Chapter 24
A convoy of carriages trundled west to Port Mayfield, moving along one of the Kingdom of Kavolara’s major roads. A forest of leafless trees surrounded the convoy, and the road passed along a steep embankment.
A large armed escort walked on foot beside the magitech carriages. Almost all of them were Kinadain, wearing a wide variety of clothes and armor. Several demons of differing sizes mingled with them. A single massive noble demon sat atop the lead carriage, and had a bird’s beak, armored carapace, and bulging muscles.
The noble demon’s red eyes narrowed as he stared up at the ridge line far above. It was a bright day, but his vision was powered by magic. He didn’t give a damn about getting the sun in his eyes.
Inside the third carriage, Vallis leafed through a book about taxes. A tome, really. That term was usually reserved for magical texts, but she felt it applied to this book.
She liked to consider herself fairly smart, but this book was denser than the theoretical texts she had read when studying to become a mage.
“I don’t remember you reading so much earlier in the year,” her companion said from the opposing seats in the carriage.
Margrim chewed on a cigarette, or what was left of one.
“You can smoke in the carriage, you know,” Vallis said, bothered by the sight of an Ashen not smoking.
She was pretty sure the albino devils smoked in their sleep. Where they got the cigarettes remained a mystery to her, but she suspected it had something to do with the imps. Unless the Ashen had some sort of conjuration magic that only worked for tobacco.
Margrim burned through over a hundred cigarettes a day, so she didn’t complain. The Ashen would bankrupt the kingdom if she had to pay for their vice.
“Nah, it’s impolite,” he grunted. “I can survive a few hours without a hit. Dunno when the boss is gonna make you immortal, neither.”
The idea of Rys going out of his way to keep her by his side for the rest of his life caused a tingle to run through Vallis’s body.
“I might become a mage first, and work out how to stop my aging process,” she said.
“I said immortality, not the cheap shit you humans mistake for it,” Margrim said with a grin. “Name the last human mage to live for over two hundred years?”
She blinked. During her studies, she had gone over countless famous mages.
“Kushan?” she offered.
Margrim scowled. “Okay, maybe. But he cheated. Bastard made a deal with the Devil Queen.”
“Rys, then.”
“I bet you my year’s pay that he’ll laugh in your face if you call him human.”
“He pays you?” Vallis asked.
“Funny.” The Ashen rolled his eyes and produced another cigarette from his robe. He began to chew on it. “Yeah, he pays us. Free rent, free food, a free one-way ticket to Harrium, entertainment, and who knows what comes next. Also, if I ask you for cash, I bet you’ll pay me.”
He was right about that. The only reason that Vallis didn’t pay wages to the infernals was that they showed precisely zero interest in money.
The demons gambled over cards and other games for most of their waking hours, but she was pretty sure it didn’t amount to anything other than pride. Vallis had learned not to gamble against an infernal, however.
“Okay, so, other than the two obvious examples, I can’t think of any old mages,” Vallis admitted, returning to the topic. “I thought magic could stop aging?”
“Nah. It just stops the human body from aging, but you’re made up of more than a body.” Margrim pointed at her chest—probably her heart, more specifically.
“My soul?”
“Maybe? Could be your magical essence, too. I just know that you mortals run out of steam at some point. The boss is immortal because he powers his body and magical essence with infernal energies. Fucked if I know what he does about his soul, though,” Margrim said.
“If one stops working, I guess it makes sense that someone would die,” Vallis said.
A person comprised four things: the mind, body, soul, and magical essence. Both the soul and magical essence existed in non-material planes, and were nearly impossible to affect with ordinary magic.
Keyword: ordinary. The magic of divine beings such as angels and infernals was anything but.
She continued, saying, “Magic that messes with the soul is basically unheard of. It’s forbidden magic, even. Banned on Gauron.”
“Bet those chucklefucks in the Malus League love it,” he replied.
“We can’t really insult them for using forbidden magic given what Rys does.”
“Sure I can. The boss is probably the most knowledgeable sorcerer in fucking history. The League mages are children playing with fire. Our princes have told me some stories about how the boss and the Archdevil Kauros used to get into pissing contests in the dying days of the Empire. You can’t compare them.” Margrim sighed.
