Farlan isn’t convinced that the members of the Royal Guard are any better than he is.

When he arrives back at the Guard Station, he’s greeted by the sight of the two other Guards slumped over the small wooden table at the centre of the room, stools whimpering with quiet creaks under their weight. Their halberds are abandoned on the floor, fragments of glass surrounding other bottles, the stench of beer pungent. He’s used to it now, though his eyes still burn with the intensity of the smell as he bends to pick up the halberds.

The blades are dull, the wooden poles they’re attached to weak and splintering. When he places them on their hooks, they’re askew, but it’s no fault of Farlan’s – it’s the fault of craftsmen. The sight of them hanging crooked fills him with mirth; just like the halberds, the Royal Guard was procured from poor craftmanship.

He steps back, sole of his boot crunching the glass on the floor, a reactive snort of surprise escaping one of the Guards. He purses his lips as he turns, watching as the head of the station sways back and forth as he wakes, blinking drunkenly at the other Guard asleep before him. He jerks violently, sharply turns to face Farlan, an instant glare furrowing his brow.

“Boy.”

“Yes?”

The Guard points almost violently at the ground near the door, where a damp piece of parchment has been discarded. “Do that.”

Resentment bubbles in his stomach, anger coaxing him to clench his left fist as he turns and steps towards the parchment, visible hand reaching for it and lifting it carefully. The black ink is smudged and watery, the sloppy writing no longer distinguishable. Farlan lets it drop to the floor with a splat, breathing in deeply before he turns to face the Guard with the best neutral expression he can muster.

“I can’t read it.”

The Guard guffaws, face growing red and splotchy as he revels in the shred of information. “Should have known you were stupid.” Farlan struggles to keep his face neutral, just manages to keep his rage subdued. It was no use arguing, the Guard wouldn’t believe him even if he told him otherwise. “It said somethin’ ‘bout findin’ a body at the bottom of the cliff. Fell off during battle.”

He feels the blood drain from his face, a sick anxiety settling in his stomach. “Oh.”

“Go get it then.”

“Huh?”

The Guard attempts to stand, moving to draw himself to his full height in an act of intimidation, but his vision swims in front of him and he falls back onto the stool. It would have been a pitiful attempt to intimidate anyway – Farlan was far taller. The only thing the Guard held over his head was the metal brace secured tightly to his wrist, but even then he had no control over it.

“You’re the dog in this place, boy. Go fetch.”

Farlan clenches his jaw, bites down on his tongue to prevent the insult he so desperately wishes to send the slob’s way. Instead, he turns and leaves, resists the urge to slam the crooked door. Disobeying the likes of him was the reason why he was there, walking down a small dirt path in the middle of a dense forest. It’s dark, damp, and every so often there’s a strong stench of blood that blows in. He doesn’t know if it’s from the pit of bodies just beyond the forest path, or the Daemons that are said to be lurking among the brush; Farlan prefers to think it’s the former.

The unsettled feeling intensifies with every step closer he takes. The path comes to an end, thick brush and trees separating him from the clearing. He doesn’t know where the body is, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He’d rather not find it, rather not come face to face with a likely mutilated, unidentified corpse. Guilt tickles at his chest – he would want someone to find his body and return it to his family, or at the very least save it from being a Daemon’s lunch.

It no longer mattered if the person was Ruvian or Pinaon – they posed no threat in death, they fought for their Kingdom in the same way the people who killed them fought. Putting them to rest was the least he could do, he would just have to hold his breath.

He steps off the path, uses his blunt halberd to push the foliage aside. It gets thicker the deeper he wanders, sunlight dwindling as the trees form a thicker canopy and the cliff looms. He freezes at the sight of blood, the tall grass matted down where a body likely once lay. The blood trails into the trees, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention. Black, oily claws of dread scratch at his insides as he swallows roughly, taking a cautious step back into the foliage.

He had never encountered a Daemon before, he didn’t know how to kill one, or what the telltale signs for one being in the vicinity were – but if a missing body and an excessive amount of blood weren’t telltale enough, he didn’t know what was.

