Despite the soft light of morning peeking through the tree branches, no morning songs of the birds greeted Elena as her forces continued their journey along the road. Not a single branch rustled, no animals could be seen moving through the underbrush. The air was hard to move and each breath felt like swallowing lukewarm water. The hardened veterans besides her scanned the brush and horizon, and the horses’ ears were pinned straight back when they weren’t swiveling at nothing.

Still nothing, even after days of riding. Not a single demon has shown up, no ambushes laying in wait for us on the road. They likely know we’re here, that our horses carry us towards demon territory. Bill found some relatively fresh tracks that could be human or demon, and one of his men did see some grey skin in the distance, but no confrontation…

Try as she might, Elena couldn’t quite figure out what she was missing. Was it truly all down to a stroke of luck, like she had heard some of the men mutter about, or was the demon hero planning something? They had already passed several prime locations for ambushes, mixes of rives her men had to cross and canyons that had forced her, Jim, and Carlos into high alert. But, nothing stirred in those places. And now, only an hour or two at most from crossing the border, there was still no opposition.

No opposition, save for this unnatural silence.

Fucking hell.

Elena shook her head to clear her whirring mind. It was all becoming far too similar to that night in Drassington. A bitter silence. No knowledge of where the enemy was, or when they would strike. Only the knowledge that it would happen eventually. That, and the looming feeling that something… bigger was at play. Like she was an ant trapped in a glass jar by some snot-nosed kid that was using her for a science project but she didn’t have a damn choice but to play along.

“Ma’am,” Bill’s voice interrupted her thoughts, his armored body coming into view out of nowhere. “We’ve got possible trouble coming up just past the tree line. Some sort of massive mud plain. It’s riddled with what looks to be trenches, and I have confirmed with my own eyes that there is some sort of demon activity in them. Hard to tell what activity it is, but every so often you can see heads poke out of the trenches. Just thought you’d like to know.”

Elena stared back at Bill as he finished his report, her mind grinding to a halt in the face of such an unexpected situation.

“A ‘massive mud plain’?” She questioned, the confusion filling her voice.

Bill nodded back to her, gesturing with his hands while he responded. “Yes. We’ll need more time if you want a detailed idea of how big it is, but from the tree line it goes almost as far as the eye can see. I’d estimate it’s at least ten – no, twenty miles across at minimum. The air gets a bit hazy around what I would guess is the ten mile mark, so again it’s difficult to tell how far the mud truly goes.”

“Just a large field of mud?”

“Yes.” Bill shrugged, his usual professionalism fading away slightly as he tried to impress upon Elena what he had seen. “Riddled with networks of trenches. We have a slight height advantage, coming out of the tree line, so my scouts and I were able to get a decent view of it. It’s quite large, made of mud, and filled with interconnected trenches. No idea if it stops after the air gets too hazy to see, but it could very well go on for leagues.”

“And there’s demons in it.” Elena responded in a flat tone of voice while her mind was filled with echoes of what the fuck is going on why does this happen to me I just want to go home and eat some ice cream or some shit like that.

“Affirmative. I’ve seen about five different heads pop out of the trenches at a given time, the rest of my scouts have seen a few more. However, there may be more demons waiting in the trenches to ambush us if we go in, Ma’am. There could be only five, or there could be hundreds.”

Or there could even be that demon hero. A trap? Or a desperate last defense. If they were unable to rebuild the defenses that the magic of Kevin, Warren, and Eleanor tore apart when we invaded their country, then this might be the best the demons can do. Digging trenches is easier than building large stone walls out of scratch, and you wouldn’t even need stonemasons or a strong labor force to do it. All they’d need would be anyone with two hands to use a shovel. And the mud, well, if Bill isn’t exaggerating, that would be tougher, but if that demon hero is decent enough with water magic and had enough time, I bet he could do it. Kevin might have been able to do something like that given a few years and some actual fucking motivation. It all boils down to what it is, I suppose.

A trick? Or a defense, one annoying enough to stall us out and hide the civvies?

…

Either way it’s not like we can avoid it.

Elena grimaced at the realization.

If we move around it, and it actually is a trap, then we’ll have a bunch of battle-ready demons staring at us from the rear that could move in at any time to catch us unawares. If it isn’t a trap, and it represents a last-ditch defense, then if we go in and deal with them the demons cease being a threat for a good twenty or so years? Assuming their children age like ours. And if the demon hero is there… well we have to fight him anyways, and at least this way we would know where he is.

