The growl of anger that welled up inside of Jadis’ throats was cut off by the soft sob of fear that came from Thea. Dys and Syd tore their gazes from the sight of the burning village to look at her lover who was still clinging to Jay’s back. The look of terror on Thea’s face caused Jadis’ hearts to sink like stones in a river of fire.
“It’ll be alright,” Syd told her. “Tegwyn is with her. He’d never let anything happen to Vera.”
Thea said nothing, only managing to nod once.
Picking up the pace again, Jadis stormed down the hill and through the forest that surrounded the pastures that ringed Cold Brook. As she ran, her noses were filled with the scent of burning wood and ash. The fire had not been restricted only to the village from what she had seen, as both smoke and flame had been visible in the forest to the south of the village, on the same side of the walls that Thea’s family home was located. Jadis was coming in from the northeastern side, so she couldn’t see the house on the outside of the village walls, thus couldn’t tell if the stone building was one of the structures on fire. The fact that so many were on fire was strange, even under the circumstances. Imperial buildings were almost universally made of stone, even in villages like this one, with the only wooden parts being the roofs. Even then, many buildings had slate shingles instead of straw thatch, so there wasn’t much chance of structural fires.
And yet, the village was burning. Badly, by the looks of things.
As soon as Jadis broke through the tree line and into the pastures, Meli leapt off of Syd’s back. Jadis didn’t try to stop the Dryad from fleeing; she’d already done more than enough to help by running so far just to alert her to the danger. This wasn’t the Dryad’s fight, anyway, so she wouldn’t blame the woman for backing out and retreating, or maybe running off to defend her own grove.
However, instead of running away, Meli sprinted right along side of Syd. She wasn’t able to keep up with the full sprint that Jadis was running at, but she didn’t fall as far behind as Jadis would have thought she would either. The Dryad ran so low to the ground that she was practically running on all fours with her clawed hands out in front of her and a ferocious snarl on her pretty face. Meli was, Jadis remembered, a fighter. A fact she was grateful for, as she had the feeling that she was about to need all the help she could get.
There were two gates into the village, one main gate on the western side of the wall that was intended for wagons and such to go through, and the other a smaller gate on the north side that was only suitable for people to go in and out of. Jadis didn’t bother with either. As soon as she neared the outer walls, Jadis leapt into the air, easily clearing the two-story tall structure.
Flames were everywhere in the village. Smaller wooden structures were burning like bonfires, as were many of the trees as well as carts and wagons. Several of the houses had fires raging inside of them, their interiors lit up with hellish light as dark black smoke poured out of their windows. Strangely, some of the stone structures and even some spots of bare ground were burning outright as well. It took Jadis a moment to recognize why, but before all three of her selves had dropped onto the ground, she realized that those spots were pools of some kind of burning liquid, like oil.
Landing with a trio of loud thumps, Jadis scanned the surrounding area. There was no movement, hostile or otherwise. Nor were there any bodies, like she would have expected from a battle that had been recently lost. Just fire and silence.
“Where is the house Vera lives in inside the village?” Jay called out over the sound of the roaring fires. “Or do they have a safehouse here?”
“There is a s—safe cellar, that way!” Thea pointed with her spear as she slid off Jay’s back and started walking towards the southeast side of the village.
Jadis knew seeing her hometown burning had to be rough on Thea, but she didn’t waste time on comforting words. Thea was a strong woman, even if she was normally timid and shy. She was a soldier, and a brave one at that, who had never hesitated to leap shield-first into combat. Jadis trusted Thea to keep herself together until the danger was over.
Keeping her three heads on a swivel, Jadis followed Thea as she led the way to the bunker that the villagers would have retreated to during the attack. Other than the flames as well as the dark shadow of Meli climbing over the top of the wall, Jadis still saw no movement. No villagers, no cultists, and no Demons. There weren’t even any animals running around.
The lack of activity had Jadis on edge. She’d been expecting a chaotic flurry of attacking Demons and fleeing civilians upon her arrival. Instead, there was nothing. Either that meant everyone was dead and the cultists had already gathered both their demonic forces and the bodies of the villagers and left the area, or they had prepared an ambush and were just waiting to spring it. Jadis refused to accept the former was true, though the latter was nothing she wanted either. Demons were bad enough when they were just a violent rabble. Dealing with intelligently coordinated Demons was far, far worse.
Moving at a cautious pace, Jadis followed Thea. Meli was able to easily catch up once she was over the wall, her face was a rigid mask of anger mixed with panic. Jadis couldn’t imagine being in a village that had been lit on fire was easy for the plant woman.
“This place is dead,” Meli said, her voice rough with stress. “We should leave before the flames spread to us.”
“Not until we check for survivors,” Dys told the Dryad. “If the fire is too much for you, get a head start on checking Thea’s house. The one on the south side of the walls. Outside. I don’t think Tegwyn or Vera would have stayed there, it’s not defensible. But just in case.”
“I’ll stick with you,” Meli shook her head as she slunk low to the ground, near Dys who was walking backwards as they went wide around the edge of a burning house. “For now.”
