Fleeing
WARNING:
The Following Contains Some very brief descriptions of Violence and mild Gore.
If such language upsets you, READ NO FURTHE
Topkoft struggled up the hill. It looked stony and solid, but his leather boots sank into it as though it were sand. He looked to his right. Nopl, struggled the same as Topkoft did, though the senior demonslayer didn’t display any of the worry that Topkoft did. The thing at the top of the hill hardly looked human. It bore the vague shape of a woman, an obese woman falling out of a mostly destroyed robe; a robe that once belonged to a member of the priesthood that supported the demonslayers. The abomination was likely a blasphemous she bitch that had welcomed a demon to infest her form and grant her power that no mortal was ever meant to touch. Such people lost their souls in the pact and became a blight to the land. They twisted the very world around them. They threatened to break the very fabric of reality with the unholy power gifted to them.
The thought forced the fear away from Topkoft’s mind and gave him fresh vigor to climb the faux stone hill. The state of the stone beneath his feet was testament to the corrupting nature of the demon. He drew his broad sword as the demon lifted its head from its relaxed meditative posture and craned it around. The bulging hump on its back twitched a few times as it lifted up from the ground, legs unfolding from the full lotus position and touching lightly to the ground though it seemed to Topkoft as though that was a habit from mortality rather than a necessary pose.
Topkoft drew his short sword. He was nearly in striking distance. He was the youngest of the demonslayers that Vrocknar’d chosen to hunt down this young demon, and by extension, the spryest. He lashed out with his broad sword. It felt as though he were forcing his sword through thick molasses. He heard the pop behind him, then felt something wet and sticky splat across his backside. He continued to force his sword toward the demon as it stomped one foot and a jagged shard of metal sprung from the ground. Right in the way of his sword.
He smashed the weapon into the demon’s new toy with bone-jarring force. The impact reverberated back into his arm as the demon took up the shard of metal like a staff. The molasses disappeared from around Topkoft and he used his new found freedom of motion to thrust quick strikes at the demon.
The demon effortlessly turned aside each of his strikes. It pivoted, turning the shaft of jagged metal to meet each slash or gently turn away a frantic thrust. Topkoft worked hard to press the demon back, each blow closer to making contact than the last, but still nothing quite struck true.
Vrocknar suddenly appeared behind the demon. Its eyes, blood shot to the point of appearing entirely crimson, popped open wide.
Topkoft learned then that the demon’d merely been playing with him. It smashed away a double stab, pivoted, and jammed the tip of the shard into his middle. He felt the leather and metal plates buckle and bend with the impact, then flew. He tumbled through the air, away from the hilltop and the demon and Vrocknar. The world spun and he slammed down, hard, against the stone, that wasn’t stone, floor right next to the tunnel entrance they’d entered this hellhole by.
His head spun. Stars swam before him. He wasn’t dead, or even seriously injured by his short, rough flight through the air. He pushed himself up. No normal blow could drive someone through the air like that. He felt suddenly sick. He’d been touched, directly, by the blasphemous demonic magic and flung across the cavern by it. Did that mean he was corrupted? The priest’s teachings spoke of corruption taking place with but a touch and agreement.
But what if they were wrong and it could be forced on someone. It had certainly been forced on the area around the demon. The cavern wasn’t natural, the stone looked solid until stepped upon, the tunnel leading to it came from a branch that was entirely new… Topkoft fought back the urge to vomit as the most pervasive, and sinister, of the demon’s spells took hold. It was a spell that required no casting, or even active part on the behalf of the demon. That spell was fear.
It ate away at Topkoft. He was tempted to remain where he was, feign death… but then, he knew the demon would find him anyways. He pushed himself up, saw Vrocknar still engaged with the demon. The old man’s dagger flashed, and rang metallically against the demon’s staff. He caught Topkoft’s eye, and Topkoft looked away. He could see the other demonslayers scattered around the hill as well.
