Chapter 4: Chapter Four

It was a single shriek.

One single shriek from one of the banshee demons that woke the village to danger. The darkness of the predawn hours was, only minutes before, a time of great peace and tranquility with demons caught in dreams both ordinary and bizarre, but with that single shriek, their dreams ended and they awoke to nightmare.

The banshee cry ripped through the night and died with its creator, a gurgle so soft that only the woman and her killer could hear it at all.

Sadrahan flung his blanket up and onto the floor, he was about to shout, but Lamash put her hand over his mouth before he could. Even in the darkness he could see her face, fear writ on every inch. Her red eyes twitched and fingers trembled, the little flecks of gold within the deep red flickered like candle light in a weak breeze. Their gazes locked.

The shouts of hundreds of voices, more than either had ever heard in all their lives, went up all at once, and as if the banshee’s cry were a signal, the nightmare was unleashed in all its horror.

“We can sneak out…” Lamash whispered.

Sadrahan’s heart pounded, it seemed possible, his home was on the outskirts of the line, not the last, but close, and the noise was from farther away.

‘Humans don’t have the best night vision, maybe…’ He told himself as the voices of his neighbors' cries of fear and despair went up.

He moved the curtain of the window aside and looked out, some of his neighbors were taking to the air… and promptly fell with cries of agony. ‘Arrows? They’re shooting us like birds?!’

“Ground it is.” He muttered and grabbed his wife’s wrist, he pulled her out of the bed and rushed for the entrance of his home, he slapped aside the fur just in time to see neighbors rushing into the entrance which divided his wall, unlike his home, it wasn’t divided by a simple fur hanging, easily brushed aside, but rather by a low swinging gate made of small spike tipped logs which he secured with a thick latch down below.

The smaller imp family was already in and stared up at Sadrahan, “They got her! They’re after us!” The patriarch of the family shouted out, agony on his face, “My wife, they got her!” His red face, a mask of pain, blood streamed out of a wound on the back of his leg, a broken spear embedded in his flesh, others of the village were starting to stream in, blocking the exit.

Sadrahan wanted to shout, ‘Get out of the way! We need to leave!’

But before the words could leave his throat the imp in front of him grabbed his arm, “We tried running, but they’re out there too!” He pointed toward Sadrahan’s field. “The chief… they got him.”

The screams drew closer and flaming arrows flew up into the night, a handful of others whose fear overtook them, spread their wings and took to the sky, only to fall like shot quails, just as others had before.

“If we’re going to have a chance, it’s here or nowhere!” The imp shouted as someone else closed the gate.

Sadrahan let go of Lamash’s wrist, “Get in the house!” He snapped over his shoulder, in all their lives he’d never raised his voice to her, his body went very tense, he was no longer sure if he was even breathing. “Fine, we make a stand here…” He uttered.

Fire sprang to life beyond the smaller demons that huddled inside his little fortification. ‘My crops… they’re burning my crops…’ Fire was little enough of a threat, but the fire bearers? He heard their deep shouts drawing closer.

The screams of pain outside his wall were gone. “You heard me! Fight for this place!” He shouted, snapping them out of their trancelike state, they fell all over themselves to cluster away from the entrance. “When they come in, don’t give a finger span!” Sadrahan shouted, just as the first arrows sailed over the wall, the roof of his home began to blaze and the first men reached his low gate, running smack into it in their confusion.

That was his first close look at a human warrior. The attacking man wore leather and metal chain links, had a thick brown beard which came down to his chest, a long metal tipped spear, a round wooden shield painted with black and red stripes, and his body was streaked with blood that was not his own.

When he was stopped by the gate, he gave it a sound kick, but the latch held. However, it was low enough that he began to climb it.

The distraught imp jumped at the human, biting, clawing, tearing at his face and body, claws ripping through the light protection and opening up the man’s throat.

Two more humans rushed to the aid of their comrade, their spears rose and fell, piercing the body of Sadrahan’s imp neighbor and drawing cries of pain that soon died.

“Watch the walls!” Sadrahan shouted when he saw a human trying to scale one side…

And thus the back and forth began.

Arrows sailed over the top, followed by humans trying to scale the wall, and the desperate demons in their dwindling numbers threw back each assault, claws flashed, male and female screams went up, the smell of blood and sweat grew thick in the air.

