The Pleasures Of Hell 03 048

~~David~~

The demons collapsed on each other, and everything turned into a frenzy. Auras drowned the area, uncontrolled, unbridled, pure heat and rage and bloodlust that poured over the graveyard and its tombstones.

Laoko stayed with David, swords drawn, and she spun and cut down a vrat that jumped for her back. A tiger leapt around, bounced off tombstones, and threw her massive weight at the tetrad, but Laoko stabbed up with her bottom hands into the tiger's exposed belly sides, roared into her face, and threw her corpse on the ground in front of David.

David met the tregeera's eyes for only a moment before she died. There was nothing in there but rage and bloodlust. The fact she looked like Caera knocked the wind out of him.

Another demon burst from the fog, a smarter one, dodged around tombstones and hid behind the closest mausoleum. David stared, waiting for him to run around the black building's other side, but the vrat jumped over the mausoleum, over the decapitated angel statue, and fell on Laoko's torso.

She fell to her back, and two swords fell with her. The vrat got a single swipe of his claws on Laoko's shoulder, enough to draw blood, before Timaeus cut the demon in half. Blood splattered, splashed over the black and white dirt, and over Laoko and David's body.

David sat down and didn't move a fucking muscle. With his back to a tombstone, he pulled his knees up to his chest, and stopped existing. One of the few times being a tiny guy was helpful.

Snarling, Timaeus walked past, got ten meters, and faced off against a dozen demons. They swarmed him, but he didn't hesitate to meet them. He went for a brute first and brought his sword down on the huge demon's shoulder. The devorjin's skin and body were too tough for the even bigger demon to cleave him in two, but Timaeus got his sword deep enough it past the shoulder and got stuck in the brute's chest. He kicked the dead brute off his sword, spun, caught a leaping gargoyle on the side, and cleaved her in half. A massive black sword made of meera metal, and like all meera metal David had seen, it wasn't smooth, or terribly sharp. It cut through the woman less like a scalpel through flesh and more like a metal baseball bat hitting a branch.

Silvain and Cullius were the center of attention. Demons surrounded them, looked for opportunities to interfere, but the two tetrads were too big, too strong, and they flared their wings and sent nearby demons back. But Silvain didn't have enough demons with him, and Cullius's swarmed over them, turning most fights into a two-on-one, no matter how much Timaeus tried to help.

And the ones Timaeus couldn't distract, came for Laoko.

Laoko got back up, four swords in hand, and cut down another vrat diving for her legs. She spun, kicked a satyr in the face hard enough her hoof broke through bone, and her sword cut the satyr's head off. A brute dove her from behind, but she spun and swung all four swords together. Two hit the brute in the arm, one in his side, and the other hit his skull. None penetrated deep enough to kill, but the brute fell, roaring in a frenzy, but unable to stand as his blood gushed over the dirt.

"I could use some help, unmarked," she said, standing over him and daring nearby demons to approach. Blood trickled down her arms and legs, some hers, mostly not.

"Yeah," he said. "I wish I could." And he might be able to, if he really tried. There was an inkling of energy in there, some scrap of power left in his guts he could draw on. He might even do something big and fancy, before he passed out.

"We are surrounded by corpses! Eat something."

He gulped and looked at the bodies around him. Not wrong, but he barely had the energy to stand up, let alone hack away at demon flesh. It didn't matter, anyway. It took longer than a few seconds to absorb the energy from a heart.

"I don't think--"

Another gargoyle took a risk, and Laoko cut her down. The next two gargoyles jumped up, but didn't dive her, and Laoko turned and faced them. Mistake. A brute dove her from behind, sent her to the ground on her stomach, and smashed his giant fists down against her armor. Slabs of meera metal, bent into curved shapes and strapped on with leather bindings, weren't exactly protective against impact, and Laoko coughed up blood by the third punch.

She lifted her head, and unleashed hellfire. David found enough strength to get away from the waves of heat and crawled on the dirt, but the gargoyles charging Laoko's face disappeared in a cloud of fire mixed with hot specs of amber. Nearby demons turned and stared. The brute on her back paused, and Laoko pushed off the ground. Brutes were gigantic, thick, all muscle, but she was bigger, and she sat up and forced the brute back.

She spun, grabbed a sword from the ground mid spin, and cut into his calf. Blood squirted from the muscle, the demon's own weight sending it out until he collapsed on his side. Laoko got her hand on another sword, and sank the blade up through the brute's open, roaring mouth, and out the back of his head.

