Tera always knew this day would come. As a dense winter wind pounded against the boarded walls of the blockhouse, she inhaled the damp smells of forest and tried to focus. She had been training for this day since she could stand and hold a bow without toppling over.
“Why does it have to be the middle of winter? Couldn’t Afrit have picked a sunny spring day or toasty summer afternoon to raise the fires of Hell?” Adalin asked.
Tera turned her eyes from the small rectangular watch-window and saw Adalin squatted in a nearby corner, shivering as a look of pure misery marred her angelic face.
“Here, take this.” The bear pelt slid from Tera’s shoulders as she stood and walked it over to Adalin. “We’ve got to make sure we stay alert. I can’t have my protego turning into an ice block when you need to make sure we both come out of this alive.”
Adalin laughed at the statement. “You’re the Bellator, Tera. I’m relying on you and your warrior-race blood to make sure we live through this. I’m only here for moral support.”
“You’re capable of much more than that, my friend,” Tera replied.
Adalin was much more than Tera’s protector; she was her best friend.
The protego bloodline was powerful. The all-mother, Deus, bestowed the ability of protection into the blood of her most adored companion, Demantis. As Adalin’s ancestor, Demantis’s ability to conjure the elements of earth found its way into Adalin’s veins.
“Well, the prophecy would state otherwise. Being that you’re from the blood of Deus herself, you’re the badass,” Adalin said.
Tera rolled her eyes and strolled back to her watch-window. “That stupid prophecy is just an old man’s words of grandeur to keep the followers of Deus obedient. I’m just good with a bow and may have a little bit of extra strength. I don’t know why everyone still makes such a big deal about it.”
“Because, Tera Deusonite, you are THE prophecy. The one our people have been waiting on for centuries. Afrit’s evil has tortured and slaughtered our people since Deus fled. You are the only one that can defeat him and his—”
Adalin’s monologue was cut short as the ground beneath the blockhouse trembled.
“He’s coming,” Tera whispered, more to herself than to Adalin.
The force of Afrit’s presence caused the earth to tremble in revulsion. He wasn’t supposed to be here, out of the bowels of Hell. This was not his domain to roam. Not if Tera had any say in it.
Tera’s eyes narrowed as she prepared for battle. The tips of her square-edged ears flicked in response to the rising heat underneath her skin. Her natural, god-given gift to sense the evil which comes from such a creature. “What do you hear, Adi?”
“The trees are speaking. Whispering. They’re angry, Tera. Very angry.”
Tera’s attention was crisp, her vision narrowed on the origin of where the powerful heat radiated from across the forest. She swooped up arrows which had fallen from her quiver and restocked them meticulously, her bow resting naturally in her right hand as an extension of herself.
She moved toward where Adalin stood, readying herself to drop from the hole in the floor of the watchtower. Tera stalled.
“What in the name of Deus is that hideous contraption?” Tera asked, bewildered.
“Deacon made it for us. He called it a fire extinguisher. Get it? Afrit is the demon of Hellfire, and this thing is going to help put him out.” Excitement glowed behind Adalin’s blue eyes as she held the metal cylinder. The weight of it bared down on her small, willow-like arms before she heaved it onto the dampened boards beneath their feet. “Deacon says all we have to do is push this metal pin here and pull this lever. If we can do that right in Afrit’s ugly face, he will be engulfed with the white ice of temple Mons.”
Tera shook her head. Without another word she leaped through the square hole and onto the frozen ground of her ancestors. The ice and snow immediately melted where hide-wrapped feet braced her from the 20-foot drop. Adalin was distracted by her detailed breakdown of the fire extinguisher’s operations and looked up just in time to see Tera’s body disappear through the watchtower entrance.
“Dammit,” Adalin whispered to herself.
She grabbed the fire extinguisher and followed Tera into battle.
Adalin came up behind Tera as she stood amongst the barren trees of Silva Forest, her own blood beginning to churn, foretelling of Afrit’s proximity.
“I think our village engineer forgot one important thing,” Tera said. Her voice a much deeper octave than normal.
Adalin looked from the heat’s refraction against the cold forest toward Tera, the words long gone from her tongue as she was stunned into silence.
“I am the fire extinguisher.”
Tera’s dark hair now swirled around her head in a myriad of oranges and yellows. Her once pale skin illuminated a golden heat, the power of Deus’s third sun. Her lineage. Her birthright.
Afrit’s screech of war reverberated around them. His otherworldly form towered over the forest ceiling, demolishing everything in his path.
The duo of Deus, the divine pairing of earth and sun, stood ready. Tera’s bow in hand, an arrow notched and aimed toward Afrit’s center eye. Adalin’s dexterous fingers called earth to meet her as flakes of fallen snow levitated from the ground, ready to protect Tera as she charged forward.
Deus looked down through the clouds, from her perch in Caelum. Her beam of approval lit up the overcast skies as she watched her most precious creations slay Afrit and send him back to Hell.