* * *
Not everyone aboard the DusmeAstron was able or willing to make escape.
“Die, you bastard!” Euroaquilo’s giant hands squeezed around the neck of the squirming black demon until he heard a loud crunch, the demon’s head falling away from its shoulders. Throwing the little monster away, he hurried forward, chasing down several more as they sought to flee with Darla’s torn and bloody body.
Catching up with them, Euroaquilo roared, “You shall not have the child! Go back to Hell or I shall give it to you here!” He dove forward, his fist smashing into the face of one demon while his other hand clutched hold of a second, crushing it in his mighty grip.
The horned demons squealed in fright, letting go of Darla and backing quickly out of Euroaquilo’s reach. Standing over his companion, the man reached down to grasp Darla’s outstretched hand.
“Help me, my Lord! Please help me!” Darla begged. “I cannot do this alone! They are tearing my mind from me, filling it with the most vile, sick visions!”
One of the hideous little demons stepped forward, threatening, “Fool! How can you destroy us all? Leave this abomination or we shall also feast upon your flesh as we will do to it!” The deformed monster lunged forward, calling others to join the attack.
Standing over Darla, Euroaquilo took the first blow, catching the demon in his hands, twisting its head and breaking its neck. Grabbing the next assailant in an iron grip, he shoved the fanged mouth of the first into the face of the second demon. The evil monster screeched in pain and went limp. Throwing them down, he drew his blade and spread his arms wide, preparing for the growing onslaught.
The battle for Darla’s temple lasted long into the night, Euroaquilo piling up heaps upon heaps of bodies, the demons gathering in greater strength with each passing hour. Still the man refused to tire out, protecting his companion against all odds. At times the demons would make a breakthrough, taking hold of the bruised and bleeding woman in an attempt to drag her away to their abyss and Euroaquilo would summon up his inner strength, driving them back, recapturing the girl.
Eventually the torn and shattered wasted landscape slowly took on the garish, red glow of morning’s coming glory. In a last desperate charge, the demons gathered their strength for one more attempt to steal the woman away. It was a ferocious fight, the monsters tearing at Darla’s flesh as they fought to gain a firm hold on her, all the while Euroaquilo’s blade singing a deadly song, cleaving heads and arms at blinding speed.
And then it was over, distant volcanoes’ violent eruptions signaling the surviving demons to seek their holes and crevices, else face a fate worse than delivered by Euroaquilo. Soon the plain was void of all life other than his dear companion - torn and battered, but still very much alive - and he, himself.
Bending down on one knee, Euroaquilo swept Darla up in his arms, helping her to sit as she leaned upon his breast. Looking into the gathering morning fire, he knew the worst was yet to come. It had come first two nights before, and last night’s was far more damning. He dreaded what might arrive out of the burning darkness this morning.
As he waited, cradling his ward, Euroaquilo pondered these terrible wars of the mind. Oh yes, he knew the battle plain was a vision, the execution of electrical and chemical reactions in the brain, but these battles were no less deadly than any he had faced upon the open fields in the outside world. The demons, these abominations of life were real, leeches living off the energy of his darling girl, their intelligence nearly as great as his. They sought not the demise of Darla, but possession of her spirit, enslaving it to their will, condemning her to a living death under their insidious control.
The tortured ground began to shake from violent, distant eruptions, the sky filling with noxious, choking smoke. As lightning ripped the ragged sky, Euroaquilo chanced a glance toward the burning mountains, his heart sinking. A thundering, black, heaving mass of advancing demons filled the plain. There would be no winning this day unless, unless… He had only one chance to save his girl and the timing of his play meant everything.
Slowly Euroaquilo stood to face the approaching horde, stretching to his full height of seventy-two plus six inches, glistening sweat dripping from rippling muscles, hands clenched. With feet spread, protecting the woman who lay curled up on the blistered field, cowering in rabid fear, the man prepared for this day’s one final contest.
Out of the blazing darkness charged an army of hideous, half-man, half-beast demons riding upon the backs of giant, wormlike, howling, fanged monsters, breathing acidic fire, their howling able peel the skin off a weak or cowardly man. Euroaquilo was no such man. He stood proud, defiant, showing no hint of fear.
The driving horde stopped up short, question and caution growing on the faces of this most unholy host. The demon-king had summoned his entire army this night, seeing it had been bested the preceding night by this very same fomenter of ruin. Not alone would it risk another encounter with this vile intruder, but with all its armies should the battle be charged. Now even the demon-king’s army held back, waiting upon their leader, uncertain about the moment.
Euroaquilo said nothing, his glaring, piercing eyes roving, searching out those who dared stare into his. Few did. There came a sudden shout, and the masses wiggled and pushed their way clear to allow their god-king passage.
