Birds took to the sky in terror as furious roars echoed through the forest. I could feel the ground shake before I saw anything. It was the rumble of dozens of heavy footsteps. There was the sound of cracking limbs as the trees in the distance began to sway.
The mercenaries all grew still as their gaze focused on the source of the roars, hidden just out of view. From the little window in the wagon, I could see Charly, Donte, and my parents all raise their weapons in preparation for what was coming. Everyone was silent as they waited, barely willing to breathe.
This moment of tension lasted for nearly a minute before Esben burst out of the forest. He still looked exactly like me as he sprinted out of the tree line with all his might. He was still shouting curses, but they were no longer directed at Irene and her undead, but instead at me as he nearly tripped over a tree root in a desperate attempt to get back to camp before his pursuers caught up to him.
“You did not tell me they could be Demonkin! How am I supposed to run from Demonkin with these tiny legs!” Esben shouted as he pushed off the tree that nearly tripped him.
From within the shadows of the trees, another roar resounded. It was close enough now for me to feel the force behind it in my bones.
There was an explosion of shattered wood and splinters as the tree Esben just passed was torn apart by a single swing of a giant claw. Infuriated orange eyes glared at Esben as the hulking form of the Demonkin rushed into the clearing. The creature easily stood four times taller than Esben’s small form. It looked like a giant insect. As if someone stuck the top half of a praying mantis onto the body of a roach.
Despite Esben successfully reaching the clearing, the Demonkin was unconcerned. It skittered forward with unnatural speed letting out a guttural screech as it leapt towards Esben’s small frame.
Esben had not yet made it to the defensive formation of the mercenaries when the Demonkin struck down with its mantis-like claw. Esben never stopped his endless string of curses as he turned to face the Demonkin. His skin began to shine with a dull silver sheen as he met the mantis claw with his fist.
The force of the clashing blows sent Esben flying backwards. Through either convenience or calculation, he flew directly into the group of mercenaries just in time as five more monstrous Demonkin tore into the clearing.
Despite seemingly losing the confrontation with the mantis Demonkin, I noticed Esben was completely unharmed as he rolled to his feet. Meanwhile, the claw of the Demonkin had been completely pulverized by the force of the clashing blows.
I was not the only one surprised by Esben’s sudden explosion of strength as all the Demonkin froze simultaneously. Even though the monstrous forms, I could still see that Irene was confused at the sudden appearance of the Seventh Division’s Divine Body.
The six Demonkin did not have time to take in this information and get new orders from Irene before a piece of paper in Charly’s hand began to glow. As planned beforehand, Esben brought the Demonkin into the clearing through a specific spot. The same spot where a very conspicuous cooking pot sat on the ground. When the glyph in Charly’s hand began to glow, so to did the glyph on the pot. Before any of the Demonkin had any time to react, a massive explosion rocked the earth.
The wagon shook as a wave of blue flames engulfed the Demonkin. It was not just a wave of flames though. This was the result of Charly and me working together and brainstorming explosives. Our supplies had been limited to what we could find around the camp so we could not create anything too complex, but I still managed to round up some pretty nasty ideas from the supplies we had on hand. The pot was full of nails and any other small bits of metal we could find around the camp as well as a large amount of oil the mercenaries used in their lanterns and some other things I threw in for good measure.
Even as the explosion faded, the fire spread everywhere across the clearing. Honestly, our creation worked a little too well. Charly said he could make direct and contain the explosion, but that must have still been a work in progress. The shrapnel luckily did as we expected, but flaming oil went everywhere. The only reason we were not all burned alive was thanks to my dad’s quick reaction as he created a wall of ice to protect everyone. I did not miss my dad’s glare at Charly and towards me in the wagon. I knew we would be in trouble for that mistake later.
Despite our mishap with the oil, our makeshift bomb worked wonders. The six Demonkin that had burst into the clearing had taken the full brunt of the explosion, shrapnel, and the flames that came afterwards. Of the six, only three remained standing. It worked better than I expected considering the Demonkin were all undead. The explosion must have damaged the glyph Irene used to control them. I could not help but thumb my nose in pride knowing that my own undead would never be taken down so easily.
“Surround them before they can escape! Attack the glyphs!” my dad shouted as he pointed his blade at one of the Demonkin. A giant icicle flew forward, stabbing through the stunned Demonkin’s leg and pinning it to the ground. The Demonkin took less than a second to pull free from the Icicle, but in that second my dad had already prepared two more that went flying forward.
