• Sparks showered the panic laden air as Colm met the demons thrust, steel meeting unholy talons with a furious impact. Each breath was a scream, his lungs burned as though filled with molten metal. A scream of fury from behind reminded him of Tristan’s presence but even the closeness of his best friend held no comfort for him now.
    “Colm, this way!” He turned his head to see Tristan standing further up the winding staircase before a huge wooden door, beckoning him. In one last grab for survival he reached inside himself, for strength he wasn’t sure he possessed, and let the simple spells fly, now so tired that he needed the aid of speech,
    “Kalehew! Murrian!” He pushed his hand before him, feeling the magic surge as it left his body and became a ghostly dagger and axe in the air. The spells hi the demons flesh and preceded to cut through random tendons and ligaments without leaving a surface mark. As luck would have it the demon fell to it’s knee’s and tumbled down the stairs. Colm took off towards his friend. That had been the last of this lot, but there were surely more on the way.

    Slipping through the huge doors they quickly shut and barricaded them with what little they could find in the room. Sore and spent they sat in the corner of the small stone room furthest from the door, panting and in silence. Minutes passed and as they regained their breath realisation dawned,
    “Is- Is there a way out of here?” The question was dead in the water, the room they now inhabited was small, square and morbidly bare of hope for escape. The only way out seemed to be through the door they had just come through. Colm pointed to the door,
    “Aye, that one…”
    “But…”
    “Well it’s the only way in and out!” he snapped, seeing his younger friend flinch, “I’m sorry…” He sighed, it looked like this really was the end. It had always been in the back of his mind that maybe they would escape, that everything would be ok. But it seemed that this was their destiny in all its great and horrific glory he saw it.

    They had held the tower for three days against wave after wave of demon, each time losing a member of their party to injury, death or -more commonly- madness and suicide. With barely two hours between each wave they had fought and now they sat in the topmost room, the remaining, living members of a once proud battalion of warriors. Tristan began to cry silently, his huge shoulders shaking,
    “We’re going to die…Aren’t we..?” He turned to look at Colm, his eye’s beyond despair, searching for hope, for reassurance. Reassurance Colm refused to give falsely,
    “Yes.” He said simply, a numbness swelling in his chest, “We are going to die.” As though the bluntness of this reprise fortified him, Tristan took a shaky breath, looked upwards at the arched ceiling and dried his eyes.

    He turned to smile at Colm, the smile was genuine but small and wan,
    “We had a good run, eh?” His voice cracked and more tears spilled across his broad, honest cheeks, “We had some good times, didn’t we?”
    “Aye.” Colm felt his own throat squeeze painfully as his voice thickened, “Aye we did. We had some good times mate…” Without thought of the implications he reached over and took his friends hand, entwining their fingers and squeezed roughly, “We had some good days…” He rested his head against the rough stone wall, “Do you remember that summer. The one before you’re sister got married? The day we went to the Craigarrach fair by ourselves?”
    Tristan nodded, a sad smile spreading on his face, Colm found the same smile on his own. The image was clear as day in his head; two young boys, not more than fifteen walking side by side through the green and yellow fields, shirtless in the blazing summer heat. One dirty blond the other flaming red, both blue eyed and grinning devilishly as they studied the small, matching penknives they had bought. The image changed, the same boys, but older, dressed in their kilts and linen shirts, smiling but shaking scared. The first dance they had ever attended, they both had their dance partners poached from them and ended up walking home together muttering curses on the older men who had ruined their night.
    “Golden days, eh?” He said roughly, stinging tears slicing themselves from his eyes and dripping down his now battle hardened face, “Wouldn’t change ‘em mate. Never.”

    A loud thud against the door made them both jump, a primal fear, a desire to escape filling their beings as the baleful crow of the demons reached them through solid oak and stone. Tristan’s eyes filled with a terrified defiance, he stood and face the door, unsheathing his sword, eye’s still dead ahead, face wet with tears and sweat and blood. He looked down at his friend and stifled a sob,
    Thud. A crack ran up the door.
    “Lets do this right then, ae? Lets take ‘em all to hell with us…” his voice shaking with emotion, his hands shaking with fear and yet Colm doubted his friend had ever seemed so courageous. He stood beside him, wishing to just slit his throat and be done with it. To just give up. But he wouldn’t leave Tristan to face these horrors alone, they had lived together, what change would dying together be?
    Thud. Another crack.
    Colm unsheathed his own sword, whispering a prayer to whatever God that was listening,Let it be quick, he thought, and make it honourable. Give me the strength I never had all my life, make me brave. Make me strong.
    Thud. A plank smashed and fell through the iron holding the door together, the faces could be seen now, the gleaming teeth, the putrid breath could be smelt. The smell of rotting bodies, most likely those people they had once known and loved.
    “This is it, ae?” Tristan laughed, “Our last stand..?” Colm nodded, scared to speak, least his voice let him down, Tristan turned towards him and pulled him into a rib crushing hug. Sobbing in his ear,
    “I love you mate. Couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather die with, or for..”
    “I love you too.” Was all he could manage, as another ear splitting crack filled the tiny room they turned away from each other once again and clasped hands briefly for comfort.

    Time seemed to slow, the world became surreal and dreamlike. This couldn’t be happening to them, this wasn’t their time, they were to young to die. All these thoughts filled their head and were gone in an instant.
    Thud. The door shattered inwards and all of hell followed. Despite fear, exhaustion and outstanding odds Tristan and Colm fought. They fought like lions, like demons through three more hours of soul destroying madness with every nerve in their bodies crying for mercy. The fought like true warriors and nearly won, but when Tristan fell Colm stood and knew that this was it. Turning his eyes to the sky once more he abandoned all tactics and threw himself through the door into the stairwell, stabbing, hacking everything he came into contact with. They died like hero’s, true hero’s.

    After the demon portal was closed all people would know of the battalion which were cornered in and abandoned tower in the heart of the great northern forest is what they learned from a young seer who saw in the flames that they fought to the end and what they learned from recovered journals which were scribbled hastily, telling of the loss, of the fear. The ‘battle’ of mourn’s tower, as it became known, was lost and that’s all there was to it for many. So in that sense Colm and Tristan entered the ranks of the true hero’s, the unsung one’s, those who had fought, failed and spat in the eye of death before dying. Those who had never run or given in. Those who would never be held, or loved, or even known for their courage.