Demonkin

by T. Eric Bakutis

  Jyllith's davenger was done for, no matter the outcome. Her murder of Malkavet had confirmed that Mavoureen regenerated at a freakish pace, but not when wounded by their own. Neither davenger would recover.

  She took the dream world and scribed Fingers of Breath as she searched for the demon's master. A single orange dream form knelt in the copse that had hidden the davenger. A Demonkin who wanted her dead.

  Jyllith launched her Fingers of Breath and then flexed her arms out and in. That curved her vortexes so they tore up clumps of pine needles and shredded the bark off the trees of the copse. Her attacker screamed as bark needles shredded their chest and face. They collapsed.

  Jyllith turned to her davenger and found it losing. She scribed a Hand of Breath, slamming it down on the enemy davenger. That stunned the demon long enough for her own davenger to claw out the enemy demon's eyes and brain. The sight turned her stomach.

  Her own davenger collapsed atop the corpse, black blood pooling as it coughed and struggled. The enemy davenger had ripped it open from neck to pelvis and one of its leg had come off. It twitched now, dying slow.

  Jyllith wondered if the demon felt pain. This davenger had saved her, selflessly intercepting her attacker at the cost of its own life. She shook off guilt — the demon was a broken tool, nothing more — and marched to the copse hiding her attacker. Time to learn who wanted her dead.

  Other than this Demonkin, she saw no orange dream forms save a few squirrels and a rabbit huddled in its burrow. Jyllith knelt by her attacker and dropped the dream world. It was dark now, but the full moon revealed who had tried to murder her.

  He was just a boy, with brown hair cut close to his skull and tan skin. Southern stock, likely Tellvan. He wore a wool shirt, hide pants, and battered leather boots. Blood-stained hands clutched his face.

  He was actually crying.

  “Stop that,” Jyllith ordered. “Stop crying.” What kind of a sad fool wouldn't even fight for their life?

  “Who are you?” The boy wiped at his face, at his blood, and sniffled. “Why did you hurt Torch?”

  “Why did you try to kill me?” Jyllith took the dream world again. “Don't lie. I'll know if you lie.”

  She focused until she could make out the smaller components within his dream form: heart, lungs, arteries, and veins. Bloodmenders learned to pick those from the countless tangles inside a human body, and it was quite possible she would need to break those tangles tonight.

  “Where did you get a davenger?” the boy asked instead.

  Jyllith traced an inverted soothing glyph on the boy’s chest. He screamed, back arching, as her glyph made his wounds burn ten times worse. She hated herself for every moment she made him hurt, but she knew no faster way to break him. More Demonkin could be coming.

  “Answer me.” Jyllith mussed her glyph so he could speak and think again. “Or you'll spend the rest of the night screaming just like that.”

  Hurting people like this was what Cantrall made her do to those who opposed him. Her memories of those awful deeds were why she cried herself to sleep at night. No one deserved this.

  “I guard the hill, that's it!” The boy sobbed and shivered. “I swear!”

  Jyllith watched his body in the dream world. He spoke truth, and it disturbed her how fast she had broken him. Had she grown so monstrous?

  “What's your name?”

  He hugged himself. “Calun.”

  “Who sent you to guard this hill, Calun?”

  “I can't tell you that. I swore not too. If I do that he'll—”

  Jyllith scribed her inverse soothing glyph again, and this time she drew it on his forehead. Calun shrieked loud enough to send a rabbit running. His face must feel like it was being shredded.

  Jyllith mussed the glyph and straddled him. “Last warning. Answer my questions or die.”

  “Divad sent me!” The boy trembled beneath her. “I use Torch to capture anyone who gets too close, and then—”

  “Capture?” Jyllith gripped his neck, applying pressure. “You tried to kill me.”

  “Capture you!” Calun insisted, batting at her wrist. “Then bring you back! That's what we do to hostile mages!”

  “How many mages have you captured?”

  “Five?” Calun coughed as her hands crushed his neck. “No, six. The one last week makes six.”

  “Why does Divad have you capture these mages?”

  “For the army. We use them for the army.”

