---Demons---

---Pawel’s perspective---

As the antistar gets closer, I’m able to get glimpses of it through the trees.

It’s an enormous, flying building!

It’s pointed at the front and wide at the back… and it’s made of metal and glass!

It must be… it has to be… the Ratunek!

It’s a flying metal building! Like the Pilecki!

It must be connected to the blue lightning and the new star I saw, somehow!

Mother Terra has finally found us!

Surely… right?

But… if it is the Ratunek, why aren’t they going straight to Malbork?… Why wouldn’t they land that building right next to the Pilecki… or outside the Palisade, if there wasn’t room?… Why are they coming from the South, where they can’t be seen?… And why are they slowing down?

I realise they’re going to land beside the lake and, so, I sprint downhill along the narrow path through the brush.

As the building gets a few hundred metres away, I can hear it making a low, quiet hum.

I manage to find a place in the trees that gives a good view of the lakeshore and dive into a bush just before the building arrives.

I peek through the leaves as the building lands on the solid, open ground beside the lake.

It’s about three times as tall as my house, twice as wide and six times as long!

It has an outer door that’s taller than even the Pilecki’s!

“Why the hell are they landing here?” I mutter to myself.

The enormous door opens itself and… what steps out immediately makes my blood run cold.

This is not the Ratunek! That is not a Human!

It may walk on two feet, like a Human, it may have two arms, like a Human, but, where a Human would have a face of flesh, two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears and either a head of hair or a shaven scalp, this creature has a head made of metal! Shiny, flawless, silver and gold coloured metal, like I’ve never seen! It has no nose, no mouth, no ears, no hair and, where its eyes should be, it has a single, glowing green bar instead. It’s hands and feet are also made of metal and it has metal plates sticking out of it’s tight blue skin at its shoulders, chest and a few other places.

The creature turns the place where its face should be, left and right, slowly.

Aside from the creature’s unnatural appearance, it looks like it’s also an unnatural size! Thickly built and (though it’s difficult to tell exactly from so far away) looks like its much taller than even Witold!

It has a long, elegant looking sword, in a scabbard at its left hip, a glowing jewel set into its crossguard, and some unfamiliar object on its back… It’s like a boxy tube with a bend at one end?

It walks down the ramp and stands there, not seeming to be bothered at all by how exposed it is to zmora attacks on such open ground!

The next creature to come out is, impossibly, more terrifying than the first!

This one is made almost entirely of metal but, unlike the first’s silver, gold and blue skin, this metal is entirely jet black!

It at least has two eyes but they burn an evil red colour!

It has a black sword hanging at its hip, a glowing red jewel in its hilt.

In its arms, it cradles another unfamiliar object. It looks very different from the one on the first’s back but I don’t know what it is, either!

It’s slenderer than the first but also half a head taller.

Unlike the first, I recognise what this thing is! That is a Czart! A Demon!!!

The next out is one I also recognise as a Demon!

As tall as the Czart, she takes the appearance of an eerily beautiful woman, except her hair is ghostly white, her ears are long and pointy, her eyes glow with demonic light, her unblemished skin is dark blue in a way that makes me think of death and she has a second set of arms below the set she has where a Human would have them… Her hands also look wrong and it takes me a moment to realise that it’s because each one is missing a finger!

At her hips hang four knives, set with glowing jewels and against the sides of her ribcage are wrapped four more unfamiliar metal things, identical to eachother but different from the one that the Czart is carrying and the one on the back of the unidentified Demon. Much shorter, for one thing.

This woman is a Strzyga… or maybe a Duch? I never imagined either had four arms but I also thought Czarci had mouths, ears and noses, so what do I know!

The next of this band of Demony is the most Human looking so far… he has a face of flesh that’s just a bit different from the way people in Malbork look.

If it wasn’t for the company he’s in, I definitely would have mistaken him for a Human!

He wears a helmet and is dressed in thick clothes of leather and fur but all in dark brown colours, not like any leather I’ve ever seen!

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His face is blank, like he’s bored… or like his mind just doesn’t… connect to it!

Compared to the other three, he looks like he’s a relatively normal height.

The next is a woman so pale it looks like this is the first time her skin has ever been touched by sunlight!

Her hair is a brighter golden blonde than I’ve ever seen on a Human!

Her torso and legs are clad in thick armour and she cradles another unfamiliar object in her arms, like the Czart’s.

Next to the Human looking man, she makes him look very short but I think it’s more that she’s very tall… not anywhere near the Strzyga or the Czart but still!

The next two are a man and a woman.

The man, except for his clothes, looks like he could be from Malbork. He’s got blond hair and fair skin like Ratimyr’s, though younger, more handsome and without his repulsive goatee or cocky smirk!

The woman has curly hair, so dark it’s almost black, and skin so dark it makes her look like she’s spent every day of her life outside, in a land where it’s always Summer!

She wears a shiny cuirass over her strange clothing.

The final one out is the strangest yet!

The shortest of all of them, this… being(?) looks to be entirely made of silver, blue and teal metal… except for its face! Its face looks like its made of flesh and vaguely resembles a woman’s but just… off!… Wrong in ways I can’t put my finger on!

I would say that she was a Demon wearing armour but… even a Demon couldn’t stand up in that much armour… so, this is a Demon made of armour! A living suit of armour with an uncanny face of a woman, stuck into it!

The armour Demon carries an odd weapon in both of its hands. It’s like a hammer but the head is small and it has a long, beak shape blade on the other side.

The fair skinned woman turns to the first Demon to step down and speaks in words that, though the wind is blowing just right to carry them to me clearly, I don’t understand “Vikta, wai arnt wigo ing streit tu thuh taun? Rimaind mi?”

