Dawn- An Age Of Darkness

I didn't want to drag down this girl. 

During my journeys, I'd dealt with countless deaths. 

And almost all of them were my fault- they happened because people were near me. 

"Sorry but I'm going alone."

Neira didn't stand aside. "I still have your cloak. I washed it and it's drying. Why don't we meet mother before leaving?"

"Are you even listening to me? I'm not taking you with me."

I'd had enough of people dying because of me. 

"Look I'm not sure what your problem is but this desert isn't something you can cross on your own." She came close. "Think about it. What if your hunger took over again?" She whispered. 

If that were the case, I'd have just dealt with that. 

Besides, even if she came with me, wouldn't she have to cut her hand or something, again? And wait, that'd be even riskier.

"All I needed to know was how to get to the capital. That's it. You don't have to go with me."

And seriously what was up with this world and its people? Why were they so eager to just throw away their lives for random strangers?

"A knight never goes back on her word-"

"Um drama queens? We have trouble," The kid said, looking just to the side. 

Drama queen? I was going to smack him but followed his gaze first. 

And sure enough, we did have trouble. 

That being an army was headed this way.

They had this town surrounded and even from down here, I could tell that was one big army. 

They weren't doing anything though, just standing outside the town, just above.

"The lord was supposed to rendezvous with that army." The kid, Neira's cousin gulped. "But now that-"

'But they came all this way just for a meager army of this town?'

I had a bad feeling about that. 

"Send a messenger saying due to reasons, we've decided to withdraw. We'll return the rations." A woman came out of the mansion. It was Neira's mother, littered with wounds. 

A maid was holding her up. 

A lot of the people here ran towards her, looking concerned. 

"Mother!" Neira was staggered but she didn't try to head over there. 

"A messenger? They'd kill us all!" Neira's cousin, meanwhile, sure loved to sound dramatic. But I agreed with that sentiment. 

The woman had far too many wounds. Even with healing magic and potions, she didn't have the strength to be on her feet. And yet, here she was.

Her gaze was purely on me. "Would you-"

"Go tell them to scram?" I said. 

Almost all the people around here looked at me with the same eyes. They wanted 'me' to deal with this. 

And I had a feeling everyone knew the army above wasn't just here for soldiers. 

She chuckled, coughed, and grimaced. "Go with him." She looked at Neira. 

Um- excuse me, what?

Why were they pushing things on me?

'Then again, I was the one who killed the lord-'

I didn't like being played. But this was my responsibility as I was the one who decided to kill the lord.

I couldn't half-ass this. I took this job, I guess it was best I saw it through. 

Though even now, even after killing people, even after just thinking what could go wrong, I didn't really feel anything. I didn't feel bad, I didn't feel sad. 

I just felt neutral. 

Like all of this was sort of a time pass anyway. 

"Fine, let's go deal with that. Oh, and give me my cloak. If things go south, I'll just massacre them and move on with my journey."

This army was going to kill humans and elves and other species eventually. I knew demons were similar to humans in terms of their will for survival. But as a former human myself, I still felt more affinity to humans than to demons. 

Neira and the others all just looked at me with dull eyes. 

Did I say something that staggering?

"I can do that, I assure you." Though whether I'd actually do that was another thing altogether. 

Neira chuckled. Though she was sweating an awful amount. "Go get that cloak," She mumbled to her cousin who ran away almost immediately. 

He came back exactly three minutes later with my cloak. Which was actually pretty clean- still slightly wet. 

The kid though, was exhausted. 

The maid with Neira's mother gave us a letter. It was for the leader of the army above. 

Its contents were probably somewhere in the lines of 'please let these two escape' or something along those lines. 

Anyway, "Let's go."

"Take care of her!" Neira's mother yelled. "And-" She took a moment. "Please just leave if it goes south."

"Don't worry. I don't have any plans on taking her and endangering her life." I exhaled. "I also don't have any plans on running."

None of them seemed to agree though. 

Oh well.

I had this bad feeling that there was some form of miscommunication.

***

Only me and Neira got on top of the wall. 

And since she could use earth magic, we didn't have to climb, rather she just took us up and then undid the magic. 

It was a big army- maybe about ten thousand. Archers, mages, warriors, knights, and monsters. 

There were all kinds of demons and they were tightly grouped by rank and species. 

Frankly, I never thought demons could be this organized. 

Now, this, this! Was a real army. 

"You are late." A giant demon descended from what seemed like an alligator. 

The demon was pretty big- at least, his belly was and he had the face of a pig. Voice, very deep. 

He wore khaki pants- I had no idea stuff like that were even a thing in this world- and didn't have anything on the top part of his body. He did have two large earrings though. 

"I apologize." Neira made a small bow and gave the letter to the demon.

"I am General Zorbam. Where is your army?" The demon looked over the letter and threw it behind him. 

The alligator caught it and ate it. 

For a demon he sure was courteous. 

"Neira Vermose. I'm here on behalf of my mother, general Meisa Vermose." Neira presented herself. "And there isn't an army. The lord is dead and the whole city is in a state of mourning."

Well, that was a bald-faced lie. 

"Vermose… yes, I've heard that name. But you cannot just go back-"

"We'll return the rations."

"As I said-" The guy grabbed a chain of sort and gradually pulled out a massive spiked ball off of his alligator. The soldiers near us ran back. "You cannot go back on your word-" He swung it straight at Neira. 

"Duck!" I dragged her head down. 

The ball crashed into some soldiers behind us: they were instantly not amongst the living. That ball was big and very spiked. One hit was probably going to cripple us, if not end our lives altogether. 

"Bring the soldiers or suffer the consequences." He didn't scream, but his words had weight. 

"Now that's more like it!" I was excited. "At least we have one demon who acts like a demon!" 

"Wha?" Neira paused. "What are you even talking about?" She was shaking; teeth, rattling. 

"Just worry about your life." For now though, I grinned. "You attacked first.." I pointed at the demon.