“We’ve got to do better than this!” called Isidore from his horse. It was true. Alaric and the others needed to increase their pace significantly if they were going to catch up with the Son. We shouldn’t have hesitated so long. Alaric didn’t want to accept that, no matter how much he wanted to follow the Son, it would ultimately prove a fool’s errand. Still, they all knew it was their sacred duty, and they would do whatever it took to get there eventually. Retracing their steps closely, Alaric was already familiar with the landscape, but it worried him that they were racing headlong without paying enough attention to potential dangers lying in wait.

The beats of their horses’ hooves upon the ground eventually synced up to form a kind of metronome, which naturally made Alaric think of music. His thoughts turned to the battle tunes of old, with their prominent drumming that soldiers used to maintain a steady pace as they marched off to war. He had always been drawn to studying that genre of music, with its commanding purpose to every word and verse. Perhaps it was simply because it made him feel closer to the Heroes of history, those brave commanders and soldiers who had become the stuff of legend. Admiring those people and studying the songs sung about them brought Alaric comfort. It was another thing entirely to follow in their footsteps and march off to war, albeit with much less fanfare and a much smaller army. After getting his own taste of true combat, he was already convinced he would much rather study those Heroes from the comfort of his own room or, better yet, the Library.

No matter how hard they pressed their horses, the quartet could not bridge the gap between them – the Son had too much of a head start and too fast a horse for them to catch up with him. At best, they would rally with him back at the City. Should he be intercepted by monsters, then at worst they would ride in and provide aid at that time. Either way, it made Alaric terribly nervous not to be riding at his leader’s side, where he was needed.

“There’s no chance we’ll catch up!” cried Euric over the hoofbeats. Alaric already knew this but hated hearing the words spoken, as it made his denial harder.

“We’ve got to try!” Alaric called back in defiance. “Press harder and keep the pace!” Alaric knew the pace was unsustainable, pushing their mounts much harder than they should for such a long journey. They set out to follow and support the Son, so to stop or slow down now meant they might as well have not left camp at all. The horses could rest when they got to the City. If they could just push a little harder, they might close in on him...

“Oh, shit!” yelled Euric. “Look out!”

Euric pulled hard left on his horse’s reins, narrowly avoiding a long-armed scaly demon lying in wait. It reached for him, but he managed to evade its clutches. Alaric, who was in the rear of the three horses, was able to react in time to avoid the creature, but Isidore and Calix on Isidore’s horse did not have nearly enough time to dodge the ambush. The demon lashed out with both bony hands, striking their horse in an attempt to bring it down. Isidore tried to control the horse, but the demon’s claws slashed a gaping wound from its foreleg to its hindleg.

Screaming in sheer pain and terror, the horse ran erratically as fast as it could from its attacker, blood spraying across the dirt as it bounded away. It may have narrowly escaped the ambush, but it was too scared to control, bucking in an attempt to free itself from its passengers. Isidore managed to hold on, but Calix was thrown off after the horse’s third attempt. It charged away, Isidore hanging on for dear life as he attempted to stop it. He turned his head to see where Calix had landed but was redirected immediately by the horse’s flight.

Alaric called out to Euric, trying to get him to turn around. They needed to save the boy, who had landed hard on a patch of desert grass and wasn’t moving. The demon scrambled toward Calix, its ambush successful. Alaric pulled hard on his horse’s reins and turned around to try to save the fallen ward.

Fear ballooned in Alaric’s mind, primarily for the safety of Calix. Alaric always felt bad for the boy – his disfigurement being the greatest factor standing against his ascension into prominence. Were his appearance not a factor, he would have had a high likelihood of rising to the heights of his bloodline politically. The Sybilla family was as well-known as they come in the City, their prominence stretching back to the time of the earliest consuls. Calix’s father alone had been elected Senate consul three times in a row before retiring, a worthy contributor to the family’s long and storied legacy.

When Calix was sent full-time to the martial academy for training, it became apparent that the only way he would rise in the ranks would be to prove himself in the arena before partaking in any politics. His father always said it was the best way to toughen him up for the mean-spirited political battles that awaited him later in life. Now all of that hung in the balance, and it was up to Alaric to save the boy from an untimely end.

