Chapter 36
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 paladin’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.
“She’s important to him,” Fara said, eyes narrowed.
“Deeply.”
“There must be a reason he forgot her,” Fara pressed.
“Perhaps. And that is why I am wary about contacting her, or bringing her up with others,” Grigor said. “If she learns that Rys has returned, she will find him.”
That sounded ominous.
“I get the impression that Rys deals with beings of a level of power I can’t really comprehend,” Fara said.
Grigor chuckled. “We all have time to grow. And Rys is with us. I thought the same thing. My future as a Kashlovian noble demon was dim. Very few of us ever rise to a position of command. We are hunters. Warriors. Respected for our combat abilities and denigrated for the same reason. I am who I am because I became Rys’s sword and shield in the Eternal Game. You can achieve great things with him.”
The Eternal Game?
“That’s what infernals call the contest between Ariel and Malusian, isn’t it?” Fara asked.
Grigor looked down at Fara. “It is that, and much more. The Eternal Game has more than two players, after all. And the pieces are not always infernals.”
Did he mean what Fara thought he meant?
“Come, let us finish this,” Grigor said as he hefted his axe. “Your skills are required for cracking this building’s barrier. Then we can rest and join Rys farther south, comfortable in the knowledge that we have won a great victory.”
The barrier fell quickly. While it was large, and had a massive power source, nothing about it had been constructed with a mystic fox in mind. Fara prided herself on her disruption abilities. She tore a hole in the barrier, and a strike force slipped inside.
She and Grigor entered as well. Armored soldiers shook when Grigor entered, their pikes quivering.
Fara’s tails flicked to one side, and she knocked the guards to the ground like so many toy soldiers. The demons looked at her.
“Take as many alive as you can. We’re not imprisoning them in the castle,” she ordered. “Most of the soldiers are locals of Kavolara. They’re fighting to protect their homes. Once this is over, they’ll be fighting alongside you and paying taxes to King Talarys. Treat them well.”
The demons muttered in annoyance, but nodded. Grigor watched silently.
“What if they’re not locals?” a noble demon asked.
Fara grimaced. She wanted to say that they should be treated the same but…
Rys’s words from the other day echoed in her mind.
And memories of sleepless nights, as she worried about Vallis and her family, struck her. She remembered receiving a sending from Vallis on that fateful day, when Rys awoke. Fara might not have a daughter, but Vallis was the closest thing she had to one. When she went missing that day, only to tell Fara she had nearly been raped and killed…
“You already know how to handle the mercenaries,” Fara said coldly.
The demon grinned. “Got it, chief.”
As the demons fanned out across the headquarters, Fara hugged herself. She had waited for the others to leave, but Grigor watched her.
“It is difficult, but sometimes difficult things are necessary,” Grigor said. “I suggest speaking with Rys later.”
What would Rys think of her? Despite his words the other day, she still couldn’t help but feel her actions were too self-justified and hypocritical. Had she only wanted an excuse to do awful things to people she despised? Was that all she was, a woman who held herself together with a thin veneer over her true desires?
Later, she told herself. She’d worry about this later.
Below them were Compagnon’s guild officers. Harpiscon’s mayor had told them about the secret meeting room in the basement.
Fara and Grigor descended. Her magical senses allowed her to find the false wall, and Grigor pulverized it.
Shrieks of fear told them they had found the right place.
Six elegantly and expensively dressed men and women stood inside the well-apportioned room. Blood pooled at the entrance, where several corpses lay. Fara grimaced. The guards had been at the door, likely listening for intruders.
“You won’t take me alive, demons!” one of the guild officers screamed.
He pulled an ornate saber from his waist and charged them. Fara slapped him aside with a sickening crunch. He collapsed to the ground, groaning.
Fara looked at the remaining officers coldly. “All of you are prisoners of the Kingdom of Kavolara. You are subject to the mercies—or lack thereof—of King Talarys. He will do whatever he wishes to you.”
One of the guild officers, a young woman only a few years older than Vallis, stepped forward. “I wish to meet with His Majesty directly. I can—”
“King Talarys won’t waste his time on people as useless as you. Your cooperation may make your ultimate fate more comfortable, but it is not required. Any lies will be uncovered. Any failure to cooperate will be dealt with as adeptly as we have crushed your entire operation,” Fara said, dismissing the guild officer’s attempt to get into Rys’s pants.
The look of despair on their faces was sickeningly sweet to Fara.
Genuinely sickening, in fact. Fara felt awful for enjoying this.
They had made her suffer for years. The men and women were the leaders of Compagnon, and had killed and terrorized countless people. They had supported some of the worst people on the island. Vallis’s father had died because of them, and Vallis had suffered immensely. Her future as a mage had been sacrificed due to these awful people.
To Fara, nobody deserved imprisonment, execution, or worse more than these human monsters in front of her. But she still felt awful, knowing that she was consigning them to this.
Footsteps sounded behind her. A few Ashen and Lilim entered the room. The barrier must have come down.
“We can take it from here, chief,” the Ashen said. They restrained the officers while Fara watched.
After several long seconds, she left the room.
From a window, Fara surveyed the city. The chaos had died down somewhat. The ships had collapsed into the sea. The headquarters was under their control, and the soldiers and guards defending the city had scattered. The residents of the city watched the infernals from a distance. Realization dawned on the populace that they wouldn’t be harmed if they didn’t fight.
The night dragged on. Compagnon had been crushed. The Kingdom of Kavolara controlled the entire region.
Fara found the largest, plushest bed in the building, then collapsed on it. When morning arrived, she would help Grigor prepare the city for Maria and the rest of the handover. Then they would need to march south.
If Rys was right, the Malus League would soon invade. The true battle had yet to come.