Out of the gloom of savage darkness strode a giant beast-man. Tall it was - half again as Euroaquilo, cloaked so that only its grotesque head could be seen with two long, curved horns protruding from the sides of its head, angling out and downward. Its fiery-red, flaming eyes could burn the flesh off cowards. With talons for hands, the beast-man held a long, flaming whip.
This demon-king stopped mere feet from Euroaquilo, pointing at Darla, demanding in a deafening roar, “Give over the creature or suffer her fate!”
A thousand crimson lightning bolts exploded from the gathering tempest, their thunders shaking the sky, hurting the ears, and yes, just as the night before, the fires of Hell broke open, the energy upon which these monsters fed to gain their strength. Their power was not yet gathered to them. Still, Euroaquilo could do little more than wait. Their numbers were too great for him, alone. Timing was everything.
In a blinding flash, Euroaquilo pulled from a sheath upon his back a large double-bladed axe with a head of forged chrysolite and a handle of burnished bronze. He spoke with the venom of a man on a vengeful hunt, his voice shattering the night. “I am EuroaquiloIllyricum, god over this underworld and master of your fate! Be off or I shall send you all into the pit of nothingness, the place where many of your kindred have already gone this night!”
The demon-king stared down at this puny intruder, uncertain. Why so brave? Where was its power? What was in its hand? The beast paused, lifting its nose as if to smell the storm on the breeze. Then, just as it felt the static crackle of nearing lightning, it began to lift its whip toward the storm, laughing.
“To me!” Euroaquilo shouted, hefting the axe high into the night’s sky.
The erupting firestorm intended for the demon-king’s whip instead flew toward the raised axe, consuming the raging blaze. Into the radiant head and through the handle, the power of the flames raced into the man defiant. A collective gasp of terror rent the air as the beast-men stared in horror at the flaming monster confronting them.
“I am EuroaquiloIllyricum, god of the underworld! Be off with you into damnation! Die!” He flung the axe into the face of the now terrified demon-king. An explosion of fire and smoke filled the sky, accompanied by a pain-filled scream as he watched the demon-king’s head disintegrate into flaming ash as its body burned to cinders. Shrieks of dismay and terror echoed across the plain, the horde collectively crying out in dismay at seeing their hero destroyed.
The tempest hurried forward to add its convulsive voice to the tumultuous riot. In one great final display of power, it shook the heavens as its blinding lightning lit up the night. And then the
world fell dark and silent.
Euroaquilo did not hear Darla’s heartbreaking screams that coincided with the sky’s orgasmic explosions, nor did he feel the wounds caused by the woman’s fingernails as they sank deep into his flesh. What he did feel were the convulsions and violent uncontrolled spasms that shook the bunk, threatening to tear it from the wall.
Darla let out a sudden gasp, her eyes flying open in a terrified stare, her body going rigid as her breathing stopped as if she were dead. Euroaquilo lay there looking down into the woman’s pallid face, his lips quivering in dread. Had he been too late? Was the child given into his care truly dead, her soul consumed by the ravages of the night’s battle, or worse, had her soul and mind been given up to the beast-men, he being too late to save her?
A long, deep sighing sound struck Euroaquilo’s ears, his heart pounding in anxious anticipation. Darla’s breath slowly escaped her lips while her muscles gradually relaxed, her body growing limp as though passing into death. The girl’s bruised hands released their hold on Euroaquilo’s arms, falling flat upon the white coverlets, staining them with the bloody ooze seeping from her pores. Indeed! Darla’s entire being began a crimson sweating that soaked the sheets red while filling the room with the stench of death.
Euroaquilo sucked in a breath, holding it. The man’s ears ached for want of a sound while a hand rested itself upon Darla’s chest in hopes of feeling a heartbeat. It was as if all Eternity were waiting upon the following fleeting moments, seeking to offer either reward or condemnation.
“Such a little thing she asked.” It chided him. “The child gave you her soul to assist her in such a little thing. Have you kilt her with your foolishness, or does she live with a soul torn and broken? Some hero you’ve been, allowing the child to be so ravaged and tortured. What good is the mighty Euroaquilo when he cannot save this little maiden?”
All of the man’s recent visions flooded his mind. Were they gone from hope now, just dreams to be cast into the pit of despair, without want or care? Was there any future at all for the universe should he have failed this night, and caused her death, the possibility of Darla’s flesh being too weak in power to withstand the onslaught of those countless demons renting her mind?
Had it been seconds or hours since the battle in the dark abyss, since he had first placed his hand upon the girl’s heart? Euroaquilo did not know, and with each passing of his own breath, he feared all the more the loss of tonight’s contest. He was about to surrender to his worst fears when his hand felt the faintest of beats from a struggling heart. Then there was another, and then another, weak and erratic, but real. Hope began to grow in Euroaquilo. The child might yet live.
