Wrath of the Dragon, page 6
“I know,” I said even more quietly. “Which is why I’m asking the man who stood up to the demons.”
Landen studied my face carefully and took a step closer so I could smell his earthy scent. His blue eyes darted into every shadowy corner around us, and he slowly nodded almost imperceptibly.
“I know someone,” he whispered. “Someone who has the information you seek. I can point you in her direction, but it’s… it’s risky. Hell, I’m risking a lot just helping you out, but--”
“If I could bring you some black water,” I cut in, “would you be willing to take that risk?”
Landen’s eyes almost glazed over. “I would. No doubt about that.”
“That’s really not--” Cyra began, but I stuck out my hand to Landen.
“Deal.” I nodded.
The farmer gripped my hand and firmly shook it as he gave me a sly grin. Then he hurried around the back of his stall, and he came back with a white ceramic bottle that had a cork stopper in it.
“Here, if you could just fill this, I’ll be set,” he said. “I really do appreciate this, Ryan.”
“We need to stick together,” I said as I took the bottle and slipped it into my bag.
Cyra rubbed her temples like she had a headache, and I gave her a playful nudge with my elbow. The angel sighed as she glared up at me, and the corners of her mouth twitched as she shook her head.
“Nice to see you’ve got a lady apprentice,” Landen said. “I always reckoned they should get more women in your business.”
“Yes.” I grinned. “She’s doing such a good job. I’m very proud of her.”
I teasingly patted Cyra on the head, and I could tell from her golden eyes how badly she wanted to smack my hand away.
“Very cute couple,” Landen chuckled.
“Couple?” Cyra choked out.
“Aye,” the man said. “I can tell you both are deeply in love.”
“We most definitely are,” I said as I wrapped my arm around Cyra’s shoulders. “My heart is overflowing with love for her, but my affection pales in comparison to the love she feels for me. In fact, every night when we lie together--”
“I am going to punch you,” Cyra hissed in my ear.
“--she tells me of how she wishes we could grow our family more. You know how women are.”
“Aye, I do,” Landen laughed. “As I said, you both are adorable. Now, the black water well. It’s just outside the city over in the west. If you head past the church, then it’s just a short walk from the cemetery.”
“I know where it is,” Cyra said, and it was my turn to raise an eyebrow.
“It looks like we’re ready to go, then,” I said. “I’m counting on you to keep your word in this deal.”
“Of course.” Landen held his hand to his chest. “I’m a man of honor. Like you said, we need to stick together in these dark times. Ha, dark!”
He chuckled to himself, and his warm laugh was infectious as I found myself grinning.
“We’ll see you soon,” I said, and I gave the farmer a wave as I started to head off into the crowd.
Landen nodded at me, but then he hurried back behind his stall as a Luna came over to examine his flowers.
“Ryan,” Cyra said as we left the farmer. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“Helping.” I said. “I take it you’re coming with me? He thought we made a cute couple, so we should stick together, eh?”
The angel glared at me, but I knew the information we would gain was vital to saving Nisha. She knew it, too.
“You’re very annoying,” she finally sighed.
“That’s no way for an apprentice to speak to her master, or a wife to speak to her husband,” I deadpanned.
“Fiiiiine.” The angel shoved me playfully. “I’ll come and make sure you don’t die, but only because I need this information to find Nisha.”
“Of course,” I said. “Glad to have you on board. A hero always needs an awesome sidekick.”
“You are incorrigible.” The red-haired angel facepalmed as she led me through the marketplace, and we took a left down a quieter street that led away from the noise and smells.
Only then did Cyra lower her hood, and she flicked her burgundy hair as she glanced around the street. Houses lined each side of the road, and everyone who passed kept their heads lowered as if they were afraid of making eye contact with anyone. The purple orbs glowed above us, and I could already see the spire of a church up ahead.
“Are the churches still open?” I asked, and Cyra shook her head.
“Nobody uses them anymore,” she replied. “When the gods left, many of them got burned down in anger and protest. Any that are still up are basically abandoned. People will still visit the graves around them, but there’s probably not anything more than some wildlife inside.”
The church came into view properly on our right-hand side, and it looked very similar to the ones on Earth. It was made of a dark stone, and it had broken stained-glass windows on each side. There was one tall spire with missing tiles, and it looked like someone had tried to start a fire at the large doorway. There was an overgrown cemetery all around the building, and I spotted a jet-black fox slinking around the gravestones.
As we passed a pile of stained glass that was strewn all over the cobblestones, Cyra bent down and grabbed one of the larger pieces. It was shaped into a deadly point, and she slid it into her cloak pocket.
“It might come in handy,” she said. “I can’t have you being the only one with a weapon.”
“You should have bought something from the dwarf,” I pointed out, but the angel curled her lip in disgust.
“I don’t need anything from these mortals,” she almost growled.
“Right, powerful angel and all…” I muttered, and I let the conversation drop.
