Avi

Chapter 2: The Devil's Mine

Lamia Mordrake dragged the last piece of human remains into the pit of decay, the stench of the cadavers welcomed by his nose, too used to death that he did not mind the awful smell. He had encountered several humans with Loulian weaponry who wanted to invade Gaeia, and he wondered if the king had finally lost his mind.

            Of course, King Kuji had treated the Ethereans well, better than his predecessor and father, Kawa Brightbord. The wretched fool was a racist and thought all other beings lower than humans, even when the magic he and his race had learned were taught by those they discriminate against. Lamia shook his head and turned away from the rotting pit. Somewhere down there, about fifty years from present, he had dragged Kawa’s headless body into the pit.

            Not to get him wrong; Lamia had no intention in restoring peace between kingdoms. He did not mind them warring against each other, but the carnage and disturbance these wars give to him was too much for even the oldest demon to handle. Sometimes immortality was not such a great privilege.

            “And now, I have a child to take care of,” he muttered to himself as he returned to his old mine, only to be welcomed by the most painful of all sights: a beautifully decorated cave with everything a female angel would think of. The ribbons and decorative stones stuck to the wooden frames holding up the brittle cave infuriated him and his eyesight, and Lamia could not help his temper.

“LILIAN?!”

            Lilian Archani was, of course, fast asleep. It was the dead of the night, and she wanted to bask in the beautiful sun that would appear in the morning. Lamia hated this, but he could not do anything about her, since he did not want to waste any time pushing the girl out of the mine. She would always come back to him anyway.

            The girl was sweet, too sweet; Lamia didn’t think he should be tainting such a young angel with his hedonistic ways. He did not have to fear death, but the girl was living dangerously like him, and Lilian was by no means immortal. He wanted to go leave the mine without her, but the girl would just follow him.

            “I would love to warn you of the dangers of my next whim,” Lamia whispered to Lilian’s ear. “But I am just so sure that you wouldn’t listen anyway.”

            Suddenly, he heard a barrage of heavy striding footsteps near his mine. He never minded passers-by since his mine was always unwelcoming and dark, haunted, even. But at that moment, it was as if he was having a housewarming party. Holding one part of Lilian’s blanket, he pulled it violently, waking the angel as she fell to the hard rocky floor.

            “Lamia! Good eve-“ Lilian tried to greet, but Lamia’s hand wrapped around her mouth.  The footsteps told him that there were more or less a hundred men.

            “What could they be here for?” Lamia thought as he pulled Lilian into the deep of the cave. With one snap of his fingers, all the lights in the cave died, and only his nocturnal eyes could see in the dark.

            “Lamia…?” Came Lilian’s muffled cry as she wondered what was going on. For all she knew, she was awoken by her hero, and the next thing that happened was all the darkness. She disliked it, and wished to go back to sleep. Suddenly, her ears picked up the marching sound of heavy feet. “What’s going on?”

            Lamia didn’t answer her as he thought of how to approach the situation. Surely, these men were trained soldiers and had noticed the suddenly lost of light from the cave. If they were as plenty as he assumed they would be, it would be hard for him to take them out. He denied it, but he was ultimately looking out for Lilian’s safety.

“I know someone’s in there!”

            “Damn.” Lamia cursed under his breath as he threw Lilian behind him. The troupe came closer, then stopped.

“There’s nobody here; it might just have been some pesky fireflies.”

“Don’t be dumb; fireflies can’t emit that sort of light! I’m sure that spy went through here.”

            “Spy?” Lamia thought as he wondered what was truly going on.

“Eh, governor Ternet was really furious; who do you think was that guy anyway?”

“Beats me; I thought we killed off the entire palace.”

            “Killed off the entire palace? Means Kuji is…?!” Lamia thought as he bit his lip hard. He had though ill of humans for their narrow-mindedness, and Kuji might have been an idealistic fool most of the time, but he was the most humane he’d ever encountered. And the whole palace was dead? What truly was going on with Loule?

“We better be careful here. Mordrake might be around.”

“I hear you; we lost quite a number to him.”

            Lilian kept quiet, not wanting to call attention to them. There was always a reason when Lamia did not dispose of enemies quickly; plus, she caught a glimpse of her guns.

            They were about five meters away from her.

            She cursed inwardly, hating the fact that she left her guns at such a crucial moment as that. She couldn’t see them, of course, but the unique glint they had reflected from the moon was too familiar for her to overlook. She turned back to the voices.

“Who was that guy, anyway? Governor said he literally fell in their conversation.”

“No idea. But he was bearing the Brightbord seal and a military band. We did kill them all right?”

“As I know.”

“Well, nothing here; let’s continue into Gaeia.”

“If we don’t find him there, we’ll find something in all the rubble we’d leave.”

            Lilian felt her heart tug at the thought of the men plundering Gaeia. Acting on impulse, Lilian spread her wings and flew to grab her guns.

            “LILIAN!” Lamia shouted as the girl blew their cover. He had no choice; all the men had to be disposed of.

“Up there! Look! What is it?!”

“A demon!”

            Lilian sent a shower of bullets to her adversaries, her ambush attack taking the lives of numerous foot soldiers. She dove to eyelevel, but even she did not have that good eyesight in the dark, and ended up diving too low, and into the hands of the enemies.

“I caught the blasted thing!”

            “Not in your life!” Lamia bellowed in his baritone voice, and black light emitted from the cave. The soldiers held out their weapons, ready to attack, but they were blinded by hundreds of banshees coming from behind Lamia. The demon’s eyes glowed red from behind his round glasses, and he raised his twin swords. “Lilian, be useful for once and get out of the way.”

            Since her captors were stunned, Lilian took the chance to fly away from them, not forgetting her guns this time. She flew up, but was still caught in the large explosion, and she found herself off balanced and falling to a nearby village. Her wings stunned, Lilian shut her eyes and braced for impact.