Renewed fear washed over him, like waves of ice cold water. The death of someone familiar, dreadful reality weighed down on his chest.
Even as disbelief and denial filled words parted his dry lips and finally tore his gaze from the macabre sights, another bolt of shock struck.
Meeting his eyes just on the other side of the road, under low hanging branches, barely visible in the dark.. Slightly bent over in the shadows, another figure, who had been watching him.
His right hand abruptly jumped to the sword's hilt. Cold bubbling fear gave way to outrage and the blame had been cast.
That one..
Fingers clenched tight around the metal, his arm -almost of its own volition- pulled the weapon outward.
All the lessons and hard work would pay off now.
Halfway out of its sheath, blade glimmering in the spectral glow of moonlight, the silent, cool hiss of steel on leather fell silent, as his arm came to a stop.
Before realization registered, five hard pressing, gloved fingers clenched down on his right forearm and another five on his mouth.
Instinct prevailed over thought, Mjoln jerked away and managed a quick step forward, but the other's arms kept him from breaking free and quickly, the leather gloved hands re-established their hold on him.
"Hey, hey, easy.. Don't make any noise. If they hear us, we're dead." a hoarse faint whisper addressed him, with the warmth of breath flooding his neck skin.
That's.. Bert.
Heart still pounding savagely, arms finally relaxed, with calm and controlled breathing, he slowly pushed the sword back into its sheath.
Mouth finally released, he turned his head just enough to catch a glimpse of the man's aging features and the short, graying hair.
Silently, Bert pulled on his sword arm and headed toward the figure watching from across the road.
"Come on.. We can't stay here." came another whisper, just barely audible in the chaotic mixture of noises from the burning town.
Willing his mind to stop panic induced thoughts, Mjoln stumbled after Bert's black cloaked form, that seemed to hover through shadows stretching across the ground, much like a specter.
Eyes still adjusting to the dim light, he followed several steps behind the figure.
Minutes later, arriving under the branches, fresh, resinous scent flooded his nose with the chill air, and he recognized the ghastly, serious features of the other figure..
"Griswold?" he whispered to the old officer, earning him a nod, before the man freed his bow and notched an arrow.
"Cut the nonsense, man.. We can't win this fight.."
Bert's voice sounded, though still restrained, just as the elder figure grabbed the bow with his right and forced it down.
"I.. I've got to do somethin' they killed so many tonight."
"They'll kill us too if you give us away with that arrow. Now, put it down, that's an order."
Bert added and glanced back at Mjoln.
"We'll wait for my niece, then we're gonna disappear into the night. Thank the heavens you've made it out when you did. I thought for sure you've already left." he addressed the wiry figure, Griswold just snorted and raised his bow again, though it was probably just out of habit as he let the string stay loose.
Mjoln eyed the aging pair, and tried controlling his breathing. Some relief came as he finally saw Griswold put the weapon back around his upper body, then hearing one of the figure's famous, passion-filled oaths compressed into a whisper. Though it reminded him of fun times when they had played pranks on the town guard's lieutenant, it also served a reminder, that he hadn't dreamt the whole situation.
His horror renewed itself at his core, when he glanced toward the town again.
A group of the black figures marched between burning buildings, organized like a military force, but there was a savage, chaotic touch to them still. They were heading toward Mjoln's house, but stopped in between the town's edge and the building. Moments later, several black clouds of smokey material came toward the waiting throng.
The clouds were drawn toward the center of the road, just in front of the group, they came from left and right and a man-sized portion from the sky as well.
Finally they converged on the same spot just above the rough stones, then slowly faded, leaving behind a huge black form, easily seven or eight feet tall. Its broad shoulders ended in unnaturally long appendages that almost reached the ground.
Mjoln's stomach twisted and turned several times, feeling as if it had been tying itself into knots as he observed the hellish apparition.
The figure looked around, then it reached its right appendage out, toward Mjoln's family house. The air around the three chilled, and chilled further than what Mjoln had ever recalled feeling even in the winter.
A hellish orange mass of light formed around the figure's outstretched arm, rapidly swelling in size, illuminating the figure and the first ranks of the others behind it.
Griswold let out another oath under his breath, Bert murmured a quick prayer to the creator, and Mjoln stared, unwilling to believe his own eyes.
***********************************************************************
The bodies, covered under black armor plates, edgy and savage looking, skin scaly like some reptilians, and the red glowing eyes on the featureless faces left no doubts in his mind. The invaders weren't human.
Before he had time to think, the gathered orange mass, almost the size of a man by then, took on the shape of a skull with two curved horns protruding from its forehead and flew off in a crazily curving pattern toward the house.
Its dreadful maw filled with jagged teeth opened an instant before impact, almost as if it had been laughing..
Glass shattered, timbers cracked and stones burst into hundreds of pieces. The top half of the house had immediately caught fire, and several smaller skulls, like the first one, had circled around the building, leaving brief trails of a hellish orange glow.
The three watched in dread and awe as not only the timbers and roofing caught ablaze, but even the gray stones fueled the outlandish fire.
Mjoln's heart raced at horrific speed.. He thought, at some point it would tear itself from his chest, unless the demonic hordes in the town did it first.
Then at the sight of the huge brutish shade approaching the burning ruins, he cursed himself silently for having such thoughts.
