“Just wait until after I take the Seventh! I’ll be up there with the high-most of them! Probably give them all a heart attack! Ha, that’d be quite the coup!”

  Sally realized she wasn’t just travelling with ‘some priest’, but, if Lucy was to be believed, a bona fide saint-in-the-making. A soon-to-be head of her religion.

  And, if that was true, what did it mean for her to have a vision specifically about Sally?

  7. Wandering the Red and Finding Silver – July 26, Year 216

  They were travelling the western road of the Red Circuit, the second most dangerous part of the Red Circuit and the third most dangerous on the Circuits as a whole. On the western side lay the Greysalt, while the eastern side held the Red Wastes – an endless expanse of red sand dunes, containing the least, yet certainly the worst of the Circuits.

  Threats here from both sides and it being a Red Circuit road meant the road itself was another one. If it weren’t for the river Mylard forming a secondary border between the wastes of the Red and Gold Circuits, the road might’ve been unusable. But with it, it turned a one-hundred-and-fifteen miles journey along the Gold into a less than sixty miles one. Seeing as the longer route had their own set of dangers, the shorter route remained well travelled, if not exactly popular.

  As the end of the fourth day of their conjoined journey came to an end, Sally found herself increasingly agitated.

  The pace had slowed down a lot with Lucy around. Gone were the twenty-miles-a-day, they’d barely made thirty in three. It wasn’t quite as slow as a caravan’s pace of travel, but certainly slower than a group of circuit runners, let alone Sally by herself.

  Not that Sally was annoyed at the slower pace. She’d expected it, especially after realizing just how far the blessing brought by her survival went. Thirty miles in three days – three and a half, really, they’d left at noon on the twenty-third – was not great, but at the height of summer and on such a dangerous road, it was good enough.

  Nor was she annoyed at Lucy. The excentric pilgrim – the term she decided fit the woman most, for now – might be a bit of a chatterbox, prone to asking questions about everything and anything, but she never complained about or slacked off on her duties.

  And the woman’s duties, partly self-imposed as they were, were many. Lucy had taken it upon herself do most of the day tasks on their journey. Opening cans, cooking, pitching their tent – Lucy’s tent, since Sally had forgotten they might need one, used as she was to finding mountain alcoves to sleep in – dividing water, clearing the camp and cleaning what needed cleaning; Lucy did it all.

  That was what Sally was annoyed by, although she couldn’t explain the why behind it. At least, not logically. It was the best way to split duties like this, with Sally as guide, watching the roads and looking for – and, if it ever came to it, dealing with – threats.

  It reminded her of her time travelling with Niall. The tasks had been split similarly back then, of course with Sally filling the roll Lucy did currently. Niall would be on watch and tutoring her on what to watch out for: what clouds weren’t clouds, what pieces of the river or sand moved oddly, where the best place to make camp was, when and where to hide, when and where to fight; all she’d learned about travelling the Circuits came from him.

  Sally now did the same with Lucy, less out of obligation or a desire for an apprentice of some sort, but more to fill the time and stave off annoyance. And, of course, because Lucy asked about it. Constantly.

  Was that why she was irritated? Was it the reenactment of her memories with Niall that had her on edge? The constant recycling of things of the past? Or was it the reversal in roles itself, her in Niall’s position, that was causing her pain masked in irritation and restlessness?

  Another option, one she liked even less, was that it felt like Lucy pitied her. She doubted it – there were no such looks coming from Lucy, nor unasked-for comfort, offers to help or anything else that indicated something like pity coming from Lucy.

  It was rather a projection of her own self-pity, hurt pride, feeling of uselessness and insecurity about being one-armed. About being seen as a cripple, rather than the trained and competent – albeit junior – Warden she was.

  Or perhaps it was none of these things at all. Perhaps it was that she simply wished she was at Lovesse already, with her brother and hopefully getting some answers about the magical miracle that was her life now.

