Nightfall
The camp had settled into an uneasy silence. The fire that had once burned bright now sat low, reduced to a scatter of embers glowing weakly in the dark. The air hung thick with the smell of burnt wood and old sweat. Outside the captain's tent, two knights stood watch, their armor dull under the flickering torchlight, shifting their weight now and then to keep the quiet from settling too deep into their bones.
Inside, the captain sat hunched over a worn wooden table, his fingers pressed hard against his temples. His green eyes, ringed with exhaustion, moved slowly across the parchment laid out before him. Across the table, the vice-captain watched him in silence, his thick beard casting shadows over a sharp, steady gaze. A single lantern gave the tent its only light, the flame trembling faintly with each draft that slipped through the canvas.
The captain let out a long breath and set the letter down like it weighed more than paper should. "When did these arrive?"
"During the time we were setting up camp, sir," the vice-captain answered.
The captain rubbed a hand across his forehead, slow and tired. "What is that foolish king thinking?"
The vice-captain straightened in his seat, concern creasing his brow. "Captain. What's wrong? Tell me what you need."
The captain lifted his gaze, his face unreadable in the low light. "Have I ever been a bad captain to you? To any of the men?"
"No, sir." The vice-captain didn't hesitate for even a moment. "Never once."
A silence stretched out between them, heavy enough that the vice-captain found himself holding his breath without meaning to. When the captain finally spoke again, his voice came low and steady.
"The king has ordered us to kill every slave we're escorting."
The vice-captain blinked, certain for a moment he'd misheard. "The king, sir? That can't be right. He'd never give an order like that."
"That's exactly what I can't understand." The captain's voice was barely above a murmur, more to himself than to the man across from him.
The vice-captain shot up from his chair, the legs scraping hard against the ground. Anger burned bright in his eyes. "We can't do this. These people have already lost everything. We tore down their homes, killed their kin in front of them, and now we're supposed to."
"I know." The captain cut him off, but gently, holding up a hand. "I know all of it. Sit down."
The vice-captain hesitated, his fists still clenched at his sides, before lowering himself back into the chair.
The captain shook his head slowly. "The king wouldn't order this. Political games bore him. He's never cared much for court maneuvering, and killing a group of slaves would gain him nothing."
His voice dropped further, quieter now, almost a whisper. "But we're cornered. Whatever's happening here, we're already caught in it."
"Damn it, Captain." The vice-captain's voice was tight, strained at the edges. "If it isn't the king, then who? His seal is right there on the letter."
The captain exhaled hard through his nose. "Who else stands to gain but the High Chancellor? The timing fits too well to be chance. But if he wanted us gone, why wait this long? Why now, of all moments?"
The vice-captain's brow furrowed deeper. "Captain, what are you getting at?"
The captain tapped his fingers against the table, the sound quiet but sharp in the stillness. His mind was already three steps ahead, working through it. "The king's signature could be forged. It wouldn't be the first time. He might not even be within the kingdom's borders right now. He could be out with that friend of his, away from all of this."
Hope crept into the vice-captain's voice, thin but there. "The queen, then. She'd never stand for something like this."
The captain's expression darkened, the hope in the room dimming with it. "The queen has her own battles right now. Her focus is on keeping the kingdom itself standing, not on a unit of knights escorting slaves through the far provinces. We're too far from the capital for her to even know what's happening out here. The High Chancellor picked his moment well."
The vice-captain's jaw tightened. "Captain, I overheard some of the nobles talking before we left. They said that with the Demon King defeated and the Hero gone back to his own world, the kingdoms need to build up their forces again. In case something else comes for us."
The captain's eyes narrowed, turning the words over. "And how does that explain throwing away good men and innocent slaves alike?"
Then it clicked into place, and his mouth curved into something bitter, nothing close to a smile. "It was never about strengthening anything. It's about clearing away anyone who might stand in the way of that power. We're inconvenient. And with the king gone, someone saw their opening and took it."
The vice-captain's face hardened, ready to answer, but the words never made it out of his mouth.
A scream tore through the night outside, sharp enough to cut straight through the tent walls.
Both men went rigid. Then came the shouting, dozens of voices at once, panic spreading fast through the camp.
They exchanged one look, nothing needing to be said, before a knight burst through the tent flap, his face white as bone. "Sir! We're under attack! Demons, sir, it's demons!"
The captain and vice-captain were on their feet before the man finished speaking.
"Vice-captain. Get to the slaves and keep them alive."
"Yes, sir!" The vice-captain didn't wait for anything more. He was gone, out into the chaos.
The captain turned to the young knight still trembling in front of him. He gripped the man's shoulder, hard enough to steady him.
"Look at me. Pull yourself together. We are knights, and knights survive nights like this one. Do you understand me? Survive this, and I'll stand here and tell you myself how proud I am."
The knight swallowed hard, but he nodded, something in his spine straightening. "Y-yes, sir."
