The Devil's Influence

by Chris Pisano

  She landed to mixed reactions. Boos, cheers, shouts of confusion rained down upon her. She had no care. She did not jump in the pit for accolades or prize money. She needed to rid the world of this scourge.

  Anger was her only tactic. Her lack of forethought showed as she lunged toward the horned figure and swung both axes downward. Ar’drzz’ur dodged her attack with ease as both of her weapons stuck into the ground. Then the back of a massive fist connected with her, knocking her away.

  She jumped to her feet and grabbed one of the axes, the other taken by the creature. Backing away, she forgot there were other fighters in the pit until Bale said, “Dearborn? What are you doing?”

  “Bale! It’s Ar’drzz’ur! Don’t you remember him the last time we fought together?”

  “I do. But that’s not really him.”

  Confused, Dearborn took a breath and looked at her opponent. The man was large, taller and more muscular than most humans, but not quite as large as he was in her memories. Although his skin was a sickly shade of green, he was shaped like a man. No bovine legs. No cloven hooves. He was bare-chested and without pants or footwear, just a simple wrap to keep his manhood in place. But his head did have two large horns, one shorn halfway down. Not his head, his helmet. A skull used as a helmet. It was indeed the skull of Ar’drzz’ur, this much she was certain. But the wearer? Gripping the ax tighter, she screamed, “Who are you? Who wears the skull of Ar’drzz’ur?”

  The man laughed and dropped his ax.

  Draymon wielded his quarterstaff with both hands, shifting his gaze from one opponent to the other. Bale scratched his head as he watched the man remove his helmet. Dearborn tensed, the bald man laughing as if she should recognize him. His features were thick and barbaric, a face that had seen many lifetimes worth of battle. Not knowing what else to say, she repeated, “Who are you?”

  “Even though I am not Ar’drzz’ur, as I have proclaimed all these years of fighting in the pit, I assure you, Dearborn, you hate me no less.”

  The voice. His voice, she knew. She had never seen his face before, but that voice she had fought against. Who? Where? A tiny, green scorpion scuttled from around the man’s back, up his chest, and over his shoulder. Another scorpion hurried from over his other shoulder and down his body, disappearing behind his knee. A third followed a path around his waist. A flood of memories swelled within Dearborn’s head.

  Praeker Trieste.

  Had Dearborn the capacity to form a rational thought, she might have mused that even though Ar’drzz’ur slaughtered her friends and comrades ten years ago, it was Praeker Trieste who was one of the reasons why the demons walked the mortal lands to begin with. In his lust for power, Praeker Trieste formed a The Horde, a veritable army of miscreants who wished for nothing more than the kingdom of Albathia to fall. They laid waste to town after town without mercy while they looked for the damnable gemstones that controlled demons. During the last battle of the Demon War, in her final fight with Ar’drzz’ur, Praeker could have helped her win, could have helped serve a higher purpose in the war. Instead, he ran. Without warning, without inclination, he simply disappeared.

  Praeker Trieste was right—Dearborn hated him no less than the demon general. She expressed this sentiment with a roar, running toward him, battle-ax above her head. He blocked her swing by grabbing his ax and slamming its handle into hers. Her hair snapped in front of her face from the sudden momentum change. She set her feet and pushed. Even though he weighed more than she did, she moved him, his bare feet sliding across the dirt floor. Praeker grinned and said, “Come now, woman, it’s been over ten years. Certainly, you can let go of this grudge.”

  No. Dearborn could not let go of the loss he had caused. She jumped back and swung her ax again. Praeker sidestepped her attack and then used his momentum to spin and kick. His foot landed on her back. Grimacing, she stumbled a few steps and turned around. She was back with the other two in the arena.

  Focusing on Praeker, she said to her new comrades, “We need to surround him, keep moving.”

  Standing with a bit of a lean, weighed down by his armor and weapon, Bale scratched his head. “Dearborn? I don’t think you’re allowed to be in the pit. Isn’t it against the rules?”

