5 The King's Men

Russel emerged out of the archives back into the grandeur of the great hall of the monastery.

"Hey." Kathleen greeted him.

"Hey." Russel smiled, giving her a kiss.

"You got any plans?" Kathleen asked.

"No." Russel confessed.

"The festival of angels is tonight if you want to join me." She offered.

"Sounds great." Russel told her.

"Great. Meet you here at six?" Kathleen asked.

"Ok." Russel said before leaving the monastery.

He walked through the town to his hut in the outskirts. He then slipped into his leather armor and grabbed his sword before heading to the slums. He made sure to grab the ring that was in his normal clothes so he could have it on hand for that night.

He made his way into the slums and hopped up onto one of the roofs to survey the area. He saw a group of strange armored men standing in one of the alleys.

"What's going on over there…" Russel wondered before setting off to the area they were in.

Once he arrived he listened to the conversation the men were having.

"So the King's plan is in motion for tonight?" One of the men asked.

"Yes. And he will be starting his search at the monastery, he believes that Father Edward fellow raised the demon." The other soldier said.

Russel went pale at the mention of Father Edward raising him, why did the King care and what were they planning to do with the Father. Russel looked at the men closer and saw that on their armor was the same harp insignia as that of the Order Of The Dove.

"So they are holy soldiers… No they can't be… They look like low level grunts." Russel observed looking at their armor and weapon quality.

"Is he going to kill him?" Another soldier asked.

"Yes, him and the girl for sure, as well as anyone who gets in his majesty's way." The soldier told his comrade.

Russel was filled with rage at their plan and started to feel himself change a bit. He felt the wings sprout out of his back and his face narrow, he felt two of his teeth growing into longer fang like teeth, his ears also grew into pointier versions, finally his whole body started to get a bit more muscular and his skin thickened.

He jumped down from the roof and crushed one of the soldiers head in his hand.

"Holy shit!" One of the soldiers yelled.

The other soldiers raised their swords, their faces looked confident but their knees buckled in fear.

"Where is the King and his forces." Russel demanded to know.

"We'll never tell you, demon." One of the soldiers yelled.

Russel rushed forward and plunged his hand into the man's stomach, right through his armor and pulled out his intestine.

"Wrong answer, and I'm a fallen angel, not a demon." Russel said to the quickly dying man.

Russel looked at the remaining group. There were seven in total. Russel just grinned and leaped forward. Using his hands and wings he slashed through all of the soldiers killing all but one in a matter of seconds.

He looked at the remaining man who was trying to sneak away from him.

"Not so fast." Russel said jumping forward and grabbing the man on the face.

"Please no! I have a family! I have a newborn son and another child on the way." The soldier pleaded.

"Tell me what I want to know and you'll live." Russel growled.

"Ok! Just don't kill me." The soldier pleaded.

"You have my word. Now start talking." Russel demanded.

"The king's forces are in the forest near the abandoned tower! You'll find them there!" The soldier confessed.

"Who is there? Is it just grunts like you, or these holy warriors I've heard about?" Russel asked.

"There are four holy warriors and one hundred men. You won't survive a head on attack." The soldier told him.

"Watch me." Russel said letting go of the man.

Russel walked off and the soldier started to stand up.

'I can't let him go to the camp.' The soldier thought reaching for a knife at his belt.

The soldier picked out the knife and threw it at Russel who was quite a bit away now. The knife started to speed at Russel who quickly turned around and caught it in flight. He looked down at the weapon and scowled. He fixed his gaze on the man who had tried to kill him and lunged forward in anger.

"I redact my word." Russel scowled.

The man screamed as he turned to run but Russel quickly caught up with him. Russel jumped onto the man's back and made him go face first into the concrete. The man screamed and Russel slapped him with great force.

"I gave you a chance to leave." Russel scoffed as he split the man's throat with his own weapon.

Russel threw the corpse away from him and started to run towards the direction of the abandoned tower.

It only took Russel about five minutes with his newfound demonic enhanced speed and senses to reach the tower. He jumped up into the trees and looked down at the military camp that lay beneath him. It was a true tent city. All around there were soldiers and he saw a few people in golden armor.

