(Six)
    The alarm was raised an hour after Amber left.  Jace himself raised it, after he passed the point where his rounds should have coincided with hers.  He had waited half an hour, but she had never arrived there.  He had ran around the campsite then, trying to find her.  She wasn't anywhere - not in her own tent, nor in anyone else's tent.  By that time, of course, he had awakened everyone.  He didn't want to start a panic, but he didn't see any other choice - so he had told them that Amber was missing and had them all start acting as sentries.  Which turned out to be a good move.
    The attack happened a half hour before dawn.  Terrance raised the alarm frantically, but nobody got to his location in time to stop what happened to him.  Jace was the first to arrive on the scene, to the sight of some - thing - slavering over Terrance's corpse.
    "Stay back!"  he ordered, both to this unknown thing and to the cadets behind him.  Jace recognized the thing.  It was definitely a demon, and Jace's sword was in his hand faster than it ever had been before.  The demon, who had previously been gleefully cavorting around attacking the already dead body of Terrance, turned to face this new threat.  The pale blue glow of the blade illuminated the grotesque features of the demon all too well.
    "What should we do, sir?"  Abel, his voice quavering, asked Jace.
    "Stay away from the thing.  If you don't have long range weapons, get them."  his eyes never left the demon's face.  "Who are you?"
    The demon growled at him.  "I am Oriskanl.  Who are you to defy me?"
    "I am Instructor Jace David Ries, that's who!"  Jace was suffused with rage.  "And that was my cadet, damn you!"
    Oriskanl snarled.  "You are nobody!  You are a plaything for my kind.  I will gouge your eyes out and force you to listen to the screams of your precious cadets as I destroy them, one by one!"  With that, the demon leapt forward.
    Jace reacted instinctively, slashing across the thing's chest twice before it even realized that its intended prey had a weapon that it was vulnerable to.  Jace stepped back, and three crossbow bolts found their home in the demon's hide.  Abel, Eric, and Gaspar had returned with weapons.
    Oriskanl didn't even notice them.  His attention was riveted on Jace.  "That sword..." the demon growled.  Jace regarded it stonily, trying to figure out what was happening - this was not the demon that he had faced five years ago, but it was similar enough to inspire the same sort of mindless terror.  Jace was able to control this, and he felt a certain pride about the fact that his cadets behind him seemed unafraid as well.
    Oriskanl tried to dart past Jace to the vulnerable cadets, but the instructor was faster than the lumbering beast, and the demon was punished with further slashes and crossbow bolts.  Roaring, more in fury than in pain, Oriskanl backed away, turning his sickening gaze back to Jace.  "What," the demon inquired, its voice grave, "can you do to stop me?  The wounds you inflict are healing as I speak!"   The abomination was telling the truth - even in the dim light Jace could tell that the creature was regenerating, and quickly.  "I could simply push past you!" the demon tried to seem amused.  It was certainly right - the demon was hunched over and was still nearly twice a man's height.  Pushing past Jace would be trivial for it.
    "You could do that."  Jace said.  "But there's nothing to prevent me from lodging this sword in your chest as you go by, and something tells me that wouldn't be very healthy for you."  Jace's glare said it would be deadly.
    The demon's momentary jovial attitude vanished, and it was once again growling lowly.  "You cannot fight me forever!" it declared loudly, as though by saying it it would become true.
    Jace knew that Oriskanl was right, though he betrayed no sign of it.  The sword was heating up, just as it had the last time its magic had been called into play.  Soon it would be impossible to hold it.  And, as before, the sword moved under its own direction, draining his stamina.  Oriskanl seemed to have recognized the sword, no doubt he knew its weaknesses.  The demon could afford a few scratches and crossbow bolts, for its most present threat would soon lose its ability to defend himself.  Oriskanl had waited hundreds of years.  He could wait a few more moments.

