Adrian hit the battlefield like a thunderbolt.
His sword blazed with white flame as he crashed into the demon line, his blade cutting through a winged creature that had been diving toward Knight-Captain Thorne's exposed back. The demon shrieked, its body split cleanly, ichor spraying across blood-soaked cobblestones.
"FORM UP!" Sir Gregor roared, his veteran experience taking command instantly. "REINFORCE THE LINE!"
Behind Adrian, Brann, Finn, and Edric surged forward, their white flames blazing, their coordination born of months training together transforming into deadly efficiency. They struck the demon flank like a hammer, turning what had been a massacre into something that resembled an actual battle.
The demons, caught suddenly between two forces, shrieked in confusion and rage.
"Thank the gods," Knight-Captain Thorne gasped, his greatsword still blazing but his movements showing the strain of sustained combat. Blood streaked his armor from a dozen wounds, his breathing labored. Around him, only three squires remained standing—three out of the ten who'd started this patrol. The rest lay broken and dead on the stones, their blood mixing with demon ichor. "Hold them! We hold together or we die!"
Adrian fought his way toward the defensive cluster where Alice and Mira stood back-to-back, the only barrier between Knight-Captain Thorne and complete annihilation. He cut down demons with brutal precision. Every movement was economical, efficient, carrying the weight of experience no fifteen-year-old squire should possess. His white flame burned steadily, never flickering, while beneath it the crimson raged against his control, demanding release, screaming to show these lesser demons what true power looked like.
Not yet. Not yet.
A demon lunged at him from the side—claws extended, jaws wide. Adrian's blade intercepted it mid-leap, his strike so fast it seemed to simply appear in the right position. The demon's momentum carried it onto his sword, impaling itself through the chest. Adrian wrenched the blade free and kicked the corpse aside in one fluid motion, already turning to the next threat.
"Brann, left flank!" he called out, his voice carrying command that made his squadmates respond without thinking.
Brann pivoted, his heavier sword smashing through a demon's guard with sheer force. Finn flowed into the opening Brann created, his blade finding weak points with surgical precision. Edric, still pale but fighting through fear, covered their backs with quick, defensive strikes.
They moved like parts of a single weapon, and demons fell before them.
Alice's eyes tracked Adrian's movements with growing astonishment even as she fought for her life.
She'd seen skilled fighters before—gods knew her own training had been overseen by masters who'd forgotten more about swordwork than most knights would ever learn. But this boy, this squire, fought with a maturity and precision that defied his age.
His blade seemed to know where demons would be before they arrived. His positioning was perfect, his strikes economical, his white flame steady as starlight. And around him, his squad fought with confidence clearly drawn from his presence.
"Who is that?" she breathed, parrying another demon's strike, her arms screaming with exhaustion.
"Adrian Blackthorn," Mira replied, her silver braid whipping as she cut down another attacker. Her eyes never left him, calculating, assessing. "Border-born. The one who saved Knight-Captain Voss from a troll."
Alice's eyebrows rose even as she blocked another claw strike. The stories about that incident had spread through the squire barracks, though details remained vague. "That was him?"
"Focus," Mira said sharply, though her own attention kept flickering back to Adrian. "We can discuss later. If we survive."
Around them, the three surviving squires from Alice's patrol fought with the desperation of people who'd watched their friends die. One—Marcus, his armor rent and bloodied—sobbed as he stabbed at a demon, grief and fear warring on his face. Another, a girl named Sara, moved mechanically, her eyes distant with shock. The third, a boy whose name Alice couldn't remember through the haze of exhaustion, simply fought in grim silence.
They were breaking. All of them. Only Mira and Knight-Captain Thorne held firm, and even they showed the strain of impossible odds.
The battle's momentum shifted dramatically with the arrival of reinforcements.
What had been a desperate last stand became something that resembled a coordinated defense. Knight-Captain Thorne rallied what remained of his patrol around him, his veteran presence an anchor of stability even through exhaustion and wounds. Sir Gregor positioned Adrian's squad to fill the catastrophic gaps in the formation, his tactical eye reading the battlefield with decades of experience.