'This should be fun…' Russel though surveying the land.

Russel decided his best move was to run in and start slashing. At the sight of the crowd he believed he could get through the soldiers easily, but the holy warriors might pose a bit more of a threat. He had to assume that all of them were at the very least double the strength of the demon he lost too, so he would have to use his sword and newfound abilities to take them out. He also tried to think of ways to split them up, knowing that taking all four of them at once was suicide.

"Ok… I think that's the plan." Russel smiled after thinking up his course of action.

He jumped down from the tree and started flying through the group of soldiers taking them out with his wings and hands. In only a moment he had taken out more than twenty soldiers and was quickly raising that number. It took a few minutes to recover from the surprise attack but once they did the King's forces started to fight back.

"You took too long to react!" Russel yelled using the same energy he used against the demon to vaporize the remainder of the soldiers.

Russel then stood face to face with the four holy warriors in their golden suits of armor surrounded by piles of bodies and ash.

"Take him down!" The leader yelled.

They all started to charge him and Russel thrust his hand into the ground and released his power causing the ground to shake and split beneath them. The holy warriors quickly backed away as the land violently split into four distinct sections that separated from each other, each with a holy warrior on it. On the far left square form where he was the tower was collapsing and fell on top of one of the holy warriors. Russel saw his opportunity to strike and quickly jumped high into the sky using his wings to glide towards the man.

In an instant he was standing over him with his sword drawn and plunged it straight into the man's face killing him instantly.

'The others won't be so easy…' Russel thought as he started towards the next closest warrior.

The warrior came to meet him in the middle and swung his sword faster than Russel had ever seen before. Russel quickly parried and spun away. He felt a large pain in his hand and knew it was from not being able to parry properly but he would have to live with it.

The man started to swing over and over at the same speed he had. Russel had learned that parrying was no good so he continued to dodge the blows looking for a window. Eventually he saw one and threw himself underneath and between the man's legs jumping up to strike him in the back, but much to Russel's surprise the man threw his sword behind his back parrying Russels attempt flawlessly.

"So this is the skill of a holy warrior…" Russel stated backing away.

"You're not too bad yourself, for a demon." The holy warrior said showing signs of exhaustion. "Your wings are magnificent! What do you use to groom them?" The warrior joked swinging again.

This time the swing had a bit less force allowing Russel to meet the incoming strike with his own.

"Oh I haven't needed to groom them yet, they have just grown in." Russel said sarcastically while in the stalemate produced by the clash of the two men's blades.

The warrior brought his sword back and swung once more. Taking a chance Russel jumped straight above him in a spin and with a flourish of his sword decapitated the man.

"That's one!" Russel cheered at his small victory. "Two more to go."

Russel jumped to the next section of the battlefield and faced the next warrior who drew a battle axe.

"That axe must slow you down! Why don't you drop it and just let me kill you!?" Russel offered the axe wielder.

The axe wielder started to spin rapidly and charged towards Russel at a breakneck speed.

"Or not…" Russel said jumping into the air to dodge.

Even though Russel had dodged, the warrior continued to spin around like a deadly spinning top.

'Can I use these things to fly…' Russel wondered looking towards the wings on his back. 'It's worth a try.'

With that Russel launched himself into the air and started to flap his wings. He was elated when he started to rise further into the air as a result.

'I can fly! This would be so much more fun if I wasn't fighting for my life right now.' Russel joked in his head.

He started to fly around the man trying to strike his head every now and again, but the spinning warrior was too fast. Trying to find a way to overcome him Russel tried flying closer to the ground and saw that the pivot point the man was using was his feet that he was moving seemingly almost as fast as light itself.

'If I can jam his legs he should come tumbling down.' Russel thought.

He sped off to the tree and quickly cut off a branch that he carried back to the spinning warrior.

"Try this out for size!" Russel yelled, throwing the branch into the man's path.

Sure enough the branch went in between the quickly pivoting feet. But instead of making him fall, the branch ended up getting crushed. Russel looked in shock as the pieces flew right out from between the man's legs and skittered across the ground.

