by Dawn Chapman
The world around us all was blasted by freezing cold winds. I glanced to the sky in time to see the Tromoal making one last pass. Not with a fiery breath but frozen icicles. They slammed into the creatures around us, taking off heads, slicing through bodies, and exposing innards. Gore splashed all over her face and neck as the Tromoal finally came into land—right beside Lila, just as he’d promised.
Sheer terror plastered Gestal’s face. But he held tight, and although she kept trying to wriggle out of it, he was too strong.
The Tromoal lowered its head to bare its teeth at Gestal, and we all looked on in shock as we saw there was someone—no, not someone, but something atop the giant creature.
“This fight, my dear, is not for you.” The massive demon slid down with such grace that landing on his feet was nothing but a hop, but to Lila, it would have been a fall and a broken leg or worse.
The darkness surrounding this creature was intense. I knew who he was, and like every creature in the courtyard, one thought crossed my mind—to kneel.
When they did, however, I did not.
His muscular upper half shone in the moonlight, and I had to readjust my jaw. How could something so evil seem so heavenly?
I was close enough to hear their exchange.
“This is my fight,” Lila said, her gaze on his. Even though he could have blinked and killed all of us in the courtyard. “I want to kill him.” It came out almost with a growl.
The demon walked toward her. He didn’t need to say anything else. His presence was enough to make Lila step back.
Gestal’s grip tightened on his sword, and the new demon drew his.
“You’re challenging me?” Gestal asked.
“I could take everything you have, right here, now. But that would be against the terms we abide by on Puatera.”
Gestal’s eyes lit up. “Challenge accepted, my lord.”
So, my instincts were correct. I was looking at Kamaal. The demon lord. I’d heard rumours, and many, many dark stories. But he was here. Now. No matter how much I loved this world and wanted to protect it, I wondered what kind of impact I could ever make on someone of his stature. I was tiny.
“Lila, we should go.” A small critter tugged at her sleeve, and she glanced down at him. “This will not end so well with Kamaal here.”
I noticed the way the energy around the two demons was pooling.
“No,” Lila said to him. “I’m not leaving.” The glint in Denny’s eyes changed, and I saw regret from him directed to her. Was he a friend? “This is your time to get out!” Lila said. “Go.”
The smaller creature backed away slowly, never taking his eyes from his master, Gestal. But then he turned and bolted off, never looking back.
The energy the demon lord was giving off was enough that all ties to Gestal were loosening. His minions had stopped fighting and were looking around as though they had no clue what they were doing. Alia looked at me, and then the Tromoal. A few of Gestal’s creatures had taken to flee as soon as weapons were drawn, but there were several loyal ones that stood fast.
The Tromoal, with its huge head resting on the ground beside Lila, stared directly in her direction.
You really are a little one, the voice resounded inside my head, as well.
She tried to shrug off the comment, her snarky personality not quite coming through for her because she really thought she was his dinner. That’s just you being mean, right?
It chuckled at her, but it then also looked toward me.
Who is that? Lila asked the Tromoal, looking to the two demons as they circled each other, about to start landing blows. She had no idea she looked upon the true demon lord, lord of all. She’d been tricked into thinking that Gestal was that powerful. I mean he was, but not on this guy’s level. Kamaal dwarfed everyone I’d ever met in my life. Even Riezella.
I made my way a little closer to her with Noc by my side. I approached her with care but held out my hand for the ring.
She took it off and passed it back to me with a weary, “Thank you.”
“No,” I said. “Thank you. I never even thought he might have been baiting us both.”
I turned to the Tromoal and placed a hand on his nose. As rotten as it was, his energy drew me in, on a level that no one else could understand. I twisted the ring on my finger and felt that familiar boost the levels gave me. After the brief fighting I had just had, I needed it. It also helped pull me back to their connection, and I stared into the eyes of the terrifying monster that really was before me. He also hadn’t and wouldn’t harm Lila. Because of the ring?
I couldn’t help but notice then how much darker it was getting. I looked back to the demon fight, though it was hard to see them as they moved quickly.
The Tromoal moved his tail, curling it around us in a wide arc. His scales shone as magical energies spread out to counter the effects that may come from the fight.
“For protection,” I said to Lila. “The energy the demons are going to give off will be toxic.”
She tried to follow the logic but couldn’t.
I placed a hand on her shoulder, and she glanced up at me. “You brought him here. How?”
She pointed to the ring as it glowed gently on my finger. “I asked for help. I didn’t know if it would work.”
I tried to smile at her. “The Tromoal are amazing creatures. But I never thought the demon lord would have ensnared some.”
The voice that came back rumbled through my very soul.
“There are many of us who crossed the line,” the Tromoal said. “But we are free to roam where our souls desire.”
From the other side of his large scaly tail, I could see the fight was turning. Though Gestal was strong, at least compared to Lila and me, he had nothing on Kamaal. It didn’t even look like the demon lord had broken out a sweat, toying with his subject. He was on his feet at least and trying to fight—until he couldn’t stand anymore—and then he dropped.
I watched as Lila’s face fell with him. I noticed the light in his eyes fading. He was dying, and Kamaal was enjoying it. Kamaal stepped forward, raising his sword, towering over Gestal, about to take his head.