“Does he bother you?” Vallis asked.
“I worry about what happens when the boss becomes his old self. Since he broke that… whatever the fuck it is we found in the Labyrinth, he’s felt different. Acted the same, but he can fling around more hellfire by himself than a dozen of me.” Margrim waved her off. “The Prince-General says he’s good, and it’s not like I have a choice, so I’ll stick it out.”
“Grigor was weak once, too,” she said.
“He was always a Kashlovian, though. I’m a common devil.” Margrim stared out the window and narrowed his eyes. There was a long pause before he finished. “I hit the peak of my power decades ago. Experience can only take me so far.”
Those words sent a chill down Vallis’s spine, but she pushed it away. “You’re important to me, as Viceroy. Without you, Terry, Taras, and the others, everything would be far worse.”
Margrim didn’t reply. Instead, he licked his lips and continued to stare out the window, to the north.
“Margrim?” Vallis asked.
The Ashen began to move toward her. A moment later, the brakes of carriage squealed. The entire vehicle slammed to a shuddering stop. She squealed and flew across the cabin.
Margrim caught her and set her back down in a single movement. He remained standing beside the door.
“What the hell, Margrim?” she asked. Then she noticed his demeanor as he stepped over to the other window and peered out. “… something’s wrong.”
“Buncha folks following us along the ridge,” he grunted, then pointed at his eyes. “Can’t see them, but us infernals don’t rely on eyes like you do.”
“Soulsight,” Vallis said, referring to the magical vision that angels and infernals possessed.
Internally, she felt calmer than expected.
Ambushes had become a fact of life since meeting Rys. Even before then, she had bumped into debt collectors more than a few times. The fact Rys had saved her from near certain death and worse had been an inevitability, given how close she had flown to the sun before.
Recently, her escorts had crushed her assailants with ease. This situation felt different. Margrim was agitated.
“Yeah.” He paced back to the other side of the carriage. “Can’t see any on the downward slope, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could be far enough away that I can’t see ‘em. The bastards up there have been slipping in and out of vision for a while now.”
“How…” Vallis stopped herself before asking a question she knew the answer to.
Mental communication was nothing new to her. Margrim had mental communication, while she had her sendings.
The Ashen had conferred with the rest of her escorts once he noticed something was wrong. That was why the carriage had come to a halt.
“Are we getting out? Or are you going to deal with them?” she asked.
He ignored her and instead gripped the door handle. A ball of hellfire appeared in his free hand, causing her to jump.
Vallis jumped to her feet as she realized how bad everything might be outside.
Had… had an attack already taken place? The carriage wasn’t soundproofed that well, was it?
Margrim shoved the door open with a grunt and leaped out. No arrows or spells flew at him, and nobody rushed him. He gestured for Vallis to join him. She stepped out from the carriage, leaving her books and paperwork behind.
The convoy was a scene of surprising silence. The Kinadain had their weapons out and surrounded each of the carriages, with a large cluster building up near the front. Meanwhile, the demons and Ashen providing an escort moved in utter silence.
Margrim didn’t say a word, at least physically. His voice entered her head a moment later, “Don’t speak. They might pick up on the sound. There are several mages with them, and more ahead.”
“Ahead?” she asked using mindspeak, looking down the road where the Kinadain were gathering.
Another voice butted in, that of the noble demon, Terry, who commanded the escort, “We’ve seen three groups, Viceroy. One following us above the ridge, another that has cut off the road behind us, and one blockading the road ahead. All with mages.”
“You’re sure?” she asked. The demons hadn’t seen the enemy, after all.
As she responded, Terry jumped down from the carriage he sat on. He was nearly twice her height. While Terry usually commanded palace security, since Grigor had increased the escorts for her and Maria, the noble demon had accompanied her whenever she left the palace.
This was the first time she had ever seen him so active. He was one of the noble demons who came with Grigor originally and had an almost infectious laziness.