The Three Demonkin roared as they finally received new orders from Irene. I could see the orange in their eyes begin to glow even brighter as they charged. The three Demonkin completely disregarded their own safety as their eyes locked on Esben.
I felt my heart sink as I remembered the very first time I had seen one of Irene’s undead. After General Arthur and I had talked to them, they had started to glow brighter, followed by a massive explosion.
The mercenaries stepped up to block two of the charging Demonkin while my dad and mom attacked the third one. Realizing that neither of them had been there when Irene’s undead exploded the first time, they did not know what was about to happen. I shouted for my dad to use his protection glyph right as my mom sunk her blade into the back of the Demonkin. That one had stopped glowing as the glyph had been destroyed, but the mercenaries were not as quick to eliminate their Demonkin.
The two remaining Demonkin completely disregarded the weapons stabbing at them as they both lunged at Esben simultaneously. Esben had also noticed something was wrong as the Demonkin were glowing bright orange now. He activated his Divine Body again as he leapt backwards, away from the surrounding mercenaries and I saw I saw my dad’s protection glyph activate just before the two Demonkin exploded into a shower of orange flames.
The shockwave knocked two dozen mercenaries off their feet as a massive cloud of flame and dust swept across the clearing. The explosion was more powerful than the ones I had seen Irene use before. it was more powerful than the bomb Charly and I created. It even felt like our wagon was going to tip over from just the residual force of the blast.
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I resisted the urge to rush out of the wagon, knowing I had to stay put as I peered out of the window. I knew my family was safe. I saw my dad’s protection glyph activate before the explosion. I knew that it, along with the protection he had placed on the family before the fight, were more than strong enough to protect them from that explosion, but Esben and his mercenaries were a different matter.
Even though Esben had tried to distance himself from the surrounding mercenaries at the last moment, the explosions still took place near the center of their formation. As the dust began to settle, I could see the bloodied corpses of the brave warriors that never stood a chance against an explosion that powerful. I counted nearly ten of them, lifeless and still.
Surprisingly though, despite being at the center of the explosion, Esben was still standing. His left arm was completely shredded, barely hanging on by a few threads of sinew. His left leg was bent at an unnatural angle, and his entire body was burned and blackened, but despite it all, he stood. The dull silver light of his Divine Body was so dim it was hardly noticeable. His injuries looked terrible. Even worse since he still looked like me. I would have thought he was dead if not for the dark blue glow in his eyes as he stared at the fallen men around him. I could see the fury in that gaze. A thirst for revenge I was intimately familiar with.
Without saying a single word, Esben reached down with his one good arm and picked up a double-sided war axe that had once been held by his fallen comrade. The size of it nearly dwarfed his body, but Esben easily hefted the massive weapon onto his shoulder. His gaze then focused on the falcon. Its orange eyes still watching us from a distant treetop.
I could practically see the laughter in the eyes of the falcon as it watched Esben slowly limp out of the crater left behind by the explosion one hobbled step at a time. One of the mercenaries ran up to Esben to try and help him, but he shrugged off their assistance with a growl.
“Help the wounded, not me. Gather the bodies and load them onto the wagons. We will bring them back with us. They will still have their roles to play in the Great Demise.”
The mercenary nodded silently and moved to help the others still breathing. Esben ignored them as he finally pulled himself back onto level ground. As if it were as light as a feather, Esben pointed the massive axe at the falcon watching us in the distance and shouted.
“Your dirty tricks have robbed my men of an honorable battle. This is an offense I will not soon forget, but you are going to need a lot more than that if you want to take us down.”
The distant falcon puffed its chest as it looked down at Esben with disdain. It then let out a loud screech that reverberated through the forest. Following the screech, a distant sound rang out, followed by another, then another. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of roars echoed through the forest south of us.
I could see my parents go pale as they realized the numbers behind those distant calls. My mom quickly ushered Donte and Charly to the wagon as my dad ran over to Esben.
“We need to go now,” my dad shouted, “For a normal army those shouts would still be a few hours out, but with the speed of those creatures, there is no telling how much time we have.”
Esben nodded and he planted the axe in the ground and used it as a crutch. “It appears we triggered her ambush early. All this time, this Irene woman has just been biding time until her true forces arrived. I wonder where she hid so many undead?”
