All the angels spun and faced the rider as the man sat up and got back to his feet. Even dressed in armor thick enough to survive a wrecking ball, he wasn’t as big as the angels, but in that moment, he looked huge.
The angels stabbed him. Spears drove into his armor, and some slipped in between the joints to get whatever was hidden beneath. Arrows crashed against him, each unleashing little gold explosions. Moriah and her fellow mikalim dove for him, both with glowing swords, dashed between rapholem shields, and brought their weapons down.
The rider’s back erupted with wings of pure fire, sending all nearby fog away in a burst of wind. He brought his axes down, and both mikalim’s swords went down with them, both angels landing on the ground at his sides. He flapped his fire wings, and launched forward toward the rapholem. They blocked with their shields, but the rider came at them too fast, too hard, and his axes broke through the shining metal. The spears lodged in his joints didn’t slow him down.
“Get out of my way.” He ripped his axes free of their bent and broken shields, and with his fire wings, drove his weight forward and brought his axes down on their heads. Demons were fast. Angels were faster. The rider went from a slow monolith to a borderline blur, and both angels died, axes embedded halfway through their skulls. Unbelievably thick armor, split like a wood axe splitting logs.
Moriah screamed, a death shriek that ripped through David’s insides. He’d heard that scream before. A woman, standing over a casket.
Caera turned and ran.
“Caera!”
“They’re losing that battle! We’re getting out of here while we can.”
The other girls didn’t hesitate. The group broke into a run, pushed past the remnants that remained, and the angels disappeared behind them. Laoko somehow kept pace with Acelina’s help, but she winced and hissed with every step, clutching her dripping side.
“We can’t let them die!” he yelled.
“Most of them are dead already!”
“I can help them!”
“You can barely hold on!”
Fuck, she was right. He squeezed his eyes and held the spikes on her back as best he could, but everything ached, and his guts were trying to eat him from the inside out.
More screams cut through the fog, and everyone looked back.
“If… If the rider wins–”
“He’s probably killed Teleius,” Laoko said, hissing. “And those wings… He’ll catch us. On goort or flying, he will catch us.”
David shook his head. “We can’t run, Caera! We have to help.”
“Twelve angels just slaughtered forty demons, David! And the rider is slaughtering them! There’s nothing we can do!”
“I can do something. Just get me back there.”
Caera glared over her shoulder at him, single eye half begging, half tearing into him. But after a staring contest, she growled and spun, guiding the group right back toward the rider.
“What’re you going to do?”
“I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
“We’re going to die to this madness,” Acelina yelled.
“We’ll die if we don’t stop the rider! We have to stop him, at least for a little while. Long enough to put some distance between us. You saw what happened when Moriah stabbed him. He went down, for a little bit. And when I buried him, it took him time to get out. I just need to… do… something.”
If he didn’t think of something, they were going to die. But if they didn’t do something, Laoko was right, and he’d run them down on his goort. They had to bring him down long enough they could put some serious distance between him and them.
What he didn’t expect was for Laoko to follow them. He stared back at her, and she grinned at him.
“Laoko, you–”
“Give me an opening, unmarked.”
“What?”
“Give me an opening. I will handle the rest.”
All the girls traded glances. No one knew what she meant, and this was very strange behavior for a demon, but the tetrad followed, clutching her side and half running, half bouncing on her hooves. She kept up.
They stopped on the edge of the fog and cut through the remnants wandering around. There were still hundreds of them, but it was a far cry from the thousands they’d dealt with minutes before. Past the corpses, the rider stood, slowly walking toward the last remaining angel. He’d killed seven in a matter of seconds.
Moriah. She was on her ass, blood dripping down her armor, one remaining wing covered in red, and sword pointed at the rider.
“Butcher. Mindless abomination. You kill, and kill, and–”
The rider pointed an axe at the woman and drew closer.
“I know those eyes, angel. You are no better.”
“What?”
The rider didn’t answer. He swung for her.
Again, David played the strings, ignored the searing agony of his inner fingers tearing to the bone, and summoned a tombstone. The White Lands had plenty to spare, and grew one in front of the rider again. Same trick, same effect. The rider shattered it with a single swing and drowned the area in a rain of embers and ear-splitting thunder, but it gave Moriah a moment to react.
She threw herself at the rider, sword aimed for his skull helmet.
“Moriah!” David yelled. “Get out of there!” Of course the damn woman would use the opening to attack, not run. God damn it.