by Evan Currie
The Ninth Circle demon grunted, probably all it was physically and mentally capable of, and shambled off.
Disgusting things.
Tel shuddered in revulsion of touching the weak demon, wiped his hand against his leather armor, and turned his focus back to the task. They were almost done—that was what he had to focus on. They were almost done.
*****
“Almost there,” Caleb whispered as he crept through the last bit of jungle, intently aware of the large number of snakes and other animals all within mere feet or, in some cases, inches of him.
He was only moving through the ring of lethal animals because Merlin had assured him that his armor would be impervious to all but the largest and deadliest of beasts . . . none of which were currently on the island, thankfully. Some of the sea life might have given him problems, but his armor hadn’t even been tested.
None of them had so much as looked in his direction, and at most, the few he’d disturbed by approaching too closely had just shifted and moved out of his way.
This is too weird.
More than weird, it was creepy. There was a large cat sitting calmly just a few feet away from him, perched on a branch above an angry-looking boar. Both were sharing space with spiders and snakes that normally went well out of their way to avoid company of any sort. Caleb would be the first to admit his knowledge of the subject was spotty at best, but even he knew that this situation was just incredibly odd.
“I’m through.”
“Are you okay?” Simone’s voice asked, coming over his suit through the device Merlin had provided for her.
“I’m fine. They just ignored me,” he said. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Maybe it’s the armor?” Simone suggested.
“It is not,” Merlin cut in. “Animals of varying sorts have been known to strike at armor in the past. They almost never have the power to penetrate it, but that never stops them from trying. I am afraid that I am at a loss to explain any of this. It is entirely beyond my experience . . . and that, I will say, is deeply troubling to me.”
“I’m happy with them not attacking,” Caleb put in.
“I would be much happier with understanding why they are not attacking,” Merlin responded, “and thus being able to predict whether they will attack later.”
“He has a point, Caleb,” Simone said apprehensively. “The rest of us have to move through without that armor. It’s a little worrying.”
Caleb winced.
It was a fair point.
“Well, nothing to be done about it,” Simone said. “We’re coming through. Watch the demons, Caleb. We’ll worry about the animals and our own skins.”
Caleb nodded, settling in to wait and watch as he tried very hard not to pay too much attention to all the things that crawled around him. “Just go slow. I think they’ll move out of your way.”
*****
Go slow he says. Simone cringed as she started forward. Easy for him to say.
She waved the others on but signaled for them to follow her as she took the lead. She did as he suggested, and it wasn’t too bad. She didn’t even see anything at first and had gone several feet into the thickening jungle around the edge of the clearing before the first snake slithered over her feet and she froze.
Simone took a break, let it move on, and then continued forward.
“So far so good,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone else, but if some of the others heard it . . . well, all the better.
By the time she made it halfway to Caleb, the animals and insects were so thick she had to move incredibly slowly just to avoid stepping on any. No matter what was up with them, Simone expected that stepping on a snake would earn her a bite. So she moved slowly, she shuffled her steps, and she prayed just a little.
She could hear the branches cracking behind her as the others followed and the occasional soft curses and muffled shrieks as they encountered the “locals” themselves.
“Quiet,” Simone hissed over her shoulder, gulping down the tightness in her throat and gut herself as she turned back forward and continued to move. Please don’t let these things turn on us. It’ll be a massacre.
Falling into a group of animals as deadly as the ones around her would be a bad way to die; she knew that better than most. Simone, in her younger days, had ventured far from the badlands and the arid grounds of her old home. If the beasts around her decided to turn on them, it would be over quickly . . . but not painlessly.
Ahead of her she spotted Caleb and breathed a sigh of relief when she did, slumping in place for a moment before pressing on.
Caleb waved to her and she nodded, but before she could do or say more, his quiet but authoritative cough shook her from the brief contemplation of success. Simone turned her head slowly to the left. Just a handful of feet away, a great black cat was staring at her with interest clear in its eyes, yet no sign that it was planning on attacking.
Simone stared back, knowing without any doubt that the animal could smell her fear. She could smell her fear; there was no way any of the beasts around her could possibly miss it.
The beast, though, seemed amused by her, rather than either threatened or eying her hungrily.
It was the single most terrifying, yet curious, moment in her life.
And that, Simone thought darkly, was actually saying something.
Then, finally, she was at Caleb’s side, and behind her the others were slowly taking up positions around them. Simone looked to either side of herself, along the edge of the jungle and the clearing, and then up to where the stones were now in sight.
“What do you see?” she asked Caleb finally as she tried not to focus too much on what was crawling around and over her feet.
“Demons,” he answered, his expression unreadable behind the helmet. “Lots of them. Humans too.”
“The slaves?” she asked.
Caleb nodded. “They’re being gathered together and pushed toward the stones. Must be more work about to go on.”
“I wish we had better weapons.” Simone sighed.
“I wish Elan were here,” Caleb responded as he flexed his arm and tightened his grip around the iron sword he carried. “She has more experience with this armor. I’m not sure what I can do with it, not for sure.”
