The Forsaken Hero

As the Ice Demon’s coils fell still, I collapsed onto my staff, panting heavily. ”It’s done,” I whispered. But Instead of jubilation or elation, there was nothing but a hollow emptiness. Yes, the demon had been defeated, but at what cost?

Through sheer collateral damage, most of the demon army had been erased. A few scions trickled from the crevasses beneath the surface, but they were greeted by a very angry elemental.

No longer hindered by the mists, the soldiers of the Last Light Company quickly regained the initiative. After a brief, furious battle, they succeeded in stabilizing their position and forcing the now leaderless demons back. Rallying the remaining reserves, Captain Bethiv led the charge down the canyons, massacring everything in their path until the canyons ran with demon blood once more.

But as the soldiers deployed, it only made the holes in their ranks more obvious. Far too many remained behind, slumped over ice, unmoving. Their scarlet blood turned black as it mingled with the blues of the demons, dripping in tainted streams down the mountain. Of the three hundred soldiers, barely half remained.

They’d been living, breathing, and laughing just the night before, reminiscing of their many adventurers. None of them thought this fight would be anything more than a glorified slaughter. They were right in a way. The casualties of the main army beneath the ice were unknown, but it couldn’t be any lower than tens of thousands.

After I caught my breath, I called to the Infernal Mana and began casting Life Magic. The Nexus pulsed warmly, and a soft, green glow rose from hundreds of soldiers across the mountains. Their wounds knit together mid-fight and their energy was restored, bolstering their momentum. Soon, the demon lines broke, and they turned and fled, pushing back toward their underground chambers.

However, as they flowed out of the canyons, the Ice Spirit waited with open arms. With every sweeping strike, hundreds of scions perished. The elemental swelled in size as their icy flesh melded into its body, towering hundreds of feet in the air by the time the battle ended. The spirit strained against the magic circle binding it to my control, having surpassed the typical limits of the Elemental Spirit spell.

Even though the circle trembled, it held strong, keeping the powerful summon on the battlefield. My magic had always held more strength than traditional chants, and using arrays in which I was forced to create the spell from scratch, maximized the efficiency.

”Hero!”

I glanced up, finding a lightly armored soldier, one of Bethiv’s scouts, kneeling before me. I let the runes of the restoration spell I was casting fade away, taking advantage of his interruption to catch my breath and let my soul rest.

The scout bowed lower, nearly pressing his forehead to the ground. ”If it pleases you, the captain requests your presence at the foot of the mountain. We’ve managed to secure one of the entrances underground.”

”Please,” I whispered. ”Don’t bow. It’s because of me that so many are de-”

”Alive,” he interjected, raising his head to meet my gaze. He was an older man, with more gray than brown in his hair, but his eyes blazed with youthful passion. ”We fought an army more than a hundred times our size, made up of demon bastards no less, and have come out ahead. We came out expecting our deaths, but because of you, over half of us survived.”

”Yes, but I-”

”The captain requests your presence, my lady. Will you help us finish this fight?”

I froze, my response a hesitant, ”Y-yes.” Shame weighed heavy on me as I lowered my gaze, unable to meet his eyes. Exhaustion and guilt had blinded me to the ongoing battle, where soldiers still fought on the front lines. They were worn and exhausted, likely nearing the range beyond the supporting spells of Nexus.

”If there were any other way, the Captain would take it in a heartbeat. But those bastards have holed up in their tunnels defending the core, and we can’t break through without your spells. I know you are tired, but please endure a little longer.”

I nodded weakly, still not daring to meet his gaze. ”I’ll do my best.”

He offered his arm, prepared to escort me down the canyon, but as I glanced over his shoulder at the rough climb, a wave of dizziness swept over me. The sheer walls cut an unpassable crevasse through the mountainside, full of corpses and slick with blood. I hadn’t batted an eye when the demons and soldiers fought across the narrow gulches and jagged ice formations, but the prospect of traversing that myself filled me with terror.

”I-I’m sorry,” I said, taking a step back. ”It’s a little...”

He raised an eyebrow, his face torn between amusement and disbelief. ”You killed a sixth-level demon commander on your own, but you’re afraid of heights?”

I nodded, my tail twisting in shame, but he only shook his head, doing his best to sound empathetic. ”I can carry you down, if you like.”

”That’s alright,” I murmured. ”He’ll do it for us.”

