"The first time I saw a Marduk, I thought I was dreaming. We'd marched south to face the rebellion soldiers, siege engineers, cavalry trained in mountain warfare. This wasn't some starving mob of peasants. The southern armies had held against the Crown for years. They knew how to fight, and they fought well.
But what we met on the field that day wasn't war. It was something older. Something fouler. The ground cracked, not from catapults or spells, but from runes drawn in blood and ash. The skies darkened without a storm. And then they came, six-eyed horrors with crystal fangs and steam rising from their flesh. The Marduk. The demon hounds of the Enki.
They didn't roar or growl, they whispered. In voices that crawled into your skull and stayed there. We'd faced men before. Even monsters. But not this. Jarn died before he could draw. Thales vanished under a pile of limbs and blood. Karos fought one off with sacred flame, but it didn't burn. It only laughed.
That's when I knew the truth. The rebels had made a pact. A forbidden one. They had opened doors meant to stay closed.
We weren't fighting for the kingdom anymore. We were dying to buy it, time."
-----------------------------------
But instead of the expected impact, the creature's approach was interrupted by a sound that made her heart skip, a deep, meaty thunk that spoke of steel meeting flesh with tremendous force. The Marduk's forward momentum suddenly altered, its perfectly calculated leap becoming an uncontrolled tumble as something struck it from the side.
She opened her eyes to see the demon hound writhing on the floor beside her, a double-bladed woodsman's axe buried deep in its skull. Dark ichor poured from the wound in torrents, and the creature's six eyes were already beginning to lose their malevolent fire. The steel had found its mark this time, had punched through bone and brain to find the animating essence within.
Standing over the twitching corpse was a figure she had barely dared hope to see again. The wanderer stood there with casual confidence, one hand still resting on the axe's handle while the other braced against his obviously injured ribs. His face was a map of fresh bruises and healing cuts, his clothes torn and bloodstained, but his black eyes held the calm satisfaction of a craftsman admiring completed work.
He looked down at the dying Marduk with the same expression another man might wear while examining a particularly well-split log. There was no triumph in his features, no excitement or relief, just the quiet competence of someone who had faced such horrors before and found them wanting.
"You know," he said conversationally, his voice carrying the faint rasp of someone who had been shouting or screaming recently, "most people would have had the sense to run when they saw a Marduk. Dark elf reflexes are impressive, but they have their limits."
Nisheena stared at him in disbelief, her exhausted mind struggling to process this sudden reversal of fortune. The man who had been dying on a farmer's bed just hours before was now standing over the corpse of a demon hound, looking for all the world as if slaying supernatural horrors was just another part of his daily routine.
"How—" she began, then stopped as her voice cracked with exhaustion and pain.