The air grew thin, yet a pressure materialized at his stomach, followed by an intense gut wrenching stench and taste of rot and decaying flesh as he heard the blunt, heavy thumps of the creature.
It stopped about ten feet from the ruins, at a burning human sized object on the ground…
The ethereal orange glow revealed the poisonous emerald green scales on its snake-like neck, and the six slightly curved horns on the top of its head.
The two eye holes reminded Mjoln of the empty sockets on skulls, except for the glow… A venomous green mist forming two orbs within the sockets glowed ominously, lighting up the black charred looking flesh of its face. Crude features seemingly crafted from rectangles, no nose just two holes.
It grabbed hold of the object, and paced off back toward the town and the waiting group of others.
Just then Mjoln realized with growing dread, as the flames on the human shape died out, what the demon picked up had been Bartha's charred remains.
Horror grew in his chest, cold and edgy, he sensed the inherent wrongness of those creatures, particularly the big one.
Griswold looked ready to vomit, his features, even in the dim light and mostly covered under his graying beard, contorted beyond what Mjoln thought humanly possible.
Bert held his head with both hands, clearly struggling against agonizing pain, letting out the odd grunt of pain every now and again, as he continued to observe the invaders pacing away.
Mjoln thought himself fortunate until his stomach churned and he had to turn away from the group.
With unbelievable force everything gushed from his guts outward, leaving a sickly heat and emptiness behind.
Run away, now.. Just..
An unwilling glance back toward the town brought some relief, and seconds later, the appearance of another blurry form further right, renewed hope..
In the hillside, facing his home, under a row of pine trees he spotted Saleen's cloaked form. He bit back the urge to call out for her, instead, he grabbed Bert, and pointed toward Saleen.
Her red tresses made her face appear like a ghost's, and Mjoln wouldn't have been surprised if she was just a ghost, after all he had seen. Bert gestured her to stay put, and kept pointing at the town, indicating danger. Saleen nodded, then vanished into the blackness under the tree branches once more. The only cover from view in the town's direction.
A moment later, her face appeared once more, with three others behind her, one of them, the high priest of the town with his round, fat head and two elders Mjoln couldn't recognize in the dim light.
Bert shot another glance at the town, then nodded to Saleen, who promptly ran toward the trio. With the grace of a cat, she silently covered the fifty steps to the group, and finally in the safety of the shadows, she let out a long exhale of exhaustion.
"I got three others out before they broke into the church.. I think the others are.." she whispered, but meeting Bert's gaze with her own, fell silent.
"I know.. We've got to go as fast as we can now. It won't be long and they'll find us if we stay here." Bert responded, resting his right arm on her shoulder. Just then, the elder figure's eyes widened as he glanced back toward the hill.
Following his gaze Mjoln blurted the warning against his will..
"Behind you!" he called to the three people pacing toward them.
Just as the group would turn and see the figure following them, the fiend brought down its sword on the priest's neck, wasting no time, it slashed at the woman on his right. A brief, blood curdling scream escaped the third, that ended in a sickening crunching noise, followed by the demon's own roar.
Even before he had realized it himself, the others had ran off into the woods, leaving him frozen in panic.
He spun around, searching for an escape route, or a hint of the others. Mjoln didn't see what had happened to the third person, though the sounds conjured up horrific images in his mind, as he took off running between the trees.
A glance over his shoulder revealed two of the demons in a rush after him. Where they had come from, he couldn't say, but the dreadful thumps nearing him brushed aside all wondering. He let the cold, electric rush of adrenaline take control, and leaned more of his weight forward, as his legs, following a will of their own, carried him further into the woods.
Barely avoiding trees and low branches he dared not look back again, but in his mind he saw nothing but the hellish throngs brandishing jagged swords and axes in a frenzied rush after him.
He ran and ran, the sword dangling by his side. He thought of throwing it away, after all it was just weight now. He couldn't possibly fight three or four of those beasts by himself.
The images of standing his ground only to be decapitated were followed by increasingly ragged and short breaths.
Somehow, even against the cool air, his body found enough heat to sweat.
His panic swelled inside his chest as he realized, there was no hint of the others ahead or anywhere else, no hint of life at all, just the menacing hurried thuds and clanking from behind.
He spotted a clearing ahead, and urged his dreadfully heavy legs to pick up an even faster pace. Already his vision swam with dark blurry spots, and his inhales appeared just motion without any substance to them.
Somehow, leaning more of his weight forward he managed another ten yards, and another. He burst through the clearing causing an owl on a nearby tree to take off into the air. He spotted some thick and tall brush between trees slightly to his right and decided to go through there, then hopefully out of sight he'd make for the left, and lose the fiends chasing him. It didn't occur to him that they might be able to track him, he just wanted to hope against hope and live.
The thumps and thuds grew slightly more distant interrupted by hellish roars on occasion just as he leapt through the brush.
Unexpectedly the ground disappeared from under him and he found himself rolling down a steep hill, passing thick trunks and dangerous looking rocks at blinding speed, all until a sharp pain in his back knocked the wind right out of him…
With a loud crash he came to a stop and struggled desperately to take a breath.
The world faded out of his view…
A sudden tug and pull on his body jolted him awake, followed by a searing heat and the stench of blood.
Something hard and cold weighed both his hands down by the wrists…