  “You make them into davengers.” Jyllith throttled Calun, seeing nothing but the terrified faces of those she had sent to the Underside. Calun choked, coughed, and batted at her hands. He couldn't breathe.

  How many innocent souls had these Demonkin banished to the Underside, to eternal torture by the Mavoureen? Was the davenger that hers had ripped apart the remains of one of the mages Calun captured? How many had this boy damned?

  Less than her. Far less than her. Jyllith was no different and if anything, she was worse. She was the psychotic woman strangling a captive with her bare hands.

  Jyllith made herself release Calun and stood. Stepped back. It was all she could do to keep herself from trembling. She didn't want to be a monster anymore, but she had promised Melyssa.

  “Who else guards Knoll Point?” Jyllith asked.

  Calun sucked down breath as he clutched his purpled neck. Jyllith didn't hurt him again. What would be the point?

  “Rala's to the north,” Calun rasped, once he had enough breath to speak. “She has one davenger. Xel's out south with his defiler.”

  Jyllith felt a deep chill. Defilers were far harder to create than davengers, impossible to cut and capable of blocking a mage's power with a simple touch. The only thing that could destroy them was fire, and only if a mage caught them before they slipped into the shadows.

  Defilers had been rare even in the days of the All Province War. They could only be summoned through a very specific trade: a child's soul. Even the most fervent of Tassaun mages had hesitated to send children to the Underside, a particular sacrifice favored by their matron, Hecata.

  Cantrall used defilers to chain Melyssa Honuron during the search for Kara, but he had never told Jyllith how they were made. She only learned the truth afterward, in the library of Terras. The revelation still sickened her, and it was just one more reason she hated Cantrall.

  Hecata did not torture the souls of sacrificed children. She did far worse. She taught those children to murder, grinding away kindness, empathy, and innocence until only a feral demon remained. All Hecata's court guards were children, innocent and wide-eyed. Until they gleefully tore people apart.

  That truth was one of many horrifying revelations Elders Hirsute and Gale had recorded in their now banned tome of demonic research, Contacts with the Underside. If only the other elders at Terras had listened.

  “There's no one else,” Calun whispered. “Please. No one else is out here but me and Torch.”

  Jyllith glanced at the piled demon corpses. “You named it?”

  “I told you everything.” His voice trembled. “Please, don't hurt me anymore.”

  Jyllith hugged herself and saw terrified faces. The desperation in Calun's voice matched her victims from her time with Cantrall. She would never find redemption for her horrific crimes, but she was not doing this for redemption. She was doing it because no one else could.

  “I'm done hurting you.” Jyllith forced herself to look at him. “When do you return to town?”

  “Not until morning. I can't be relieved until sun up. Divad says so.”

  That gave her time. She ached everywhere, even more after expended blood to defeat Calun. She should return to her camp. The only remaining question was if Calun went with her ... or she killed him here.

  Jyllith whistled. Her remaining davenger burst from the woods and loped to her side. It snorted at the boy cowering in the copse of broken trees.

  Calun curled into a ball. “Please!”

  It would be so much more efficient to kil
l him, to save Calun's soul from his Demonkin curse. But could she? “If I spare you, will you run?”

  “No.” He sobbed once more. “I swear.”

  “If you run, my davenger will tear you apart.”

  “I won't run.”

  “Good.” Jyllith knelt over him. “Hold still.”

  He uncurled, hunched up as if expecting another inverted blood glyph. Jyllith took the dream world and scribed mending glyphs on his face and chest. She ignited her glyphs and felt her blood thin dangerously.

  It was stupid to mend his injuries and would leave her even more vulnerable to attack, but Calun was like her. A child twisted by Cantrall. He did not deserve to hurt.

  When Jyllith finished and stood, exhausted, Calun's face bled no more. He would not lose his sight and he would have nothing but red marks tomorrow morning. She couldn't do more for him without risking anemia.

  “Why did you do that?” Calun whispered.

  “I don't need you sobbing all night.” Jyllith lied well. “Now get up.”

  “Why?”

