Tales of Death´s Daughter

“I believe here is a great place to camp.” Luna said, pointing towards a hill in the distance. The flowery grass was moving around us thanks to the gentle, but also smelling wind. It was very salty, something I never smelled before as the waters in the archipelago world were completely devoid of any of such substances.

We didn’t camp on the hill though, but rather on its slope without igniting any fire. The reason for that was obvious as soon as I and Luna crawled on its top. Kilometres away from us, we saw the once prosperous merchant town on a thin peninsula with a strangely clean castle on a hill further away which directly ended in a cliff. Other than this castle which was brightly lit, there weren’t any signs anywhere.

“Is that an open invitation?” Luna asked concerned. I had expected a few more guards as well, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Even with my vampiric vision, I still couldn’t spot any movement in the streets which was just odd.

“I’m not sure. Maybe we should knock?” I proposed to mask my own nervousness. There could only be two reasons for this strange sight. Either they didn’t see the need to gather an army, or they weren’t here anymore.

“You are having strange ideas. Let’s go back.” She said and robbed backwards until she stood up to walk towards the camp which was more of a collection of men and women resting back to back.

“Okay what are we going to do, Lucy?” Luna asked quietly in front of all our troops.

“The stage is all yours.” I said loudly enough for the first row to hear it.

“Really?” Yes, really. I even sidestepped a little to make place for her.

“Yeah. I have faith in you.” I explained which drew a happy smile on her face.

“Okay. Then … tomorrow will be a hard fight, that’s for sure. As we have to stay clear of the shores at all costs because of the demons in the waters, we will need to fight through the streets.” Suddenly, the few nocturnal birds around us got quiet at the same time as if they all held their breath for what Luna wanted to say next. “Dangers could lurk at every place there, so it is better if we stay close together. Then, when we have reached the castle, the saint along with the heroes will enter the building as long as we have slain at least one demon general on the way. If not, we will all enter.” Strolling back over to her, I quickly closed my eyes and listened to every sound in the surroundings while Luna still talked. “Our sole goal is to slay the demon king everything else including our survival is secondary.” Wow, that was harsh. But everyone understood the reality anyways, so there wasn’t any complaining.  “That’s all th-“ Whoever was watching us from behind, he sure was quiet. What gave him away wasn’t the sounds though, but rather the silence. Pushing Luna by her right shoulder, I shoved her to the side right away. All my alarm bells rang for a very good reason.

A mere centimetres away from my arm, an arrow flew downwards, stabbing into the ground where Luna stood a mere second before. Twirling around with my hands on both of my swords, I quickly scanned the area only to find exactly nothing.

“That’s a nice plan you guys have … but who said we didn’t have an army chasing you?” That male voice came from everywhere around us, making it impossible to figure out where I needed to watch out from.

“Change of plan. We’ll use the city walls to repel anyone advancing through it. Run!” Luna said while Hannah rushed towards her and protected her with a bubble of wind right away. I didn’t hesitate long afterwards and ran straight back towards the top of the hill.

“Show yourself!” I shouted out and stepped to my side, avoiding another completely vertical arrow being shot at me. “How dishonourable.” I said loudly and waited for the others to walk past me.

“My birds work again!” Louis shouted out loudly which was probably the best news he gave me on the whole trip. At last he would be useful!

“Get as many of them into the air as possible. Work with Miss Dove to locate the enemy.” Luna commanded, which was actually exactly what I wanted to say as well. “And spread out!” And reducing the chance of the archer hitting anything alongside this was a great idea I couldn’t be bothered to come up with as well.

At last though, the archer found his target, a close combatant we already had too few off. He was shot in his back without anyone capable of doing anything as he was one of the last people in our formation. Immediately I stopped in my tracks and moved to the back of the formation myself, always looking over my shoulders searching for arrows.

Two came flying at the same time at different angels. Both of them were targeted at me and quickly met my blades mid air.

“Only two at the same time? Come on! Give me some more!” I shouted out, still backing off to keep close to the army. I couldn’t let myself be caught in a pinch there, that was for sure.

As such, I sadly couldn’t give in to my instincts and tear him apart, but was forced to block an increasing number of arrows being fired at me from impossible angles. Even though he shouldn’t have any vision on me, his arrows were still homing in on me relentlessly. All I could do was slice them apart mid air which thankfully worked wonderfully because they were always fired at the same speed and without any other magic except this homing effect.

And in the end, he apparently ran out of arrows to fire as we crossed through the gate and directly took cover behind the wall while a few careful scouts ascended an unlocked nearby stairwell.

“Hannah, over here.” I waved her over towards me and looked at her with concern. “Can you do that?” I asked pointing over my shoulders through the wall where I supposed the enemy must have been.

“I’m not so sure. I might be I’ll equipped to fight against him. But if I see it correctly, there isn’t any other choice, is there?” Sadly, she was right with her analysis. We were stuck between two forces and if we couldn’t make enough room for the army, they would fall rather quickly. The last encirclement was bad, but this one would be even worse.