We walked past the church, and the road turned from cobblestones into dirt as we left the city. The land around us became more rural very quickly, and we were surrounded by tall trees and the distant chirping of birds. It was hard to say how many different types of trees there were, I had never seen anything like it in Arizona. Firs, pines, and huge oaks grew side by side with trees I couldn’t even place, and some leaves I spotted looked to be purple instead of green.
I felt comforted to have my new dagger on my belt, and I scanned the darkness between the trees as we hurried down the dirt path. I saw the occasional pair of glowing eyes moving around but nothing that seemed interested in approaching us.
After a few minutes, Cyra began to slow down, and I could hear a distant rumbling noise.
“We’re close,” she whispered. “It sounds like there’s a lot of them guarding the well.”
“Shit,” I said under my breath.
I rested my hand on my dagger’s hilt as we moved, and we approached a small hill where the road seemed to just disappear and become a mound of grass. I could hear the rumbling more clearly, and it was easier now to hear that it was several croaky voices all talking over each other. There were shuffling footsteps, too, and I had a feeling we were about to walk into something more dangerous than anything I had seen in this land so far.
I gestured to a particularly thick tree over on our left, and Cyra nodded before we hurried over behind it. We stood shielded by the trunk, and I slowly peeked my head around so I could just see over the hill to the land below us.
My stomach dropped as I looked down to see at least fifteen demons shuffling around the grassy clearing, and a large well right in the middle of their group. Each demon held a spear, and they snarled and spat at each other as they moved around.
I gripped my dagger as I watched the horrific creatures below me, and I knew I was about to enter a whole new world of danger.
Chapter 4
The snarls of the demons echoed around the clearing, and a large purple orb hung directly above them and illuminated the black water in the well. The demons were all roughly the same size as the ones from the market, and I could see their red eyes glowing brighter under the light of the orbs. They didn’t seem overly interested in the well as they mingled around it, but they gripped their spears as they shuffled back and forth, and they dragged their feet as they went. They really were grotesque creatures, and I could smell their putrid stench from our spot behind the tree.
“There’s more of them than I thought there would be,” Cyra whispered as we stared down at the demons. “This is not going to be easy.”
“There’s about twenty,” I said as I counted them. “How likely is it that they fight well?”
“They’re just underlings,” Cyra said. “That doesn’t mean we should underestimate them, though. Especially when they’re in a group this size.”
“Underlings?” I asked, and the angel nodded.
“There’s three rankings of demons,” she explained. “Underlings are the bumbling idiots of the demon world. They just go wherever they’re told to, and they’re the ones you see patrolling all over the place.”
“Okay,” I said. “Then there’s two more ranks above them?”
“The second tier is deadly,” Cyra said. “Those ones are double the size of the underlings, with three times the teeth. Then you have the kings and queens, and frankly, no one who has attempted to fight them has lived to tell the tale.”
“Except the angels?” I said, and I knew my tone was more uneasy than I wanted it to be.
“Yes.” Cyra kept her gaze straight ahead. “I can sense my sisters. I know… I know they are alive. They have to be.”
I didn’t know whether to be relieved that these were underlings or worried that there were two more deadly rankings of demons above them. If I went with Cyra on her quest, then I was going to have to meet the big fuckers eventually. Maybe taking on a round of the underlings would give me an idea of what I would be coming up against.
Although I was bigger than the purple beasts, I had seen what those talons could do to human skin. We were also vastly outnumbered, and even though they were poorly made, the spears looked like they could slice flesh well enough. Giant claws and spears would be enough to cause a shit-load of damage.
I just had to make sure we made smarter moves than they did.
“Do they have any weak spots?” I asked. “Or do we just barge in and slice whatever we can?”
“We’re just going to have to go in,” Cyra said. “Underling flesh is pretty similar to humans. But we need to make sure none of them get away. They could report back to their higher-ups, and then we would really be in trouble.”
“Got it,” I said. “So, I run and you fly?”
“You really do just race into danger, don’t you?” the angel asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before.”
“Thanks.” I grinned. “It’s kind of what I’m trained for.”
The angel smiled at me and then spread her wings so her cloak bunched up at her shoulders. I pulled out my dagger and gripped it tightly as I peered around the tree. I hadn’t ever used any kind of blade in a fight before, but I figured it couldn’t be too hard to get used to. As long as the dagger was going into demon flesh somewhere, then I would be happy.
A couple of demons leaned against the well, and one of them had its eyes closed as it swayed back and forth. The rest of them aimlessly paced around and snarled at each other with raspy voices.
“I reckon I can sneak up on those ones,” I said as I pointed to a couple of the purple beasts.
They were at the back of the group near the trees, and they didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything other than their own conversation. If you could call it a conversation. It really just sounded like a spitting contest with the occasional gurgle.
“We’ll take one each,” Cyra said. “Grab them and slice open their throats before they can draw any attention to us.”
She pulled out the shard of stained glass from her pocket and held it carefully in her pale hand.
“Be careful with that,” I said. “I don’t want you to be the one who ends up bleeding.”
“I’ll be fine,” Cyra said with a flick of her hair. “I’m an angel.”