Now, he looked around with tense muscles. His eyes glowed, and she felt a genuine sense of danger from him. If she had anything to fear from him, she’d be scared witless of him.
“Demonic soulsight can sense magical power. If the demons say they’re mages, then they’re mages,” Margrim said. “Can we break through? If we move fast enough with the carriages, they might not catch up.”
Terry looked directly at her when he answered. “We don’t know what traps and barricades they might have. Or if they have more forces. I won’t risk it.”
Risk her. Vallis understood what he really meant.
For possibly the first time in her life, she was the most important person in a dangerous situation. The infernals could easily smash through the ambushers. Maybe the Kinadain could as well.
But doing that when Vallis’s life was at stake? Mercenaries would abandon her without a second thought, or even make a deal with her enemies. She had experienced that too many times.
Ironic that demons had a stronger sense of duty than many of the humans she knew.
“The alternative is shit, too,” Margrim muttered mentally.
“Um, should I contact Rys?” Vallis asked, butting into their argument. “Or have you already done so?”
They both stared at her if she had transformed into a horrible monster about to consume them. She winced.
“I don’t have to,” she mumbled.
“No, do it,” Margrim said, but he lit up a cigarette while responding. “The Prince-General is busy and I don’t think the chief can reach us anywhere near as fast. Can’t say I know much about the new fox or the succubus she has in the region. I don’t like asking the boss to do our job, but you’re the Viceroy.”
Mina had a succubus in the region? What the hell was she doing, letting such a huge ambush slip through her fingers?
“I swear you infernals are the only people who remember,” she said while preparing a sending for Rys.
Terry and Margrim gave her an odd look, before returning to their argument.
The sending only took a moment to prepare. She kept her words short.
“Rys, being ambushed by mages. Lots of attackers. You might want to send some help,” she said.
The reply was instant. Unfortunately, so was the reaction from her escorts. Their heads snapped up to the top of the ridge, and they cursed.
“Fuck, they’ve noticed we’re not moving,” Margrim spat aloud. “No more time to argue.”
Vallis’s eyes widened, but Rys’s response entered her mind a moment later.
“I will be there,” he said.
Those four words made her knees weak. Then she yelped as her feet left the ground, and she wondered if she had collapsed from the shock of Rys being so confident.
No, she realized. Terry had just plucked her from the ground in order to protect her. He didn’t look at her, instead placing his back to the ridge.
“Rys is coming,” Vallis gasped out.
“Then we need to buy time,” Margrim said, face like stone. “Get her out of here!”
“What?” she snapped. “Margrim—”
Terry didn’t give her time to argue, and instead roared something in his guttural demonic tongue. While she knew a couple of languages, demonic wasn’t one of them.
She did have a ring that translated it, however. Rys had crafted it for her. Terry’s shout translated roughly to “We’re going.”
More roars rose from the convoy as the remaining demons joined in. They brandished their weapons in the air and began to back away.
“Kinadain warriors, with me,” Terry said. “Margrim, fight well!”
“I don’t fight well, I fight smart,” Margrim said.
Huge orbs of hellfire appeared in his hands. The other pair of Ashen in the convoy joined him. Some of the Kinadain and a few demons remained with them.
But everybody else ran south, down the hill and away from the known ambushers.
Vallis watched as Margrim vanished behind the carriages. Explosions rippled throughout the forest and she saw plumes of flame and smoke consume her vision. Within seconds, she couldn’t see anything near the road or convoy.
Fireballs flew overhead and set the rest of the forest ablaze. One of the carriages tumbled down another side of the hill, sending flames and smoke everywhere.
Terry sprinted past it all. The other demons kept pace with him, despite the poor terrain.
The ground was covered in dead leaves, their path filled with trees of all shapes and sizes, and tree roots and holes were scattered before them. But the demons didn’t slow. The world blurred as Terry ran like the demon he was, far faster than any normal human could.
Behind them, the Kinadain tried to keep pace. But despite their magical abilities, they couldn’t keep up.
Terry could knock over trees if they got in his way and pulverized anything small that got in his path. The Kinadain would be turned into paste if they ran into a solid log of wood at this speed.
