The next excerpt - Iteration 1

Run… 

Notched and dented, Fenryr's broadsword cleaved through the pouring moonlight, like an owl's wings gliding the predator in near silence. The silvery gleaming hunk of steel ripped right by the first human's head and body, into the main link of chain, the iron groaning in strain before snapping with a sharp clanging of metal. The unwieldy weapon stopped in the black and brown barked log serving as part of the platform for the siege weapon atop.

“Incoming!” the warning sounded from the front of the demon's camp, just as Fenryr's arms and shoulders recovered from the sore jolt of the impact. Eyes squinted, a glance forward revealed Hyram had already freed the humans from both sides of the third pair of weapons and was ready to set the contraption ablaze. 

“Hurry up old man!” Hyram's voice urged him, barely audible over the mass of mortals running back south, still bound to each other by a chain attached to their wrist cuffs, though nothing prepared him for the black mass of armored bodies in a heavy, earth shaking rush of rhythmic steps closing in from the north. 

*

Facing the man closest to himself, Fenryr put on a confident smirk, “I'm setting the others free, head south, southwest. Our second division should be about two miles from here.” the gruff farmer figure only nodded, his brown orbs under raised eyebrows, above a tense gritting of yellowed teeth, locked into Fenryr's azure eyes. 

“Tell them not to look for us. Now go!”

Fenryr finished, with a grunt of defiance raising his blade, he circled around the siege weapon and struck the chain linking the mortals to it. 

The weary groan of wood sounded as he freed the weapon from the log.

* 

“Mortals clear!” Fenryr shouted, hefty sword in his knuckle-whitening grip, his massive form running toward the front, right for the closing enemy. 

Hyram's aura erupted in a green and blue burst of spectral fire, engulfing his body, the tongues of flame danced about, matching his height at first, expanding ever outward. 

‘This is it…’ Fenryr's leather boots thumped blunt against the slain demon sprawled out on the road between the first siege machine and the closing lines of black armored figures brandishing ebony black jagged swords and axes. Gurgling roars and throat shedding battle cries underscored the rhythmic thunder of steel plated heavy bodies. 

The others, save for Hyram, had already lined up between the rock formations siding the road, captain and lieutenant in the middle, Fenryr on the far right side raised his sword before himself, closing his eyes a moment, a smooth, low exhale presaging his full aura’s release, 

‘It's just like when I pried this weapon from my father's death grip… looks like our story ends here…’

Familiar, skin tingling sensations ran down his body, a dead certainty in his mind, there'd be no more sweet mornings by Eilidh's side, no more soothing kisses of purple dawn's light, no more feasts and celebrations, no more blazing passions under the shroud of night's darkness, and no more youthful innocence of his children's laughter. 

*

Night turned to daylight as Hyram's magic condensed in the fair skinned warrior's hands a moment before bursting out with dense green flames. The fire leapt from one wooden structure to the next, its ravenous hunger driving a mad, almost rhythmic dance of infernal heat and tongues of flame racing skyward on the siege weapons, blackening the wood, then turning it into embers and finally ashes. 

The smokeless inferno lasted only moments at the middle weapon before it leapt to the ones behind and in front of it while Hyram paced to the back of Fenryr's line,

“Old man,” he called to Fenryr, 

“try not to get banged up too bad, my reserves took a major hit with this one.”

*