Anna watched is quiet horror as she was once again reminded that Azure was a demon. She opened one of the crates that the late Lord had placed in the sack and retrieved a metal helmet with a decorative rope attached to it. She placed it on the Lord’s head and attached the rope to her own head, the skin pealing away to allow it though. Azure shook on the spot for a couple of seconds before removing the helmet and placing it back into the crate. A grey ooze started to flow freely from the Lord’s eyes and ears.

“I have added him to the legion and will now have increased effectiveness in this area.” She seemed to think that would explain what she had done, but she may as well have been trying to explain an Art. Anna could at least understand that Azure had benefited somehow. “Your dimensions are within the adaptive range of that body’s armour. I would advise equipping what sections of it don’t need sterilization.”

Anna felt some revulsion over wearing a dead man’s clothes, but the Lord’s armour was a relic and the Temple of Ren would hold and preserve it for another Lord’s use. With the Lord dead, they would likely face reparations, and with most of the towns people dead, they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. The only people who didn’t enter and get killed were the women, other than herself, and children who went back to their day jobs the moment the Lord stopped caring about them. He father was the only adult man left in the village. As she thought about that, and started to undo the straps on the armour, Azure walked over to one of the rainbow glowing towers and once again pushed a rope into her head. A second later, her eyes widened, and she ran over to help Anna with the armour.

“Demons, as the Lord would have called them, are inbound. The turrets are still buried, and our anti-air supplies are limited. To ensure Anna’s survival, I will be taking control until the threat is gone.” Azure said, her voice taking on a more commanding tone that sent shivers down her spine.

With no further words, Azures effortlessly removed the armour’s vest, arm guards, gloves, belt and grieves. She stood Anna up and stripped off Anna’s muddy clothes. Her face grew red as they both stood their naked in the dark, but Azure moved over to a previously empty cupboard and retrieved two sets of clothes from it. They were green pants, and a brown shirt with a collar and long sleeves, underwear along with a kind of athletic looking breast strap that didn’t require tying, and boots that looked like they could just about climb a mountain for you. It was all made of the durable fabric material that clothing based relics tended to be made from, and it was lighter and smother than anything she had worn before. All of it fit her as if they were tailored and she felt like a Lord. Azure’s magic was truly amazing to be able to produce clothes from nothing like that. Despite her amazement, she also felt somewhat disappointed to see Azure had also clothed herself, and even more disappointed at herself for feeling that way. When they were both clothed, Azure fitted the armour on Anna and slid the silver Sacram into the belt along with several of the food boxes it used.

“The Lord’s memories indicated that you have no firearms experience. I would advise against attempting to use that until I have time to instruct you. None the less, you have it should that prove necessary,” Azure said, her tone now calming with a steady beat and a soft melody. Despite that Anna head something disturbing.

“The Lord’s memories? Azure had the Lord’s memories? Was that what you meant when you said you added him to the legion?”

“Of course,” she replied, her head tilted quizzically to one side, “What else could I have meant. I would specify that the copy rate of the portable device, when used on humans, is less than thiry percent, and the amount of data that can be retrieved decreases exponentially until three minutes have passed, at which time only metadata can be retrieved.”

It was somewhat surprising that demons could do something like that, but she guessed that’s what the fairy tales meant when they said demons ate their victim’s souls. In that respect, the helmet would be like a knife and fork. The portable unit, she had said, implied there was another one that couldn’t move. In that case it was the difference between a traveller’s mess kit and the table settings she had been told Lord’s used, with different cutlery for each ingredient. Azure slid the Lord’s Sacram and remaining food boxes into a belt she pulled out of the empty closet and held Anna’s hand to pull her along. The smaller, boxier black armament was a better fit for Azure’s delicate hand. As they walked by it, Azure lifted the sack filled with crates and swung it over her shoulder. With its size, and the weight she had felt from a single crate, Anna was shocked by just how strong Azure was. The lord was a head and a half taller than she was and would had struggled with it.

They left through the ceiling door, getting the sack out with some difficulty, and started to walk towards the town. Azure set a fast pace, but slowed down whenever Anna needed it, even without her saying anything. As they walked, Anna stared at the side of Azure’s face, as if she were trying to engrave every detail of her smooth skin into her mind.

