But he did an internal check on the infernals he had summoned. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that.
On top of Grigor and Tyrisa, he had nearly a dozen noble demons, a dozen Lilim, over seventy weaker demons, twenty Ashen, and ten Malakin. Plus enough imps to keep everybody happy.
And the imps happy. They got unhappy if there weren’t enough imps to match the infernals. While the imps certainly didn’t have a union—and there definitely weren’t any delegates in the castle—they might have certain ways to express their displeasure. Rys preferred to keep them happy, given how easy it was to summon more of them.
“That was an enlightening experience,” Alsia said, reminding him that she was still here. “But why didn’t you use any sorcery to remind them of your strength?”
“Because I refuse to lower myself to their level,” Rys said. “I’m not a demon. I don’t beat the shit out of people to show them that I’m the big boss man around here. In the end, they’ll obey me for a lot of reasons. The easiest is to magically control them and remind them of the gap between us.”
“But you could beat them,” Alsia said.
“Easily. But I learned a long time ago with the succubi that there can be unintended consequences.”
“Ah. Your Incubus King title.” She blushed and her tail made itself known again with some noticeable swishing motions behind her back.
“Yes. If I start beating up the demons to show my strength, they’ll start fighting me. They do that to Grigor. He uses that to train them, but I’m not here to train the noble demons.” Rys frowned.
“What if Grigor wanted to fight you?” Alsia asked.
That would be problematic right now.
“He wouldn’t now. The demons know he’s stronger than me, but they also know that he’s obeying me.” Rys ran a hand through his hair. “But I’m a summoner, so that’s normal for them. Eventually, however, Grigor will fight me. The moment he knows I’m strong enough, he’ll pick a fight with me.”
Just like old times.
Rys grinned from ear to ear.
Swallowing, Alsia looked away. “I can see why you and Grigor get along.”
Rys coughed and schooled his expression. “It’s been a long time. But I do enjoy a good fight. Speaking of which, we need to prepare for one.”
“The Malus League.”
“That’s right.” He nodded. “Get your warriors ready, Alsia. Because I want as many of them as possible in one place when I show myself on the battlefield.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re going to be there?”
“Of course. I’m the king,” Rys said. “And a king needs to remind his subjects of why he’s in charge from time to time. In my case, that involves turning a few hundred soldiers into ash.”
Chapter 36
Fara
The city of Aretiers glowed in the distance. Fara lay prone on a nearby hill, blades of grass brushing against her exposed skin. Her tails waved in the air above her body. Their black fur blended in with the moonless night sky.
She finished casting her array and an influx of energy rushed through her body. The spell enhanced her senses. Her vision drastically sharpened, allowing her to see every detail in the city as if she were only a few hundred feet away, instead of several miles.
Despite the time, the city bustled. Torches lit the length of the main street. Carts and people rushed along the road and ducked into storefronts and warehouses.
Fara didn’t know if this level of activity was normal, or if Compagnon had extended trading hours due to the pressure they were under. They might be trying to move goods elsewhere, if they knew they were about to be attacked.
Her eyes turned to the harbor. When she had last visited Aretiers, there had only been a few large ships here. Now there were triple that number, plus countless smaller ships. Fara suspected that the blockade had forced Compagnon to recall every ship in their fleet here, but there might also be Malus League vessels present.
The center of the city was dominated by a tall block of stone. Compagnon’s headquarters. It appeared as if it had been hewn from a mountain, rather than constructed, and was surprisingly intimidating for the headquarters of a merchant organization. The building lacked exterior torches, giving the appearance of a huge shadow blocking out the stars.
A massive courtyard surrounded the headquarters and included a covered trading forum. Soldiers protected dozens of merchants and traders inside the forum. There didn’t appear to be much money trading hands, so Fara suspected the forum was being used as a loading dock.
Fara knew that the purpose of such an expensive headquarters was to intimidate and impress others. Merchants saw a great monolithic foreign entity capable of outspending anyone in Kavolara and gave up.
