The line was broken. The soldiers, each of them trained and disciplined, had become scattered in panic beneath the swarm of demons. Ser Lunette swung her longsword in wide sweeps, trying to keep the creatures at bay, but they came from every direction with no regard for ‘fairness’ or ‘taking turns’. A slash found purpose in one of the demons’ ribs, and it let out a horrific screech, before grabbing the blade in both its talons and ripping it from her grasp.
Lunette hit the ground hard as they descended on her, talons gripping her limbs and pinning her down as they raked at her armor, seeking the beating heart within. She could feel the pressure on her rib cage as one of the creatures slammed down on her breastplate with enough force to dent it inward.
She was not ready to accept death, even as their shadows blotted out what sun remained of the darkening sky. Lunette kicked, fought, and screamed with whatever she had left, which amounted to very little. But she would not give them the pleasure of an easy meal.
Suddenly, light. The demon over top of her was struck hard enough to send it flying, and as the others began to lift up, flapping their wings hurriedly to try to flee, they too were struck down.
“Lunette!” Arvel yelled as he bashed another demon away. It desperately flapped, trying to lift off, but he grabbed its ankle and yanked it back down to crown it with his shovel until the beast fell in a dark heap on the ground.
“Y-You’re here,” she wheezed, clawing at her gorget to pull the warped metal away from her throat. She yanked it off and threw it aside as she sat up, reaching for the buckles at the sides of her breastplate.
“Things ain’t looking so good,” Arvel said, pulling her longsword out of the ribs of one of the fallen demons. He flipped it around and offered it hilt-first, saying, “You gotta get people under cover.”
“My lady,” she replied between labored breaths, “Lady Deleraine, where is she?”
“Safe,” he answered, “Focus on the rest right now.”
Lunette gasped for air as she shucked off the breastplate and its pauldrons from over her head and onto the ground. She grabbed her sword from Arvel as she stood, and said, “If my lady is safe, that means I can fight without holding back.”
Arvel grinned and asked, “You been holdin’ onto a cool line like that a long time, haven’t you?”
A screech from above rang out, and both of them lifted their weapons, a purple-blood-soaked longsword, and a rusty square-nosed shovel, preparing to face the onslaught.
Rain was safe. She was also furious. She sat curled up in water to her waist and banged on the lid of the barrel that Arvel had stuffed her inside of, to keep her hidden.
“Arvel, I swear, when I get out of here...!” she shouted, too irate to string together a properly-worded threat beyond that. She pushed as hard as she could in the lid and gasped when it finally came open, and rain poured down on top of her.
“Lady Deleraine!” Frederik said, tossing aside his crowbar and reaching into the barrel to offer her his hands, “How in the world did you wind up in there?”
“Where is he?” she asked, seething as she stood up from the barrel, her hair sticking to her face as the rain poured over her.
“Mr. Arvel?” Frederik asked, “He’s over there...”
Rain lifted an arm to shield her eyes from the rain, and looked in the direction that Frederik was pointing. Through the haze of falling rain, she saw a silhouette that she immediately recognized. Arvel, shirtless as he so often was, plowing through the last of the demons that remained. Their wings were broken, their bodies too mangled to make their escape, but they clawed desperately at him before being bludgeoned with a shovel head in one hand, and a broken wooden handle in the other.
A loud crack rang out as Arvel brought the shovel head down on the skull of the last moving demon, and he slumped forward, his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
‘He saved us,’ Rain thought, as she watched him in amazement. She then realized she was still standing in a barrel of water that was beginning to fill even higher, and attempted to make her climb out before the whole barrel toppled and dumped her and its other contents onto the ground.
“Get yer shovels and gather up the bodies!” Arvel called out to whoever was nearby to listen, “Don’t touch ‘em if you can avoid it. The rain’s a mixed blessing... Wash up as best you can, but there ain’t no helping the blood getting into the soil at this point.”
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“Listen to the man!” Lunette shouted, “Wounded, to the wagons! If you can stand and lift, you can help carry the injured and move the corpses.”
Rain pushed herself up to her feet, brushing off Frederik’s offered help. She took a look around the burgeoning camp and found that what little they had started with was already torn down, with wagon covers ruined, supplies becoming soaked in rain, and the bodies of people she had come to know over the last week laying in the mud. Some of them whined or sobbed in pain. Some of them lay frighteningly still.
“You alright?” Arvel asked.
Rain looked up from one of the figures laying on the ground, and stared up at Arvel. When last she looked, he was at least thirty feet away, but in her distraction, he had arrived right in front of her. Her eyes began to well with tears before she reached out and grabbed him tightly in a hug.
