The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2)

by J. Langland

  Vargg nodded. “The hounds are a bit small for riding.”

  “And they tend to roast the prey before we get a chance to kill it,” Darg-Krallnom added.

  “The hydra hounds go sort of flame crazy when they get out of the Abyss. Everyone here is immune to fire so they never get to toast anyone,” Roth said, shaking his head in sorrow for the poor hydra hounds.

  “I like my bison and ox on the bloody side; I’m not a fan of eating cinders and ash,” Vargg said.

  “I’m hoping we can catch some wyvern,” Darg-Krallnom said. “You have any idea how long since I’ve had a wyvern steak?”

  “About as long as it’s been since I’ve eaten anything,” Roth said.

  “Or anyone,” Arg-nargoloth finally chimed in, and the D’Orcs all laughed. Arg-nargoloth had been over examining various talismans and had finally wandered back to the group. “I’ve got a likely-looking one from Etterdam here,” he said, holding up a silver talisman. They had all noted that some of the talismans were shinier than others. He was not sure if that meant anything, but the Astlanian one that Tal Gor had appeared around had been shinier, and was even brighter now.

  Tom shrugged. “Well, let’s give it a try and see if anyone is home.”

  ~

  DOF +6

  Sixth Period 16-03-440

  Talarius sighed with pleasure. It was the first such sigh he had uttered in a very long time. The pleasure was coming from the gloriously wet washcloth he had dunked in the washbasin full of rainwater in his room. He had finally decided to let his guard down, a small amount. The demon Tom was out with the D’Orcs, probably planning a war to take over the multiverse, so Talarius had filled the large washbasin in his D’Orc-proportioned room off of Tom’s suite with rain water from the balcony and brought it back to his room.

  He had then shut the door and barred it with the wardrobe. He knew it would not stop the demon entering, but perhaps he would have enough warning to get some of his armor back on. He had then cooled the room using the rune that the demon had shown him. Finally, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he had peeled his armor off, along with the padding.

  Tiernon almighty, did that feel good! There was no soap, but he did not care; he scrubbed himself clean with the washcloth. It felt so sinfully pleasant. The water was quite warm, but still cooler than any place outside this bedroom. He savored the opportunity to wipe the dried blood, sweat and caked dirt from his skin and his healed wounds. To be outside his reeking armor! Yes, it was a sustainable environment under adverse conditions, but sustainable was not the same as comfortable. Not when the outside temperature was nearly the boiling point of water.

  It felt so good to be clean. Talarius stared at his underclothes and padding. How he wished he had the time to wash them out and let them dry. However, he clearly did not. He had no idea how long the demon would be distracted with his machinations. The best he could hope for was to let the clothes dry out from his own sweat and stench.

  Talarius glanced at the bed. It was quite large, yet not unnaturally so, and oddly comfortable, even in his armor. Why a demon—or more precisely, a D’Orc would need a bed was a bit strange. Demons notably did not sleep. True, the demon Tom did, but then he had been busy charging the fortress. Rupert and Reggie slept, but they had been doing so in the cave. As far as he could tell, Boggy, Antefalken and Estrebrius never slept, and Tiernon knew that damn multi-limbed menace never shut up. If it was not talking to someone, it was talking to itself. Talarius shook his head. The only time it was silent was when it was billowing foul-smelling smoke from its pipe.

  Talarius glanced again at the bed. It was night, he was quite tired, and he was powering the cool rune, so he might want to conserve his energy. Maybe if he arranged his armor for quick dressing, he might be able to lie down for a few minutes. Of course, “quick” dressing took about a third to half an hour but he would at least get his breast plate on before he was overwhelmed by demons. He would keep the Rod of Smiting in his hand, just in case.

  ~

  “So how did your beloved servant, Exador, take the news that he is an archdemon?” Crispin asked Randolf as the wizard entered his bedroom.

  Randolf frowned and then sighed. “Far better than I’d have hoped, or for that matter, feared.” He shook his head. “I was fully prepared for him to take it very badly; in fact, I expected a rather destructive reaction,” he said as removed his dressing gown and hung it up.

  “He wasn’t his normal destructive self?” Crispin asked, puzzled.

