by Joe Jackson
The demonhunter obliged. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but my family hunted a demon several months ago, before I had my baby. It was a last creation of Seril’s, called a Tilcimer. Do you know anything about them?”
“I have heard of them, yes,” Koursturaux offered.
“While they were chasing it, it led them to one of Seril’s…laboratories. They searched the place, and turned up a few journals, some of which talked a great deal about you,” Kari added. Koursturaux seemed surprised, and Kari pushed her momentary advantage. “And my sister-in-law said she saw an…impression of you and Seril seated in front of a fire, talking.”
“You spoke with Chiylija many times yourself,” the demon king returned.
“Chiylija S’Bakthra?” Kari prodded. “That’s what she called herself in the journals. I know Seril was a title we gave her and not her name, but why does…or rather, why did she bear your surname? Was she your mother?”
Koursturaux burst out laughing, a harsh, mocking sound, and it turned bitter before she stopped. “No, Lady Vanador, Chiylija was not my mother. I was a great deal older than she was when we met.”
“When you met? Then she wasn’t your daughter, either, then?”
The demon king waved off the question, not bothering to hide the effort she made to not laugh again. “We were business acquaintances, little more. I suppose you might call us friends, but our relationship was more complicated and less intimate than that.”
“Why did she bear your surname, then?”
“Supposedly to honor me, though I never saw it that way. She was far too consumed by hatred, and very rarely did she listen to my advice in her dealings with your world and its people. Oh, stop looking at me like that, Lady Vanador. Yes, I am pursuing a path of vengeance, but do you see me throwing thousands upon thousands of my people and soldiers at my enemies in a sad attempt to overwhelm them by attrition? No. I have spent the better part of ten thousand years plotting and planning my vengeance, and it will come when the time is right, and not a moment before.”
“What did you tell her about fighting my people, though?” Kari asked, intrigued. “I spoke with her from time to time, but she never told me why she fought my people.”
“She was the recipient of what she considered a terrible slight, one she never forgot or forgave,” the demon king said, her tone giving no indication of what she thought of the matter. “Your Arakiel – or Gori Sensullu, if you prefer – deeply wounded her in some way, something related to the Temple of Archons. And that is how I came to know what lies within, and that it is the means to my own vengeance.”
Kari remembered Kaelin Black mentioning that Seril hated whatever was in the Temple with every fiber of her being. In light of that, it made little sense that the Temple might hold the key to divinity: Seril – Chiylija – was already a goddess. Se’sasha and Aeligos had concluded that the Temple was the great meeting place of a circle of seven deities. Kari worked to shield her thoughts as she considered the implications. Did Koursturaux want to enter the Temple to kill some of the five deities that remained?
“As far as what I told her about fighting your people, I often advised against her all-out attacks upon Citaria. She kept her soldiers in a deep part of my realm that is sparsely inhabited, and each time she mobilized, I warned her against it. Your world could have fallen so much more easily had she come at you through subtlety and wiles. Creating demons that unified your people in the fight against her was one of many mistakes. She should have had you turn on yourselves from within, stoking racial, theological, and other enmities. Instead, her actions over the many millennia solidified your people in spite of their differences. Not completely, but in a way that is not often seen in a world so diverse.”
“I told her the Apocalypse would be her undoing, my final warning to her. She had a much better plan of attack the last time, but she was still fighting against a strength she didn’t understand. In the last years of the war, she beseeched me for my help, but I refused. It was not my battle to fight, and my plans for Citaria do not include a violent conquest such as she was undertaking. When I enter that Temple, and gain the means to my vengeance, Citaria will bow before me willingly.”
“Don’t count on that,” Kari blurted, then put her hand to the end of her snout.
“Worry not, Lady Vanador, I appreciate your candor, and have little reason to rebuke you away from the eyes and ears of my people.”
“What are your plans for her son?”
“Why, to kill him, naturally. I suppose that should he ask forgiveness for his mistake and return what is rightfully mine, he may only see a stint in my dungeon. But I don’t see such a thing coming to pass.”
Kari nodded. “Amastri hasn’t had much news about his whereabouts in recent months. He seems to be laying low.”
“In a sense, yes, but make no mistake: he is planning to attack you and your family when the opportunity presents itself.”
“Any idea why?”
“Because she loved you,” Koursturaux said, and Kari cocked her head. “Chiylija loved you almost like a long-lost daughter. She warned Taesenus not to pursue you during the Great War, but he paid her little heed. You know well the results of that. That she would not take revenge on you, or give him the means to do so himself, was the final insult, I imagine. He now sees you as the last vestige of a mother’s love that he never received. Pity him if you must, Lady Vanador, but when the opportunity presents itself, do not hesitate to kill him. He will not afford you any of the mercy your heart is considering for him.”
Kari sighed. She started to ask what Seril might have told the demon king about her, but Koursturaux silenced her with an upraised hand. “We will not speak of this further. The hour grows late and we should rest. The mind remains awake far too long considering all we hear in a day as it is, and it will be some time before you sort through your thoughts and get any meaningful sleep.”
