***
Jax was tired and sore. The hunt had gone well. They carried on their pack animals half a dozen deer, and one bear. The bear was disappointing. Jax had thought it looked much bigger when first he spotted it foraging in some deep undergrowth. However, when it had been taken down by a concerted effort of all members of the small hunting party, Jax had realized that it was only a cub, not halfway to maturity, and was small even for its age. It wouldn’t render much meat, but it was better than nothing, he supposed. The fur and the bones and the stomach could be used, at least. And they had the deer, one a buck of substantial size and a three-foot rack.
Nevertheless, Jax was ready for a real bed and a real meal. Not to mention a clean set of clothes and a shave. He smelled like campfire and carcass. The four men who walked with him smelled just as bad, and looked in need of the same comforts he was yearning after.
But they were nearly home.
As he walked steadily on, Jax intentionally lost himself in his thoughts. He had spent his nights carving a piece of bone from one of the first stags they had killed. It was a crude carving, but stout and comfortable. He hadn’t quite finished it, but when it was done, it would be a serviceable weapon. Its smooth handle tapered down into a slightly curved blade, serrated on one side. Crude and simple, but fit for a small boy. He tried to picture Jared’s face lighting up when Jax presented it to him, and a slight smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. Sophia might not be terribly pleased with him, but Halifax would stand firmly on Jax’s side, he knew. The boy was already formidable with the practice weapons he used.
The thought brought a sadness to Jax that he was unable to shake immediately. How tragic that children have to learn to fight at such a young age, he thought. It was a shame, really, that they couldn’t simply be kids and enjoy their tender young years. But he himself had gone through the same, as had generations before him. As far as he knew, this cycle had repeated itself since the dawn of time. But he had always harbored a strange suspicion that it hadn’t always been like this.
Jax, of course, had heard all the same stories as everyone else. That there had once been a world that humanity ruled and controlled, and that the demons that now plagued the planet had suddenly swept up out of Hell for a terrifying and vicious assault that nearly annihilated mankind entirely. But such stories were tough to believe. And besides, Jax thought, what difference does it make? We live in this world now, and nothing can change that.
A sharp odor came slowly into Jax’s nose. He paid it no mind at first, lost as he was in his thoughts, but it refused to be ignored. Now he focused on it. It was smoke, but not the natural smoke of campfire. It was grass and wood and flesh that was burning.
Without a second thought, Jax vaulted onto the back of his startled mare, paying no mind the meat that was heaped on its back as it squished noisily beneath him. He put his heels viciously into the mare’s flank, and the horse sped ahead of the hunting party.
What awaited Jax was ghastly and terrifying. To the side of the village wall was the source of the acrid smoke. A pile of corpses smoldered, as if the fire had raged for several days and was just now subsiding into ash and hot bone. Jax furrowed his brow against the fear that suddenly boiled in his gut.
He rushed inside the large gate to the village, which stood open. The place bustled almost normally, with people walking here and there with loaded carts or armfuls of supplies. It only took Jax a moment to realize that something was terribly wrong. An air of misery overhung the place, such as Jax had only experienced after a pitched battle with many casualties.
He ran up to the nearest villager and demanded to be told where Halifax was. The young woman looked blankly at him, so he asked for Sophia instead, a churning ball of terror gripping his intestines. The woman continued to stare through him, but she raised her hand and pointed to the low building in the center of the courtyard. It was where the small village council convened, as well as serving as an audience chamber, theater, and dance hall for the few celebrations the people held.
Jax rushed into the building, but it was empty and wreathed in shadow. As he was about to leave and continue his search for his friends, however, he heard a muffled sound coming from a far corner. He approached quickly and quietly. There he saw Sophia, huddled in the shadows, weeping softly into her hands.
He knelt down before her and took her into his arms, fearing the worst. “What happened?” he asked in a whisper.
“They came without warning and stormed us. We didn’t have a chance. It was over moments after it started, but they killed so many.” Sophia’s words came between her sobs. “They killed--” She evidently couldn’t finish, and Jax stiffened, not needing to hear what he already knew: Halfiax was dead. The grief and soul-wrenching despair that clawed into Jax’s heart nearly unmanned him. His truest friend and confidant, his brother. Dead.
Jax could barely summon the will to ask about the boy. He squeezed the words out, which sent Sophia into a new fit of convulsing sobs. He finally got the information out of her that Jared had been taken. Jax’s muscles were tense and beginning to tremble from the strain of holding himself rigid. His jaw creaked as he clamped it shut, the muscles of his face taut and trembling.
He had seen people snatched and stolen away by the demons. They never returned, and he imagined that they underwent heinous tortures before finally succumbing to agonizing death.
The room seemed to crumble around him as Jax realized that he would never see Jared again. As far as anyone was concerned, the boy was as dead as his father.