“We need to get everyone beyond the wall! Civilians and mercenaries!” A woman came up behind them, wielding a sword in hand, blood drenching half her tunic and pants. Her eyes jerked from demon to demon, joining beside Mouse as they fought off several more.
“Orders?” A merc to the right of Mouse called out.
“No, some guy said to get everyone to safety.” She nodded to Taiga who hurried a couple of kids beyond the grasp of a demon. He knocked the demon away before the smoke blocked Mouse’s view.
“What, we’re taking orders from some new guy?” Another woman shouted, a bloodied scratch running from the bottom of her ear to her chin.
Someone grumbled, “sounds awfully upright.”
Mouse looked at them, lowering his sword, “I will abandon anyone disagreeing with my partner’s order.”
Four pairs of eyes swiveled to him. He’d taken down three demons himself, pulled two off the man beside him, and had kept the demons at bay as more encircled the older grumbler. He’d also been the one to break the demon’s formation, making them scramble and giving the mercenaries the break they needed to peacefully talk right then.
Maybe that’d been a mistake.
“Oh, he’s your partner?” The man beside him chuckled, “I’m on board. Lives come first, sure. Got it.”
“What?! You think we need—” the woman slammed her hand over the grumbler’s mouth.
“Behind the wall. Understood, boss.” She glared at the grumbler until they seemed to come to a silent understanding. The grumbler nodded.
“Good.” Mouse’s tone allowed no disobedience. The mercs nodded their response. He turned back to the woman who spoke to Taiga, “those people,” he waved his sword in the direction of a group of civilians, “get them past the gate. Look for injured or those unable to get to the city by themselves, and get them there.”
She nodded, and ran off. Mouse turned back to the others, “we’ll push the demons back. Then we—”
Beyond them, fire exploded by Taiga, flames engulfing around him.
Mouse charged forward, rushing around the mercenaries and ripping away as one tried to grab him. He pushed forward, slamming each boot into the ground and pushing closer. “Taiga!”
As smoke cleared, Taiga stood encircled. His arms guarded him, as he backed away from the flames. Two demons hovered nearby, a meter or so away, just out of a sword’s reach. His eyes darted around him, unfocused even as threats loomed right in front of him.
A demon from the wagon held a flaming branch from a nearby burning tree, cocking its head at Taiga. It hopped down, walking bipedally towards him, and waved the branch around. Taiga leapt back, his arms still in guard position.
The demon cocked its head at him, waving the branch again. Taiga backed up, his eyes following the dancing flames. Mouse’s chest sank, It smiled, clicking to its friends.
It knew.
Mouse leapt over the thinnest spread of fire, bringing his sword down upon the demon. It dodged, and as he landed, Mouse pivoted around, swinging his sword out towards it and forcing it back. Mouse stepped in front of Taiga, sword at the ready. The demon crouched back, looking him up and down, hissing with its clicks.
“Taiga, you okay?”
“I’m fine!” He snapped, breathless, his eyes still on the demon. When his eyes shifted to Mouse, he blinked a couple times, his shoulders dropping with his arms, “I’m good.”
“Did you get burned?”
“Not enough to scar.”
Mouse watched Taiga for a few moments as his friend’s breath settled, his eyes avoiding to linger on the flames. When Mouse turned back to the demon, it had backed off, though a friend joined it with a firecracker in hand.
The pieces of shit knew exactly how to set Taiga off. They watched, and they learned. If Mouse hadn’t seen Taiga at that moment, what would have happened? Even if it was all a coincidence, if nothing else, the demons knew how to piss Mouse off.
He dashed towards the demons, a few steps bringing him to the closest one. He whipped around himself, slicing his sword through the mouth of the demon. Before it recoiled, he grabbed its neck with his free hand, jammed it against the ground, and squeezed.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Its claws prickled at his flesh as it tried to find leverage. He put down his sword to grab the dropped burning branch, raised it over the demon’s head, and stabbed down through its mouth and piercing its throat.
The demon squealed as much as it could with his hand still clasped around its neck. It sizzled. He leaned down over it, “you think just because you learned a little, you could do whatever you want?”
He dug the branch deeper into its mouth, smelling the burning scales and feathers as the fire mangled it from within. “Not so smart, are ya?”
He picked his sword up as he stood, leaving the branch lodged deep in its throat. He glanced at the demon holding the firecracker. Its eyes shifted from its companion to Mouse, before turning and running back to the wagon where their numbers defended them. Another demon on the wagon rocked its head back, letting out a gurgled series of jutted clicks. A call for help.
“Mouse.” Taiga gazed beyond the fire and smoke. Mouse stepped towards him, looking out towards the north. The sun hung high in the sky, and though the smoke created a haze over the field and road, the outline of creatures on the horizon turned him cold.