The demonhunter couldn’t disagree with that, as much as she wanted to prod the demon king about her old enemy. They sat silently by the fire for a little while before retreating into the hut. Kari wondered if they should keep watches through the night, but then she laughed in her mind at the thought of anything attacking the demon king. At worst, they might find some animals nosing through their things in the wee hours. She packed up her belongings, undressed down to her undergarments, and then lay down on her raised bed. She expected Koursturaux to undress, but the king lay down under a cloak with her hunter’s garb still on. With the fatigue of all the hiking and the sparring, Kari easily fell into a deep sleep.
When morning came, they worked like two seasoned hunters, packing up their things and removing nearly all trace of their presence. The woods and the ground reabsorbed the hut and its contents, and Kari buried and covered the privy and firepit as best she could. Her ribs were sore and she had a bruise where Koursturaux had hit her on the hamstring, but she found little trouble in her movements. Soon, they were on their way again in the grey hour of dawn, except now the demon king carried her great bow in hand, strung and ready.
They took turns reading the trail signs, and Kari got the impression that Kousturaux was as impressed with her hunting skills as Kari was with the demon king’s. They felled several bucks before lunch, and racked up a good number of turkeys and even some geese near a pool in the stream. Koursturaux didn’t bother with any of the carcasses except to affix tags to their feet. She explained briefly that the tags carried a latent aura that her woodsmen would detect, and that it was their duty to bring the felled animals back to the castle. When Kari considered how many animals they had hunted, she thought of trying to carry even half of them back and had to laugh at the image. She wasn’t sorry the king had servants to take care of that.
They spent much of the afternoon walking back to the palace, following the stream’s meandering course rather than trailblazing. They spent one more night out in the forest, but thankfully, Koursturaux didn’t ask Kari to spar again. Conversation was light, involvi
ng mainly the little day-to-day things that occupied Kari’s time as a mother. She thought Koursturaux might share some of her own experiences as a mother, but the demon king never became quite so personable on such matters. It pointed to one of Kari’s suspicions being true, but she kept those thoughts locked up tight.
They reached the castle bluff the next day around midmorning. Kari was looking forward to a bath and nursing Uldriana again, and it was all she could do not to dash past the demon king and up the back stairs to the castle. But then the memories returned, and she recalled what they were about to walk through. This time, Evanja was not in the torture room cutting anyone up, but when they passed among the prison cells, Koursturaux paused before the bars of the mallasti’s holding cell again.
“Hello, Mijer. It’s time you and I had a talk,” the demon king said, and the mallasti male, curled up in a ball, began to whimper uncontrollably. “Go upstairs, Lady Vanador. You will not want to witness what is coming.”
Kari glanced at the mallasti and tried to remind herself that Koursturaux had said he was some sort of horrible criminal. Still, there was punishment, and then there was torture. She wished there was something she could do, feeling utterly helpless. It put the presence of her own prisoner back home into better context, though, and she realized that though she had to pass some sort of sentence on him and get it over with, torture was completely out of the question.
Ultimately, she sighed, turned, and headed toward the stairs. She looked back over her shoulder only once, at the predatory smile on the demon king’s face, and she recognized that The Crimson Huntress had more than one connotation. With another sigh, Kari continued to and up the stairs.
At least there was a little girl waiting for her up above.
Chapter VII – The Ashen Fangs
Kari woke the next morning, and had just gotten Uldriana fed and prepared for the day when Durisha came to fetch her. The harmauth escorted Kari down to the city at Koursturaux’ request. The demon king had arranged for Kari to have a dress made for the upcoming ball, and Koursturaux’ favored tailor would be taking measurements and preparing the garment. Kari and Durisha traveled to a shop called Vakt’s Needlework, and were otherwise dismissed to do as they pleased while in the city. Even traveling with the harmauth escort, Kari insisted on being armed and armored, and received no orders to the contrary.
The city was warm and pleasant, and Kari found that she had missed a couple of matches between the Crimson Starlets and the Rulaj Reds over the previous days. Durisha filled her in on some of the more exciting tidbits from the games, but Kari found the harmauth’s explanations to be a poor substitute for watching. The Reds had prevailed in all of the matches, but the Starlets, by Durisha’s account, had improved with each outing. The two didn’t have too much time to get into details, though. They arrived at Vakt’s Needlework, located on the north side of the city close to the ramp to Her Majesty’s palace, after only a short walk. Durisha excused herself to go take care of some personal matters, so after watching the harmauth female head farther into the city, Kari turned and looked at the shop.
Much like any reputable tailor back home, the front of Vakt’s Needlework was mostly window, showing off stands with many different outfits and accessories. There was a wide range of goods, from the woven pup carriers that the mallasti favored, to some of the fashionable two-piece outfits that elestram females wore to show their midsections, and even what Kari thought was formalwear. Kari could tell without even feeling the fabrics that they were finely-made garments, and whoever Vakt was, he had likely earned his reputation and place as the monarch’s most favored tailor.
