'Any of it,' Alaric replied sharply. He shook his head. 'None of this makes any sense.' He gestured towards Vitrolle. 'The daemon wanted the warpstone, correct?' His friend nodded. 'So why not go and get it?'
Dietz frowned. 'He did. Or he was about to.'
'No, why not go get it before the battle? He waited until the battle had started. Why?'
'Maybe the bloodshed made him stronger?' Dietz suggested.
'Maybe.' Alaric thought back, trying to remember the sequence of events. They entered the ruins, Strykssen died, Braechen put on the gauntlet, the attack on the town began, the daemon laughed-
'That's it!' he said softly. 'It was excited when the attack began!'
'Like I said, bloodshed.' Dietz nodded.
'No, that's not it,' Alaric corrected his friend. 'If it was that, the daemon would have stayed on the battlefield longer. Instead he made straight for the town, and for that hole in the wall. That's when he laughed, after he heard the stones break.' He pounded one hand against the old stone beside him. 'He didn't go in before that because he couldn't!'
Dietz didn't have much education but he was quick on the uptake and he had a good memory. 'Fire and water?' he asked.
'Exactly.' Alaric replied. 'The cultists held the town in... in the name of their god. The daemon serves a different god. The town must have been shielded against him, but once the attackers broke through he could use that gap to enter.'
He frowned, his mind racing. 'Strykssen manipulated Levrellian into attacking.' he said out loud, working through the ideas as they hit him, 'so he knew the town would be attacked. That's why he was waiting here, but he also needed that gauntlet, and we found it for him.'
'He'd have found it anyway.' Dietz pointed out. 'He had your map.'
'Maybe.' Alaric agreed, but he wasn't convinced. The original map had been less detailed than the one he'd drawn, supposedly from memory. Where had those extra details come from? Without them he couldn't have found the valley, which meant he wouldn't have found the gauntlet. Had someone helped him? If so, why?
Alaric didn't much like the idea of anyone else manipulating his thoughts or actions. He tried to tell himself it had simply been bad luck, but something in his gut told him that wasn't true.
Something was toying with him.
He shuddered as he remembered what the daemon had said down in the cultists' temple. 'Mine now.' it had said, meaning the gauntlet. 'Soon you will be, as well: body and soul.' Right before its borrowed body had been destroyed, the daemon had proclaimed, 'Soon I come for you.' Alaric shivered, suddenly covered in a cold sweat. He gulped desperately at the wine that Dietz had pulled from one of their saddlebags when they'd reached the ruins and found their horses still here.
The daemon wasn't gone. He knew that somehow. It had been banished, yes, but it was not destroyed. That meant it was still out there, and he had a feeling he would see it again. Their fates were intertwined, and he worried that, the next time they met, the daemon might be right. Next time it might claim him utterly, and he wasn't sure he would be able to resist it.
Daemon Gates Trilogy 02 Night of the Daemon Page 24
