by Logan Jacobs
The half-elf shrugged one shoulder and thought for a second. “There’s an inn a couple streets over to the right, but some pretty dark entities reside there.”
I snorted at the thought. “Darkness doesn’t scare me.”
“Then you should be quite comfortable there,” he replied without meeting my gaze, and he held his hand out in the direction of the inn.
I left the shop and entered the dark and overgrown streets of the Shadow Quarters once more, and like the half-elf had said, the inn was only a short walk away. It was made of white wood with black beams like the outside of the tavern in the city. The roof was made with straw all bundled together in neat lines, and the sign on the front had a picture of a white dragon sitting on a small body of water.
I could just make out the words “The White Dragon,” but the sign was so old, with half of it fallen from the beam it was attached to, that it could have said something else.
The inside of the inn stank of rotten wood mixed with the intense scent of sweat and a distinct kind of uncleanliness, and I knew who I’d encounter before I made it to the desk. Only half-orcs had this particularly rank odor.
The half-orc was much shorter than its pure-bred ancestors, but he still stood a head taller than I did. He had long straggly brown hair that had been shaved at the sides and tied together at the back of his head. His skin was a light-gray color, his thick ears were pointed at the tips, and tusks curled over his top lip like the trolls I’d killed earlier. A thin piece of brown material covered his chest and left his arms exposed, and there was some soft green detailing around the edges of the shirt. His trousers were made from the same material, but they were a much darker brown and had rips across the knees and further down the legs.
The half-orc crossed his arms over the front of the desk, and his piercing dark eyes were locked on mine as I closed the distance between us.
“What do you need?” the half-orc asked with a slight snarl.
“A place to stay for a while,” I replied.
“How long?” he queried.
“A week.” I shrugged.
The half-orc cleared his throat and spluttered and coughed all over the desk.
“Fifty pieces,” he responded.
I figured a week should be enough time to get everything sorted and find a way to disappear. Even if I didn’t get out of the Port of Rengfri in that time, I still had the troll stash I could raid later on.
“I’ll take a week,” I agreed and scooped the last few handfuls of pieces from the cloth bag.
The half-orc rummaged through the coins as I counted them out, and then he scooped them up and dropped them in a can. He snorted back a cough as he opened a drawer and pulled out the first key he laid his hands on. Clearly, the places to stay weren’t in high demand in the Shadow Quarters.
The key was large and made out of solid brass. A paper tag was tied around the end with the number seven written on both sides. The paper was ripped in some places and worn away like everything else in this place.
The half-orc shoved the key across the desk, and he grunted as he gestured to the stairwell on the left.
I dragged my new weapons behind me as I worked my way up the stairs, into the upstairs hall, and through the inn, and I counted the rooms as I walked by them. The musty smell cleared up here at least, and it no longer smelled like something had been left to rot.
I ran my fingers along the wall and felt the rough wood beneath my fingertips. It was worn out enough that I probably could have crumbled it to pieces with a gentle shove, and I guessed the building had been around for a long time.
When I reached my given room and unlocked the door, I pushed it open with my foot and entered. The first thing I saw was the bed in the center that overlooked a rectangular window. The glass had dirt smeared all over it, and I could barely make out the muddy street below when I looked through. To the left of the window was a small table with a lit lantern placed in the middle, and to the right was a pot that sat underneath a singular metal tap. Apart from the dirty window, the flame encaged in the lantern was the only light source in the room.
I threw my weapons and the empty cloth bag onto the table and emptied the pieces from both my pockets before I collapsed back onto the bed. Like with the hunger, I wasn’t used to how quickly a human body could tire out. I didn’t know how long it had been since I defeated those guards in armor, either, but it was long enough that I was exhausted by now.
I kicked off my boots, and then I pulled my arms out from the sleeves of my jacket and rolled it up to rest my head on.
The bed itself was clean, and the deep red covering on it was softer than anything we had in the Hellscape. My body felt like it was going to shut down in seconds as I sank into the soft bed, but I couldn’t stop the thoughts running through my head.
I’d accomplished a lot so far, from when I discovered the Church reigned over the Port of Rengfri, to killing the trolls, and gaining weapons and a place to lay low for a week.
But it was the idea of the Church that really made my mind churn.
Squadron Commanders like me were often unleashed from the Hellscape to complete solo missions, and my Lord Captain told me I was the best minion for this particular job, but I couldn’t help but wonder why I had been sent alone to a city with a fucking huge church in the center of it.
Even if I was the best demon for the job, and even if my Lord Captain wanted me to climb the proverbial ladder of ranks, a mission like that was practically suicide for a demon. It was as good as throwing me to the blessed wolves.
Which made me wonder if my Lord Captain had some hidden agenda I didn’t know about.
I stared up at the beams on the ceiling as I thought through every possibility, but I must have finally passed out, because I was suddenly jolted out of a tense sleep by the sound of shouts outside. I jumped up from the bed and headed to the window, and a small patch of glass at the bottom corner had just enough clarity for me to see the dusky street and the havoc below.
