Meeting with a Demon

First, I want to apologize for the lack of a post last week… it wasn’t intentional. Other events just caught up to me. So, this week you get one that’s, roughly, a 1,000 words longer than normal. Enjoy.

WARNING:

The Following Contains Some very brief descriptions of Violence and mild Gore.

If such language upsets you, READ NO FURTHE

Vrocknar’s stomach churned. He’d been through this a dozen times before, and it never got easier. He checked, again, his stained and dented, grey steel, plate armor. He tightened a strap under his left arm and flexed his gauntleted hand. He tightened fingers around his sword’s pommel and drew in a shaky breath. This was his calling, however, and his six comrades were waiting for his signal. It’d take all of them to bring the demon down. He knew not all of them would make it out alive.

He tightened his grip on his sword, an inelegant piece of iron with a pommel designed for two hands as the blade itself was longer than his arm by a few inches. It was double-edged bastard-sword and both of its edge had been honed to a razor’s sharpness. Some may use such a sword for hacking apart an opponent. Vrocknar was a surgeon with his chosen weapon. He’d found that demons died just as easily from a sword through the ribs as any man, but hacking a bulbous limb from the beast usually just pissed it off.

He let the breath, one he hadn’t even realized he was holding, out slowly. He hated being in command more than worried for what would happen in the cave. Before him were six fellow demonslayers. Each wore a different style of armor ranging from simple leathers to heavy steel plate similar to what Vrocknar wore. Each reflected the man’s individual fighting style, near as much as their weapons told how they fought. The sole commonality among the group was their helmets. Each was steel plated in white-gold with a master-crafted, clear, crystal face-shield. They were dwarven made, and adapted to the wearer. Each swept smoothly back in a conical design to glance blows away rather than stop them outright and at the crest over each member’s forehead was an engraving of a sunburst with an a single crescent moon eclipsing the upper edge and an array of stars beyond it.

Vrocknar dropped down from the small outcropping of stone he had stood atop studying his troop. He’d wasted enough time. His stomach wasn’t going to stop churning until they’d rooted out the magic born demon in the cave and slain it. The other demonslayers gathered before him shifted uneasily. For some, such as Topkoft, it was their first outing. No one had more experience than Vrocknar, though. Few demonslayers lived long enough to bring down more than 4 or 5 of the beasts. Theirs was a short-lived, but glorious, life of adventure and brotherhood. They were well compensated, armor and weaponry gifted unto them, and meals were frequently free as well.

A troop of demonslayers was usually welcomed anywhere they went. And they were frequently thought to be the elite of the elite, the best and brightest fighters, soldiers, and, some would say lovers, of the land. A woman who bore a bastard from a demonslayer was considered to be lucky indeed.

He nodded to the half dozen arranged in a crescent around him. Each looked back to him with a grim determination in their features. He wondered, ever so briefly, if any among them had the same stomach churning he felt before every encounter with a demon. The thought passed quickly, replaced with his own determination and a thankfulness that he had such stalwart, if untested in some cases, brothers beside him. They still looked to him for leadership.

Vrocknar drew a small breath, looking past them to the opening in the hillside. The cave was dark and foreboding, beckoning warriors to their doom to introduce them to its dark mistress of night and pain. According to the local farming community it wasn’t terribly deep. Every spring they had had to root out a bear or some other wild animal that had chosen to make the cave its home, and had explored it to its ends.

But Vrocknar, and any other veteran (or studied) demonslayer knew that demons could control the very earth beneath their feet and just because the farmers said it was a small cave didn’t mean that the demon hadn’t changed that. He returned his gaze to his brothers-in-arms before him.

“We’re here to do a difficult task,” Vrocknar said. He knew he didn’t need to give a speech, but felt it would help anyways. His commander had given a speech before his first hunt, and it had helped to quiet his nerves. “But we’ve trained for this. We’re hardened and fast, and heroes of the land. We will get in there and end this menace to it. The demon is young yet –“ he hoped that report was true. A young inexperienced demon was easier to handle than a full-fledged monstrosity. “—but don’t let its human appearance beguile you. It may not have warped entirely to its demonic nature, and may beg that it is still human.” The reminder was a necessary one; demons always started out looking human.