All David could do was crawl away and find another nearby tombstone to sit against. He wasn't afraid; well, he was terrified, but not frozen with it. He just didn't have any fucking strength to do anything. He was useless.

And the rider was going to find them again if they didn't get out of here now.

"Laoko!" he yelled. "We can't stay here! We're making too much noise!"

"I know that! But if--" Back on her hooves, she swung four swords down at a vratorin, but the demon jumped back and circled around, looking for another opening and allies to exploit it. "We can't move until Cullius is dead!"

"We--" Demon claws grabbed his ankle and yanked him around the tombstone. He didn't have time to yelp. The gargoyle grinned at him, eyes wide, evil smile on full display. A single flap of the wings announced her position, and Laoko jumped her and cut her into pieces. For a split second, he'd thought she'd been Jes, and his stomach jumped up into his throat.

"I know!" Laoko said. "We must weather this storm. Unless you think you can help, stay down and be silent!" She spun again and met a brute face to face, but the tank ran into her, elbows up, and she fell on her back. The brute died for his efforts, his falling momentum driving one of her swords up into his side. She'd planned it, with the sword's hilt jammed hard against the ground under her.

That was not a move a demon would have learned naturally. Laoko knew how to fight and knew it well.

"The rider is going to find us!" he half yelled, half whispered.

"You buried him!"

"He'll get out. He did last time. He can't fly but he gets around fast."

The tetrad sighed and pushed herself back to her hooves again. "Then we--"

She turned toward Cullius and Silvain. Big as Cullius was, Silvain held his own fine, and any demon stupid enough to get between them got Silvain's tail or Cullius's hoof to the face. These two guys did not like each other. But it wasn't them she was looking at.

It was the silhouette of a man in armor on a goort's back she stared at.

"Already?" she asked, panting, swords hanging in limp hands at her sides. "How?"

Demons backed away from Cullius and Silvain, and the two tetrads stopped their fight. The dozen demons clawing and stabbing Timaeus froze and stared, and Timaeus slowly turned and faced the silhouette. No one spoke, roared, snarled, or breathed. Everyone watched the bronze, red, and gold armor of the rider come into view.

Cullius pointed his sword and broke the silence with a battle cry. The demons swarmed and fell upon the rider, and the man disappeared behind a tide of black and red.

The rider's aura was strong. David, on his ass and half leaning against a tombstone, felt the pull of it, demanding he pick up a sword and kill something, anything. But it wasn't only his aura. Silvain, Cullius, and who knew how many other demons were in full berserk mode, roaring and shrieking, and drowning the area in their desires. Fight. Kill. Devour.

The demons swarmed inward and fell on the rider like fruit tossed in a blender. Only the tetrads resisted, backing away. Timaeus worked his way around the tombstones, rejoined Laoko, and growled toward the violence. The blood seeping down the hundred wounds on his body didn't matter to him. His playful eyes had switched to full on psycho, and the longer he watched the chaos, the faster he breathed.

"Timaeus," Laoko said. "We have to get out of here."

"Our crews--"

"Are dead. Yours and mine. David cannot stop the rider as he is. We must flee." Her eyes didn't agree with her mouth. The bolstara tetrad stared at the rider, her fangs bared, eyes wide, and four hands tight around her sword grips. She wanted to fight.

It was the same thing as last time. The demons were too caught up in the aura to not throw themselves at the rider, and he cut them down like he was hacking through wood. Fast, direct, efficient. He said nothing and held no reins, but the horse-like hellbeast twisted and turned with the rider's heavy chops. A seamless dance, with each kill announced by a demon's scream of rage, pain, and a burst of flame where his hellfire axes met demon flesh.

A brute tackled the goort, but the goort jumped with the inertia, landed, and charged back in. It drove a horn into the brute's chest and continued, charged through the group of demons, and collided with a tombstone. The brute, pinned to the tombstone, got a couple swings of his claws in on the hellbeast's armor that did nothing, and died.

Cullius didn't like that. He charged in and did the same as his dead devorjin, tackled the goort's flank, and pushed it onto its side. It landed with a heavy thud, and the rider rolled off and landed on foot and knee. The demons took that as an opportunity to attack, and again, they collapsed on him. The goort got back up and took off; it must have known orders to get out of the way if the rider fell off. And the rider again disappeared behind flesh, the large man tiny compared to the demons burying him.

