The Demonlord Chronicles

Chapter III – The Darkness of Light
21.
Everywhere along the treelines, black-furred figures appeared, charging forward in a speed that made even Srazih eye’s go wide. Panthers... Or rather, anthromorphic version of those majestic animals she had seen in the deeper jungles.
Every single of the Black Guardian’s was such a being, with a shiny and yet solid black coat of fur. Without any clothes or visible armament, they charged onto the field and Srazih quickly counted a number of about fifty of them. Given Têrr had held his promise in regards to their speed... there was just to hope his promises regarding their strength wasn’t lacking, either.
Dirt was thrown up, when the giant lance suddenly hit ground. For a second Srazih thought one of Hemlat’s men had stumbled or something like that. But then she realized that it wasn’t actually a weapon meant for ramming. Using their momentum to bury the tip of the long spear into the ground, Hemlat’s men let go of the handles used to carry it and instead further charged forward, spreading out. The past half of them kept running straight forward, though, pulling ropes behind them, ropes connected to the latter part of the spear. Two beast hunters jumped onto the end of the lance and rose into the air when the lance was pulled up into a vertical position.
Still admiring the precision of the maneuver, Srazih could see how the two beast hunters at the top of the lance suddenly pulled a chain of small bags from their belts, the chains apparently made of loose strings, causing the bags to fly off, scattering all across the front rows of the soldiers, spreading fine, white clouds.
Mid-run, one of the still charging ones suddenly lit something ablaze, probably a small bundle of leaves, throwing it into the clouds and suddenly a light flared up, bright as the sun itself, even if just for a short moment, forcing Srazih to avert her eyes.
When she could, two seconds later, see again, Hemlat’s men had already charged through the dazed and blinded soldiers, cutting through their rows, the shield wall completely messed up along the middle portion of their line.
Even the angel at the front appeared confused for a second and realized too slow that the giant lance was for sure not going to stick around in the ground forever, but instead was falling forward, right onto him, knocking him to the ground. A group of four, including Hemlat and his unusual blade, formed up, encircling the angel and starting to harass him with well-placed strikes.
Suddenly a loud chain of howls rose across the battlefield and Srazih noticed how the Black Guardians, who had already crossed most of the distance, started to change. Every single of them suddenly grew in size, bending forward mid-run, turning into feral panthers of nearly two meters in height.
Where the soldiers had, at first, looked confident against single, unarmed furred things, their formation was now quickly thrown into scared disarray, when they suddenly faced oversized beasts, whose bloodthirsty howling didn’t stop until the black figures charged into the frey, sending soldiers stumbling and a few even flying.
“WOLVEN!” Srazih yelled, standing up. “Now it’s our turn! Give them everything, spare noone! CHARGE!” The entire forest itself appeared to start moving when thousands of Wolven emerged from the jungle, running as fast as they could, hunters at the front, archers dashing after them.
In the midst of an ocean of footsteps, Srazih could hear the distant, though irregular, sound of bowsstrings and quickly spotted single groups of archers who had realized new targets were approaching and started sending death across the brawl in front of them, into the Wolven.

