Chapter 36 #2
The demonic creature hovering in the air threw an unending wave of flames right in front of the horse.
It reared again, fully onto its hind legs, and shrieked, kicking its front legs as its rider struggled to hold on – only to be ripped from the saddle by invisible hands.
In the next second, blood sprayed as if something had bitten through the thick cords of his neck and torn it apart.
His body was then thrown to the ground, discarded, and crimson flowed from the gaping wound.
Shadows surged inwards from all sides, the canopy pressing in with bare tree branches like gnarly, skeletal fingers.
Another witch fled. In mid stride, his head was wrenched back by his hair, rending a choking gasp from him.
His dagger rose from its sheath and hovered above his chest, just as the demon looming over them shattered another four ice spikes.
The blade came down straight into his torso and twisted.
“What in the gods’ name is that thing?!” someone shouted.
“Who fucking cares?! Kill it!”
A set of black dragon wings shot from a witch’s back, and he launched into the sky, sword poised and ready to sink into demonic flesh. The creature spun in the air to evade, chuckling as it gave the ground its back.
“Come now. You cannot escape your fates. The underearth awaits you for your sins.”
Blue fire formed a ring around them, coming from the forest itself – beautiful as it cast everything in shades of cerulean and indigo. Yet the smell of smoke never came.
“It’s going to kill us all,” a man whispered near her, frozen in place as he held a set of reins, his eyes glassy and stark. “To punish us all for what we have done.”
For a moment, Carwyn caught sight of the real Kier – naked, blood-slicked, impossibly and frighteningly calm – as he grabbed the man and lifted him by his shirt collar.
He released the reins with a choke. The demon swept down as he evaded the only one foolish enough to keep fighting, and in synchronicity, they both opened their maws to blow dragonfire.
The high-pitched, bone-chilling scream that came from the dark witch morphed into a gurgling wheeze until he was incinerated down to muscle.
Then Kier pivoted as the winged witch dove to ram his sword into the back of the demon. It went straight through the illusion, embedding into the ground metres from Carwyn, and the witch’s eyes went wide.
His wings buckled.
“Stolen, I see.”
A necklace was torn from around his neck, and the wings dissolved before Kier grabbed the man’s throat with one hand and repeatedly shoved a dagger into his belly with the other.
It was rhythmic, methodical, and blindingly swift.
Guttural grunts shifted into wet groans, then drowning gurgles, and he was discarded.
The dagger dropped with a definitive thud next to his corpse.
The demonic illusion settled over Kier like a second skin as he approached the last dark witch standing.
He ran towards the forest, only to yell when the blue fires tripled in height. He scrambled for a different direction, backing away as his head darted left and right, desperately searching for an escape.
“Please,” he begged, casting a ball of green fire at Kier’s chest. It did nothing to stop his approach. “Please spare me. Please. I’ll never touch dark magic again, I swear it.”
“How many has your coven killed?” Kier asked, he and his illusion tilting their heads in perfect, eerie unison. “How many pixies, fairies, dragons have you pulled apart to further your selfishness, your greed?”
The man threw another ball of fire, then a fistful of yellow powder. It arced towards Kier, who incinerated it with a breath of fire. A long and deep rumble of thunder filled the air, causing the witch to jump, and he tripped over his own feet as he attempted to flee yet again.
His back met the trunk of a tree branch, just as Kier crouched and reached out with haunting, glossy, non-existent claws.
“How many of your own kind have you turned on, just to remain so... weak?”
He shoved against the man’s forehead with one hand, grabbed his lower jaw with the other, and pulled.
Skin tore, cartilage separated, and tendons snapped before a crack sounded.
His harrowing scream twisted Carwyn’s gut, her heart lurching as his lower mandible was torn free. Bile rose in her throat.
Kier raised the jawbone and slammed it into the dark witch’s no doubt frantically beating heart. His body folded around the intrusion as his eyes glazed over.
Carwyn screamed, the sound raw and burning on its way out.
She’d never seen anything more horrific, more blood-curdling, in her life.
She never knew he could expend such a ghastly amount of brutish destruction.
With the cerulean flames highlighting every plane of muscle, every rivulet of blood tracking down his beautiful body, he looked like a barbaric god of slaughter.
His nudity made him even more frightening.
No cloth to shield him, no armour to protect him, no weapons to harm with, yet he’d incited unimaginable devastation in mere minutes without a scratch upon him.
Her scream alerted him to her presence nearby. His head snapped to her, and he released the jaw fragment to stand and approach her.
She stayed still, too frozen to move, only to clench her eyes shut when he got too close.
It’s okay. He won’t hurt me.
Surely he wouldn’t.
He might be angry that I brought us here.
She opened her eyes at the thunk of his knees hitting the ground, followed by his hands, until he laid his head down next to hers.
His black hair wisped against the top of her shoulder as the scent of iron and char infiltrated her senses.
Carwyn remained on her front with her cheek squished against the ground, and she panted as stalks of grass tickled her dry lips.
“Witches,” he rasped, his eyes wild and frantic, bouncing and swirling as they locked onto hers.
One pupil was a narrow slit, the other was blown wide, and she imagined that made everything disorientating, like darkness and brightness were colliding together in a confusing clash. He looked crazed, lost. His huffing breaths were loud, making his chest heave.
“You all fear so much, but nothing like the threat of damnation, of cleansing fire.”
She braved tearing her gaze away from his lost one to the blue flames still surrounding them, offering her light in the darkness. They fell upon him once more, illuminating the blood coating his face. None of it was his own, and some even trailed from his mouth.
Somehow he brought unbearable heat, pushing back the chill.
“K-Kier,” she whispered shakily, unable to keep the fright from her voice.
Both his pupils dilated. “Yes, my foolish, pretty witch?”
She shuddered. “Please free me.”
“Why? You are much easier to keep safe like this.”
His eyes crinkled with the wrong kind of joy and yearning, the warm tenderness edged with something cruel and unyielding as his lips curled into a malicious, conniving grin. It was the first time she saw his eyes as a sickening blood red.
His expression was unhinged, and her erratic heart pounded faster in her chest. He’s not himself. She glanced at the dead body next to him, the discarded dagger just beyond his head, and then the death surrounding them.