She could not run; she could not flee. No matter what the voices spoke, that road had been burned behind her. She could only stand now. She could only and fight, even as the demons were burning her shadows to smoke and ash. She could only fight, even as she forgot what she was fighting for. She could only fight, even as the world ravaged her spirit and she began to unravel. The dark god’s trappings around her were no longer strong enough to bind her together, not after the abuse that she had been put through. Atal’s strength around her was waning even as her concentration began to slip, the very ropes that clung to for existence now slowly slipping out of her grasp.

So then this will be my final stand, so be it. As long as those damned demons burn alongside me. Her thoughts were flickering and intermittent, struggling to be cohesive when her consciousness itself began to grow fuzzy. She was drowning in a river, struggling to hold onto the rocks that rose out of the rapids. Over and over she repeated those words to herself, knowing that she would forget them otherwise. Over and over she repeated that sole thought to herself, that if she was to forget all else, at least she would remember that final thought. Kill the demons. At any cost.

Do not be a fool, the voices echoed over and over, panicked in her mind. Your death is not worth so little! You can still flee; you can still live! They spoke with a thousand tongues, as if she were standing alone in some cavernous cave, hearing her own voice a hundred times over. Yet their pestering grew fainter and fainter, not from less force on their part, but from her own spirit beginning to disperse. Ever distant, their pleading became little more than plaintive cries, inaudible through her concentration, a fleeting footnote.

She could feel the heartbeat of the skal’mo in the back of her mind, panicked and laborious even as her child was burnt by demonfire. Even now, she began to stutter, began to slow. Death, she knew, was coming quick to claim her child, and she could feel its pain as her own. Black shadow was burnt to ash and smoke, spiraling into the sky and filling the air with the acrid scent of char. Those hellish flames only burned ever brighter as time wore on, despite the skal’mo writhing about in a panicked effort.

Hurriedly, she had the shadow retreat, that cloud of black pulling back and condensing into a dense body once more. Yet even now, what damage had been done was evident—where before the skal’mo reached above the clouds, it was now perhaps only half that height. Flame and embers clung to that black mist, still visible through the pluming shadow.

Yet as she commanded the skal’mo to sink into the earth, those tongues of red and white were quick to gutter out. Her child retreated back into the shadows, voluminous black mist rolling back into a depthless surface. In the span of three heartbeats, that monstrous figure had retreated into nothing, only coiling wisps of smoke from those former fires, trickling off the occasional shadow on the ground.

Those demons threw their gazes around in confusion, their foe disappearing from underneath their fangs. With flames scorching their lungs and bloodlust in their heads, they clawed at the ground in panic and anger, letting out wailing roars and mocking shouts in some hope of drawing the skal’mo back out. Those with wings prompting beat clouds of dust off the ground as they rose into the air, circling about in the sky in the hopes of finding their prey once more. Such a search could only end in failure, their prying eyes finding nothing but empty mud and cracked earth beneath them.

Even their king seemed unable to find the skal’mo its gaze instead turning to where she flew. Those mismatched eyes fixated on her, on her formless body that floated above in the air. A chill of fear ran through her, felt even through the pounding pain of the world. She could only remind herself that there was nothing the demon could do to her, that she was safe in the sky, with the dark god’s blessing around her. And so she returned the demon’s gaze, sending her will surging down to her child, who lay in wait.

That brief peace, the fragile silence, the tense uncertainty that had claimed the battle was suddenly shattered with a soundless roar. In an instant, their own shadows beneath the demons suddenly burst open with roiling black smoke. The skal’mo surged out of the ground, shapeless as it surrounded ten of the demons in the middle of its gaping maw. Those shadowed jaws snapped shut, too fast for any reaction from the others, swiftly claiming the hapless few that were caught inside. Their flames were useless inside of its shadowy body, without the air it needed to burn. And as their fire slowly petered, the shadow claimed them, turning their flesh and metal into shattered ice and dust. Like some predator diving out of the water, like some lurking stalker, the skal’mo swiftly sank back into the ground that it had came out of.

The entire attack had spanned perhaps ten heartbeats at most, and the demons had been too disoriented to respond, had been too surprised to do anything. And so ten of their brothers had died for nothing, plucked like ripe berries from some overhanging branch. And so her child lay in wait, its presence hidden in every shadow under their feet.

