Charek. Blood. Pain. Mira couldn’t stop herself from retching.
Her eyes refused to remain focused. In one moment, she was in the Larris Marsh, in the next, her eyrie home. A five-year-old child, alone and awash in blood. Everywhere. Blood.
“Aurelia!”
That voice, her inner voice was that of a girl, not the woman she’d become. Who… Who are you?
“Mira, my child, you must fight!”
“Mira!” Echo’s screams were leagues away. “On your feet, Ashwood! Gods save us! Mira!”
“Rise Aurelia! Fight!”
Feathers filled Mira’s vision. Purest virgin white at first, they shattered into a prismatic spray in her mind’s eye. Her senses splintered and melded together. Pain sang a piercing soprano in her broken arm, the air was a nauseating, indescribable stench, and everything tasted very red… with flecks of purple.
Throwing her head back, she forced her eyes to focus. Spasms shook Romier’s corpse where it lay. An awful cracking, squelching sound spelled the end of his ribcage. A geyser of crimson and foulness sprayed from him.
An arm shot up from the dead man’s chest. Scarlet coated the sickly gray flesh of the abominable appendage as its great clawed hand found the scorched earth. A second limb soon followed, and, as one, they began to pull the rest up.
Romier’s body ripped and popped as the unholy creature drug itself into the world. Easily twice Healer’s height and at least as wide, it had no head, only a great, gaping maw ringed by an incalculable number of teeth rotating like an organic grinder. Hideous eyes that glowed the color of infected wounds opened around the circumference of its body, and all fixed on the two zephyrni.
Agility betraying its size, it leapt at them. There was no warning. No roar or howl. The subtle bend of its knees was the only warning they got. If not for that, Mira never would’ve been able to react.
Latching hold of Echo, her wings gave an almighty flap. Propelled from its path, she couldn’t stop from screaming as they landed, the petite duchess not feeling so petite as her weight came down on the knight’s broken arm.
Sick sounds gurgled from the fiend. Its whole being convulsed. Mouth shutting, Mira barely managed to shove Echo off and roll away before it disgorged a spray of vileness that hissed and blackened the ground where it fell.
Magic crackled around Echo. Her wings lit like a newborn sun. Taking to wing, she shrieked arcane words, their weight as tangible and heavy as the mountains. Light coalesced in the palm of her hand. The flaming orb that flew from her hand was like nothing Mira had seen. Not that she regularly witnessed mages in the midst of combat before meeting her mistress.
“Are you stupid!?” Norm shouted. “Demons are immune to fire!”
A malevolent smirk was Echo’s only answer.
The demon didn’t bother attempting to avoid the incoming fireball. The spell slammed into it, exploding with a deafening bang. Mira braced for the wave of heat it would doubtlessly generate, but it never came. In fact, bitter cold froze her sweat soaked hair to her head.
Cries of pain wailed from the monster. The little duchess had taken it off guard; confident in its own latent immunities, but whatever skill Echo possessed to change the element of her spell was unexpected. She wouldn’t get a second chance at something like that.
Bolts of scintillating white flew like arrows, piercing the demon’s hide. “This way!” Healer’s hand was still raised, the glow of holy light still dissipating as she turned her head to him. “Hurry!”
Baleful howls flooded the world with darkness as Cerberus leapt between the zephyrni and demon. Green flames drooled from two of his heads, as the central one focused on the toothed horror. Barking and snapping, the infernal dog collided with the abyssal stain. Teeth snapping, they snarled and wrestled.
Mira flew to the waiting priest. Healing prayers danced across the demigiant’s lips. Golden light poured from him, washing her in his mistress’s divinity. The pain crippling her joints numbed. Her eyes crossed as bone knitted back together.
“What do we do?” Mira demanded as Echo and the others gathered around him.
“Not sure,” Healer admitted, “but that’s the best I can do, given the situation.”
“How are you with banishing spells?” Norm asked Echo.
“Rubbish,” she confessed.
A growl welled in the warlock’s throat. “Great.”
“Well?” Mira threw her arms open as she looked from Norm to Echo and back. “What are we supposed to do then? C’mon! You two are supposed to understand this magic crap!”
“If we can’t banish it, we really only have one choice,” said Norm.
“Which is…?” Mira motioned for him to continue.
“Can you still fight?” said Echo.
The flexing of the duchess’s jaw made clear it was no question. “I don’t get a choice, do I?” said Mira.
“‘Course you do,” Healer grunted. “You can fight, or you can just lie down and die.”
“Not good options,” said Rosalie.
“Such matters,” Zhel strained, “rarely afford themselves the word good.”
With a heavy sigh, Mira adjusted the straps on her armor. Turning to the behemoth, Cerberus sunk two sets of fangs deep into its spindly limbs as the third held the demon’s maw at bay. Wings spread; she hefted up her sword and took to the sky.
Giant demon, she mentally grumbled. I’m just a girl with a sword. At what point did helping a duchess regain her birthright become fighting giant demons!?