“Ses!” Unleashing a fury of strikes, Ses stepped towards the angel, causing the broad giant to pull up his warhammer to parry the human’s sword, before striking at him. Naturally, the beast hunter was already out of range by the time the hammer’s head came down.
“Jormund, Gunther!” Hemlat commanded, and the two brothers striked in from either side, their spears aiming for the arm pits, potential weakspots on plate armor. The angel was too quick to react, though, spinning around, both spears striking at the massive chestplate, barely leaving a scratch.
The warhammer whirled through the air and a spear shattered, sending it’s owned stumbling backwards. “Grab a sword and...” Hemlat started, but his comrade suddenly dropped over, a gold- and silvercovered arrow protruding from his forehead. “Damn, watch that archer!” Hemlat sweared and quickly waved over to the angel who had fired this shot.
With a swift sidestep, Ses got himself extra close to the angel, mere inches off the giant’s chest, before he pulled one of his weapons upwards, angled to pierce through the angels throat. A large gauntlet hit his hand on the way there, shattering his fingers and causing the sword to fly off. Without a single moan of pain, the beast slayer ducked below the incoming hammer and backed off, leaving the angel’s attention to Jormund.
A quick glare from eye to eye and Hemlat realized Ses’ next step and quickly dashed sidewards into position, readying his weapon for a final strike. Without hesitation, Ses’ brougth up his sword to his own, shattered left, the steel running through his flesh and cutting right through his wrist joint. Letting go of the sword, the warrior quickly catched his cut off body part and threw it at the angel.
Distracted by the speer poking around in front of him, the angel merely saw a hand, and quickly hit the ‘attack’ with his hammer, causing the piece of flesh to be smashed mid-air, blood splashing around, hitting the angels eyes, blinding him for mere seconds.
An aimed thrust of the spear, striking right in between the gap of helmet and chestplate. The resulting hit would have been lethal for anything mortal, but barely caused the angel to stagger, a light wound covering his throat. However, Jormund hadn’t aimed to injure him, in first place, but had reached his goal: Causing the helmet to be pushed slightly upwards, just a few inches... enough for Hemlat’s blade to find it’s way through the slight gap, slicing through throat and spine, sending the immortal’s head off to the ground.
“Nice job!” Hemlat commented his comrades, spinning around just to see Ses falling to the ground, as another of these damned golden arrows found a target. “Jormund, on my back, we will get that bastard!”
A quick look around told Hemlat his men were barely holding up. Luckyly there hasn’t been any other brawling angel on the frontlines. He saw most of the other beast slayers still fighting their way through the human soldiers, who, to be fair, were no real match. As well he noticed the turmoils all around, occasionally seeing large black beasts tearing their way through the human rows.
He saw how two large panthers jumped off the main brawl, aiming for the archer angel, who fired a single shot, which split up mid-air, hitting both beasts, causing them to drop to the ground, dead before they even touched the soil.
“Come on!” Hemlat yelled over to a few others, pointing towards the back of the enemy forces, where the archers and that angel were located. “Push through!” Within mere seconds a small group of his men had gathered and charged forwards. A combination of brute force and raw speed, they broke through the last row of the actual soldiers and stumbled into a group of archers. Most of them had drawn melee weapons, a few others now aimed their bows at the attackers.
The sound of impacting arrows sounded and half of the archers dropped dead. Using the added confusion, Hemlat charged forwards, swinging his large and foreign sword, easyly cleaving his way through every armor and body. He heard pawsteps closing in and suddenly the Wolven were everywhere, pushing through the gaps in the defensive formation, uniting with their allies and turning the tide entirely.

Just a few minutes had passed, when trumpets started to sound, the human formation falling into utter disarray, most soldiers outright turning around and running for their lives. Hemlat was tempted to chase after the angelic archer, who, with a visibly unhappy face, followed the human retreat, fully aware that he would be left isolated otherwise.
Deciding he would let the immortal bastard run, this time, Hemlat kept to the initial plan, taking down those few enemies who didn’t run, before starting to examine the situation:
Judging by the corpses, the battleplan had succeeded. Most of the corpses were human. Turning around, Hemlat could see countless furred remains scattered across the plains, spiked with arrows. As well Wolven, beast hunters and the giant panther beasts alike have fallen in the brawl itself.
Jormund stepped over to him, giving him a friendly slap onto the shoulder. “We’ve won.”
Hemlat couldn’t smile. “Only one battle, not the war... and we have lost good men today.”
His comrade’s face darkened. “It’s war. Blood is shed, lives are lost. My brother knew that. But at least I will be able to tell my father about how we together fought and beat an immortal... Gunther himself will be immortal, in the future songs to be sung about this battle.”
The Darag-Ur knew Jormund was doing everything to distract himself from the actual reality. Hemlat wasn’t goin to disturb that attempt and tried a weak smile. He didn’t say anything, though he thought to himself: IF we come back home alive, that is... And I know...
I won’t.