Sanctuary Of The Demon King

The creature sprang.

She drew her sword and met it in the center of the road. Its claws struck first, scraping sparks from her shoulder guard. She stepped inside its reach and drove her blade beneath its jaw. Black fluid burst across her glove, hot as forge water. The demon convulsed around the steel.

Rebecca wrenched the sword free and shoved the corpse aside.

The swarm was closer now.

Then she heard a different sound beneath their shrieks - a wet, uneven dragging from the ditch.

A man crawled through the ash, one hand clamped over his thigh. His coat was torn open, and blood ran between his fingers.

“Bellwether,” he gasped.

Rebecca stared at him. The gate was still miles away. The demons were already spilling onto the road.

“Can you stand?”

“I can walk.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

The man tried. His leg folded beneath him.

Rebecca swore and seized the back of his coat. “Then you crawl faster.”

He looked over his shoulder at the approaching swarm. “Leave me.”

“That would save me time.”

“Then save it.”

Rebecca hauled him upright and pulled his arm over her shoulders. He was heavier than he looked, all bone and soaked wool. His blood warmed the side of her tunic.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

“No. But if you die, I’d rather curse the right person.”

His laugh came out thin and painful. “Tomas.”

“Keep moving, Tomas.”

They staggered down the road.

The first demons reached them before they had gone fifty paces.

Rebecca shoved Tomas behind a fallen road marker and pivoted into the attack. A horned creature lunged low. She cut its foreleg, then its throat. Another slammed into her from the side. Its hide felt like wet bark beneath her blade. She drove her elbow into its skull and kicked it back, but a third caught her cloak and yanked.

The fabric tightened against her neck.

Rebecca dropped her sword.

For one sharp instant, the world narrowed to rough cloth and the demon’s clicking teeth. She drew the knife from her boot and stabbed backward. Once. Twice. The grip loosened. She tore free, rolled through the ash, and came up with her sword in hand.

Tomas was watching her from behind the marker.

“Move!” she shouted.

He dragged himself forward.

Rebecca backed toward him, cutting as the demons pressed close. Her sword rang against horn and bone. One claw slipped past her guard and opened her forearm. Heat spilled down to her wrist.

She ignored it. A warrior class did not survive by waiting for pain to become permission.

Another demon rushed from the ditch. Rebecca caught its arm, turned with its momentum, and sent it crashing into the road marker. Stone split. The creature’s head struck hard enough to silence it.

“Tomas!”

He had fallen again.

Rebecca saw the reason. His trouser leg was pinned beneath a slab of broken stone, and two demons were climbing over the ditch toward him.

She ran.

The nearest demon turned. Rebecca struck its knee, then drove her shoulder into its chest. They hit the ground together. Its breath rattled against her face, sour and metallic. She jammed her forearm beneath its throat while its claws scraped across her breastplate.

“Get off her!”

Tomas had seized a fallen spear shaft. He thrust it into the demon’s side.

Rebecca twisted, found the gap beneath its ribs, and buried her sword there. The creature collapsed across her legs.

Tomas stared at the body. “You’re welcome.”

“You’re carrying the spear.”

“I noticed.”

“Then carry the stone too.”

She rolled free and levered the slab off his leg. Tomas bit down on a cry. His wound had opened again, blood darkening his boot.

The demons were gathering around them.

Far ahead, a bell rang from Bellwether’s tower. Once. Twice.

The sanctuary had seen them.

A line of figures appeared along the battlements. Torches flared, and a voice carried over the road.

“Run for the gate!”

Rebecca looked at the remaining distance. The road dipped between two banks of ash, hiding the gate from view. The demons had filled the ridge behind them.

“Can you move?” she asked.

Tomas pushed himself upright. His face had gone pale beneath the road dust. “If I stop, I die.”

“Good answer.”

She took his arm again. Together they ran.

The road became a tunnel of movement. Demons dropped from the banks, snapping and shrieking. Rebecca cut one from the air, then another. Tomas swung the spear with both hands, striking wildly whenever a claw came near. His injured leg dragged, leaving a red line through the ash.

The gate grew larger.

So did the swarm.