As Rys had shown, Compagnon weren’t invulnerable. In fact, their coffers were nowhere near as deep as they appeared. The moment that a competitor had appeared, Tarmouth had cut Compagnon off. The truth had come out that Compagnon were working with corrupt Kinadain and the Malus League.
How much of Compagnon’s supposedly infinite wealth had been a fabrication? Fara wondered how much of their lies could be uncovered from the headquarters, and how much would remain unknown even after tonight.
She hungered for vengeance. People she cared for had died due to Compagnon. Tonight was the end of an era for her, and a chance for her to move on to a new future.
A future with Rys.
But she needed to end this chapter with her own hands.
“Lots of soldiers,” Margrim muttered from next to her. He held a spyglass up to one eye.
“Their armor is cheap, though. They’ve burned through most of their mercenaries. I suspect these are actually locals being paid by Compagnon to defend the city,” Fara said. “That explains why the attacks have become weaker recently.”
“Maybe, but that’s still a hefty military. Can’t believe people say these are merchants.” Margrim paused, then groaned. “Aren’t those paladins?”
“Where?” Fara asked, alarmed.
“Over there, by the entrance to the gigantic stone dick,” Margrim said.
“You mean the headquarters.”
“I know what I said.”
Fara smirked and looked where he had pointed out.
Three heavily armored knights stood by the entrance to the headquarters. Their armor was emblazoned with an unfamiliar sigil, and they carried war hammers and tower shields.
“Are you certain?” Fara asked. “They could just be mercenary knights. While the armor is impressive, we dealt with similar at Harpiscon. Compagnon can afford some good mercenaries.”
“I’ve seen that sigil before. It belongs to angel worshippers. I forget the name of the dumb cult,” Margrim said. “Figures we’d find them out here. All sorts of crazies seem to love this place, based on what I hear.”
“Are you calling Rys crazy?” Fara asked.
“No, but I’ve never been somewhere where I blend in,” Margrim said. “This place is a goddamn melting pot of all the magical craziness of Harrium. The boss swims through it like a dolphin, but it’s nights like this I wonder how I ended up here.”
“Do you regret it?” She’d never talked at length with any of the infernals before, other than Grigor.
“Never.” Margrim lit a cigarette. “I have a life in Harrium. Potentially forever, if nothing fucks it up. I lucked into it, and it doesn’t feel real, but this is a future that knowledge devils write trashy fiction books about back in Hell.”
The two of them returned to Grigor with their scouting report. Normally, the Malakin would undertake the scouting, but the risk of being spotted by mages was too high to risk sending them in close.
The encampment was a busy one. A mass of demons mixed with devils in a small clearing in a forest. They gulped down mead and mulled wine, while chattering in their various languages. Some lewd happenings took place as well, as the Lilim took the edge off. Fara did her best not to look at those.
Grigor was
in the center, debating with one of his noble demons what to do next. When Fara and Margrim approached, the demon prince dismissed the noble demon with a wave of his hand.
“Fara, Margrim, report,” Grigor said.
They did so, and Grigor drummed his fingers against his axe handle.
“A frontal assault seems unwise,” Grigor said. “Our forces may have a significant advantage in quality, but we will be tied down with butchery and take significant losses. We do not know how many mages and knights they have in their headquarters, after all.”
“What about the paladins?” Margrim asked.
Fara drew the sigil in the dirt, and Grigor grunted.
“You are correct. They are angel worshippers. The Disciples of Theros.” Grigor looked up at the sky. “Given the abilities of that Barul, I cannot help but wonder what it is about this archipelago that is related to the angels. This is an unexpectedly foul place.”
Fara didn’t comment on the irony of a demon calling somewhere foul because of a connection to angels. She’d heard too much about the Cataclysm from Rys to hold on to her rosy opinion of the angels.
“And?” Fara asked.