  “I'm tired, hungry, and done fighting.” She brushed her bloody hands against each other and glanced at him. “Do you have anything to eat?”

  Calun looked to her slavering davenger and then at the small pack he carried. “I have some jerky and some cheese. Torch caught me a rabbit.” He sounded like he actually missed his davenger. How twisted was that?

  “Rabbit sounds lovely.” It had never occurred to her that davengers could hunt game, but why not? “Follow me.” She glanced at her davenger. “If he attacks me or tries to run, tear his head off.”

  The demon corpse snorted agreement.

  Calun followed her until Jyllith stopped outside her camp, away from her horse. No point spooking it.

  “Guard the perimeter,” Jyllith told her demon. “If Calun runs, kill him.” Her davenger snorted and rushed off, leaving her alone with Calun. That wouldn't save him if he crossed her.

  “I get it, you know,” Calun said quietly.

  Jyllith founded him fiddling with his pack straps. “Get what?”

  “If I run away or hurt you, it kills me.”

  “I'm glad we understand each other.” Jyllith led him into her camp and found her hobbled horse trimming the grass. “Do you know how to rub down a horse?” If only she could be that oblivious.

  Calun nodded.

  “Do it.” Jyllith had planned to tend her horse after dealing with her davengers, but Calun could do that while she cooked. “I'll get supper started.”

  He reluctantly handed her his pack. The dead rabbit was surprisingly intact, considering a davenger had snapped its neck. Jyllith skinned it with calm efficiency she knew bothered Calun. He cast furtive glances at her as he massaged her horse's tired muscles and brushed out its brown coat.

  Jyllith got a fire going and set up the cooking spit she had purchased at Highridge Keep. Its Sentinels had no idea she had watched the last garrison slaughter each other, driving their swords into their own as Shifters cloaked them in illusion. She had shouted at Cantrall.

  “Those soldiers are not our enemies!” Jyllith pointed at the Sentinels grunting, fighting, and dying in the ruins of the ancient Highridge Fortress, far below the rise on which she stood with Cantrall. “They did nothing to us, and some of those people are from Rain!”

  “Jyllith,” Cantrall said, “I have told you—”

  “You've told me they're a threat,” she said, digging her nails into her palms, “but you have not told me why!”

  The horrors of the past night would not leave her. She could not stop seeing Aryn Locke as Balazel strapped his spiky bindings around him, piercing his paralyzed body over and over. Finally, as Balazel dragged Aryn to the Underside, Aryn had looked at her just once.

  As the grip of the Underside took them Aryn has shouted, pleaded, begged her to save him. She had done that to a man who had committed no crime other than loving his woman. How did that avenge her family's murder?

  “Some must be sacrificed.” Cantrall placed a cold, calloused hand on her shoulder. “It is for the greater good. If Kara Honuron does not help us fix the High Protector's mistake, the deaths of these few will be nothing compared to the death of an entire world.”

  Jyllith almost shrugged his hand off, but he was right. Her guilt, terror, and regrets did not matter when weighed against the threat posed by the Alcedi. Torn had foolishly locked the Mavoureen away, and without them, the Alcedi would devour everything and consume everyone.

  Jyllith knew this as she watched the last wounded Sentinel stop fighting. The Shifters lifted the illusion just in time for a woman to see the horror she had wrought upon her fellows. That lone Sentinel fell to her knees, a tiny figure holding the man she had just stabbed.

  Jyllith forced her gaze away. It was for the greater good. Everything she did was for the greater good.

  “I'm, uh...” Calun paused.

  Jyllith glared at him. Calun thumped back against her horse.

  “I'm done! I mean, if you say I'm done. I can do it again. Just tell me what to do.”

  She sighed and beckoned him over. “Come eat something.” She hated making him squirm. “Now,” she added when he didn’t move.

  Calun had tried to drag her off to be sacrificed to his Demonkin cult, yet hadn't she done much worse? He had made someone a davenger, throwing their soul into the Underside, but she had done that too. She also suspected Calun had never stabbed a kind old woman through the heart.

  The boy walked over and sat on a flat rock, hugging himself against the night's growing cold. How could anyone be so helpless?

