Enemy of the Inferno (Disgardium Book #8): LitRPG Series

by Dan Sugralinov

  They held their formation, stayed in position. The defenders bristled with weapons and viewed the pathetic tiefling’s charge as a suicide run, not a threat. Twenty yards… ten… three…

  I leapt forward and rose up above their heads, giving myself a boost with Flight to imitate a high jump. The demons’ snarling faces tightened as they watched my climb. One bellowed and threw his spear, another spat a ball of fire that flew by me in a wave of heat. I somersaulted, landed next to the Wager, tore it from the ground and jumped back. The enemies rushed me. Thankfully, they had melee weapons, not throwing weapons.

  Hakkar! Enemy Wager captured!

  You cannot use your skills or abilities until you drop the Wager or bring it to your own Wager.

  I read that too late, after jumping over some enemies and trying to extend the jump with Flight. It failed, and I crashed down on the head of a huge demon, nearly impaling myself on his horns.

  We fell to the ground together. The enemy grabbed me by the leg, but I put a hoofprint in his skull and jabbed the tip of my spear into the neck of an incubus attacking at the same time. Using the flag as a staff, I swept my path clear, dodging the blades of demons swarming around me. My small stature worked to my advantage; I weaved between the huge bodies, giving out jabs with my pike that took foes out of the game for a long time.

  “Crush him!” a large imp shrieked, kicking me in the chest with a hoof and getting thrown back, knocking down a devil and a demon in flight and opening my path to my own side. The defenders rushed after me.

  “Hold him!” the enemy centurion roared, but nobody heard him in the heat of battle.

  “The Twelfth Legion’s wager has been captured!” Nisrok’s voice boomed over the battlefield. The doomtank took no part in the battle, just watched us from atop the hill where our flag stood.

  The enemies redoubled their efforts to reclaim the flag. Roaring and shrieking, they ran as fast as they could. Someone even threw a sword, which stuck into the ground with a thrum a few inches from one of my hooves. The other fighters of the Twelfth Legion started to withdraw and look around for me – there was no point in fighting if your Wager was already taken. Now their main task was to take me down and get their flag back.

  A couple of heartbeats later, the entire enemy cohort was after me. Realizing that I couldn’t break straight through them, I ran in an arc along the front line to make my enemies crowd together and get in each other’s way, but then they started to spread out to encircle me. The enemy’s main strike force ran in from the left, the flag defenders from the right and behind. My allies tried their best to stop everyone chasing me, bogging them down in skirmishes.

  “He’s mine!” a huge and fast satyr with six white stars roared, working his legs as fast as he could.

  An elf with them, as Centurion Citri would say! I abandoned the idea of stopping, turning and finishing off the satyr – whichever way you swung it, he was still one of ours, serving the Dominion of Belial!

  Avoiding unnecessary victims, I ran as fast as I could toward my side, describing a semicircle around the edge of the battlefield. Those damn princes sure played a mean trick by depriving the flagbearer of his abilities, or else I would have leapt ahead like a grasshopper a long time ago.

  All the same, I was getting along fine even without Flight. I even had to hold back a little, stop myself from running at full speed. My run speed was too high for my star level. I kept up a quick enough pace to stay ahead of my enemies, but not so fast that they lost hope and stopped chasing. And so the legend of the quick little tiefling would gain the credible detail it needed…

  The enraged bleating of a devil galloping towards me derailed my train of thought. I prepared for the collision, but then…

  “Ha!” Lerra said, falling in next to me with Abducius by her side. To their left ran Karakapanka, growling and spinning four swords at once.

  “We’ll cover you, Hakkar!” the succubus’s voice rang.

  Boom! The demon met the powerful devil with his shoulder, bowling him head over heels. The rakshasa cut off another two pursuers that got too close, using a lighter version of my Lashing Wind – his blades gleamed, blurring and cutting through everything in his path like a helicopter rotor.

  The escort expanded, the number of allies protecting me grew and grew. I didn’t exactly need their help, but they made my job easier and kept me from getting distracted. Except that I had to hold myself back to avoid outpacing them all.

  We ran side by side all the way to our hill, where not only the troops defending our flag were observing the battle, but also the leaders of the cohort: Centurion Citri, Optio Sheshax, Prefect Nisrok and his helper Voley.

  “Place the flag, instiga!” Citri urged me, pointing at the empty spot next to our own Wager.

  It was clear where to put it without the hint – the place shimmered with the ghostly silhouette of the enemy standard. Making another impressive leap, I landed and stuck the flagpole into the ground – touchdown!

  The triumphant roar of the Thirteenth Legion’s Thirteenth Cohort vibrated through to my bones. The sky lit up blue, signaling the end of the trial by combat.

  “Lift the instiga!” boomed the doomtank Nisrok, baring long blackened teeth in a smile of satisfaction. Those were nearly the first words I’d heard from him.

  “Lift the instiga!” Voley shrieked, snapping his beak.

  Suddenly, the earth disappeared beneath my feet and the sky rushed down to meet me. The demons had picked me up and started throwing me into the air.

