The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2)

by J. Langland

  “Was that the cause of your canonization?” Hilda asked.

  “No, not that time. I got away. It did add to my legend, though.” Stevos chuckled.

  “Is Meat Maker present?” Teragdor asked loudly at what appeared to be the main avenue of the town.

  Looking at the unsavory occupants, Hilda crossed her arms inside her large sleeves, where she could make some semantic gestures while whispering some rituals for speed, dexterity and strength. Given what she knew of orcs, all from tales, she suspected physical confrontation and a show of strength might be necessary.

  After a few minutes of rustling and loud whispers inside the suddenly quiet town, a very large, very old and scarred orc shoved his way forward. Beside him was an even older, more scarred, one-eyed orc. Both were more than a bit intimidating.

  “Who seeks Meat Maker?” Meat Maker asked ominously.

  “Master of Wargtown, I am Teragdor, priest of Tiernon,” Teragdor stated firmly.

  “I am aware of you, failed orc,” Meat Maker said.

  “I am not a failed orc. I am a priest of Tiernon,” Teragdor said firmly.

  The one-eyed orc rolled his single eye in exasperation.

  “You are but half an orc, and chose not to follow in your father’s path. How is that not a failure?” Meat Maker asked.

  “Success is judged on many levels. We will simply have to disagree. I want no argument.” Teragdor bowed his head slightly in respect.

  Meat Maker shook his head and started to leave.

  “Master of Wargtown, I have matters I would discuss with you,” Teragdor said.

  Hilda was continuing to prepare. This was not going that well, just as she had feared.

  “I have nothing to say to you, failed orc,” Meat Maker said.

  These orcs were far more articulate than Hilda had expected. Suddenly she remembered that she was speaking universal and that Teragdor and Meat Maker were speaking orcish. That was a real problem with universal; it was always hard to know what language you were speaking.

  “Yesterday, I spoke with some who had been in the wargtown when the D’Orcs arrived with the Crooked Sticks,” Teragdor said.

  Meat Maker turned back to stare impassively at Teragdor and then shrugged.

  Teragdor said, “My compatriots here would like to know more about the great warriors that came to Murgatroy yesterday. They have learned that you were the one who spoke with them the most, and would have words with you.”

  Hilda noted that the half-orc’s orcish seemed a bit awkward. Apparently, it wasn’t his first language.

  “What do I care? They may talk with themselves.” Meat Maker shrugged and started to turn again.

  Hilda figured it was her turn. “Meat Maker, Master of Wargtown, attend me. I am Hilda of Rivenrock, and the priest Teragdor has brought me to you at my request. I would share glargh and words with you to learn of the great event that happened here yesterday.” She beamed at him in what she felt was a very respectful and yet truthful manner. She was tossing in more than a little Saintly Charisma to boot.

  Meat Maker stared at her for a few moments then spit on the ground and started to turn again and walk away. Hilda had never met that sort of indifference to her charms. Apparently, her powers of persuasion did not work as well on orcs.

  “What? Did the sight of the mighty D’Orcs yesterday so frighten you that you are afraid to speak of it?” Hilda shouted suddenly. Meat Maker stopped, and the crowd quickly moved away from him with some chuckles and grunts. Clearly, she had hit home.

  Meat Maker came back and stood within arm’s reach of her, staring down at her. “I am not frightened of anything —orc, D’Orc or human.” He glared at her. “You are simply not worthy of my time.”

  “I am not worthy to buy you a drink to hear your wisdom and insight?” Hilda asked belligerently. This was a bit odd for her, but she needed to simply let the spirit of Tiernon flow through her. Teragdor was looking at her as if she were insane. She could not see Stevos where he stood behind her, but she expected from his small coughs that he was thinking the same.

  “Yes,” Meat Maker said, staring her in the eyes. She stared back, unblinking.

  “If that is the case, then you are not man enough to be allowed to tell me your tales, and you clearly have no wisdom or insight to impart. If you will not speak to me, then you are not worthy of the title Master of Wargtown.” The crowd went completely silent.