Nopl’s stumpy legs were all that was left of him. Ysdrial stood on his tiptoes, an earthen spike rammed through his chest, the point dripped red gore and it held him in the tiptoe position. Kopper was nowhere to be seen and Hrothgar laid near the opposite wall in a pool of his own blood, one hand still clutching the ruin of his neck where the earthen spike had slid through his armor as a hot knife goes through butter. Brovar wasn’t anywhere to be seen either. He’d either exploded as Nopl had or had fallen somewhere out of Topkoft’s sight.
Topkoft staggered to his feet. His legs didn’t want to support him all of a sudden. He met Vrocknar’s eye, saw the older demonslayer freeze, watched the demon smash his weapon arm with its staff at the elbow, and turned away. This was folly, he told himself. His legs found their strength with the addition of a goal. Especially when that goal was self-preservation. He put his legs to motion, sprinting away from the scene of all the carnage and death. He dashed into the tunnel and was barely four steps in when the walls smashed together behind him; inches away from crushing his heels.
Topkoft raced along the tunnel, running blind in the sudden absolute darkness, pumping his arms furiously at his sides. He stopped only when he ran headlong into a wall. The sole thing that prevented him from knocking himself out, or smashing his face up beyond being recognizable, was his helmet. He fell back onto his haunches and sat there in the sheer, black, darkness, listening to the soft drips in the cave and his own ragged breaths.
He couldn’t say how long he sat there, but eventually he stood. He took a moment to sheath his paired swords and fumbled for his flint and steel. If the demon hadn’t come for him so far, and he’d already written off the possibility of Vrocknar getting the better of demon, it likely wasn’t coming for him. The realization, the tiny blossoming of hope, calmed him considerably.
With that calm realization, and a spark of light from the flint and steel, came another realization. What was he going to tell the council? He’d fled from the demon he was supposed to have killed or died trying to kill. Demonslayers weren’t supposed to run away. They weren’t supposed to leave a job undone. Teams, like the one Topkoft had belonged to, frequently left the monastery keeps that dotted the land and came back with only a couple members. They usually also returned with a new raw recruit or two. A demonslayer’s lift was short and violent when he left a monastery keep, but it was a rare occurrence that an entire team was wiped out, or even reduced to a single member.
He struck the flint and steel together again over a stubborn torch, paused to listen for imagined footsteps, then did so again. The council wouldn’t be happy with him. He was almost certain of that. He didn’t know what the punishment for running was, it hadn’t happened in his monastery, but he couldn’t imagine it was pleasant or less than fatal. He struck the flint and steel again. The torch caught.
He was still among the best of the best. Demonslayers were faster and better trained than your average swordsman of the land. They needed to be to take on the magical furies of a demon. He shook a little in the darkness. He’d been the fastest, not the strongest, and nimblest of the team that had entered that cavern.
The torch caught, and he knew what he would do. He was still among the best. Hired swords were a valuable commodity. He could even train some petty lord’s personal guard. He slipped a hand under the edge of his helmet and undid the chin strap. The rest of his gear was unrecognizable, the stuff a wandering swordhand might carry. He pulled the helmet off and looked at its blood spattered visor and looked at the sunburst with a single crescent moon eclipsing the upper edge and an array of stars beyond it. Gore dripped down from the crescent moon and onto the sunburst, making it seem as though it were the early rising sun. The breaking of a new dawn.
The council would assume they’d all died. Another, stronger and larger, team of demon slayers would be dispatched to handle this threat, the land would be safe, and Topkoft would survive to fight another day against mortal enemies. At least that is what Topkoft told himself as he dropped the helmet to the side of the tunnel.
Torch in hand, he started walking toward the exit. It was a new day, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to find some poor wench to spend it with before seeking his fortune in some meaningful manner.
End.
There will be more of Topkoft and Vrocknar and the demon and Zaurell. I hope you’ve enjoyed their little introductions… they’ll all be players in the longer fiction I write for NanoWriMo next year.
Until next week… fare thee well.