  When the sky fell upon me a sixth time, it was like I went deaf, and everything around me darkened. I hung in the air, feeling the grinding press of Chaos’s attention. The hooks sank into every inch of my skin again, delving deep, ripping and pulling at my veins and bones. A hum of unfamiliar words pulsed painfully in my skull, and when the torture was over, an echo of understanding remained:

  Tiieefliing… A speck of Orrrder abides within you. Hidden, hidden deeeep… Even the demons sense it not, but I see an eterrrnal enemy… I see! I see your spirrrit… No tiefling you… Visitor from Disgarrrdium, marked by the Sleeperrrs… Disturrrber of peace… Interrresting… Balance of Disgarrrdium shifting… I see who is the cause… Useful… Will not touch… Forrr nowww. Let us see wherrre it leads…

  I grabbed my head, clenched my teeth. The pain passed and only then did I realize that I was standing on my feet again, with all the eyes of the cohort on me.

  “He’s overwhelmed with happiness, Prefect Nisrok,” came Voley’s squawking voice from off to the side. “The boy is simply out of his mind, seeing and hearing nothing.”

  “What?”

  “Wake up, tiefling!” shining Centurion Citri roared. “Say thank you to the Prefect!”

  The demon, as it turned out, was standing next to me and hugging me. Lerra stood on my other side. She raised a fist, shouted:

  “For Decanus Hakkar!”

  “For Decanus Hakkar!” the cohort shouted back.

  And then it hit me – while I was in the grip of Chaos, I’d been promoted!

  Getting a grip on myself, I saluted with my fist to my chest, glancing at the doomtank:

  “Thank you, Prefect of Thirteenth Legion’s Thirteenth Cohort Nisrok! I will live up to your trust! Glory to the Dominion!”

  “Glory to the Dominion!” the giant Prefect rumbled and left along with Voley.

  Waiting until they left, the Centurion cast a glance across the cohort and barked with contrived discontent:

  “Form up! The Prefect liked what he saw, but let me remind you that you were up against fresh meat just like you! You have nothing to be proud of! At least most of you survived… How many are left? Count off!”

  The demons counted off, and the centurion’s discontent turned real. From almost seven hundred demons, only one hundred and eighty remained.

  “I see…” he growled, sighing flames. “Glory to the Legion, enough left for thirteen squads. Instiga Hakkar will lead the first. Decanus, the two o
ther instigas will be under your command, and, considering your services… I will allow you to pick your group yourself.”

  I stepped out of the line, shrugging:

  “Who wants to join my group? Stand forward!”

  Armor clanked as the cohort took a step forward. Pushing the others aside, a three-star imp emerged and thumped his chest:

  “Hakkar, take me! You won’t regret it, I…”

  A huge demon standing behind him flicked him between the horns and the imp screamed.

  “You’re garbage! But I’m an expert swordsman…”

  “You’re just a meatshield,” bleated a five-star satyr, stepping back just in case. “I’m quick, Hakkar, almost as good as you at…”

  A ruckus arose, demons surged forward, pushing and shoving each other. The centurion barked:

  “Desist! Stop parading yourselves like whores in a brothel!” The demons quietened. “Hakkar?”

  “Alright…” Without particularly thinking, I jabbed a claw at the ones I already knew in turn. “I’ll take Lerra, Abducius, Karakapanka and… Those three can choose the rest.”

  After a couple of minutes of furious arguing, eventually interrupted by the centurion, my ‘platoon,’ as I’d decided to call it, was formed. The two instigas: the little imp and the skinny demon, then the trio I named, plus two devils, an infernal, an ashmaker and three demons. And then me – the thirteenth.

  “For capturing the enemy’s Wager,” the centurion declared, “Decanus Hakkar is awarded one million chao!”

  A gasp rolled across the crowd. The demon stretched out a hand, touched my palm, and I was suddenly convulsing again. When my body reformed, an eleventh white star shone on my horn. From the chao I’d absorbed in battle, I was well on my way to the twelfth. And I still had some saved in my inventory.

  The centurion split the rest of the soldiers up into groups himself, appointing a decanus to each.

  “Decani, take your troops to the barracks,” Citri ordered. “Rest… Tomorrow, your true service begins! And in two days, we will fight the Sixth Legion of Prince Azmodan!”

  * * *

  Almost right after the cohort’s decani were assigned, our squad split off from the reigning chaos in a nook between the barracks and a small hill. The cohort was celebrating victory: drunk legionaries wandered this way and that, shouting and fighting. I wanted a breather.

  The shadows from the firelight flickered on my allies’ faces, if their snouts could be called that – only Lerra’s was any good to look at. The flame burned like an oily torch. Imitation altered my perceptions; human-me would have recoiled from the thick smoke, but tiefling-me found it cozy. We all enjoyed the occasional shower of sparks that burst out over us.

  Lerra, Abducius, Karakapanka and their countrymen already knew each other well, so they were mostly getting to know me and the two other instigas.

  By demon standards, all my troops were teenagers. Some were just over a hundred years old, others near it. That was probably part of why we got on so well.