“Let that not stay your blade. Remember your training, relax and let your well-honed instincts guide you. You’re all strong, and I entrust not only my life to your hands, but also the lives of your battle-brother standing beside you. I trust in you and feel it an honor to stand with you today in this endeavor.” Vrocknar stroked the hilt of his sword, a growling bear, looking at the warriors around him. They each nodded as his gaze passed over them. “Hrothgar, Kopper, you’re our torchbearers. Let us not fall into darkness in this endeavor. It’s been an honor. Vrsnar, sloosha-koon,” he quietly uttered the victory prayer before them and moved toward the cave entrance. They parted like silk before him and fell in behind him.

The cave entrance was like many Vrocknar had seen before, rough walled with natural cracks and furrows. The floor sloped gently down into the earth, stretching away from them like a hungry maw. The torchlight of Hrothgar and Kopper illuminated down to their first intersection. The demon had been at work in the caves it would seem. The locals had told the demonslayers that the caves held curves and a couple caverns, but no intersections to get lost at. Vrocknar repressed a sigh and stood at the intersection for but a moment before deciding to go left. It would do no good to split his force up. If it became a true maze, he may need to, to expedite the search for the demon, but for the moment there was safety in numbers.

He moved down the cave’s natural hallway, watching for signs of anything unnatural that might indicate that they were approaching the demon’s territory. He led his troop for what seemed like forever through the twisting cave tunnel. After traversing a steep slope the tunnel abruptly opened into a cavern. The ceiling stretched several spans overhead, and had an oval shape to it, stretching away with a gentle curve. Stalactites and stalagmites hung from the ceiling and rose from the floor in natural progressions. The ground near the middle surged up, forming a little gray, stony hill. At the apex of the hill sat a figure, surrounded by blue and red glowing orbs.

The demon was once a woman and still wore the tatters of a robe. It still held enough form that Vrocknar could recognize it as a robe of a priest of his holy order of demonslayers. The abomination before him, sitting calmly cross-legged atop its crafted hill in a pose of meditation, was once a priestess who studied holy texts and performed ceremonies of location. Those ceremonies verified, and sometimes divined outright, the presence of a demon when a concerned individual brought word to his order. They were supposed to be above corruption on all levels and this was the form of ultimate blasphemy. Possession, they were taught, was always a voluntary thing.

Vrocknar ducked back into the tunnel that led to the cavern housing the demon. His troop stopped behind him. He drew a shallow breath, studying them. “It’s in there. It’s gathering its power in the middle of the cavern. If we can come at it from all sides we likely confuse it and be able to land the killing blow.” He glanced around his soldiers, his brothers, and nodded. “No heroics though. Be careful in there and let’s do this as quick as possible.”

The group of men around him nodded.

“Hrothgar, Kopper. It’s got glow orbs of its own floating in there. We’ll not need the torches. Make use of your shields instead. Questions?” Vrocknar looked around. His veterans, Hrothgar, Kopper, Brovar, Ysdrial, and Nopl all solemnly shook their heads. Each had been on at least one hunt before. Topkoft’s features, a softly tanned, angular face with the scruff of a black goatee at the point of his chin and dark brown eyes, bore the nervousness of a young boy about to get into his first scrap with an older, stronger boy. The lad noticed Vrocknar watching and the youth’s face evened out to mirror the veteran’s. Vrocknar nodded.

He drew a shallow breath. “Move.”

Vrocknar drew his sword and led the way around the corner. He skirted immediately to the right, following the rough, uneven wall. He kept his gaze locked on the demon sitting in its blasphemous robes atop its earthen dais in the center of the room. It flinched no muscle, sitting perfectly still and gave no warning that it knew they were there.

Vrocknar reached the opposite end of the cavern after an eternity of slow walking. He watched Brovar approach from his right and Kopper on his left. He trusted his other brothers had arrayed themselves around the cavern. He tipped his head toward Kopper, then at Brovar. Each flittered a hand signal down the line to the demonslayer next to them. Vrocknar waited two heart-beats, then stepped away from the wall, moving smoothly toward the demon on its pedestal.

