She was stupid. So so stupid. Lillian ran. Her footsteps hitting the ground hard enough that she could feel her joints snap and her bones creak. Her armor rattled like a cage, her shield and scabbard likewise slamming against her back and thigh making their voices known. Danger coming, beware, for even the Desolate Flames run from it. Following the bend in the road Lillian slid across the dirt her heels digging into the well trodden path threatening to make her fall as she tried to keep her momentum while she changed direction from running the rough forest floor. Calisto, all the lighter than her both in gear and body mass, sprinted ahead of her. Spidery arms and legs cutting through the air. Well, Lillian would just have to use his draft. Any help to outrun the fire.
She could smell the smoke, the demons that they’d left behind abandoning all pretense. They’d already been spotted, so why bother with whatever plans they’d made? Contact with the enemy had already happened thanks to her foolish, no, childish running about in the forest. This was all her fault. This was all her fault. The smoke burned her lungs as the wildfire was catching up, yet still she took deep greedy gulps of air to fuel the burning flames in her own muscles. Lillian didn’t look back for Lorne, too afraid of the answer if she did. Of what she’d find. He was a tough man, he could make it, he could take it. She just had to trust him. Even as she tried to reassure herself the nagging thought kept banging itself against her skull. He was iron rank just like her. So was Calisto. Calisto was at least ahead of her, she could see him, but she couldn’t even hear Lorne over the sound of her blood roaring through her ears and her heart keeping time with its war drum. No longer fighting for her mouth it set deeply in her chest thrashing against her. She had to trust him. Even as her body tired. Even as it got harder and harder to breathe. Lillian coughed harshly as she ran, her vision starting to obscure now that the lush greenery once lit by gentle moonlight had been replaced with vivid reds and violent orange. All quickly burning to cinder.
Had she really run this far from town? The gates showed in the distance as the forest parted into the clearing where Aeson rested. Seeing sanctuary so close gave her the second wind that she desperately needed. I can’t take much more of this. She thought, bounding towards the gates. With the night’s watch actually in view she tried to take in a lungful of air but it was no use.
“H-hey!” She yelled breathlessly. “Sound the alarm! Sound the alarm! The De-“ She coughed violently as her body tried to repel the smoke still hiding within. “The Demons-!”
Lillian never finished her thought, not before she slammed directly into the gate, yelling near mindlessly to sound the alarm. Why weren’t they sounding the alarm? She knew that they had one, that they had at least one bell that was loud enough for all to hear it, the direct townspeople at the very least. She whirled around to face the Demons that had chased her team this whole way. There were a few brutish ones, to her eye they nearly looked like the spawn of any number of winged Demon Lords. Spines glowing bright orange as their scales flowed as magma from it to blackened obsidian, wings outstretched as they all slowed to a stop. Their faces were as far from human as one could possibly get, but even she could see the smile of a hunter on their faces, Lillian had worn one similar many times. The thin wiry demons that had been chasing her and her team this whole time watched her slowly catch her breath drawing her sword and shield, and the night’s watch that flanked her on both sides raising their spears as well.
They were only playing with her, Lillian realized, none of this mattered to them. None of this would ever matter to them. The fact that this town even existed at all meant nothing to them, and that they could flatten it to ash and be no further to whatever their goals were than they were the previous day. Her breath caught in her throat, uncertain if the tears in her eyes were a result of the smoke stinging them or-
The bell rang. Again and again and again. Its tone nearly cleared the field as the fires spread.
“You boys gotta water mage?” Lillian felt each word dig its nails into her throat as she asked, but by the gods did she need to ask.
“No.” One of the men said, his voice trembling in time with his spear. “We, all we-“ He quickly started to stumble over his words, his brain skipping over thought to thought to thought as he tried to find the answer to the problem right in front of him.
“We’ll do without.” Lillian said with more confidence than she felt. She needed to be brave for them, if only for them. “We’ll have to.”
The demons slowed their approach, taking their time in moving across the field. Lillian held her position, the sounds of armored men filling out the space behind her, leaving her as the tip of the spear. She could hear their laughter, tittering sparking from their lips. They had more hell hounds, though not many. Five was still far too many for the lot of them. Wings stretched and flexed as they found their positions. The hounds paced back and forth, their hackles raised and growls sounding even from where they still stood. Both stood there staring at one another. A doomed stand-off. She’d failed the town, failed her team. Failed-
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A shard of ice sprouted from the throat of one of the bipedal demons, the hound master clawing at its throat as it slumped to the ground. It was all the invitation that they needed. The hounds ran screaming towards them. Lillian braced herself behind her shield as they slammed against it. Trying to roll with the momentum she heaved the hound off of her, wildly swinging her sword in hopes that it connected to anything. She could hear the sleak sounds of frost magic, the snapping and crackling standing out in her mind from the demons’ flames. It would melt fast, but Lorne survived, and maybe he could buy them some time. Maybe. That hope resting in the back of her mind Lillian lashed out at the hounds, reveling in the blade’s bite.