  Randolf shook his head. “Quite the contrary; he laughed his head off. Never in my life have I seen him more amused. He acted like he’d just pulled off the greatest joke imaginable upon the Council.”

  Crispin frowned. “That seems very odd.”

  “Indeed,” Randolf said, sliding into bed. “He was so convincingly moved by the preposterousness of the very idea that he almost had me believing it was all some sort of hoax. If I didn’t know the man better than anyone else on the plane, I’d have been tempted to believe him.”

  “So what, then?” Crispin asked. “Is he just going to brazenly go around and laugh his ass off at whomever is so ridiculous as to accuse him of being an archdemon?”

  “Perhaps.” Randolf shrugged. “There are not a lot of good ways for him to salvage something like this. He’ll need to come up with some good excuses as to who his compatriots are and why they were out there on a carpet, as well as provide counter suggestions as to who the archdemons were, if not he and his compatriots.”

  “That seems like a very tall order,” Crispin observed. “However, probably not as hard as convincing Ruiden that he is not responsible for the demon that kidnapped Talarius.”

  Randolf chuckled. “Either way, I should hope so; I don’t want Exador wiggling out of this. He needs to be exposed once and for all,” he said. “I’m going to need the Council’s help to banish him from this plane for eternity.”

  Crispin chuckled. “I am reasonably certain that, no matter what else, Lenamare will volunteer to help you!”

  Randolf grinned back at the djinn as he moved in for a kiss.

  ~

  Hilda sighed as she relaxed in her bubble bath. It had been a somewhat vexing day. She had spent a good deal of it doing what she called “deep snooping.” She had tried, unsuccessfully, to detect any signs of Lenamare being a warlock. Quite difficult, it turned out. They had all eaten lunch today and Hilda had noted that while Lenamare was famous for so many things, it was clear that his true forte was conjury. She had gently pleaded with him to recount how he had decided and then succeeded in becoming the preeminent expert on demonology in the world; unsurprisingly, it had not taken much effort.

  The “interview” had taken another three hours. Poor Trisfelt had had it far worse, and the poor man was nodding off every few minutes after the first hour. However, it was amusing to watch Jehenna’s reactions to some of Lenamare’s accounts. Between Jehenna’s reactions and Hilda’s own truth readings, she felt like she was getting a fairly accurate accounting. That was what was so frustrating. There was not much there.

  After that first hour, she decided to get a bit more technical; something she could do given her own knowledge of multiversal topology. Those classes in Tierhallon had finally been useful for something! She kept the admiration going, but peppered the dialog with observations and technical questions that she knew the answer to so as to get him to dig deeper and reveal information that a normal mortal would not, particularly when it came to bindings, links and similar magic. The large basket of wines she had brought as a lunch gift also helped Lenamare relax; but again, to no avail.

  She eventually had to dial it back as Jehenna started to show signs of puzzlement at Hilda’s rather advanced knowledge. Lenamare was too wrapped up in his own story to notice, but Jehenna, having heard it all before, could pay more attention to Hilda. That was dangerous, so Hilda worked to assuage her concerns by emphasizing her general animage training. Jehenna would have no
knowledge of that. Hilda also purposefully mentioned a few common misperceptions and mistakes people made, so as not to seem too much the expert.

  During all of this she had also had her saint sight on; yet again, to no avail. For one thing, the man had a lot of links and bindings on him. Jehenna quite a few herself. All of them, however, seemed to be traditional one-way bindings or very simple link spells. She traced them all and saw nothing remotely similar to a clerical upstream link, which is what she supposed a warlock would have.

  The long conversation had given her plenty of opportunity to examine him, and it was truly frustrating! The man seemed to be exactly what he said he was. Further, his ego was so clear in all of this, she was not sure he was even capable of collaborating with another wizard who was not subservient to him, let alone a greater demon or higher.

  She took a sip of sparkling wine. She had needed to stay sober this afternoon while the others had gone through that exquisite collection of fine wines. So frustrating to not fully enjoy those luscious wines. Tonight, though, she would make amends. She plucked a chocolate-covered strawberry from the table beside her and bit into it, relishing the sweetness.