Vallis could only watch as shouts and the sound of battle crept down the hill after them.
Suddenly, Terry roared and changed direction, peeling off to his left. Most of the demons joined him, but a few stopped and raised weapons.
Moments later, arrows and spells burst from the trees beyond. The thunder of falling trees filled Vallis’s ears. Men screamed battle cries as they charged at them from a thousand feet away.
She barely heard one of them screaming orders.
“They’re heading east! Let them know they’ve got company,” one of the ambushers shouted.
The accent was foreign. Likely from Gauron, but none of the attackers appeared to wear any emblems or regalia that gave away who had sent them.
“Terry, there’s another group,” Vallis said.
He grunted, his eyes scanning the surrounding trees. “I know.”
Oh. Fuck.
Chances are that he’d known about the group they ran into. His soulsight worked at a much longer range than the ambush had been triggered at.
How many people were trying to kill her? Letting a few assassins sneak into the palace servants was one thing, but this felt like a small army in the Kingdom.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the forest exploded around them. Splinters erupted into the air and leaves turned to ribbons.
Terry roared an order at the other demons. “Push through!”
He didn’t slow. A dozen men came into view, all with swords and shields. Their eyes widened when they saw Terry’s bulk coming at them like a loaded carriage rolling down a hill.
Their swords bounced off his carapace. He sent them flying in return, bowling them over like toys. More spells flew at them. Shouts rose from the fallen enemies, and more men rushed at them from nearby.
Terry kept running. Within thirty seconds, they lost the remaining demons.
When she realized that, the crack of magic filled her senses. Terry tumbled to the ground, and she rolled across the brush and rough forest floor.
“Terry!” she shouted, rising to her feet.
“Run,” he grunted. His axe was in his hands as he turned to fight off the mage and dozen soldiers behind him.
For a moment, Vallis wanted to refuse him. Her combat training from the mage tower rose to the front of her mind. She knew a dozen spells that could help.
Then reality hit her like a rock. Her arms shook, and she could barely feel her fingers. The mage who had cast the spell was already preparing another one, and she didn’t recognize it.
She was out of her league. Everything so far had been to get her as far away from the enemy as possible. Trying to fight now was idiocy.
So she ran.
She made it maybe a hundred meters before she tripped and rolled down an embankment. Groaning, she tried to rise to her feet. Her ankle screamed in protest.
“Fuck,” she whined.
“That sounds like a great idea. Can’t believe we found the best prize, and she’s got bigger tits than I expected,” a male voice said.
Vallis looked up at the attackers. Five of them closed on her. They were covered in blood, and a few sported light wounds. Had these been the ones that escaped Terry? Or had something else taken place?
A pithy response came to mind. She wanted to call them unoriginal assholes. When she had first met Rys, they had some similarly awful shit. What was it with two-bit mercenaries and being lecherous bastards who fantasized about her tits?
But she didn’t say anything. Fear stilled her tongue as she tried to stand and run away.
“Rys,” she mumbled.
This would be a great time for him to fulfill his earlier promise.
The furthest attacker fell into several pieces without making a noise. His remains hitting the forest floor was the first thing that alerted his friends to the new arrival.
Vallis simply stared in wonder at her savior.
The other four barely had time to turn before they were blown apart or cut to pieces. One was lit on fire, another had his entire head blown off and sent flying across the forest. When one tried to run, he simply collapsed to the ground as if something had shattered his organs from afar.
Only one fought back. The twin blades of the attacker cut him into pieces.
“Mina?” Vallis gasped out. She hadn’t known the spymaster was this terrifying and horrifically strong.
Her savior tilted her head, and her four white tails moved in the same direction. She looked identical to Mina, save for the clothing. A fox with long white hair, but who wore a set of simple merchant’s clothing.
“No, you’re not Mina,” Vallis said, as she spotted the one difference.
The fox followed Vallis’s gaze and stared at her own chest. She let out a huff. “It seems you know my sister. Surprising. I guess she takes after Mom more than expected.”
Then Mina’s sister twirled her twin short swords and continued walking toward Vallis, a smile on her face.