  Currently, Lucy and her had settled on the western side of the road, with Lucy inside their tent. The pilgrim was fast asleep, with Sally taking an elongated first watch. Seeing as Lucy did most other things and had by far the most difficulty travelling – heat and weariness from travel still seemed to escape Sally, for better or worse – Sally had decided to make sure that Lucy could get a full six hours of sleep uninterrupted before switching their watch. Afterward, Sally would sleep the few hours till sunrise, after which they would continue their journey.

  Sally didn’t even know if she needed even that amount anymore. She didn’t feel tired at the end of the day and while sleep certainly left her feeling refreshed, it felt more like having had a prolonged rest than a good sleep.

  That should’ve been a good thing, but all these ‘blessings’ left her unsettled. She’d built up a routine, extensive ones drilled deep into her bones, becoming part of her very being, and now she suddenly didn’t need them anymore? ‘Unsettled’ was too weak a term for it; it left her feeling inhuman.

  And if she wasn’t human, what was she?

  And why couldn’t it have healed my arm?

  X

  Night stretched on, the Red Wastes and Greysalt illuminated only by the light of the stars and moon. It was thankfully enough light to see far enough out into both wastes to spot any threat from a good distance. And a threat Sally did spot, coming from the Greysalt. Though how much of a threat was up to debate.

  It was a single saltfly, likely a small one, even, but Sally couldn’t be sure from this distance.

  It was a worrying sight regardless. It had passed the Mylard and while it wasn’t heading their way, it could discover their camp. Alone it would not be able to do anything – Sally could easily take it out if it entered firing range – but there was no certainty it was alone. Worse, it could be a scout from a much larger war-party of the Grey Hives; the demons often had smaller, faster and stealthier individuals perform this role.

  It was unlikely that this was one. War-parties were rare and unlikely to travel at night. Unfortunately, they were also in a position where one would more likely be then anywhere else: the border between the two wastes. War-parties would cross into the Red Waste to hunt more powerful demons than their normal prey in the Greysalts, carrying their bounty back to the hives for reasons unknown. There was plenty of food in the Greysalts, after all.

  So, Sally deliberated for a second, before making a decision.

  Opening the flap to their shared tent, Sally shook Lucy awake. Groggily, the woman opened her bleary eyes and looked questioningly at Sally.

  “We have to move. Grey Hive war-party might be in the area.”

  That woke her up fast. “What, how close?!”

  “Might, be in the area,” Sally emphasized, “but better safe than sorry.”

  Lucy grumbled for a bit, laying her head back on the floor for a second and groaning loudly. But she didn’t question her decision and eventually got up.

  They both packed as quickly as possible before moving out. Sally kept wary eyes on the lone saltfly for as long as she could. She thought she saw something moving further behind it, but could as likely be the movements of the river catching stray moon-and-starlight, or simply the darkness playing tricks on her.

  “How far do we have to walk,” Lucy asked.

  “Half-a-mile, at least,” Sally replied and pointed to a dune in the Red Wastes. “We’ll make camp behind that hill. Should be far enough and hidden enough.”

  “In the Red Wastes? Why? Isn’t that more dangerous than staying near the Grey?” Lucy inquired. “I thought the demons in the Red were ‘the worst of the lot’?” She’d told Lucy that the day before yesterday, if she recalled correctly.

  Sally shrugged, though she doubted Lucy could see it.

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  “Better a bloodfiend or stonegroll than an army of bugs. Any of the greater threats we’re unlikely to see.”

  Whilst answering, Sally’d kept an eye out and saw a strange, silvery glow appearing over the horizon. A reflection of the moon off of the road, maybe?

  “Do you think we’ll–”

  “Do you see that silver glow in the distance?” Sally interrupted, signaling for a halt.

  Lucy walked up beside her. “I do. What do you think it is?”

  “Might be nothing, but–”

  “Yes, yes, better safe than sorry,” Lucy said, sighing. “You said that one already.”

  Sally frowned. “Don’t be snarky. It’s a good rule to live by, like–”

  “Hope for the best, plan for the worst? You said that one yesterday already.” She could practically hear Lucy roll her eyes behind her.

  Sally huffed. “So, you do listen,” she teased, before frowning. The light was coming closer.

  “Come, we need to get off the road. It’s moving towards us.”