The soldier blinked a few times, before grabbing at his sword as the ground shook. Turning, we found the Ice Spirit stomping up the mountain in wide, lumbering steps. After absorbing the ice and demon corpses, it stood just shy of two hundred feet tall. fingers the size of houses stretched toward us, covered in long, glowing icicle spikes. The mountain shook as its open hand pressed up against the cliff face, flush with the top of the icy overlook.

The scout’s face paled, his mouth falling open. ”You can’t be serious.”

”It’s fine, I think?” I replied, stepping onto the open palm. ”It’s a lot safer than climbing down.”

”We’ll see about that,” he muttered. After taking a deep breath, he climbed on beside me, standing protectively behind me. ”One wrong move and we’re jumping off.”

I shook my head, not even daring to point out how far the ground below was. I was about to open my mouth and explain I’d done this before, but then the spirit began to move. Before we’d even gone a single step, I’d fallen to my knees, eyes squeezed shut, clinging tightly to a nearby spike. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

The Earth Elemental had been nothing like this! Even with the city rubble buffing its size, it had stood barely fifty feet tall. The Ice Spirit, on the other hand, covered a hundred feet of mountain in a single step, basically placing us in free fall. My stomach leaped into my throat every time we lurched forward, my tail tightly clenched with unease. Maybe...maybe this was a bad idea after all.

Before I knew it, the elemental’s gait had leveled. Opening one eye, I risked a glance and peeked between the rugged spikes. In only a few steps, we had reached the flatlands of the tundra. The demon corpses here were far less numerous in the canyons, with the majority of them being consumed by the spirit.

The entire Last Light Company, save for a skeleton guard stationed at the Gate Entrance, was positioned outside a narrow crevasse beneath the ice. It was scarcely more than a scar in the landscape, a yawning black chasm plunging into the unknown.

As the elemental came to a stop, it bent over and lay its hand on the ground, but I refused to let go of the spike even after we’d stopped moving. A heavy hand rested on my uninjured shoulder, and I managed to crack my eyes open, finding the smiling face of the scout. He somehow peeled me from the icicle and began guiding me from the spirit’s palm, his steadying hand firm against my trembling shoulders.

”You know,” he said, struggling to hold back a laugh, ”that wasn’t as bad as I thought. In fact, the view was simply breathtaking, not to mention the unrivaled feel of power, like we could go anywhere or do anything we wanted. Damn, if I could take this back to the village, I could finally show that bastard not to mess with-”

”Rory!” Captain Bethiv shouted, silencing him with a glare. ”Get your ass down here already. And show some damn respect to the hero!”

The scout froze, going white as a sheet. ”Yes sir!” He quickly helped me down the final few steps and snapped a sharp salute.

Captain Bethiv’s gaze softened as it passed over me, and he smiled gently. ”Thank you for coming, hero, although I didn’t expect such a grand entrance. I suppose it’s only fitting for our savior though.”

”How can you say that?” I protested, my voice breaking. ”I’m not a savior. If I’d only been faster, or smarter, or stronger, I could have saved them...”

He waited patiently for me to fall silent before extending a hand, resting it softly between my horns. I froze, going rigid, and started to raise my head, but stopped as he stroked my hair softly. As before, his awkward touch was grandfatherly in nature, providing a hint of reassurance to my traumatized heart.

”No one can expect such a thing from one so young. You’ve scarcely been here for a year, and yet you’ve been forced to take up our war. You bear scars on the inside and out, scars that would leave an old veteran like me weeping for mercy, yet you gave everything you had for my men and saved half who had already written themselves off. Hells, you’re barely even standing right now, yet you still came to help us, to see it through to the end. If you’re no hero, then I doubt anyone could rise to that calling.”

The praise was relentless, tearing through the walls of denial I’d spent years building. As his gruff words reached my burdened heart, tears gathered in my eyes, dripping freely down my cheeks. His hand on my head was warm, and comforting, awakening within me memories of the others who had tried to love me once before.

”Shit,” he muttered, glancing at his nearby attendants. ”What did I say?”

They were all old, grizzled veterans themselves, completely unfamiliar with the wavering heart of a young girl, and could only shrug.

”Do you mean that?” I whispered.

”Every word.”

I sniffed, wiping tears from my eyes as he withdrew his hand. My horns tingled where his fingers had brushed them, sending a titillating thrill down my tail. ”I’ll be in your care, if you’ll have me.”

The tension flowed from his body and he sagged in relief. ”Thank the gods,” he muttered, before raising his voice and addressing the soldiers of the Last Light Company. ”Forward! Let’s send these bastards back to the hells they crawled from!”