Kari entered the shop, her humor tickled by the jingling of the door’s bell. She looked around at the amazing line of clothing about the shop’s interior. She thought of her time at the football match, and realized she had seen many beshathans wearing such clothing, her attention had simply been elsewhere at the time. She turned to a doorway to the back as an elestram male emerged into the shop’s showroom. He was tall and lanky, as was common for the jackal-folk, with those intense orange eyes, a professional-looking set of knee-length trousers and button-up shirt, and a leather belt with an elaborate design tooled into its surface. He certainly made a good first impression as a tailor and seller of clothing.
There was only the slightest hesitation before he addressed Kari. “Welcome to Vakt’s Needlework,” he said in the Citarian tongue with the flowing accent of the beshathans. “I am Marracir, proprietor. How may I be of service?”
“Her Majesty said to come have a dress prepared for the upcoming ball,” Kari answered. “She said you would take care of everything, and that she would see to your payment?”
“Of course,” he said with a bow of his head. “You are Lady Vanador, then? Her Majesty said you would be visiting my shop at some point during your stay. Have you taken a good look around? Let me know if you see something you like. If not, I can tailor something specifically to your tastes, if you can but describe it.”
“I like this one here,” Kari said, indicating a dress that was low-cut in the back, which usually made things much easier with her wings. It was otherwise fashionable yet modest, not too revealing – especially in light of what King Koursturaux typically wore outside of her court. “I don’t suppose you have the same thing available in purple?”
“No, but I could easily have it done by week-end for the ball. Would you like gloves and undergarments to go with it? Perhaps a neckpiece to accentuate your feminine beauty rather than your strength?”
“Erm, sure, I guess,” Kari blurted. She was surprised enough that he could make her a dress in a day or so, but that he would also be able to do the other bits of a full outfit was hard to believe. She figured he must have some assistants working with him, perhaps in the back room. However, it was the fact that he referred to her beauty that caught her completely off-guard.
“Come, let me take some measurements in the back room,” he said, gesturing toward the door. He opened it and ushered Kari through.
She stopped just inside the doorway as her guts dropped. She put her hands on the hilts of her swords and prepared to draw them, staring across the room at its other occupant. Sitting there on a luxurious couch was the Silent Fang, the twin sister of Turillia: Seanada Te’Montasi. The half-syrinthian, half-succubus woman didn’t even bother to get to her feet when Kari entered the room, but Kari felt as though she’d just walked into a trap. The woman was armed and armored just like Kari remembered her sister, one of the best fighters Kari had ever encountered. The demonhunter glanced at Marracir over her shoulder, but the elestram gently prodded her forward a couple more steps so he could close the door.
“What is this?” Kari asked, sidestepping so that she could keep both of them before her.
“Please, have a seat, and allow me to explain,” Marracir said, gesturing to a soft padded chair a decent distance from Seanada.
Kari sat on the edge but kept her legs tensed, her hands ready to fly back to the hilts of her swords should she be attacked. She met the golden-eyed stare of the half-succubus, but there was little emotion in those wide, slit-pupiled eyes. Seanada was an alien beauty, just as her twin had been, but there was such an underlying danger there that the beauty was hard to appreciate. This was an assassin, an efficient and ruthless killer who was most likely at least Kari’s equal when it came to combat prowess. Still, a part of Kari’s mind prodded her, asking if Seanada was all that different than Eryn Olgaryn.
“We have a message for you,” the elestram said, folding his hands behind his back. He marked well Kari’s reaction, though, and quickly brought his hands before him again.
“From who?” Kari asked, narrowing her eyes. It seemed unlikely Koursturaux would have sent her into a trap with all the guarantees she’d made over Kari’s safety, but there was the tingle of danger prickling beneath Kari’s skin. No, it was unlikely Koursturaux would have sent Kari to be warned by someone else rather than simply delivering any such warning
herself.
“The Wraith,” Marracir answered. “I believe you two were acquainted some time ago?”
“So you’re members of the Ashen Fangs, then? Like Turillia was?”
“Not like my sister was, no,” Seanada said, the first sounds the half-succubus had uttered. Kari expected she would have that strange, otherworldly voice, but hers was more natural, with a flowing accent closer to that of the mallasti.
“Yes, we are members of the Ashen Fangs,” Marracir confirmed. “Turillia was also a member of our society, but she turned rogue. She was acting of her own volition when she drew you to the city of Barcon and attempted to murder you.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?” Kari challenged. “Members of an assassins’ guild aren’t exactly used as examples of being trustworthy.”
The two exchanged a glance, but there was hardly a change in either’s expression before the elestram addressed Kari again. “You should believe us because we are associates of the Wraith, and you were under his protection for some time.”
“So what’s the message?” Kari asked, hardly in the mood for this. She didn’t trust these people at all, no matter what their boss or leader or whatever they wanted to call the Wraith had done for her. As far as Kari knew, the Wraith had only protected her and her family to fulfill his duty to some demon king. She saw no nobility in his actions, and no reason to trust him or those he worked with.
“You have now parlayed with a demon king, and you have waded out into waters you are not prepared to stand in,” he said, folding his hands behind his back again. “The attacks and the plots of the other kings are now going to come at you more frequently, forcefully, and with more dire consequences for you and your family. The Wraith is not able to dedicate the same time and effort to protecting you as he did when you were targeted by the syrinthians in your Order. So he has assigned the task of protecting you and your family to Seanada.”