“The Lord didn’t retain any information regarding your village’s defence capability or evacuation plan. Was that lost data or do you not have any?”

“We have some bows and our tools drive off beasts just fine, but for fighting demons there’s just their chief’s Divam; his Divine Armament. His grandfather was a Lord and he kept it in his family line, but the chief died before he could tell his son how to work it.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, the legion includes weapons operations and manufacturing.”

Once again Azure seemed to take pride in that legion thing, and Anna couldn’t help but find the way she puffed out her chest adorable. That made her glad that she had the stuffy armour on and not Azure. Before she realised it, they had reached the village. The sun was at its lowest and the sky was a twisting mixture of pinks and oranges, and they wouldn’t have more than half an hour of light left. For the previous week, the village had walked back in the moonlight as Ain, Davos and Tiwa were each waxing towards full. Anna had overheard the late Lord say that if progress hadn’t been made, he would have taken advantage of the bright nights to have the work done non-stop.

“Our time is limited, you organise supply for retreat while I fetch the Divine Armament,” Said Azure, her head scanning the village’s dozen buildings. “I’ll leave this bag here. If the village has any transportation that should also be organised.”

With that, and no other instructions on how Anna might organise a retreat, Azure dropped the sack and started jogging off ahead. Despite not knowing if it was the best way to start, she started by yell out to the whole village while making her way home.

“Demons are coming! Demons are coming! Everyone, gather around; we need to get ready.”

She felt somewhat foolish and knew she sounded batty, but she continued through the embarrassment. Five women and eight children, along with her father, gathered around her to see what the fuss was about, evidently curious about the Lord’s clothes and armour she was wearing.

“Everyone, Dad, we need to evacuate. I saved an Azure demon and she gave me this Sacred Armament and said that demons are on their way here.”

“Slow down,” her father said, his tone killing of some of her momentum but also her mania, “where are the others? Where’s the Lord?”

“They…” she sheepishly started to say while looking down, “they’re dead.”

There was a gasp and cry from some of the women, the wives of dead men though Anna didn’t see which ones. She took in a deep breath like she was taking in confidence and started again.

“The Lord started killing everyone down there. I only survived because there was a demon sealed in the quarry and it killed the Lord when I set it free.” She paused to let that sink in before continuing, “After I was saved, the demon said that other demons were on their way here and we need to run.”

“And,” her father hesitantly asked, “where is that demon now?” He seemed sceptical, as if he thought she had been lied to.

“Azure went to fetch the chief’s Divam. She said she could get it working.”

“The Light of Ren take you, Anna,” cried out the late chief’s son Gregory, his face ashen and distraught, “the Anima Lance is a weapon against the demons, it’s blasphemy to put it in the hands of a demon.”

Without waiting for her to say anything else, he ran off towards his house. It was at that time that Anna’s father took over.

“Everyone, grab only what you need. That means your entire winter’s supplies, travel clothes and bedroll. Any Ren Stones if you have them and water skins if you don’t. Kids, you all help me set the oxen to the wagon. This is a matter of life and death, so everyone be ready by Tiwa’s rise.”

With his commanding voice echoing through the village, they all set to work. The wagon was used by the village pioneers and was six metres wide and fifteen long. It sank into soft soil with its weight and needed a full teem of ten oxen when fully loaded; every beast in the village. The animals were communal property, with the bulls aiding farm work and the cows gave milk. With her father and the kids getting them together, they would only barely have enough time to meet the deadline her father set. She instead followed her father’s words and started packing for them both. She grabbed the wooden cart which her father had used when he went looking for ore and draped a blanket in it to keep the dirt off the dry food she then filled it with. It was as wide as her arms stretched out, and as tall as her navel, but the food inside only filled half of it. She tied the blanket and pushed the food tall, so she had more room in the cart, and started to load the other things they needed. The water stone from the cleaning room and the fire stone at the heart of the forge, each in their own air tight wooden case so they don’t hear the Prayer of Ren by accident, father’s hammer, her own bedroll and her father’s traveling bag; which he kept ready with his essentials packed. The hammer was a relic, made of Ren’s Steel, and was the symbol that their family could trace their line as blacksmiths to before Ren’s Salvation.