The metal headed one with the single, wide, green eye answers, somehow speaking without a visible mouth “Wiah jast skoepin auh vah sichu ey shon tudei, Samus. Wi nid tu meik shor vey eint got noh sains ap vat sei ‘Def tu auwsaidahs’ or nuffin(!) Rekon assinss tudei… wi kambak tu moro ifwi fink vis is samfin Emiko kan handuw ersewf!… If noh, wi go’ah ge’in tach wiv vah YuTiSi an geh vem tu kam ir, wiv ah be’ah pripeard tiim! Tudei, wiah gunna bi stewfflaik, pliis!”

Here someone else speaks, I think it’s the Czart, from the way everyone looks at it and the fact that I can’t see anyone else’s mouth moving. Its words, however, are even stranger than those of the fair woman and the blue skinned cyclops!

It sounds like it’s rattling dry bones together, in between barking vowels, to speak!

What vocalisations I can hear sound surprisingly feminine… the Czart’s a woman? What would that make her? A… Czarcica?

The others act as if they understood with the silverheaded Demon answering “*Click*onz rait! Wi shud geh gowin! Doun av infinnut lait!”

The band of Demony begin walking but immediately stop.

I follow their gaze and quickly see why.

Approaching them along the shore is a pack of zmory, three strong!

The shortest is 3m at the shoulder. They each have one set of eyes pointing forward and one pointing sideways. Their fur is the light blue of foliage but in the places where it’s thin you can see the bright oranges and yellows of the skin beneath. They pad on four paws, at the end of four legs. Their short, sabertoothed snouts hang open, letting the rest of their teeth be clearly seen.

“Oh, fakin heww!” declares the voice of the silverheaded one who seems to be the leader “Aim gunna trai an skearem offwiv mai plazmasord… gans a’vah redi inkeis vat doun werk!”

The Strzyga draws the four unfamiliar things from the sides of her chest and holds them by the bend, pointing the other ends at the zmory. The fair woman and the charcoal black Czarcica use both arms to point the ends of their objects at the creatures.

The relatively normal looking man and the dark skinned woman both draw a single object from their hips, similar to the four that the Strzyga has, and, using both hands, point the ends in the same direction as everyone else.

The fur clad man steps to the back of the group, takes a bow from his back, draws an arrow from his quiver but doesn’t draw it back, yet.

The suit of armour with the woman’s face holds her weapon in a state of readiness, beak forward.

The leader doesn’t draw the thing off of his back, instead, he reaches to his hip and draws the most beautiful sword I’ve ever seen, before holding it above his head.

I see his thumb move slightly against the hilt before the blade starts glowing, like it’s just been pulled out of Sławoj’s forge, but very quickly goes through colours I’ve never seen metal glow, before it ends up glowing white, like its been made by breaking off a piece of Chors itself! It hurts my eyes to look at it!

It roars with an unnatural sound, somewhere between wind and fire but louder than I’ve ever heard either be!

Witold once told me that, if there was air between us and Chors, it would be loud enough to permanently deafen everyone on Mazury! Hearing the sound that this small piece of it makes, I can believe it!

The zmory waver but, because the sernase that they usually hunt have mock charges as a natural part of their defences, zmory are quite notoriously hard to intimidate!

The silverheaded leader waves his sunsword back and forward a few times, with diminishing returns, before announcing “Noh werkin! Samus, wornin volli!”

The pale skinned woman turns her device skyward and I give a terrified squeak as the sound of thunder erupts from the end, multiple times inside of a second!

The two smaller zmory bolt away in fear but the leader charges forward.

The last thing I see is the green eyed cyclops bracing himself, the tip of his sunsword pointing forward, before an enormous cloud of steam erupts from nowhere!

When the steam is gone I see the leader putting away his (no longer glowing) sword, over an extremely dead zmora!

“Bluhdi sheim!” he says, regret in his voice “Shudda brort Stiiv! He mai’a noun sam trikfor viiz kaindza animuws!”

The pale woman answers “Yu not think hiduv gottim self kild trainna rassul it(?)”

A general chuckle goes round the band at whatever the pale one said.

Demony can make jokes it seems… jokes about effortlessly killing creatures that it takes a coordinated effort of dozens of armed Humans to take down… but jokes nonetheless!

“Olraih! Lehs goh, evriwan! Bion gahd fur morra viiz fings!” says the blue skinned leader, who may actually be Swaróg himself now that I think about it!

A Bogowie leading a band of Demony!

The unearthly band march off, looking around themselves in a way that scares me into thinking they’re going to notice me!

I watch them go and wait for a long time after I can no longer see them before I begin to consider coming out from my hiding place.

While I try to work up the courage, I’m staring at the still, lifeless body of the monster that that Demon killed like it was nothing!

He did seem to be trying to scare it off rather than killing it but, if anything, it sounded like that was more for the zmora’s sake than his! He sounded… unhappy that the zmora had made him kill it! Not proud! Not happy! None of the gleeful spite that anyone from Mazury would have if they had managed to kill a zmora!

I brace myself and step out of my bush.

I walk the last little bit of the path until it opens out, a few dozen metres from the water’s edge.

Looking around both for zmory and Demony I start to walk over to the zmora’s corpse, skirting well clear of the flying house.

It has a charred hole through its head from where the sunsword was driven in… It’s definitely dead!

I give it a kick… it’s really solid!

---Victor’s perspective---

“Hello?” I answer Twila’s call.

“Victor, there’s a kid here. A Human, a local. I’d guess he was here since before we landed. He came out of the trees a few moments ago and is prodding the corpse of that sabertoothed wolf-lion thing you killed, right now!”

“Shit!” I swear “Guys, we need to turn around!