  ~

  Ragala-nargoloth was roused from her slumber by a very odd sound. The shaman sat up on her cot and looked around her tent. It was a rattling noise and it seemed to be coming from a chest on the other side of the tent. The chest she actually used as a table because she had not needed anything in the chest for a decade or more.

  “What in the dried-up tusk of Risk Athanon’s mug could that be?” Ragala-nargoloth climbed out of bed, made her way to the chest, and quickly began taking items off the lid so she could open it. After clearing the tabletop, she opened the lid.

  Nothing was rattling on the top shelf, so she removed that. The lower layer was just a big open box filled with trinkets, totems, amulets, jewelry and talismans. She dug through them, moving in the direction of the vibration that was rattling all of the items. Her hand grasped something on the bottom; a lumpy round stone by the feel of it.

  As she fully grasped it, what felt like electricity lanced through her body. It hurt, and this naturally ticked her off. She grunted in frustration and pulled the stupid rock out of the trunk, wanting to smash the thing. “Ffargdar Quetusqare Fardus,” Ragala-nargoloth muttered, causing the candles in her tent to light so she could more clearly see the offending object.

  She squinted at it and snorted. It was the Talisman of Orcus! “What in the name of the Bloody Bilestone?” she asked herself aloud. “You’ve been dead for four thousand years! Not since the days of Tiss-Arog-Dal has anyone even talked about you!”

  Ragala-nargoloth grabbed a fistful of Tikaraok powder as she moved to a meditation position. She quickly snorted the powder and centered herself, looking with her Sight into the talisman. “Bloody fragging Bilestone’s bones!” she shouted as she felt herself almost forcibly pulled into dream space.

  Ragala-nargoloth blinked as the world shifted around her. Suddenly she found herself not in her tent but in some sort of stone temple between two columns. Instead of the small stone talisman, there was a bright silver talisman in her lap that she, or rather her dream self was clutching. Her head was reeling and she felt incredibly disoriented.

  She looked around the room to see several very odd-looking orcs with wings and hooves. D’Orcs? They could not be; D’Orcs were long gone from the localverse. As she eyed the apparent impossibilities, she suddenly recognized one from a stone painting in one of the tribe’s holy sites.

  “Arg-nargoloth?” Ragala-nargoloth breathed in disbelief. The greatest warrior in her family’s bloodline—the most revered of all her ancestors?

  “Hah!” the vision of Arg-nargoloth roared in triumph. “My name lives on, my blood survives! Name yourself, shaman!”

  “I—I am Ragala-nargoloth, First Shaman of the Nart Tribe,” she said in shock.

  Arg-nargoloth nodded in obvious satisfaction. “When we have more time, you must recite your lineage to me so that I may know of my heirs and of their triumphs!” He was chuckling with nearly unbridled joy, it seemed.

  Ragala-nargoloth noticed someone rising behind Arg-nargoloth. This someone was very large, and not a D’Orc. As the being moved into view, she saw a giant mace, a rod, a wand swinging at his belt. She felt her blood go cold, or was it hot? She had no idea. No one remembered what Orcus looked like, other than that he was different, not a D’Orc, and that he had possessed a giant mace, the Wand of Orcus. This mace, with its metal head that looked identical to the demon lord’s own head, could only be the Wand of Orcus.

  Ragala-nargoloth quickly abased herself before the demon lord. “My Lord and master, as the prophecy of Tiss-Arog-Dal has foretold, you have returned!”

  “Greetings, Ragala-nargoloth, heir to the blood of Arg-nargoloth. You are welcome in the Temple of Doom.” The demon lord pulled his mighty mace from his belt. “I am Tommus, the new Lord of Mount Doom, and I am preparing to accept the oaths of the D’Orcs. We have work to do, now and going forward. Are you willing to assist me?”

  Ragala-nargoloth was in shock, which was not something she had ever experienced before. She actually thought “shock” was a weakness of non-orcs, but what she was feeling now could be nothing else. She nodded her head and whispered, “Yes, master.” She could not even look the mighty demon lord in the eye at this point.

  “Are you ready to be bound to my service?” The mighty demon lord, heir to Orcus asked.

  Ragala-nargoloth gulped. “I am, My Lord.”

  The head of the mace moved towards her head. “Grasp the mace and prepare to repeat after me.”