"Defensive circle!" Thorne commanded, his voice hoarse but still carrying authority. "Protect each other! Don't let them separate us!"
The eight remaining fighters from both patrols—four from Adrian's squad, three survivors from Alice's, plus Alice herself—formed a tight defensive formation around the two knights. Their blades blazed with white spirit flame, creating a ring of steel and light against the demon horde.
It was pitifully small compared to the fourteen squires who'd started this mission. But it was enough to make the demons reconsider their easy victory.
Adrian found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Alice, their swords rising and falling in synchronized strikes against a particularly large demon that refused to go down.
"Left high!" Alice called, her voice steady despite the blood loss from her side wound.
Adrian's blade snapped up, catching claws that would have torn through her guard. Their white flames met in a flash of light, the combined power driving the demon back a step.
"Right low!" Adrian responded.
Alice's sword cut beneath the demon's guard, hamstringing it. It fell, and Mira finished it with a precise thrust through its skull.
For just a heartbeat, Alice and Adrian's eyes met. Recognition flickered—the alley, months ago, a brief encounter neither had forgotten.
"Thank you," Alice said simply.
"Stay alive," Adrian replied, already turning to the next threat.
The demon numbers were thinning.
Bodies littered the road—mostly demons now, their ichor mixing with the blood of far too many fallen squires. Seven dead from Alice's patrol, their bodies broken and discarded like trash. The survivors fought with renewed vigor despite exhaustion, sensing victory within reach, their spirit flames burning brighter as hope replaced despair.
Knight-Captain Thorne's greatsword carved through two demons at once, his massive strength still devastating despite exhaustion and wounds that would have killed a lesser man. "PUSH! Drive them back!"
Brann roared, his sword smashing through a demon's wing, sending it crashing to the ground where Marcus finished it with a vengeful strike. Finn's blade flashed in precise arcs, each strike finding vital points with uncanny accuracy. Edric, fighting past his fear, actually managed a killing blow that made him gasp with surprised pride.
The demons' shrieks turned from aggressive to desperate. They began to retreat, their coordination breaking down as survival instinct overcame whatever compulsion had driven them.
Adrian cut down a fleeing demon, his movements never slowing, never faltering. His white flame blazed bright, and only he could feel the crimson beneath it straining harder with every demon he killed, the scent of demonic blood pushing his control to its absolute limits.
The last winged demon fell to Sir Gregor's blade, its body crashing beside the destroyed wagon.
Silence descended over the battlefield.
For a moment, no one moved. The eight surviving squires stood in their defensive formation, blades raised, breathing hard, unable to quite believe it was over.
Marcus collapsed to his knees, finally letting grief overwhelm him. Sara stood frozen, staring at nothing. The other survivor from Alice's squad simply sat down heavily, too exhausted to remain standing.
Then Brann—always Brann—let out a shaky, disbelieving laugh. "We... we did it. Gods, we actually did it."
The laughter spread among Adrian's squad, relief flooding through them. They'd arrived in time. They'd turned the tide. They'd survived.
"ARATHOR!" Edric shouted, his voice cracking.
"ARATHOR!" Brann and Finn echoed, the cry tinged with exhausted triumph.
But Adrian did not cheer.
His instincts, honed by three hundred years of warfare, screamed warnings. His gray eyes swept the carnage—the dead demons, the destroyed wagon, the blood-soaked stones. He counted bodies, assessed threats, searched for...
"Where is he?" Alice's voice cut through the scattered celebration, sharp and cold.
The noise died. Heads turned toward her.
"The merchant," Alice said, her blue eyes scanning the battlefield with the same tactical precision Adrian had employed. "The demon who transformed first. Where is his body?"
Mira's face went pale. "He never fought. He just... watched."
The last remnants of celebration died completely as realization spread. The architect of this ambush, the demon who'd orchestrated everything, was nowhere among the dead.
