Deep breaths. Slow- in through the nose, out through the mouth. Breathe, Kaelan. Breathe.
Lifting up a foot to rest it on the body of the demon general smote to ruin before him, Kaelan worked to catch his breath, head down as the rain pelted his own body from above. He wore a long, hooded cape with a tanned leather vest caked in blood. His hair was long and a dark brown, tied back into a man bun. His eyes, a light green in color, were weathered and exhausted. Around him was scattered much of the demon armies "Rip tide"- the core group of powerful demonic sorcerers hell bent on terrorizing the human forces through hit and run tactics. They'd been good at it too- wherever they appeared, rivers of blood followed. He'd been chasing them for almost twenty years, ever since they had led a flood of demons across the mountains, attacking Aumber Vale and completely destroying his village of Ashwood, near the Rune Sea. They were poor, ill equipped to fight and didn't bother putting up a resistance- they'd been swallowed up so easily it was like they had never existed at all. Having the body of these monsters at his feet was vindicating in the way he'd always hoped it would be.
Ashwood. There, his family had perished. His father was a miller, his sister hardly old enough to be out of swaddling rags. Yet their broken and defiled bodies had been left in the mud as they had fled the battle. He would have died with them, and gladly at that. However, as he watched a blade erupt through his fathers chest and his mother stabbing the assailant in the neck as another beast clawed and bit her back, his sister had turned toward him, teary eyes glowing softly with a power he now recognized as the Aether. His sister, the unknown seer- she pushed him. Pushed him with her power, pushed so hard his body had lifted from the ground and out into the open air of the cliff beside the road. His shocked face stared back at her, at the smile on her lips. When he closed his eyes he could still see her standing there, the hands and claws of demons surrounding her body, preparing to rip her to shreds. He could still hear last two words she'd ever speak-
"Save us-."
Why would she ask that of him, when she knew they were already dead?
The fall wasn't a pleasant one- He'd hit sand, which had cushioned his fall enough to keep him from dying. Still, he felt something crack in his ribcage as the wind was driven painfully from his body. He lay there for several seconds, reaching up to cover his ears so the sounds of screams from above would be dulled if even for a moment. It was night, so as the beasts that had clawed his sister peered over the cliff for the young man of fifteen that had been thrown off it, all that could be heard was the sound of the sea and nothing but empty black air. Their eyes were a little better in the dark but for the most part they saw with motion and sound. Other demons may have more luck- they left, continuing with their movement per the request of their Alpha- what was one human boy anyway? A cast off into the night, nothing more. Soon enough, he would be dead by another's hand and the world would be right once more.
Kaelan didn't know how long he'd lay there- curled into a ball in the sand. He remembered when he woke, he'd felt stiff and pale. Turning to his side he groaned in agony- he didn't think the rib was broken, just fractured. Still, it was one of the most painful things he'd felt in recent memory. Pushing himself to his feet, he staggered a moment and looked up the face of the rock- how had he survived such a long fall? It had to be thirty or forty feet at least. He couldn't hear anyone, anymore. No screams. No demons. Just crashing sound of the sea behind him. He didn't know what to do- where to go. Who to speak with. He stared upward for several seconds before stumbling along the beach face toward the small goat path that led back up to Ashwood. The acrid smell of burning flesh hit his nose, and he did his best to keep his eyes down. He didn't want to see the bodies of his friends and neighbors stuck through spikes or half eaten, thrown in the grass for the bugs and the beasts. He moved through the village toward the front arena...where his...his....
