Daybreak

Chapter 5 - Flame and Smoke

Ringing filled Cara's ears, blocking out any coherent sound. Her vision had turned fuzzy and tinged with red. As her senses began to return, she realized that the red was actually streaks of flaming debris trailing through the air around her. The ringing slowly gave way to terrified shrieks and howls. And words. Someone was trying to say something to her.

Her body shook, and she struggled to stand. When had she fallen? She wasn't sure. The world rocked, and she was forced to sit down again. Someone braced her under the arms, lifting her enough to get her legs underneath her. Once standing, her foggy mind began to clear a little more and she could finally make out the words being screamed at her through everything else.

"-was that? Solis, can you hear me?" That voice. It was smooth and lightly accented with an exotic element she didn't quite recognize. It was male, she noted that as well. He sounded melodic, like he had trained as a singer in another life.

Someone began to drag her forward. Cara shook her head and forced herself to focus. A hand was wrapped around her wrist, just a few shades paler than her own dark brown skin. The hand had rough callouses like her own, the kind won from hours of training. A warriors hand. Her eyes followed the path of the arm that connected her to the person who was rudely dragging her through smoke and flame. Dark leather, powerful shoulders, tousled hair.

Cara jerked back as reality came crashing down on her once more. She yanked her hand way from the Demon King, cursing him and herself as she fought against the lingering haze.

"Are you back, Solis?" The Demon King called, a note of annoyance coloring his tone.

She nodded, turning away from him to scan the flaming battlefield. "We were hit by a Scorcher. Explosive magic." Cara explained, pointing toward the wave of devastation behind them.

The Demon King's expression turned murderous. "That explosion wiped out a third of my people."

Feeling sick, Cara could do nothing except stare at the crater that had replaced a large swath of battlefield. Bodies scattered the scorched earth, some of them so charred or blown apart they were barely recognizable. Several survivors drifted from corpse to corpse, seeking out friends and praying they found a pulse. A young woman perhaps a few years younger than Cara howled as she cradled the blackened form of someone she had clearly cared about. A silver wolf whined as a larger, tawny colored animal drew in ragged breaths.

Cara's own breathing became uneven as she registered one more corpse just a few paces away from her. She stumbled away from the Demon King, suddenly desperate to see who wore the blackened and warped golden armor half buried under debris. Shoving at the still smoking boulder with all her strength, Cara heaved it off of the Arathean Golden Knight, pleading to the gods that she wouldn't find a friend there.

It wasn't Sorin's corpse. She was the worst kind of traitor for feeling grateful for that, but she silently praised each of the gods by name anyway. The face was familiar however. He was one of the new transfers assigned to her honor guard in preparation for this battle. Tarrel. That was his name. Cara collapsed to the ground and bent over Tarrel's body, barely registering the shaky tears that slid down her cheeks.

She hadn't given the signal. The Scorchers were only supposed to by activated by Cara's signal, a sign she specifically coded between her and the mages so there would be no confusion on the battlefield. Not only that, but they were never to be fired where Arathean troops still fought. How had this happened? Who had given the command to fire, not only at Cara, but also at the hundreds of soldiers like the Knight that lay before her that had been caught in between the Arathean command force and the bulk of the demon army?

Sorin's face suddenly flashed in her mind. This Knight hadn't born their features, but that didn't mean they hadn't been caught up in the blast. Cara's breathing turned quick and uncontrollable. She had to find them, had to make sure they were alright.

She didn't even have time to stand before the war horns began to wail once more. One long tone, followed by a short one.

"They're going to fire again!" Cara cried, whirling to face the Demon King who had slowly approached. "I have to reach the operations tent! I can stop them from firing!" Her desperation was building into a frenzy. "I can stop this from getting any worse."

The Demon King took in her words, his expression unreadable. "They won't stop firing, Solis."

Cara blinked at his cold tone. "Of course they will. They'll have to, I have command over the Scorchers. I can tell them to deactivate the magic."
He shook his head, speaking slowly as though he were soothing a wounded animal backed into a corner. "Those weapons are designed to exterminate my kind. Surely you must have realized that."

The horns wailed once more, and the earth shook as the Scorchers struck their targets. This time, they were aimed toward the opposite side of the battlefield. But Cara could still feel the heat of them, still shook with the intensity of the magic as it reverberated through the air.

She was crying in earnest now. "We can still stop it. Maybe if you surrender-"

"Your people just obliterated half of my force with a thought and you think I'm going to surrender the rest of my people to them?" The Demon King spat. She flinched at the sharpness in his voice.

The Demon King took a step back from her, murmuring just loud enough for her to hear. "No more of my people will die tonight."

Then he closed his eyes and began to chant. Purple light formed in the air around her, sparkling and jasmine scented. Cara's magic reacted, boiling to the surface and crawling just beneath her skin. She doubled over at the sudden force of it. The Demon King's magic wove through the air, circling the battlefield like a great snake from the old legends. His indecipherable words crescendoed until it was all she could hear. Energy surged and receded, ebbing and flowing like a storm tossed sea. Cara screamed as heat exploded out of her before racing back in, searing her very bones. Violet and jasmine became her entire world, and then everything went black.