Fickle are the spirits of the damned dark. They obey none, serve none, but devour all when comes the time. By birthright and the deeds of the High Moon, men are friends with nature and of all things that live under the sun’s blessing. But darkness shares no kinship with men. It seeks only to dominate and conquer.

Here in the depth, stronger was it than ever.

With a last heave of light, darkness filled the world. But what Hector’s prayer had invoked were no simple lightless state. The darkness brought with it things — fell things. Ghastly sensation engulfed all empty space in the room. The air thickened. The feeling as if someone, or something was there behind one’s back, approaching, heaving. And frosty cold seemed to have invaded their spines.

In the dark, a ranger has many advantages. He could hear every movement, sense each change in the air. His eyes also adjusted easier to the change of lightness. So the dark was thinner for Hector: he could see shapes faintly in the dark, though those shapes were only as visible as colorless winds.

None could tell how long this darkness would linger, so Hector was quick to his feet. He could sense Fahlecain, the man was sniffing with his keen nose, and he held his sword naked before him. There were hints of fear from the murderer too. After all, not even Hector had expected the darkness he had conjured from such a simple prayer would be so potent.

He hacked. Shortly before Hector could split his foe’s head in two, Fahlecain sensed the strike and parried with his sword. Now that Hector was close and had made a move, Fahlecain could sense his foe’s location, and knew where to strike back.

Fahlecain swept Hector’s sword away and thrust, but his strike was blocked by the ethereal buckler. He kept on pressing. A strike to the left. A strike to the right.

Hector’s buckler intercepted the attack once, twice, then he too lunged his sword ahead, drilling under Fahlecain’s guarding stance. But the man evaded with a sidestep.

Now Fahlecain was on Hector’s left, and he slashed at the ethereal buckler heavily. The magical form shattered. Then again he repeated the slash, which met Hector’s sword with a loud metallic noise. He pushed, and drove Hector a few steps back.

Then Fahlecain wasted no time and plunged in to exploit Hector’s guardless stance. He rushed forward. But abruptly, he was halted, the sound of something sprang through the air ringing in his ears, but he recognized it only too late. Pain and blood. Something sharp had penetrated his forehead. He collapsed wide-eyed and then saw nothing more, not even darkness.

Hector’s wild breathes ran out of control as soon as he stopped holding it, and had to stand still for a second to catch up with it. He stooped down to feel Fahlecain’s head, confirmed his demise: a broken forehead and a shaft protruding from the wound. Only then did he nocked another bolt on his crossbow, and holding his sword in the other hand, he rose to scan the pitch-black room with his senses.

There was complete silence. It wasn’t an effect of the supernatural darkness. Everything had gone still for some reason when he was busy dealing with Fahlecain.

The wailing had gone quiet, and so was the captain. But he couldn’t have left. Not after Hector had done killing another knight in direct opposition to his order, and to save a cambion nonetheless. Hector doubted the man had left, or fled. As a knight captain, a brutal one at that, killing a mere ranger was within his ability.

There were presences. Of whom, Hector could not tell. But at times he felt as if surrounded by a crowd of shapeless beings, at others, it was barren emptiness except for some faint heartbeats. He realized that his senses were being deceived. Darkness lies and perverts the truth.

Suddenly a great light flooded the room. There roaring in the middle of the room a fire. The table was burning, all corners were lit. Standing on the other side of the table was Sullivan. He looked exhausted, his face full of sweat and colored in a sickly pallor. The man had called for fire, in exchange for a great amount of his energy.

Hector took aim with no delay. The bolt flew true and sharp, but Sullivan had not the mind to dodge it. He charged, ignoring the bolt that struck his left shoulder heavily. Weapon in hand, he stepped on the bench, then the table, and charged across the roaring fire. His energy was almost exhausted, but he clearly was intending to make the most of what was left.

He knew it was futile, but Hector lifted his arm nonetheless, and attempted to parry in vain. Sullivan struck with a might to sunder rocks, and shattered the blocking sword it did. Hector felt it went down his shoulder, then further down. The immeasurable pain.

His life flashed by Hector’s eyes. He saw memories he ever held dear.

The summer dense light and stuffy air but his feet were light on the grass, beside him were his siblings in their children age.

He saw moments of glory, of pride, when one by one, his siblings became knights in shining armors.

He heard the wind whispered as they answered his first prayer.

A long forgotten day when alone he was deep in the forest, though lonely he was not.

Then the day he received the title of a knight.

The day after too, when along with his dear childhood friend Eva, and Roland who was a newfound brother.

Not all were pleasant. He saw faces of those he had killed. No matter they were evil men or demonic beings, their dying faces bear strangely similar expressions. Each one haunted him. Down to the last, they flashed by his eyes. The old cambion grandma. The little girl he failed to save. The painful face of the girl he would also fail to protect.

Death was coming. What might death be? Death? Would that be all? No, all but death. He would not die. Her face engraved too strongly in his mind, the girl in terror of murderous men, the girl whose family they had killed. Her family Hector had killed.