Kaelen clenched his teeth, shaking his head from the memories that danced around him. He couldn't afford to get distracted by the past right now. More demons were coming and he needed to move back to where-
The sickening sound of crunching bone was accompanied by cold pain as a hand erupted through his chest from the back, caked in his blood. His eyes went wide, his breath refusing to enter his body. Is that what he looked like inside? He slowly turned his head to look behind him, red eyes peering back. Demon God Malakar, the Devourer. The King of all Demon kind and conquerer of a full half the continent. He'd never met him before, only seeing him from afar atop a throne of human bones through the eyes of a seer. How had he'd gotten so close? He hadn't even heard him, felt him or sensed him. It was like he was a shade or a spirit, evaporating into mist. He fell forward, face-planting next to the body of the General he'd just killed. Was this it? All that time spent training, fighting, clawing his way to this battlefield and he'd been killed, just like that?
He rolled over onto his back slowly as the Demon stared down at him. Kaelan tried to search his face but only saw his eyes...he saw only a cruel evil in them. "M-Malakar...y-you....bastard..." The demon slowly frowned as lightning ripped the sky- Kaelan realized several things. First....this wasn't Malakar. Whoever this was, was a female. Her body was wrapped in a robe and when hands were at her sides, one couldn't tell unless they were close. But her hand was out in the open, revealing a feminine form. Lithe curves draped with leather pants and a simple white shirt, linen with a tie near the top. She had no horns, in fact she had no features of demonkind at all save for the eyes, teeth and claws. Had she not brought out her hands he may have mistaken her for human. Second, her Aether wasn't glowing green but rather red like her eyes. And it was more of a pulsing Aura around her body. Strange- for most, Aether was pulled into the body from the air around them and had to be used almost as soon as it was collected, since it could disrupt the body and poison the blood.
Was this something unique to demons?
Not Malakar...so she wasn't even the King of Demonkind? Still, her eyes...they were the same ones he'd seen on Malakar all those years ago- the uniquely red eyes, set only in the sockets of the ruler of all their people.
"My Queen, we must go. The western armies have-"
She nodded and waved him off, the vampire commander bowing and taking a few steps backward. She reached down and with a clawed hand, lifted his body as through it was weightless.
"You...have been quite the troublesome little human, Defiler."
Defiler was the name he was given by demon kind. He wasn't really sure why- he'd never defiled bodies before. That didn't stop some of the men he'd commanded from doing so, but that was beyond his control. He could punish them, but in the end what was the point? It was no less than had been done to his people by her beasts. "That's...rich...coming from...you."
She scowled and clenched her fingers tighter around his throat. Her voice was barely a whisper.
"Die now, filth."
He choked, reaching a hand up to her wrist to try and stop her. Blood poured freely down his chest, along with part of his stomach and intestine she had torn from his body while making him the new breathing hole. He felt blackness sinking in, weakness as well. His eyes were on her face, on her clenched fangs. If he wasn't being strangled he might have pondered on her beauty- she wore two or three necklaces of varying size, and had one earring in her right ear with a dark purple stone that seemed to swirl about. Her lips were full and red, and her eyes terminated in exotic points of mascara and- he winced. Why the fuck was he admiring her in his last moments? Damn fool. He was being throttled and yet saw the beauty in it? From her? the one who had done that to his family? He closed his eyes slowly, and there she was- his sisters face, eyes open and empty of life. Blood dried on her lips, her missing lower half lay ten feet away next to the chewed remains of his mother.
His other hand slashed upward, the small knife hidden in his sleeve biting through the flesh of the Queens ear, separating it from her head and causing her to cry out and lurch backward, dropping him. He hit roughly, more of his organs ejecting from the unnatural cavity in his chest. He landed on his side, coughing more blood as her ear landed next to him. Through blurred vision, he could see her holding her ear and seething, hunched over as one of her attendants jumped forward to examine her. He reached out and took her ear, crushing it in his fist and ignoring the pain of the piercing stabbing into his palm. He wanted the ear to be nothing but mulch as he looked up at her, previously calm eyes now wide with pain and anger.
"Something...to remember me by...your highness."
Not bad last words.
