Chapter 1 - The Demon

Chapter One - The Demon

I

        The Demon stared at the corpse for a long while. Emotions it did not understand stirred within its gut. It detested them. They came from something it had buried long ago and would not let free ever again. Its burning irises shifted from orange flames to cool blue sky, as the feelings toward the corpse were subdued by its will.
        Although it still had immense power at its disposal, without the God’s direct intervention it could be killed by natural means, such as a sword. That is what the corpse tried to do, while the man still lived. Kill a Demon.
        Again, The Demon’s gut soured. It could not break its gaze from the frozen blue eyes that stared up at it. The corpse’s dead eyes matched its own, like staring into a mirror’s reflection. If it were not for the diagonal slash that split the corpse’s chest the Demon would have thought the corpse alive, by how those blue eyes glared into its own. The corpse’s armour looked like the Demon’s second skin but was inanimate and cold in comparison; the life had been pulled from the metal. Old wrinkled human skin could be seen in the skull faced helm’s eye slits and that was another was another feature that disgusted the Demon. The dead man’s frailty was repulsive.
        Tentatively, as if afraid the corpse would stop it, the Demon reached for the sword in the corpse’s hand and the scabbard at the hip. It freed both and took a moment to examine the blade. The weapon was a twin to the sword that hung at its own hip. The pure white, almost glowing, metal did not reflect the Demon’s face despite the sun’s radiance on it. The steel was blank and untainted by the World’s images. The Demon could feel the sword’s sentient soul churning within the white metal, which caused the weapon to vibrate in a way that only something like the Demon could feel. It sheathed the corpse’s sword in the freed scabbard and tied it to its hip, opposite to its own. The Demon was not sentimental, and it preferred to use only one sword, but the two were meant to be together. They had been forged in unison, in another era long lost to time’s sands.
        “Goodbye, old friend,” The Demon said to the corpse, with a voice that was its own but not.
        It shivered as if shaking from a momentary sleep and snarled at the once familiar sounds its mouth made. It felt the other moving inside and locked what stirred away, like the emotions. With a blink, it pulled its vision from the corpse and strode away without further hesitation.
        The massive trees around the Demon shrunk away, creating an unbarred path for it. The movement seemed impossible for such monolithic things, especially with vigour and speed on display. In another life, it would have taken that as a sin, but it knew better now. The Demon did not care for the God’s Woods as it once would have. This forest served its own will and not its creators. The World was crumbling, and the Demon would do everything in its power to maintain the God’s creation, no matter the cost, but for now this abomination would be allowed to exist. A more pressing matter needed its attention than the forest that pulled away from its touch.

II

        Days passed into weeks. The Demon walked without rest or substance. Hunger was a mortal frailty it did not suffer. However, it did thirst. It ignored the sensation. Thirst was a weakness that it refused to succumb too. It knew the God’s were merely testing it with the craving. In order to conduct their will, it resisted. It refused to become lost.
        Others had not remained faithful to the Gods. They failed their test, and the Demon could smell that failure on the wind. They succumbed to their thirst and punishment would be the reward for their weakness. The Demon would see to that, personally. They would suffer a fate worse than the corpse for their lack of faith.

