In The House That Burns Slowly

Teka ‘Doram was one of the greatest warriors of his age. Thel ‘Vadam, Uze ‘Taham, Shinsu ‘Refum, Felo ‘Ranak, he could have crossed blades with any of them and only the fate could be sure of the victor. He had slain demons in single combat, fought them three to one. Yet the only one of the beasts to survive him, one that had stubbornly refused to die not once but twice before seemed poised to do what the others had not. Teka was off balance, uncentered. None of the dark armored raiders had wounded him, no old wounds ached to slow him down, and yet the demon had done more then enough to break him without ever drawing his blood.
For every slash he parried, his eyes drifted over the riddled corpse of his matriarch, his Oha. For every flourish and back step he had to be cautious not to stomp on the corpse of a dead son under his hoof. But the demon had no such compunctions, after all, he had butchered them in the first place. There was no reverence for the dead in it, no honor in its way, but some part of Teka understood. He had not shown its demonkin any such respect when he’d slewn them before it. It had been smaller than its compatriots, it’s armor and strikes weaker, it’s style more rabid than practiced, but now it was different.
There was no cry of a raging berserker from it, it did not rush him like a mad Jiralhanae, it simply probed his weaknesses, and every time Teka began to refocus, another child’s bones snapped beneath its boot. Such carnage was so alien to Teka that he could scarce process it, not because he had never seen such bloodshed, but because the ichor had been bright crimson rather than the deep purple of his kind.
Demons were human still, that much he knew, but it was only then he wondered that if it was through hells like the one they stood in now that so many had been born. He promised it vengeance, that it would suffer a thousand hells, but even as he pierced its defenses, plasma slicing across its side, it did not so much as flinch, and fought on as if nothing happened. Where was the fury? The erratic lunging and howling? Where was the beast that had survived him by the skin of its teeth?
A swipe went wide, and Teka barely registered the blue of motion as it dipped under. He spun to face it, and pain rushed up his leg as something cold and metal split flesh and musculature. He staggered, and was only just able to register the glint of the bloodied knife in the demon’s hand slip back into its sheath. Teka tried to find his center, but as the demon came onto him again, blade cutting arcs of light through the flickering shadows of the burning passageway, he faltered. A backstep faltered as his injured leg nearly buckled, and his now feeble counter came to slow, and the monster punished him in an instant.
With the stolen ancestral blade, the one Teka had left in buried in its stomach on the human homeworld, the demon took his blade arm off at the shoulder with a single flourish. The movement had been lacking in the fluidity of a true duelist, but instead had the rugged motion of so many human combatants. He’d always been able to best them. Again and again and again he had bested them. In single combat he’d slain at least two demons greater than the monstrosity that invaded his home had been. His unit, his trusted zealots had slain even more than that together. What had set this thing apart? What kept it going? Why did it not die?
He did not give it the satisfaction of crying out in pain, Teka simply grunted as he tried to stifle the agony. His mind raced, looking for some advantage to capitalize on, some way to turn the tide as he always did. But all he saw was the ruined bodies. His wife, his sons, his kin. Rage was all he had, and so the Kadion gave all that remained to him to it. With all his might he sprung forward with a violent blow, hoping to wrap a crushing hand around the demon’s neck. But as his injured leg touched the ground to carry him forward, he faltered.
It caught the blow at the wrist, crushing and twisting in the same motion. Bones snapped and crumpled, and  even the hardened warrior could not suppress the cry of unfathomable pain. But it died as it left his mandibles, when the prongs of his family’s blade ran him through. The demon pushed, and Teka could do nothing but weakly grimace as he fell back onto the corpses, next to his mate. He remembered their ceremony, so many cycles ago. He had already been a blooded warrior, one who had claimed victory for the glory of his clan, his people, and his Covenant. It had been so different then, and some part of him knew it had been so much better.
But then their kind would clash with that of the demon’s, and from the ashes of their glassing beams, these beasts would rise to seek vengeance. Teka had never thought it would find him here, never thought it would find his blood, but he had been wrong.
It looked down on him, the flicker of the spreading flames casting a glow across its form. It was silent, no gloating came, no sanctimonious declarations of triumph, of vengeance exacted. It was then he realized the demon’s gaze was settled on the small ones, twisted and broken by plasma impacts. Teka wondered if the demon had done that himself, or if it had been the other interlopers. It didn’t matter, they were dead.
“What’s the matter, demon?” He struggled to get the words out in the alien tongue as strength continued to drain from his body, life ebbing away from him with every strained breath. “Have you lost your stomach? Does the barbarity of your own hands strike you? This is what you are, you savages.” He cursed him, drawing the monster’s view back to him. It stared down and tilted its head before slowly crouching down to eye level with the dying kadion.
“May our spirits haunt you,” He rasped. “May you never know peace, May our ghosts damn you forever, demon. One day you shall be given your comeuppance.”
It seemed unmoved by the curses, simply looking on him as his vision began to go, blackness creeping in all around from the edges of his sight.
“I was never going to know peace. You made sure of that.” It reminded him, one last agonizing reminded that the kadion had brought this upon himself. 
Teka struggled to utter another curse, one final insult, one more attempt to ensure the monster knew that the galaxy would find a way to exact justice for the House of Doram. It was only as his mind slipped and blackness overtook all that he questioned if his own damnation had not been retribution. It was only then he wondered how many lines of humans had truly been ended under rains of plasma, it was only then he considered what it must’ve been like to be a child, robbed of everything by creatures so alien and ruthless that they required no justification for their slaughter other than that their masters had insisted the gods had willed it.
Teka had never questioned it, never asked why humanity was treated so differently, not until it was far too late, not until from the huddled masses of frightened children, demons had been born. His last thoughts lingered on a single question; how many more times would this cycle repeat?
And who would still live at the end? 
His broken hand fell into Oha’s lifeless grasp, and Teka Doram died in silence.
Category:The Weekly
Category:Short stories