The Final Confrontation

The advance force had been defeated by the time we ascended the long staircase up to the courtyard of Castle Resolve. They’d bunched up around the banner in a desperate final stand against the encroaching waves of demons. In the end, it had been the Demonfather to topple their force, and now what remained of them was strewn across the courtyard in a grisly pile of sorrow.

The lesser demons formed in ranks at the top of the stairs, and it was our job to press the advance. Despite their fewer numbers, they fought with a resolve I’d never before seen in the likes of demons. The black-scaled creatures had shown me many things in the past, namely bloodlust and cruelty, but never before had I seen them unified for a reason other than their shared hatred of the others around them.

Spears met shields three times. Three times our attacks were repelled. Our losses were high, we now held a little over twelve thousand soldiers in our force. Our losses piled higher and higher with every wave of attacks, but the demons were taking losses as well, losses that they could not replace with our same reliability. Still, it pained me to see so many of our own fallen in such a futile endeavor.

“Atlas, to me!” I called. He and I had been saving our strength for the final assault on the Demonfather himself, perhaps even for Spineripper, provided he still lived, but it all would be for naught if our army was slaughtered slowly by attrition here on the threshold of victory.

Atlas slipped through the lines of soldiers and slid right up next to me. “Been stoking the coals for a while now,” he observed, “ready to light this off?”

“Indeed. You, me, Ser Erik and Lynessa are going to punch through the demon lines and establish a foothold in the courtyard. From there we can encircle the regulars and take a shot at the demons’ leadership.”

Atlas yawned. “Sounds like fun. We’ve been winning this for a while, but now it's gotten boring. Let’s end it and go home.”

I assembled our fellows and commandeered a relatively untouched dwarven infantry platoon.

“The plan’s simple,” I explained, “Lynessa opens a hole and we fill it. Rinse and repeat until we hit the courtyard, then we hold fast. We want to establish a route for our army to come in behind the demon lines.”

The dwarfs nodded their agreement and we set off. We attacked alongside the next offensive wave, but instead of rushing forward using pikes and spears like the rest of the line, we held back slightly on the rightmost flank. I gave the signal, and Lynessa fired off a powerful blast of lightning.

The impact punched a small hole, no more than four demons wide, in the enemy lines. I charged forward, Atlas by my side, and entered the fray. The dwarfs helped widen the foothold as I slashed a demon across the throat. Atlas tackled another to the ground and clawed away at his belly. Compared to the generals, these guys were easy.

Soon enough, we had cleared a wide enough path to allow more and more of our forces through, encircling the demon army and allowing us access to the doors of Castle Resolve. Atlas and I raced ahead, with Ser Erik and Lynessa following close behind.

Waiting for us in the courtyard stood the imposing form of the Demonfather. He looked exactly as he had when I’d last seen him, twenty feet tall at the least, gaunt and thin and wearing the skull of a mammoth. He swung his scythe at us and it whipped by a foot away, demonstrating the insane amount of reach he had with it.

He slammed the end of its haft into the ground and sighed, his voice echoing through the courtyard. “This is your final chance, humans.” He said, “You know not what you meddle in. Turn back now, or be prepared to suffer eternally.”

“Not a chance!” Imalor shouted, running up beside me. Grand Inquisitor Halmon followed shortly.

“You’ve been a plague on this land for far too long. Your reign of terror ends today!” I shouted.

“So be it.” The Demonfather said, voice grim. Skythrasher stepped out from the Demonfather’s shadow. His wings were ragged and appeared to have been hastily bandaged. His body was covered in bruises and cuts. Spineripper was nowhere to be seen, though I did not for one moment think he was dead. If Skythrasher survived that fall while injured, then his master had to have been still lurking in the shadows somewhere, plotting his next move.

Lynessa fired a blast of lightning at the Demonfather. The ancient demon did not even try to dodge the attack, instead he simply walked forward, allowing the electricity to arc up and down his body as he advanced. Imalor shouted a war cry and sprinted forward. The Demonfather’s scythe came around, passing over the dwarf’s head, and the rest of us used the moment to rush in to engage him at close range.

Skythrasher stepped forward. It was clear his intent was to not allow us to get within the reach of the Demonfather’s scythe, where he would be unable to strike us. He used his injured wings to advance in a short burst, knocking aside Imalor with one swipe of his clawed hands. Ser Erik was next in, and parried a slash of the demon’s claws with his sword before following up with a downward slash that bit deep into Skythrasher’s side.

Skythrasher screamed, plunging his claws into Ser Erik’s chest, his razor sharp talons digging through the knight’s plate armor. The demon scraped and clawed, blood dripping from his talons as Ser Erik shouted in pain and triumph, forcing his blade through the junior general and cutting him in half at the waist. Skythrasher’s eyes opened wide as his torso fell free from his legs and his mouth moved wordlessly as he stared up into the sky above.

Lynessa threw up a magical barrier as Atlas and I advanced in tandem. The Demonfather brought down his scythe in a massive, overhand swing. Lynessa yelped as the tip of the weapon punched through the barrier, stopping just short of hitting me. Imalor and the Grand Inquisitor arrived from the flank and began a second advance, axes swinging wildly up at the much taller demon. I slashed at his leg with my sword, aiming for the achilles tendon, and smiled as my blade found the Demonfather’s tough, leathery skin.

The Demonfather roared and sank back onto one knee. He swung his scythe in a frantic arc and actually managed to catch the Grand Inquisitor with its blade, slicing open his belly. The weapon continued its deadly arc and struck Imalor, who collapsed back against a pile of rubble, his left leg severed just below the knee. Lynessa blasted the Demonfather in his hand with lightning, and his fingers tensed around the haft of the Scythe as he struggled to maintain control of his digits.