"Fuck…" Russel groaned having to think of another plan.

Russel started blasting beams of light repeatedly but the warrior just jumped around and avoided each blast.

"How the hell do I kill this guy!?" Russel yelled in frustration.

Suddenly it hit him. Russel realized that if he could get under the swinging axe he should be able to cut off the warriors legs. It would be risky but Russel needed to take that risk or he, the Father and Kathleen could be killed.

Russel flew around, building up as much speed and he could and positioned his sword to point far away from him. When the warrior next started spinning towards him Russel swooped down low to the ground with all the speed he had and gilded under his axe and severed the warriors feet at the ankle. He quickly got out of range as the axe weirder crashed down. Russel quickly looped in the air and decapitated the man.

"Now only one left…" Russel panted heavily, hoping he would have enough energy for the next battle.

Russel jumped over to the final section of land and looked over to the last holy warrior.

"Well done demon. You have dispatched my disciples. Better than I expected." The warrior commented.

"Who are you?" Russel asked.

"Me? I am the king's commandant, his holiness King Arthur of Sylizen. An angel in a human form." The man said.

"So… The king is an angel…" Russel observed.

"Yes. He is not here right now but I'm sure he will be happy to see the corpse of the boy he was hunting. You wouldn't believe how mad he was when he failed to kill you at the siege of Dublios." The commandant said.

The commandant rushed forward and slashed at Russel. Russel quickly jumped to avoid the strike. He then threw himself down with his sword drawn and hit the commandant's armor sending him flying into the pit created by the earthquake Russel caused.

'That was two easy…' Russel thought, continuing to stand his ground.

Sure enough he saw the commandant float out of the pit, now with two large and elegant white wings growing from his back. He flew forward and slashed once more. Russel dodged back into the sky only to be followed by the commandant.

"This is now a battle of the sky. There is no place for a demon!" The commandant yelled.

"This should be fun!" Russel said before trying to fire a beam of light, but it didn't work. "What!?"

"You've gone over your limit! You'll crash down to earth soon enough and perish. How poetic, the demon who flew too close to the realm of angels falls to his death in the land of the mundane races." The angel yelled.

"Nothing about humans is mundane." Russel said, attacking with his sword.

"They were created by forbidden intercourse between angels and demons. They have both good and evil evenly within them making them neutral and boring. Them along with all the other mundane races are excruciatingly boring." The angel said, dodging his attack.

Russel started to go for another attack but his wings started to falter. He cursed and used the last of his energy to make a beam of light to propel himself upwards far above the angel. His wings disappeared and soon the lift from the beam of light ran out. He then went into a swan dive and crashed towards the angel.

"Trying one last attack before you die? How persistent." The angel sighed preparing for a head on attack.

But the head on attack the commandant expected never came. Russel adjusted his course right as he was about to hit the commandant and grabbed onto his wings instead, starting to maneuver the pair towards the ground.

"What are you doing!?" The commandant screamed trying to shake Russel off of him.

"Finishing this fight." Russel said calmly forcing the commandant's trajectory towards the forest below.

"Shit!" The commandant yelled as he tried to avoid the trees.

Eventually the commandant failed and crashed right into a tree sending the pair to the ground. Russel was able to grab onto a branch to avoid hitting the ground at full force but the commandant wasn't so lucky, instead crashing straight into the antlers of a wandering moose. The point of the antlers split right through the commandant's head killing him, and sadly under the weight of the man and the force of the impact the moose as well. Russel signed at the sight and sheathed his sword before kneeling in front of the animal.

"Thank you for the assistance friend." He thanked the dead moose.

Russel looked at the body of the angel starting to see it disintegrate and evaporate into the sunlight. Russel looked at the sight confused but decided to ignore it, instead grabbing a white feather from the angels wing. He felt a sharp pain course through the hand that held it so he threw the feather to the dirt.

"That's weird…" Russel whispered, clutching his hand.

Thinking he had defeated all those that wished to harm the Father and Kathleen, Russel started to journey back to the town of Eastcliff to enjoy the Festival of Angels with his beloved.