Lastlight's Revenant #2

Garran’s blade arced in a silver flash, deflecting the projectile midair. The impact sent a jolt up his arm—too strong for something so thin—but he was already moving.

Three seconds.

That’s how long the Duskhound’s hollow arm would take to regenerate a new weapon. Garran closed the gap in two.

His bastard sword cleaved through the demon’s neck with a wet thunk. The head toppled, its lidless eyes still blinking, its needle teeth gnashing at nothing.

The other Duskhounds hissed, a sound like steam escaping a corpse.

Garran knew their kind. Not warriors—not really. Stronger than the Maw’s vermin, yes, but their true purpose was subtler: erase scouts, sever supply lines, choke information before it could breathe. 

They were the Maw’s silencers.

Another spear hurtled toward his ribs. Garran twisted, letting it graze his gambeson before charging the thrower. This time—

—the pack learned.

Three Duskhounds lunged to intercept, moving with the eerie synchronicity of a single mind.

The first thrust at his throat.

Garran dodged, stepped into the strike, and severed its arm at the elbow. Black liquid sprayed, sizzling where it struck the earth.

The severed limb twitched, fingers still curling around the spear.

Garran didn’t have time to finish the maimed Duskhound. The second demon was already upon him, its elongated limbs bending farther than any human’s could, its spine-spear stabbing toward his ribs from an unnatural angle.

He kicked the wounded demon aside—its severed arm still pulsating like a dying spider—and pivoted to meet the fresh threat.

This one had learned faster.

It kept its distance, torso bent forward like a drawn bow, adding precious inches to its reach.

Garran barely parried in time, steel screeching against the spear’s barbed tip. He didn’t hesitate—he lunged, driving his sword through the demon’s chest with a wet crunch.

The Duskhound shrieked, but Garran wasn’t done.

With a roar and a two-handed grip, he wrenched the blade sideways, splitting the creature open from sternum to flank. Tarry demon blood gushed, steaming where it struck the frozen earth.

The third Duskhound didn’t attack.

It watched.

Blank white eyes tracked Garran’s every move, its too-long fingers flexing around two spine-spears. Then—

—it moved.

One spear hurtled at Garran’s face. He ducked, but the demon was already closing the gap, holding the second spear like a dagger it created while watching, just below the tip. Close-quarters stance.

Garran’s lips peeled back in a snarl. Medium range had failed. Now it wanted to fight in the kill-box, where its spindly limbs and double-jointed wrists could strike from impossible angles.

A cold thought slithered through his mind: 'If these things crossed over more often, they’d be deadlier than any Gorehorn. Their adaptability was terrifying.'

But Garran had ten years of hell carved into his bones.

And unlike the Duskhounds, he understood his enemy.

The Duskhound's spear-tip hovered a finger's width from Garran's throat—until his gauntlet snapped shut around it. Steel screeched against the barbed spine as he wrenched it aside, his armored grip the only thing keeping the point from punching through his eye.

The demon shrieked, its other arm lashing out like a whip. Garran raised his sword-arm to block—

—but the limb bent over the blade, striking his ribs with a wet crack. Leather armor split. Breath surged from his lungs.

"Gh—!"

The Duskhound's arm hung limp, its own strike having torn the flesh against Garran's sword-edge. Black blood pattered onto the frozen ground. Yet it made that sound again—a wet, gurgling chitter that could only be laughter.

"Disgusting filth."

Garran flipped his grip on the bastard sword, fingers tightening around the blade itself. No finesse now. Just killing.

The pommel smashed into the demon's face with a crunch of chitinous bone. Once. Twice. On the third strike, something gave—its skull collapsed inward like rotten fruit, ichor spraying through the holes where its nostrils should've been.

It fell.

Garran exhaled through his teeth, flexing his gauntleted hand. The steel was dented, the leather singed by demon-blood, but still whole.

A knight could trade his plate for leather and padded cloth, his helm for a hood, his honor for an easy conscience—but never his gauntlets. Without them, half his techniques turned to suicidal self-harm.

A sword couldn't parry everything, and sometimes, you had to catch death by the throat.

The thought flickered and died.

Eight pairs of lidless eyes stared back at him from the darkness.

Eight spine-spears leveled at his heart.

Garran’s breath hissed through his teeth as he calculated angles of attack—

—then the scream came.

"Come at me, you demon fuckers!"

