The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 128

Part 19

That demon horde was not the first they found, it was the third.

After centuries of traveling and searching, they were lucky in the first horde they found. Its vessel was smaller, the demons within less numerous, and it was caught deep in the void near the end of a long journey between stars that had weakened them. After a short but incredibly intense battle it was utterly destroyed by The Triax, who suffered relatively minimal losses and damages. The anniversary of that victory was still celebrated annually as the most important event in the Triax calendar.

Buoyed by their victory, they set out hunting again, still seeking the trail of their original enemies.

They were lucky again when they found their second demon horde. Though stronger and more powerful, it was caught by surprise while in the midst of attacking a world. The world they were invading was a harsh place, even for demons; constantly swept by winds blowing at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour, often carrying abrasive sandstorms, and the true storms were cataclysms of lightning and rain and wind beyond anything ever seen on Kellaran or Triax. There were no oceans, only temporary lakes and floods beneath the rainfall of the storms, and almost all of the plants and animals were tiny things that lived their entire lives in the air, being carried by the wind, breeding and dying without ever touching land or water. The demons had sensed a lot of life there from a great distance away in the void, and by the time they arrived they were committed to plundering this world’s life; they lacked the resources to make it to another world otherwise, unless they consumed most of each other along the way. But they were finding it almost impossible to survive, feed, and re-stock effectively on the hostile world.

Only a few of the horde were still within their rough, stony vessel slowly circling their target world when the Triax attacked and destroyed it. Without their vessel to provide support and refuge, the horde thay was already down on the violent world were easily destroyed from the void by The Triax, or were killed or starved by the conditions they were stranded in. The Triax waited patiently for centuries, half of their telescopes and sensors focused on the world below, until they were absolutely sure that the last demon there was long since dead.

The patience of The Triax there meant that the horde that had destroyed their world was getting farther away and harder to find with every day that passed before the hunt for them was resumed. This caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among The Triax, but no dissension. None of them were willing to chance leaving a single demon alive behind them.

They searched again for almost three millennia before they found their original foes; the demon horde that had destroyed their world. And when they did, they found that their lucky streak had run out.

This horde had been doing well; they had recently consumed a world rich in life that had offered no appreciable resistance, and had found another life-bearing solar system relatively close to it after that. They were near the peak of their strength when they arrived in a mighty system with dozens of worlds and thousands of moons, and there was rich life on two worlds and a moon.

When The Triax arrived in the system they found that the demons had almost finished consuming the life on the moon and had already made two new vessels from metallic asteroids they found, then divided into three independent hordes. The original vessel continued to attack the almost-depleted moon, one of the new vessels had begun it’s attack on the outermost of the life-bearing worlds, and the other new vessel was enroute to attack the innermost one.

The Triax attacked the demons’ original vessel first and drove it down onto the devastated moon in a cataclysmic impact, killing all the demons in the vessel and on the moon. The Triax had correctly assumed that only the hardiest of invisibly small life forms survived among the native life, and that those would have the best chance of surviving the impact and it’s aftermath, whereas the demons were certain to sterilize the entire place eventually if left to themselves. The Triax sustained minimal damage and casualties, and hurried to attack the second horde.

The two surviving hordes had been aware of the destruction of the first, and they disengaged from the planets they had targeted and joined forces in the void to face The Triax.

“Certainly.” First Mauve agreed.

“Well I for one need to use the privacy, and I think a meal is in order.” Talia briskly stated as she stood and brushed sand from her dress, then pointed. “There’s a small privacy behind the tree line down there. Check the Hilia map if any of you need to find an appropriate and unoccupied one. We’ll have a dinner served here in a few minutes.”

“My people also have bodily functions to attend to, some of which they prefer to do in privacy.” First Mauve responded. “We shall return in seven minutes, and join you in feasting this great occasion.”

“Excellent.” Mark told her with a nod and a quick bow, then Translocated to the privacy in the royal cottage.

Ten minutes later they were all either feasting or snacking, depending on their appetites. The mortal Triax served their food in spherical elastic nets of widely varying sizes, some of which contained live prey animals swimming about within them. The Triax simply stretched an opening on the bag farther open with two points of their flat and supple triangular bodies, and reached in with the other in a quick snatching grab, stuffing their morsel into their mouths as they released the bag. It was easy to think of their front two points as hands and the rear one as a tail, but they seemed to use all three interchangeably, and with equal dexterity. A Triax was capable of folding itself flat along any line across its body, or rolling itself up like a scroll, and they used their entire bodies in manipulating objects and tools. They could swim in any direction at whim, and with incredible speed and maneuverability.

After initial hungers and thirsts were slaked, one of them was the first to speak. It swam up to the closest inner surface of the habitat sphere facing the Kellarani, and made a subtle ripple from front to rear. “Greetings, I am Second Brighter Orange, First Strategist of Triax. Your methods of warfare on your world and in your air are certainly fascinating, and amazing in their variety. Your use of pure magic in almost every endeavor is surprising.