Kharon coughed up ashes and smelled the unmistakable acrid stench of smoke as tried to shakily rise to his feet. The walls veritably melted away before him and he saw the front door, momentarily free of flame, at the same time that he heard the scream from somewhere outside.
He crashed into the door, causing it to explode into splinters with his expertly-placed weight. Three shadowy figures, one of them holding her and dragging her out into the street. There was no time for any other thought before one of them had set upon him with a curved sword that flared up with flame at a whispered word. "You looked too close Raventree." The voice spoke to him as if it were some sort of long-time acquaintance of his, though he didn't recognize it.
In one fluid motion, Kharon drew his short sword and the three runes on its' blade lit up golden in the strangely dark street. Fransesca screamed and he realized out of the corner out of his eye that she had fought her way of the two other figures. She stabbed one of them. He smiled in spite of the situation, remembering just how much of a master of the blade she had truly become in her time working with The Harpers. Then the figure swung its' blade so hard that he was swept out of his reverie and into the fight completely. With his attention rapt on his attacker, Kharon entered the dance of survival, determined to get to Fransesca before the others gathered themselves and pulled her away again.
Then a scream, a scream cutting through the air like the dying wail of some sort of animal that injures you all the way through to your consciousness and Kharon watched in horror as five more of the creatures seemed to appear in the middle of the street. At the same time, a deafening sound rang out behind him as if multiple small avalanches were occurring at once.
The creature in front of him stepped backward slightly, lowered its' hood, and grinned. Kharon screamed in spite of himself as he tried to drive his sword through its' cloak and its' chest. Met with resistance, he backed up and the identity of what he was truly facing dawned on him.
That can't be. Then a shivering fear overtook him and he saw Fransesca run towards him as a shape seemed to rise out of nowhere from the stones of the street. None of this is real. It can't be. We didn't go that far.
The creature turned back suddenly, looking toward the house and he saw a momentary opening as Fransesca had almost reached him from the other side of the street and he jogged towards her, parrying one passing blow from his former assailant. Her slightly tanned visage betrayed no emotion, though her eyes seared with an inner fire of which he knew the meaning all too-well. "Kharon, they want me. It's because of what happened with Grim in the north." She tried to push him back toward the direction from whence he had come but he resisted, standing firm.
"And that's exactly why I'm not leaving you here to get killed." He held his hand up as if to touch her face, then quickly moved it to clap her on the shoulder. "You are impossible." She flicked her hair with one hand as the creatures advanced on them. "How long till the watch realizes this is happening?"
"If they're here, maybe never." Kharon shrugged, bending his knees slightly, readying himself for another dance with what he know knew was something from the depths of his nightmares. Of anyone's nightmares.
"Kharon." A cry rose from somewhere in the blaze behind him. The creatures advanced altogether from two separate sides and the two friends readied themselves for what might be the end. As their swords met with the swords of the first two figures, the others shed their cloaks and there was no doubt. Servants of hell itself.