Cullius fought. Silvain didn't. The gorujin backed off, each step slow, like he was fighting his instincts. The korgejin gave into his desire, and brought his sword down on the rider, two handed. The rider blocked, with one axe, and slashed for Cullius's stomach with the other, but Cullius was big, had longer reached, and stepped out of the way. The demons with him, most from his crew, some from Timaeus and Laoko's, jumped in the moment the tetrad backed off. And the rider hacked through them one at a time, ignoring their attempts to break through his armor. Sparks flew as meera swords and axes bounced off aera metal, until it sounded like a thrash metal drummer.

"We go," Silvain said. He jogged toward David and the two tetrads, leaving behind everyone. "We go now."

"The three of us?" Laoko asked. "Across all the Grave Valley?"

"We can handle it," Timaeus said. "But we have to go now. We--"

The group turned, each lifting their weapons. Another silhouette came out of the fog, someone tall, with huge wings. Someone with a sharp, slender jaw, and four mighty horns. Their purely black, featureless face pushed through the fog, and a spire mother wearing slabs of meera metal armor stood beside a mausoleum.

"Acelina?" David asked.

Laoko lowered her weapons. "Acelina, what are you --"

Silvain roared. Laoko, Timaeus, and David spun and faced him, and the tetrad fell to his knees. A sword stuck out from his side, and a gargoyle hung from his back.

Jeskura didn't shriek or roar. A snarl was good enough, straight into Silvain's ear as she pushed the sword deeper into his insides and sawed up through ribs and guts.

"Fuck you," she said, pushed off, flapped her wings hard, put a tombstone between her and the tetrad, and used the white slab of stone to block his spinning swing. There one moment, gone the next, only the trail of Silvain's blood on her sword telling where she'd run off to.

Something warm touched David's shoulder. The ground pulled out from under him, and something landed between his legs. No, he landed on something. A demon clicked in his ear.

"Daoka?" He half fell toward her, but she caught him and pushed him back up. Someone else was between his legs. "Caera?"

Laoko and Timaeus spun around long enough for David to see the blur of their shocked faces before Caera took off. He almost fell, but reflexes and familiarity kicked in, and he grabbed her back spikes.

"David!" Laoko yelled after him. He looked back. Shock, and anger. And fear?

"David, you okay?" Caera asked. The sound of battle slowly died in the background.

"Was that Acelina I saw?"

"Yeah. She found Cullius and told him where you'd probably be."

He froze and squeezed harder. "She what?"

"We needed a distraction. She knew she could convince a faction to--"

"She's still back there! And Laoko!"

Caera looked up at him, panting. Talking while running wasn't easy.

"Acelina knew to run the moment we got you. And Laoko betrayed us. Let her die."

"She didn't want to. Neither did Timaeus."

Someone snarled, and David whipped his head left. Jes ran alongside them, wings half spread and catching air.

"Doesn't matter," Jes said, "if she didn't want to or not. She still did."

"She was going to help me out," he said. "I'm sure of it!"

Daoka, hopping alongside Caera, gestured back, clicking several times.

"We're not going back for her. Not doing it," Jes said.

Daoka clicked louder.

"I'm not doing it!"

Caera shook her head, too. "Moriah and the Las are waiting for us up ahead. We're getting out of here."

"Caera," he said, leaning forward. Hard to do while riding a running tiger, especially one with spikes covering her back, but he squeezed and held on hard. "Laoko was going to help. And maybe Timaeus, too. Please."

Caera stopped, and Jes and Dao skidded to a halt past her. Sighing, the tiger let her head drop before turning it and looking back the way they came.

"Oh no," Jes said. "No no. We're not going back there. The rider's back there, and a bunch of pissed of demons."

"You stabbed Silvain," Caera said. "You got him good."

"The fucker deserved it!"

"I know. I'm saying he's wounded and won't be a threat."

The fact she was talking about him like that wound didn't guarantee his death was startling. She'd stabbed him deep in the guts and sawed upward. What did it take to kill a tetrad?

Daoka nodded, clicking and gesturing back again.

"Acelina's going around the other way," Caera said, eye aimed up at David. Knowledge for him, not Dao. "If we go back, what do we do?"

"Just... tell Laoko and Timaeus to follow us," David said. "We need all the friends we can, and I'm sure Laoko is smart enough to do the right... well, do the smart thing, at least."

"Bad idea," Jes said. "The rider will catch us! Bad bad bad--"

Caera turned and bolted back toward the sound of combat. Inertia pulled the world out from under David, but holding on tight out of reflex kept him on the sprinting tiger. His thighs hurt. His crotch hurt. But he held on for dear life.

