The Demon Wages War

Panic broke loose. Chaos unrolled.

But this time would be different from the incident in Reskal. Instead of jumping at one fighter at a time, Lily called forth black flames. She felt the power indigenous to the land flow through the earth. She was and always had been a part of something bigger - born from this very energy coursing throughout the land, nourishing it and all the creatures that lived in it, the power now found its way back to her. Her own life energy merged with the one of her homelands and her feet tickled when she accessed it. She giggled at the funny sensation.

Her hands became the origin of multiple fire sources all across the area her side of the river and the flames spread with a fury of their own. People and beasts alike ran around screaming and bellowing.

„It knows what you have done!", Lily called, laughing. „It knows you are bad people that have bereft this world of an important soul! Now hear its verdict!"

The fire crackled around her. It didn't make a difference between tentcloth and men, so their cries mingled with the roars of hungry flames getting fed.

From the corner of her eye, she spotted the commander, who grabbed the hand of a young, handsome lad and ran for it.

She left it to the flames to catch up with him. Her own quarry was a different one.

She turned towards Diana, who stared at her bewildered and backed away.

„You're… You're a monster! Father should have killed you when he got you! He should never have paid for you! They scammed him!", the woman cried.

With a peace of mind that came only from being the one in power for once, Lily picked up her sword and made towards Lady Diana.

„I think it's time you answered some of my questions", she said calmly.

Diana backed away from her further but fell down to the ground when she stumbled over the remains of a burned soldier that lay behind her.

Lily stood over her and placed the pointy end of the sword on the lady's delicate throat.

Diana stared up at her in terror. „What… What do you want?", she asked unnecissarily.

Lily, however, cut right to the chase. „What do you mean your father paid for me?", she asked.

„Well… He… He hired b-bountyhunters… From this world… T-To snatch you as a b-babe", the Lady stammered.

„Who are the bountyhunters?", Lily inquired.

„I… I don't know. It was long before my birth. Father only hired them a few times, but he never told me who they are", she replied, but Lily wasn't convinced. She pressed the edge against her throat until she broke the skin.

„No, I swear!", Diana cried. „I swear. He wanted to tell me when I would join the business. But he… he died before that."

Lily growled. „Who are my parents then?"

„I don't now!", Diana sobbed.

Suddenly another thought occurred to Lily and she narrowed her eyes. „Was Louise kidnapped, too, then?"

„I…I guess she was. She was a kitten, so either that or her parents sold her", she stammered.

„Were there more like us? How many? What happened to them?", Lily pressed.

Lady Diana shook her head violently. „Please. You overestimate the trust he had in me! He would never tell me any such details… I just know that he sometimes required things for his studies or for customers, so he hired specialists to get them from this wretched world. But I don't know what those things were or what they were used for! For that matter, I don't even know what he ever saw in you, that he put up with you for so long! Please, just let me go! I have no more information!"

Lily regarded her so-called sister and her oldest living fiend with a leveled look.

Then she nodded.

„Alright. I let you go", she said flatly.

She watched the Lady's facial expression change from terror to alleviation - then she slit her throat.

„Off you go", Lily said, when Diana opened her mouth but only gargled. „You don't belong here. You're free now. Go, and be with the others of your kind."

She locked her eyes with her dying fiend and waited until Diana stopped twitching. Then she turned around and headed for the river without ever looking back. (733)

***

She returned the very next day. She had crashed in the forest from which she and Ryon had entered the meadow the day before. But when she'd woken this morning and realized that Ryon was truly gone, tears of rage and grief welled up and nearly choked her senseless. In a haze, she trod back to the camp she'd destroyed.

She landed with her bare feet in a layer of soft, warm, black ash and looked around. What had been blissfully veiled by distance, but was now hard to overlook, was the true amount of blackened corpses laying around all over the place. It must have been sixty to eighty in total.

She trod carefully while assessing the damage she had wrought.

Everywhere she looked she saw men turned into burned heaps and stakes still smoldering.

As she looked around, her memory gradually returned to her. The dishonor, the spite these people had displayed - the murder they had committed - and she couldn't find it in her heart to feel any remorse for what she had done to them. It was more like a smoldering anger inside her resonated with the wooden stakes she found left standing.

Rather detatched from herself she also noted the omnipresent stench of burned flesh and the incredible silence that was all around her.

No one screamed or moaned anymore. Despite the view she had, she got an impression of peace laying over the remains of the camp.

But that no one uttered a sound didn't mean that everyone was dead.

She learned that when she reached the outskirts of the camp where she encountered the dark-skinned commander crouching on the ground.

Nagra, she remembered.

She looked down at him, but he didn't seem to notice her. He had suffered serious burns himself and his eyes were staring into empty air while he clutched the stiff hand of a youngster with curly, honey-coloured hair, whose lifeless eyes stared into the sky. Lily remembered seeing the two of them fleeing the scene when she had called forth the flames. But evidently, they didn't make it to safety. A structure had collapsed on the young fighter and the fire had consumed most of his body.

She looked at Nagra who had tears running down his dusty cheeks.

Lily magicked her sword into her hand.

The Commander of the Duncan troops mumbled something she didn't understand.

With a single wipe of her sword, she beheaded him.

Then she walked back towards the river.

In their hatred and superstition, they had once again taken the only friend she'd had. They deserved what they had gotten.

