Arkarum: The Hammer and the Blade

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  Keira focused intently on the smell of green and the sound of soft breeze; the time when she consummated her love for Mercius in one reckless act of abandoned sexuality. She focused on the sight of dawn breaking as she and Mercius were too thrilled by what they had just done to sleep. She focused her mind, as her body fought on; ever on. She had killed countless grey demons, leaving a trail of mutilated corpses in her wake, and would kill countless more if necessary. That one imperative rang repeatedly in her mind: Remember. She had no way of knowing what to remember, but she remembered him. Her thoughts swelled from love to passion to comfort and back to love. Always back to love.

  Then she saw him. Incongruously and unexpectedly, she saw Mercius. He was standing barely fifty yards from her, surrounded by howling, snarling demons. She had wished with all her soul for such a moment. But her heart had told her to never truly await it. But now, he was here, within her sight, standing wide-eyed with shock, naked, with a frail, tiny naked woman clutching mightily to his hand. The pale figure of the woman she saw not at all. Keira saw the man; her man. Standing naked and utterly different before her.

  The luxuriant hair that she had so loved to run her fingers through was now gone. He was naked, and his hanging manhood was the same, but his hands--how she had loved his strong hands--were tipped with long thick talons. But, most surprisingly of all, he had somehow sprouted a pair of wings! They were folded now, as he looked about him and took in his surroundings, but she saw the thin leather that they were made of, like a bat, with wickedly long, curved talons at the tips which were high above his head.

  The thing before her was entirely different, physically, than the Mercius that she had fallen for. It was a ghastly parody of what he had once been; a demon in flesh. But Keira knew, without doubt or hesitation, that it was Mercius.

  Another piercing battle cry emerged from her throat, and she slaughtered fully a dozen demons within the space of a moment, in her lust to get to her man’s side.

  Mercius, for his part, she saw from the corner of her eye, pulled himself from his stupor and raised Illuricht. He relinquished his hold of the pale woman and set about him. The demons that surrounded him gave him a small berth, and simply stared at him, as if waiting to see what action he would take. Suddenly, he began to slay the demons not only with the black blade that he wielded with ferocious grace, but also with the power that Keira knew flowed through him, and nearly two score demons were disintegrated less than a moment later.

  Keira hacked and slashed and twisted and leapt with redoubled fervor, hoping beyond hope to gain a place next to her love. Mercius' might and intensity eased the task for her; he destroyed twenty demons for every one that she could kill. She knew that the Arka was flowing from him constantly, and that he was aflame with rage.

  When she was half way to him, she looked up to make sure that she was fighting in the right direction. Their eyes met, his a burning green with fierce fire boiling within, hers a subtle hazel filled deeply with compassion and love. She knew him, in that glance, and he knew her. Their souls were one, their hearts beat in time.

  With a yell of passion-filled hate, Mercius came to her. Keira did the same. Screaming her battle cry, she launched herself relentlessly at the foes that stood between her and Mercius. Within moments, and with hundreds of grey demons dead and writhing at their feet, they were together.

  She looked up into his burning eyes, and saw there nothing but the purest love and devotion.