Converging Destinies: Part 1

Chapter 68

       The search throughout the deserted town continued. The smell of smoke lay heavily in the air. Decaying bodies lay strewn throughout the village. Finally, the group saw a boarded up structure in the distance. Countless fiends and demons had congregated around it, an army of horrific beasts. They clawed at the wooden boards that covered windows and some of them were ramming the door.

       "Oh, so that's where the survivors are." Ara' Sei said with dread. There appeared to be many demons that surrounded the massive structure, at least twenty. Some of them appeared to be particularly powerful. One of them looked exactly like what they had just fought.

       "I have a spell that lets me force demons like those to go back to their home plane. I can use the spell twice, so I could take two of them out of the picture." Zerai explained in a whisper.

       "Alright, how close do you need to get?" Cedric asked.

       "Pretty close." Zerai answered.

       "I can help you get close, everyone else, stay here." Cedric said. Then, the two snuck towards the gathered mass of demons.

       The two heard the growling, snarling, and hissing of the creatures as they bickered in strange, unknowable tongues. Zerai pointed his hand at one that looked like the one the group had fought the day prior. Zerai's eyes briefly glowed, but nothing happened.

       "Crap. One more chance." Zerai whispered. Zerai raised his hand upwards towards the creature again. He whispered an incantation and his eyes glowed. With a flash, the creature vanished, and Zerai's eyes continued to glow.

       "Run." He whispered. The two ran in the opposite direction as quickly as they could. The mass of demons quickly caught onto what was happening and began to pursue them.

       "What now?!" Cedric shouted. It quickly became apparent that some of the demons ran far faster than any normal person could. A massive, flying creature's shadow could be seen over the two of them.

       "This was a terrible idea!" Zerai screamed.

       "Not yet it isn't! Hold on!" Cedric answered

       "Wha-" Before Zerai could answer, Cedric had grabbed him. With an emerald flash, Cedric's form became that of an eagle. But, his wingspan was almost twenty feet, and he dwarfed Zerai in his new form.

       Then, Cedric grabbed Zerai and took off. Zerai was whisked away with immense speed.

       "Since when could you do this?!" Zerai asked. Cedric gave no response. None of the demons even had a remote chance of catching up to them.

       Zerai cautiously crawled onto the back of the giant eagle that Cedric now was. Even now though, two demons flew far behind them, their forms just as massive as Cedric's eagle form.

       "Cedric, we have a problem." Zerai said. Cedric nodded his head before going into a rapid dive towards the frozen sea. Just as Zerai thought they would slam into the ice, Cedric banked upward and landed. With another emerald flash, he transformed back.

       "What do we do about that?" Zerai asked, pointing at the two flying demons.

       "I'm not sure we can get to the others, we might have to face them." Cedric answered.

       "I'm not sure we can do that, especially since I expended all of my magic." Zerai said.

       "Well, do you have any ideas?" Cedric asked. Zerai shook his head.

       "No."