Another cautious step back produces a crunch of leaves, another causes thorns to pinch at his calf. His breathing is shaky, heart pounding wildly in his chest, eyes snapping back and forth. Blood rushes through his ears, and he doesn’t hear the next crunch of leaves, but he feels it under his boot. Maybe he was being irrational, maybe he had worked himself up over nothing. If there was a Daemon close by, then it would have attacked already. They were mindless, blood thirsty creatures – they didn’t possess the hunting tactics of wolves. He’d be dead by now.

It takes an exhale and a harsh bite to his lip for him to start to calm down, his shoulders gradually dropping. His heart still pounds, his adrenaline still rushes through him, but he manages to take another step back. There’s still no sign of a Daemon, so he turns around with confidence, takes a bold step forward, when something wraps around his ankle. He steps forward again, assumes that it’s just a flower or root, but panic it setting in again, and it doesn’t unwrap from his ankle like it should.

Instead, the grip tightens, and he falls forward, just barely able to save his face from a muddy encounter with his forearms. His halberd lands almost silently beside him, and he doesn’t even think to grab it when he turns around to face the perpetrator. The drooling jowls that he expects to come face to face with aren’t there. There’s no coarse black fur or fifteen inch canines there to rip flesh from bone. Instead there’s a bloodied hand, then another, a squeak of terror slipping from his lips before one of the hands covers his mouth and squeezes his cheeks in warning.

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A woman appears from the grass, curly brown locks matted by blood in places, dirt covering her face and brutalised armour hanging loosely from her body. She doesn’t meet his eyes as she quietly crawls on top of him, keeping her hand firmly secured over his mouth, breathing slow and quiet, trained. She watches the grass intensely, and when he attempts to push her away she tightens her grip and sends him a warning look, lifting her finger to her lips as a signal for silence. His heartbeat quickens, alarm washing over him once more. He has no idea who she is, where she came from or what she’s doing, but he knows he has no choice but to follow her silent orders.

Eventually, her hand detaches from his mouth, and he keeps his lips sealed tight as she reaches for her waist. He doesn’t look away from her face, studies the intensity of her expression, his panic intensifying with it. He hears a footstep behind him, just as the woman grips onto something, the sound of metal against rock echoing throughout the forest. A growl sounds in response, a dark mass jumping from the depths of nowhere at the two of them, a whimper swiftly following when his halberd abruptly spikes up and jabs it in its chest.

Farlan’s mouth runs dry as he watches the black mass disappear back into the grass, the woman pushing herself up, his halberd clenched in her hands. She looks briefly at the blade, jaw clenching, and he knows instantly what she’s thinking – it’s blunt, useless for killing, but that doesn’t stop her from chasing after the mass.

His body doesn’t let him move, doesn’t encourage him to stand and help. He’s frozen, mind whirring as he tries to comprehend what’s happening. There was a Daemon all along, he was as good as dead. The woman had come out of nowhere – had she been fighting it? Was that why she was so bloodied? He hadn’t seen any injuries. Could it had been from the Daemon? That was what it was, right?

He sits up abruptly, hears a loud thud and a growl, and his body stands swiftly. When he turns, he sees the woman stab the Daemon. The halberd pierces through its flesh, but the damage doesn’t faze it, and the woman takes a step back, slipping the blade back out. Farlan steps forward, the Daemon’s head falls, hangs by a thin chunk of flesh. As soon as she removes the halberd, steam rises from the torn neck, but another swipe severs it. The head hits the ground first, the body swiftly after, black liquid seeping out of it.

The woman snaps her head towards him, leans her body on the pole as she stares him down. He tenses his shoulders, suddenly becomes conscious to the fact that he did absolutely nothing to help. Not that he could when she had his halberd, and there was no way he would have known how to finish it off.

“Have you got anything sharper?”

He blinks owlishly at her. “What?”

“Anything sharper? Like a knife?”

“No.”

With a sigh, the woman crouches next to the body, pierces its skin and rips its chest open. She shoves her hand in without hesitation, the halberd following behind it, and after a few stomach-churning squelches, she pulls her hand out, a pulsing mass of meat in her hand. She drops it quickly, stabbing the halberd straight through the centre. The body and head of the Daemon begin to seizure frantically, coming to a gradual stop with the odd stray twitch.

The woman stands, the black liquid splattering everywhere when she shakes it. Farlan can’t help but gag at the stench of rotten flesh, bringing his hand up to cover his nose and mouth in a feeble attempt to block the smell. It does nothing, but he keeps his hand there anyway.