Lila ran out from the protective stance of the Tromoal, right in front of Kamaal as he was about to land a killing blow.
“Don’t,” she begged. “Please.”
He looked down at her, and I cringed. He would kill her too surely?
But instead, he asked. “Why should I not kill this insolent pathetic creature?”
“Because we need him.” Lila looked around at the creatures of the city that hadn’t fled. Those that were gazing on with hurt on their faces. “Well, they need him, I don’t. I just want to find my sisters.”
I couldn’t quite believe she’d said that, but she had. She believed it. The demon lord touched the side of his face. “Sisters?” He stared at her and grinned. “You look a lot like her, actually.”
“Dahlia?” she mumbled.
Behind her, Gestal was rising.
Lila turned to him and ordered. “Stay down!”
I noticed her eye change focus, and I heard my own quest notification. I read.
QUEST UPDATED – RETURN WITH KAMAAL AND LILA. UNITE THEM IN THE WAR FOR MAICREOL.
“It seems we don’t have a lot of time to return, Matriarch,” the Tromoal said to me. I stared into his deep and purple eyes. “How did you get here?”
“The portal, of course.”
I also saw there was that timer once more.
YOU HAVE 2 DAYS
I approached Kamaal and Lila, my ring glowing in the darkness. Just enough that I could make out their full forms and faces. “Your Tromoal told me you came through the same portal we did. Do you think you can find it again?” There was something about the way she stared at me.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a time limit on our return, and we’re pushing it as it is.”
Lila lost herself for a moment then her eyes widened.
“There’
s an update!”
It had given us all two days. But we’d not seen an update.
QUEST UPDATE – GET TO HELLS PASS TO JOIN THE WAR OR BE LOST IN TRIDON, FOREVER.
0 days.
So, now that was almost two days ago.
“Maddie.” Tears started to form, and I placed her hands in mine and turned to the people she’d arrived with.
Steve ran toward us. “We’ve time if we’ve got a ride. Especially now that damned clock’s ticking properly!”
“It wasn’t?” Lila asked.
“Long story, but no, there’s a lot I don’t understand,” Steve tried to explain to her. “This timeline, you, your sisters. It’s been weird. Messed up. But it started ticking when we met you. I think the system needed us to meet for it to start off again.”
“Okay, then if we can get there, quickly, I’m all for it. I’m ready.” Lila glanced at Noc who was watching us all from the Tromoal’s side.
“I need to deal with this and this city.” Kamaal noted the half-dead Gestal behind me.
“Alia, Noc!” Lila shouted. “I think you guys can handle integrating Gestal and his minions into being more cooperative?”
Alia almost spat out her teeth. Kamaal stared at her and around the courtyard. “You need these creatures here, just as much as you need your own guild to succeed,” Kamaal said. “I will return to help you as soon as I get our mutual friends to Maicreol.”
“I’m going with them,” Noc said to his mother and stood by Lila’s other side. That I’d not expected at all. I didn’t think she’d agree either, but she nodded to him, agreeing. What hold did she have over him, that he’d follow her and me into war?
The Tromoal spread its wings out once more. Huge, fine, and leathery. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have wings, to fly. But looking to the people who surrounded me, who had protected me and freed me from the spell Gestal had cast on me in the first place, I didn’t mind where the future would take me because I knew it was to Maicreol. To my friends and Lila’s sisters.
Noc helped Lila onto the Tromoal and climbed behind her and one of the creature’s large spikes. He wedged her in, then he wrapped his arms around her. She smiled at me, but it was a nervous smile.
Steve climbed up and offered his hand for me. I took it and hauled my ass up on the large beast. Kamaal jumped up, and within seconds, the Tromoal pushed off with his strong legs. The city was hundreds of feet and then thousands of feet below us. The ocean shone ahead in the moonlight, and there it was, something twinkled in the waters.
We approached at an extremely high speed, and as the water drew closer, I realised the Tromoal was aiming for it and that the portal had been under it, not above it. To get to it to Maicreol, we were diving.
We hit the water at speeds I couldn’t comprehend. The freezing shock sank in deep, but within seconds, we were out. Out into the scorching heat of a bright summer’s day, above the red and sandy lands I knew and loved so much.
WELCOME BACK MADDIE - THE WAR HAS BEGUN
Chapter 12
As we rode on the back of this ferocious Tromoal, I thought back to their situation. It had been too long. There were far too many mistakes made. People had died even if we had found Lila.
She was a strange girl, nothing like I thought she might be, and really nothing like Jessica at all. She was feisty and not down for following orders. I had found her to be the strangest of Visitors I’d ever come across, and I hadn’t got to know her that well either.
Steve had been a great person to have around. He not only kept us in touch with Abel but with Dresel too. All these things were interesting, and the more I learned from them both, the more it seemed to just put all the pieces of this puzzle together. I was finally starting to work out what I wanted to do next.
It felt so good to have the wind of Maicreol back in my hair, the desert sands drifting below me, and I wanted nothing more than to go back to the roots of everything, the caving system, but I also knew I couldn’t. There would be no going back just yet. I had to get to Hells Pass and to let both—no, all the sisters be together once more. Maybe then they’d finally get to go home.
