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The Dawn (Halloween Havoc no. 25)

by Sigma

(Author’s Note: Year four. You know the deal)

I

The mother ran through the trees, clutching her daughter’s hand as they navigated the dark, pushed forward by sheer panic. The beast was on their heels, its baying getting closer. The mother then felt a pull and heard a yell. She turned to find her daughter gone.

She stood frozen, her limbs and heart heavy. Plodding footsteps sounded in the dark ahead of her, growing closer. The beast with red, glowing eyes then emerged from the shadows, licking its black lips as it eyed her hungrily.

She locked eyes with it and it looked at her. Sadness was replaced with fury. The mother looked at the dead grass under her feet and picked up a rock that she could barely clutch in her slim hand. The beast let out a growl and lunged. She screamed and raised the rock.

*

She walked through the trees. Blood dripped from the rock and from her wounds. It was cold and she could see the light ahead. She closed her eyes, waiting for the light to embrace and take her, but instead she was greeted with the sound of metal clashing against metal, and desperate war cries. She opened her eyes, her breath heavy in her chest, and moved toward the sound.

She soon came upon two figures in armor, a woman in gold, and a giant in black, both laying in the dirt. The warrior in black was as still as the night and the woman in gold lay against a tree, her armor ruined and her wounds severe. Her blade lay broken at her side and she fixed glowing white eyes on the mother, who stared at her.

“...Be not afraid, child…” the woman in gold said. “Approach.” Her voice had the beauty of a chorus.

The mother walked to her. Even seated, she could tell the woman was nearly a giant herself, with the healthy body of a fertility goddess, and a strong confident air about her even in her weakened state. She knelt down. A cold hand touched her face and the golden warrior looked her in the eye. She felt a sensation in her head before the warrior spoke.

“I see...You are the last of your tribe...as I am the last of my people. We’ve both been victimized by these...monsters from the void…Children of the Star Eater. They took your daughter as they did the rest of your family.”

The mother looked at the warrior in black.

“They cover your world, I am afraid...I came here alone to try and stop them, but I failed. I can no longer fight them...Nor can you,” she said weakly. She shifted, grunting in pain. “But…” she slid her hand to the woman’s belly. “I will pass what is left of my life force to you. She will carry on the fight when she is able. The first of a new line of champions.”

The mother looked down at her stomach in surprise and took the golden warrior’s hand.

“You did not know...I am sorry you had to find out this way. I see it now...she will be a warrior without peer…the first on this world. Protect her. I have defeated the Star Eater, but his evil still spreads.”

The mother squeezed the warrior’s hand. She felt a warmth through her body as the light left the warrior’s eyes and her breathing ceased.

Many hours later, the mother’s hands were bleeding and covered in dirt, but she looked upon the grave she committed the warrior too, nodded, and walked into the forest, her strength renewed.

II – 25 years later

Heavy, armored footsteps walked through the blood-soaked mud, and the marauder, a muscular man in black armor, smirked as he hefted his sword over his broad shoulder. The village around him lay in ruins. Armored men and beast alike surrounded him, many of them gathering the village’s able-bodied men as well as the children.

Before the marauder knelt several of the village’s women.

“Are these all the cows of child-bearing age this pathetic patch of dirt has?” The marauder questioned. He walked down the aisle of kneeling, whimpering women, some of them with their meager clothes torn, exposing their naked bodies. They huddled together, cowering under his gaze. He put the blade of his sword under one girl’s chin. “Look at me.”

She hesitantly lifted her head.

“I will seed you, woman, as my men and I will all of you. You will bear children. This is your fate. Do not fight it.”

“No!” the girl screamed. She got up and ran in the opposite direction, but the marauder didn’t chase. Instead he let her run a certain distance before he turned to his side, to a figure in a hooded robe. He gave a nod and the hooded figure looked at the girl. The girl stopped running and froze in place, her legs refusing to obey her. A symbol glowed under her bare feet before grasping hands erupted from the earth. Horrid, misshapen demons with clawed hands and long, slavering tongues, emerged, pawing at her body. They laughed and she screamed and begged as they tore at her clothes, toyed with her naked body, and dragged her below before the symbol vanished.

The other women cried in despair and the marauder laughed. He then looked at one girl, young with dark skin and hair, who bowed her head and clenched her fists in the dirt.

