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We drew our weapons in unison at Bodil’s declaration. Tetora, Aleph, and Vernie stepped back slightly, forming a defensive line in front of Relias, Nora, and Master Landon. The sergeant moved forward but then stopped, her gaze shifting to Belgaldi, who had shrunk away from her side.
“What are you waiting for?” she snapped. “Get your spear!”
“The General ordered us to return to base,” he murmured, his arms wrapping around his waist.
Indigestion still? That’s Karma for you.
Bodil’s eyebrows narrowed as the flames flickered slightly in her eye sockets. “You’re either with me or against me, Private.”
For a moment, Belgaldi hesitated, his antlers tilting back and forth as he weighed the unspoken consequences of his dilemma. Then, with a deep frown, he shook his head and disappeared into thin air, leaving her to face us alone.
“I don’t need him anyway!” she scoffed, her image blurring as she shot forward. She tried to dart around me, but I whirled and slammed into her side with my targe, catching her off guard.
“You’re dealing with me this time!” With sword and shield, I was able to block her dual fan attacks, though the speed with which she unleashed them kept me from making any full strikes of my own. Just as I would find her rhythm, she pulled back, forcing me to follow her new lead.
“I thought you wanted to fight, not dance!” I shouted as I swung Holy Celestia, catching only air as she bolted back. “Having second thoughts?”
She snarled something in a deep, guttural tongue, and it was probably for the best that I couldn’t understand it. Vernie took the opportunity to throw a few blessed knives, but her fans batted them away with twists of her wrists. Relias also joined the fray, trying to ensnare her in a magic circle, but she would blur and disappear, reforming just out of the target area.
“Look at you,” she called after taking a giant leap backward. “All of you ganging up on one little demon, abandoned even by her own!”
Seriously?
“You’re the one who started this!” After a few more calculated swings, I paused, studying her. Bodil’s head flicked to the side briefly during the momentary reprieve, her attention drawn elsewhere.
But nothing’s there…?
My grip tightened around Holy Celestia.
This is a trap.
I advanced again, convinced I had to keep up with her to prevent her from pulling off whatever she had in store for us. I pressed her too hard, however, and after one of my sword swings bypassed her fan, grazing her arm, she phased out of existence, calling me a very nasty name as she dissolved into wisps of smoke.
Yes, I remember exactly what she said to this very day, and no, I won’t repeat it here.
“Where did she go?!” I screamed, whirling around. “Sentiens inveni! Bodil!”
Nothing happened. There was no change in the wind, nothing.
There’s no way she left.
Maybe Bodil isn’t her real name?
If we don’t find her soon…
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Almost everyone continued to look back and forth, trying to catch sight of the demoness. Nora, however, bolted from the party’s protection toward the remains of her orb that General Ragnerus had pulverized.
Tetora turned and let out a startled roar before joining Nora. As she snatched up the pieces, he shouted, “Warn me next time before you—”
The air around us hummed momentarily as she muttered an incantation under her breath. Glowing faintly, the shards of broken holy crystal that littered the ground began to rise ponderously into the air. They hovered for a few moments before they shot out in all directions, whistling through the sky.
“Up there!” Aleph shouted, pointing toward the city wall where the air seemed to shudder and ripple after a crystal warped around it. “Nora!”
Holding the slivers of the dark orb in one hand, Nora pointed her staff at the airy disturbance. The crystal shards obeyed, streaking towards the aberration.
A blood-curdling shriek filled the air as several shards froze in mid-air. Jet-black miasma poured from the nothingness between the shards, filling in the form of Bodil just before she plummeted to the ground.
Thud!
She continued to leak a wispy dark smoke from dozens of crystal points embedded into her. “Don’t… think you’ve won…” she gasped, coughing up a vicious, dark slime. “I’ve already—”
She cut herself off as yet another magic circle appeared around her. With the tip of her remaining fan, she frantically scratched a dark glowing mark into the ground, preventing the circle from closing around her completely. The mark expanded, burning away the golden glow trying to contain her.
Relias gasped, flinching as his spell was countered. As he sank toward the ground, Aleph caught him with one arm. “Steady now, Your Holiness.”
After plucking one of the bigger crystal shards from her shoulder with a hiss, Bodil rolled sluggishly onto her side and stabbed it directly between her eyes. As she swore sulphurously, searing gold flames shot through her form, burning her body and core away until nothing but the shards remained.
A temporary silence filled the air as we contemplated her desperate final action.
“What do you think her punishment’s going to be?” Nora eventually asked in a hushed whisper, slowly lowering her staff to guide the crystal shards into a giant pile.
“Anything from nothing to complete absorption,” I replied dubiously. “I guess it's going to depend if the General—"
A dark pool of energy tugged at me from the spot Bodil had glanced at earlier, and several disembodied voices assaulted my mind.
“Bodil’s calling us!”
“I thought we’re supposed to retreat?”
“Bollocks to that! I lost half my spawn siblings getting this far!”
“Death to Chairo!”
"Fools! I'm going to listen to the General. Enjoy Naught!"
"We're all fated to end up there someday anyway. Let's take as many humans as we can with us!"
I could feel the hairs on my arms stand up straight. "Do you guys hear them, too?" I—"
A crackling bolt of black lightning tore through the sky, splitting the air with a deafening roar. It struck the nothingness I had perceived earlier, and the earth shuddered and sizzled, melting the stone beneath it. Thick tendrils of shadow began to writhe and pulse from the impact site, twisting unnaturally as the air warped around them, turning into a swirling vortex of evil energy. A jagged tear began to appear in the maelstrom's center as several somethings pushed frantically at the very fabric of reality trapped within the dark storm.
Nora raised her staff, commanding the shards to attack the darkness, but they were simply sucked into the tear without hesitation.
“It’s a demonic portal,” Master Landon confirmed with a shout. “Don’t let them through the breach!”
Before I could talk myself out of it, I started running directly toward the expanding abyss. Black lightning arced toward me, scorching the ground just behind my heels.
I hope this works!
I plunged Holy Celestia into the tear, funneling my aura through the blade. The portal resisted, pulling at my sword as it hungrily devoured the light from my aura.
What do I do now?
“You just need to lock the door,” Raedine advised. “You’ve already inserted the key.”
Would it be that easy?
I twisted the blade with a scream, pulling with everything left within me. The darkness in front of me pulsed faster, then shuddered.
“No! Nonononono!” Private Belgaldi’s voice shrieked, fading as the portal collapsed. The tear shrank around the blade into a pinpoint of midnight before exploding, throwing me backward violently.
I remember hitting the ground several times with several different body parts, my left pauldron ripped from my shoulder. Clods of dirt had worked their way into my gauntlets, and my targe’s rim had split open, straw spilling from its seams. Despite standing up after several unsuccessful attempts, I still couldn’t find our true savior.
“Where’s Holy Celestia?”
Vernie pointed silently toward a clump of grass. The hilt sparkled faintly atop it, but as I approached, its light dimmed.
“Oh no…” I picked up the hilt, stunned that its blade was now just a stub, sheared off about half a foot from its base.
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