“Just try not to kill any of us,” Simone said, smiling slightly.
She’d heard his stories and playful taunts as they’d been aimed at Elan, as had most of the small colony of survivors. The idea of having that much strength on call both excited and terrified her, as Simone had an idea of just how badly things could go . . . especially with a lack of experience behind that strength.
It meant that she would have to let Caleb fight alone for the most part, for fear that he might accidentally harm any support she could offer him. It was something that did not sit well with her, but ultimately there was nothing she could do about it.
“Is everyone in place?” she asked, half turning to see if she could spot everyone.
There had been no screaming, so it seemed like things weren’t going too badly beyond their original plans. She was about to pass a message down the line when Caleb just nodded.
“Merlin says we’re all ready,” he said. “We’ll be able to . . . wait, what’s going on?”
“Where?” Simone asked.
Caleb pointed, then his arm fell as his body jerked upright, exposing his head to the demons, if any were looking.
“They’re killing the slaves!” he hissed. “We have to go! Now!”
“Caleb! Wait . . . we need to be . . . Damn!” Simone gritted her words out through clenched teeth as the boy charged from cover. “Everyone, go! Go! Go!”
Simone just hoped the rest of the fight went better than the start.
*****
Merlin would have cursed if he were the sort to do so, but he wasn’t, so he just watched the boy charge into the fight with an unwelcome and unfamiliar feeling of helplessness rising up around him. He wasn’t ent
irely out of the fight, of course. There were still a few of the probes in the area, and they could do some things. Just not nearly as much as he would prefer.
He was leaning into the process of watching the fight and trying to determine just how to respond with those probes when he was startled by his connection to Elan vanishing utterly.
The elemental intelligence snapped his focus over but couldn’t find his other charge at all and was forced to quickly review the last few seconds of her suit telemetry.
The image of the large female demon crushing the helmet with a single taloned hand floated in front of him for several moments before it truly sank in.
And at that point, Merlin truly felt helpless.
Chapter 20
Ser’Goth growled as she cleaned the dirt off her armor and checked the damage the human had managed to do with her bare hands!
While her armor was not of the quality of some of the legendary smiths, it was runically enhanced. No human should have been able to harm it, not even if they’d fired at it from one of their mass accelerators. Yet that slip of a child had all but torn a hole clear through the chest plate with a single strike.
My own blasted fault. Ser’Goth chastised herself for having forgotten the earlier strike the girl had nailed her with when she’d destroyed the child’s own armor. Ser’Goth knew that she had gotten too deeply involved in playing with Jol because of their personal connection, and she’d let that girl’s surprising ability slip her mind until it was forced in her face again.
She spoke a power word when she threw that blow, Ser’Goth thought grimly, wondering just how any human even knew of power words, let alone was capable of using them.
She turned her head, noting the assembled demons waiting on her orders. Others had already gone off in pursuit, but whoever had stepped in to recover the two fools appeared to know their way around the city.
I believe I’ve seen them with Jol in the past. Ser’Goth scowled at the memory. She had believed them to be of no import, likely some human slaves who had taken the boy in when he was orphaned.
The demoness considered that for a moment and wondered if that should have been a tip-off. She’d taken an interest in Jol in part because he was a rather impressive specimen of humanity, body and mind, but also because she remembered his parents . . . and it pleased her to treat their son as her own personal toy until it was time to kill him.
Those two must have been compatriots of his parents. That would explain their interest in the feisty little troublemaker. Few humans would put up with a child as unwilling to bend as he.
That was problematic. She had thought that the rebellion in her city had been stamped out, but if they were compatriots of Jolinr’s parents . . . it was possible she hadn’t finished the job half so well as she believed.
“Scour the city,” she ordered. “Leave no building unsearched, no alley unchecked. I want those four. Alive if possible, dead is more than acceptable, but I want them.”
“My lady!” The closest demon acknowledged the order, saluting, then turned to relay the orders. In moments the square was all but empty of everyone but Herself and those still working to prepare the circle of stones. She turned to where the overseer was watching the work progress and walked over to him.
“How long to finish?” she asked darkly.
“We’ll have to herd in some more sacrifices,” he answered. “Most of them scattered during the first few moments of the fight.”
“I’ll see to it,” she promised. “Is that all?”
The overseer hesitated but nodded resolutely while he kept his silence.
Ser’Goth looked at him through narrowing eyes. “What is it? Speak.”
The demon grimaced, looking aside for a moment. “The rune-master you assigned, my lady . . .”
“What of him?” she asked, scowling.
She hadn’t, in fact, assigned the rune-masters. They had been dispatched from below, but she had seen nothing to surprise her when she had looked them over upon arrival.
“It’s not my place to speak,” the overseer said hesitantly. “However, I do not believe that he is a master.”
“What?” she asked, sharply looking over to where the demon in question was working. “Are you sure?”