“You,” the marauder said. “What is your name?”

“Kula,” the girl answered.

“Look at me, Kula.”

She did.

“Defy me like that one and you face the same fate.”

“Someone is coming to drive you fiends back to the darkness,” Kula said. She looked up him defiantly and the marauder laughed.

“Ha! You speak of the rumors of some devil woman, carving her path through other villages? Perhaps the bitch is real. If so, I will bring her to her knees, just as I have all of you.” He grabbed Kula by her hair and forced her to her feet. “But, you speak defiantly, so I will break you first.” He stuck his sword in the ground and grabbed Kula’s tunic, groping her breasts with his free hand. His forces watched silently and Kula struggled to get away. She growled and spit at him and got a fist to her gut for her trouble. Kula doubled over in the dirt and the marauder held her face inches from his razor-sharp sword.

“Keep fighting me and see what happens. Don’t think I’m above raping a corpse, girl.”

Kula fell silent, whimpering as he tore her tunic off and tossed it aside, exposing her slim, naked body to the cold night air. Other warriors gathered to watch and laughed as their leader pushed Kula down into the dirt and forced her legs apart. He grabbed her neck with one hand and pinned a leg down with the other before sliding himself in. She grunted, trying to fight him, and he only laughed at her cruelly as he fucked her there on the ground, for everyone to see.

With every forceful thrust, he laughed at her and looked at the other terrified women. “This is your fate! Breeding stock for me and my men!”

Kula looked around, trying to find anything other than his ugly face to look at. She looked at her discarded tunic and noticed a glint of metal, her knife that she carried with her everywhere. She grabbed it when he was distracted, and she let out a defiant yell, thrusting it into his chest.

The marauder grunted and looked at the blade. He then narrowed his dark eyes at Kula and gave her the back of his hand. The powerful blow rattled her skull and he held her down and fucked her harder.

“Little cunt. Who do you think you are?” He gripped her hips, pushing his cock deep, and Kula moaned and breathed heavily, trying to pull away. “I was going to give you the honor of seeding you, but now I think I’ll make a banner of your skin and hang your head from it.”

Kula didn’t give up. She grabbed his face and tried to drive her thumbs into his eyes, but the marauder locked his grip around her neck and began strangling her.

“You really do want to make this difficult, don’t you? Very well. Have it your way. ”

Kula began to respond, but everyone’s attention was called away by a distant commotion. The marauder turned around to see his forces being routed as someone charged toward him, sword in hand. The hooded sorcerer stood before him and began weaving a spell, but his body jerked as a hatchet flew through the air and caught him between the eyes.

The marauder grunted and tossed Kula aside before retrieving his sword. He faced his opponent, a tall woman whose toned, bronze body was contained by a simple leather outfit that barely held her generous curves. Thick, dark hair was tied back in braids and dark eyes fixed on the armored warrior as the woman retrieved her hatchet while twirling a bloody sword in the other.

“Ah…so, she comes…” the marauder said.

The woman simply pointed her sword at him in challenge.

Kula watched them both, barely able to contain her smile.

*

The women of the village all kept their distance. The warrior woman sat on the marauder’s headless corpse, her sword impaled in the ground, his broken blade laying in the dirt. She grunted as she wrapped a bandage around a cut on her muscular arm and then tore it with her teeth. Some of the women squealed when the mysterious warrior looked at them.

“Water,” she said.

Kula rushed forward, bringing her a water skin. The woman took it, nodded in thanks, and drank, soaking her face and chest.

“You killed them all,” Kula said cheerfully.

“Yes. I did,” she answered. “I still have much work to do.”

They both looked at the black tower.

“These monsters,” Kula said. “They took our men...and our children. Our fathers, brothers, husbands, sons and daughters. What are they doing with them?”

The woman breathed deep and pointed at the dead warriors and monsters around them. “This. Your men and children are how the Star Eater’s minions grow their armies.”

Some of the women gasped, others cried out.

“You’re here to stop it?” Kula asked.

“I’m here to do what I can,” the woman said. She looked at the forest in the distance. “Some great evil is in those woods. It has invaded my dreams for the past year. I need to find.”