“Are you okay?”

The question flying from his mouth surprises him more than it does the woman. She studies him carefully, before giving a single nod.

“This might sound stupid,” he starts, lifting his free hand and pointing up to the canopy. “But did you fall from the cliff?”

He regrets the question almost instantly. Of course she didn’t. She wouldn’t have survived. It was someone else who fell, then was found and eaten by the Daemon. She simply stumbled across the Daemon and was ultimately the one to kill it.

“No.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I, uh, was here to recover the body.”

The woman waves the halberd, brow arched. “With this thing?”

“I didn’t know there was a Daemon here.”

“They’re everywhere.”

“I’ve never seen one before, I wasn’t trained for fighting them.”

The woman hums, studies him almost calculatingly. She turns abruptly, dropping his halberd to the floor and walking into the brush, away from him. He stares at her for a long moment, before following, leaving his halberd abandoned next to the Daemon’s body. “Wait – where are you going?”

She peers over her shoulder at him, hesitates. “Home.”

“You look injured,” he says. “At least let me help you with your wounds.”

“I, uh,” she hesitates again. “I’ve dealt with it myself.”

“But you’re covered in blood.”

“It’s old. I just haven’t had the opportunity to bathe.”

Farlan frowns, stops in his tracks. The woman does too, half-turning to face him, furrowing her brow. “Bathe? What’s that?”

The woman’s eyes fly open in surprise. “You don’t bathe? Don’t you clean yourself?”

“I wash, yeah,” he says. “You’re not Ruvian.”

“Aye, that’s right.”

Farlan bites the inside of his cheek contemplatively. “If you’re from Pinao, I won’t say anything.” The woman’s eyes widen again, giving her an almost owlish appearance. “Really. I won’t. You saved my life, it’s the least that I owe you.”

She nods. “Thank you.”

He nods too. “You’re welcome.” There’s a deafening silence that looms over them both, and Farlan isn’t sure if it’s appropriate for him to just turn and leave. She said she wasn’t hurt, but as bloodstained as she was, he wasn’t convinced.

“Do you know what happened to the Nininians?”

He meets her gaze. “Oh, they’ve left. They were forced to retreat. I heard a group of Pinaons managed to strike down the Queen and a couple of –”

The woman inhales sharply, Farlan’s heartrate spiking in alarm.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

“No.” This time, her voice is somewhat strained, but she clears her throat loudly to distract from it, turns away. “Thank you. I’ll be going.”

“What’s your name?” The question flies from his mouth before he has the opportunity to stop it. She pauses, fiddles with her fingers anxiously.

“Erin.”

“Farlan,” he says. “If you need anything, I’m stationed at the Guard Station nearby. I’m there all day.”

“Alright.”

She doesn’t linger for a moment longer, disappears into the thick of green and brown. He stares after her for a long time, but there’s no point in following her – he doesn’t know how long it has been since she walked off nor does he know where she went. There was likely a refuge for Pinaons nearby – their capital wasn’t far from the small camp Ruvia had set up in the aftermath of the battle, after all. If there was anywhere she was going, it would be there, but it would no doubt be dense with Pinaons. Her face wasn’t familiar enough to pick her out of a crowd, and he certainly wouldn’t be welcomed there with the Ruvian crest emblazoned on his chest.

Instead he turns, grabs his halberd and the head of the Daemon, and marches back to the Guard Station. When he enters, the Head Guard’s mouth drops open at the sight of the severed head, and he’s quick to snatch it from Farlan and proclaim it as his own victory to the other Guard. Farlan doesn’t protest, he’d rather not have to go through the paperwork that comes with registering a Daemon’s death. Instead he tells the Guard that he found the Daemon sleeping in blood, and that the body he was meant to find had been consumed, so he simply killed the Daemon. The Guard buys the story, doesn’t appear to see through the blatant lie, doesn’t hear the hesitation in his tone or the long pauses he takes.

The woman had saved his life, it would be unbecoming of him to tell them a Pinaon was nearby. She would be thrown in the deep confines of a cell and left to rot if they found her.

That wasn’t a fate she deserved, Farlan decides. Pinao was destroyed in return for pittance, none of them deserved to suffer anymore.