III

        The Demon sniffed. Its nostrils flared beneath its metallic outer skin. The air reeked with rot. Teeth that resembled a dagger’s point glistened in the moon’s light and a hiss whistled from between them in response to the foul smell. It drew its long thin bladed sword, which absorbed any light that touched its white steel, before taking a step towards the inn.
        Wood splinters stood outwards at various angles from the inn’s walls and supports, like a thousand needles pushed into a string ball. There were large gaps in the roof and the grey colour indicated the weather worn nature in the materials that still clung to the structure. A shutter bounced back and forth against a window as if an invisible hand opened and closed it repeatedly. There were no lights lit. Whether from the overgrown grass or the webs covering every window, it looked abandoned.
        The Demon’s nose told it otherwise. It could smell the individual disease and tainted scents as it got closer. The inn decayed because what resided inside devoured all life, even the vitality in the structure’s wood. With a blink, fire consumed the blue in the Demon’s eyes and glowed in the night’s dark. The night was expelled from its vision as the flames grew in intensity. Light became black and darkness became white. The world became a contrasted backwards light spectrum that should have disorientated the Demon but did the exact opposite. This was its true sight. The sight it used to hunt its prey.
        The fire in its eyes was not the only change the Demon undertook. The rest were more subtle but added to the Demon’s horrific appearance. Its once smooth, semi-metallic, outer shell became bone-like. Ribs pushed against the smooth plate around its chest, making the Demon appear more skeletal and less like a man in armour. Sharp scale-like triangular plates along its spine bent inwards ever so subtly and dull bone spikes eased out from the craters. Similar spikes, on each shoulder blade, protruded up and out with bone cracking sounds. Its arms hardened and became less bulky resembling lean muscles, while its sharp pointed fingers tips grew in length, like a lion unsheathing its claws. Its hips grew protrusions, like its shoulder blades and its legs became defined by powerful musculature like its arms. Lastly, its taloned toes twisted upwards and then down, like an arch; resembling long avian talons, which bit into the soil with each footfall.
        Again, it hissed as the rotten meat smell carried by the wind filled its nostrils. The underlying faint and unnatural taint made its lips twitch in disgust. It felt confident it could guess what caused the grotesque scents. With a slow pace that bordered cautious, it approached the entrance. Hinges squawked like a dying bird as it pressed the door open with its clawed fingertips. The no longer subtle taint rolled over it like thick humid air. If the Demon had the ability too, it would have gagged.
        Without pause, the Demon marched into the central room as casually as a patron might once have. Upturned tables and broken chairs littered the ground between the Demon and the bar - located on the room’s far side. It could smell the dried blood, absorbed by the floor’s wood planks. Its mouth watered, like a hunting predator at the scent from wounded prey. Angry with itself, it pushed away the thirst that sought to corrupt it and resumed its focus.
        The floor creaked with each step, but the Demon did not care for stealth. If the noise drew the prey out, its deed would be made quicker. Its burning eyes scanned the room as it approached the bar, sidestepping the littered debris with graceful ease. Dust had settled on the bar’s L-shaped counter and webs sprouted from its surface where it connected to the wall. Slits, in the counter’s top, crisscrossed the wood’s grain in fours and fives. The Demon assumed they were caused by fingernails, likely from someone resistant to the idea of being dragged across.
        The ceiling creaked and stole the Demon’s attention. It looked in the sound’s direction and used its sublime skill to lower its footfall’s impact on the floor, preventing the weathered boards from squawking further. A thump, like the sound from a heavy flour sack dropping, shook a dust cloud from the rafters. With a hunter’s methodical movements, the Demon edged towards the only staircase, just to the bar’s right and began to take the steps one at a time; letting its full weight settle on each before taking another.
        The Demon scanned the railed balcony above, vanquishing the dark with its supernatural vision. There was no movement. All further sound ceased. It took the last step and looked down the hallway to its right. Its reversed sight made the moon’s light black, which entered through a hole in the roof, and distorted the hallway beyond. The Demon could just make out the far wall beyond the blur.
        It moved into the hallway, despite its deteriorated sight, and took extra caution around the open room doors. Although the Demon was functionally immortal and could heal most wounds, its flesh and blood body could still be killed by brute force. For the first time, it leveled its sword as the tainted smell grew more intense and overwhelming. It pushed forward, letting senses be its guide.
        As it pushed through the moon light, the grey washed vision was no longer distorted. Its lips twisted into a disgusted snarl and its jagged teeth chattered. Just visible on the floor, at the last door’s threshold, a hand and arm were slowly dragged into the room. The Demon felt baited but decided to spring the trap. Patience was not its strongest quality and its confidence bordered on hubris, though this was for good reason, it had the strength to overcome dangers that would see lesser beings slain. It did not know if the limb was attached to a body, but the flesh was human and not from what it hunted. The limb was dead, however. It knew because its supernatural prey sight saw the skin as a complete jet in tone. Only life showed any light in its eyes.
        A wet slurping cut the silence followed by a tooth jarring crack. The Demon approached the door and saw oil black blood streaks leading into the room. Again, its face twisted into a snarl. Disgust filled its stomach and anger followed. An abomination was in the next room, there was no doubt.
        Just as the Demon made to enter the room, the world exploded around it. With a force that would have killed an unarmoured man, the Demon was thrust into the hall’s opposite wall and crashed through. It did not wait to land on its back and pushed its legs under itself with preternatural speed. Its taloned feet tore furrows into the floor’s planks as it slowed to a halt and it pushed back whatever had tackled it. Splinters sailed through the air in the conflicts wake, and dust created a haze that smelled like a crypt. A blurred shape launched at the Demon and screamed a blood curdling roar. The world slowed as the Demon’s senses adjusted to its plight and pushed its physical body into an accelerated state that would have caused a mortal’s heart to burst. Veins grew thick across its frame and looked ready to burst. Its mouth opened wide and distended, like a snake dislocating its jaw when eating prey.
        Faster than any eye could follow, a pure white light slashed at the shape. A satisfied – almost pleasurable – sigh left the Demon’s lips as its sword tore into the thing’s flesh. An arm flew across the room and flopped, twitching onto the floor, just beneath the only window. The Demon’s slid to a stop from the initial tackle and stood straight. It slowed the blood hurdling through its veins with a thought and its mouth clicked shut, resuming its normal less animated rictus grin. Barely a second had passed since it was attacked.
        The Demon took in the squirming creature and found it a wretched thing. The creature’s body was skeletal thin, and its skin bordered the translucent. Varicose veins stretched in every direction. Muscles hung off its bones like thin ropes and strained to breaking. A long and stretched jaw roared – stretching its triangular face – in bestial anguish as the creature writhed on the floor. Fangs, too large for its mouth, chattered with each whimpering breath taken. Thick molasse-like blood poured from the stump where its arm was once connected to its shoulder, and its remaining hand clawed wildly at the wound in a foolhardy effort to make its pain end.
        “Disgusting,” The Demon said, realizing what this creature was. It was a blighted thing, a soulless diseased husk. A ghoul.
        The ghoul growled at the Demon’s voice. Pain no longer left its lips and thick saliva strands dripped around its fangs. It rolled to its feet and remained hunched, like a frog ready to pounce. A screech erupted from its mouth with a tempest’s fury.
        As fast as the Demon could lift its sword, the ghoul darted away. The Demon was slow to follow. It watched the ghoul leap against a wall in the hallway and propel itself up to the hole in the roof and out. The roof rumbled with the ghoul’s bounding flight, causing more dust to free itself and add to the haze. At an almost leisurely pace, the Demon gave chase. Again, it used its preternatural senses and followed the ghoul’s scraping movements without sight. The ghoul’s scramble took it across the remaining roof and off the inn’s height. As the Demon took to the stairs, it heard the ghoul enter the inn’s cellar from an outside hatch in the back. It smiled. There was a nest.