Elena patted Bill on the shoulder, before nudging her horse next to her fellow heroes.

“Looks like you’ll be getting your first battle today. Be careful, stay calm, and stick to my side like a fucking barnacle on a ship. Don’t worry about the ground troops, Bill and the other officers will handle them. Their job is to keep the demons off us, ours is to kill that son of a bitch that helped take my arm. We kill the demon hero, we win the battle, and with the three of us together he will have little chance.”

Two pale faces looked back at her, and Elena grabbed her horn from her saddlebags, only pausing to issue one last order.

“Oh, and watch out for rats. If you see any more than a single rat at a time, shout like a fucking banshee for me if you don’t want to die an exceptionally painful death.”

As her words hung on the still air like the waiting blade of a guillotine, Elena sounded her horn, the force of the call seeming to even bend back the branches of the nearest trees as her company of soldiers exploded into a savage yet disciplined charge towards the tree line.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

From where he sat on a camp chair among the stinking, squelching mud of the trenches, Mavier’s head snapped forwards as he heard a mighty blast of a horn issue from the trees.

Finally.

“Ready up.” He calmly ordered as his band of demons checked their weapons for the final time. “Spread out, make sure we have coverage of the main arteries. Stay with your battle buddy, and take heart. We know these trenches. We hardened our hearts on this battlefield. We will win.”

The arteries, a nickname that even Mavier knew not who had originally coined it, stood for the main network of trenches that spanned veritable miles across the battlefield. They were the main roads of the place, offering hundreds, if not thousands, of offshoots, side alleys, and dead ends that a warrior could use to traverse the trenches and appear anywhere they wanted to.

However, the enemy wouldn’t know it. And if they did, it wouldn’t matter. For the enemy was unprepared for the battlefield. For what it could do a person. His own forces knew it. They could withstand it. In order to become warriors worthy of his people, they had even volunteered to walk its muddy halls before joining Mavier’s band. All in the pursuit of strengthening their own wills.

“Dimitre, lead the vanguard as we discussed. I’ll leave the details up to you. Santet, use your speed well with the messenger corps. The greater the amount of intel we get with the greater the speed, the more of an advantage we will hold. Galler, do as you wish and as the Rat King commands. I have faith that your assistance will be of great use in the coming hours. The rest of you, do as you do best. Slaughter those who would follow those human heroes. If you somehow finish before I do, make sure to keep a perimeter up and look for openings. Even a tiny distraction in a fight between heroes can be enough to tip the scales.”

Silent nods were the only answer to his speech, as Dimitre, Santet, and the other demons rushed off to fulfil his orders. Bit by bit the demons filtered out into their chosen tunnels, and only when the last one left Mavier’s eyesight did he draw his own scimitar, flexing his hands to begin applying his magic. A roaring flame coated his flesh, comforting in its warmth. A quickness filled his limbs. His bones felt light, as though he’d just set down a great weight.

And then, a rat climbed up his leg to rest on his shoulders. One rat, two rats, more and more of them scrabbling up his back, blatantly ignoring the crimson flames that licked his skin as they crawled over each other, fighting for positions as they formed a living cape. Finally the last rat streamed into place, and a terrifying presence turned It’s gaze on himItcanseemeunderstandswhatIamlaidbarebeforethelidlessgazeofthesun

A rat bit deeply into his bicep, teeth landing directly beside a growing network of tiny, pinprick scars. Mavier flinched, his mind reasserting his own understanding of what was real, what was happening.

It’s okay.

It’s okay.

Focus on the now.

Mavier spread his arms, the fluid motion of his living cape swimming through the air to match his own movements as he hopped on top of the trenches to see the tree line, to see the line of warriors streaming out from the road. He grinned, making direct eye contact with the red-haired woman leading the vanguard, where she road alongside a middle-aged man and a tanned youth. All three of them radiated almost intoxicating amounts of power, and even from this distance he could see reminders of past battles with the woman.

A particularly large gash in her plate armor. Oh, and the missing arm. A truly fine piece of work from Tim. Damn, he missed that guy.

A shout of challenge bellowed out from the woman, and Mavier jumped forwards into the air to answer with a mighty shout of his own.