The Dragon King's Servant: Rise of the Daemon King

Chapter Fifty: On the march

Bedelia walked with her six siblings. Her three sisters of flame and three brothers of fire. While none were as old as she, they were still several thousand years old. The three hundred daemonic elves marched in front of them. Three lines of one hundred. Their glowing bodies of charred skin and black hair lit up the darkness like beacons. A river of magmatic soldiers marching to war.

The elves, now turned daemonic by Bedelia and her powers of corruption, did not sleep. They did not feel. Three days had come and gone in the blink of an eye on the road to Vervania. The walls were still out of sight but it would not be long.

"They banished us." Bedelia hissed, walking beside Azar, the youngest of her daemon siblings.

He was a slender man with shoulder length black hair that had streaks of yellow in it. His charred skin glowed with yellow heat which pulsed from within. Standing only a few inches taller than her, he was not the tallest of them but not the shortest either.

"They condemned us to that hell." She continued, her words feeding his anger.

"I cannot wait to taste their blood in my mouth." Azar snarled.

"Nor their flesh in my jaws." Enya added.

Bedelia glanced over her shoulder at her sister. Enya was the youngest of the sisters. With a slender and lean body that was seductive and enticing, her bright white eyes were as cold as they were searing with boiling hot anger.

"Where do we go?" Enya asked.

"How. Is the more pressing question." Kalama asked.

Bedelia nodded to the oldest brother, still a few thousand years her junior, he was the oldest of the brothers and second oldest of the six siblings. While a little shorter than his brothers, he was nearly twice their size in musculature. With eyes as black as his skin and hair short rather than long, he was nearly the exact opposite of the others.

"You dear brother and your sister Suryia, will take a third of the army and go to the eastern gate."

Suryia, the second oldest sister, smiled eagerly. She was the shortest of the women. Cropped black hair tipped with orange that matched her narrowed orange eyes.

"Nuri and Azar-" Bedelia continued, "-you will attack the south gate."

*****

'This is not going as smoothly as I had hoped' Lucian said to Melanie through their mental bond.
'There are close to a million people in the city. This was never going to be a fast process' she replied.
He looked across the city from where he was. In his smallest dragonic form which was seventy-five feet long, his shadow blanketed the city. Soaring nearing three thousand feet in the air he could see all of the city.

The guards had made four neat alleys where they moved the citizens along. Keeping a well but slow moving river of people that gathered outside the gates. Using horses and vehicles, the soldiers moved two hundred people at a time. It was an hour drive from the city walls to the safe houses outside of the city. A two hour trip to and from. Moving just shy of two thousand citizens a day from each gate was an almost unprecedented movement of force.

'It isn't enough' Lucian thought to himself. Over the last three days they had gotten only a third of the entire city out. Nearly seventy percent of the city still remained. Twenty percent of the citizens were still being evacuated from within the city and pushed towards the gates. 'We just need more time' He thought and looked over to his wife. Melanie's draconic form looked like a shimmering icy beast of raw beauty drifting on the sunlit wind.

'I am going to circle the border. I will let you know.' He said and with a single flap of his wings, he took off. Melanie watched his large dark form shrink away as he combed the border of the kingdom.

*****

Maaltaire stood at the top of a gate spire. The five by five platform was used for watch guards, giving them a nearly half-mile vantage. The warm winds jostled his battle armor causing it to shift slightly. Like the guards, he wore the suit of fabric armor. Unlike them though, he wore an extra layer. One that had been forged for him personally. The shoulder guards stopped short of his shoulders and covered his chest and the back of his neck.

The chiseled armor was set like his draconic scales, overlapping one another in two long columns down his front. At his waist they split off to form an armored robe which swayed in the wind. Beside him was Evangeline. Dressed in a long blue robe, she looked down at the vehicle as it carried a wagon of a hundred people away.
Maaltaire looked down at her, a worried expression drifted across his face.

"You should be on one of those." He said, tone gentle.

She looked away from the carts and wagons full of people and into his crimson gaze.

"You want me to go?" She asked.

He didn't reply.

"If you tell me to go away. I won't disobey."

Maaltaire drew in a deep breath as if ready to say that exact thing but then paused. Wrapping an arm around her he held her close.

"I just want you to be safe." He replied.

"Is there any place safer than with you?" She asked.

Maaltaire would have loved to say yes without a single doubt. The truth was, he had a lot of doubts. More than he cared to admit.

*****

Joona stayed with Shauna who was rooted at the gate. Still locked in a passionate but slight argumentative debate with Krystal or more appropriately, her father.

"We should go." Her father growled angrily.

"You go." Krystal replied for the twentieth time. "I can help here."

"I love you for wanting to help. Truly I do." Shauna said, cupping Krystal's face in her hands. "It isn't safe."

"Oh, but it is safe for you?" Krystal retorted, tears in her eyes. "I...I don't want to lose you."

"And you won't my love." Shauna held her love in a fierce embrace. "I will be with you as soon as I can. But right now you need to go. You can aid the people at the shelters."
Krystal wiped her tears and nodded.