***
Griffin nodded to Mercius, and leapt into battle. A pall of smoke and dust lay everywhere, broken by fires that consumed nearly all the buildings of the small village, as well as some of the villagers themselves. Demons were feasting on roasting flesh at every turn. The creatures that weren’t so involved in the feast were chasing the ones who were unfortunate enough to still be alive, catching them in short order and ripping them apart with an ease and relish that only the spawn of Hell can muster.
The blade in Griffin’s hand seemed to be entirely weightless, as was always the case when he was in battle. He rode through the village, slashing and hacking with deadly accuracy and strength. He was quickly covered in black blood and sticky entrails. The stench of the rotting flesh that he mercilessly tore from the demons filled his nose and threatened to overwhelm him. But he was no longer truly in control of himself. It was not the power that he and Mercius had worked to find so studiously of late; it was simple battle rage, and he knew it well. Loved it. Used it.
With a throaty roar of hate and rage, he slashed with his blade at the nearest demon, severing its upper half from its lower. Before the parts of the thing had hit the blood-muddied ground, he was knocked from his horses back. As he spun through the air, he had a glimpse of the winged demon that had struck him. It wheeled high into the air as he landed on his back with a whoosh of lost breath, then flipped gracefully over and folded its scarred leathery wings, plummeting like a fanged stone to where he lay. He closed his fist, expecting to feel the grip of his sword, but his fingers closed instead on the flesh of his own hand.
He didn’t panic, as most men would in that situation, but his focus faltered. He was no longer in the thrall of the battle rage that had kept him alive through all of his countless confrontations. In the brief seconds he had before the thing landed on him and disemboweled him, he cast around and saw that his blade was far out of his reach. He groped for the knife that he kept in his boot, but he knew the small blade would do nothing against a demon twice the size of a horse.
As he pulled the measly thing from his boot and looked at it, holding it in front of his face, he panicked. The flying demon would be on him in the blink of an eye, and all he had to fend it off with was this tiny excuse for a weapon. His breath, which had just returned to him after his fall, refused to fill his lungs. The smell of the blood and the mud caught in his throat and he felt hot bile rising into his mouth. He glanced to the side, and saw a woman’s glazed eyes staring at him from the ground. Her face had been gnawed thoroughly, and was hardly recognizable anymore as human. With that picture in his head, Griffin became extraordinarily angry. All he had was his puny knife, but he intended to use it. He thought, with enormous fury, that he would relieve the thing of an eye or a claw before it took his life and feasted on his flesh.
The thing was on him. It seemed to hover above him for a fraction of a second, just long enough for Griffin to solidify his resolve, then its black fangs were biting into his neck. With a roar he slammed the knife into the thing’s eye. Suddenly, though the knife was tiny, the thing went hurtling back up into the air. He felt the force coming out of him, pushing the thing up, up, up. When it reached nearly fifty feet of altitude, something in him popped, like a soap bubble, and the thing exploded. Gobbets of flesh and a sheet of black and yellow blood rained down into the smoke and the screams.
Griffin lay there on his back in the mud, staring up at the space of sky where the winged demon had just been. Other demons screeched and flew in and out of his vision. He stood slowly, feeling the world around him with a clarity that nearly buckled his knees. He saw the screaming villagers and the burning. He saw the horror and the panic that gripped them. He saw his friends battling with the intensity of cornered animals. He saw Mercius. He focused on Mercius. The man who had quickly become his friend and confidante was battling like liquid lightning. Griffin felt that he could almost see flames shooting from the black blade in Mercius' hand. He moved with a lithe grace that was not entirely human, and killed with no mercy. The demons that came before Illuricht systematically were sliced into bits, beheaded, or disemboweled.
Slowly, Griffin noticed that not all of the demons that fell from Mercius were actually encountering the blade that he wielded. Every now and again, Mercius would simply thrust out his hand and the demon that it pointed at would explode, just like the winged one that Griffin had destroyed.
Griffin turned abruptly at a movement in the corner of his eye, and saw three demons charging him. With no weapon, he was unafraid; a sense of calm had overcome him, and he squared his shoulders and waited for the snarling Hell-spawn to close with him. He glanced down at the knife he still held, and let it drop. The rage that he had felt at the dead woman was still in him, but it had changed from the usual battle rage that he knew so well. Now, he was in control, instead of being controlled by it. He let it flow into his limbs, and he knew, suddenly and without doubt, that he had it. He had what he and Mercius had been working for; what the angel had told him that he needed. He had power, and he had control.
Now that he was in control, it took very little effort to bend this strange and glorious power to his bidding. He struck out with his will, and a purple fire flew from his hands, engulfing the demons. Each of them melted quickly in the midst of the blaze, until they were nothing more than smoking puddles of flesh and claws and teeth. With a grim satisfaction, Griffin strode among the demons and the battle. He noticed now that the Hammer and the Blade had joined them. Hundreds of men and women with spears, swords, bows, and axes flooded into the small village, screaming battle cries and destroying with extreme hatred and fury. He noticed, too, that others from the village had stopped running, and had turned to attack. It seemed that they had got a sudden case of backbone when they saw the others join the fray. The numbers of the encouraged villagers could not be guessed in the confusion, but Griffin suspected they were about two hundred and fifty strong, all told.
Now that the Hammer and the Blade had come into the village, the tide of the battle turned quickly. The demons that were left were overwhelmed by the numbers flowing over them. The fear that the villagers had shown just moments ago was now transformed into a communal rage that was more than the demons could withstand. They were ripped apart, the ones who stood. The rest fled with howls of anger left in their wake.