The warrior woman stood and gave Kula back her water skin. She grabbed her sword and sheathed it before walking toward the forest. Kula stepped behind her hesitantly and looked back at her fellow villagers. She then clutched the sheathed knife on her belt and ran after the woman.

The warrior woman paused and looked at Kula, who shrunk under her gaze. They looked at each other for several silent moments.

“Keep up. I will not coddle you,” the woman said before continuing.

Kula nodded, waved to the others, and followed.

III

“Do you have a name?” Kula asked. It was the first thing she said after two hours of walking.

The woman glanced at her.

“It’s just...if we run into trouble, perhaps it’d be good if I know what to shout. ‘Mysterious Warrior Woman’ is a bit wordy, is all.”

The warrior woman gave the slightest chuckle. “Aya.”

“Aya,” Kula repeated. “A good name. I’m Kula, by the way.”

Aya simply nodded.

“I had heard the stories and longed hoped they were true. We’ve been in the shadow of these monsters for too long,” Kula said. “They took my parents, and all eight of my siblings. They always struck out of nowhere, with their horrid beasts and black magic…” Kula looked up when she felt Aya’s hand on her shoulder.

“Quiet…”

“Oh...am I talking too much? Grandmother always said I talked too much and I should just…” she jumped when Aya clamped a hand over her mouth.

Aya lifted a finger to her full lips. “...We’re being followed…” she whispered. “It’s been on our trail since we entered the forest...it’s getting closer, bolder.”

Kula nodded and Aya moved her hand and kept it near her sword. Just then, a child’s laughter echoed in the trees. They both looked around and Aya pushed Kula behind her. There was movement in the trees. Behind them at first, then in front. Then above and all around them. Kula drew her knife and got close. “There’s more than one…”

Aya nodded in agreement and drew her sword.

The movement in the shadows became more frequent, more noticeable. There was panting and clawing, and the child’s laughter grew louder.

“It’s the Night Child…” Kula gasped.

“What is that?” Aya asked.

“Another of the Star Eater’s chosen. Merchants who passed through these woods say it’s a girl bathed in blood that she drinks. She subjugates her victims to her will like puppets. She’s far deadlier than any beast or armored marauder. She’s bound to these woods, but they are her absolute domain...”

Aya nodded and gripped her weapon, waiting the coming attack. “When the fighting begins, find somewhere to hide.”

“There you go coddling me,” Kula said, holding her knife with trembling hands. “...I’ll be fine…”

The two of them stood close as pale figures emerged from the trees. They were withered, emaciated bodies of men, wearing nothing but tattered rags with hollow looks in their eyes.

Aya growled and gripped her sword while Kula looked around.

“There are too many…” Kula said. “We…” she then paused. “No…,” she whimpered. “Papa…?” She then took off running.

“Kula, no!” Aya called after her before running.

Kula ran to one of the figures, a tall man with thinning hair. He looked down at her with an empty expression and she looked at him. “Papa, it’s me! Kula!”

The figure raised an arm and Kula gasped as Aya tackled her out of the way just as the arm came down in a swipe. Aya pinned the girl under her and looked back.

“Stop, Aya!” Kula said. “That’s my father!”

“No it isn’t!” Aya told her. “You said yourself the people here were puppets of the Night Child!”

A look of stark realization crossed Kula’s face as the figures surrounded them on all sides. They quickly got to their feet and Aya raised her sword. All around them, the figures moaned and shambled forward, and the laughter of a child could be heard among the trees.

“These men should be put to rest,” Aya said. “I will grant them that mercy.” She then charged forward, sword in hand. Kula watched her attack, and gasped as the corpse of her father was one of the first to fall. She looked away, and then noticed movement above her. On a branch sat a small, waifish looking girl in a simple, tattered, bloodstained dress. She smiled at Kula and waved.

Kula growled and looked around, picking up a rock. “Night Child!” she screamed throwing the rock at someone who was no longer there.

“My, my. Such anger…” a voice said behind Kula. She felt a cold grip around her neck, and sharp nails dug into the skin. A long tongue licked the side of Kula’s face. “You aren’t particularly strong, but you have fire. I can use you.”

Kula froze in place, feeling a clammy hand slip down her clothes and fondle her breasts. She was then turned around and forced to look at Aya, who cut down the dead as they came, only to be confronted by more that began emerging from the trees.