The captain released him and stepped back, his voice turning sharp, the tone of a man giving an order that mattered. "Now run. Get word to the king. Tell him we've been breached, tell him it's demons we thought were long since dead."
This time the knight didn't hesitate. He turned and ran into the dark.
The captain drew a slow breath, his hand closing tight around the hilt of his sword. Even from here he could hear it, the clash of steel meeting steel, the screaming of men who wouldn't see morning.
My knights will survive this, he thought. I'll make sure of it.
Then he stepped out into the night to meet it himself.
The slave tent sat dark and still, thick with the smell of sweat and fear that never really left the place. Bodies lay curled together on the bare dirt, beastmen, humans, children, all of them caught somewhere between sleep and exhaustion. Raphael sat apart from the rest, staring at nothing, his mind empty and his chest heavy with something he couldn't name. Outside, the camp had gone quiet except for the distant crackle of torches burning low.
Then a scream ripped through that quiet.
Raphael's head snapped up. Every muscle in his body went taut. He rose to his feet, already moving toward the tent flap.
Then the ground exploded beneath him.
The blast rocked the earth, shaking the tent so hard the support poles groaned. Bodies were thrown from where they lay. Panic broke out instantly, people scrambling over each other, eyes wide with terror. Children started screaming. Mothers pulled their sons and daughters close, shielding them with nothing but their own arms. The tent became a storm of noise and bodies.
Raphael shoved his way through the crowd and stumbled out into the open.
The world outside was on fire.
The camp lay in ruins, tents burning, knights locked in brutal combat all across the churned earth, the dead and dying scattered between them. A towering ogre closed a massive hand around a knight mid swing and crushed him like something soft. Blood sprayed across the dirt, the crack of bone lost beneath the roar of battle. Another knight drove his blade deep into the beast's back, but the sword stuck fast in muscle and bone. He wrenched at the hilt, desperate to free it, and the ogre spun on him and closed a hand around his throat instead.
The knight screamed. He begged, the words breaking apart before they finished leaving his mouth. Then his head came apart in the ogre's grip.
Raphael stood frozen, his breath locked somewhere in his chest. He had never watched a man die from close enough to feel it, never understood how fast a body could stop being a person.
Then the ogre's head turned toward the slave tent.
Its eyes gleamed with something hungry, something that had already decided. It charged.
Raphael's legs wouldn't move. His body had stopped listening to him entirely.
A hard shove sent him sprawling sideways into the dirt. He gasped, rolling onto his side, looking up in time to see the old man who had watched over him standing exactly where he'd been a moment before.
A faint smile crossed the old man's lips, calm in a way that didn't belong anywhere near this place.
Then the ogre's foot came down.
The sound was thick and final, the ground shuddering with the weight of it. The smile was gone. The old man was gone with it, nothing left where he'd been standing.
Raphael's scream caught somewhere in his throat, never making it out. He lunged forward anyway, toward the space where the old man had disappeared.
A hand caught his arm and hauled him back.
It was the young knight, the same one who'd brought them bread. He dragged Raphael backward just as a wall of fire rolled through where he'd been standing, swallowing what remained of the old man whole.
Raphael fought against the grip, thrashing, his voice cracking apart. "NO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO, I HAVE TO."
The knight didn't let go, not for a second. He hauled Raphael through the chaos toward the vice-captain, who stood like something carved from stone in the middle of the slaughter, unmoving while everything burned around him.
"Vice-Captain! What do we do?!"
The vice-captain's face didn't change. He looked once at Raphael, then out at the slaves huddled together in terror behind them. "Get them out. Now."
Another knight sprinted up, chest heaving. "Sir, we've gathered the ones still alive!"
"Then take them and run. Don't stop for anything."
The knights obeyed without question. Raphael was dragged along with them, still fighting, still twisting to look back at the fire. He turned one last time, desperate, and the vice-captain's fist came down against his skull.
Darkness
The young knight stared at his superior for a long moment, stunned by what he'd just watched him do. But there was no time left to question any of it. He gathered Raphael's limp body against him and ran into the dark.
"Hello there."
The vice-captain turned.
A woman stood in the middle of the carnage, untouched by any of it, not a drop of blood on her, not a trace of fear. Her silver hair moved slowly, almost like it had a current of its own, and her yellow eyes fixed on him with the kind of interest a predator gives something it hasn't decided whether to kill yet. A smirk curled at the corner of her mouth, mocking and utterly at ease.
Behind her stood fifteen ogres, hulking and monstrous, their green skin rippling with muscle that caught the torchlight in a way that felt wrong to look at.
The vice-captain let out a slow breath, his grip tightening around the hilt of his sword.
Lilith's smirk deepened. "Going somewhere?"