  Dearborn snapped her head around, the fire blazing behind her eyes hotter than the dollops of flame dripping from the nozzle of his weapon. The ogre winced as she spoke. “The rules be damned, Bale! This man . . . this thing . . . is responsible for the Demon War. He killed thousands of people and destroyed dozens of towns and villages. We need to kill him!”

  “Dearborn Stillheart? I know you,” came from the other man in the pit. Confused, Dearborn looked to him for an explanation. “You’re the blacksmith’s daughter.”

  The man looked familiar, a faint image of an oasis in the brutal desert of lost memories. “And you are?”

  He opened his mouth to answer but looked to Praeker instead. As best his gnarled fingers could, he tightened his grip on the quarterstaff. “You can call me Draymon.”

  Dearborn knew that was not what he intended to tell her, but right now, she did not care. She would sort truths from lies later; now she needed to sort death from life. “If you help me kill this filth that stands before us, I will call you friend.”

  To make sure everyone was prepared, she slapped Bale’s exposed shoulder and pointed to Praeker. The ogre snapped to attention, readying himself for battle. She leaned close and told him, “Draymon and I will circle around him. Advance and try to keep him in front of you.”

  “Advance?”

  “It means go forward, Bale. Just keep walking toward him.”

  The ogre sighed. “I know what it means. But there’s a chance he’ll hit me.”

  “You’ve been getting hit all day. What’s a few more?”

  “He’s bigger than any of the other people who’ve been hitting me!”

  “Don’t worry. You can take it. I have faith in you.” She punctuated her statement by punching his shoulder. Gesturing to Draymon to move the opposite direction, she started to circle to the right.

  “I don’t like this plan!” Bale yelled.

  Praeker smiled.

  The crowd cheered.

  As Dearborn and Draymon got into position, Praeker kept his focus on them and turned his back to Bale. She allowed herself a smirk. “Foolish move.”

  Praeker shrugged. “I doubt his dragon’s breath would magically avoid you as it burned me to a crisp, so you two are in just as much danger from it as I am. Only a fool would be warier of a bumbling troll than a mercenary and a trained soldier.”

  “Good point. Ignore the strategically weakest of us does make sense,” Dearborn replied.

  “Hey!” Bale shouted. “I can hear you.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you can hear her or not. It won’t make you any better of a fighter,” Draymon added.

  “What?” Bale yelled. “I fought you to a tie!”

  “More luck than anything, I’d say.”

  Dearborn and Draymon closed in on Praeker, forcing him backward, moving him to Bale. She swung her ax and then backed off, allowing Draymon to swipe at Praeker. Keeping him off balance was only part of the plan. The other part needed Bale to be Bale. After another swing, Dearborn added, “Well, that was his contribution to the Demon War as well. All luck.” A pang of guilt clutched her heart after she said those words; she knew very well that Bale had acted bravely to save the world.

  “I’ll show you luck!” Bale raised both hands above his head, preparing to smash anything before him. One clenched fist and the other covered by the armament of a dragon’s breath battlewagon, he loomed monstrous and unnatural. Green flesh and black metal worked together, an experimental machination birthed from a mad alchemist’s laboratory. With the full power of his weight, he brought his fists down upon Praeker.

  He mis
sed.

  Praeker spun and jumped, avoiding Bale’s lumbering attack with ease. He then charged toward Bale and connected with the ogre’s unarmored shoulder. Despite the difference in bulk—Bale being twice the size of Praeker, albeit the only difference being nothing more than fat—Praeker flipped the ogre on his back, the heavy armor being the pivot point.

  Draymon jumped over Bale as the ogre rocked back and forth like an upside-down turtle, and attacked Praeker with a flurry of staff strikes. Some hits were meant to keep the larger man off balance, some landed with meaty smacks. The crowd went wild. Dearborn still had no care what they thought. Draymon drove Praeker away from Bale and that was what she wanted.

  Bale played his part perfectly. Dearborn felt bad for tricking him into it, but she would deal with those feelings after Praeker was dead. For now, she needed Bale to stop squirming.