Alaric neared the place where Calix had fallen and withdrew Daemonore. It wasn’t easy, as the Soularm was large and unwieldy while mounted. Still, he did his best to hold the blade out in preparation to strike down the demon. Unfortunately for both of them, the demon was much faster than it appeared.

The hideous creature used its long arms as a spring, launching itself into the air and directly upon Calix, who was just starting to come around.

“No!” Alaric shouted. The demon scooped up Calix in one massive arm and used the other to leap away just as Alaric was within arm’s length. With only one arm available to balance itself, it landed hard and ungracefully several yards away. Alaric pulled his horse to a sudden stop, but he didn’t account for his speed and the fact that he was holding on with only one arm. He nearly made contact between Daemonore and the horse, but corrected himself before tragedy occurred. Because of this, Alaric continued moving while the horse stopped.

With no soul energy to empower his acrobatics, Alaric landed in a somersault, letting go of Daemonore to avoid ending up on the wrong side of the Soularm. When he finally came to a stop, he scrambled back toward Daemonore, and, in doing so, had an orchestra-level seat to the show the creature was about to perform.

The creature reached Daemonore faster than Alaric and, with its free hand, lifted a massive stone and slammed it down upon the Soularm, covering it completely and rendering it inaccessible if not destroying his dear sword altogether. Then, it set its eyes upon Alaric and tilted forward like any predator does when it knows it has its prey dead to rights.

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Alaric turned to find his horse had run away, leaving him stranded and helpless against a foe he stood no chance of defeating. He thought of his training, but none of it had ever prepared him to fight such a foe without any weapons to defend himself.

The creature leaped forward, easily closing in on Alaric, then pulled its free hand back to strike. Alaric braced for the attack, the only course of action he had remaining. It bellowed a roar, which sounded more like a series of loud, low-pitched clicking noises, and leaned in for the strike. It stopped just short of making contact when an arrow narrowly missed it by less than a foot.

It spun around, spotting Euric who had gotten close enough to start firing at the demon but far enough away that his arrows were subject to the whims of the wind. It was fortuitous that he distracted the demon long enough for Alaric to put some distance between himself and the demon, but that fortune didn’t last long as the creature took the opportunity to find cover among nearby rock formations. Euric, suddenly without a clear shot, waited to see if the demon would make the first move. It did, but not in the way Euric and Alaric needed.

The demon hurled a head-sized stone at Euric, who quickly realized how accurate its throw was. He pressed his horse forward as fast as he could, but the stone still came within a few feet of him.

“Any ideas?” Euric called to Alaric as he continued to move, dodging rocks of varying sizes cast at him. With the pile of stones in front of it and an overlook behind it providing cover, the demon had taken a very defensible position. This made Alaric more convinced that these larger demons might possess some form of intelligence. Alaric darted toward the place where the demon had crushed Daemonore, hoping the Soularm was still intact. When he reached it, he realized the stone was too heavy to lift on his own.

Damn it!

He pressed at the stone as hard as he could with his arms and then his feet, but to no avail. It wouldn’t budge, at least not until Alaric got ahold of some soul energy to empower his muscles. As he backed away to lunge all his body weight at the stone, he inadvertently avoided a rock, at least thirty pounds, dedicated to him. It crashed to the ground with a thud. Nearly at the bottom of his well of hope, Alaric thought of a new plan.

If I can get it to hit the boulder, perhaps it will move enough for me to get Daemonore from underneath.

Alaric hid behind the stone, waving at the demon, trying to taunt it into throwing a rock at him. It worked a few times, but each time, it seemed as if the demon was onto his plan and intentionally avoided hitting the target. It frustrated Alaric to no end, but then he realized he could still use this to their advantage.

“I’ll keep distracting him – you try and get an angle on him,” Alaric shouted to Euric, who was still searching for a good opening in hopes of catching the demon making a mistake.

“Keep your eyes open!” Euric shouted back, pressing his horse onward to find a better angle. As he did, the monster caught on and redirected its projectiles toward Euric, who narrowly avoided being hit.