“Are those all demons?” He watched as the mass made individual movements. A rough estimate of twenty or so more demons approached.
Taiga nodded, “we need to get behind the wall, now.”
Mouse spun around, six, seven, eight civilians still scattered about. Five downed mercenaries, three downed civilians, and seven mercenaries still fighting. There were eight demons still standing where they fought. By the demon’s movements, they had a few minutes at most.
“Get behind the gate!” Taiga hollered, running against the wall, as far from the fire as he could. A few heads turned to him, confused. “More incoming!”
Mouse ran between the bouts of fire, to the mercenaries he’d left fighting. “More demons are coming. Everyone behind the gate. We’re closing the gate, they outnumber us.”
He pointed out to the line of dark shadows moving through the smoke. The merc closest to him paled. “Got it, boss.”
“Get to the civilians!” The woman yelled, smacking the back of the grumbly merc and waving orders to a couple other mercs.
“Behind the gate!” Another mercenary echoed Taiga’s command. Civilians scrambled their belongings into their arms, taking their chances with the one or two demons around them, for they would not live if they did not.
Taiga carried a child in his arms, the boy bloodied and crying, rushing two women from a cluster of trees to the road. They ran to the gate, and he handed off the child before hurrying to a mercenary collapsed to the ground.
A demon scurried towards a man trying for the gate, and Mouse swatted it back, fending it off though his eyes focused on the shadows. The demons closed in, their figures becoming distinctive, separate.
“We won’t make it in time,” a mercenary ran up to him, watching the scenery as he did.
“You’ve been here a while, right?” Mouse turned, looking over the wall and battlements.
“Yeah.”
“Do you have arrows?” He turned to the woman, hardened from battle.
She nodded. “Got it. We still need to buy time until we can get everyone through and the gate shut.”
“You’ll have the time. Tell the others.” He searched for Taiga in the chaos. Crouched to the ground, he heaved a young, injured mercenary onto his back. Mouse jogged to him, checking the surroundings for any demons, though they seemed to step back until their allies descended upon them.
“Can you handle another fight?” Mouse looked him over; a few scratches and claw marks. Blood soaked his shoulder, though it didn’t seem to be his. Blackened, charred flesh speckled his arms.
Taiga nodded, “you have a plan?”
“We’ll buy them time,” he pointed towards the battlements, “arrows.”
“Got it.” He adjusted the weight of the unconscious mercenary on him, before running him to the gate. He spoke with a mercenary there and they brought a stretcher for the man.
Mouse turned back towards the road, gripping his sword in hand and ignoring two mercs running past him as the group of demons rushed over the road. They barreled over abandoned carts, scouring the land as they approached. The last of the civilians and mercenaries hurried through the gate.
He laughed, there was no way he could defeat this many, even if all of them were small. The eight or so remaining demons from the first wave joined the new groups. They clicked to each other, though Mouse wondered how they could understand anything in the sea of clicks overpowering even the roars of flames and crackles of trees.
When a few clashed against him, he smashed his sword across the belly of one, sending it back before whirling around and dragging the tip through the dirt and tossing it into the eyes of another just long enough to confuse it before ramming his body against it. The thing sprawled onto the ground, and though it scrambled up, Mouse stabbed his sword through its leg.
It screeched in clicks, and another demon lunged at him. He drove his elbow into its face. Another demon clawed into his back, and before Mouse could wrangle it off, the demon beneath him stuck its talons into his stomach.
The pain stunned him in place, and it clicked to its friends. He coughed, as if to try to reject the talons embedded in his stomach, but they did not abide. Though his body numbed, he mustered his remaining strength to rip them from his stomach. He stumbled.
“The gate is shut. We need to buy time…” Taiga swung his sword at a demon readying to launch at Mouse.
“Mouse? What happened??” Taiga smacked the demon with bloodied talons back, and pulled Mouse to him.
Mouse grimaced at the movement. “It’ll heal.” Taiga’s shoulders sank as his eyes fell upon the wounds.
“Stay behind me while it does.” He pushed himself ahead of Mouse, fending off the demons as they encircled them.
“We don’t exactly have that luxury.” He gritted through the burning in his stomach, the talon’s acid corroding anything they touched. He swung out at a demon approaching him from the left.
“How long until the arrows?” Taiga knocked another demon away, turned, and slashed at another one.
Mouse shrugged, pain melting away as the corrosive finished searing anything in its reach. His fingers gingerly grazed over his stomach. “Anytime now.”
“No, now.” Taiga’s voice shook, drawing Mouse’s attention. Ahead of them, a line of demons held burning branches and torches. The demon holding a firecracker stood ahead of them, clicking, and lighting it. “We need the arrows now.”