Six knights, all dressed in the same armor as the ones I killed yesterday, stood in front of two wooden carriages that were pulled by a pair of horses. They could only be members of the same king’s guard, and they split up into two groups of three before each group started forcing four beings into the carriages.
The beings were lanky and tall, and two of them had long, white hair. The other two had black hair that stopped below their shoulders, and they all wore black pants with velvet jackets. The grand colors of the velvet contrasted with their ashen skin, and at first, I thought they were sickly humans, but then I noticed the point of their ears.
They were dark elves.
The dark elves appeared to be doing whatever they could to fight off the king’s guard, but they were outnumbered. The window was too murky for me to get a good look at what exactly was happening, but one dark elf flung his arms around from side to side and did whatever he could to get the guards to let go. Others dug the heels of their boots into the ground, but the guards continued to drag them over to the carriage.
Then each dark elf was roughly patted down, and their velvet pockets were emptied of several strange orbs and weaponry I didn’t recognize. The items were collected and stored separately from the imprisoned elves, who were now shackled and thrust into the carriages.
What I couldn’t understand was what these guards wanted with the dark elves to begin with. All of this went down in the middle of the crowded street, and no one else was stepping in. So many beings in this area, including the dark elves, had strong enough powers to destroy these human knights, yet they didn’t do anything to stop them. They actually looked scared, and several were discreetly sneaking away into the alleys as fast as they could.
Something bigger was going on here, and I was determined to find out what.
I grabbed my jacket from my bed, locked my room behind me, and ran down the corridor to the lower level.
Then I peered through the window by the main door of the inn and saw that the armored men had climb
ed onto the back of the carriages and prepared to go. I slipped from the building the second the horses began to gallop away, and then I ran through the crowded Shadow Quarters and back to the cleaner area of town.
I kept my eyes on the carriage as it raced under the rusted iron archway and through the streets of the port city, and I kept their scent locked in my memory for when they took a sudden turn. I ran behind the backs of buildings, through the dark alleyways, and through every shortcut I could find.
The carriages both continued through the streets for several minutes, and they didn’t begin to slow down until they reached the center of the city.
This was an area I already knew too well.
The building of the Church was directly ahead.
I ducked back into some trees near the pristine parkway, but I kept an eye on the carriages as they pulled up to the stained-glass dwelling. From here, I finally had the opportunity to check out the carriages more carefully, and I noticed they were far grander than the ones I had witnessed anywhere else in town.
These carriages were decked out in gold with the back wheels at least double the size of the front wheels, and the doors had a symbol painted on the side. The symbol consisted of two lions standing on their hind legs, a flag in the middle, and some sort of gold headpiece on the top. It wasn’t a symbol of the Church, so it could only be a symbol of the knights’ mortal king.
Still, it was pretty fucking clear from where I stood now that these members of the king’s guard were delivering the angry elves straight to the worshippers inside.
I watched as all four of them were pulled from the inside of the carriages.
Their hands were bound behind their backs, and the guards walked behind them at a close distance to keep the dark elves in line. In the middle of the lantern-lit pathway, where anyone could have seen, they walked the dark elves straight through the main doors of the church.
I could just make out the clang of metal as the doors were bolted behind them. I had a feeling that was the last I’d see of them, and it made me realize how easy it was to end up in their situation in the Port of Rengfri. Those carriages of knights rolled up, raided the elves of their possessions, and carted them off.
Just like that.
Then I noticed a strong, intense smell wafting over to me as the doors were closed. The smell was ripe with evil, and not something I expected to smell so potently near the blessed dwelling.
My demon senses began to salivate at the stench, and my urge to punish the evil within the walls of the stained-glass dwelling began to surge.
They deserved to die, and even if I wasn’t working for the Dark King anymore, I was more than happy to take on this mission myself.
My demon side demanded it.
The armored guards returned to their gilded carriages a few moments later, but the captured elves were no longer with them. I was about to follow them to see where they ended up, but then some more shouting caught my attention. At first, I thought it was more of the same being dragged in, or perhaps they had gone after other beings this time, but then I noticed someone was actually saying something through the chants and cheers.
I ducked under the branches of the parkway and weaved around the trees as I followed the noise. Humans were nearby, but it took a minute before I found them, and I instantly knew who they worked for when I spotted the small crowd.
One lady stood in the center of the crowd, but she was higher up than the others because she was perched on a rickety platform. She talked with her hands as she shouted out her words, and a small selection of men and women cheered along to everything this lady said. A few of them held some wooden boards in their hands which bobbed in the air as the people cheered. The boards all had different drawings on them, and most of them appeared to be beings I’d seen in the Shadow Quarters, but some were strange objects I didn’t recognize.
“We want our city back!” the leading lady shouted. “We need to rid Rengfri of the evil that lurks in every corner!”
The tiny crowd cheered again.
“He would not want us to live in fear of these undesirables!” she continued. “He would want us to live in peace, but where is the peace with these monsters around? Where is our safety?”