“Then let’s go,” I muttered, and we started to run along the trees and down the hill.
I kept crouched low as I moved, and I made sure to avoid any twigs and leaves underfoot. The last thing we needed was the snapping of a branch giving us away. My work in the firefighting department had made me surprisingly light on my feet when I was in a hurry, though. It took skill to navigate around a burning building with all the weight of my gear on me. If I stepped on the wrong spot, then I would find myself falling through a crumbling floor, and needless to say, I wasn’t getting paid to fuck up that bad.
As we snuck around the clearing I could hear the demons’ voices more clearly. Whatever language they used wasn’t anything like English, and they spat violently as they spoke. Their red eyes glowed in the dull clearing, and we slowed down as we neared the back of the grassy area.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as we approached the demons, and I could smell burning sulfur once we got closer.
Beside me, Cyra was completely silent on her feet, and she pointed to the creature on the left as we snuck up to the closest demons.
I nodded and took a step to the right, and then I readied myself to grab the purple creature. There was a tree directly behind the two demons, and the beasts snapped and snorted at each other as we silently approached. Once we stood behind the tree, I nodded at Cyra, and I leapt forward as quickly and silently as I could.
We both grabbed our targets at the same time.
I threw an arm around the demon, clamped his spear arm against his chest in the same movement, and pulled him close into me. Then I swiped my dagger across the beast’s neck, and he didn’t even have a chance to cry out before he went limp in my arms.
Blood poured from the gaping wound in its neck as I dragged it back into the woods and gently placed the corpse down onto the grass.
Cyra had used her stained glass in the same way, and she laid her dead demon next to mine.
They were even more gross to look at up close, and there were dark tufts of hair coming out of their pointed noses. I could see just how thick their talons were, too, and I made a mental note to try and stay as far away from those as possible in the coming fight.
None of the others had noticed anything as they continued to babble away at each other, and I studied the clearing to work out our next moves.
Eighteen left.
They were spread out so much that there didn’t look like there was any way to get in unnoticed. But there was another pair a little further into the clearing that had their backs to us, and I figured that would be the safest next step for our attack.
I pointed at the two beasts, and Cyra nodded. Her pretty face was scrunched into a determined scowl, and she clutched her stained glass carefully as her golden eyes studied the clearing. Her maroon feathers twitched as she eyed her prey, and I had to drag my gaze away from the beautiful angel.
For a celestial being, she sure looked lethal as hell.
Still, I didn’t want to put her in danger, but I knew she was a capable fighter. The way she had handled the desert monsters was incredible, and I knew she had the advantage of flight over me and the demons. Plus, I’d learned from experience that you had to trust your teammates if you wanted to win, and I didn’t doubt mine for a second.
I raised three fingers to count down and lowered them silently. On the count of one, we both hurtled out into the clearing without a second thought.
My heart pounded in my chest as we raced toward the closest demons, and I leapt onto the right-side one just as it started to turn around. I slit its throat in less than a second, and as Cyra did the same to her prey, they slumped down onto the grass while dark blood stained my hands.
That was when we were spotted.
A demon to my right spun around and screeched as it pointed at me, and the rest of them turned to look at their new attackers. A sea of red eyes suddenly faced me, and my ears rang with the horrific screeches of the beasts.
There were sixteen left.
I didn’t have time to think up a game plan. I just charged at the whistleblower with my dagger held up as Cyra shot into the air. That seemed to distract the demons for a second, and their red eyes followed her into the sky.
I launched myself at the demon, and its red eyes flashed at me as it went to move its spear. But I was too fast for it, and I slammed my blade right into its jugular with one brutal movement. The dagger ripped through the purple flesh easily, and blood poured out as I retracted my weapon. Then the demon flopped onto the ground in a puddle of its own blood, and I spun around as I heard others approaching.
Two more of the purple fuckers charged at me, and their spears suddenly looked a hell of a lot sharper when they were aimed at my face.
As the demons reached me, I kicked as hard as I could at the spear on my left and felt the wooden handle snap under my boot. Then I grabbed the other weapon in my hand and yanked it out of the demon’s grip easily. The two creatures hissed and leapt forward with their talons extended toward my chest, but I threw the spear into one of their throats and slashed the second over the face with my dagger.
The black blade sliced across the creature’s cheek with an unpleasant squishing sensation, and the demon stumbled forward with its arms outstretched as its blood-drenched face howled. Then I slammed my blade right into its eye socket, and I felt the weapon pierce through the thin bone and into its brain.
The demon went limp as it died instantly.
I pulled the blade back out as the creature slumped onto the ground, and I turned my attention to the fight around me.
Cyra swooped down and slashed one of the demons across the throat, and she managed to get another right in the back of the head. Both monsters gurgled wetly before they collapsed onto the ground, and we were down to eleven of the purple bastards.
“Nice!” I yelled. “We’re fucking naturals at this.”
“Yes, it’s kind of what I’m trained for,” Cyra snickered, and she flashed me a deadly grin.
