Kael's gaze swept the twilight treeline.From the murk waddled a creature bristling with quills like a living mace— and it wasn't alone. A tripod beast hopped behind it; a slug-thing oozed pus across dead leaves; overhead, a bat the size of a hound fluttered, a dozen yellow eyes blinking in ragged rhythm. Two-score more abominations crept or skittered after them, every form a different nightmare.
On this continent, only one power bred such chaos.
"Demons…" Kael murmured. "Warp-spawned thralls."
Lira's face blanched. "Here—this close to Dunhollow?"
Thorne hefted his tower shield, jaw tight. That explains why the owlbears and eater packs bailed on their turf. Bad news, Sir Kael—what's the play?"
Kael stooped, plucked the iron spike that had nearly skewered Thorne, felt its weight, and lashed it side-arm into the hedgehog brute.
THUNK!The projectile punched through its skull; black blood geysered.
"We fight," Kael said.
That single kill snapped the horde into motion. Every monster charged.
"Lira—Boon of Dusk on Thorne," Kael ordered, drawing steel.
"What about you?" she yelled.
"Blessings don't cling to me."
Light blossomed over Thorne; the shieldbearer felt his limbs turn weightless.
"Guard her," Kael added—and launched himself.
Boots cratered the earth as the Dread Sentinel vaulted straight into the mass. He landed in their midst with a quake, perfect for a melee feast.
"Let's see what bleeds," he growled.
A leopard-headed centipede lunged. Kael's longsword split its skull with a wet crack. A serpentine thing darted in; he reversed the blade, spiking it through a fanged maw. Corrosive ichor hissed on the soil.
A hammer slammed his back, denting his cuirass. Kael turned; the hulking wielder gurgled what might have been laughter.
"Don't laugh."Three piston jabs caved its jaw. He caught the staggering body and flung it into the pack, bowling lesser beasts aside.
Another rushed—an alligator head on an aman-shaped torso. Kael twisted, seized its snout, and wrenched. Bones snapped; spine ripped free like a wet rope. Blood sluiced over his armor, instantly mending the dented plate.
Fear never touched demon-spawn; they came on regardless.Kael only smiled. Endless vitality, endless prey.
He ripped the war-hammer from a fallen brute and began to reap heads, crushed, limbs sent cartwheeling. Each impact fed the Umbral Draw within his veins.
Across the field, Thorne planted himself before Lira. A snarling beast collided with his shield; Lira's mace shattered its skull in one bright swing.
"Maybe you missed your calling, Priestess!" Thorne laughed.
"Stop talking and swing," she huffed, spitting gore.
Minutes late,r only one creature remained—Kael pinned it, drove steel through its chest, and yanked free. A copper moon watched the carnage in silence.
Thorne collapsed onto a carcass with a squelch. "Thought today was my last day…"
Lira—refusing to sit in gore—crouched instead. "If thralls are here, a demon can't be far. We should warn the city—gather Inquisitors."
Kael knelt by a corpse, gauntlet plunging into rot. Souls and vitae spiraled up his arm; half-formed memories flashed behind his eyes—mercenaries fighting valiantly, purple fire from a hooded mage, captives dragged beneath stone.
"Not a demon—its servant," he said. "A warlock."
Thorne spat. "Servants of the Abyss? Worse.""If they're performing a rite," Kael continued, "waiting only helps them."
"And those mercs might still breathe," Lira added.
Thorne shifted uneasily. "Look, facing a warlock isn't a bar brawl. We could just report back—"
Kael's stare cut him off. "Survivors. A ritual mid-circle. Two reasons to move now."
Lira stood, shoulders squared. "Then we stop it."
Thorne wiped sweat from his brow. Turning tail would brand him a coward for life. Besid, s—Kael was here.
"Fine," he sighed. "Hells, with a Dread Senti,nel how bad can it be?"
Kael slid the sword into its sheath. "Worse, if we delay."
He started toward the shadowed gulch the memories had shown him. Lira followed, staff glowing faintly. Thorne cursed, hefted his shield, and trudged after them into the blood-slick dark.