Kopper and Brovar moved with him. He approached the demon’s backside, facing a bulbous hunch from which sprouted a third arm. The hand at the end of the grotesque extra limb flittered fingers through a gesture quick enough that Vrocknar didn’t quite see what it had done. He saw from the corner of his eye what it’d done though.

Kopper simply exploded into a red cloud of blood. Bits of armor, bone, and body matter bounced off of Vrocknar’s armor and flecked his helmet’s crystal face shield with red. Vrocknar glanced at where Kopper had been. Only a bloody ring remained where the once proud warrior had stood. Vrocknar whipped his gaze back to the demon, quickening his pace up the hill. In the moment he’d taken to look away, the demon had gotten to its feet and ripped a jagged pole of metal from the ground and held it like a staff.

Brovar uttered a war-cry, digging the toes of his boots into the ground and springing forward at a sprint. Others around the dais echoed his cry. Vrocknar didn’t. He quickened his pace, almost keeping up with the younger Brovar, slipping half a step which ended up saving his life as an array of stone spikes rocketed from the ground. Brovar wasn’t so lucky, and from the sounds of pain, neither were a couple of his fellow demonslayers. The earthen spike retracted back into the ground nearly as smoothly as it had appeared and Brovar sank to his knees, then fell, rolling down the hill.

Vrocknar closed, almost within striking distance of the demon. He growled, from his vantage he could see the demon’d felled four of his companions. Their still forms lay broken around raised mound. He didn’t take the time to do more than glance at their fallen forms. He charged the final few steps, jammed his sword forward in a wild thrust centered on the demon’s middle.

The demon spun, swiped its staff upward, and instead of running the tip of his sword through the fleshy middle of the demon, Vrocknar found himself burying the blade into a solid wall of dirt. He jolted with the impact, tried to wrench the blade free and found it immovably impaled in the wall. He let go, and drew his dagger. He slid around the wall in time to see Topkoft’s frantic duel with the demon.

Topkoft struck with two short blades, each darting and slashing in strike after strike trying to taste the demon’s flesh. The demon turned each blow with a quick movement from its impromptu metal staff; its bulbous back and third arm were to Vrocknar.

While in a standup fight of honor between men, Vrocknar would never stab someone in the back. He dashed forward, uttering a yell as he drove his blade through the bulbous protrusion on the back of the demon.

It had less effect than he’d hoped for. The demon smashed away a pair of strikes from Topkoft and brought the tip to bear against the youth’s chest. The young warrior was knocked backward, sent flying through the air, to land hard near the exit of the cavern. He started to get up.

Vrocknar wrenched his dagger in place. He twisted it and yanked it back. It left a gaping hole in the bulbous backside of the demon as it turned to face him in an absurdly slow fashion. He lashed out with the dagger, meeting his metal with its. He struck quickly, pressing forward, but not finding any gap in its spinning deflections. Yet, he pushed on, his eyes flickering from the abomination before him to the youth pushing himself to his feet. If Vrocknar could distract it for long enough for the youngest of the warriors he brought with him to succeed where he’d failed…

Topkoft pushed himself up and locked his gaze with Vrocknar. What Vrocknar saw in the youth’s face gave him pause. He didn’t feel the jagged staff shatter his arm. He was shocked by the terror and fear blazing in Topkoft’s face, and stunned as the youth turned and fled into the tunnel. The entrance slammed closed behind the wayward demonslayer just as the demon’s staff slammed into Vrocknar’s knee, dropping him to the ground. He let out a groan, lifting his good arm, despite the pain suddenly racking his body, to grip the demon’s ankle.

It bent down, studying him for a moment. It swatted his hand away and sat.

“I’m not a demon,” and otherworldly voice said from several directions at once. The distorted, once female, face’s lips moved with the words. “I am human, as warped as this form may be, like you… the elders, they lie to us. This power isn’t terrible and hell-wrought, it’s a gift from the others, the gods themselves.”

It bent forward at the waist and Vrocknar thrust out a punch for the demon’s face. It turned the blow away.

“And I’ll teach you. You’ll resist at first. I know I did, but there is a new power rising and you will make a wonderful addition. So, Vrocknar—“ the fact the demon knew his name terrified him, “—let us have a philosophical discussion of this dilemma we find ourselves in.”

R

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~ by kulvar on January 13, 2012.