Bring me death then! He cried and his mind echoed with desperate demands! Bring darkness over my eyes. But not before I have saved this one. This very one. She whom I have wronged. That I must atone. All my life I shall give, but before my ultimate end, let me atone my sin! Let me trade my life for hers!

His eyes opened wide. In them, Sullivan could see madness. It was the madness of a raw beast. No man was he. Only a few times in his life, Sullivan had feared. This time, he could feel dread settling in.

Hector struck with a dagger drawn from his belt. His entire right side was disabled, but with his left hand, he stabbed Sullivan’s sturdy armor. The impact numbed his hand, but Hector’s body whole had long gone numb. He stabbed and kicked with the vigor of a demon, forcing Sullivan to draw his greatsword from Hector’s side and backed away.

Before Sullivan, Hector stood limping. He was full of blood, his own and of others. His left hand armed with a bent dagger. His eyes were filled with hatred and despair.

The captain shook his head in disapproval, then with superhuman speed, he slashed horizontally at Hector.

Even in his craze, Hector’s reflex still pulled him away. He jerked his body back to evade. But as he couldn’t feel the pain anymore, so was his body beyond its limit. He collapsed, lay on his back. Blood gushed from his throat.

The battle ended.

Hector felt cold. He knew death was coming for him.

Still laying, he opened his eyes for what should be his last time. There he saw a sight he least expected. He saw that there was the cambion girl. She was hiding by the burning table. He could recognize the terror that plagued her eyes. But there was something else. Was it pain? Sorrow? Her red hair flowed down her shoulder in shambles. Scarlet of course were her eyes. But blood also covered half of her face, perhaps a wound inflicted by Fahlecain when he threw her to the side to kill her little sister.

Ah, right, what in her eyes was emptiness, Hector realized. The sum of fear, of loss, of loneliness, of despair, of a creature that has no more future.

She kept looking at Hector through those empty windows.

Forgive me, pledged Hector’s look.

But clearly, without saying a word, and loudly since she was sitting next to him, the girl conveyed her hatred with an indignant look. I shall never forgive you, her eyes said. She wished them all death. With such emptiness, she did not wish to live. She cared least for her own life or future. But she wished death for those who had killed her dear family. She wanted to see Hector dead, see Sullivan dead, see all knights who’ve ever walked the earth dead.

Fine, Hector chuckled and spat out some blood. I’m dying soon for your pleasure, but… He began to beg with words using his trembling lips, his eyes spoke for unclear words, “You must live... … No, please live. Just let me save you, protect you.”

He did not know why he begged her. She could not help even herself. She held no power in her. Her life was as doomed as his. She knew it too. She knew it too well.

“Then kill him,” said the girl. Her voice sounded hollow, without weight, but it trembled with intense emotions. And she bent over him, grabbing his face and in her cold hands. “Kill him. Give him death. Kill him. I shall live if you thus kill. Kill him! Kill that man! Kill!” She spoke faster and faster, and near the end, screaming with her face right above his. “Kill!”

Hector only realized he was crying when the girl’s tears fell and mixed with his own. Her tears were all streaming down his face. Her blood too. Each heavy drop dripped and mixed with the tears flooding his face and soaking his fatal wound.

Upon them, captain Sullivan stood looming like a mountain. His face expressed disgust in the sight of a traitor and a cambion.

“Die,” the captain gritted through his teeth.

At the sound of his voice, the girl jolted herself abruptly. She raised her face to see the large man and his fitting sized sword pointing down. Hector couldn’t tell if it was a reflex to danger or the accumulation of all hatred and desperation, but she sprang up like a wildcat at its prey. Only her speed was far inferior, and not sufficient to catch Sullivan off guard.

The man met her with a merciless kick.

Turning his head, Hector followed the girl as she crashed against the cabinet the old cambion woman was hiding before. She slumped to the ground. There she lay like a lifeless doll. But not for long. Her limbs went into a constant convulsion. She convulsed hard, thrashing herself against the ground, and the cabinets behind her.

At first, Sullivan paid her no heed. But before long, he realized her spasm wasn’t caused by his kick alone. His eyes widened as the fact dawned on.

“The wench’s turning!” he muttered and charged towards her. The very moment before his sword swung down, she stopped convulsed. Still on the floor, she kicked the ground in a strange posture and pushed her body away from harm.

Suddenly, Hector saw himself crawling to his feet. Blood still streamed from his throat, but he felt the pain no more, save for the wetness about his chest and his neck. The wound Sullivan’d inflicted on his shoulder seemed nonexistent. But unlike to pains, he could feel the dagger in his hand, could even smell the steel blade.

The captain was cornering the demon. He stared hard at her eyes for the final blow, and saw by the flickering light of the fire, her violet eyes. At the last moment, however, she slashed keenly with her hand and almost grazed the man’s face. With that momentum, she pressed on, slashed and slashed with her thin hand, though the weight of each attack told otherwise of their strength. The frenzy drove Sullivan back. To gain a firmer footing, he stumbled backwards to put some distance between him and the newborn demon. His greatsword could easily cover that space with a swept. But it never had the chance to do so.

