“The rider!” Vicus’s voice. Everyone was screaming now, no point in hiding, and their panicked yells didn’t even top the unending chorus of the remnants. They just didn’t stop, more and more climbing up out of the ground, making any surface graveyard look like a joke compared to the endless corpses this land could summon.
The rider. A hint of gold glinted in the distance, and more than just David and the crew stared at the approaching shadow atop its horse as it pushed through the fog. The hellhounds turned, snarling and barking, only looking away from the rider long enough to rip apart a remnant that sauntered too close. But even their barking stopped once the rider came into full view atop his giant goort.
Coming from behind the group, trotting slowly on his giant, armored horse, the rider casually unsheathed one of his axes, and the blade glowed with hellfire, its amber color lighting the fog and bloodied dirt. Eyes hidden inside the shadow of the t-slit of his skull mask helmet, he made only the smallest grunt, and the goort charged as if the rider had dug spurs into its sides. It aimed straight for David.
Three cannam threw themselves at the rider, one of them landing on the massive goort’s side by the rider’s leg, the other two hitting the horse creature from the front. The rider cut them down with barely a motion, swinging his arm and nothing else, cold, efficient, and quick. The three hellhounds died almost instantly, the sharp blade piercing skin, bone, and setting them on fire, all at the same time. Their bodies fell, and the two in front gave the goort only a moment’s hesitation.
A fourth hellhound gave it more. It got its claws into the goort’s back, and while it couldn’t penetrate the gold and bronze armor, it did twist the weight, and the goort stumbled.
It didn’t fall over. Almost like it was dancing, it put its weight onto its front hooves and drove its rear hooves back, straight into the chest of the hellhound. The crunch was sickening. But it was enough to force the goort to stop for that moment, long enough for more hellhounds to surround the rider.
They pounced. They’d been more hesitant about the demons, but they had no reservations about attacking the rider. It was nice to see the man wasn’t capable of taming every beast he came into contact with, but it didn’t matter when every cannam died the moment they got within a foot of him. It only got worse when he unhooked his second axe, and twisted only just enough to bring an axe down on one beast, while swinging the other up. The goort twisted and turned with the momentum, seamlessly countering the weight of its rider, the two working together to push forward like a blender on legs.
It was his aura. Demon auras didn’t work well on hellbeasts, but even at a distance, the blistering wind of the rider’s untouchable aura reached David. It was huge, and David covered his forehead with his hand as if he could block the burning ice that didn’t exist, or the crashing hurricane power that wasn’t really there. The hellbeasts couldn’t resist it at all, and they roared mindlessly as they threw themselves at the rider, only to die upon his blades.
It took him thirty seconds to kill them all, but thirty seconds was enough for the group to break free of the remnants and into a new area. There were fewer and fewer tombstones, but something else crept up in the fog. He almost froze, but Acelina pushed him on, and the sharp, black shapes cutting in the fog came into focus.
Trees?
Trees. Black trees. Sharp branches forked, jagged, twisting, so dark their bark almost looked like blackstone, and they made bloodgrip look soft and cozy. Not a leaf in sight.
“Stay low!” Vicus’s voice cut through the screaming remnants as he pushed forward into the trees. He navigated the branches without issue, ducking left and right, under, jumping above, and weaving through what quickly turned into a giant thicket with spikes big and sharp enough to kill elephants.
Jes, the Las, and Acelina all froze. They had wings. Vicus, Caera, and Dao didn’t.
Dao did her best. She charged ahead and brought her axe down on the branches, shattering the most heinous ones directly in her path. Glass would have been jealous of the explosive effect the black metal blade brought on the branches, sending thousands of little shards everywhere to disappear in the black dirt. Each branch she destroyed remained a sharp, deadly threat, but at least their shorter lengths were out of the way enough the winged demons could push forward.
The Las whined, occasionally shrieking as their wings caught on the sharp things; they weren’t used to the trees like they were tunnels filled with bloodgrip. Jes snarled. Acelina hissed. If they’d had time, they could have pushed through the woods slowly, or maybe go around, but the gallop of the rider’s goort grew louder, the clink of armor on armor, and the sickening squish hooves made when crushing remnant flesh.
Jes turned long enough to meet David’s eyes, and they froze for a single moment as panic shot through them both. Laria screamed, Lasca shrieked, and Latia let out a desperate whine as another spike drove straight through her right wing and into her side.
Dao turned around and rejoined them in the back, axe in hand.
“Go!” Jes said, and she shoved her lover back onto the path she’d created. “Go!”
Dao shook her head.
“Go! Fucking–”
Caera rejoined them, too, body covered in cuts, and she growled up at Jes as she walked past her to face the oncoming rider.
“We can’t get through this fast enough to escape him. We have to fight. We have to–”
Laara let out a desperate cry as a spike caught her side, punctured her wing, and tore it along its length. She half spun back to face David and the rest of them, the group only maybe a hundred feet into the sharp forest. Tears filled her large eyes, her gaze snapping back and forth between David, and the rider now at the edge of the deadly woods.
David stared at her, frozen.
The rider looked between the branches in his way, hopped off the goort, and walked. The animal was too big to do much turning in the forest, even with the path the demons had tried to make. Without a word from the rider, the animal stayed behind, and the rider walked after them, axes at his sides.
He didn’t bother chopping down branches in his path. He pushed forward, and the branches shattered, unable to penetrate his armor, and they gave only a moment’s resistance before his weight broke them. His boots sank in the dirt, crushing it. A few remnants caught up to him, but he ignored them, walking forward toward David and letting either his mount slaughter the damned, or letting the remnants skewer themselves on the branches.
Laara screamed, tears flowing down her cheeks, and every muscle in David’s body clenched. He’d never heard a demon make a sound like that before.
He hit the strings, hit them until his body ached, hit them until his brain fried like he’d pressed his ears to a speaker and struck all the strings at once.
Something in the depths of the vibration answered.
The vibration made sense. The buzzing feeling of the strings only he could feel turned into meaning, the way a composer’s squiggles on a page spoke in a language as old as civilization. Older. He knew what notes to play, what strings to hit and in what cadence to create the response he wanted, and Hell was going to mirror his intent. This wasn’t like when he’d tried to move the dirt earlier. This time, he was going to play the music, and Hell was going to play it back to him with a full symphony.