The demons were thrown into a panic then, their flames slowly dying away as they fought to breathe. They turned to their king for leadership, turned towards those few without armor, yet no answers came. Enraged, a few turned on each other, butting skulls and swiping like maddened beasts. So swiftly did their ranks fall into disorder, so swiftly did their discipline flee—these were no soldiers. They were animals; they would never hold their own against a stronger foe the way the legions could, the way that men could.

Yet a sudden spike of pain surged through her mind, as if a nail had been hammered through her temples to tear through her thoughts. She could feel her strength failing her, Atal’s blessing no longer shielding her as she needed. The wind was like a razor to her thoughts, cutting away at them wildly. Those white ribbons were being shredded, her spirit struggling to even hold together. Where at the ends she was fraying, the decay only continued to spread. Her life, she could tell, was to be measured in minutes now, if not seconds. Such panic drove her to the brink of madness, pain and confusion driving all focus out of her mind. Yet as she fought the decay in her mind, she clutched onto that one thought, that she would see the demons dead before her.

Again! She called out to her child, its quiet strength waiting for her command, and again it ripped out of the ground. Catching five of the fliers in its gaping maw, they were torn apart and turned to ash by chilling shadow. The other demons whipped around in an instant, flames jumping to their claws as they swiped at the mist around them. The king conjured fire once more, a torrent of white flame shooting from its claws towards her child, but the skal’mo fell back into the earth too quickly. Only the lightning from the pale-skinned demon was able to strike the center of her child, burning a hole through black shadow.

Yet their attack were not enough to stop the skal’mo, its monstrous form sinking back into the ground. The licks of flame that still clung to oily shadow guttered out as her child once more went into hiding. And so once more she had claimed more of the demons at little cost to her own, and yet her frustration only grew. Continuing like this, surely the battle would be won, and yet she could not continue this way. In minutes, she would be dead. In minutes, she would be torn apart by the wind, scattered throughout the world to break apart into dust.

She did not have minutes to lurk like a coward, picking off the demons in tens and twos. She did not have minutes to drag this fight on, did not have minutes to spare. Her frustration swelled like a wave inside of her, building momentum even as it grew. That frustration morphed into desperation, a tide that crashed over her, drowning her with its weight. That desperation drove her to throw in all in a final lunge, even as the demons danced nervously on their toes like startled deer.

The king—their king—it was the only thing keeping their number together. Kill it, tear it apart, and they would butcher themselves for her. Aye, these creatures were no legion, standing under Swords and Shields. They were animals, and this was merely a pack. Kill their alpha, and their would all kill each other trying to take that place. And so her fuzzy gaze turned once more to the king, straining to make it out even as her gaze blackened and flickered.

She was waiting, stretching out this nervous tension. The demons were anticipating the skal’mo as well, even if they could do little but die in its grasp. That nervous tension frayed their concentration, and she was waiting for their ropes to be pressured to the edge of breaking. She was waiting, waiting for the winds to sway to her favor. And then she could wait no longer.

NOW! Her will, her desperation, all of it was poured into that single thought. She could not recall her name any longer. She could not recall why she was fighting, for the decay had already claimed her mind. She could only see that final goal through, and so she poured all that she was into that thought. Her child responded in kind, a surging wave of black shadow that leaped out of the ground. A hundred maws opened in that formless beast, a thousand teeth borne on a wave of chilling mist, and all of it was flying directly at that lone figure on the cracked earth. Hope and desperation culminated into a lone spark in her heart, that she might see the demon rendered into dust.

And yet that spark was quickly snuffed out, for the demon king channeled raw fire from its claws to meet the skal’mo. That torrent of flame split the shadow down the middle, burning through the mist and even catching some of the other demons on the fringes. Her child continued regardless, either side of the shadow still trying to kill the king. Just a single touch, she thought desperately. It was all that she needed, just for a single fang of the skal’mo to touch.

So close, and yet still it eluded her. She could only watch as two of the demons near that king swiftly crumpled to the ground, purple ribbons flying out of their mouths and eyes to wrap around the king’s arms. That magic only further augmented its fire, which was no longer a single stream but now flared out into a cone, into a fan of fire that shot out almost like a wall. Her skal’mo had no hope of passing, bearing the full brunt of that raging inferno. Ash and smoke filled the air, even as the ground was filled with twitching shadow.

She could only watch as her child died, melting away under that hellfire. She could only watch as her hope died with it, that single spark being stamped out. The wind tore at her, and she no longer had the strength to resist. She fell towards the ground, the dark god’s presence around her being torn away like wings being plucked from her back. She could not hear the screaming of the voices in her head, distant and faint. She could hear her own thought, repeated over and over in mockery.

She had failed.