"Find him!" Knight-Captain Thorne commanded, his exhaustion forgotten in sudden alarm. "Search the—"
Laughter rolled across the battlefield like thunder.
It came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing off trees, seeming to emanate from the shadows themselves. Deep, layered, carrying harmonics that made mortal flesh crawl with instinctive revulsion.
"Did you think that was all?"
The voice was wrong—multiple tones speaking as one, each word carrying weight that pressed on their minds like physical force.
From the darkness between trees, a figure emerged.
The merchant was gone, replaced by something far worse. The demon stood nearly seven feet tall, its ash-gray skin marked with glowing runes that pulsed with infernal power. Curved horns crowned its head, catching moonlight and throwing it back as crimson gleams. Its eyes burned with hellfire, and its smile revealed too many teeth, each one sharp as a blade.
Power radiated from it in waves that made the air itself feel heavy, oppressive, wrong. This was no lesser demon, no mindless beast. This was a demon noble—intelligent, powerful, ancient.
The eight surviving squires stumbled back, their earlier triumph turning to ash in their mouths. They'd barely survived the lesser demons. Now this.
Knight-Captain Thorne's face went pale, but his jaw set with grim determination. "A noble..." he breathed, and Adrian heard both fear and resolve in his voice. Fear born of knowledge, of having faced such creatures before. Resolve born of duty, of refusing to yield even knowing the cost.
The demon noble's burning gaze swept across the survivors, lingering on each face, savoring their terror. Then his eyes fixed on Alice, and his smile widened.
"Princess," he purred, the word dripping with malice and dark satisfaction.
Gasps rippled through the survivors. Marcus's head snapped up, shock cutting through grief. Sara's eyes widened. Even Adrian's squadmates turned to stare at Alice with confusion and disbelief.
Alice's jaw tightened, her knuckles white on her sword hilt, but she said nothing. Her secret—the thing she'd guarded so carefully, the identity she'd hidden beneath armor and discipline—lay bare.
"Did you truly believe we wouldn't know?" the demon continued, taking a slow step forward. The ground beneath his feet seemed to blacken, grass withering at his presence. "The king's precious daughter, playing at being a common squire? Your disguise fools mortals, perhaps. But we see deeper. We see the blood that marks you as royal, as valuable, as delicious."
Another step. Another. Each one deliberate, calculated to build terror.
"Tonight, Arathor loses its hope. Tonight, the princess dies on this forgotten road, bleeding out in the mud with her common protectors. Seven of your patrol already dead—shall we make it an even ten? And tomorrow, the kingdom learns that not even royal blood can stand against the darkness that rises."
He spread his arms wide, and the shadows around him deepened, seeming to reach toward the squires like grasping hands.
"Come then, little warriors. You're exhausted, wounded, broken. And I am fresh, powerful, eager. Show me how you die."
Knight-Captain Thorne stepped forward, planting himself between the demon and the squires. His white flame flickered, wavered—then erupted into brilliant blue spirit fire, the manifestation of his true nature as a knight who struck with speed and precision. The transformation was like lightning made solid, crackling along his greatsword with barely contained energy.
"Get them out of here," Thorne commanded, not taking his eyes off the demon. His voice was steady despite the exhaustion, despite the wounds. "Gregor, take the princess and run. That's an order."
"Sir—" Gregor started.
"NOW!"
But before anyone could move, Thorne charged.
His blue flame blazed like captured sky as he closed the distance in a blur of speed. His greatsword struck with the precision of a master, three decades of experience compressed into devastating strikes. The blade moved faster than most eyes could follow, creating a web of blue fire that should have overwhelmed any opponent.
The demon noble laughed and met him blow for blow.
Their weapons clashed with sounds like thunder, blue spirit flame washing against demonic claws that glowed with infernal power. Thorne's speed was incredible—his blade seemed to be in three places at once, each strike precise, each movement economical. But the demon matched him, its reflexes inhuman, its strength overwhelming.
