The skal pulsed inside of him—eager, hungry. Ma’sal trembled at the foreign presence, the shadow that twisted and squirmed under his skin. Absentmindedly, he rubbed a calloused hand over his new robes, over the roughspun fabric that scraped coarsely against his skin. They had given it to him only moments before, saying that he was now a true brother. He did not care for their words; he was not doing this for them. Tsaya—she was the only reason he stood here now. She was the only thing that mattered.

They gathered in a group in the middle of the night, Ma’sal along with the other hooded brothers and sisters. There were far more of them than he had originally thought, nearly a hundred that came out from within the spire. Ma’sal spotted a few that were formerly laborers, now tainted black like him, although their features were obscured by their robes. Almost idly, he could not help but wonder what faces were hidden under those hoods and how many of those brothers he might recognize.

“Are you worried?” a soft voice asked from behind him, and Ma’sal swiftly turned around to see Tsaya waiting. She would not be joining them—she could not fight. He knew this, and yet a greedy part of him wanted her to come with him, wanted to keep her close.

“Only for your sake.” he whispered back, reaching out for her hands. His own fingers were worn and gnarled, the skin cracked and covered with pulsing veins. They looked misshapen, grotesque, especially when compared to her own smooth skin.

Tsaya smiled at his reply, drawing in close and giving him a quick kiss on the lips. “You’re a fool, you know that? You’re the one going off to fight, and you’re afraid for me?” Her cheeks were wet, seemingly from tears, and Ma’sal felt a sudden urge to draw her close and run off with her and damn all the consequences.

Yet the air was quickly filled with the calls to rally, for it seemed that he was the only one with the need for any goodbyes. Ma’sal found his own throat choked for words at this moment, his eyes growing blurry with tears of his own as he searched for what to say. Finally, unable to come up with any, he instead drew Tsaya in once more for another deep kiss, breathing in her scent as he wound her hair around his fingers. His own traitorous heart kept count of the seconds as they passed, and eventually he pulled himself away from that blissful eternity.

“Come back to me.” she called out faintly as he slipped off into the night with his brothers. Yet when Ma’sal turned back one more time to try and see her, she was already gone into the night.

The night was utterly dark, the moon hidden behind the cover of clouds, and he could hardly see a hand’s length before his eyes. Yet he found himself completely at home in the night, hardly even having to think even as he sprinted in the dark. He knew where it all was—the sharp rocks two paces to his left, the snarl of brush ahead of him. Every shadow was familiar, not to him but rather to the creature that dwelt within him.

Protect the archers, was the only command that he had been given before they left. He knew where they were, hidden in the stone outcroppings some hundred paces to the west. The rest of the brothers, including him, were scattered throughout the grass, using the night cover to their advantage. He could see the demon’s camp in the distance, little more than a wild mess of sleeping bodies and haphazardly discarded equipment. Many slept in their armor, their bedrolls only inches from their swords.

In the distance he felt as the archers nocked their bows, felt the faint rattle as the strings were pulled back. He felt the slithering rasp as the arrows flew, felt the tension flow out of his own arms in sympathy. Ma’sal felt as the volley arched in the moonless sky, felt as their whistling forms began to fall.

Then he heard the first scream, a shrill piercing shriek that resounded through the night and sent the camp awake. It was followed by a cacophony of noise as the first volley struck, the arrows finding their way into dirt, steel, and flesh all the same.

The camp immediately fell into chaos as the men roused themselves, blind in the night. The few low-guttering flames were immediately brought to bear, only adding to the madness as they danced in the air. Over the distant din, the archers readied a second volley. Ma’sal felt his own body tense in anticipation of a counterattack, although he did not know why. It was not his own instinct, but rather the instinct of his brothers, shared to him through the shadow in his flesh.

The second volley flew through the wind, and Ma’sal traced its path in the air. The camp was filled with distant motion, the soldiers struggling to don armor and form rank amidst the bedlam. Some of them were clutching at arrow wounds, others blindly searching for swords. A fateful few had never woken, sleeping with arrows in their throats.

Yet suddenly, the night sky was illuminated with a flickering of purple light, and Ma’sal strange snakes dance in the air. The threads unraveled, swirling faster and faster, and they scattered the second volley even as it fell. Channeler, he realized. Ashura, they called them in Ossia. The magic crackled away in the air as the spell faded, and shock froze the archers from their third volley, the arrows clattering numbly against their bows.

This is bad, he realized suddenly, seeing the enemy soldiers hurriedly rallying into formation. They had already lost the benefit of surprise, and they had somehow seen the second volley, which meant that someone knew where the arrows were coming fr—

—The night sky abruptly crackled with a hideous stench of sulfur, the air rippling with a boom, and Ma'sal felt the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stand on end. A primal part of his mind screamed danger, and his body instinctively flattened against the ground as a bolt of lightning danced through the air directly at the stones where the archers hid.

He felt his brothers’ pain as they died, as the magic coursed through their bodies and seared through the flesh. Smoke and scorch scarred the stone as their bodies fell, and Ma’sal once more felt the sense of impending danger.

They were revealed, some part of him knew, and as he searched out into the night, he felt fear seize him. A wild roar echoed through the night, utterly primal, and it was only the strength of his fellow brothers that kept Ma’sal from breaking rank, from fleeing. The skal inside of him surged eagerly, the black veins pulsing with a frantic heartbeat, and he felt the shadows seep out of his skin to coalesce in claws around his hands.

And then the demons came, like beasts borne straight out of hell.

They crashed into the brothers like a tide, their mouths belching fire, their claws slashing wide. The first brother swiped up with shadows of his own, scraping deep gashes along the demon’s hide only to have his neck be snapping by the return blow. The skal oozed out of his broken body, solidifying into a serpentine shape to swallow the demon, only to suddenly burst aflame. Suddenly, Ma’sal felt fear once more—but this time from the skal inside of him.

This thing was afraid of the fire, he realized. It was afraid of dying.

Oh gods, oh gods, he panicked crouching deeper into the grass out of fear, hoping that they might not notice him. He hid as his brothers rose up to fight them, as they stood against the tide and were promptly struck to the ground.

More of the demons came, smaller ones that darted out of the skies to burn streaks of fire into the fields. Skal burst out of the shadows in a desperate attempt to ward them off, brothers taking up arms to swarm the demons with sheer numbers. Ma’sal watched as three hooded brothers managed to down one of the beasts, its body crackling to dust even as it gave out a dying roar. Even still, one of the brothers crumbled to the ground, his skal-twisted arm turned to char by flame.

Ma’sal stood up out of the grass, his thoughts turning to Tsaya. He saw her smiling face once more before him, saw her curled hair and her deep, brown eyes. He yearned to see her again, even as he let out a scream of fear and rage, distracting a demon from finishing off one of the felled brothers. Its face was a hideous maw of fangs, its yellowed eyes glaring at him with bestial rage. The skal in his body spurred him onwards, even against its own fear, and he charged forward with his arm outstretched. The night air was cold without her—so terribly cold, even in spite of the fire that illuminated the world.

The horned demon let out a billowing blast of fire to greet him.