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1. THE GROUND DEMON

The sun smoldered on the horizon like a dying coal, and Erin knew that only haste could save him now. Silently, he cursed the robber who had left him by the roadside, unconscious, to wake only as the night drew near.

His boots drummed the ground, and he panted loudly. As he ran, he imagined a coreling jumping on him from behind, or lashing him with fire. But it wasn’t yet dark enough for them to rise, and he clung to hope.

Light flickered in the distance, and Erin’s hope soared. A village!  If he could reach the first house, its inhabitants would surely grant him succor.

The first corelings began to wisp out of the earth around him, but they were too weak yet to harry him. His hard steps brought him to within just a few hundred yards of the village, and he could have laughed with the certainty of his survival.

The next step Erin took, the earth crumbled beneath him. Losing his footing, he lurched forward and slammed against the ground. For a few moments, he could only gasp and gulp like a landed fish. Then he felt something grasping his ankles, and he began to slide backwards. Instinct made his hands scrabble for purchase but he could not anchor himself. He felt his feet curve down, and hot breath enveloped them.

Something clamped down hard, and in a crush of bone, his feet were suddenly gone. Shock held back his scream at first, but when the second bite came and took half his shins off, it tore out of him into the uncaring night.

Whatever was eating him paused, as if savoring his taste. Tears seeping from his eyes, Erin wondered for one fanciful moment whether he might be spared.

He heard a meaty belch. Hands – or claws? – grasped him around the torso, and pulled all of him into the earth. It was darker than the night above could ever be, and the space was filled with the stink of blood, and the sound of steady crunching.

* * *

Ground demons can burrow through earth faster than a man can run above it, with great webbed paws that act like shovels and harbor prodigious strength. Most ground demons tend towards the size of a large dog. Their bodies are almost entirely covered in long, hard bristles, so sensitive they can register the vibrations of footfalls from over a mile away. The bristles render a ground demon shapeless; with limbs tucked beneath, they resemble giant horse chestnut shells more than anything else. Their complete lack of eyes lends to the likeness. It is only when a ground demon opens its wide mouth, full of teeth with the biting power of five night-wolves combined, that it truly becomes nightmare given life.

Ground demons can rise earlier than any other coreling, protected by the dark of the earth. While many wards prevent corelings from rising within their boundaries, fewer can guard against a fully-substantiated demon hiding below ground. Only rock offers true succor from them. They are rarely spied on the surface, appearing only when their prey proves difficult to drag down. But even then they are fast runners, and with their long bristles most human weapons are useless against them. The best advice when faced with a ground demon? Stand still. Of course, you’ll still have all the other corelings to deal with…

2. THE MAN DEMON

Loren fidgeted. He did not like the strange smells and sounds of the land he found himself in. Too warm and too damp, and if the day animals were so different who knew what manner of demons might rise here?

His companion, Cole, seemed oblivious to his worry as he settled down for the night. He trusted completely in the protection of their portable circle. But Loren found himself wishing he had never let Cole convince him to come here, further south than anyone they had ever met had been, in the hope of finding undiscovered treasures. He could not shake his feeling that something was, or would soon be, very wrong.

The sun fled and all its light with it. Loren tried to lie down and shut his eyes, but he couldn’t help but watch as the first corelings coalesced into being. He made out familiar shapes: fire and wind ones. It was almost comforting. Almost.

It wasn’t long before they began to gather around the circle, chattering angrily as they struck out with their claws only to be repelled by the wards.

An hour passed, and Loren began to feel tired despite everything. He felt his eyes beginning to droop.

Something thudded on the ground close to him. His eyes snapped back open, and he saw a small stone sitting next to his nose. Sitting up he looked across the ranks of corelings lurking around the circle, but none of them looked like they had the wit or the coordination to have thrown the stone.

Another thud; Loren turned to see a second stone, very close to the circle’s edge this time. His mouth went dry, and he realised all the corelings had gone quiet. He grabbed his bow and quiver, full of arrows with a small ward etched into each iron head.

More stones flew at the circle, and Loren could not see where, as if the very night was spitting them out. Cole awoke when one struck him on the head.

“What’re you playing at?” he demanded, but his anger faded when he saw a stone sail past Loren’s terrified face.

They both ducked down, but there was nowhere for them to hide from the volley. The corelings shrieked their approval and waved their arms about as if the whole thing was a game for them to watch.

And then, the unimaginable happened: a stone hit one of the wards and flipped it. The two men stared at it for a long moment, before Cole finally moved and flipped it back into place just as one coreling lunged forward with its arm outstretched. When its arm clashed against the restored wall of magic, it screamed in pain and frustration.

“What’s doing this?” Loren asked to the night, and the night did not answer. Desperate to do something, he loosed an arrow in the direction of the next stone that came.

“Don’t waste those!” Cole shouted at him. But the fear was taking hold of Loren as sure as a fever, and he started to send off all his arrows one after the other, turning on a point, hoping to hit something.

When he had nothing left to shoot with, they revealed themselves.

There were five of them. They looked like wood demons, at first. Brown skin and craggy heads. But their arms were knotted thick with muscle, and they walked on two legs with all the surety of men.  Clutched in their elongated fingers were lengths of vine and stones.

“No…” Cole breathed, as they approached. There was no urgency to their movements. They stopped when they were just a few feet away. Raising their arms, they held the vines as a person holds a sling. Too late, Loren found himself wondering if these corelings were the reason they had never met anyone who had been south and returned.

Each demon loaded a stone into its makeshift sling, and they released in unison. Too close to miss now, all five stones hit their marks, and the circle was broken.

The two men succumbed to a roiling sea of shrieking, biting corelings, and when the dawn finally came there was barely a sign that they had ever been.

* * *

Man demons descended from wood ones. They learned their tricks by observing humans, and over a very short space of time their bodies have changed to accommodate their new way of hunting.

With the movement required to use slings, their bodies have become more supple and soft. Their skin is easily pierced by blades. Thus, they must goad their prey into wasting all its ammo. There is less they can do against swords and spears. But the risk of being gutted is still worth taking. Other corelings which could easily attack and kill a man demon will not, respectful of their skill at prying humans from their defenses.

No ward can repel an inanimate, demon-less object. And so no ward can repel the weapons of man demons. We can only hope that they remain in the south, and never desire to venture north.