    (Seven)
    Jace could literally feel his skin being seared as his sword staved off another of the demon's advances.  He couldn't keep this up for long.  Switching to his other hand, he managed to keep his guard up.  He wasn't naturally ambidextrous, but rather had demanded it of himself later in life.  The skill was most definitely paying off now.  Uncountable crossbow bolts stuck out of the demon's hide, not hindering it in the least.  Jace was clearly the only thing between his remaining cadets and death.
    "Jace!"  A voice sounded from far away, in the direction of the mountains.  The demon's attention wavered, and Jace took advantage of the fact, slicing it twice before it could get back on its guard.  Jace had already guessed the source of the voice, and had recognized it as well.
    Amber ran from the forest toward the campsite as quickly as she could - she would be too late!  Already she could see the first rays of the sun peeking over the horizon.  Desperately, her mind started to focus on the pattern that she had seen earlier - it came earlier to her this time, and quickly.  The pattern floated before her eyes.  The demon had only taken a moment to glance in her direction, and then Jace had distracted it - god bless him!  Frantically, she willed the pattern toward the demon, and watch as it seeped into his hide.
    The demon's movements slowed, and its eyes grew wide incredulously as it found itself slowly paralyzed.  Jace's sword arced through the air, delivering punishing blows to Oriskanl in quick succession.  Then, with a roar, the demon's movement returned suddenly, and it knocked Jace to the ground before the other could raise his guard again.  Oriskanl turned, and began bounding toward Amber.  "Magic!"  it screamed, its voice degenerating into an incoherent scream as it ran full tilt toward Amber.
    Amber stood in shock, watching the beast rush closer to her.  What had happened?  Why hadn't the spell taken effect?  Out of instinct, the raised the crossbow, knowing it was a futile attempt - even at this distance she could see the spent bolts sticking out of its hide.  She remembered when she had inadvertently used the spell on herself - it hadn't taken her long to break it.  No doubt Oriskanl was a great deal more adept.  She felt frustration flushing over her - how was she supposed to defeat him?  Shila had been wrong - the spell that the book had held didn't help her.
    From within the interior of her mind, the spell sprang up once more - this time she hadn't even had to concentrate to bring the familiar swirling pattern to the fore.  Her mind frantically searched for a target....  The demon was closing with every passing second, and every action she took seemed to happen in slow motion.  The magic would only hinder it - and she didn't know how long she could continue casting the spell.  There had to be another way!  Her eyes moved to the crossbow she held at the ready, and before she could even think about it, the spell had seeped into it.
    Amber wanted to scream!  Her spell was gone, and the magic was starting to bleed from the crossbow into the hand holding it.  Her fingers began to stiffen up slowly, as the demon roared toward her.  She had only scarce seconds left, and then it would all be over - everything.  And then suddenly she knew what she had to do.
    She waited, while Oriskanl grew closer in her sight.  Saliva dripped from the open jaws of its gaping mouth, as it drew itself up and prepared to strike her down with one crushing blow.  Willing her hand to move, Amber pulled the trigger of her crossbow.  With a barely audible hiss, it covered the distance between her and the demon and embedded itself in its hide.  The effect was instantaneous - the demon froze in its tracks, paralyzed.
    Amber exhaled loudly, and wasted no time retrieving the emerald from her pockets.  Tearing a sleeve, she wrapped it carefully in the cloth so that she was no longer touching it, and pressed its remaining side to the demon's skin.
    The paralysis spell that she had enacted had affected the crossbow bolt as well as the rest of her equipment, and then the crossbow bolt had found itself in the demon's hide.  The spell hadn't phased the demon originally, but now the source of it was embedded in its skin - beyond its reach.  Amber's insight had saved her.

    (Epilogue)
    It could have been much worse, Jace maintained.  Aside from the demon's escape, there was the matter of Amber's desertion from her rounds during sentry duty.  Jace had recognized the fact that she had acted in their best interest, and no mention of it had appeared in the official reports.  In fact, there was no mention of anything unusual in the official reports - The Allerian Army liked to keep these sort of encounters quiet.
    Amber's mind kept going back to the encounter in the unexplored areas though.  All that knowledge - lost underground or in abandoned safeguards.  She wanted to go back.
    Though there was officially no record of Amber's role in the demon's recapture, her story became spread through unofficial channels quickly.  It was even said that Jace, who knew of Amber's ambition, had spoken with officials higher up.  After Amber left training, she was assigned to a group whose sole job it was to comb the unexplored areas.  Within a year, she was leading the groups, and she never once suffered a casualty.
    Three years later, Amber was aboard the Allerian destroyer Invincible when she was asked about her story.  They were sailing through the Eastern sea toward an previously unknown island thought to be a part of the unexplored areas, and they had plenty of time until they got there.  This was her group, and they all knew the dangers of the unexplored areas - some firsthand - so she told them.  And the inevitable question came:
    "Where's the emerald now?"  one of the cadets asked, eyes wide with fascination.
    Amber quietly dug into one of the pockets and removed a small piece of cloth.  Delicately, she removed some of the folds, revealing a bright green gemstone underneath.  Everyone was speechless.
    "You still have it?"  the cadet asked incredulously, voicing the question that the others hadn't had the presence of mind to ask.
    Amber nodded.  "At first, I was going to hide it in the unexplored areas." she said, looking down at the stone.  "But it was possible that someone could find it.  After all, we're not the only exploring group out there.  So I decided that I'd keep it, until I found a place that would hide it away from the world forever."
    Nobody reacted, seemingly knowing what was coming next.
    "And I think I've found it." Amber finished, standing up.  Turning slowly, she took one last look at the emerald in her hand.  "Goodbye Shila...." she whispered.  Then the stone was flying free of her hand through the air, and landing with a small noise in the water.  The emerald had found its home - at the bottom of the Eastern sea.

- The End -

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