  They did, moving down the slight incline and into the Red Wastes for a few dozen yards. The light was moving faster than expected and she motioned Lucy to lie down before doing so herself. Sally drew the gun from her holster and Lucy her rifle.

  Together they lay, half-buried in the sand, watching the silvery glow move closer and slowly begin to take shape. Even so, Sally had no idea what they were facing.

  “Shit…” Lucy whispered.

  “What?” Sally responded, equally quiet. Could that thing hear them from over there.

  “Shit!” Lucy’s whisper turned harsh. “That’s the Kispan Dalqa.”

  Sally searched her memory, but found nothing.

  “The what?”

  “The Kispan Dalqa, the Half-Knight?” Lucy said, apparently surprised Sally didn’t recognize the name. “It’s a real, true, waters-curse-it capital-d Demon!”

  Sally had never encountered one. Niall had never encountered one. No Warden had ever encountered one. No-one she’d ever known had encountered one before, nor heard of anyone else encountering one.

  During the Days of the Long Son, the End of Everything, there was, supposedly, also a War in Heaven, fought between those above, below and everything else in between.

  Records of it were vague – another name for the Apocalypse, the Days without Records – but stories of them remained. The true Demons, presumably beaten, lost against the Angels or whatnot, and were cast down onto the New World to suffer for the remainder of their days. They were supposedly the origin of all other demons, living in the Grey Hives, buried underneath mountains, hidden at the bottom of Lake Prior and other locations such as those; places no-one ever saw.

  But even if their names, appearance and homes were more legend than fact, their existence wasn’t. Actually existing figures were said to have fought and even killed some of them, their corpses still preserved. Drinkers from the waters of Lake Prior had visions about those fights. The Evergraced, along with the armies of the nascent Grand Central Union, killed the one haunting their lands. Sorcerers of the southern League studied their remains, retrieved from the cursed ruins lying deep underneath their lands. The Merkahn Republic in the east was once ruled by one of them, before their slave rebellion turned revolution.

  That Demons still roamed the Grand Circuit came as no surprise. That there were rumors of a dozen of them in the Red Circuit alone was equally unsurprising.

  That they actually encountered one on the road was.

  The silver light was slowly approaching, revealing its form. The Kispan Dalqa consisted of the horse and its ride. Trailing it was a plume of silver fire, brightening and dimming in rhythm with the horse’s gallop.

  It was a half-knight in the literal sense of the word; both the horse and the figure atop of it only had half a body. It made for an odd scene, seeing a horse with two legs run the same as one with four would. As if its other legs were still attached to it, but hidden somehow. The angle they were facing the Demon was from its cleaved-off side, revealing the disturbing network of burning organs and innards of both the horse and its rider.

  Then, the figure’s speeding pace slowed to a canter, before coming to a full stop. The figure turned its head, looking over the sands for prey. For them.

  It was as if the world fell still all at once. Sally heard Lucy’s breath hitch and her own heart pounding louder.

  The figure stepped off the road, zigzagging its way down, looking around.

  Its appearance was unexpectedly simple. Outside of its uniformly silver appearance – unbroken even in the whites of its eyes and depths of its pupil – it had no demonic markings as one would expect. There were no fangs, no hideous grin, no curving tusks – nothing but a fair, if stoic visage of a young man sculpted out of quicksilver. The armor, the longsword, the everything looked like an ideal, if uninspired knight.

  As quietly as she could, Sally asked: “How do we kill it?”

  “We can’t, it’s a Demon! It takes more than bullets and some magic to kill that thing!” Lucy’s voice trembled, the whisper on the edge of turning into a shout.

  She grabbed Lucy by the shoulder, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “Then what can we do? There must be some way, or we would’ve never known it existed.” Sally stared into the woman’s panicked eyes with a gaze of steel, channeling the memories of her mentor doing the same to her.

  It seemed to work, and Lucy calmed. Her rapid breathing turned deep and steady. After a moment in thought, Lucy gave a nod and answered.

  “They’re more vulnerable, more wary of magic. I might know something to scare it off.” There was a looking of hesitation on her face. “Just… try to keep it away from me, if you can.” Lucy’s voice sounded unsure, a tremor in her voice.

