Page 6 of Red Demon
We burst into waning twilight. Mal, a few long strides ahead of us, stumbled on the bone-shaking ground.
“Mal, get up!” I knelt down, lifting him to his feet before chasing after Iden.
I slowed my steps on the quaking, icy road. Whirling around, I expected to find Mal there. He was at least twenty paces behind now, limping. My gaze shifted to the broad mine entrance, billowing dust.
A figure leaped out into the twilight, her bright red hair streaming behind her. The Red Demon charged in her begrimed leather armor, hands on the hilts of both her swords.
“Jesse! Mal!”
I faltered.
“Run!” Iden yelled.
My feet planted to a stop, my instincts warring between escape and going back for Mal. The Red Demon had swords, prime engineering in her code, and I had nothing to defend my brother. My hunting knife lay buried in mine rubble. I moved my traitorous feet like Iden told me to: ten more paces, twenty. When I turned again, trees leaned uprooted on the dented hills above the mine entrance, their angry branches clawing the red winter sky. My heart stuttered when I found Mal—standing, knife out, too far away.
A flash of silver, a burst of crimson. My blood turned as cold as the void, an icy vacuum stealing my breath. I was close enough to see the Red Demon’s impassive face when she killed my brother. I was close enough to see the maze of little scars, like old Asri art, on her muscled arms. And I was close enough to see the spray of blood as she cut Mal down like a sapling on her path. It replays in my nightmares to this day: one swipe across his chest, one thrust between his ribs. A kick to his chest to remove her blades. His knees buckled as he fell with a hollow gasp, the light in his eyes fading. He reached for me. His eyes found mine.
My mind stilled, hollow. I stared at the Red Demon glittering with my brother’s blood, trying to understand. For a moment, I got the sense that I did; that nothing was real but her and me. Maybe that’s the same thing that smaller animals feel when they face down a predator and stop running. They make it all make sense; get high on their own hormones before they die.
The Red Demon didn’t charge. She didn’t look like she wanted to, standing tall and cocking her head at me. She was terrifying, enchanting, and other words that sprang to mind that shame me even now. My brother was dead at her feet, his blood still coming in gushes, and my traitorous brain chose that moment to find her beautiful.
Time slowed, the clang of the rising rigs scarcely registered. One long exhale escaped me, then my breaths came fast and shallow. Iden screamed beside me, a hoarse roar that overcame the sheer impossibility of it all. The snow drifted down around us. Iden pulled my arm, his face desperate and pleading.
When we ran, the Red Demon followed, but she didn’t outpace us.
She could have.
We kept catching glimpses of movement behind us, so we kept on running. When Iden lagged behind, he let me shoulder the pack instead. We walked a few paces for the exchange, and ran again along the rocks and deer path, sliding down hills and angling up them to avoid slipping on the ice. About an hour later, Iden was wheezing and slouched, and I coughed with my sides throbbing. Below the mist of our breath arced a rippling stream. We stopped there, standing alone under the stars.
I put my arms around Iden as the flurries of snow stilled. He leaned in, his head on my shoulder. When he shuddered against me, I gripped tighter, pulling the cold sweat of his forehead to mine. We stayed like that for a moment, keeping ourselves warm through shared breaths, holding each other up.
I looked back at our footprints in the snow, to the trail that would tell the Red Demon exactly where to find us.
Chapter 3
Deer Stand
Iden washed the mine dust from his face in the icy river, leaving only his exhaustion behind.
Looking around at the snow-blanketed hills, I felt grateful that Iden paid attention to where we were going. The tall cedars that creaked far up into the night sky were outlines I recognized, the smaller pines underneath familiar friends.
“Dad’s deer stand isn’t too far from here.” I was ready to collapse.
“Yeah,” Iden said.
We walked along the rocks of the river to hide the last part of our journey, hoping that was enough.
The deer stand along that glittering stream wasn’t what it once was; it had been about five years since we built it with Dad. And by we, I mean Dad, Oren, and Mal—all using their powerful muscles to saw and plane logs. I’d watched them anchor the boards into the wide trunk, hammering with a crack that echoed through the forest. Meanwhile, Iden and I played at fetching things, but spent most of our time pretending sticks were swords. Maybe if Iden and I were more helpful that day, Dad would have found time for a second layer of sealant so that the caulk didn’t peel off, and there wouldn’t be cracks in the tarpaper roof. But mossy boards were better than the snowy ground, and there were walls. Walls with holes to shoot deer from, but walls.
We settled in with the single blanket we had in the one pack, huddling together as best we could. Mushroom flour flatbread and jerky satisfied what little appetite we had, followed by metallic-tasting water from the canteen. The structure swayed with the branches in the wind, with each gust seeping through the weathered bones of the frame.
We lay back to back rather than risk a fire the Red Demon could see. The silence felt hollow as our shivering kept us awake, but any words I tried tasted like ash on my tongue. I had no words for Iden that were both hopeful and true. My thoughts drifted to the cold beds in my childhood home, the silence of all those dark rooms in all those dark houses, and my sisters’ bodies lying underneath the fresh snow. We’d need to get back to burn them before the wild dogs and crows found them.
“You think—” I said, my voice cracking in the dry air. “How much longer do you think it will be until the empire sends help?”
A ragged sigh escaped Iden and dissolved into the night. “They’d be here already if half of what the priests said was true. Exaggerating fucks.”
I’d come to the same conclusion myself, but I needed to hear that anyway. General Alexander had a satellite system monitoring for any major attack, ensuring he didn’t lose the peace that he and the queen had fought so hard for. History at school or news at the temple were full of stories of Jeron Alexander’s armies coming to destroy clusters of rebels, or our queen defending Chaeten from century-old bigotry. Even if civilians lived with minimal tech to not give magic a foothold, the empire should have trucks, drones, at least horses to mobilize fast from the nearest Z’har barrack.