When a hound screamed trying to stand she raised her blade up to the sky, “I am Lillian! The Blade of Dawn! And I will not allow you to take one more step into this land!” No longer did she have the luxury of suppressing her flame. She would let it burn and burn. With a flick of her wrist she let the fire in her heart ignite the steel blade. There was no slow creep, but instead a brilliant flash of pure light. She may be foolish, but she likewise wasn’t stupid, she had challenged the hound masters and they had answered in kind. Lillian let go of her fear, either her and her team would perish here or they would win the battle there was no inbetween now. A cackle ripped through her throat as she fought. Occasionally real wooden arrows would sprout from the same spaces on demons that she would catch a glimpse of an ice arrow. Lillian howled when she had forced an opening, the last of the hounds yelping in surprise when her heartflame met theirs in kind.
Rushing past them she raced directly for one of the hound masters but with a heavy flap of his wings her sword only flew through empty air. All of the demons scattered, each taking to the air just outside of her reach. Cowards, cowards the lot of them. Refusing to even acknowledge that she may best them, that they may do the only thing worth doing in their pitiful lives when her sword finds a new sheath in their chest.
“Come on you bastards!” She screamed, her throat was so sore, the smoke making it feel like she was breathing in thousands of shards of glass. Lillian didn’t have the luxury of stopping, so she wouldn’t until they were all dead. The idea of throwing her sword at them flitted through her mind if only for a moment but she quickly discarded it. There was no sense in disarming oneself to maybe win exactly one fight against one opponent, especially when it wouldn’t even win the battle to begin with. The hound masters circled her, but her manic grin never left her face. Lillian bared her teeth in equal parts threat and mirth, and let the flame consume her.
Some part of her knew that she couldn’t go all out, that things weren’t that desperate yet. But she likewise knew that they would never win so long as the nimble demons continued their sharp jerky movements to keep all the archers (and mage) guessing, and out of the range of the ground fighters.
As the flames wreathed her body they formed outwards from her back. Two sets of impossible metallic wings found their place on her form. Each feather sharpened to a razers edge. A powerful beat of her wings brought Lillian to the same arena that the hound masters were in, using her momentum from the launch to bury her blade into the closest demon. One could liken it to fighting underwater with the way that one had to move their body about in the air. But it came without the usual restrictions that fighting underwater did, namely water resistance. Moving in the air felt like second nature, beating her wings in a spiral pattern to keep in place while she got a lock on the others. Anger filled their hate-filled gazes. Now it was no longer a game, she let out of her own bitter laughter. Finally she had gotten them to take her seriously.
Lillian beat her wings hard, racing just out of reach of their horrid claws and blades. One managed a glancing blow off of her shield making a screeching noise. Spitting curses at the demon Lillian plunged the blade into it, or she intended to. It was just as fast in the air as she, but it didn’t make it unscathed. Her sword tore into the leathery membrane that made up its wing and with it fighting all the harder to stay airborne she couldn’t have asked for a better opening. Tucking a wing she let her body drop and this time the meteor dive of her sword struck true lodging itself in between its ribs with little resistance. She placed her foot on its chest as they fell pushing off with all her might. Spreading her wings once again she took that little bit of air to catch the wind again.
Ash from the forest fire was starting to fall upon them now. They needed to end this and end it now. Even though the hellhounds were dead their masters were still alive. She needed to get higher. The blaze in the forest reflected off of her wings lighting them up a brilliant orange. Lillian could hear the cries of the demons below, shouts and yells of pain, her eyes turned skyward she had no idea what it could be - only what she hoped it was. Twisting her body she fell into turbulent currents whipped about from the blaze. Two more bodies were plummeting back down to earth but she didn’t have time to check if they were alive or not. She held herself in an angelic pose as she reached the crescendo of her flight, sword point to the stars as she hummed a soft prayer. In the back of her mind she could hear the gentle strumming of a lyre.
The Hymn of Dawn filled her sword as the fires burned brighter. Blue-gold flames licked at the steel. The song filled her heart and the Light of Dawn danced within her breast amongst her heartflame. Bringing the blade down in a sweeping arc she watched the holy fire race towards the ones that remained. The one in the front didn’t stand a chance, its howls of agony may have lasted for century to the demon but to her? It was hardly even a second. The others raced away. Scrambling away from the blaze that she had wrought, but while her fire line might not be able to properly stop the forest fire it was just as fast.
As Lillian slowly fluttered down to the ground, her body weak and the song leaving her, she watched the blue-gold flames chase the demons away. There was no victory here, she thought, all this and it was a scouting party. She coughed as she breathed in the ash, the wings that had been a part of her likewise slowly dissolving into ash. Exhaustion was catching up to her, and just as she turned her head she could see the ground racing up to meet her. Just as Calisto was racing towards her from the walls.