“I will deal with them,” Grigor said. “You can help me, Fara.”
She licked her lips. That made sense.
Paladins were spiritualists, like Barul and mystic foxes. Knights capable of using spiritual techniques. They were probably weak, but the nature of their abilities made them dangerous to infernals. The possibility of permanent death for infernals rose drastically.
“The docks were unusually full of ships,” Fara said. “Maybe we should use them as a distraction, if a frontal assault is a bad idea?”
Grigor stared at her. “You say you are not one for command, but that is a sound idea.”
“Sound? It’s a damn great idea,” Margrim said. “Me and the boys can burn the ships nice and easy. With the help of the Malakin, we can be in and out fast. That makes for a great ambush as the soldiers rush over. Then we can take down the headquarters.”
“We will need to adjust our movements on the fly, but it is the framework of a plan,” Grigor said.
That framework quickly became a whole plan. Soon, they were inside Aretiers.
Margrim was supposed to use mindspeak to let Grigor know when he had pulled off the first step of the plan. He didn’t need to, because everybody knew he had succeeded.
The port exploded in a fiery blaze of blood red glory. Hellfire rippled across the ships, leaping from mast to mast on the galleons. The smaller ships lit up in the following seconds.
Fara felt the Malakin’s magic, which meant that Margrim was being pulled out of the port. Shouts tore across the city. She stood on a rooftop several blocks away from the headquarters.
Within minutes, the entire city was in an uproar. Hundreds of people streamed out into the streets. Soldiers ran toward the port. As expected, the mages showed themselves as they sensed infernal sorcery at work.
Grigor directed everybody along the rooftops or alleyways. Some were spotted by civilians, but the city was in complete chaos. Nobody responded to the screams.
The soldiers kept the civilians away from the port with their bodies. Mages tried desperately to save the ships while a bunch of men and women in Compagnon uniforms ran about on the ground.
When the demons charged out, nobody from Compagnon seemed to know what to do.
“Kill the soldiers. Capture the mages,” Grigor bellowed. “Leave the civilians.”
“Demons!” people shouted, as they finally woke up to what was happening.
The civilians scattered. Many of the soldiers joined them. Those that didn’t were cut down by the runic weapons of the demons. Mages hurled spells, but the Malakin swept in to take them down.
As the civilians cleared the streets, more demons came from behind. Ashen crowded the rooftops.
More reinforcements arrived from elsewhere as Compagnon’s city guard arrived. Soon, the paladins showed themselves.
Time for Fara to make an appearance. Her tails swirled behind her and magic pumped through her body. She snapped a three-tail array into her body to enhance her physical abilities, so that she could fight with inhuman strength and speed.
Then she leaped from the rooftop. Grigor glanced at her as she landed beside him and grunted in greeting. The nearby demons scattered when he barked an order at them.
The paladins charged forward. Demons parted for them like the sea, but the armored warriors didn’t notice. Soldiers packed in behind the paladins. Cheers rose from the Compagnon lines as they saw their massive allies in the middle of enemy lines. Clearly, the paladins were gaining the upper hand.
At least, they were if the observer struggled to see out of his oversized dome helmet.
A spiritual aura spilled out from the paladins. Their armor and weapons were enchanted, but lacked runes. The sigils were cosmetic, Fara realized. So far as she could tell, the only spiritual techniques they used were the auras.
To most people, the auras felt deeply disconcerting. People began to call spiritual knights “paladins” because of the seemingly holy feeling of the auras. A chill in the bone, or an uplifting feeling. Paladins healed, slowed, or weakened simply by standing near people.
Reality was far simpler. While Rys would have some detailed explanation of the magical theory and flows of energy involved, Fara only knew what she sensed with her tails.
The paladins were incompetent, but they had weaponized that incompetence. Instead of trying to control the astral energy with their spiritual techniques, they let it pour forth into their surroundings. Like a bunch of thugs with gigantic buckets of water or sand, they were dangerous in an odd way.