“She is strong, however...so very strong,” The Night Child said. She squeezed Kula’s tit and bit her lip. “All these years I’ve been bound to this accursed forest and you two are the first women I’ve had in my clutches. Can you believe that? All the others that came through here were dragged through by the Star Eater’s men. Greedy fools wouldn’t even let me have a taste…”

“Bitch!” Kula screamed, clutching her knife and plunging it into the Night Child’s thigh.

The Night Child simply looked at the knife and then at Kula. “That wasn’t very nice,” she said with menace, squeezing Kula’s neck harder. She dug her nails into the flesh of Kula’s tit. It’s been so long since I’ve felt warm skin. It’s a nice change…” she said, looking as Aya continued fighting. “I feel everything my puppets do. Even now, as that beautiful creature cuts them down, I feel every decapitation...every dismemberment. It hurts...so much…”

Kula gagged as she continued to be strangled.

“But I will feel pleasure soon enough. She can’t keep this up…” The Night Child said with a laugh.

Aya looked around, finding herself surrounded by the dead, and yet more emerged from the trees to swarm her. She gripped her sword and took a stance, chancing a look at Kula. The Night Child blew her a kiss and Aya shouted as more of the Night Child’s puppets came at her, more than there had been just minutes ago.

They moved in a unified, coordinated tide, and for every one Aya cut down, two more replaced them. They reached out with gnarled, cold, grasping hands, seizing her powerful limbs first to keep her sword at bay. She screamed in defiance as her weapon was torn free before the dead dragged her down with their collective weight, pinning her to the forest floor.

She tried to throw punches and shake them off, but they were too many.

“No! NO!” She screamed in desperation.

“Aya!” Kula yelled and tried to help her, only to be restrained.

A grin crossed the Night Child’s face and her eyes flared, and soon, the ground beneath Aya opened and swallowed the warrior women whole, along with some of the unfortunate dead. The hole then closed up.

“No…” Kula said, a tear rolling down her cheek. She staggered forward after the Night Child let her go, and she stumbled toward the spot where Aya vanished.

The Night Child pulled the knife from her leg and then looked at the dead. She dismissed them back into the shadows of the forest and held the knife in her hands behind her back as she skipped toward Kula.

IV

Aya gasped and pushed herself up on dry, rocky ground. The sky overhead was the color of blood and dominated by a black sun. When she looked down, she saw the ground was made of bones and skulls.

“Welcome, human,” a thunderous voice said.

Aya turned around and was leveled by a massive fist to her face.

A towering beast, with the body of a man and the horned head of a goat, stood over her. It had a symbol branded into the flesh between its eight eyes, and it snorted as it looked down. “Ah...so you are that fool’s chosen champion...the one who means to defy the master?”

Aya’s head swam, her vision was blurred. Before she could get up, the demon pinned her down. His nostrils flared as he sniffed her.

“You smell just like that star-born witch. I wonder if you feel the same too…”

Aya could only lay there as the demon ripped off her clothes, and she felt the leather-like skin of his fingers as he fondled her naked and vulnerable body, squeezing her breasts and running his fingers across the tightness of her stomach. She looked up at those glowing eight eyes as they narrowed, and the demon seemed to grunt in some sort of perverse approval. Aya tried to sit up and fight back, but the demon covered her face with one hand and shoved her back down. He then grabbed one thick, muscular leg and pulled it aside. When she tried to kick him, the demon knelt on her other leg and then pinned both legs under his, using his now-free hand to stroke the stiffening cock between his legs. He let go of Aya’s face, but still held her down by her shoulder, and she growled at him as his cock stood tall between his legs.

He grabbed Aya by her ankles and pulled them apart, and she cried out as he slid himself in and began thrusting, stretching the beaten heroine’s pussy around his throbbing length. Once he got leverage, he fully mounted Aya, drawing suppressed moans from the woman while taking his time and thrusting in and out slowly.

The soft flesh of Aya’s breasts, the nipples erect, gave under the the demon’s hand as he squeezed them and pinched, making her squeal despite herself. She thrust her hips up under him, accepting his length, and the demon’s thin lips curled into a smile.