There was a sudden rush of air being sucked into empty lungs. Darla’s eyes flew open again, but this time in recognition of the man looking down into her face. Though her breathing was shallow and irregular, the woman forced a tempered smile of appreciation and thanks. Then, just as quickly, she closed her eyes and faded into a quiet sleep.
Euroaquilo slowly pulled himself from atop his most cherished ward and snuggled up close beside her on the narrow cot. While he laid his head on his arm, the man rested a hand on Darla’s chest, cherishing the now constant quiet thump, thump, thump of her heart and the slight heave of her breast caused by the rhythmic breathing of a deep sleep. Yes, Darla had been severely tormented this night, her body driven to its limits, but she lived in both soul and mind.
Pondering this and the previous nights’ battles fought, Euroaquilo hoped that Darla would little remember the evil of this past evening as she had the others. Maybe with a few fleeting hours of sleep and a warm shower in the morning, she might be little worse for wear.
Euroaquilo frowned. What if he had not bested the demon this night? What if the demon came in greater might on the morrow, gathering even a larger more powerful horde of hideous devils from the black and twisted abyss? How much more power could it gather the nearer to its creator that it came? And, Euroaquilo, how much strength did he have remaining within himself to protect the girl?
Of all of Mother’s children, other than say Mihai, Euroaquilo understood the ugly evil residing within his woman-child, his lover, his maiden divine. What the man had not learned from the millennia-long contest he fought along with Darla in their dream shares, he had received from Lowenah, and all his knowledge only filled him with dread. Time was running out for the child. Was it days, or weeks? He did not know, and if Mother did, she would not say. Oh, yes, Mother had been so optimistic when telling him the importance of remaining with Darla after the last Council, but that was often the way Mother was.
Euroaquilo pondered Mihai’s demon, or possibly many demons. The woman was strong, tough, and she bested them often by her own self-will. Darla was different. If there was but one demon - Euroaquilo believed there might be many, or one whose mind was fragmented to the point of macro-schizophrenia, it projecting a divided mind into many individual personalities to the point that each obtained a separate identity – that demon maintained far greater influence over Darla than that of Mihai’s. If it was not for Darla’s self-made monster of the battlefield, and a mysterious hidden power buried deep within her mind, the girl might well have fallen hopelessly under the demon’s control long ago.
Euroaquilo believed Darla’s resistance was weakening. This night there would have been only despair should she have been cast into that abyss alone. The woman was crippled so with fear she could not even chase off the little demon spirits. Tonight, as with the previous, Euroaquilo was forced to stand the battle line alone, something he never before experienced when contending with Darla’s demons. He feared the coming eve should the demon increase its power and bring more numbers to the contest. Could Euroaquilo stem the evil tide if that became the case? The man did not know.
Euroaquilo closed his eyes, listening to Darla’s gentle, deep breathing while he took count of each beat of her heart. ‘It rests in your hands. It rests upon your shoulders.’ The warning of the earlier visions echoed in the man’s head. What a fool he had been then, thinking it might only apply to the way Darla felt concerning Ardon. As he lay there, it became clearer that the vision was not singing its warning song regarding Darla, but about the universe and Time itself. Whatever adventurous road his feet now trod, Darla played only a part, she being the catalyst that might set the universe ablaze, but still only a part, none the less, and now Ardon, too. Yes, for some inexplicable reason, the Fates had swept that odd fellow up into the coming maelstrom. For good or ill, the three were bound upon a fated road.
This was all too overwhelming for Euroaquilo. He called out to Mother through his mind for help, something he rarely did anymore. ‘I am only a man, powerful in the flesh, maybe, but only a child weak and of little knowledge in the mind. How do I do this thing demanded of me? I see no success on this path, for the Spirits ask too much from such a frail child. Look! I can barely hold back the demon hordes that threaten my darling love. How can I save the universe? It is too much for me to do alone. Too much...’
Suddenly, a dark cloud filled the man’s mind, blinding his eyes with forgetful dreams. Without warning, Euroaquilo drifted into a deep, sound sleep that he did not revive from until Darla lovingly nudged him in the late morning hours.
Lowenah smiled and spoke aloud as if hosting company in her quiet, unlit room. “My boy grows in wisdom. He learns. Little Rachel shall not be visited this coming night by her demon, but hiding far down in hard to reach places shall it remain for some time. It hurts like a puppy beaten and wishes for no more contest against the new god who rules his world.”
She rolled onto her side, thinking about the coming Prisoner Exchange and the future beyond that. A tear ran down her cheek. “We have chosen well. He will play this to the limit, but at what a cost? Oh my, oh my, at what a cost…”
A gentle breeze swaddled Lowenah in its loving embrace. A whisper on that breeze called out to her reassuringly
, “Such a little price to pay for the rich reward received. You will see. You will see…”