I had a feeling that ‘He’ was their Holy King, and the demon in me felt like interrupting her speech. I would have loved to point out that if ‘He’ hadn’t rid the surface world of evil yet, then maybe ‘He’ wasn’t the proper king to seek out. After all, that sort of work was the Dark King’s job.
Or more specifically, my job.
I chuckled as I imagined what the crowd’s faces would look like if I said just that, but I stayed in the shadows while the tree trunks glowed a dim violet from my eyes.
A few passersby stopped to look at the chanting woman in the twilight, but then they walked away and didn’t look back. It surprised me that all others hadn’t joined in with the shouting, especially since the dwelling of the Church took up such a large part of the city.
Maybe it was only a small portion of this population who were so determined to get myself and creatures alike out of the Port of Rengfri.
The screaming lady from this morning, and then this crowd of chanters now, all appeared to be wholly devout worshippers of the Church. In their minds, that building could do no wrong, and it’s where they could go for healing and guidance, but could they really be so unaware of what lurked behind the scenes?
It was as if they never stopped to ask themselves what exactly the Church did to the beings they hauled in there like cattle.
It certainly wasn’t something I’d consider “holy.”
None of it made sense, but I decided to ignore and forget about the chants and cheers. I focused on returning to the Shadow Quarters, instead.
I felt pretty good about how my first official day on the surface world had gone, and apart from the screaming lady and the guards just then, nothing too bad had happened. I’d managed to murder a group of trolls, found some food, shelter, and weapons, and I’d even caught onto the darker secrets around the city. I roughly knew the map of some portion of Rengfri, too, and I knew where to go to get certain things, and this pleased me enough.
I still had to find a way out of this city and make sure I could increase the distance between myself and the Lord Captain, but that could wait until another time. For now, I was locked in here by the seemingly endless forest and mountain peaks around the port city, and I’d have to tackle the risky details of my great escape another day.
I made it back to the Shadow Quarters without encountering anyone, and I could see the inn appearing in the distance. The magical beings who’d been crossing between shops were completely cleared out of the streets by now, and all the stands were boarded up. I wondered if this was to do with the night falling or the carriages that had arrived earlier, but judging by the eerie silence near the scene of the raid, I guessed the latter.
Then my thoughts cut off as my hackles suddenly rose. My senses tingled, and a scent that was far too familiar to me, and completely unlike the smell of mortal evil, drifted on the breeze.
It was the scent of the Hellscape.
Someone was here for me.
I worked out the distance between myself and the inn, as well as the distance between myself and the scent I smelled, and I wondered whether I’d have the time to retrieve my weapons before they attacked.
But before I had the calculations completed, an Infernal Huntress stalked out from the shadows on my right.
The red eyes of her Hellhounds cut through the darkness, and they landed on me.
Chapter 4
“Shit,” I hissed as the huntress and her two hounds sauntered closer and closer.
The hounds came up to the woman’s waist, and I could barely make out their details from the darkness around them and the black of their fur. Still, I’d seen them in the light more than enough times to remember the muscular legs, the white fangs, and the claws that could rip me to shreds in a matter of seconds. Their j
ob was to hunt in the name of the Dark King, and one bite from their hellish fangs would force hellfire into my form.
Then I’d be siphoned straight back to the Hellscape against my will.
The Infernal Huntress was just as dangerous as her pack of mutts, though.
She wore a dark red corseted dress and stood with her hands on her hips, and the black leather boots that clung all the way up to her thighs were just visible beneath the long slit in her dress. Her thick, silver hair fell down her shoulders in two immaculate plaits, and the bluish tint to her hair contrasted with the icy-pale skin of her current form.
“Just the minion I’m looking for,” the Infernal huntress purred, and she licked her top lip with the tip of her tongue.
The demon woman didn’t even bother masking her voice. She let the smoky sound of the Hellscape echo through the night air, and I knew exactly what her orders were. She had been sent to take me back to the Hellscape, either dead or alive, but there was no way in hell I’d let her or her hounds get away with either.
I stared the female demon down, and my violet eyes caught her bright pink ones.
Then she smirked and slowly raised one hand with the palm facing me. It was a sign for the hounds, and once she twisted her hand, her hellish sidekicks would charge.
I kept my eyes locked on the huntress, but before she could turn her hand, I bolted.
I leapt over the gnarled roots at my feet and ran further into the side streets, and the Hellhounds snapped their jaws as they followed right on my heels.
Their growls radiated through my ears, and the sound was both an eerily high pitch and a low roar at the same time. While they snarled, the stern demands of the huntress followed behind, and her smoky voice made my heart pound even heavier in my chest.
I had to put more distance between us, but with the power of both the huntress and the hounds combined, I didn’t have time to stop and think. Instead, I did the first thing that came to my mind and threw a punch in the center of the tree trunk I passed on my right.
A shockwave ripped through the tree and caused the bark to explode into the faces of the Hellhounds. Judging by the noises they made, it only made them more ferocious, furious, and determined to sink their teeth into my ass.