  Placing a foot on his chest, she reached for the barrel of the dragon’s breath mechanism sheathing Bale’s left arm. Bale tried to protest, but could only muster a weak cough. Dearborn’s boot kept him still, jammed right at the base of his ribcage. She tucked the muzzle under her right arm, using her hip as support. “Bale! Where’s the firing mechanism?”

  “Inside,” Bale wheezed.

  “Of course,” Dearborn muttered to herself as she examined the weapon, looking for ways to use it. The tubes. She followed the metal tubes from fuel tank to nozzle opening. She deduced that all the trigger did was release the pressurized liquid. What she guessed at was how much pressure was in the tank, and how flammable the liquid was.

  “Draymon! Move!” Dearborn shouted as she ripped the hose from the base of the barrel. Bracing the weapon on her thigh, lifted high from her foot still on Bale’s chest, she anticipated a pressurized blast of fuel. She did not anticipate the amount, the tank much larger than she realized. A geyser of fuel jetted across the flame at the tip of the barrel opening and demonstrated the weapon’s name.

  Barely able to contain the force, Dearborn aimed the plume of liquid flame at Praeker. Draymon heard her command in time and sprinted away from her attack. Praeker heard her command, too, and followed Draymon. Dearborn swept the fire across the arena, chasing Praeker as he closed the gap between Draymon and himself.

  As soon as the fire hit Praeker, he roared in agony and fell to the ground. Dearborn wanted to empty the remainder of the tank on him, to bathe Praeker in the hellfire that he deserved, scouring him from this world, but he was too close to Draymon. Bloodlust consumed her, but Dearborn still had the wherewithal to recognize she could not have gotten this far without the other fighter and did not believe his reward should be an agonizing death. With no other option available, she turned the gout of flame away from Draymon, away from Praeker, to an empty spot on the pit floor. The tank emptied quickly, the fuel sputtering to a stop.

  Dearborn dropped the weapon and took her foot off Bale, the ogre gasping with relief. As she approached Praeker, she heard the crowd yelling. She could not tell if they were praising her actions or decrying them. Her only goal was choking the life from Praeker, but her charge was halted by a chunk of burning wood slamming down next to her. Sizzling thatch, glowing amber, floated down in the air from the burning roof. The crowd was not screaming about the action in the pit; they were reacting to the arena catching fire.

  Humans and creatures alike ran toward perceived safety. Seeking any exit, often colliding with each other. A few spilled into the pit as others crawled along the floor. One of the bars ignited, the spirits causing a bright flare up. Dearborn had caused this. At first, she felt awful, then remembered that the arena was nothing more than a den of miscreants with most of the attendees being no better than the criminal filth who owned it. Let it burn!

  “Dearborn!” Diminutia called out from behind her, barely audible over the commotion of panicked and fleeing people. She heard him, though, but she could not bring herself to look at him. If she did, it would all be over; she would switch from avenging warrior to concerned wife. The fire in her heart would extinguish. Praying that he could forgive her, she swore to herself she would apologize and explain later. But right now, she could let nothing stand in her way, not even the smoldering rafter that landed between her and Praeker.

  Leaping over the beam, she landed next to her nemesis, thick tendrils of smoke weaving around her body. Most of his skin twisted and charred, Praeker remained on his back, looking up at her. Face half burned, his lips twisted into a pitiful smile, one of defeat, a warrior welcoming a deserved death. Dearborn would oblige.

  But she could not move her feet; the pit floor had swallowed them.

  Magic. There was no other explanation for this madness! From behind her came her husband’s voice again. “Dearborn!”

  This time she looked, over her shoulder, right into his pleading blue eyes. Her anger began to subside until she saw Silver and Haddaman with him, the wizard’s face contorted in concentration, the scoundrel looking fussier than usual. Behind them, a hulking silhouette moved through the smoke. Bale had yet to flee.

  Allowing emotion to take over once again, she flexed every muscle in her body for support, focusing all her energy on her right leg. Releasing a small roar, she pulled her leg free from the ground. The effort pained Silver, doubling him over as if punched in the gut. Freeing her left leg took considerably less energy, but her efforts were halted again, this time by Haddaman. “Dearborn! Stop! You can’t kill him.”

