the Blood Maul down on the ground, where it dissolved into the air. As I stood there, covered in sweat and dirt, every passing moment and a gust of wind lessened the lingering demonic stench.

“The battle was easy, and Vranik was not here!” I told Goxhandar.

That fact worried me. Could this have been only the first army before a larger attack? The very idea seemed implausible, given how many thousands had been thrown upon us here. Such a host could not be assembled easily.

“You may be correct, Master,” said Goxhandar. “But do enjoy the victories and the thrill of a successful battle. My appetite has been satiated, and the ease of the battle notwithstanding, it was a great fight. Many we felled before us. It reminds me of the old times. Now, I must slumber and wait for the next one.”

“Do you miss those old times?”

“I…” This was the first time Goxhandar stuttered. “I cannot provide you a straight answer, Master. Initially, I did harbor a longing for those times, as I felt much at home in the carnage. But now, with the new experiences I have had since, there is far more for me here, than there ever was.”

Suddenly, amidst the stillness, I heard frantic cries and the sound of footsteps drawing nearer.

Emerging from the midst of the masses came Florencia. She had already cast aside her padded hood, and her face had streaks of dirt and glistening with sweat. Many strands of hair were glued to her cheek or forehead and lips. She came running through the bodies and wounded and jumped into my arms. Before saying a single word, she frantically kissed me, and they were passionate and fiery kisses that were very fitting for such a moment.

“You damned, reckless fool!” she cried with red eyes. “I told you to stay by my side, but you ran out alone like a madman! But you’re safe, aren’t you? Unharmed? Are you injured anywhere?”

Her words continued as a storm of concern and love, and I did not mind one bit.