Infernal hound locked on it, Mira swooped in from behind. Three eyes swiveled to watch her, but there was nothing the monstrosity could do. Not with Cerberus’s jaws clamped shut. She poured her momentum into the blade, leaving a massive gash in its sickly hide.
Thick black ichor spurted from the wound. The stench was like rancid meat and offal. Mira clamped a hand over her nose.
The fiend howled in pain. It snapped at her only to find bolts of crackling energy careening down its gullet. Echo wasn’t nearly as swift on the wing as her champion, but her spells certainly outpaced her. Dull pops sounded within the demon’s unguarded innards, signaling the detonation of the mystical projectiles.
All of its eyes shut as it clenched inward, unable to utter another sound. A moment later, it was brought to a knee as a green blast crashed into its side, ripping off a chunk of it.
Stunned by Norm’s spell, the demon could do nothing as Cerberus’s central head bit deep into its body and shook hard. Toppling under the dog’s savagery, it reared back to rake the dog’s exposed underbelly. A pair of daggers, the only aid Zhel could muster, flew out, permanently shutting both eyes they found. The last of him spent, the nu-duwar collapsed.
Downed for the moment, Mira locked on to the shredded section left by the warlock’s spell, and thrust to the hilt. It was stupid. She knew that. She risked binding and losing her sword in its flesh, but the sheer size of it left her few options. She winced as resistance met her hand as she attempted to recover it. Planting a foot to its side and twisting, she wrenched the weapon free, and darted away before it could do anything.
But as Mira rolled midair, she froze at the sight of massive jaws before her. Instinct overtook her. Her wings snapped, sending her into a desperate climb. Half a second later, she stared in shock at the monstrous alligator… crocodile… whichever!—clamped onto the demon.
“Myria’s feathers, where’d Rosie see that!?” Echo wondered aloud.
Mouth full of fiend, the crocogator that was the Yesha rolled, tearing off one of the beast’s arms.
Foul ichor spraying everywhere, the demon roiled on the ground for the briefest second, but the moment its feet touched earth, it shot up, throwing Cerberus away, and responded to Rosalie’s bite with its own. The not-so-little-at-the-moment shapeshifter’s natural voice mingled with the crocogator’s in a horrible scream as the maw tore a chunk from her.
Swinging its massive, clawed hand, the abomination leapt at the aerial zephyrni with astonishing strength, despite its stubby legs. Reflexes afforded Mira, narrowly carrying her out of the arc of its strike. Echo, however, was not so nimble.
The merest squeak of a scream escaped the duchess as she was rocketed into the windmill’s blades. A hideous crack rang out as the lumber splintered on impact. Echo’s wings went limp as she bounced off. Horror filled Mira as her lady, unmoving, crashed to the earth below.
“Hold on!” Healer bellowed as he bounded for Echo.
Rosalie’s pained screams became enraged, hissing growls as she rounded to bite again. The great three-headed dog had reclaimed his footing and hurried to join her. But Mira was frozen, unable to join them as she looked on, desperate to see her lady’s chest rise and fall, but it didn’t. Or, if it did, it was so faint that she couldn’t see it.
Cerberus yelped as the demonic beast seized it by the throat of the central head. Wheeling, it slammed the ox-sized mastiff into the muzzle of the crocogator, busting her jaw and shattering several teeth before lobbing him into the windmill. Stone sprayed across the marsh as Cerberus ripped the top from the building.
Mira’s pulse pounded in her ears.
“Aurelia,” that familiar voice called in her head.
Her entire being shook as she looked from Echo to this… this Ebon Maw.
“Aurelia!” she repeated.
The edges of her vision closed off.
“Some champion,” the phantom of Charek’s voice cackled in her mind.
Long forgotten pain called from her ribs as the memory of the sharp tang of her blood filled her mouth from all those years ago.
“We meet again… champion.”
“Champion?” Mira snarled to herself. “I’ll show you champion!”
Wings tucking, Mira threw herself into a steep dive. The world fell away as she streaked towards her target. It was it and her, and the only thing that mattered was that she cut that number in half.
The fiend’s eyes swiveled to meet the charging knight. It completely ignored another blast from Norm, focusing everything instead on her.
Its maw opened wide. The swirling mass of teeth spun up in anticipation of its meal. An easy enough fate to avoid on wing, but Mira didn’t break off her dive.
“Now, Aurelia!”
Brilliant light paled the sun. The Ebon Maw recoiled. Mira’s battle cry threatened to snap her own vocal chords. She felt the impact, the point of her sword tearing through the gangrenous flesh of the demon, but more than that, her momentum carried her through. The next thing she knew, she was kneeling on the ground, completely soaked in the fiend’s ichor.
Her head jerked towards it from sheer training. She didn’t need to see the hole she’d ripped through it, but as Echo’s face filled her imagination, she wanted to.
Partially dismembered, the abomination fell to its knees. Sloshing, gurgling sounds emanated from it. Clawed fingers twitched as it sought to push itself to stand once more until, at last, it crumpled and moved no more.