“So easily turned into a mewling lamb,” the demon taunted. He leaned in so their faces were mere inches apart. His breath stunk of sulfur and he laughed as Aya squirmed under him. She squeezed around the demon’s shaft and he grunted in satisfaction. “Perhaps I will keep you for myself, though I was hoping you’d fight me harder.”

Aya couldn’t say anything in response. The sensation of pleasure shooting through her as the demon stretched her was too great to ignore. He seemed to apply the fully weight of his body on top of her, and she clutched at the taut muscles of his arms as he continued penetrating her.

“I’ve seeded plenty of you human women, produced some strong offspring indeed. I wonder...what kind of children will that witch’s chosen one bear?” The demon said. He drew in a deep breath through his nose. “I can tell, you are fertile indeed. You will carry more of my young.”

Aya’s eyes went wide in panic at that, at the thought of being broken and tamed by this monster, forced to birth its children. She clenched a hand into a fist and punched the demon, but he only laughed and thrust harder, making her scream. She hit him again, and the demon continued laughing, and when Aya punched him a third time, harder, the demon growled and seized her by the neck.

“Stop this, or I will skin you and use your hide and bones as trophies instead.” He then took a few more powerful thrusts to drive his point home.

Aya felt the rough surface of the bones making up the ground under her naked back. She looked past the demon’s muscular shoulder at the black sun overhead, and then in its eight, malevolent eyes. His words, his promise of violence if she failed to comply brought her to her senses. As he continued to stretch her and make her body his plaything, she reached up and touched the side of his face. The demon moaned and seemed to relax, and it was then that Aya acted.

She grabbed one of his horns and pulled with all of her strength. When the demon resisted out of instinct, his pulled back, pulling his still-stiff cock from between Aya’s legs, but she held her grip and grabbed with the other hand. The demon roared in rage as Aya pulled his head down and brought her knee up, smashing it into his snout. The demon staggered back with Aya still holding his horn, and his head jerked to the side as Aya pulled.

The muscles of her arms flexed, the sculpted muscles of her back tensed as she yelled and the demon cried out as Aya ripped the horn from his head. The demon screamed curses at her, and they turned to agonized cries when Aya shoved the sharp end of the horn into an eye. The demon fell to his knees, screaming in pain, and Aya, naked and out of breath, bent over to catch her breath, her throbbing pussy dripping with pre-cum as she looked for a weapon. She picked up a bone, a leg bone that was as long as she was tall, and she raised it to club the monster.

The demon ripped the horn free and turned his ruin face to her. “Stop!” he held out his hand, and she paused with the bone raised overhead. The demon growled, pausing as he stared at her, and then seemed to swallow the words that were about to come out. He then grumbled and narrowed the seven working eyes he still had. “The master wants to speak with you…”

“Take your lies to hell, devil!” Aya said, hitting him with a clubbing blow.

“AGH!” Damn your hide, woman! I speak the truth!”

She prepared to hit him again when a fiery portal opened behind him. The demon pointed and Aya stared at him before making her way to the portal. Before she stepped through, she brought her makeshift club up in a upward swing, putting the demon on his back, and she left him on the ground, writhing in pain as she walked through.

The space beyond was pitch black, and the ground beneath Aya’s bare feet was cold and smooth. She took several careful steps forward before something snagged her ankle. She grunted and tried to pull her leg away. When she bent down to grab it it, something long and thing wrapped around her wrist. She then screamed as her other leg and arm were grabbed and she felt herself pulled up. The bonds holding her were soft and fleshy, but strong, and they tightened when she pulled at them.

“Unhand me!” she shouted into the darkness.

Then, in front of her, the endless dark of the void was broken up by a giant, singular eye opening in front of her. She froze in instinctual fear and the dark eye, holding signs of alien intelligence, looked her up and down. The eye then closed, leaving Aya in the dark once more. The only sounds she heard were her heart racing in her naked chest, and her rapid breathing he was trying to calm down. She then yelled when she felt more of the fleshy tendrils sliding up her body. They wrapped around her muscular thighs, coiled around her waist and arms, cupped her naked breasts slowly and carefully. She screamed defiantly, trying to break free, and felt them enveloping her face and head. Her screams and cries then turned to gagging as the tendrils forced themselves into her mouth and down her throat. She felt them probing the inside of her body, and felt that strange, alien presence reaching into her mind.