  “Don't you have a cloak?” Jyllith asked.

  “I had one.” His teeth chattered. “I left it in the woods when I sent Torch to get you.”

  “You didn't bother to pick it up?”

  “Didn't think you'd let me.”

  Jyllith pulled off her own cloak. “Fine.” It was windproof and warm. “Wear this until you warm up.”

  He still didn't move, so she wrapped her cloak around him and sat back down. His shoulders hunched as he watched the fire. She returned her attention to the spit, cooking the rabbit slow. Goosebumps rose on her arms.

  “Won't you be cold?” Calun asked.

  “I don't care if I'm cold.” Jyllith ignored his gaze and stared at the roasting rabbit. The rabbit didn't ask awkward questions.

  “What happened to you?” Calun whispered.

  Jyllith offered a mirthless chuckle. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You're hard. Like Divad. You've seen fighting, haven't you?”

  “Is that what Divad does? Does he fight?” If Calun was feeling talkative, she could probably learn more about the people at Knoll Point.

  “He leads us.” Calun's tone grew reverent. “He and Andar, they rescued us. They keep everyone safe.”

  “Who's Andar?” Jyllith pulled a plate from her pack, set it down, and plucked the spit from its bracket. She ignored the burn through her gloves.

  “He's...” Calun trailed off.

  Jyllith gripped the rabbit in one hand and the spit in the other, dragging the cooked rabbit off the metal. The heat of the rod burned through her gloves and she let it, enduring the searing pain. Like her victims.

  She felt Calun's wide eyes on her as she held the searing spit, as her palm burned even through her gloves. Finally, she set the spit aside and pulled out her knife. She sliced open the well-cooked rabbit as her hand throbbed. Like Calun's face when she tortured him.

  “Andar's Free Rain,” Calun said, words spilling out. “He and his fighters live in Knoll Point. It was a slaving camp before, but Andar's crew freed it and killed the Mynt. Now it's theirs. Divad, he's Andar's advisor.”

  Keeping Calun alive had been the right decision. He had a wealth of information about Knoll Point. Jyllith told herself that was why she had spared him and not because she felt sorry for a boy who had lost his family.

  “Tell me more about Andar,” she said.

  “H
e's a veteran.” Calun’s reverence returned. “He was at Firstwood and fought until the surrender. Even after that, he kept fighting.”

  Jyllith believed him. The day Firstwood fell to the Mynt, many warriors had fled into Rain’s great forests rather than surrendering. Free Rain was a guerilla group that had been a thorn in the side of Mynt for decades, ever since they first brought Rain to heel beneath their booted feet.

  Jyllith had fought alongside fighters from Free Rain many times as she grew up with Cantrall, working both with and without him as they launched assaults on Mynt caravans, killed soldiers. She wondered how many soldiers in Knoll Point were poor, deluded souls like Calun.

  The attacks that led Rain to assault Mynt's borders had been staged, certainly, but the reprisals that followed were real enough. Revenants had not shattered Rain's forest garrisons or sacked Nolan and Kildoon. Revenants had not marched on Firstwood and sieged it in a month of bloody fighting that left its people starved.

  Mynt legionnaires had done that, soldiers led by Prince Beren and his cursed magic sword, and the terms of surrender had been unconditional and absolute. Chief Karon had killed himself out of shame. Chieftess Shara only accepted Mynt's offer of unconditional surrender after her eldest son died in a desperate attempt to break the siege.

  What else could they have done? Firstwood was out of grain and bread. Its citizens were eating rats. Its surviving warriors had fought for months on little sleep and those who still fought were tired and weak. Mynt may not have started the war, as many thought, but they had certainly finished it.

  Jyllith wondered how many people needed to die to make a false crime into a true one.

  “Can I have some rabbit?” Calun asked.

  Jyllith snorted. He was like a little bird, pecking at her and chirping. She was done slicing the rabbit and had not noticed. She clutched the skinning knife so hard her palm cramped.

  It was getting cold. She needed sleep, soon, and she had to be sure Calun wouldn't try to capture or kill her while she slept. Time to eat.