The Winged Ones

Chapter Sixteen

Regan paced back and forth in front of Rohan and the wolves, making a path through the snow that was getting deeper. “So, what do we do now?” Rohan asked her.

            She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

            “Didn’t you say that the demons have a usurper on the throne?” Husky asked.

            “Yes,” Rohan answered.

            “Then why don’t we try and track down where he is and defeat him?” he asked.

            Rohan shook his head slowly. “That’d be too easy. No, we have to do something else.”

            “Then what else do we do?” Regan cried, throwing her hands in the air in defeat. “We don’t have any other leads for anything else.”

            Rohan sighed heavily. “We need to find the true ruler of the Infernal Region, and then we can go from there.”

            “But we don’t know who that is!” Regan cried as she dropped ungracefully on the snow beside Rohan. “We've got nothing to work form!”

            “Oh, what do we have here?” a gruff voice asked from above them. Rohan looked up to see a man with dark, almost black skin. He had black hair that fell over his blood red eyes. One thing was certain, he was a demon. He wore nothing but black: a black shirt, pants, boots, gloves, cape, and a black cloth hid his face. Nothing but his blood red eyes could be seen.

            All four of them jumped to their feet, Rohan’s hand came to rest on the hilt of his sword, the one he stole from the weapon shed in Imadh City long ago. “Who are you?” he asked roughly, not bothering to keep the hate out of his voice, though he knew nothing of this man.

            “It doesn’t matter who I am,” the man replied. “Though if you must know, my name is Loki. I am merely here to bring you with me into the White Warrior’s chamber.”

            “You can spare us the details of what you want, we know what you acme here for,” Regan cried out, her hand resting on a pair of daggers that looked good to throw. “We’re not going to let you take him, so you might as well fight us or get out of here before your master knows that you failed!”

            Loki smiled, though Rohan couldn’t see it physically, he could see it in his eyes. “Who says I'm going to lose to you four?” He laughed, throwing his head back to make it as dramatic as possible. “Let’s get this done, shall we?”

            “And you're going to take on the four of us alone?” Regan asked as she unsheathed two daggers.

            “Oh, no,” Loki said, giggling madly like a school girl who was talking to her crush for the first time. He snapped his fingers and sent Husky and Electra out of the clearing with a gust of wind, putting up a barrier of magic to keep them out. “It’s just going to be me against both of you.”