IV

        The Demon left the inn and circled wide. Having seen what it would face, it was more cautious than before. These were wild things, and it would not be caught by surprise again; it refused to be.
        The cellar lay open and even with its prey sight the Demon could not pierce the darkness within. To a mortal eye the enclosure was a spine-chilling black; the kind that made someone feel like something there was something watching in the depths below. In this case, that was true.
        To the Demon it was a grey detail-less haze, like one might imagine a half blind person could see. It felt its eye lid twitch at the situation’s annoyance. Methodically and reluctantly, it drew its second sword and was unwilling to admit how good it felt to hold both blades, despite its preference to use only one. It took the first step into the cellar. Immediately, it was revolted by the smell below. The ghoul had soured the air, but this was amplified to such a degree that it turned the Demon’s organs. The scent felt old and the Demon memorized its stench in order to set a benchmark for future hunts. Somehow, it knew there would be more to hunt.
        It descended into the depths. The space was quite large and may have been a naturally formed cave, only later being adapted into a cellar space. The walls were lined with shelving and the most used goods rotted until they sank between the wood planks that held them. The spoiled food assaulted the Demon’s nostrils and it struggled to pick out the ghoul’s blood in the air. All sounds were muffled by the straw thatching, packed against the walls and ceiling. The Demon guessed the straw was used to keep the cellar dry from groundwater. Much was destroyed, but it still did an excellent job muffling the Demon’s refined hearing. Again, its eye twitched and it growled with a bestial annoyance at its impairment in this environment. It felt like it was walking into a trap again but did not give the ghoul that much credit. After all, it was a mindless and wild thing. Aside from hunger, it had little else.