Mira drew a steadying breath, yet there was no room for relief. Sheathing her sword, she hurried for the demigiant hunched over her fallen duchess.
Prayers hung on his lips like stars from the heavens. A dull glow pulsed from Echo. She was alive. The knight might not have been able to guess what the priest spoke, but she’d seen enough battle to know that divine sign of life.
“How bad?” Mira thought aloud.
Healer made no response. He couldn’t, and she knew he couldn’t. His concentration in connecting to his goddess was such that it wasn’t accurate to say he was with them at all. Not in the mental or spiritual sense anyway.
Heavy, dragging sounds gave way to gentle footsteps as Rosalie shifted into her natural form. Her breathing was heavy and labored. Her footfalls came with all the stealth of a herd of elephants as she lumbered over to them.
“I hate to trouble you, Mr. Healer, sir,” Rosalie strained, “but I believe I’ll be needing you next.”
Mira gasped as the Yesha plopped down next to Echo. The chunk the demon had taken out of her was still missing. Diminished in size, naturally, but the crimson staining her blouse left no debate that it remained.
Gasping, Echo’s eyes snapped open. Wings spreading, her head jerked this way and that, desperate to regain her bearings.
Gaze settling on Mira, she blinked. “We win?” Mira nodded. “Everyone alright?”
“Relatively speaking,” Healer grunted as he shifted his attention to Rosalie. “You and the wee one took the worst of it. More you than her if I’m being honest.”
“Worst? They took it all,” Mira countered.
Hands stretched over her to begin his spell, he paused to reflect on her observation. “Huh. Wonder how that happened?”
“It was smart,” came Norm’s voice. “That’s how.”
Shouldering the nu-duwar’s weight, he and Zhel made their way to the others.
“I’m afraid I must agree,” Zhel confirmed, his voice, though filled with its normal properness, was a weak whisper. “That Ms. Echo could shift the element of her spell like that doubtlessly made her its prime target.”
Mira grimaced. “Makes sense. We were always instructed to go for the battle mages first on the battlefield.”
“It was probably planning on coming after me and tiny next, but when shorty decided to take a bite out of it, it realized it had to deal with her first,” said Norm.
“Systematic annihilation.” Echo groaned as she forced herself to sit up. “How’d you manage to bring it down?”
“Ask your girlfriend.” Norm jerked his head towards Mira. “I don’t know what she hit it with, but it blasted Cerbs back into three.”
“Yes, dame knight, what was that?” said Zhel.
“I don’t—” Mira shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought Healer or Norm threw a spell on me or something.”
“Not me,” said Norm.
Healer shook his head.
“It might’ve been Orbish’s spiritual resonance. What did it look like?” said Echo.
“Wings,” Norm said simply. “It looked like wings.”
“Wings?”
“Six wings,” Zhel confirmed, “each splintering light across the entirety of the rainbow.”
“Myria.” Echo’s word was a bare breath.
“Myria?” Healer repeated as he finished stabilizing Rosalie. “The Lady of the Western Wind?”
“She’s the queen of our pantheon,” said Echo. Shaking her head, the disbelief was plain on her face. “Her sign is six prismatic wings arranged in a spoke.”
“Looks like she shone on us today,” said Healer. “What’s she like for her offerings?”
“Cloud cakes and incense,” Echo said absently.
Though the duchess answered, her detachment was clear. Her lips moved in silent thought, face screwing this way and that.
“We can pony up to her later,” Mira began. “We should get back to the village. These three need a full workup from Brother Luke and Korik’s crew. Plus, we need to check on Vivvy and Caleb.”
“Aye,” Healer agreed. “I’m sure she won’t mind waiting a mo’ for us to get properly patched up.”—he cocked an eyebrow at her—“and bathed. Wouldn’t wanna go make offerings smelling like that thing.”
A soft chuckle passed among them, but as it did, an ebony glint caught Mira’s attention. Squinting, she could just make it out. The cruel dagger the deranged man had sacrificed himself with lay a few feet away.
“What is it?” said Healer.
Mira nodded towards it.
Jaw clenching, Healer retrieved his stole and wrapped the awful blade in it. “Don’t seem like the sorta thing we oughta be leaving lying ‘round.”
“Agreed, friend,” said Zhel. His brow furrowed. “Lady Echo? Master Norm? Is something the matter?”
Neither the duchess nor the warlock spoke at first. Their eyes were firmly locked on the demonic corpse.
“My lady?” said Mira.
Echo’s eyes darted to Norm, her nose wrinkling before drifting back to Mira. “Let’s be off. As the pastor said, you are in desperate need of a washing up, and there’s the matter of the children and villagers to attend.”
About the Author
A. S. Raithe is a fantasy author living near Pittsburgh with his wife and children. Always the creative type, it wasn’t until high school and being introduced to a local bestselling author that he found his passion for writing. He took time away from writing to attend college before being convinced by his wife to pick it up again shortly after their wedding. Outside of writing he enjoys exercise, baking, gardening, folklore, music, and hiking.
