Forest Kingdom Trilogy 1 - Blue Moon Rising

them as they'd hurt others,
    destroying them as they'd destroyed the Forest Land. Her sword rose and fell, and the demons died horribly. She laughed aloud, though no one would have recognised her voice in that awful sound.
    Harald clearly heard the snap of breaking bone over the battle's roar, and then his horse collapsed under him. He swung easily out of the saddle and down on to the blood-soaked ground, and moving quickly forward, he killed the grinning demon that had broken his horse's leg. The horse moaned and rolled its eyes piteously as the demons closed in around Harald and the fallen animal. Harald sheathed his sword and drew Flarebright. The demons hesitated, and Harald thrust the Infernal Device deep into his horse's chest, killing it instantly. He waited a second, and then withdrew the sword. The long steel blade dripped a vivid crimson flame. The demons fell back a little. Harald bowed briefly, regretfully, to his dead mount.
    He'd always been rather fond of the animal, but he couldn't leave it to suffer. And besides, he'd needed the horse's blood to activate Flarebright. The demons pressed suddenly forward, and Harald went to meet them, sword in hand. And wherever Flarebright bit into demon flesh, the creatures immediately burst into searing crimson flames that left behind nothing but ashes. The sword drank the demons' blood, and their blood fuelled the sword's flames. It seemed to Harald that he had always known this, and he couldn't understand why he was suddenly so reluctant to use the sword.
    He moved confidently among the demons, leaving death and destruction in his wake, but he found no joy in it. For perhaps the first time in his life, he could feel events slipping out of his control. He shook his head constantly, as though to clear it, and it slowly came to him that he was no longer sure whether he was using the sword, or the sword was using him. Flarebright's flames grew more and more intense as the Infernal Device sated itself on demon blood, until Harald could barely stand the heat blazing from the sword. He held the blade at arm's length, and still the blood-red flames rose higher, higher. Flarebright burned against the dark, but it was not a healthy flame, or a natural light. And Harald knew, deep down, that as yet the sword was barely awakened, and using only a fraction of its power. Demons burned around him like so many misshapen candles, and the sweat that ran down his face was only partly due to the heat from the sword's flames.
    King John's sword shattered on a demon's scales, and he threw the broken stub in the creature's face.
    The demon fell back a step, and before it could come at him again, the King drew Rockbreaker and cut the creature in two. The longsword was unnaturally light in his hands, and the great steel blade had a curious golden sheen. King John hacked viciously at the demons that clustered round his horse, trying to drag him down, and the blade sliced cleanly through their flesh without even pausing in its arc. The King frowned, impressed, but knew there had to be more to the Infernal Device than a keen edge. He could feel the ancient power stirring impatiently in the long blade, waiting for him to use it. He scowled uneasily, and then without quite knowing why, King John swung down out of his saddle and stood beside his horse. The animal reared suddenly, pulling the reins out of his grasp, and in a moment it was off and running, back to the safety of the Castle. The demons dragged it down before it made twenty feet. King John turned away from the horse's dying screams, and holding Rockbreaker high above his head, he brought the blade swinging down to sink deep into the Forest floor.
    The ground split apart with a grating roar, long jagged cracks opening up for hundreds of yards in every direction. The earth groaned loudly as it rose and fell like a great ponderous wave. Demons disappeared into gaping holes, and were crushed to death as the sides of the chasms slammed together again. Deep in the earth, something huge and alien stirred uneasily in its sleep, and then screamed horribly as the earth moved around it, grinding it unmercifully beneath the overwhelming weight of the Forest. The King stared grimly about him, satisfied at the destruction he'd wrought, and then his slight smile vanished as he saw men and women from his own army struggling to climb out of the huge crevasses before the sides slammed shut again. King John quickly pulled Rockbreaker out of the