V

        Cold seeped into every air particle as the Demon ventured further into the depths. It knew ghouls preferred the dark; all corrupted things did. Memories from their previous lives still formed in their rabid minds, which caused them to hide from the light. This ghoul was no different.
        What space that was used as the cellar dwindled to ragged scraps and became a cavern with water worn walls, confirming this space was a naturally made. Still the Demon’s senses were fogged by the place and it determined more was at work. Something with similar powers to its own had been here and was the true reason its senses were dimed. A being touched by the Gods or their Celestials were the only things that could affect the Demon in such a way. Its senses were impaired because one, like it, had created this abhorrent feeling in this space and was what it really hunted. With this conclusion, the Demon shifted its sensory organs’ perspectives, and the cave became clearer. In the same way that a man might pick out a voice in a crowd, it tweaked its ability to see, hear, and smell. The cave became less repulsive, but still obscured its senses, like a fog or perpetual ring in its ears. For moment, it wondered if this was how mortals fumbled through their existence.
        The Demon rounded a bend and the cave opened into a small underground lake. It was little more than a large pond in diameter but was deep, like a giant worm’s hole, bore into the earth. Even with impaired vision, the Demon could tell there was no more to the cave. It knew the ghoul must be here somewhere.
        As it approached the water’s edge, the liquid burped and bubbled at the lake’s centre. Ripples rolled across the water and fell still as it neared the rock embankment. Without hesitation, the Demon trudged into the water. The depth dropped quickly. With a few steps, it became submerged to its waist and it ensured its swords did not dip into the water, so they could be readily used without impediment. It stood in the pool’s depths and slowly spun, looking for any signs from its query. There were none and the Demon cursed its impaired senses. It wondered if the ghoul had somehow gotten pass it but decided that was impossible. The entrance to the cavern was narrow and there was no way the ghoul could have snuck by.
        Again, the water burped. With sudden realization, the Demon looked up. The water was disturbed not from something below, but from above. Silver cat-like eyes in their dozens stared down. Mouths opened to reveal snake-like fangs. They were dressed in this lands commoner’s cloths and bore all the wretchedness the first ghoul had already shown. Unintentionally, the Demon had found the inn’s missing patrons who were not devoured.
        The Demon let out a low hiss, similar to a mountain lion offering threat to a foreign predator that crossed its path. It could see the one-armed ghoul in the group’s centre and pointed a sword at it. As if that was the signal they waited for, the ghouls dropped from the ceiling and screamed their madness.
        The water exploded with action and white blurs flashed in the somber dark.

VI

        The Demon stepped from the cellar’s mouth, covered in sour water and putrid gore. Over a dozen corrupted bodies lay floating in the pool, forever tainting the water. All except one.
        The spikes and the spine protrusions had already withdrawn, and its second skin took on a muted metallic glint once more. It blinked away the fire in its eyes, letting the moon’s light open widen its retinas. The night’s black consumed its vision as it took on a mortal’s sight once more. Despite the darkness, it saw the pale skeletally thin thing sprinting away with its three remaining limbs.
        The Demon did not snarl any distaste. Instead, it resolved itself for what was to come. This was only the beginning, and it knew the whole land would be engulfed. It could smell this was not the only nest. This was only one in a trail that would lead it to its true prey.

        For a moment, it thought about the corpse. The one that wore armour like its own. It wished the man had heeded its words. All too human emotions threatened the Demon’s core and this time it gave an audible snarl to bury them. The feelings were discomforting.
        Without further reflection, the Demon marched into the night and followed the remaining ghoul’s tracks. It knew where the ghoul would go. A town was a few leagues away and promised the only abundant food source for the cannibalistic creature. Lavici was the town’s name, and the Demon knew that is where the coming hell would truly begin. No armies could stop it and any who encountered the diseased creature would be dragged with it into a living nightmare and madness. Lavici was not its concern, however. The stronger taint came from the West and it set off in the opposite direction from the ghoul’s.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments below or on Facebook. If you have not had a chance to read the Prologue to this new story, check it out here.

Thank you again for your time and I hope you enjoyed the first Chapter!

Brett