Imps

The air was clean and sharp, empty of anything but sky. It stretched endlessly in all directions, a vast playground of blue. Jere cut through it like an arrow, his short, messy black hair whipping in the slipstream. Yet even as the wind rushed past, his mind flicked steadily through the data granted to him by the map.

The computer had already filled him with knowledge of the world’s layout, but Jere knew better than to trust a system blindly. By combing through it himself, he could catch the anomalies - blank swathes of land, shifting borders blurred by war. The northern plains, his destination, lay far beyond the city. To those below, traveling on foot or by cart, like the one Jere now spotted winding its way along a road between the hills, the journey would take days. His wings, however, would carry him there in less than an half an hour if he held his pace.

The landscape slid past beneath him in a vivid tapestry - forests thick with green, mountains capped in haze, rivers glinting like threads of silver. Villages and towns dotted the earth, oblivious to the lone figure above. His heightened vision pierced the distance, picking out people bustling through errands, farmers stooped in fields, children darting between thatch-roofed houses with wooden frames and glass-paned windows. He caught glimpses of animals too - some familiar, some alien, some wild and some domesticated.

Soon it all dwindled behind him. The map marked the ground ahead as contested - an active war zone. Whether the data was current or not, he couldn’t know, but it was his task to correct it. Reliable intelligence meant survival.

The plains appeared at last, a vast expanse of grassland spreading flat to the horizon. From his high vantage, Jere quickly picked out the village: near the center, encircled by a tall wooden wall with a stream running through. Not far off - perhaps half a kilometer away - an encampment sprawled. His vision sharpened, picking out fourteen heat signatures. All human-sized. None human.

He switched to normal vision. The forms solidified into imps: stocky creatures of mottled red and orange skin, their muscles bulging grotesquely, their eyes dark and feral. Each carried a blade, shorter than the church knights’ swords but no less dangerous. They lingered in loose formation, waiting for orders.

As Jere watched, the imps began to advance toward the village, laughing and jeering among themselves. Arrows arced down from the wall, loosed by villagers - but fell short, clattering harmlessly to earth. The imps stopped just beyond range, taunting their prey with cruel delight.

By then, Jere was directly overhead, circling silently with the sun at his back. The faint wail of his ion engines never reached the ground. He studied them. Their strength was limited. Like humans, remove enough of their bodies and they would fall. Their strategy was obvious: avoid risk, starve the villagers out. He wondered how long this siege had dragged on.

A plan formed swiftly. He would strike terror first, then end it cleanly. A scream-dive, followed by a silent glide. With their loose spacing, he could take them all in a single pass.

He rolled inverted and plunged.

The engines rose from a wail to a shriek as the dive steepened. On the ground, both villagers and imps looked skyward in confusion. To their eyes, he was nothing more than a black speck dropping out of heaven - a fallen angel plummeting toward earth far in the distance.

The plains rushed up at him. A human body would have buckled, skin tearing beneath the drag, face distorted by the sheer force of air. But Jere’s enhanced frame held steady. His eyes remained fixed, unblinking.

At the last moment, he pulled up.

The engines cut off with a thought. Silence slammed into the plains. His wings spread wide, feathers shifting minutely as he trimmed his angle. Time seemed to stretch.

Five seconds. Four. A fraction of adjustment. Three. Two. His speed neared the threshold of sound - fast enough to shear through concrete. One.

The imps loomed beneath. One turned its head, catching a flicker of movement - but the thought had no time to settle before its head slid clean from its shoulders. The body toppled, blood spraying from the severed neck. The others fell in the same instant, collapsing like puppets with cut strings. Fourteen bodies lay sprawled across the grass before any of them could even cry out.

Jere soared upward, wings beating the air without engines. He wheeled in a wide arc, surveying the field. The camp lay empty now, abandoned of threat. He banked toward the village, gliding low over the walls.

Below, villagers gazed skyward, shadows stretching as his wings eclipsed the sun.

“A miracle. An angel,” one whispered.

Another voice picked up softly, tinged with awe and fear.

“An angel of death.”

Satisfied, Jere reignited his ion engines. The sudden wail ripped through the quiet, startling the villagers. With a surge, he climbed once more to cruising altitude, his course already set for the city.