"Impressive!" the demon crowed, genuine delight in its voice. "You actually have skill, knight! Not just power, but art! This will be entertaining!"
Thorne didn't waste breath responding. He pressed harder, his blue flame burning brighter, his strikes faster. He cut high, low, reversed his grip and struck from an impossible angle. His footwork was flawless, his technique perfect.
And for a moment—just a moment—he seemed to be winning. His blade scored a hit across the demon's chest, drawing black blood. Then another across its arm.
"YES!" the demon roared, not in pain but in joy. "Make me work for it!"
Sir Gregor couldn't stand by. With a roar of his own, he charged, his blade erupting in green spirit fire—the color of endurance and protection, of knights who stood and refused to fall. His strikes were powerful, defensive, each one meant to create openings for Thorne.
"Together!" Gregor shouted.
The two knights fought as one, their blue and green flames interweaving like a deadly dance. Thorne struck with lightning speed, Gregor covered his openings with immovable defense. They'd fought together before, trained together, their coordination born of years of partnership.
And for several long moments, they actually held their own.
The demon noble was forced back a step. Then another. Its laughter continued but its strikes grew more serious, its playfulness fading into genuine combat.
"Perhaps I underestimated you mortals," it admitted, blocking Thorne's strike and countering Gregor's follow-up. "You have spirit. Pity it won't save you."
It moved faster.
Suddenly the demon wasn't defending—it was attacking. Its claws became blurs of motion, each strike carrying enough force to shatter stone. Thorne's blue flame flared as he desperately parried, his speed pushed to absolute limits. Gregor's green flame blazed as he took hits meant for his partner, his endurance allowing him to weather blows that would have killed others.
But they were already exhausted. Already wounded. Already pushed beyond normal limits.
The demon's claw caught Thorne's blade and twisted. The greatsword flew from his grip, spinning away into the darkness. Before Thorne could react, another claw plunged through his chest, bursting through his back in a spray of blood.
"NO!" Gregor roared.
The demon lifted Thorne off the ground with casual strength, the knight's blood running down its arm. Thorne gasped, coughing blood, his blue flame guttering. His eyes found Alice in the crowd of horrified squires.
"Run..." he whispered. "Princess... run..."
The demon threw him aside like trash. Thorne's body hit the ground and didn't move, his blue flame dying to nothing, his eyes staring sightlessly at the stars.
Gregor screamed in rage and grief, his green flame exploding to blinding brightness. He charged with everything he had left, his strikes no longer measured but desperate, fueled by emotion rather than technique.
The demon caught his blade one-handed.
"You fought well," it said, almost gently. "Both of you. That's worth something."
Then its other hand drove through Gregor's throat.
The knight's green flame sputtered and died. Blood poured from his mouth as he tried to speak, tried to give one last command, one last warning. But only bubbles came out.
The demon released him, and Gregor collapsed beside his captain, his hand reaching out toward Thorne even as life left his eyes.
Two knights. Two true colors. Decades of experience and proven valor.
Dead in minutes.
The demon turned toward the squires, its claws dripping with the blood of heroes. Its smile promised that they would be next.
"Now then," it said softly, taking a step forward. "Where were we? Ah yes. The princess."
The eight surviving squires stood frozen in horror, their white flames flickering like candles in the wind. They'd just watched two veteran knights with true spirit colors fall like children before this monster.
What chance did they have?
Adrian's grip tightened on his sword until his knuckles showed white. The crimson flame beneath his carefully maintained white exterior screamed, demanding release, raging at him for letting comrades die when he could have saved them, when he could have revealed what he was and ended this creature with ease.
But to do so would reveal everything. Would end his mission. Would mark him as demon prince rather than human squire.
The demon noble stepped over the bodies of the fallen knights, its burning eyes fixed on Alice.
"Come, princess. Time to fulfill your destiny. Time to die."
And it charged toward the remaining squires, toward Alice, toward slaughter.