“I can get us out of here the same way me and Nancy got here,” said Damien, “but we can only do it once without resting, so I need to know where we’re heading.”
Ted didn’t know why he said it, but it was the only place he could think of. “Portsmouth.”
Nancy hissed, and it looked like she was going to lunge at him. Damien held her back. “Let him explain.”
“There’s nowhere else,” said Ted. “If we run, we die. Our only chance is to keep fighting. If there are people in Portsmouth, we need to add our strength to theirs. The war doesn’t end here.” He glanced over at Sorrow, still smashing demons to pieces in a magnificent display. “We have to keep fighting.”
Tosco nodded. “He’s right. There are many good people in Portsmouth. This place might be lost, but we can still carry on the fight by helping them.”
Nancy sobbed, but Damien moved her aside and rejoined hands with Harry and Steph. All of a sudden, it was like the air was being torn apart and the oxygen was dispersing. A brilliant blue light bloomed. A gate appeared right there in the courtyard.
Damien grunted as if in pain. “Now all we need to do is get everyone through.”
“Okay.” Ted yelled like a drill sergeant. “Everyone, get to the gate. Move!”
Several lives were lost in the moment of confusion that followed. People saw the gate but didn’t understand. They stared at it but didn’t move, which allowed the demons to leap on them and kill them. Ted grabbed the nearest person he could find and had to literally throw them into the glowing blue circle. The startled man didn’t so much disappear as fade away, but it was enough for people to realise it was a way out of this horror. Ted bellowed again. “Get through the gate if you want to live!”
A stampede began, people abandoning the fight to sprint towards the light. Some were taken down from behind while attempting to flee, while others managed to toss themselves to safety. Ted tried to clear a path for them, swinging his hammer back and forth, cracking demon skulls and shattering ribs. People flooded into the gate in their dozens, seeming to zap out of existence, but those on the ramparts were doomed.
Sorrow saw what was happening and hurried over to the gate. “We leave here? I must retrieve Scarlett.”
Ted nodded. “Then go! Fetch her and all the others in the Great Hall. The children are inside.”
Sorrow took off, his lumbering footsteps heavy like an ox while somehow as light as a rabbit. He bounded across the courtyard towards the keep, charging through demons and knocking them aside. Ted and the others continued fighting to clear a path for the survivors.
Lord Amon made it inside the courtyard, stomping on Kielder’s defenders as if they were ants. Dozens lay crushed into the mud as more demons spilled through the gaps in the walls.
Sorrow disappeared into the keep, and it took mere moments for him to re-emerge with Scarlett beneath his arm like a teddy bear. She kicked and protested, but the demon wouldn’t put her down. For a moment, Ted feared Sorrow had left without the children, but then the beast turned and shielded the entrance while Dr Kamiyo rushed outside with the elderly and young in tow. The children screamed at the sight of so many monsters, but Kamiyo kept them all moving. Ted hurried to meet them, taking out demons on all sides. Other demons saw the children and gave chase, but Sorrow flared his wings and blocked their path. They climbed on the demon’s back, forcing him to put Scarlett down. He bellowed at her to run, but she was surrounded.
“I’ve got this,” said Angela, emerging from amongst the older survivors from the keep. It was unclear whether she’d been hiding with them or trying to protect them. Now, her eyes rolled back in her head and she began chanting.
First one demon exploded.
Then a dozen more.
The space around the castle’s front entrance was suddenly drenched with demon blood as limbs and flesh blanketed the ground. Everyone coughed and spluttered, wiping at their gore-soaked faces, but it gave them time to run. Kamiyo led the retreat.
Ted managed to grab Scarlett and shove her towards the gate, but she fought him and turned back “No, I have to get Sorrow. I’m not leaving without him.”
Sorrow must have had super-sensitive hearing, because he turned and bellowed furiously, “Scarlett, go! You must live.”
“No, I can’t! Sorrow, please…”
Nancy and her soldiers grabbed Scarlett and threw the girl backwards through the gate mid-protest. Sorrow flapped his wings at Ted in what might have been a thank you.
The children made it through the gate, the elderly quick to follow. Ted was about to join them but found that he couldn’t. Angela continued her chant by the castle, demons exploding whenever they got near. Sorrow turned his back and resumed fighting with his fellow demons, but they quickly surrounded him. He was visibly tiring. He couldn’t fight them forever.
Ted groaned in anguish. Sorrow was too valuable to lose. Portsmouth would need him in the battles ahead. More than that, Ted could not abandon the demon to die. Sorrow was a friend.
Or a familiar colleague at least.
Maybe a distant cousin.
Ted cut a swath with his hammer, battling towards the demon that he now considered family. He bludgeoned demons left and right until he was finally able to make it to the keep. With one black wing unfurled, Sorrow fought to dislodge a demon biting into the other wing. Ted swatted the demon away with his hammer and rescued his ally. Suddenly free, Sorrow looked at Ted in confusion. “The gate is over there. You will die now.”
“I needed to make sure you were okay. Scarlett needs you and so do we. Get through that gate and help humanity survive.”
The demon swung a taloned fist and caved in a demon’s face without even looking in