  Surprised at how stupid he was being right now, Dearborn grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him close. Faces almost touching, she growled, “Why not?”

  Without the slightest hint of fear, he answered, “Because we need him to retrieve The Eternity Seed.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. It’s why we came here. I had heard about him, about this fighter, about who he might be. We need Praeker Trieste alive to help us get The Eternity Seed.”

  Standing in the center of an inferno did nothing to stop the chills running through her bones. Her grip tightened. She clenched her other fist so hard her arm shook. Then she felt a familiar hand on her shoulder. “Dearborn. I love you. I trust that what you are trying to do needs to be done. But if Haddaman’s right, if we need this man, no matter how small of a possibility it is, then we need to bring him with us. After we get The Eternity Seed after we complete this accursed mission, then you can do what you need to do, and we can go home to our children.”

  Dearborn cried. The tears evaporated quickly, but she could feel the stinging paths they took down her cheeks. The touch of his hand was so comforting. The thought of home, the mention of her children.

  She shoved Haddaman, not enough to knock him over, but hard enough to get him away from her. As soon as she released him, he yelled to Bale to help carry Praeker. She led the way out, never once needing to turn as if the fire itself was frightened of her, unwilling to accept whatever the consequence might have been for touching her. The crowd that was once inside had now gathered outside. Coughing. Conversing. Pointing. Some even wondered about the boggart found face down with a knife in his back. She did not care. She just pushed her way through and kept walking.

  twenty-one

  The wood popped and spat and hissed almost as soon as Landyr tossed it onto the fire. He prodded it with a stick, shifting the log around the center of the small ring of stones, among the other pieces of burning wood. Some burned nicely, holding the flame with ease, others broke into embers, soon to be spent ash, as he absent-mindedly poked at them. He was not thinking about the fire.

  The night was starless, drifting clouds obscuring the heavens. Landyr’s fire was not big or bright but offered enough light and heat. It did not need to be any larger; he was the only one using it after all.

  Remaining in a crouch, he dropped his poker onto the center of the pile and wrapped his arms around his legs, resting his chin on top of his knees. Watching the dancing flames soo
thed him, helped him move from today and ready himself for tomorrow.

  After the incident in Bernum, Zellas had chewed his hide for endangering a civilian by not following protocol. Never mind the civilian in question was a wizard, a shape-shifting demon who rescued him. Before he could confess that during his debriefing, though, Chenessa finished the story by keeping the details vague as to how Cezomir and his crew became distracted. Zellas was none the wiser. But Landyr knew, having lived through the events, being rescued by something more hideous than what lurked in the shadows of his nightmares. He withdrew from everyone, performing his duties for the rest of the day in silence and solitude.

  The general, and probably everyone else, assumed Landyr was pouting, upset from the tongue-lashing. Let them think that. The last thing Landyr wanted were questions about what he saw, what Chenessa might really be. Questions he could not answer. Was it all an illusion? She was a wizard, after all. If not an illusion, then who was Chenessa—the beautiful dark elf, or the blood-haired demon?

  Zellas crouched next to Landyr, the stealthy general not making a single noise upon approach. “You need to get over it.”

  “I am over it,” Landyr mumbled.

  “It doesn’t seem like you are.”

  “After a good night’s sleep, I’ll be over it.”

  Zellas nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Landyr did not respond, continuing to search the ever-changing fire for answers.

  Zellas sighed. “Okay, maybe I should have chewed out your hide in private instead of in front of all the men. Our unique relationship is well known among them. Your station as Sergeant is well deserved and you earned it. I know this and you know this. And, if debated one-on-one by discussion or sparring, the men know it as well. However, if two men talk, and one expresses an idea, a theory, a concern, then one could change the perception of the other, then those two could change the ideas of a third, a fourth, and soon rumors of you becoming a Sergeant because I raised you would be bandied about. If I, as your general, gave you no form of discipline, then those rumors could grow and spread. That would do no good for either of us.”