This was some serious déjà vu, riding back into a battle like this. Didn't they already do this dance some days ago?

It took only moments to get back and find the finale of the fight. Dead demons were everywhere, burning corpses filling the air with ashes. Blood soaked the ground. Limbs decorated tombstones and mausoleums. And the rider stood in the center of it all, both axes at his sides and dripping with steaming, sizzling blood.

Cullius stood in front of him, clutching his side. Blood flowed down his leg, buckets, but the tetrad stood strong, giant sword in his right hand and tip on the ground. Silvain stood behind the rider, clutching his side as well, but he fell to a knee and sank his sword into the dirt. Timaeus and Laoko stood around the rider, too, eyes wide, fangs out, weapons pointed at the man in armor. Blood oozed down their bodies, Laoko with a dangling arm, and Timaeus with a shredded wing and a chunk missing from his tail.

This was Acelina's plan? Convince Cullius to attack Silvain, knowing the battle would attract the rider, and then use the distraction to get David to safety? It was a smart plan. It relied on Acelina convincing Cullius, though, but Acelina was the political princess who could convince a demon to do anything. The plan had worked.

And now David was ruining it.

He looked around. No Las. No Moriah. No Acelina. Somehow he, Caera, Jes, and Dao had to put the rider on his ass and get Laoko out of there. Timaeus, too, if they could.

Laoko looked back, spotted him, and her expression softened. For a moment, it'd been pure bloodlust, as mindless and hungry for violence as every other demon, but when she met David's eyes, she froze, and her bared fangs disappeared behind her lips.

All four of the tetrads were in the rider's aura. From a distance, it was overwhelming, and David felt the disgusting desire for violence bubble up his throat. For the tetrads so close to the rider, it must have been crushing.

"Plan?" Caera asked.

Plan. Plan plan. What the fuck to do? There wasn't anything they could do. Every demon was dead, every last one of them except the tetrads. Demon blood boiled on the rider's axes, sizzled and steamed, leaving dark red stains. He stepped over the corpse of a gorgala, stepped on her head, casually walked over it, and let the weight of his armor pop her skull like a grape.

They couldn't do anything to stop him. They could only run.

"I'm going to help them," David said. "I might pass out. No, I definitely will. When I do... just run."

Daoka shook her head and rubbed his arm.

"I'll be fine," he said. "I'm getting... better at the music. I can do... I can do something. It's just..." The idea forming in his head might just get them all killed.

Silvain snarled and pointed his sword past the rider at David.

"Laoko, seize him! We must return to Azailia and regroup!"

Laoko didn't move a muscle. She stared at David, fists squeezing her sword grips, lungs panting. What was she thinking? He could never tell with her.

"Girls," he whispered. "Get ready to bolt."

He didn't summon batlam. He couldn't. Wearing a knight's suit of armor -- or evil wizard's -- was too much to ask right now. It was simply too heavy. Wearing the armor meant he had the staff, and when he wielded the staff, it made playing the music easier. Finding the specific notes and arrangements, the cadence, tugging at specific strings that moved specific pieces of Hell, being precise and exact, it was all easier with the staff.

Without the staff, wielding anything large was going to be messy.

He raised his hands up, both of them, and took a deep breath. Wind picked up, poured over the graveyard, its tombstones, its corpses, carried the smell of burning flesh and blood, and buried David's ears in thunder. He reached higher, broke through the fog, and exposed the graveyard to the fire sky, its burning embers, and the swirling flames of its clouds.

"David," Jes said. "The fuck are you doing?"

He listened for the voice, and the voice found him. He asked her to dance for him, to be ready to play with him, to unleash something for him. Even as each note he played sucked the energy out of him until blood trickled from his nose and his vision blurred, he dove deeper into the ocean of vibration, deep into the depths with the presence, and played for it. For her. His mind melted away, thoughts disappeared, left behind on the surface of the water, while he sank deeper.

Dao clicked, stared up at the sky, and gently shook David's shoulder.

"Be ready," he said between pants, "to run."

Something clicked, and it wasn't Daoka. Hooves galloped in from the fog, from behind Cullius, and dashed around the titan straight at the rider's back. Without looking back, the rider jumped. He didn't jump high compared to what a demon could manage, but he got a couple meters, enough for the horse-like creature to get its head under the rider's legs, and he landed on its saddle. And the creature and rider dashed around Laoko and went straight for David.