The overseer shook his head slowly. “No certainty, my lady. Just suspicions. His work is . . . adequate, but even I can see the variance in it.”
If anything, her eyes narrowed further. Variance in a rune was not something a nonspecialist should be able to note. There was a reason she had picked the overseer for his position, and his knowledge of runic skills was one of the very short list that put him in it.
“Will the gate work?” she asked softly.
“As best I can determine, my lady, yes.” The overseer nodded firmly. “I am more concerned with the defenses he has emplaced.”
“Oh?”
“Blood warding, my lady.”
A deep chill passed down her spine as those words echoed in her head.
Blood warding.
Of all the things runic that existed, that was one of the least understood and most dangerous. Blood, whether it be demonic or human, was powerful. It carried elemental magics, arcane potential, and had a powerful ground already inherent within the liquid. It was one of the most potent sources of power that existed, weight for weight and volume for volume. Misused, it was incredibly dangerous.
If the runic master was no such thing, then the chances of misuse exploding in all their faces were . . . extreme.
“I see,” she said stonily. “I will look into it. For now, however, we are locked in. Complete the circle.”
The overseer nodded grimly, saluting in response. “It will be done.”
*****
Pain greeted her like an old friend when she opened her eyes, and Elan just groaned before closing them again.
“I need to stop waking up like this,” she grumbled unhappily.
A low chuckle from over her head rolled through the room, and she opened her eyes again, squinting against the pain.
“That’s a refrain I’ve heard more than once in the past,” Sindri told her as he walked around and into her line of sight.
“Where are we?” Elan asked, struggling to get up.
“Safe,” he told her, “for now, at least. You stirred up the hornets for a whole lot of nothing, though, girl. Herself has the whole damned city being torn apart looking for you and Jol.” The short man seemed to consider that, then shrugged. “And us too now, I suppose. Doubt she knows who we are, but she knows we’re not just a pair of dumb human slaves getting by in the demon city.”
A sharp laugh came from the other side, and she twisted to see Brokkr standing over Jolinr. “Yer not wrong there, brother. Our cover in this place is well and truly blown.”
“I apologize for that.” Elan said as she got properly upright. “I thought my sidearm would do the job.”
“Probably would have if the stones weren’t warded against kinesis,” Brokkr told her. “And while you shouldn’t go trying to do it again, our time here was coming to an end anyway so don’t worry about it.”
“Kinesis?” Elan asked, only to reach for her skull as a blast of details flashed in front of her mind and she keeled over. “Oh God, what was that?”
“Kinesis?” Sindri asked, not looking at her as he checked out a window. “It’s energy in motion. Your caster fires . . .”
“Magnetically contained pellets of antihydrogen,” she answered, her tone a little dull, as though repeating from rote. “The warding canceled the kinetic energy of the pellet, sinking the energy into the ward scheme and freezing the pellets in place until the containment failed . . .”
Elan looked up, noticing that the two brothers were staring at her with their jaws akimbo.
“What?” she asked, eyes flicking between them.
“Just surprised you knew that, child,” Sindri told her. “You didn’t seem to know that much about your gear, let alone runes, earlier.”
“I . . .” Elan paused, confused. She looked down, genuine puzzlement on her face. “I don’t know where that came from.”
“You don’t know where . . .?” Brokkr stiffened, eyes locking on her as he half reached for a weapon.
A gesture from Sindri caused him to hold his action.
“You’ve been exposed to too many mental influences, child,” Sindri said with a shake of his head. “The Nim, demons, even Kaern, I suppose, now that I consider it.”
“Kaern?” Elan’s eyes widened as she shifted nervously.
“Unlikely he did any harm,” Sindri assured her. “If he’d wanted to, you’d be dead or worse. He was never one known for half measures when dealing with an enemy, nor for violating the rights of anyone who didn’t meet that description. The Nim, though, they’re another story. If they had any cause, real or imagined, they’d twist your brains into mush with little hesitation . . . and demons are worse.”
Elan stared, unbelieving. “Worse than mush?”
Sindri laughed. “The Nim will leave you your will. They’re bound not to interfere with that. Demons don’t give a damn.”
“I . . . really don’t know what to say to that,” she said, pushing herself to her feet as she looked back to where Jol was still unconscious. “How is he?”
“He’ll live,” Brokkr answered gruffly. “Like as not he’ll wake soon, and we’ll be able to move.”
She nodded, edging over to the window to glance out. There wasn’t much to be seen. They were low in one of the city’s buildings, and it was shadowed and dark outside. Without her armor, she couldn’t pierce that veil, and Elan felt a little more vulnerable in the moment.
“We’ll have to leave the city,” Sindri said. “No option there. Can you get Jol out the way you came in?”
Elan nodded absently, then frowned. “What about the two of you?”
“We have our own way out,” Sindri told her. “Don’t worry about us. Jol will be better with you, I think.”
Elan sighed. “We can’t leave those stones intact.”
Brokkr snorted. “You talk like you have a choice, girl. You tried; you failed.”