“No … if the other two generals are on this side of the wall, we’ll be in trouble if we don’t do anything against them.” I concluded quietly.

“They are splitting us up. And I don’t like that.” She said, knowing full well that this was exactly not what I had originally planned.

“Me neither, trust me. Keep Luna save and buy us some time. If there is nobody in the castle, we’ll be back in no time. And on a side note, try to work with Louis together. He might be useful.“ I said quietly and glanced at Luna who was biting on her fingernail nervously. “Luna, you got this. Trust me. Everything you need is in here.” I said and pointed at my own head right away. Then, I glanced at the four idiots and made eye contact quickly. “This is it?”

“This is it.” Ellie said, grabbed her spear tightly and pointed it towards the castle. “Does the plan from earlier still stand? Or may I ask Louis to accompany us?”

“You may not. He’ll be vital in defending this place … I’m sorry, but everyone of us has to leave something important behind.” I said and looked at Luna right away. She was already directing the soldiers brilliantly, telling everyone where they needed to go and how they could defend this old, but still intact wall. I waved towards her a little, even though she didn’t look at me and was way too engrossed in her tasks.

As the iron gate fell down to the ground, I turned my back towards her as well, jogging alongside the heroes I selected.

“I know it’s not ideal –“ My alarm bells ran once more and made me change my course abruptly as another arrow was being fired at me from very far away. Luckily there was some kind of poison from a dead animal on its tip, otherwise I wouldn’t have caught onto that at all. “- I’ll take on the first general attempting to stop us. Watch our –“ These arrows were seriously going on my nerves, especially as three were flying towards me at the same time. I had no clue how someone could be this precise but at least I could feel them at this point, making them quite easy to dodge. “Watch out for our flanks. There might be some hiding in the ruins.”

“Understood!” Sofie said as a flame arrow sailed above our heads and struck the road mere metres in front of it. Something without any smell must have been spilled on it, because I certainly couldn’t smell the flammables on the street.

“That’s unfortunate.” I said, threw my shorter sword into the air and grabbed a flying arrow targeting Sofie. “Ellie, prepare for barrier around specific team members. I’ll tell you when.” I said quietly. Our priority was obviously to head towards the castle quickly but we also had to keep watch on our mana. The measly three mana potions we had left were all in Gregory’s hands, but they were nowhere near enough.

As such, we also didn’t put out the fire at all, but rather dashed through a house to our right to get into its backyard. Decay was visible everywhere everywhere I looked, but at least the area wasn’t terraformed beyond recognition.

“Wait!” I shouted out, just as Schwarz wanted to open the door and was promptly met with a barrage of arrows stabbing through the wood. “Any ideas?” I asked, evening the roof above us longingly. Some of us certainly could take that route across the roofs which would paint a fat target on our backs but also stopped the archer from attacking us around corners. His arrows were more like Alberts paper planes in that way.

“I could make a barrier around all of us.” Ellie proposed quietly, wary about the wooden shutters being penetrated.

“We need to conserve mana.” Sofie stated, even though she had most of it. But she was also capable of giving her mana to others, making her a vital part in any battle of attrition.

“What we need is a plan to get to the castle quickly.” Schwarz said impatiently and apparently, Gregory couldn’t agree more. Only Ellie and Sofie were quite hesitant, even though they understood very well that with every minute they wasted, more people could die at the gates, including Ellie’s boyfriend.

And then, I smelled it. The unmistakable stench of humans who hadn’t washed themselves in moths if not even years along with a rather disgusting smell of dried blood. But humans? There? That didn’t make much sense to me at all. Combat wise they should be weaker than other races, which probably meant they served another purpose. Looking around a little I quickly pinpointed where this smell was coming from and walked over towards a wooden wall. Kicking against it violently, I managed to create a sizeable hole in it right away and stepped over into the next apartment.

Walking through the small flat, I quickly found the source of my disgust. Two humans, a man and a woman sat on the kitchen table, their plates filled with moldy fruits and their legs secured to the chairs. Both of them where naked, with the guy missing his private parts completely while the woman had her breast cut off.

“Don’t come close if you aren’t ready to look into the abyss.” I said over my shoulder as the others followed through the whole a bit confused and disgusted by the stench. Going behind the guy, I stared at his nape and saw two familiar puncture wounds.

“Vampires.” Ellie came to the exact conclusion as I and contorted her face in disgust while Sofie couldn’t even bear the sight. Well, I wasn’t entirely surprised as I already knew there were vampire twins around, but it was still new to me that they were as kinky as I. Biting of a man’s genitals and drinking their blood from there … not gonna lie, I also did that quite a few times before. I didn’t get why they tortured the woman that way completely, except they were envious of course. Then … maybe. But doing so would be admitting inferiority which was why I never did that before.

“They better go extinct.” Gregory said while avoiding to look at the scene.

“We were nearly … before the demon king recreated our race.” I said a bit angrily. I wanted vampires to remain a novelty and not some random race one would meet in the streets. And I was damn sure I would make a step in that direction that night, especially as I heard faint giggling in the distance.