Chapter 15 - Hard To Say I’m Sorry

A lone woman stepped out from behind a large tree along the side of the road. Her purple hair was a tangled, shoulder length mess that writhed around her face and her green tinted skin immediately marked her as a demon.

Not especially tall, she was standing there in what looked to be some kind of castle uniform and the woman did not immediately evoke any kind of fear in the carriage’s driver. True, his task was to be wary of anything out of the ordinary, but this woman looked like she was likely to be there to receive them from the nearby Viscount’s castle.

Maybe she was just resting behind that tree while she was waiting?

Nestor was tired from the long journey. So very tired. They hadn’t met much in the way of any monsters, oddly too few if he thought about it, which he hadn’t. But staying alert for days on end with his ostensibly esteemed passenger still took a lot out of his old bones.

He may be tall for a dwarf, but still a dwarf he was. And so his muscles hadn’t atrophied much despite long since passing middle age. It was that strength that let him maintain his work as a bodyguard even after the world had changed so rapidly two years ago.

Though, had the world really changed that much except for the names of those in charge?

Of course, if he thought about it, and this he had several times, he wondered why nearly unkillable greater demons even needed a bodyguard. The best his mind could offer was that he served a status symbol. But most of the time he was a slightly overpaid carriage driver. After all, without any hero around the only thing that could kill a greater demon was another greater demon. At least, that was the rumour.

And although his muscles hadn’t failed him, his bones, his sore, tired bones made long journeys like this on uneven roads especially taxing. Nestor was definitely going to use his pay from this trip to upgrade his seat cushion.

He was so sore and tired that when the woman stepped out onto the road his first thought wasn’t that the carriage was under attack. She was alone and unarmed. And hardly an imposing figure. The woman looked like a stressed and exhausted librarian coming to shush him more than anything threatening.

No, his first thought was relief that they must be close enough that the castle would send someone out to greet them.

“Greetings mistress!”

The dwarf put up his calloused hand in greeting as his other hand held the reins and pulled the horse to a stop. He wasn’t sure who this woman was but with demons it always paid to be polite first. Some of them, like his passenger, could get downright…testy…and the axe at his side was little more than a toy in the face of their wrath.

The woman paused, frozen mid step. To the old dwarf it almost seemed like she was confused by his greeting.

She stood a couple dozen paces away and raised her own small hand in greeting. Sheepishly for some reason.

“Uh…hello…uh…sir…” She spoke haltingly and Nestor had to wonder if she wasn’t used to the duties she had been assigned. He wondered if she was new.

“Pl…please…” She continued.

“Please?” He responded, confused.

“Please forgive me.”

Her words came out as almost a whisper, but his ears still picked up what she had said.

Maybe she is overly formal and is apologizing for slowing me down? he thought.

Instead the woman moved the hand that had waved and used it to pull back the tangle of hair that had partially obscured her face. Nestor saw clearly for the first time the woman’s jewel toned purple eyes.

She opened her eyes wide. Very wide. Like she was forcing herself to open them as wide as she could.

That’s when the dwarf noticed a light began to shine in those purple eyes.

A strange green glow emanated from her eyes.

His first thought was that it was pretty.

At least it was, until he noticed the hand he was still holding up in greeting started to turn grey.

His finger tips. Then his fingers. His hand. The greyness moved ever closer to him through his entire limb. That’s when he began to realize he couldn’t move his arm.

The woman was now clenching the fist of the hand that wasn’t holding back her hair.

He heard her mutter. “More. More. I can’t stop. It’s my one chance.”

The greyness spread from his arm into his torso, his legs. He tried to pull away but only his neck could move and even then very little. He watched in horror as the greyness moved up his body.

The last thing he saw was the tip of his nose turn grey before his entire world went black.

Before he fully lost consciousness he heard one last sound as the carriage door behind him slammed open and a woman’s voice bellowed out.

“Why the bloody hell have we stopped Nestor?! Don’t tell me we arrived and you didn’t wake me first!”

A tall woman with a dark complexion and hair the colour of a setting sun stepped out from the door she had just kicked open.

Still squinting from having just woken up she glanced towards the front of the carriage and could just make out Nestor’s broad back. But something about him seemed off. Probably the effect of the green light.

Green light? What is that light any way?

She turned to her left and saw the source of the glow.

“Euryale, is that you?”

They were the last words she ever spoke.

In a matter of moments the woman’s entire body had been turned to stone.

The horses having been petrified as well, the entire area was silent until a scream echoed into the forest.

The scream was coming from the same direction as the green glow.

The wave of sound struck the petrified demon, the dwarf, and the horse. Each of them in turn shattered into countless fragments and fell across the forest road.