  If I can, huh, Sally thought. She gave Lucy a large, reassuring smile.

  The Demon’s pace had remained slow, unhurried but inquisitive, like it was taking a stroll instead of hunting prey. Of course, inevitably, it happened.

  For a moment, the Demon stood still. Then, it slowly turned towards their location and stared. There was no expression on its face, neither joy nor fury nor triumph. It simply stared without emotion, before turning and giving its horse a kick. It whinnied and tossed its head, rearing back on its hind leg.

  Sally jumped up, getting in front of her charge, with Lucy taking a few steps back.

  The horse’s front leg came down and the Demon started running toward them, hooves thundering and steady even in the soft sand. The half-knight was still over fifty yards away, but rapidly closing the distance.

  Sally began shooting while moving edging closer, putting extra distance between her and Lucy. The Demon was still in effective range, but knowing her aim a hit was unlikely. Still, it was better to shoot. Against a true Demon, conservation of resources was foolish.

  Lucy’s rifle didn’t fire. Instead, she focused on her task and begun to mutter – a chant, undoubtedly.

  The distance between her and the Demon began shrinking rapidly. Fifty yards becoming forty, turning thirty…

  Sally ejected the now-empty magazine, slid the gun in her holster and grabbed another from her belt, slammed it into her Guardsman and flicked the slide lock. A move she’d been practicing during their travels, now done in the heat of battle within seconds.

  The Demon had come within twenty yards, so she started focusing more on aim than blindly firing at the half-knight.

  The first three shots went towards the horse, hoping to take it down from under the Demon, but it had no effect, not even a stumble or a dodge. The bullets had simply seemed to vanish without a trace.

  There goes the easy way out, she thought. Without the horse, keeping the Demon from Lucy would’ve been much easier.

  The next two went to its chest, the hits causing silver sparks to fly from it, but not much else. It didn’t slow down, it didn’t even look down at where the bullets hit. Neither could she spot any markings on it, but that could be due to the distance.

  Now within ten yards, she aimed at the rider’s half-head. The first shot missed, not because of poor aim but because the Demon had dodged it, moving its head out of the way of the bullets path. Whether it predicted the trajectory or reacted to it, she couldn’t tell

  Head it is. She fired her last shot, hoping to make it count. Faster than her eye could track, the demon swung its sword and caught the last on the flat of its blade, its expression unmoving.

  Simultaneously, Lucy had finished her spell. A powerful flash of light came from behind, bathing the Red Wastes in watery-blue light. A moment later three rapidly oscillating needles of blue light arrived, two down-low from around her legs and one over the top of her head.

  The horse reared up and an ugly neigh escaped its half-throat. The half-knight swung the sword down and up again, a light-trail following its arc. A curtain of silver fire emerged from the ground, blazing sideways and upwards, catching Lucy’s spell and obscuring the Demon.

  Sally grinned. It was an encouraging sign, to see a Demon react to the magic.

  While reloading, Sally dashed to the Demon’s left. Despite instinct telling her to remain in front of Lucy in order to protect her, she knew that she could easily be trampled under its charge, offering no more resistance than the sand underneath. Moving to the side of the Demon meant that, as long as Lucy could continue her spells – and from the still-bright light behind her, it seemed she could – the Demon would have to deal with attacks from two directions.

  Moving to the left of the Demon meant she might get a good shot at its fleshy bits. She gambled on it being its weak point.

  Before she got very far, however, the half-knight jumped through the silvery curtain and resumed its charge, gaze focused on Lucy.

  Thankfully, the short distance and its focus on the pilgrim had been enough to allow Sally a view of its missing half.

  As fast as she could, she fired all her rounds at the Demon. Three were aimed at the horse, two at the rider’s chest and one at the head. Lucy had already fired another three-fold barrage of oscillating needles.

  Surrounded by gunfire and magic, the Demon attempted to reorient itself. The horse reared back again, the sword-and-light-trail arced to intercept and fire rose from the sands.

  This time, however, the attack was too quick and from too many directions. It managed to intercept the magic – ever its focus since Lucy first fired – but had failed to stop all the bullets.