  To Hilda it seemed as if all of time had slowed to a crawl. She smiled grimly, knowing that this was her rituals kicking in. She saw Meat Maker twist and pull back his giant fist, preparing to punch her in the face and send her flying, most likely killing any normal human. She stepped back slightly, widening her stance, digging her feet into the ground and flexing her knees to absorb the impact. As Meat Maker’s fist came forward, Hilda held up her right arm, palm first, to block the fist. She braced her right arm and hand with her left and leaned forward to brace for the impact that was so clearly coming. She chanted one more prayer for strength; a very high-speed one, given her elevated state.

  The fist came forward, crashing into her palm. The fist was actually larger than her palm, so only his two middle fingers actually collided with her. But that was enough to send pain racing through every bone in her body and for feet to dig two small trenches in the dirt as she slid back about two inches. However, other than that, she held. She did not collapse, did not fall, did not go sprawling. Her hand and arm ached like crazy, but as time started to go back to normal, she could hear a scream of pain coming from Meat Maker that was nearly ear shattering.

  Hilda made sure everyone could see that she was still standing and then took a few steps back, sweeping her coat out of her way, and launched into a flying dropkick to Meat Maker’s jaw. Her legs ached with the impact as the two of them went sprawling backwards into the orcs behind, bowling them over.

  As Meat Maker rolled on the ground, Hilda leaped free and stood over him, staring him down. “Apparently, they don’t breed orcs like they used to!” she shouted and then laughed. Meat Maker was on the ground, still in pain, reaching his aching hand up in the air. Hilda adjusted her position and reached down to grasp his hand and pulled the huge orc to his feet —a task that would require considerable strength for an orc, let alone a human.

  Thanks to her rituals, that was not a problem. She got Meat Maker to his feet and he rubbed his aching jaw.

  “So, can I buy you some glargh now?” She grinned at him, gesturing over to a nearby plank bar, behind which the bartender was staring at her in awe. “Or do you feel like another go?” She put her best charm into her smile.

  “Glargh, woman, glargh.” He chuckled. “You are big boned and brawny for a human. If not for your ugly face, I might think you were of orc blood.”

  Hilda grinned and nodded in acknowledgement of his praise. “Glargh on the house, my treat! I want to hear the stories of the mighty D’Orcs!” She yelled as cheers went up around the tent.

  ~

  Rosencrantz relaxed in the soothing lava pit at Hellsprings Eternal. It was one of his favorite pits, secluded and off the beaten path. He had not been to the springs in several years; however, tailing the demon Tom to the springs had reminded him of how much he enjoyed them. Lilith had given them a few days off for their good work and so he had returned to the springs and his favorite pit.

  Quite frankly, he was relieved to get this break. He had less than no desire to stake out the new Master of Mount Doom in claustrophobic underground tunnels. Thankfully, Lilith had an entire army of nearly forgotten demons stationed nearby to deal with that sort of thing.

  Rosencrantz started to raise his right arm out of the lava to scratch his head when he suddenly realized the lava was putting up a lot more resistance than usual. In fact, an unprecedented amount of resistance. Was it going cold? He stared at the orange-red lava with chunks of black rock; it appeared the same as ever. It certainly felt as hot as ever, if not a bit more. However, he could no longer move.

 
; Rosencrantz’s eyes widened as the lava before him in the center of the pit began oozing upward. A ball shape was rising from the lava on a black lava stalk. He blinked as the ball began to shape itself; within moments the ball was clearly a human-like head on a neck, albeit made out of lava.

  Rosencrantz felt his non-existent bowels churn as fiery red threads of lava formed what appeared to be hair on the head , along with a red beard and mustache. Two very pointed horns rose from the temples. Black eyelids opened to reveal deep, burning-red ember eyes.

  The face was clearly recognizable. The red-lava hair also rather clearly gave the individual away.

  Rosencrantz stuttered. “Uh, uhm—oh, Great One! What an honor!” He gulped. This was a horror between horrors. The springs were in Moloch’s territory and thus neutral ground. This should not have been a problem; he should have been off limits.

  “You may cease with the small lies, Rosencrantz. I can sense your fear. You positively reek of it,” the Co-Factor told him.

