I need to know for sure that everyone is dead.
And so he managed to climb back to his feet and continue his journey on foot. There was only a hundred metres left to go until the bottom of the hill. He couldn’t lie down and die so close to his objective. His feet felt like lead weights and he had to labour over every step. He made it away from the trees and into the field of the dead, intending to avert his eyes and cast out the images of dead men and women, but what he saw surprised him. The carpet of flesh wasn’t human. The corpses belonged to demons – thousands of them. They were mostly burnt, but many were dismembered, arms and legs hanging on by sinew and skin. There were arrows sticking out of the ground and peppering bodies all around. Closer to the hill, the bodies were nearly incinerated. Something had obliterated them – like a giant lightning bolt from the sky.
Tony began to hope. Perhaps the people here were still alive. Perhaps they possessed some fantastic weapon that could do this. What on earth could wipe out a thousand demons in a field like this? Military artillery was the only thing he could think of.
That hope slowly bled away as he climbed the hill, seeking the castle at the top. The ancient stone wall was in ruins, entirely broken down in several places. There was no way this place could ever be defended.
It had fallen.
Climbing the hill was a slow process, and Tony nearly quit several times. Demon corpses littered the slope, and their blood made it slippery. If not for the fact that so many were burned, he wouldn’t have made it. Their ashes covered the ground and allowed him to barely keep his footing. Eventually he made it to the top.
His energy spent, Tony fell onto his hands and knees. His journey was still incomplete, so he fought the urge to lie down. He wouldn’t die six feet outside the castle walls, so he crawled.
And he crawled.
He didn’t stop until he made it inside the walls. Bloody saliva hung from his mouth. His pulse pounded in his eardrums.
The castle had toppled, only its lower section was still standing. Its upper floors, walls, and ceiling were scattered in a hundred places, demon bodies crushed beneath. Everything had been scorched black, as if the world itself had caught fire. The bodies were so badly charred in this area that is was impossible to tell human from demon. This must have been the scene of a last stand. Somehow the people here had pulled the pin on something devastating.
Good on ’em. They went down in a blaze of glory.
There was a patch of unburnt ground nearby, shielded from the blaze by a stack of thick logs. Tony dragged himself over to it, barely able to feel his legs any more. It was a struggle, but he managed to pull himself into a sitting position against the logs. Too tired to hold his head up, he let it lower onto his shoulder. It was then that he saw the most beautiful sight.
Ten feet away was a gigantic foot. Tony allowed his gaze to follow a massive leg until it reached a ruined torso torn almost in two. The humans here had managed to kill a fallen angel. It made their last stand even more heroic. It was an honour to die amongst them.
I always thought I’d die on a battlefield. Never thought it would be this peaceful.
Tony managed to lift his head and look straight ahead. The stone wall in front of him was mostly intact, but a small section had been knocked down, leaving a gap the size of two men standing shoulder to shoulder. Through the gap, Tony could see the sun. Beneath that sun, at the bottom of a long, grassy slope was a wonderful lake. Its waters reflected nothing but sky, and it was untouched by the charred chaos of war. There were even ducks gliding on its surface.
Tony smiled. It was a good place to die.
“You all right, mate?”
Tony turned his head more quickly than he should have, and his vision swirled. Standing before him was a middle-aged woman wearing a cassock and dog collar. He blinked several times, trying to dispel the bizarre ghost.
“Gotta say,” said the woman, refusing to disappear from his imagination, “you look like something just shat you out. Where did you come from?”
“W-Who are you?”
“Angela. I’m the only one left here. Sorry if you expected a crowd.”
Tony wheezed, struggling to breathe. “They’re all dead?”
“What? No, not at all, my friend. They buggered off to Portsmouth.”
“Portsmouth?”
The woman nodded. “Yeah, apparently there’s a bunch of people there.”
Tony started laughing. It made him dizzy, and he kept thinking he would run out of breath and pass out, but he couldn’t stop. He kept on until the woman grunted at him and appeared pissed off. “Sorry,” he managed to say. “It’s just that I came from Portsmouth to find you people, only to find out that everyone went the other way. It’s funny.”
The woman looked at him for a moment, then smiled. It was a warm, genuine expression that made Tony feel completely at home with this odd, middle-aged vicar. She sat down next to him, leaning against the logs and staring out through the gap in the wall. “The people here were bloody mad on fishing,” she said. “The place stunk of fish twenty-four-seven. I hated it, but now it smells too much of fire and blood. Reminds me of a place I’d rather not go back to.
“What happened here?”
“The demons attacked, but before the people here