With everything packed, she pushed the cart out to the wagon, climbed up to the two-meter-high platform and used the wagon’s pully-lift to raise the cart up. Even with everyone and all their belongings, the wagon would be a loose fit, they had lost too many people. With her luggage stowed, she climbed back down and started to help with the oxen. As the women started to show up, Anna helped them up with the pully. The raising the lift platform was a lot of work, but the women were still suffering from the week of digging and weren’t in any shape to get them selves up, let alone their bags also. At some point she thought she saw Azure, but it was a fleeting glance, so she couldn’t have been sure. It may have just been her wishful thinking. When it was time to depart, Anna drove the oxen to Azure’s supplies and found her standing there with the sack open and the Divam on her back.

Where the Sacram she had seen were small enough to be held with one hand, the Divam was a two-metre-long trident lance with the three barbs being arranged in a triangle. In that respect it was closer to a fishing spear than a lance, but Anima Fishing Spear was less respectable as far as names went. As the cart approached, Azure closed the sack and lightly swung it up into the cart before jumping in herself.

“The Divine Armament is operational, though I would advise against relying on it alone for more than two demons at a time.” Said Azure, speaking directly to Anna as if no one else in the cart was even there. There was no conflict or hesitation as she moved in to embrace her, like all the world was Anna. The Moonlight caught on her silky hair and seemed to make a halo; an image more divine then any Anna had seen.

“This,” Anna managed to say as she tore her gaze, though not her body, away and looked at her father, “this is Azure, the demon that saved me in the quarry.”

Her father’s expression was clearly conflicted. Azure was half a metre shorter than him and just about the most delicate looking girl he had seen in his life, she hardly looked strong enough to kill a lord. He had, however, see her effortlessly swing a bulky sack and jump an onto a two-metre-tall cart. The balance seemed to favour the inhuman explanation. The women and children also seemed to understand that she wasn’t human and were clearly disturbed. Even in the limited space of the cart they pushed away to give her more room. As Anna moved back to the coach seat, Azure went with her to sit beside her, unslinging the armament from her back and instead leaning it against her shoulder with the points towards the sky. As Anna cracked a short whip an called for the oxen to turn, Azure rested her head on her shoulder while being careful not to get in the way of the arm that held the reins.

An hour down the pathless road, headed towards the river and the nearest town, a distant thunder crack sounded in the cloudless sky. As Anna worked to calm the startled beasts, Azure lifted the spear and held the blunt end tightly against her body as she connected a thin red rope from the armament to her neck. The distant village was now fully ablaze, where it was untouched moments prior, and the spear glowed a radiant blue-white light. Tiny lightning crawled within the trident and Azure inserted a feed box. A green and red star that was hovering above the burning village suddenly shattered like a shooting star as the Divam made a deep, pulsing drum beat.

In response, walls of fire sprouted in front of them, diverting the oxen and starting a panic. The rocking seemed to make Azure annoyed, and the Divam made the sound for bursts of seconds at a time as it started to spit lightning in all directions and the spearpoints turned a hot red. After a few exchanges of fire walls and pulses, the other star burst, and Azure pulled the rope from her neck. Although Azure seemed to think the danger was over, but the oxen tended to disagree with her, and it took ten minutes of coaxing before they were calmed. In that time, they had pulled wildly and out of time, and the leather tacking was stretched. The stress had also worn them out, and they needed to rest up. When Anna asked if they could rest for the night, Azure nodded.

“They were just scouts. The main force is still a day away and the LPU will have freed the turrets by then. That will draw them away from our trail and change their priorities.”

Only understanding that they were at least temporarily safe, Anna got the animals to stop and the group set up camp for the night. Although they didn’t have wood on hand for a campfire, the fire stone served that purpose, even on its lowest prayer. While it was being used, Azure seemed to stare at it with a confused expression, like she could see it but couldn’t accept that she could see it. The same expression came out when Anna filled the oxen’s water trough with the water stone. She found the expression adorable and had to find any excuse to use it. That was why they filled a barrel with hot water, so they could all take turns bathing.

When they rolled out their bedrolls to sleep under the stars, Azure crawled into hers, her warm skill more pleasant than any blanket against the night’s wind.