A dense cloud of magic tried to slow Fara’s movement. It was enough to affect humans, given they were non-magical beings. The demons were similarly weakened, as spiritual techniques had a natural advantage over them.
But to Fara, the cloud had an effect similar to somebody blowing smoke in her face and calling it a smokescreen. She glared at the paladins, annoyed that people considered these fools anything close to spiritual warriors.
“Brethren, with me!” one of the paladins bellowed as he raised his war hammer in the middle of the demonic line. “We shall make these demons regret the day they—”
Grigor’s axe ended his attempt to renew morale. The paladin exploded in a shower of twisted metal and gore as the axe split him in two, and the raw force crushed a lot of the rest of his body.
To their credit, the other paladins reacted quickly. They leaped backward and raised their shields. Their auras strengthened, for what little effect they had on a demon as powerful as Grigor.
With a few flicks of her tails, Fara cast a four-tail array. The auras vanished as she disrupted them. Prismatic light shimmered in the air around the paladins, and they looked around themselves in utter confusion.
“What foul devilry is this?” one of them said.
The next moment, Grigor obliterated his upper half. The soldiers began to scream and flee en masse. Demons captured as many of them as they could, focusing their efforts on the officers and mages.
The remaining paladin let out a shout and slammed his hammer into Grigor’s side. Surprisingly, the demon prince let out a grunt of pain before knocking the paladin aside. Steam rose from Grigor’s flesh. The hammer glowed in the paladin’s hand as he rose, and Fara realized her error.
While the paladins might be incompetent, whoever made their equipment wasn’t. The armor glowed, and the paladin rose, apparently unharmed from Grigor’s blow. Was the hammer enchanted with some sort of anti-demon or anti-sorcery enchantment?
“Evil never wins, demon,” the paladin said. He looked back at Fara, then pointed at her. “Our goddesses, the angels, always provide for their flock. Your downfall has come.”
Fara stared at the paladin. Had he only just noticed her? Did he think that she was on his side?
After exchanging glances with Grigor, Fara cast an array and caved the palad
in’s helmet in. The last defender of the city collapsed to the ground, blood streaming down his gleaming armor.
“Are they always this stupid?” Fara asked.
“No,” Grigor said. He leaned on his axe and watched as the demons mopped up the few remaining defenders who hadn’t fled or surrendered.
A barrier flickered around the headquarters. The Ashen pelted it with hellfire in an attempt to breach it, while Margrim and a couple of Lilim poked around at its base. Fara knew she’d need to join them in a moment to analyze the barrier. Only she had disruption magic, after all.
“The angels stopped backing mortals centuries ago,” Grigor said. “But their prior experiments were far more grounded, and more dangerous. The Adepts were far more capable, given they were directly trained by the angels. It is disconcerting that they have somehow survived in this archipelago, after being wiped out in my youth.”
Fara remembered Rys explaining about the Adepts, and the war between the infernals and the angels. “You’re talking about Barul, and how he uses spiritual techniques.”
“Indeed. Rys and I both agree those must have been taught by angels once.” Grigor let out a sigh. “These deluded worshippers are meaningless by comparison, other than their presence being part of a larger mystery. I do wonder if we have stumbled upon the resting place of some of the missing archangels. If I weren’t concerned about the consequences, I’d ask her, but…”
Missing archangels… Fara frowned. Four of the five archangels were missing in action right now, but Rys hadn’t brought them up at all. Did he not think that was a serious possibility? Or was there a difference in knowledge?
Then Fara blinked. “Her?”
Grigor turned to face Fara slowly. His four burning eyes bore into her.
After several long seconds, he said, “Something that you are best not to think about. Rys has forgotten someone. Until we know who is responsible for sealing him away, it is not safe to contact her. Her connections are too dangerous.”
Forgotten someone. Fara remembered Grigor making a vague reference to a woman when they helped Rys recover the first of his power in the Labyrinth.
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