As they passed by the building in flames, Jadis spotted what Thea had been leading them to. There was a solid, squat structure on elevated ground, set apart from the other buildings in the village. Its windows were arrow slits and the walls were extra thick. It was an emergency bunker of sorts, a place where the villagers could flee to as a last resort while they waited for help to arrive. It wasn’t the perfect defense, but it was better than trying to hide inside of the normal houses people lived in. New villages didn’t often have fortified safehouses like this, but old and established places like Cold Brook did since they were in the heart of the empire. A small blessing that Jadis hoped would be enough to save lives.
The door to the building, a steel-banded slab of solid oak, had been knocked down and Jadis could see the flicker of flames coming from inside, as well as smoke flowing out of the windows. Jadis dreaded the thought of what was waiting inside of the structure for them, but she knew she had to check.
“Wait here,” Jay put a hand on Thea’s shoulder, stopping the smaller woman from moving forward.
There were some things she didn’t want her lover to have to see.
As Thea and Meli both moved to stand in the open space between the bunker and the burning building behind them, Jadis spread her selves out around them. Dys moved to the left, her large battleaxe held in front of her as she scanned the silent, unburnt homes that were close to the village wall. Syd stalked the right side, her sword staff held in one hand, her grip choked up so that the weapon would act more as a sword than a spear. The stream Cold Brook was named for ran through the low spot in the land there, and Jadis could see the signs of a struggle along the bank. Blood glistened on the stones that had not yet been washed away, though there was no sign of a body.
Jay moved in to check the bunker, a handaxe in either hand. She wished she had her giant maul with her, but its tremendous weight would have slowed her down too much for the mad sprint to Cold Brook. The axes would have to do.
The door to the safehouse was too low for Jadis to comfortably walk though, so as she neared the archway, Jay bent her knees and went into a half-crouch so she could stand in the entrance without ducking her head. Inside, visibility was low despite the light of burning flame. A choking smoke had filled the space, obscuring vision and making Jay’s eyes water. She could still see that there were bodies lying on the floor, though.
Several men and women lay crumpled on the ground around what Jadis assumed was the door that led down to the cellar. There were seven or eight, the exact number hard to tell due to the smoke and how the bodies were piled, almost like they had been trying to get into the cellar but had been locked out. Some of that same fiery liquid that Jadis had seen elsewhere in the village was burning and smoking inside the structure, but none of the bodies were on fire, nor was the cellar door. In fact, while one of the bodies was lying on top of it, from what little Jadis could see the hatch looked to be intact.
“Hello?” Jay called out as she crouch-walked into the building. “Can anyone hear me? Anyone alive?”
She didn’t see any Demons, but she knew that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Demons could use illusion magic, as could cultists. Jadis didn’t think they’d be able to fool her vastly improved Resilience stat, but she didn’t discount the possibility. The whole setup felt like a trap, but it was impossible to know for sure without triggering it. She wasn’t about to start hurling her axes at the bodies on the off chance they were a Demon in disguise, especially not since these were Thea’s friends and neighbors. So, with teeth clenched, Jay cautiously moved as slowly as she dared to enter the bunker and check the bodies, all the while dearly hoping that she wasn’t going to find a familiar face in the pile.
“Help…”
Jay paused a foot or two inside the entrance to the building, uncertain whether she had heard anything or if her mind was making things up. Then, as her eyes scanned the smoke-filled room, she spotted movement. One of the bodies, a woman who had collapsed between two other bodies, slowly raised a shaking hand into the air. Jay couldn’t see her face from her position, but she didn’t think she was Vera.
“Help… me…”
Jay didn’t rush to the woman. She knew better than most that Demons were skilled at mimicking voices if they had possessed a person’s body. Still, she couldn’t just stand around doing nothing, either. If there was an injured, possibly dying person in front of her, Jadis had to act. She just had to rely on her own power and strength to get herself out of danger if an ambush did happen.
Nearing the possible survivor, Jay passed the axe in her right hand to her left so she could reach out to the woman.
“I’m here, it’s okay now,” Jay struggled to say without coughing from the thick smoke. “What’s your name? What happened?”
“Help… me…” the woman repeated as she wrapped her fingers around Jay’s outstretched hand and pulled herself upright. “Help… me…”
“Shit.”
The woman’s head lolled to one side, a massive wound where her neck had been cut halfway through revealing itself. From the bloody maw Jay could see several purple-black tentacles writhing. Jadis couldn’t help but recognize the movements for what they were in the Demon’s own language. Excitement and joy.
All at once the seven or eight bodies leapt from the ground, latching onto Jay with arms, legs, and even some tentacles poking out of ragged wounds. She reeled back from the attack, sweeping with her arms to knock the demonically possessed assailants away. She succeeded in throwing at least three off of herself, but there were too many to brush them all off in only a split second. And a split second was all the time she had.
A shadow moved in the second story window of the burning building across from the bunker. Dys saw the figure, turning to face it, and called out a warning. Even as her mouth opened, the figure’s hand came up and a dark energy glowed from its palm like a reverse beacon that blotted out all light. In the same instant, a wall of opaque black energy blocked the doorway of the bunker, sealing Jay inside of the building.
“Shit!”
Jadis realized what was coming too late as all eight of the possessed bodies glowed with a sick light. Reacting with all the speed she could muster, Jay curled into a tight ball right before the room exploded.
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