The journey passed without incident, interrupted only once by a sudden thought. Jere’s hand brushed against the shape in his pocket, and he realised his old MP3 player was still with him - exactly where it always had been.

He pulled it free, angling his wings slightly to increase his cruising speed while he studied the device. Its smooth, light-blue casing caught the sunlight and glared into his eyes, but he didn’t so much as blink. He turned it over carefully, fingers tracing the familiar array of buttons.

Hopeful, but already doubting, he pressed the power switch. A small diode lit up at the edge of the casing. He pressed play, adjusted the volume, and raised it to his ear. The roar of wind tore most of the sound away, but a faint tinny beat - drums, steady and mechanical - reached him.

Satisfied, he shut it off and slid it back into his pocket. Connecting it to the neural device embedded in his skull never crossed beyond the boundaries of thought. That had been strictly forbidden during missions.

But a new thought flickered in his mind. I am no longer under their control. Perhaps my new master will allow it.

Almost immediately, he dismissed the idea. The odds seemed low. The King had likely never even seen a device like this, and if the mages already whispered of him as a demon, what would they think if he conjured sound from thin air? Too much risk. Too little reward. But then again, he was much, much stronger than them. Maybe they’d give in simply because of the fear. No. Now was not the time to think about that.

He swept the thought away and rocketed on.

The city soon appeared, basking under a clear summer sky. His onboard systems had recalibrated their clocks according to the sun’s arc, and he noted with mild detachment that the day length was the same as Earth’s - twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes. The seasonal cycle matched as well. Apparently, it was summer here too.

Jere circled the city once, high above the rooftops. A few townsfolk caught sight of a bird-like silhouette crossing the sun and wrote it off as an eagle. None of them noticed when the “eagle” folded its wings and dove, alighting softly on the grass beside the church.

He retracted his wings, approached the doors, and considered knocking. But knocking suggested uncertainty, and efficiency demanded confidence. He pushed them open and strode inside.

The congregation he had left behind still lingered in a wide circle, murmuring about him in hushed tones. His return silenced them instantly. Several flinched back, others scrambled to the shadows. The King, startled, was left on the spot as Jere walked up and stopped a few paces away.

“I have done as you requested,” Jere reported flatly.

The chamber froze. The King struggled for words, his expression torn between awe and disbelief.

“H-h-how… did you do it so fast?”

Jere answered without hesitation. “The weather was clear. The imps besieging the village were aligned in formation. It required only one pass. Afterward, I confirmed the area was clear, then returned.”

The King swallowed hard, searching for sense in the explanation. “H-how many were there?”

“Fourteen.”

The word cracked across the room like thunder. Gasps spread through the gathered nobles. The advisor in dark grey robes - already suspicious - stepped forward.

“Fourteen,” he repeated. “And it takes two knights to bring down even one…” His eyes narrowed. “Do you have proof?”

“Why would I require proof?” Jere’s tone remained neutral, almost confused by the question.

The advisor sighed, frustrated. “Because-” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “Forget it.” Leaning close, he whispered urgently into the King’s ear.

The King hesitated, then nodded. “J-1, you must be tired. Please, come and have food. Rest.”

Jere tilted his head slightly, processing the request. “Is there a reason for me to?”

The King faltered. But again, the advisor whispered quickly, guiding him.

“How long can you go without rest?” the King asked at last.

“I have never required it,” Jere replied simply.

Another wave of gasps rippled through the hall. The King steadied himself and pressed on.

“Then - are you able to patrol an entire road, from one end of the kingdom to the other?”

“That is within limits,” Jere confirmed with a nod.

“Good.” The King drew a deep breath. “Then your next task is to fly the road that leads from here to the neighboring kingdom of Bellamy. Patrol its full length.”

Jere acknowledged with a curt nod, turned on his heel, and strode out. The heavy doors closed behind him. Moments later, a deep whump reverberated through the ground as his wings took him aloft.

Inside, the chamber remained hushed, the silence broken only by the faint echo of a wailing cry drifting through the sky. It was thin and haunting, like the cry of some restless spirit, and it sent a shiver down the King’s spine.

The advisor stepped forward, his voice low. “My liege… I do believe we have found the weapon that could win us this war.”

“So we may. But at what cost?”