He didn't answer her. His ribs still ached from the blows he'd taken earlier, and his body felt heavier than it should, but he wasn't dead yet. And if tonight was the night he died, he intended to take as many of them down with him as he could manage.
His sword ignited, flame licking up the blade in a bright, furious burst.
"Knights don't retreat," he growled. "And I sure as hell don't plan on dying easy."
Lilith sighed, tilting her head like she found the whole thing mildly disappointing. "Tch. Can't have that."
She snapped her fingers.
The ogres charged.
The vice-captain moved to meet them.
His sword became a blur, each strike fast and precise, carrying the weight of a man who'd spent years learning exactly where to cut. He severed one ogre's leg clean at the knee, and it went down howling, clawing at the dirt. Another lunged for him, but he sidestepped at the last second and drove his flaming blade straight through its skull, the metal hissing as it split bone.
The air filled with roars and screaming, the smell of burning flesh thick enough to taste.
A third ogre swung a club the size of a tree trunk toward his ribs. He dropped low, rolling beneath the arc of it, and came up slicing clean through the beast's wrist. The severed hand hit the ground with a wet, heavy sound. The ogre screamed, blood pouring from the stump in thick waves.
Another came at him from the side. He pivoted on his heel and drove the blade straight through its chest.
Three dead.
But there were still too many of them, and he could feel his strength starting to slip.
One caught him from behind, its massive arms wrapping around his torso and squeezing. He gasped as his ribs protested, already weakened from the beating he'd taken earlier tonight.
The grip tightened further.
A crack, sharp and clear even over the noise of battle.
Pain tore through him, and he roared, swinging his sword wildly behind him. The blade found flesh and cut deep. The ogre howled, its grip loosening just enough.
He tore himself free.
He spun and opened its throat in one clean motion. A wave of dark blood sprayed across him as the beast crumpled to the ground.
Four dead.
But he was slower now, each movement costing him more than the last. The pain was dragging at him, pulling him down like something with hands of its own.
He turned to face the next threat, a beat too late.
A fist the size of a boulder slammed into his side.
The impact lifted him off his feet entirely. He crashed into the dirt hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs, the taste of blood flooding his mouth. Every limb screamed at once. His chest heaved, fighting for air that wouldn't come easy.
He tried to push himself up, but a massive foot came down on him first.
Something inside his chest gave way all at once, his ribs shattering under the weight.
He screamed, the sound raw and broken.
Lilith let out a small sigh, almost bored. "Tch. You were doing so well up until now."
The ogres stepped back at her approach, clearing a path.
The vice-captain gritted his teeth against the pain. His body wouldn't answer him anymore, wouldn't move no matter how hard he willed it.
She knelt beside him, her eyes studying his face the way a child might study a toy they'd already broken and were only now getting curious about.
"You're strong," she murmured, almost thoughtful. "But strong men all end up the same in the end. Begging."
He spat blood at her, what little strength he had left going into that one act of defiance.
She wiped it from her cheek without any real reaction, then laughed softly. "So predictable."
Then she reached down and lifted his head by the hair, exposing his chest, and before he could even process what was happening, her hand plunged straight into it.
Agony ripped through him, unlike anything he'd felt before.
His body arched violently off the ground, every vein in him burning like something had been set alight beneath his skin. He felt a pull deep inside, something being torn loose from somewhere far past flesh and bone.
Lilith's nails dug in deeper.
The vice-captain howled, his body thrashing against her grip.
His heart slammed against her fingers, frantic and desperate, while his vision started to blur at the edges, the world around him dimming into shapes and shadows.
Lilith leaned down close to his ear, her voice a soft whisper. "I love this part."
His veins darkened beneath his skin. His flesh began to shrivel where her hand touched him. His lungs burned like he'd swallowed fire.
Still, some part of him fought. Some part refused to let go, clinging to whatever was left.
Lilith's breath caught, something like pleasure crossing her face. "Ahhh. That's it. Keep struggling."
The vice-captain's scream broke apart into raw, ragged sobs, the fight draining out of him piece by piece.
Lilith shivered, her eyes half closed now. "More. Give me more."
His body convulsed, jerking and spasming beneath her hand, his limbs twitching in ways no living body should move as whatever remained of his life force came apart.
His heartbeat slowed.
His breaths grew shallow, then fainter still.
Lilith smiled.
Then his heart burst.
Blood erupted from his chest in a violent wave, splattering across Lilith's face and hair.
The air around them reeked of death, thick and metallic.
Lilith let out a slow sigh, dragging her bloodied fingers back through her hair, streaking silver with red. She rose to her feet and licked the blood from her fingertips, savoring it like something sweet.
Her yellow eyes drifted toward the direction the slaves had fled.
"Now then," she purred, a slow smile spreading across her face. "Let's go fetch the rest of them."
The ogres surged past her, charging after the retreating group.
Lilith stayed behind, watching the chaos she'd left in her wake.
The screams, to her ears, were beautiful.