  Ragala-nargoloth tentatively raised her left hand and reached out towards the head of the mace and to her new future.

  ~

  DOF +7

  Second Period 16-04-440

  Tom checked the runes controlling night and day within the mountains. He had discovered they worked pretty well as a clock. It would be dawn before long. They had managed to contact three more shamans beyond Tal Gor and Ragala-nargoloth: Beya Fei Geist of the Olafa Horde of Ithgar, Farsooth GoreTusk of the Rockgut Horde on Romdan, and Leftenant Trig Bioblast of the Oak Clan and Second Shaman of the OCSS Skull Crusher in Gormegast.

  Leftenant Trig Bioblast caused the most confusion among his commanders, Tom had noted. The shaman had made several technology references that went right over the heads of the D’Orcs present. Tom was at least familiar with science fiction versions of the things Trig had mentioned. He was definitely going to want to visit Gormegast as well as Visteroth, if they made contact with it. He wanted to see a world where technology and magic worked side by side. It seemed extremely implausible, but then at this point he was not in a position to define possible and impossible.

  “Zelda, you mentioned wanting to get the first party out with dawn?” Tom asked the steward.

  She nodded. “I think it’s going to take us a few days to gather enough game and butcher it. Hezbarg and his team have been cleaning up the kitchens. They told me that power has reached the freezers, so we should be able to store our game.”

  Tom nodded. Yesterday morning Boggy had asked him to make sure the freezers’ runes got activated. He had been surprised that the mountains had several large kitchens with cold storage. Apparently, Orcus had been known for throwing parties. In fact, the party they were planning used to be normal for major events. He had suggested that they might make these hunting expeditions routine. To his surprise, Vargg had later mentioned that in the old days, the D’Orcs used to stage hunting expeditions with the various tribes, clans and hordes that had paid homage to Orcus.

  Tom found himself a bit disturbed to find that several of his suggestions had been routine operations under Orcus. It was more than just a bit disconcerting. He knew for an undeniable fact that he was not Orcus reincarnated. For one thing, he knew firsthand what that dagger did. If everyone said it had killed Orcus, then it had utterly killed Orcus and destroyed his soul. While not an expert on re
incarnation, it seemed logical to believe that one needed some sort of soul to actually reincarnate into a new body.

  Tom shuddered, thinking about Orcus’s fate. Of course, to be fair, that was what true death was. Therefore, the ritual the Rod had been preparing for all of them would have done the same. That seemed an unbelievably evil thing to do to someone. Of course, back in Jersey, he had not really believed in any sort of afterlife, so why did a true death seem so much more horrible now?

  The answer, Tom reflected, was that now he knew that there was, at least for believers, the chance for life after death. Antefalken had stated unequivocally, and the others had all agreed that if Talarius died in the Planes of Orcs/Planes of Men, that he would go to Tierhallon to be with his god. Others had said similar things. That was the thing: heaven and hell were real. Maybe not what his grandparents believed, but there was something. There was also the possibility of nothing. That was what made the difference. Gods were real, and of course; so were demons.

  “As I recall, Astlan time in Jötunngard and Doom Time were pretty close,” Arg-nargoloth said. “Etterdam and the lands of the Nart were about a period or so behind. I am not sure of the others.”

  Roth Tar Gorefest nodded. “While obviously I am anxious to return to the hunting grounds of Romdan, I do think we should go in order of shaman. Thus, we first send a band to Astlan, followed by one to Etterdam with its dawn. We move on to the others tomorrow.”

  Vargg nodded. “We will need the time to process the kills in the kitchens. Everyone is out of practice.”

  “Some of us have never gotten to practice,” Zelda noted somewhat bitterly.

  “The price of being fourth generation.” Darg-Krallnom laughed, slapping her on the back.

  The thought of Zelda being fourth generation D’Orc, born in the Abyss as many of the younger D’Orcs were, made Tom suddenly realize that something was fishy. Demons were immortal, so how did they age? He had just assumed that Rupert had aged because he was half-human, yet clearly he was every bit as powerful, every bit as much a real demon as any first, second or third-order demon. Except, Tom suddenly realized, Rupert stopped aging when he started to show signs of being a demon. He had shape-changed into his younger self and stayed that way. Everyone thought he was younger than he actually was.