Page 49 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

Ruren-sa

O ne of the ruren-sa let out an ear-splitting yell, a dozen or so ripping across the clearing toward us. Before my mind could catch up, Faruhar was a blur of grace and death, her steel tearing into the flesh of the closest man. I froze, entranced by the flawless execution of her attack.

Ash hissed beside me, drawing his sword, and I kicked my ass into gear.

The first person I ever killed was a bearded, middle-aged man wielding a farmer’s scythe.

The second was an Asri woman with a stolen Chaeten blade—lower tech, its steel polished to a gleam.

Ash only managed to take down one, while Faruhar danced between the rest in a single breath.

Her twin swords, razor sharp, found their way to each heart and neck, felling each with efficient thuds.

And when there was no one left to kill, she dropped to check her victims’ pockets.

Asher’s scream sliced through the clearing and I turned to see him on his knees, clutching his head in horror. I saw nothing to fight, no one to kill.

“Let her in quick,” Faruhar called to him. “It’s Bria.”

“No, no, no.” Asher shook in waves, his voice raw.

Faruhar spun on her heel and knelt beside him, her eyes blazing with a fury that chilled me—just as it had when she killed Mal. “Would you rather have her in your mind or a ruren-sa? Let her in.”

My head pounded. “Ash?” I stepped closer, Istaran glowing in my hands.

Asher crumpled to the ground, his scream reverberating off barren trees.

“Fuck,” she said.

The rustling of leaves at my back snapped me back to attention. A woman, her face contorted in a sneer, swung rusty garden shears at my head with all her might. I threw myself to the side just as the rusted metal snapped shut where my head had been.

Adrenaline surged through me as a fresh wave of demons ran into the clearing, too many to count.

I swung Istaran, the motion grounding me in the center of the chaos.

An immense man with a machete lunged at me.

I parried the blow, the clang jolting my bones.

I found my focus. This was no sparring session: I must kill or be killed.

My world spun around the gravity of Istaran’s blade.

Grunts and the squelch of flesh. Practice had never prepared me for the withdrawal of my blade from living bone.

I underestimated how much force it would take, finding I needed to reverse the angle of the strike just right to avoid getting stuck.

A woman with a claw hammer gave a wild swing when my blade lodged itself between ribs.

I ducked, fumbling for a dagger as her hammer hummed over my head, grazing my shoulder under my Chaeten leather.

I retaliated with a throw of that dagger to her chest and finished with Istaran through her neck.

Her head rolled, the green in her Chaeten eyes flickering and dying.

“Ash?” I looked for him among the bodies, seeing only a man with a rusty relic of an Asri blade coming at me, workmanship that would have made Galen cry. I sliced him open and withdrew, catching Faruhar’s raised eyebrow.

“You’re faster than when we fought,” Faruhar said beside me, felling the last in the clearing.

I saw Asher across the meadow, hunched and turned away.

I bolted for him. He fixed his terrified gold-brown eyes on me, his face pale with a sheen of sweat on his brow.

Then he raised his blood-wet blade at me.

He didn’t need to swing to gut me. My world went dark; the sun at my center collapsed in.

“Ash,” I whispered. “No, Ash,” I couldn’t lose him too, but I had.

He lunged for me, and I froze.

In that instant, I knew I’d rather let him kill me than live through this again. Even if he was gone, I wanted none of his blood on my hands.

“Behind!” He ran past, his sword a streak of silver. As a man emerged from the clearing, Asher blooded him on the first thrust, spraying across the brown leaves as he followed through.

It took me a moment to understand, to find enough hope to take a breath. “Ash?” I ran to him.

Asher turned back, his sword slick with blood. “I’m fine,” he gasped, his voice hoarse.

I stared at him, searching his face for any sign of a demon’s presence, numb to the sweat stinging my eyes. I dropped Istaran as I pulled his chest to mine, my fist to his neck as I held his bloody body, breathing ragged breaths.

“Brother, I’m fine,” Ash said, a chuckle in his voice.

“Fucking stay that way,” I said, not willing to let go for a while.

Over the iron-rich scent of blood, the sounds of birds returned to the clearing. Faruhar gestured to the fallen figures with a jerk of her head. “Loot what you can. Quick.”

We picked through the pockets, finding a meager haul: a few silver coins, a couple of daggers that didn’t need sharpening, and a small bag of mixed shortgrain and mushroom flour for flatbread. Faruhar peeled off a pair of durable pants from a woman who looked about her size.

“Bria says Mahakal’s search party is closing in.” Asher’s gaze darted to the woods. “She’s coming out to you now.”

Faruhar nodded. She cleaned her blades on a corpse’s shirt and did that double-sheathing move that took me a full year to get right.

Asher swayed as he sheathed his own sword, almost dropping it.

I caught him before he could fall. “You okay?”

He blinked away the dazed look in his eyes. “Weirdest feeling ever when she left, like falling up to the sky. She scared the shit out of me on the way in too.”

“I noticed.”

With a signal from Faruhar, I picked up Asher’s bag and we took off east.

“Did she … control you?” I thought of the ghost girl, her rigid movement.

“No,” Asher said. “Just … observing: a little girl just sitting there in rags. She’s younger than I thought she’d be. I felt bad for her.”

Faruhar grunted. “Surprised she protected you. It’s harder for me to concentrate on the fight if I have to focus on keeping ghosts out.”

“That was you fighting distracted?” I said. Her form was impeccable. “Train me to move like that, please. I’ll kill as many ruren-sa as you want.”

“Train you?” Faruhar picked up her pace. “Mahakal’s going to know we were here the moment he sees those bodies. Let’s focus on that.”

We ran on for a while before Faruhar cocked her head to something I couldn’t hear, quick as a bird. I looked around.

“Bria says there’s another unit of Mahakal’s soldiers downriver, a couple dozen on horseback. They’re closing in from the north while Mahakal’s coming from the west with the remainder of his forces. The river is blocking us in to the east. If we don’t slip south before they intersect...”

She trailed off, but the implication was clear. Mahakal would seize us in the jaws of a trap.

Faruhar broke into a run, slashing through the undergrowth and brush as she went. We settled into pace beside her.

The forest began to thin, giving way to a vast, open plain. Sparse, wild grain popped up in a rocky meadow, and a herd of deer took off past the ruins of an old farmhouse, land once settled before the Nara lost so many people in the Ghost War.

I had no problem keeping pace with Faruhar, but Asher’s breathing grew ragged, his steps faltering. At some point, we had to slow further. Up ahead, a faint rumble echoed between the hills: the undeniable sound of approaching hoofbeats.

I understood the desperation on Faruhar’s face as we approached a ruined barn, but I didn’t see any place to hide inside, just a square of open stone. When she skidded to a halt, I panicked.

“Far?”

“Shh,” she said, blinking. Asher grabbed his knees, taking deep, heaving breaths. Faruhar muttered in frantic whispers.

The sound of the horses grew louder, a whinny on the wind that made me afraid to turn my head.

“It’s the only way,” Faruhar said to the open air.

She took a sharp turn and ran straight into a solid section of the stone wall, disappearing from view.

“Faruhar?” I hissed, too terrified to yell. But she was already gone. I approached the gray stone, seeing only the lichen-covered rock.

“Jesse, Asher, come on!” she said, her voice unmuffled—like there was…

Nothing. My hand went through open air. With a nod to Ash, I ran into the khel.