  “Hey, guys… and Lerra, how about something a little stronger?” rumbled Abducius, who had allowed us to call him simply Abdu. “Look what I brought from back home…”

  He stopped, glancing sidelong at me. Silence descended. The soldiers were looking at me, awaiting my permission. I remembered myself and nodded:

  “Go on, bring it out.”

  The demon winked to me and pulled a flask from his belt.

  The squad livened up again. The little imp Rupert, the cohort’s second instiga, jumped up and climbed into a bag as large as he was, rooted around and emerged again, gleefully shaking two giant bottles:

  “Smelter’s Special! A single drop kills a hellboar!”

  “And half a drop – a tiefling!” Abdu roared in laughter, then caught my eye and cut off. “Sorry, boss… uhh, Decanus Hakkar, I mean.”

  The third instiga, the skinny demon Motif, pulled an entire barrel out of his inventory and presented it proudly to us all:

  “This, gentlemen, – and Lerra, – is Abaddon’s Mill brandy. You can’t buy this anywhere. My father delivers it only to the highest families!”

  I could tell the instigas’ generosity was because they both felt ill at ease. Being new to our group and with only one star each, both wanted to fit in.

  “Your father?” Karakapanka asked. “Your father brews brandy?”

  The rakshasa sat with his legs crossed, doing four different things with his four arms: scratching his back, fiddling with his tail, stroking his chin and smoking some infernal hand-rolled cigarette. The smoke made my eyes water.

  “You’re asking the wrong thing!” Lerra perked up. She fluttered her eyelashes languidly and sparks cantered along them. “You’re from the Ruby City then, Motif?”

  “Yeah!” Motif beamed, but then faltered beneath their laughing gazes. “Well, not right in the Ruby City, but our estate ain’t far away. Just three weeks’ walk.”

  “Why ‘Mill’?” Karakapanka asked. “Seems a dumb name for booze.”

  “It wraps itself around your guts and twists them, then grinds them up like a mill,” Motif explained, eliciting uproarious approval from the infernal and ashmaker. Those two were mostly silent; there was something different about their vocal apparatus. “And it’s named after Abaddon because he loves our brandy best of all.”

  “Hah!” Rupert the imp cackled sarcastically. “Nothing but clever advertising from your old man! It’s no match for Smelter’s Special!”

  I took note of the surprising reference to ‘clever advertising’ – not exactly what I expected to hear from a demon in the Inferno.

  “Bullshit, Motif,” Odell the devil bleated. “As if General Abaddon would drink your dad’s swill! He and the other high-ups don’t even drink, I heard!”

  “Oh yeah? What do you think the ‘higher-ups’ use to relax, then?” Motif asked, needling the imp.

  “If I tell you, you’ll want some too!”

  The devil laughed and kept on teasing the instigas, who started to argue over whose alcohol was better. They got so excited that the demon seemed almost ready to fight the imp hand-to-hand to defend the honor of the family spirits.

  “Both of you pipe down!” Abducius said, breaking up their scuffle. “Let’s try them both and find out! And you, Odell, you best stop with your devilment!”

  They emptied the barrel of Abaddon’s Mill brandy, both bottles of Smelter’s Special, and a flask of liquid fire that Abducius brought out, but never did establish who the hell, or who the elf, made the better poison. I only sipped the liquid, assuming that my tiefling body wasn’t used to such strong drinks – I didn’t want them grinding up my guts. Maybe the feeling was a good one, but I’d rather not try it.

  Incidentally, the demon, who had shown off his seven stars when we first met, now changed his behavior toward me sharply. With eleven, I was the strongest in the group not only on the inside, but outwardly too.

  I spent most of the day listening to the others and saying nothing much; I didn’t want to slip up on something small. At some point the demons got out of hand, wanted to sneak into the tent of another squad and look for alcohol. I stood up:

  “Stand to attention!” They stood. “Tidy up here and then all of you go rest!”

  Muttering unhappily, but not daring to disobey, the soldiers put out the fire, picked up their garbage and headed into the tent.

  After waiting for them all to fall asleep, I logged out of Dis. From the ship to the ball, as Uncle Nick used to say. The capsule waited for me to adapt and come round in the real world, then the intragel slid away.

  The back of my head was killing me, but aside from that I felt fine. I walked through my apartments, learned from Roj that Tobias hadn’t yet arrived, drank a glass of juice. Stretched my legs with a walk down the long corridors with Maria.

  On the way back to my rooms I found Rita and Tissa. My girlfriend wore a long, form-fitting golden dress that highlighted her alluring curves. She clicked across the fl
oor on high heels, tapping at her comm screen as she went. Tissa wore a short black dress that shimmered silver. The rolled-up holoposter in the crook of her elbow didn’t stop her from walking toward me as if toward a podium as soon as she saw me. She must have had some posture training in her time on the Amazons’ island.

  Thank the Sleepers, they weren’t bristling at each other anymore. The girls had gotten everything ready for the party. It was strange to see them together, especially working together.

  “Hi, Alex,” Rita said, kissing me on the cheek and then looking back down at her comm. “Sorry, lots to do. The boys ordered all kinds of things, and it’s not so easy to get stuff delivered here. I’m going to have to think up some logistics.”