“H-Hey, I haven’t gotten to wash up yet,” he said, holding his arms out away from her. But she only held tighter. Slowly, Arvel wrapped his arms around her, letting her sob against his chest.
Frederik stood back, looking on helplessly. He surveyed the carnage for a moment, before looking at Arvel and asking, “Is there anything I can do?”
“You can tell Lunette I’m taking Rain back to my place,” he answered, petting her wet hair gently; “They can get along fine without her for a little while.”
As soon as she heard the front door swung open, Fidget burst out of her cabinet and ran toward Arvel in the doorway, her face streaked with tears.
“There were demons outside!” Fidget shouted, “Fidget heard them! So scared, and Arvel was...”
Fidget skidded to a stop when she saw Rain beside Arvel, soaked to the bone. She froze, a look of confusion on her face, as though she didn’t know how to react. But after she took a bit to consider her options, she ran straight to Rain and hugged her tight, throwing her arms around Rain’s hips and shoving her face against Rain’s apron.
“Fidget...” Rain said softly, reaching down to touch the goblin’s quivering shoulders, “I missed you too.”
Arvel looked back over his shoulder, sighing as he watched the rain begin to lighten, and as he pulled the door shut he said “It figures. Getting real tired of this mess.”
Rain sank to her knees on the floor, and Fidget halfway crawled onto her lap to hug her tighter.
“Th-There were lots of soldiers showing up,” Fidget murmured.
“Not soldiers,” Rain said, “There are a few guards to help protect people, but those are my people. We want to start a new town here. A place where they can build houses and cultivate farms, and start families.”
Arvel laid the broken halves of his shovel in the corner and grabbed a towel from the kitchen to begin drying off his head and shoulders. He stared out the window at the caravan down the hill, watching the folk trying to reorganize as the rain was letting up.
“Human towns hate goblins,” said Fidget, burying her face tighter against Rain’s apron, her hands balled up in the material as she clung tightly to her.
Rain smiled down at Fidget and said, “They won’t hate you. I’ll tell them that you’re not going to hurt them or steal from them. I know that you’re a good person.”
Fidget looked up and nodded eagerly, with a bright smile on her face; “Fidget is good! Fidget has been helping a lot! Fidget feeds the chickens and hasn’t kicked even one of them. Fidget sweeps every day. And keeps Arvel from being lonely. Every night!”
Arvel felt his heart leap into his throat. He felt the burning glare of Rain’s gaze on the back of his head.
Meanwhile, up on the mountain, a single mangled demon loped toward its sanctuary. The creature’s beak was cracked, its wings tattered, and it held into the stump where its left arm once was, squeezing its right talon around the stump to slow the gush of purple blood that steadily pulsed out. But the hobbled demon made it into the shade of a deep, dark cave, careening off of walls as it flew erratically down the narrow passage. Finally, it made it to the end of its journey, collapsing on the floor in a cavern filled with gently glowing purple crystals.
A gentle clack of heels echoed from the stone as a woman approached. She knelt beside the demon and laid a hand atop its head, petting it soothingly, as a chilling glow emanated from her fingertips. A rich purple light poured into the demon, and flowed down its face, beginning to knit its beak back together. Before it was fully healed, it began to groan and squawk gently.
“Shh,” the woman said, “You won’t be able to speak like that..”
The demon shakily lifted its head, gazing up toward its savior. She was singularly enchanting. Her long, silky white hair fell over her bare, lavender-blue shoulders and between elegant, black-feathered wings that were folded against her back. Her horns curved back against her head like a crown. She caressed the demon’s head gently as she poured her energy into it, beginning to heal its broken body. Still, it tried to squawk, and this time, something caught her ear. She paused, and asked, “Did you say Arvel did this?”
Seeing that the demon was still barely holding itself together, she curled her fingers, grasping its skull tightly in her hand, forcing more of that vivid magic into it.
“Tell me more,” she said, the energy overflowing, beginning to condense and drip down its skin in brightly shining rivulets of liquid.
The demon shuddered and yawped, its one working hand reaching up to feebly claw at her arm, but unable to grab hold of her as its body began to shake apart.
The woman sighed and said, “I suppose there’s just no helping it. You’re no good to me now.”
Her fingers tightened, and those rivulets of liquid began to roll up the demon’s brow, the overflowing energy retreating into her palm. The demon screeched and writhed on the ground as all that she gave it, she took away, and then some. Its beak cracked open again, and its body began to wither until its skin was wrinkled and barely clinging to its bones.
The woman closed her eyes as she took all of the energy in, letting it flow up her arm and into the core of her body. She slowly opened her crimson eyes, now burning bright, as the images from the demon’s life flashed before her. The tip of her tongue traced along her dark lips before she whispered, “I’m hurt. You came out to play without me...”