‘At least they don’t seem to be very good at fighting like this… no ladders or ropes with them… they must not have expected this.’ Sadrahan realized after the first hour passed and a brief lull in the fighting gave him a moment to rest.

Until the shriek went up from within his burning home.

“Lamash!” He shouted and rushed from his place among the last defenders and saw his wife’s breast pierced through from the back with a human arrow. His eyes followed the path through the window where he saw a human archer standing in place on the other side of the wall. ‘Ladder or… this is it!’ He realized while he rushed to grab her body before her wavering could lead to a fall, or before she could be pierced by another arrow’s iron tip.

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Her arms caught his and he dragged her out of the line of fire.

Up above, he could hear the crack as the fire finally began to take its toll on the structure, the red moss finally catching alight and threatening to turn the home into a funeral pyre.

His wings emerged from his back, “We’re going to fly… it’s our only chance!” He whispered as the shouts went up outside as a new assault began.

“We’ve got no chance then… they’re shooting us down in ones and twos… and there’s no way if you’re carrying me…” She put her hand up to his cheek and coughing up blood, she dragged him and herself over to the bed.

Too dazed to refuse her pull, she reached to her chest and ripped the arrow out the rest of the way so that she could lie down. Blood poured out of her wound and out of her mouth to spatter on his body.

She forced herself back while he tried with fumbling fingers to staunch the wound with his calloused hand. When she lay her on the bed she added, gurgling out the words through red spittle, “But if you’re carrying only one very small… maybe?”

He had to think about that for a moment before he realized what she meant. To clear her voice before he could protest, she forced herself to swallow the rising red flood in her throat and shouted at him with bloody tears clouding her vision of her husband…

“I hear their voices! They’re too many! Listen to me! Listen to me! There’s only one chance!” She shouted in spite of the blood that sprayed with every word. “All at once in every direction! They can’t get us all!”

She grabbed the necklace from around her neck, and tearing it free, she pressed it into his hand, “Get our child out!” She made it every bit as much of an order as his command that she put herself in the house, and before he could argue, she put her claws on her belly, and sharper than obsidian stones, she pierced her own flesh to tear their child free.

‘A girl.’ She thought with some satisfaction when she caught sight of what their daughter looked like before her vision started to fade. The protective layer of sheer skin that covered the new demon’s body was still unbroken, and so the child didn’t even cry out yet as she was taken from her mother’s body.

Lamash slashed the cord herself and Sadrahan mutely took their daughter into his arms.

“Fly! Fly, you fools!” Lamash shrieked the order out to the surviving villagers.

“B-” Sadrahan’s protest was cut off with a bloody slap to his face. “Don’t fail her!” Lamash cried as the voices of the humans went up again, readying themselves for a fresh assault.

Sadrahan tucked his child into his arms, she was quiet still, unbroken in the transparent flesh sack she was due to break herself in a handspan of days beyond this one.

The sun was starting to break on the horizon, dimming by proxy the flames of human torches and arrows.

Sadrahan rushed out of the house while the wood cracked further overhead.

Her necklace clasped in his free hand, he repeated his wife’s order.

“Fly! All at once! Fly!” His wings sprang out of his back, and when they understood what he meant, those who could, did the same.

The rest, those too old, those who were injured, took the next step themselves without prompting, the handful who could no longer fly, opened the gate and charged outside, howling with demonic fury as they raced toward their attackers in one show of final defiance to buy time for the young.

Sadrahan took to the air, rising faster than an arrow could possibly match, he saw everything play out.

Caught off guard by the demon offensive, most of the archers leveled their arrows and let fly at those on the ground who posed a threat. And demons fell riddled with scores of arrows, dying howling and crawling on the ground until spears came close to finish them off with noisy, meaty, sickening noises of ripping flesh..

But the other half of the humans, those on the far side away from the charge, still sent their arrows into the sky. Sadrahan banked and wheeled and rolled, and watched his neighbors fall, some silently, some crying out in pain, to be surrounded by humans when they hit the ground.

It was then that he saw it. Humans crouched over the demons who lay on their bellies, took out sharp curved knives, and began to sever the wings of demons, living and lost alike, without regard for pain or respect for the dead.

He set his jaw and offered no cry of wrath or pain, he only flew on, toward the distant mountains, the only place he could think to go, the place of rubies, a place out of reach of men. ‘I’ll keep you safe… I promise…’ He vowed in his heart, and clutched his daughter closer as the village died behind him.

 

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