The vampire drew his sword- Kaelan chuckled and rolled onto his back, ignoring the sloshing sound of his blood and organs. He could tell it was his last motion- the energy was beginning to seep from his limbs, and he could hardly waggle a finger now. The darkness that had started to form around his eyes when she'd had him in her grip was now working on its own, moving in from the outside of his eyes toward the center. The vampires sword came up and slashed down, the Queen shouting- "Wait! Get my-!" the rest was cut off as the blade connected with his throat, severing his head from his shoulders. With it, and empty black took him and he thought no more.
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"You fool!"
Another of the demons marched forward, grabbing the headless body of the Defiler by the wrist and opening his hand. He pulled the object from his grasp and glared at the vampire, who cleaned his blade on the robe of the fallen sorcerer. He stared down at the body- Kaelan had become a kind of boogeyman for demonkind. A story they told themselves to keep their children in line and their soldiers motivated- stories of the atrocities committed in his name were like kindling to a flame for them. Whole cities razed to the ground, women and children raped and slaughtered in their beds and in their streets. Images of the demons' desecrated dead scattered through human newspapers and laughed about in royal courts.
The fact that it was his blade that ended this mongrels terror was a great source of pride, for him. Even if Lycal wanted to make an issue of it. For his part, the one who retrieved the ear offered it to the Queen, who snatched it and pealed it back, searching for the jewel within. Her eyes widened as she stared down at it. "No...NO!" She looked up, breathing heavily, eyes scanning the horizon wildly. The other demons were confused, the vampire stepping back as she lurched forward and took a knee next to the Defilers body, searching through the mud. It wasn't there. She stood up and looked around again, watching the skyline. Was it not true, then? Was it just a fairytale like her father always said?
Then she spotted it- a strange and fuzzy white-ness eating away at the cold gray clouds that rested on the northernmost mountains. She bared her fangs at it, but nobody else could see what she was witnessing. The vampire cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, your highness. Is something-" His body went limp as she slashed out with a hand, severing his own head from his body and causing him to collapse. He couldn't so much as ask what led to his execution. The other commanders and Generals took a half step back, fear gripping them. She'd never killed one of them before- why? The Queen fell to her knees, staring down at the Defilers body once more.
"Heh....well...lucky you."
It was all she could say as a sudden rush of white light surged from the distance, eating away at the sky and the armies and the city that lay in ruin. It ate everything, devouring this place so fast the other demons barely had the time to cover their eyes before it swallowed them up. The last thing Queen saw was the head of the Defiler- no, of Kaelan the mage. Sitting a little way down the hill, a smile frozen on his face. There, in his ear as it too was eaten away by the nothing, was her jeweled earring. Glowing faintly. When he'd squeezed it, it must've-
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She thought no more as the light hit her and she became nothing at all. Everything froze in white mist- then slowly, the strange white substance that had swallowed the world began to roll backward. And with its motion time followed, pulled by the nothing. Slowly at first, then faster and faster and faster. Images began to speed by in a blur. Armies. Explosions. Sex. Magic. Screams. Storms- on and on it went, rolling through the passage of years like a blink until finally it stopped hard. The sound of birds in the distance could be heard, flapping over the small village of Ashwood. Rays of sunlight beamed down on bright green leaves that swayed gently in the breeze.
Shifting where he lie at the base of the grand oak tree, behind the small village cemetery, Kaelan stirred. Sleep receded from his body as he yawned, rolling onto his back and slowly opening his eyes. He blinked, then sat up quickly and looked around- no armies. No burning city. He reached up, touching his neck. His head seemed fully intact…he looked down at his body- young hands, young legs. Peasant clothes. He must be about ten years old. It was definitely his body- he remembered this, now that he was here, from thirty years ago. He slowly stood up, bringing his gaze to the village, then the forest of Artwoods treeline and and finally upward to the Vale mountains. The connected hills that ran from east to south in a curved "C" line, separating the countries of humankind from the demonic empire.
Kaelan furrowed his brow, eyes slowly scanning the horizon.
"How….is this possible?"