The corridor had become a tomb long before any of us drew our swords.
Kael stood at the center of it with his hollow eyes sweeping over us like a farmer examining livestock before the slaughter, and behind him, the demons waited with their crackling whips and rusted blades that gleamed with a sickly green light in the flickering torches.
From the shadows behind us, more demons had emerged while we were focused on the ones in front, their footsteps silent on the stone floor, their bodies blocking any hope of retreat.
I counted them without thinking, my eyes moving from one masked face to another, and the number kept climbing. Twenty-three. Twenty-five. Thirty.
The green torches on the walls flickered in a draft that came from nowhere, casting long shadows that danced across the stone floor like hungry things waiting to be fed, and the air was cold.