  “I beg your forgiveness, your greatness. However, my mistress would do most horrible things to me if I were to so much as speak with you,” Rosencrantz said, nearing a state of panic.

  “Well in that case, what is done is done. We’ve obviously been speaking,” Sammael stated with a small, tight smile.

  Rosencrantz made a sad, squeaking sound.

  “Relax. I would rather she not know we are speaking. We are in neutral territory, a remote area and I have shielded my presence beyond what anyone nearby can detect. If you say nothing, I will say nothing; thus you have no reason to fear your mistress.” Sammael grinned at the smaller demon. He knew how difficult it could be, and how dangerous it was, to keep secrets from Lilith. “I simply note that the demon you were following has apparently relocated. Where did he and his entourage go?”

  “I am not sure what you are talking about, Great One!” Rosencrantz protested. The demon felt the lava around him start to compress.

  “I am not in the mood for games. I have no problem ending you right here and now. I have been feeling a bit puckish lately,” the Lord of the Abyss stated.

  Rosencrantz gulped. “How did you know this?”

  Sammael scowled in frustrated annoyance. “I was also spying on him and then he left, and you and Guildenstern also left. So he has obviously gone somewhere else. Where?” Sammael demanded.

  “Doom,” Rosencrantz admitted. He really wished he could sweat. It would be very useful at the moment.

  “Doom?” Sammael asked, puzzled.

  “Mount Doom.”

  Sammael’s eyes widened in surprise. “Mount Doom? Why would he go to that abandoned dump?” He twisted his head in thought.

  “Uhm, to restart it,” Rosencrantz volunteered, trying to perhaps buy a few more moments of life.

  Sammael shook his head in surprise. “Start it?” He blinked a couple of times. “He would need the wand to do that.”

  “Uhm, I don’t know, your greatness, but it is active once more,” Rosencrantz said.

  “Doom is active?” Sammael was shocked. He then chuckled. “The woman must be shitting in her dress!”

  Rosencrantz nodded, staring at the Lord of the Abyss in terror.

  “You have done me good, Rosencrantz. I will not forget.” Suddenly the head glopped back down into the lava and Rosencrantz’s arms could move, free once more. The demon sighed and tilted his head back. He needed to get out of here. This place was no longer that relaxing.

  ~

  “So, this is the Abyss?” Damien asked Antefalken rather nervously as he and Vaselle walked down one of the rather poorly lit corridors of Mount Doom. They had just left the Temple of Doom, as Tom called it for some reason: the chamber that the D’Orcs used for much of their interdimensional communication.

  “Well, it is Mount Doom, which is in the Abyss,” Antefalken said. “It’s actually a very pleasant place compared to most of the Abyss.”

  “Really?” Vaselle asked rather nervously, looking around.

  “It’s a lot cooler and significantly more humid,” Antefalken noted. “Tom has cooled the majority of the Doomplex, as we’ve started calling it, down to the equivalent of a very hot summer day, so that your amulets won’t be taxed as much.”

  Antefalken gestured around them. “And, as you can tell by the fact that there are furnishings that somehow survived four thousand years of very dry and excessive heat, the acidity level is not toxic.” Antefalken grinned. “That is considered a major selling point.”

  “So how hot is it normally?” Vaselle asked. “I hear that water boils here.”

  “That is true on the plains. We are at a higher altitude here and so when the volcano was dormant, the temperature was probably only about three-fourths the temperature of boiling water.”

  “So the volcano starting made it hotter?” Damien asked.

  “I guess. For a while, we didn’t really notice, since it did not get any hotter than the rest of the Abyss. However, once the storm clouds formed and it started raining, the temperature quickly cooled. And then Tom started the cooling runes.”

  “Cooling runes—you’ve mentioned those before,” Damien said.

  “Yes, there are runes throughout this complex that do a wide variety of things; some of them are cooling runes that basically produce a cooling spell upon the air. They are actually very popular in the Courts of Chaos,” Antefalken said.

  “Why do they want cooling at the Courts if they are all demons?” Vaselle asked.