A demon leaped onto Rebecca’s back. Its weight drove her to one knee. Tomas turned and thrust the spear through its mouth. The shaft punched out behind its skull.

Rebecca rose beneath the corpse and threw it aside.

“You said you could walk,” she snapped.

“I am walking.”

“You’re limping.”

“I’m still ahead of dying.”

A roar rolled over the road.

Something larger was coming.

Rebecca glanced back. The smaller demons had parted. A broad shape pushed through them, dragging a hooked arm along the ground. Its hide was plated in black ridges, and a crown of pale horns curved from its skull.

The gate guards began shouting.

“Close the outer ward!”

“They’re not inside!”

“Hold it!”

Rebecca saw the blue-white lines of the ward stretched across the gatehouse, thin as threads. The sanctuary’s protection had already begun to flicker.

“Bellwether!” she shouted. “Open the gate!”

A woman on the battlement leaned over the parapet. “Bring the wounded to the mark!”

“What mark?”

“White stone! Ten paces!”

Rebecca spotted it beside the gate: a flat stone set into the road, painted with a circle of chalk.

They were almost there.

The horned demon charged.

Rebecca shoved Tomas forward. “Get to the stone!”

“What about you?”

“Go!”

She turned to meet the beast.

Its hooked arm swept across the road. Rebecca ducked, but the wind of the blow knocked her sideways. The hook caught her shoulder guard and tore it away. Metal spun into the ash.

She struck at its knee. Her sword bounced off the plated hide.

The demon raised its arm again.

Rebecca stepped closer instead of retreating. The hook passed behind her. She drove her blade into the soft seam beneath its jaw and leaned her full weight against the hilt.

The beast thrashed. Its claws raked her back. Pain flashed white through her skull.

She pushed harder.

The sword broke through.

Black blood poured over her hands. The demon collapsed, shaking the road.

Rebecca ripped her blade free and stumbled toward the gate.

Tomas stood on the white stone, one hand raised. The guards had begun lowering the portcullis.

“Move!” someone screamed.

Rebecca crossed the mark as the first demons reached the gate mouth.

A flare of blue light burst from the stone. The ward slammed outward with a sound like a thousand chains pulled tight. Demons struck it and burned, their bodies folding against the invisible barrier. The swarm recoiled, shrieking.

Rebecca seized Tomas by the collar and dragged him beneath the gate.

The portcullis crashed down behind them.

For several seconds, no one moved.

Then Tomas collapsed.

Rebecca caught him before his head struck the floor. His weight dragged her to one knee. Around them, Bellwether’s sanctuary churned with bodies. Wounded travelers lay beneath canvas awnings. Children huddled beside stacked crates. Warriors stood along the inner wall with weapons ready, watching the ward instead of the road.

A guard crouched beside Tomas. “He needs the healers.”

“He needs them now,” Rebecca said.

The guard looked at Rebecca’s bloodied arm, then at the sword in her hand. “You too.”

“After him.”

“This is sanctuary, not a battlefield.”

Rebecca glanced toward the gate. Beyond the bars, demons still prowled the road, pressing against the blue ward. “There’s no place left that isn’t both.”

The guard’s mouth tightened, but he called for help. Two people carried Tomas toward the crowded infirmary.

Rebecca followed three steps before the gatehouse bell began to ring again.

Not the warning bell.

The failure bell.

The ward flickered above the gate, blue light thinning into broken strands. One section went dark. A demon’s claw pushed through the gap, smoking but intact.

The defenders raised their weapons.

Rebecca wiped black blood from her eyes and tightened her grip on the sword.

A sanctuary could hold back the demons.

It could give the wounded a bed, the living a wall, and the dying a few more breaths.

But it could not make the war stop.

The gate shuddered as something struck it from outside.

Rebecca stepped toward the failing ward.

“Where is the breach?” she asked.

The guard pointed toward the inner courtyard, where the blue light was dimmest.

“Not the breach,” he said. “The wardstone.”

Another impact shook Bellwether.

Rebecca looked toward the crowded sanctuary, then at the blood running from her arm.

She had reached shelter.

Now shelter was under attack.

End of chapter one. 39 more chapters and about 80,753 words in the full book.