It takes three more days of hard riding before we find evidence of demon activity.
Sulfur mixed with the scent of smoke and rot. It instantly curdles the breakfast in my stomach. Not just decay either, but the coppery smell of blood, bitter and acrid on my tongue.
The closer we get to the settlement, the more devastation we witness. Homes pillaged and burning. Plumes of black smoke are rising from multiple points into the sky.
We find the dead. Not whole humans, but parts of them. Limbs. Viscera. Torn flesh.
We follow the trail and try to ferret out how many demons we may be facing.
When we first come upon the settlement, all is quiet. Too quiet. But bullet holes scar concrete walls. Blackened impact marks bloom where weapons were fired in desperation. Rifles, handguns, blades—human tools turned into weaponry—lie discarded among what remains of the bodies strewn across the streets as if death simply dropped them where they stood but didn’t leave them unmolested.
A light dusting of ash coats it all, relaying that deeds done here have been marked by time. The fall of it has softened the edges of the carnage without hiding it. A massacre preserved beneath a grey shroud.
This place did not fall quietly. These people wanted to live.
When the quiet breaks, it’s with a cackle. Laughter, unlike anything I can describe. A heckling that’s both fiendish and ear-piercing, delivered in a pitch capable of damaging our eardrums.
It rings out over the vast land, echoing for miles as it tapers off.
We brace against it for only a moment, then dismount in silence and send our horses away.
The snarling comes next. Low. Wet. Animalistic. Something is feeding and being messy about it. By the looks of things, they’d been gorging on the dead here for a while.
Blood slicks the ground beneath our boots. The first body—if it can still be called a body—lies face down. The skull's innards have been half consumed and dragged out across the nearby ground. The spine of whoever this was lies feet away, nearly picked clean, and their one remaining leg is shredded at mid-thigh—flesh, muscle, and veins ripped away from the whole. A lower leg bone free of flesh within sight, gnaw marks are obvious from the teeth responsible.
Kahill draws his blade. I follow suit. Souls linger—two that barely hold a presence on this plane. The other three are… wrong. Tainted. Their tether here barely exists as if stretched thin. They cling to this world by frayed threads, and those are steeped in malice so thick it fouls the air worse than the rot.
I sense their hunger, their foul intent, and malevolence.
Three demons, their souls faint and almost nonexistent.
And three living humans, not more than children, hiding, their minds filled with untold terrors.
Another shriek splits the air.
Pain detonates in my eardrum, funnels behind my eyes, and down my spine, rattling my immortal frame. Somewhere close, something answers with a guttural snarl.
Kahill lifts his blade and points.
There, yes. Movement on a distant rooftop.
A creature crawls into view—frail, pale, its limbs too long, joints bending at bizarre angles. Pointed ears pierce through curtains of black, stringy hair as it slinks over the edge and down the wall like a spider. Its head twists back, and its eyes—yellow-white and too bright—are sunken in and ringed in black. Those orbs are also fixed on us with an intelligence that promises violence. It opens its mouth as it takes us in. It’s not a laugh this time that rents the air. It’s a signal, a rapid chirping sound—sharp, urgent. A warning or a call to attack.
My clothing fades as I let my human form slip away. Kahill does the same, but retains a hold on his demon. With one swipe of his blade through the air, fire ignites down the dark metal of his sword until the entire blade burns as if dipped in lava. Flames waft from steel and warm the very air around us.
“Fuck.”
“What?”
I hold up my own sword to show him what the problem is.
“What in the bloody hell is that? Where’s your blade?”
This is definitely not the time to have this discussion. I take a moment to consider whether I’d like to share or avoid the torment of his response.
Honest curiosity riddles his features. “Well?”
We can hear the creatures drawing near, growls and heckling as if they're excited for the next meal they believe is within their grasp.