“Warrior woman…” a voice called out to her. “At last we meet.”

Aya couldn’t speak because of her mouth being stuffed, but when she thought of her response, she was surprised by her own words echoing in her head.

“What is this?! Let me go!”

“We have much to discuss…” the voice said.

“Who are you?!”

“I have many names, but the beings of this world call me the Star Eater…” The voice labored for breath before continuing. “I called to you in your dreams, and here you are at last...I see...my enemy chose wisely…”

“Y...your enemy?” Aya asked. Just then, images flashed through her head. She saw those images in the forest from 25 years ago. She saw the child being taken away in the dark. She saw the woman in golden armor fighting the warrior in black.

“The warrior from another world, who chased my assumed form across the void and cornered it on this world. She wounded me with her divine weapon, past the point of recovery, even as I struck a fatal blow to her.”

Aya saw it all, both warriors fall with blood on their weapons. She saw her mother, much younger then, happen upon the scene and the exchange her mother had with the golden warrior.

“My enemy knew that I was not truly defeated, and so she passed her lifeforce to your forebear, and it passed to you…”

“You survived all this time…”

“I languish…” the voice told her. “My injuries can never be fully mended because of her weapon. Yet the influence I have on your world spreads. You have seen it in the violence visited upon your people. I have few thralls still under my control…”

An image of the goat-demon flashed in Aya’s head.

“...But most have broken free of my will and do as they wish. Their evil will spread over your world for generations to come.”

“And you can’t stop them?”

“I am prisoner in this place, sealed away forever as a final act by the hand of my enemy. Her last strike wounded my true essence, the form before you. I wish for death’s true release…”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you must know of the burden you face. Yours will be a long and hard road, as will that of your descendants. You were given both the ultimate gift and the ultimate curse. Some of your enemies will want your life...many more will simply want your body. This is the path you walk.”

More visions flashed in Aya’s head. Visions of warrior women fighting battles. Among the many visions, Aya saw a group of women fighting a massive beast, taller than even the biggest fortresses, among canyons made of glass. She saw a masked woman in red, white, and blue, grappling with a horde of monsters, their lustful eyes locked on her curvy body and their cocks erect between their legs. She was supported by others, a woman in red who could fly like a bird, a dark-skinned woman in purple who moved with fluid grace and fought with her bare hand and beat her enemies back.

She saw these women victorious. She saw them overwhelmed and taken by monsters, their nubile bodies made their playthings. She saw them get back up and continue fighting.

“These are your descendants. Champions granted great power, but left as slaves to their desire. Still, they are the light that will hold back the dark that will blanket your world.”

The visions faded and Aya hang there in the dark, stunned at what she had seen. She then felt the tendrils holding her loosen and she fell to the ground. Soon, light flooded the room and she found herself in the presence of an entity she couldn’t quite comprehend. It resembled a misshapen heart, several times her size, and black liquid pumped from laboring wounds all over its fleshy surface.

Aya felt a familiar weight in her hand and looked down to find her sword.

“Strike me down,” the voice said to her. “Grant me the final release, and then set forth protecting your world.”

Aya said nothing. She simply raised the sword, leapt forward, and stabbed downward.

V

The ground in the forest erupted as a fist punched through the earth. Several moments passed and Aya clawed her way out of the ground, covered in dirt and mud. She pulled herself onto solid ground, dropped her blade, and fell to her knees. Her tits heaved and the things she witnessed ran through her head as the cool night air nipped at her skin.

“...A...Aya?” a voice called weakly.

She turned to see Kula slumped against the base of tree at the end of a trail of blood. A knife was lodge in the center of Kula’s chest. Aya got up and ran to her.

“Welcome back…” Kula smiled weakly. “I held the fort while you were gone…”

Aya took her hand and looked around, but didn’t seen anyone.

“Did you find the evil?” Kula asked.

Aya squeezed her hand and nodded. She looked down, noticing defensive wounds on Kula’s hands.

“Good...I’m cold. I’m just going to...get some sleep…” Kula said. “Let’s get something to eat when I wake, okay…?”

Aya choked back tears, forced a smile, and nodded. Kula’s head then slumped to the side, lifeless. Aya closed the girl’s eyes and lay her on the ground before breathing deep.