Atlas dug his claws into the Demonfather’s back and crawled his way up to his neck. He sunk his teeth into the baggy flesh that hung there, and I felt my own teeth ache as he ripped and clawed away at the flesh until the Demonfather’s thick black blood flowed freely from the wound. The Demonfather gripped his neck with a giant hand, dislodging Atlas in the process, but there was little he could do to stem the flow of blood. He slumped forward, dead.

“You figure it’s worth a peek beneath the skull?” Atlas asked.

I shivered as I remembered how freakishly human Foebreaker had looked and I shook my head. “I’d be better off not knowing.” I replied.

The Grand Inquisitor had died from his wounds. The strike from the Demonfather’s scythe had been so powerful that even as a glancing blow it had flung his organs out of his gut. I said a silent prayer for him, then turned to the other two who were injured. Imalor’s foot had been taken off, but it was a clean cut and I managed to tourniquet the injury to prevent the blood from flowing. Ser Erik was in a worse, but still salvageable state. I sent off one of our dwarven soldiers to fetch more experienced medical staff, though Lynessa informed me that his chest wounds, while serious, could heal in time. They were both out of the fight, however, and now it would be up to me, Atlas and Lynessa to take on Spineripper.

I pushed open the doors to Castle Resolve and gazed upon an empty main hall. Spineripper stood in the center, my truck sitting beside him. The demon general looked tired. His milky white eyes had deep bags underneath him, and his left arm had been put in a cast. He barely bothered looking up as we entered.

“Step away from my truck!” I demanded.

Spineripper laughed wryly. “It’s all yours. I’ve tried my hardest over the past few days to access the power within, but the damnable weapon refuses to cede it.” He took a step back away from the truck.

I stared at him in suspicion. “What’s your game, demon?”

“The game is over.” Spineripper spat, “Even if I could access its power, I have no use for it now. My people can no longer be saved, and the Blood Throne will never be mine. You’ve ruined that, Demonslayer, you’ve ruined it all.” He threw his mace to the floor and kicked it away from him.

“And you’d let me have the truck just like that?” I asked.

“Yes.” He said, “I have no more reason to live, and no reason to draw this out any longer than it needs to be. I’m a practical being. Let’s not waste time.”

I stepped forward towards my truck and froze, waiting for the demon to move. The demon’s stare was icy cold. He tilted his head to one side.

“Right.” I said, and quickly closed the distance to the truck. I climbed aboard and turned the key in the ignition. The engine fired to life and I quickly backed it out of Spineripper’s reach.

The demon stood motionless. He didn’t appear to even be looking at me. This was not the end I expected of him, but then again maybe I had underestimated his cowardice. He’d never been the boldest adversary I’d faced. Perhaps he just wanted this to end.

Lynessa began walking across the room to join me. I saw Spineripper stir, but I was too late to react. In a flash, his hands shot out and he seized Lynessa by the throat and dragged her into the air, eyes twinkling with a sadistic glee.

“Why?” I demanded, “Didn’t you say you had no reason to fight?”

“No.” He replied, digging his fingers into the base of Lynessa’s head, “I said I had no reason to live, and I don’t expect to. I’m doing this because I want you to suffer.”

With a final wrench of his hand, Lynessa’s spine slid free from her body, the rest falling to the ground in a discarded heap. I revved the engine and fired my truck at the demon. Spineripper snarled and slammed his hand down on the hood, sending all of the momentum into the ground and launching me out of the windshield onto the cold castle floor.

I hit the ground with a jolt, feeling my body shake from the impact. Spineripper grabbed my truck with both hands and lifted it over his head. He walked over to me slowly, a grin spreading across his face as he prepared to crush me like a bug. I made to draw my sword, but discovered that the impact had snapped the blade off the hilt while still in the scabbard. I frantically rolled out of the way as Spineripper smashed my truck into the ground, shattering the tiled floor as I searched my pockets in desperation for anything that could be used to defend myself.

My fingers closed around the hilt of a dagger, and I drew forth the jagged obsidian blade of the Duskknife. The dagger glowed a frightful purple in the dim castle hall, and for the first time I could feel a surge of power coursing through the weapon. Voices whispered in the back of my mind, their words so faint that I was not able to make them out amidst the pounding of blood in my head.

Spineripper paused, my truck raised over his head as he prepared to bring it down again. His confusion was brief and he slammed the truck down at me once more. This time, I tried to roll forwards in order to strike with the Duskknife, but my foot caught the fractured tile floor and I stumbled. I flipped onto my back to see the grill of my truck inching closer and closer towards me. Time seemed to slow down as I stared upwards, and I did the only thing I had the power to do.

I stuck the Duskknife up as the truck came crashing down, and by some unholy providence the blade impacted with one of the Demonlord’s horns that were mounted to the grill. Something sparked, and for an instant, all gravity ceased. My eyes opened wide, and as I glanced up I could see Spineripper’s face struck by the same horrified expression. As I looked around in panic, I saw Atlas hanging in the air, just behind Spineripper. He’d tried to leap at the demon to save my life, but had been a second too late and now we were all trapped in this timeless limbo.

Lightning crackled in the place where the Duskknife had met the horns, and a pulse of aggressive brown energy rippled out from where the two objects had impacted.

“No…” I managed to say, as space and time folded in on themselves and a new portal opened, identical to the one that had swallowed me to begin with.

“Oh hell no!” Atlas shouted as the portal sucked us in and darkness washed over my senses.