  “Because they have furniture, paper, clothing and food and drink that doesn’t fare well at the ambient temperature. Therefore, the higher-ups tend to use various forms of arcane cooling in their homes and palaces.”

  “Is that why most demons are naked? Because clothes wouldn’t hold up well in the Abyss?” Vaselle asked.

  Antefalken shrugged. “Well, it’s more like most don’t care about nudity, and don’t bother acquiring clothes. Particularly since tailoring them to fit an odd shape gets expensive for most demons, and then, as you say, the temperature would not be good for many materials over time. If they have the money, most prefer to spend it on something else.”

  “But you wear clothes,” Vaselle pointed out.

  “Yes, but I’m a professional entertainer; I need to wear clothes or all the women in my audience would swoon!” Antefalken grinned.

  “I thought you said demons don’t care about nudity?” Damien asked his bard snidely.

  “Well, generally speaking, but when one has a particularly outstanding physique…” Antefalken said.

  “So you have to spend quite a bit of money on clothing?” Vaselle asked.

  Antefalken looked at the wizard, slightly perplexed by the question. “Well, something like that. I didn’t always wear clothes.”

  “You know it’s very odd, now that I think of it. You wear the exact same clothes probably ninety percent of the time and yet they are always impeccably clean and pressed,” Damien said, furrowing his brow.

  Antefalken coughed. “As I said, I’m a professional; I need to look my best at all times. It is also about branding; people need to be able to recognize you. Ask any celebrity!”

  “So are you taking us on a tour?” Vaselle asked.

  “We will be doing a tour, but I’m showing you to what I’m calling the mortal suite.” Antefalken said.

  “The mortal suite?” Damien repeated dubiously.

  Antefalken grinned at the wizard. “It’s a suite of rooms overlooking the volcano and stadium, with a balcony. There are quite a few suites like that, but this one was apparently designed with mortal guests in mind as opposed to immortal guests.”

  “And what are the differences?” Vaselle asked.

  “Well, the number one difference is a room for number one and number two.” Antefalken smiled brightly at the humans, who did not seem to get the reference. He sighed. “A toilet. Bathrooms with toilets and running water. Running water now, I should say. The water did not work after the reservoirs went dry, but th
ey work now.” He waved his hands reassuringly. “Also, the beds and furniture are more human sized, although this varies, as demons come in extremely different sizes. And the rooms have much finer temperature controls. You won’t need your amulets in them.”

  Antefalken opened the double doors to a large suite with very nice furniture and some rather odd paintings of demons and other creatures. There were six doors to other rooms, plus French doors leading out to a balcony. The lighting in this room was considerably better, with multiple lamps lit throughout the room.

  “Seems like a lot of rooms for two people,” Damien observed.

  “Well, on that matter,” Antefalken began, “we have some other mortal guests coming. Tal Gor, Ragala-nargoloth, Beya Fei Geist and Farsooth Gore Tusk. Unfortunately, Trig Bioblast had watch and so was unable to come.”

  “Those are very odd names,” Vaselle stated suspiciously.

  “Well, they are orcs,” Antefalken admitted.

  “Orcs?” Damien asked, surprised.

  “Tom is being sworn in as king of the D’Orcs, which are based on orcs. These four, or rather five with Trig, are his shamans. Tal Gor is from Astlan, down near Jotungard and Murgandy.”

  “So I take it they had longstanding ties to Mount Doom?” Damien asked.

  Antefalken shook his head. “Not at all. Tom had to seek them out to get supplies for this party. Not a lot of stores or merchants nearby.”

  ~

  “Welcome, Beya!” Tom greeted the final shaman as she came through the portal.

  “Lord Tommus, it is my honor to be at this glorious occasion!” She bowed her head.

  “We have a suite of rooms for our mortal guests; each of you will have your own room off a common living area. We think we’ve got everything covered, including water and reliable cooling,” Tom said as he closed the portal. “There is a balcony that will provide a great view of the ceremony; however, you are also welcome to attend on the main floor of the arena. It will be a very long ceremony, as I have mentioned, so come and go as you please. I, of course, will be busy most of the time, but I will have someone available to assist all of you.”