Rorke charged from the camp’s ruins, his rust-pitted shield raised and a notched spear in hand. The man’s face was a snarl of broken teeth and fury. Two Duskhounds pivoted toward the new threat.

The first spine-spear thunked into Rorke’s shield. The impact wrenched his arm sideways, the strap snapping. The shield fell.

The second spear took him through the chest.

Garran didn’t even have time to shout.

Rorke crumpled, blood frothing at his lips, but his idiocy had bought a miracle: an opening.

Garran moved like a struck viper. His sword sheared through the first unarmed Duskhound’s knee, dropping it shrieking. The second demon barely turned before his blade gutted it, black viscera spilling like rotten fruit. He broke through their circle.

The remaining Duskhounds hissed, spines flexing along their arms as they raised fresh spears. Garran dove toward Rorke's corpse and quickly rose to his knees, shield raised.

Thunk. Thunk. THUNK.

The shield shuddered in his grip, three spears embedded deep in the wood. He didn’t pause. Sword planted in the dirt, he snatched Rorke’s fallen spear and hurled it back at the pack. A sigh of parting flees echoed as it punched through a Duskhound’s throat.

The demon collapsed, clawing at the shaft, its death rattle an eerie parody of Rorke’s last scream.

Five left.

Garran rose, sword freed, shield strapped hastily to his forearm. The wood was splintered, the metal rim bent—but it would hold. For now.

His blade, though…

The steel was notched, the edge dulled from hacking through demon bone. It wouldn’t last much longer.

The Duskhounds spread out, their movements now cautious. They’d learned.

The easy part of the fight was over..

...

Ten minutes later, Garran fought like a man already dead.

His sword—now a jagged, half-shattered thing—was gripped near the crossguard, wielded more like a hatchet than a knight’s blade. The last Duskhound, taller than the others, its spine-spears longer and thicker, circled him with the patience of a starved wolf.

Blood dripped from Garran’s side where a lucky thrust had slipped past his ruined shield. His breath came in ragged gulps, each one tasting of iron and soot.

The Duskhound charged.

Garran barely twisted in time, taking the spear’s edge across his shoulder instead of his throat. He didn’t scream. Just moved, driving the broken sword into the demon’s ribs with a wet crunch.

The Duskhound shrieked, its too-long fingers scrabbling at the steel lodged in its flesh. Garran wrenched the blade free—or tried to. The metal snapped, leaving only a foot of jagged iron in his grip.

No matter.

He slammed the broken edge into the demon’s neck. Once. Twice. On the third strike, something gave, and the Duskhound collapsed, its limbs shaking frenziedly in the dirt.

Garran stood over it, chest heaving. Silence pressed in around him, thick and suffocating.

The camp was quiet now.

No more screams. No clashing steel. Just the distant crackle of dying fires and the low moan of the wind through the Maw’s teeth.

He dropped the shattered remains of his sword and turned toward the heart of the campsite.

Whatever had happened there, it was over.

Still, he had to see it for himself.

...

The campsite stank of opened bowels and rusted iron.

Corpses littered the ground—Repentants and Skarral alike, their bodies tangled in final embraces of teeth and knives. And at the center of it all, pulsing like a diseased heart, was the Tick Mother.

A fleshy mound of gray, rotting meat, its surface bubbling as it spawned fist-sized parasites. The creatures skittered on too many legs, burrowing into corpses through wounds or gaping mouths. Already, the dead twitched as the ticks took hold.

Garran’s stomach turned. No one deserved this. Not even the worst of the Repentants. Tradition demanded cremation—a pyre to spare them from becoming puppets—but the air reeked of demon-sign. They could return any moment.

He limped forward, snatched a fallen sword from a dead man’s grip, and brought it down on the Tick Mother. The blade split the abomination in two with a wet schlorp. Foul jelly spurted from its core, the remaining parasites shriveling mid-crawl.

No sign of Kael.

That was good. The boy must’ve slipped away during the fight—but it also meant the demons were likely hunting him now. If they caught him, someone had to reach Lastlight.

Garran staggered toward the supply tent, each step sending fresh blood sliding down his ribs. Inside, he grabbed a waterskin and a sack of dried meat, his fingers slipping on the ties. Kneeling sent a white-hot spike of pain through his side, but he refused to collapse.

Not here. Not now.

He lurched upright, swaying like a drunkard. The wounds could wait. The grief could wait.

He needed to keep moving.