That, we weren’t sure of, but I hoped so at least. I would hate it if they were still here and stuck after everything we had been through to finally try to get them together.
The Tromoal shifted beneath me and finally started to come in for its landing. There was one thing I knew I didn’t ever enjoy, and that was coming down. The warm air that blasted up as he spread his leathery wings out was something that could almost cut you.
Then, with a thud, we landed.
Steve helped me down, and I waited while Lila and Noc joined us. The young girl had large bright eyes, and she really wanted nothing more than to search the whole town for her sisters, I was sure. I honestly didn’t know if they would be here. The fact was, the portal had shifted, and we weren’t as close to home as I had been when we first stepped inside it, in Doctor Foster’s basement. I just didn’t know how they’d moved it or what it had taken.
“They moved the portal!” I said.
Steve looked at me with a blank face. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Better positions for fighting, for keeping things at bay?”
Lila pointed ahead as we all saw there was something moving. I saw the dust track of a vehicle—several vehicles.
I swallowed. Who was it? Were they coming for us?
Instinct blasted through me, and I went for my daggers. Lila and Noc followed suit, but it was Lila who stepped in front of me like I was the one that needed protecting.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Sorry, you’re a protected commodity around here. Without you, I don’t know if I will ever be able to find my sisters.”
I could see her point, but It felt weird to let a child also tell me she was my protection. I placed a hand on her shoulder and said quietly. “I’ll be good. There’s nothing better than having people around you that have your back. Thank you. But we fight together, okay?”
When she looked up at me, I could almost see the abuse and the pain she’d been through in the last few months in Puatera. The city she’d been spawned in was not the nicest. Kamaal had filled us in with some of these things on the way over.
Though Steve had been with me, there was a lot of distance between us. Seating near Kamaal had been important for the Tromoal to know that although his master was in control, he was not the only one with a kill switch, so to speak.
I guess I did, and I guess I do—they all had my back. I turned the ring slightly in my hand. It felt great to have it back. Lending it out wasn’t something I really wanted to do ever again.
It was mine, and it had to stay that way.
I could almost hear Dalfol in the distance, his voice so far away. I wondered if there’d been anything new with the clutches in the caves.
That was it then. My mind drifted back to Alex, and I was heartbroken.
I leaned back against the Tromoal. The slimy feel of his flesh wasn’t nice, but I accepted it and found enough comfort from it that I wasn’t alone anymore. There were people with me that I now cared for.
There was plenty to see ahead of us though, and the long blonde hair of someone familiar riding a motorcycle almost sped right up to us.
“Weapons away. They’re friendly!” Steve said.
It was indeed good to see them—Candice and her Savage Angels.
She pulled off her helmet, and I saw nothing but an ear to ear grin as her eyes roamed over my body. “Damned girl, you put on some weight?”
Heat flushed up my neck, and Steve held up his hand. “Please don’t. She’s feeling a little sensitive about it.”
I wasn’t happy then that all the guys on their bikes dismounted and came over, paying my new figure more attention than I wanted.
“No malice intended, girl. You look amazing.” Candice smiled. “Looks like you put on just more than weight.” She totally ignored Steve. “Been gone quite a while though,
Maddie. What’s been going on?”
I could have taken quite some time to fill her in, but I didn’t want to bore her, and I also wanted the low down on what had been happening in Maicreol. There was a lot I couldn’t see. Hells Pass seemed very different. The atmosphere was altered, probably forever.
I looked around hoping Doctor Foster was about, but he wasn’t. “What happened here first?”
Candice’s face fell. “There’s been some rival gangs coming in from the desert plains. They’ve been causing a lot of bother for Hells Pass. Not just in trade but in many other ways. They were trying to run Foster out. It was Mark who alerted us that we needed to come back down from the DNA farms.”
I suddenly remembered her last mission to go and rid the mayor’s lands of those horribly altered cattle and animals. But it seemed that something else had happened. I worried about her and the others. Visitors or not.
Candice slipped an arm around me. She’d not even batted an eyelid at the large demon I was with. She pulled me away from them, though, and walked me back to her bikes.
“There’s been a lot happen, Maddie.” She then carried on, and even though no one else could hear, she whispered, “There’s been word the war was paused, but no sooner had you appeared, it seemed everything was back on and tenfold. There’s a lot of scared people this side of the lands.”
Tibex?
Let Candice fill you in. They’ve done wonders here. Be proud of them.
“I don’t fully understand.”
She could see that, and she nodded. “Come on. We need to get these sisters together, and then I think we can settle in for a chat about what’s been happening to both of us. Deal?”
I nodded, waving Lila and her friend over.
There was a great need in her to see her sisters. I could see and sense the excitement. It felt good to see what was going to happen here.
Candice and the others mounted their bikes once more, and I motioned for Lila and Noc to follow suit. It would be good for them to do this, to be on a vehicle and not the back of a Tromoal. I glanced back to the demon lord, but he just bowed his head to me. The Tromoal was the one who spoke. “My lord will be waiting in the nearest dark tavern. You will find him there, later.”