The earth along the riverbank was now trampled and muddy by too many feet running, but the biggest mess appeared to be where the make-shift arena had been.

Diana still lay where Lily had killed her, even though her foe had suffered a few burns post-mortem.

Lily stopped briefly beside the dead Lady and regarded the distorted face one more time.

To her surprise she didn't feel the kind of satisfaction she had always thought she would when thinking about returning the unwelcome favour of torment.

Instead, she felt only emptiness inside. With the completion of her revenge, she had lost her purpose in life as well as an dear friend. And the loss of the latter weighed far heavier for she had only so few of them.

She sensed her throat closing up and yet unshed tears burning in her eyes, so she quickly turned away so that not even the corpse of the Lady may be able to see her in tears.

„I wanted to return the sword I borrowed", she told the corpse without looking. „So that the ghost of your father can pick it up here and pluck it out of your dead body. But that was stupid, since he will have a hard time escaping hell to get here. So I'll keep it as a repayment. I guess it must be worth about as much as he paid for me as a babe, so I think we're even, now."

She riveted her gaze on the ground and continued to walk towards the water. It couldn't be far until she would reach to point where he had stood.

She searched the ground for the remains of her friend, but the earth was so churned up that she couldn't tell for sure where exactly his pile of ash had been.

Lily sighed. What did she hope to find anyway? Ryon was gone. He had sacrificed himself for her sake, but now she was alone.

The ones left behind are always the ones to pity, she thought gloomily. Sure, it was his job to keep me safe, but couldn't he have let me go, so that I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my eternity without him?

Lily was well aware that she was being very selfish right now. She knew that she ought to be grateful to Ryon for saving her life, but the grief and loneliness gripping her heart made it difficult to feel anything else but resentment.

Yes, she felt left behind, and somehow, even though she didn't know why she was thinking that, but only knew that she was being unfair by doing so, she felt being cheated on.

But no, that was no way to honor his memory. She needed to think of something else for a change.

She rummaged around in her mind in pursuit of some other topic or notion to occupy herself, when suddenly and without warning he stood before her only a few yards away.

No way…

„Ryon?", she called in disbelief, but he didn't answer. He only grinned, his eyes glistening.

Slowly she walked towards him, but he didn't move to look at her,

„Ryon?", she called softly. „Is that you? I'm so glad you're okay! You really had me worried there!"

„Now get them", Ryon said.

„What?", she asked confused. She was standing right in front of him now, but still he didn't look at her. His head was slightly turned towards his backside.

„And beware the blade", he said.

Lily stared at him. „What are you talking about? I'm here! Don't you see me?", she asked almost shrilly.

Ryon turned towards her.

„Yes, I'm here!", she called and jumped a little to raise his attention.

His grin was now full of sadness and content at the same time.

„Ryon! Talk to me!", Lily demanded.

But instead of obeying, Ryon disintegrated to a gray sand-like ash until nothing more remained of him than a pile of that ash.

Again, Lily couldn't do more than stare.

No!, her mind cried as she sank to her knees and crouched on the ground.

Gently she stroke the area in which Ryon had been turned into ash and her hands began to tingle when she did so.

Surprised she looked at her hands, but they didn't look any different than from moments before. They were still dusted with the strange substance that wouldn't come of… And at this moment she made a connection. I burrowed my hands in his ashes… It's his ashes that cling to my skin… And it's his ashes that now resonate with the counterparts still sticking to my hands.

She didn't know what she should think about that. In some way it was disgusting… On the other hand it means that he's still with me, she marveled. Lily decided then to do something rather unorthodox. She magicked a leather pouch from her personal void into her hands and filled it with a handful of the soil that caused the tingling. This way she could have him with her even when she had to move on. Which at some point she would have to do.

She carefully closed the pouch with a string and magicked it back into her personal void.

And it was only then that she understood something else. The connection of the counterparts tricked my mind into remembering. He didn't really return just now, it was just an all too vivid memory.

She sighed. Of course, he wouldn't return. Life wasn't a fairytale - not even in Tiadar.

But before she could sink back into her own sorrow, she reminded herself.

Those were his last words and he tried to tell me something. Something important. A warning probably. What did he say again? ‚Beware the sword'. Yes, that's right. What kind of sword could… could kill a Death Spirit?

She looked around, but she couldn't see it anywhere. If she remembered correctly, it should be somewhere near the Lady's corpse.

Lily went back to the dead body of her former foe and perused the churned-up earth in search for the shiny blade. She remembered it to be black so she paid close attention to not overlook it lying on the scorched ground. But as much as she looked, the sword was gone.

Strange, she thought. Was this weapon some kind of magic that would disappear after it's been used?

She had never heard of something like that before, but then again, there seemed to be a lot that she still had to learn about magic.

Well, if it's gone, it's gone. His warning was probably intended for the fight I was currently in, so now that that's over, I probably don't even have to heed it anymore, she figured.

With that thought in mind she stood up and turned back to the river.

Now, there was nothing left for her to do here.

Suddenly, her body froze instinctively.

On the bank her side of the river stood a man, or rather a young man in his teens.

It was a scrawny boy that seemed vaguely familiar to her. He wore a black high-closed coat with a hood draped over his head.

Lily couldn't help but smirk as she thought with dry amusement: Well, if that isn't the Grim Reaper Himself. And, while still grinning wildly, she thought. Come, and get me, if you dare.