“She didn’t go quietly.”

Aya turned to the voice behind her. She saw the Night Child standing there, smoothing out her bloody clothes. Aya noticed scratches on her face and neck. “She fought me, more than I’d think someone her size would be capable of. I guess all animals get desperate enough when faced with death,” she said with a smile.

Aya looked her in the face and another image flashed in her head, the one of the child being taken in the darkness 25 years prior. Aya stood to her full height and gripped her sword. The Night Child stared at her as Aya approached.

“Anu…” Aya said.

“...What?” The Night Child asked.

“...That was the name our mother gave you. Before you were taken by the evil in these damned woods. She talked about you all the time. Her perfect little girl...”

The Night Child looked down. “Ah...yes...I remember now. Well, that was the past. I was reborn into something better, dear sister….” she said with a smile. “How is mother?”

“She died two winters ago…Illness.”

“A pity. I would have liked to have added her to the collection.”

Aya looked around as the Night Child’s puppets began emerging from the forest again.

“Don’t worry...I’ll make sure you and your friend are always together once I have you under my control…”

Aya gripped her sword, breathed deep, a lowered her head.

*

It was over in mere moments, but it took Aya hours to dig two graves. When it was over, Kula and Anu were buried next to each other under a great tree. Aya looked down at her sword, impaled in the ground in front of her, and pulled it free. She walked toward the edge of the forest to leave, knowing her grim work was just beginning.

VI – Decades Later

Aya was on her knees, chains holding her arms up. Her naked body, still taut and muscular even at her advanced age, born old scars and new, and she looked up defiantly as a cold, pale hand grabbed her chin.

She looked into a pair of eyes, black like the darkest knight, and the tall, thin figure holding her prisoner smiled.

“The legendary warrior woman, finally brought low…” the creature said, smiling with a mouth of razor teeth. “I have ravaged these lands for years, hoping to meet you...and now here we are. That I be the one who ends your story is...poetic…”

Aya growled and screamed when the chains pulled at her arms and lifted her off the ground. The creature, known as the Pale Judge, was a self-fashioned tyrants whose growing army had carved out a small kingdom through conquest and enslavement. Aya was being held prisoner in the central chamber of the Pale Judge’s stronghold, a corrupted temple. All around her, naked young woman were lashed to stone pillars, their bellies swollen with the pale judge’s offspring.

The pale judge himself stood naked, a flaccid cock between his legs as long, thin fingers caressed Aya’s bare and vulnerable skin. “A pity we could not have done this sooner…you can no longer bare children at your age, can you?”

Aya growled and spit in his face, and he simply grinned and licked it clean.

“Such powerful children we could have made…” He said, squeezing her breasts. “No matter...I will find your daughters instead.” He then raised a hand and a black knife materialized in it. “Your life will have to do.”

Aya closed her eyes and braced herself as the knife came down.

When she opened her eyes, she sat on the bank of a river, in a grassy field under a clear, blue sky. She looked around in confusion. “Wha…”

“You’re finally here!”

Aya spun around and saw Kula sitting over a fire. Kula grinned and waved before getting up and running over.

“I saved you a place. We didn’t want to get started until you arrived,” Kula said, pulling her along.

“I…” Aya said. “What…”

Kula brought Aya to the fire where two others waited. Aya stood there, stunned, as she looked at the smiling faces of Anu and her mother. There was a hearty look spread of meats, fruits, and bread, and Kula began separating a portion for her.

“You can rest now, my daughter,” Aya’s mother said. “Your fight is over.”

Aya said nothing. She simply took her seat next to Anu, who slid closer to her.

*

The Pale Judge lay dead, his head cleaved from his narrow shoulders, and the young warrior woman held her sword as she looked at Aya’s body laying at her feet. She knelt down, pressing her forehead against Aya’s and gave it a kiss. She looked up when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder and turned to find her twin brother holding his own bloody sword.

She stood and looked down the stairs of the altar. Her other six siblings, the rest of Aya’s children, all proud warriors, stood in silence as the twins, her firstborn, carried their mother down the stairs.

“What do we do?” Aya’s youngest, a clean shaven youth asked his sister.

“We build mother a pyre,” she answered. “And then we carry on her fight.”

The End