“You too!” Alaric shouted back. He jumped out from behind the stone, figuring that if the monster was focused on Euric, it would give him another opportunity to dislodge Daemonore. He found a large tree branch nearby, thinking he could use it as a wedge to free his blade. As soon as he made a dash for it, he heard Euric call out.

“Two arms!”

To arms? What did he mean by that? Alaric quickly figured out it wasn’t a battle cry at all. The demon was now hurling rocks with both arms, one aimed at each of them. The rock aimed at Alaric bounced and crashed against his left leg, throwing Alaric to the ground. The pain was immediate and nearly crippling. He wouldn’t be making any sudden moves now.

Euric was no more successful than Alaric in getting into position. Keenly aware that Euric needed a clear shot to hit it, the demon repositioned behind a large stone jutting out of the ground, still behind cover as Euric moved. No longer holding Calix in its arm, it was free to continue hurling boulders at both Euric and Alaric. Alaric pressed through the pain, pushing himself with his good leg out of the way of the oncoming missiles. Each time he did, the pain grew exponentially. He knew he couldn’t keep dodging forever.

“Hit the damn thing already!” Alaric called out in desperation.

“I can’t hit it if I can’t see it!”

The situation seemed hopeless. Alaric began to feel as if each rock was like a grain of sand in a nearly depleted hourglass counting down to the end of his life. He knew it would only be a matter of time before one of those rocks would again make contact, likely fatal the next time. His eyes danced between Euric and the demon, watching it skillfully avoid Euric’s line of sight while hurling an apparently infinite number of rocks at them without succumbing to exhaustion.

Alaric bit his lip to press through the pain, crawling back toward the rock to at least have cover. It took everything he had, but he managed to push through the pain to get there. It was now up to Euric to defeat the creature, and Alaric feared the worst.

With every thud of a stone hitting the ground, he thought again of the battle tunes that soldiers used to march to in days gone by. The creature’s throws created a steady beat, much slower than the horses’ hooves but at regular intervals where Alaric could almost hear soldiers marching to the drums. And then, as Alaric sorted through his mind to find the perfect song to match the beat, the sounds of the rocks pounding upon the ground suddenly came to a halt.

No…

Alaric knew that if the pounding had stopped, either the demon or Euric had won. Knowing Euric and how enthusiastic he always was after a victory, Alaric knew in his heart that all hope was now lost.

He resigned himself to his fate, resting his back upon the stone, his one source of salvation nearby but completely out of reach. He closed his eyes, thinking of the things in his life he would never again be able to enjoy. He always thought he was too young to die, but what did he expect when he signed up for this fool’s errand? This was an unwinnable war. How could they have hoped to defeat all the evil across the land? It all seemed so foolish now, here at the end of his song.

Alaric heard his mother’s voice, singing to him like she did when he was a small child. He found comfort in it, and it seemed almost real, as if she was here with him. At least he tried. Maybe that would finally make Father proud of him. The pain in his leg began to fade as he refocused his mind on the inevitable peace that would come when he at last passed into the unknown.

His peace was broken as the rock behind him suddenly shifted. He opened his eyes, jutting forward and cringing as he expected the demon’s claws to crash down upon him.

“Are you able to stand?” a familiar voice asked in a comforting tone. The voice belonged to Isidore Maritium. Alaric turned around to see his mentor standing above him, glowing with vibrant soul energy. Where the rock had stood lay Daemonore, seemingly no worse for wear. In the distance, Euric was carefully lifting Calix onto his horse. He nodded in relief when he saw Alaric’s face. Alaric placed Daemonore back in its sheath.

“It got my leg pretty good,” Alaric told Isidore. “Not sure I can get up.”

“How about you lean on me? I suppose in a few hours I’ll need you to do the same for me, but for now, let’s get up on your horse.”

Seeing that they would both be riding on Alaric’s horse and Isidore’s horse was nowhere in sight made Alaric understand the sacrifice Isidore must have made to come to their rescue. Alaric wondered if he would have had the willpower to make the same choice if the roles were reversed. He supposed that there would possibly be many more hard choices on the path they had all freely chosen.

“We all did the best we could,” Isidore said as they mounted the horse. “Let’s take the rest of the path more carefully. We will get there when we can.”