Hector thrust. His dagger sank deep in the back of the captain necks. Blood spurted out. His weight twisted the dagger from Hector’s hand. Then knife, sword and all, captain Sullivan crumbled, now a twitching corpse.

He stared at his hands in astonishment. Why? To save a demon? What vile force had commanded these bloody hands for such evil deeds? At the last moment had he gone mad? He should have given up after the girl he tried to save turned into a demon.

So this is how it ended, he lamented the truth, dreadful truth. Sullivan was dead and so was Fahlecain. Through his traitorous actions, Hector had killed two of his comrades, only to save a girl. The very girl now standing before him as a demon. One that would from now on murder many more men.

Hector found that he was on his knee. His dagger he threw at the demon’s feet.

“I have no more use for it,” he said. With surprising ease was his speaking, while moments ago it was such a tremendous task. “Kill me now, demon. I fear it is not in me to fight you after what I’ve done. I see now,” he chuckled bitterly at the sight of the demon standing and eyeing him back, “death isn’t the worst punishment after all.”

So there she stood still, but Hector could not look anymore. His gazed cast to the ground where ghastly shapes danced. Suddenly a will came over him, and he felt compelled to raise his head, so that he saw the demon girl approaching.

Shadows danced behind her on a wall of redness. The fire still burned strongly and the heat was now unbearable. Everything he saw was in the shades of red and black, as if blood had covered his eyes. But the girl alone seemed unaffected by this color filter. Bright light did not touch her but nor did the dark. From her a strange light emitted. Though she was lithe and frail before, now she stood straight, tall and looming over kneeling Hector. As he gazed upon her face, the name echoed his mind: Joanna. Joanna, Joanna, Joanna… the name he protected. A demon she was, but Joanna was also her name.

As the name reverberated his mind, he could think of nothing else. Soon it slipped from his parting lips, and he spoke like chanting. Joanna. Joanna. Joanna. Joanna.

What are you to me? He asked silently.

Her eyes were violet. Deep it was, the vaguest shade of a dream, and he found that strange color flooding his mind. Not red, he realized. But what of it he did not know. Only that her eyes were violet, and her name Joanna.

“Joanna…” he stopped his chanting words, and said clearly at last as emotions built up in him, “will you not kill me? What is there to delay the deed? Joanna, am I not your worst enemy?”

“Death?” she spoke at last. Her voice came out strangely, faint and without edges.

“A thing so merciful as death? Had you mercy? Had you pity when you first came in here? What you brought was hell. Hell you gave us. Now mercy in death you ask of me?” sobbing sounds softened her words.

“No. I cannot give you death,” she continued, “I shall not. I have this idea when I saw you killing those men,” now she was close to him and looked into him wildly as trembling words came out between her gritting teeth. “Death is too great a mercy… So live! Live you shall. Live as a known murderer. A murderer you are, a traitor. Murder your father and your mother, your brothers and your sisters, your friends and all people you have sworn to protect. Just the way you… took away all of mine!”

She shook her head and dangling them as if in an intense headache. When she spoke again, it was in wails, like echoing curses from a terrible ghost. “I hate you forever! I hope you will live a life worse than a thousand deaths! Then you may know mine!”

She stumbled to the ground, and on her knees, face to face with Hector. She grabbed his speechless face in her hands, and drew it near.

“Don’t look at me like that. As if I’m cruel,” she said, hissing now, “it is only a little thing! A tiny tiny little thing for revenge! You don’t know my pain, don’t you? I cannot bear it, I don’t think anyone can. So I do not care what you think. I can never forgive you, and you can never forgive me.”

When she’d spoken her piece and Hector was locked in her gripping hands, he began to tremble. What was she? What kind of demon was this? Why was she speaking like a human? Or a cambion before turning? But speaking she was. Her eyes too, what a strange shade of violet! Joanna. Joanna, what are you?

The dark around grew, grew greater. The scorching fire faded as if a cloud had come all over, its crackling dimmed by a hollow noise, which filled the chamber. All he could hear was Joanna’s voice and her face alone glimmered in the dark.

Soon, the changes crawled from the deep of his heart. It spread. A dull, cold sensation in his chest and then his stomach, his limbs. Where it went, heat died and flesh numbed. He could still feel but feel in strange ways, as if suffering a cold. It lasted until his face was reached, then together, escaped out of his mouth in the form of black smoke. It curled and rose and blended into the encompassing darkness.

A feeling of loss came over Hector; of something he never knew was in his possession. There on his knees, he stared blankly.

Joanna was not there anymore. Having done speaking, the strength instilled in her by the turning had all but exhausted. She dragged her feet away to where her little sister lay. There she saw the corpse and nearby two others of the old cambions. Again grief came over her and her legs gave out. She held the girl in her arms, and tainting herself with the still-wet blood she wept silently.