Free Torment and Terror by Craig Halloran

when Scorch pounded her again. Through the planks. Into the dust of the earth. Burying her in a grave, his attack was unrelenting as the suns. It tore at her mortal fabric. Then it stopped.
    Her charred body smelled of burnt hair and skin. The air around her suddenly cooled. Icy. Painful. But she lived. Would she live to fight another day was the question. Something nudged her. She rolled over on her side and found herself facing the large orb eye of Eep. Like a bird, he cocked his head from side to side.
    “Mistress, what is your ordersss?” said the imp with a busted wing dangling from his back.
    Looking at the charred flesh on her hands, she groaned. She had a plan. She needed to hang in there. Stick with it. But she wanted to run. Hide. Scorch would never find her if she didn’t want him to.
    “Mistress?”
    “Eep, what do you want to do?”
    “Destroy.”
    A grim smile formed on her cracked and busted lips. Something the mortals said came to mind. Fight or Die. Sifting through the dirt that half covered her, she found Scorch’s star-bladed knife. She wrapped her trembling fingers around it. “Then what are you waiting for, Eep? Destroy Scorch!”
    Eep flashed all of his razor sharp teeth and said, “As you wish!” Blink!
    The commotion above got her moving. She crawled out of the dirt and raised up above the planks. The imp was striking Scorch from all directions. Blinking in and out. Appearing and disappearing. Claws lashing out. He was a pest. A hive of bees.
    Roaring with fury, “Be gone!” Scorch snared Eep by the neck. The imp’s clawed feet tore through his skin and robes. Scorch’s hands flared with white hot fire.
    Eep let out an ear-splitting screech. “Eeeeeeeeep!” His rough skin started to smoke and bubble. Chunks of skin peeled off and drifted away like burning embers. The imp let out one final cry. “Eeep!” And then poof! He exploded into ashes.
    Trinos snaked out of the hole and struck Scorch in the heart.
    The ash-covered man looked down at her with agony in his eyes. “If it didn’t kill you, why would you think it would kill me?”
    “I wasn’t trying to kill you,” she said from her knees. “I was trying to distract you.”
    “Really, from what?”
    Slice!
    Brool’s blade tore Scorch’s head from his shoulders. The mammoth man, Venir, kicked Scorch’s body to the floor and started hacking away with fury.
    Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop!
    Legs and arms were separated from Scorch’s body.
    His head, somehow, had rolled up on the neck and started speaking. “Stop, you brute! Stop!”
    Venir stormed toward the head.
    Rays of light blasted from Scorch’s eyes. On swift feet, Venir leapt over the blast and came down spike first with his axe. He stabbed Scorch’s skull to the floor.
    Thoom!
    A tremendous gust of wind knocked everyone over.
    Trinos slammed into a wall. Blinking, she started wiping the dust from her eyes.
    Venir approached. The fierce warrior was covered in blood and grit. He took Trinos by the elbow and lifted her to her feet.
    “What are you doing?” Trinos asked.
    He half-dragged her across the shattered room.
    Scorch’s head still had the axe stuck in it. All of the skin was gone from the bone. Only the skull remained.
    Venir stopped in front of his friend, Melegal. The frail man’s chest was covered in blood. No life seemed to be in him.
    “Fix him,” Venir ordered.
    “I have little power left in me,” she said.
    He gave her a stiff nudge. “Then it will have to do.”
    She took a knee and laid her hands on Melegal’s belly. The wound was deep. Fatal. Time was quickly running out. She summoned all that she had left. Her hands glowed. His wound started to stitch up. She removed her bloody hands and gasped. “Sorry, that’s all I have left.”
    Melegal wasn’t moving.
    “It’s up to him now,” she said, “as to whether he wants to live or not.”
    Kam, Joline, and Jasper rushed inside. “What happened?” Kam said. She was holding Erin