“Now is not the time to worry about that. Get your men on the wagon now! We will have to treat the injured after we reach the caves. They are our only hope now.”
Esben nodded and shouted a few commands. The remaining mercenaries moved quickly, gathering up all the injured and dead onto the wagons as fast as they could while abandoning any supplies in the area we set up camp. I thought it strange that the men were more concerned with the dead bodies than the supplies, but it only took a few seconds to load them onto the wagons so none of my family commented on it.
Esben then limped towards our family’s wagon and slipped inside. The large axe fell to the ground as Esben collapsed onto the bed next to me. His injuries looked severe, but surprisingly, no blood ever flowed out of them. Esben had his eyes closed as he let out a long sigh. “After this job is done, not only will my debt be paid, you will owe me. No job is worth the lives of half my men.”
I nodded silently as I watched Esben activate his innate talent. His skin bubbled and he transformed back into his normal form. It was as if his body was made of liquid as all the severe injuries from before melted away. All that remained of the horrible wounds after Esben’s transformation were the burns. Immediately after, Esben’s snores filled the small cabin of the wagon as the man fell asleep.
I knew he had overtaxed himself and let the man sleep, despite him taking my bed. As he said, I owed him for this. Irene was much more dangerous than I had given her credit for. I had thought that she only had a few undead under her command and that having a few guards around would be enough, but it seemed I was wrong. Irene simply did not keep her real undead force in this region so it took a long time for them to catch up with us. Now that they were here, I wished for nothing more than an army of my own to command. If only I had kept a number of undead hidden when Envy attacked all those years ago, I could have used them to fight back now.
I immediately thought of Naga, but I quickly dismissed that thought. It would take her days to get here now. I would call for her eventually, but right now she was needed in the blood mist. She had killed over a hundred Demonkin just yesterday alone. Their numbers kept growing every day. Someone like Irene was not worth putting all my other plans on hold. I would simply have to deal with her another way.
It only took a couple of minutes for everyone to load into the wagons. We left a lot of supplies behind, but the distant roars took precedent. We could always buy more supplies, but we could not buy more time.
The hoses were spurred into galloping with all their might. The unpaved road made moving at high speed with the wagon bumpy and uncomfortable, but nobody complained.
With Esben no longer assuming my identity, I strategically ripped my clothes and wrapped my arm and leg in some bandages before climbing out on top of the wagon to join my family and get a good look at where we were. It had been a long time since I had seen Seco Mons. It had been the best way to travel through the region once upon a time, but hundreds of years had made the entire area unrecognizable.
Luckily for us, as we raced up the path to the mountain, the trees began to clear. I was able to get a clearer look at what was around and, in the distance, I saw the ruins of a once-thriving city. I was hit by a sense of nostalgia as I remembered the grand trade hub this place had been the last time I was here. Now, it was nothing more than a few crumbling rock walls.
Despite the vast difference in what the place had become, the ruins were enough for me to get my bearings and direct my mom to change course heading towards where I remember the tunnel’s entrance. We could only pray now that the entrance was not closed off.
In the distance behind us, I could hear the roars of Irene’s undead. They were louder now, loud enough to be heard over the rumbling of the wagon. We charged ahead as fast as the mercenaries could keep up, but looking back, I saw the first set of orange eyes following behind us.
We had entered the ruins now, but Irene’s undead had caught up. There were hundreds of them. One was nearly as large as Naga, a giant demented rat that shook the ground with every step. Most of them were Demonkin, but not all. At the front of the chasing horde, I saw one familiar figure, Orias. I knew my mom had seen him too. Her grip on the reigns had lapsed as she turned to stare at the man in the distance.
Without a second thought, I took direct control of the stallions Mordere and Mitis. I could see the tunnel up ahead now. Rotten wood covered what used to be one of the most traversed roads in the region. We did not slow down as we approached, but instead, we sped up. Charging at full speed the stallions burst through the rotten wood into the dark tunnels.
“Dad, ice pillars around us! Charly, shoot the entrance!” I shouted as the last of the mercenaries followed us into the dark caverns.
Charly nodded as he aimed his crossbow. There was no hesitation as he fired at the rocks overhead. There was a flash of brilliant red light as the explosion rocked the cavern. Rocks collapsed and absolute darkness consumed everything.