  A half-tortured whinny the sound of tortured glass and tearing metal emerged from behind the fire-curtain. The silver fire collapsed inward and then turned into a pale cyclone around the Demon, consuming it in a flash fire.

  She reloaded again – her final magazine. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, blood on fire, muscles taut and her breathing heavy. She was shaking heavily, fearful yet euphoric all the same. They were doing it! They were winning against a Demon!

  Warily but hopeful, Sally moved toward the inferno, eyes fixed on whatever came next.

  Over the course of a dozen or so seconds, the swirling flame gradually died down and revealed the Demon slowly getting up, half-dazed and its missing half now set aflame.

  Three more blue needles of light came from Lucy and the Demon swung at them, dispersing them with ease. Sally took the opportunity to fire two more rounds at its chest, but these too it caught with unnaturally swift movements of its blade.

  Then, it thrust its sword into the sky and for half a second, day turned to night.

  Fuck! Pain shot through her hand, her gun feeling as if it had come fresh out of hell. She immediately dropped it and instinctively began wiping her eyes, trying to get the spots out.

  As soon as she did, she saw the end of the Demon’s lunge toward her, the point of the silver sword coming straight towards her chest. Its merciless, flat eyes bore into her soul, coldly judging and finding her wanting.

  Fear coursed through her cold, memories of the gully flashing through her mind.

  No! Not again!

  But instead of pain, her vision sharpened, spots vanishing in an instant and contrast increasing. Her body, in a movement preceding thought – faster than a thought – twisted sideways and to the right. The sword sliced across her chest, but didn’t pierce. The flames from the Demon’s lit side scorched her body, but she barely felt it.

  It was like with the bloodfiend, but extended, more refined. Her instinct and body were one, the years of drilling and movements instilled by training combined with her newfound new mystical might, allowing her body to operate beyond the speed of thought, without even the need of thought.

  Her hand shot toward her knife and stabbed into the flame. But even with her speed, the Demon was faster still and dodged backwards, simultaneously swiping at her.

  She instinctively caught it with her blade, but was thrown backward by the powerful blow. Her body flowed with the movement, turned it into a roll and she was back on her feet before her mind could comprehend the impact.

  She waited for the Demon to engage – the goal was still to stall for Lucy, after all. And engage it did.

  Instead of a rapid forward lunge, it seemed to take things more cautiously, but also more skillfully. A swipe from right to left – she dodged – followed by a swipe up – which she dodged as well. The sword then came down and she deflected it with her knife, after which the Demon drew back and stabbed forward.

  She was prepared to deflect the blow, but it quickly turned into an upward strike. She tried to compensate, but her speed was still, even now, behind that of the Demon. The strike landed awkwardly on her knife and her strength wasn’t enough to force it downward. Her guard was blown open and the sword turned downward, ready to bisect.

  Thankfully, Lucy intervened with another barrage, but instead of the three needles, she saw hundreds of much smaller blue lights through the silver flames of the Demon. They moved like bugs to a lamp, falling towards the Demon.

  To Sally, it looked like a much weaker variant of Lucy’s prior spells, but the Demon thought otherwise. Instead of slicing downward, the Demon let go of its sword, the momentum carrying it into an upwards. The silver flames spewing from the half-knight’s side were dragged along with it, spiraling as if it was getting sucked into it.

  The roar of Demonfire increased exponentially, the flames twisting once more into an inferno, but much hotter than before. She could see Lucy staring at her, watching in horror as the flames were dragged upward.

  She gave her brief companion a bright smile, hoping that it came across as comforting and not the half-melted monstrosity it probably was. She hoped that if it were her last moments, Lucy would at least remember her smile.

  The flames exploded outward, engulfing her whole.

  X

  Sally found herself coming back not to the feeling of ice-water shooting up her nose, but the smell of stew.

  She opened her eyes and saw Lucy standing above her, a mixed look of anger and relief in her eyes.

  “So, is the Demon dead?” Sally asked, mood still buoyed by the victory.

  “About as dead as you,” came the deadpan reply.

  She groaned. Her last stands seemed doomed to fail.