Legacy of the Devil Queen (Eve of Redemption Book 4)

by Joe Jackson

  “Yes, what is it?” he asked irritably.

  “Oh,” Corbanis said, feigning surprise as best he could. “I beg your pardon, my lord, I had no idea this was your home. We were passing through, northbound, on our way to join with some of my fellow hunters, to continue our search for this destructive demon to the west. If it’s not too much of an imposition, my lord, I was hoping to request a roof over our heads for the evening, and perhaps a simple meal.”

  “Why are you traveling with her?” Lord Wallace asked, thrusting a long-nailed finger at Sharyn. “Were you not supposed to take her to the constabulary, to be gotten rid of?”

  Corbanis turned a skeptical look on Sharyn. “Well, as strange as it may sound, my lord, she claims to be working with my fellow hunters. I called her bluff, and am taking her to see them. She had best hope she is telling the truth, or she is in for a very unpleasant stay up in Ballycastle.” The “human” simply snorted, so Corbanis continued, “I can smell something appetizing within; may we impose on you for a small portion, and a place to sleep on the floor?”

  “You will shackle her before turning in for the night,” the noble ordered, and Corbanis agreed with another squinty-eyed glance at Sharyn. “Very well. Come in, then.”

  Lord Wallace led them inside, and they followed him down a narrow hall to the dining area at the back of the house. There was only a round dining table, large enough for six people, with an appropriate number of chairs. The baron placed the lantern in the center of the table, illuminating an old hutch that looked like it had not been used in some time, and a wine rack that seemed to share the same fate. There was a single plate with a bloody roast sitting on the table before the baron’s seat, but no other food or trays upon the table. Corbanis’ gaze turned quickly to the short passage to the kitchen, and his instincts took over.

  “Sharyn, your blade!” he barked, turning his back to her so she could grab it easily.

  She hesitated, watching Lord Wallace across the table, clearly confused why Corbanis was springing the trap when the man had made no hostile move. “What are you doing?” she asked, taking her weapon slowly from the sheath across the demonhunter’s back.

  “It’s here!” Corbanis said, putting his back to the wall and drawing his own sword. The silver blade began to glow a dark blue along its edges, and the demonhunter brought forth his shield from its place on his back. “Do you smell that cinnamon? That’s its scent. It’s another Tilcimer; I knew it would be, and it’s here, now.”

  Sharyn swore and leveled her blade at Lord Wallace. There was a silence, and Corbanis could hear the wind outside, like fingers dragging across the corners of the house. On impulse, he turned and stabbed his sword hard through the wall behind him, clearly shocking both Sharyn and the lord of the manor. It was clean, aside from plaster dust, when he withdrew it, but the veteran demonhunter was not surprised in the least when the demon walked into the room a moment later. Sharyn gasped behind him, but Corbanis wasted little time in striking out at the creature.

  Sharyn let out a startled by the gods behind him when she saw how fast the Tilcimer moved. Barely perceptible to the eye, the demon sidestepped Corbanis’ conservative, downward slash, pushing his sword stroke aside and then stepping in and clawing at his face. The veteran demonhunter connected solidly with his shield, having used the slash as a feint, predicting the creature’s astonishingly quick counterattack. The metallic whap of the shield connecting with the side of the demon’s head rang loudly in the house. It stumbled, and though the creature righted itself after a moment and moved from the room in a blur, Corbanis saw that he’d rattled its senses badly.

  Corbanis turned toward Lord Wallace. “Die, you traitorous bastard,” he growled as he cut at the noble’s neck viciously. The noble dodged away quickly, and dark brown hairs began to sprout from his skin while his face elongated.

  “I’ll handle him, you get that demon!” Sharyn shouted.

  There was a clang as she dropped her massive sword to the ground, and Corbanis turned to see the two “humans” begin their incredible transformations. As usual, tactics won over rage in the demonhunter’s mind, and he instead flanked the dark brown werewolf. Feral and Sharyn began swiping at each other with their vicious, elongated claws, but Corbanis slid in as quietly and inconspicuously as an armored, six-foot-eight warrior possibly can, and he slashed across the back of the werewolf’s legs.

  The demon appeared in the room again, its movements limited by the tight quarters of the manor house, and Corbanis kicked the table to the wall to further control the battlefield. Feral slashed at Corbanis’ back, but even the werewolf’s claws were ineffective against his plate armor. Feral managed to damage Corbanis’ wing membranes slightly, but there was only a little bit of pain, so the demonhunter tried not to dwell on it. His wings weren’t terribly useful to him anyway, so even if it took time for them to heal, it was a minor wound, all things considered.

  The Tilcimer came at Corbanis directly, its options few in the face of the veteran’s battlefield control. Corbanis mimicked his earlier maneuver but suspected the demon would try another tactic, so instead of following up his slash with the same shield bash, he instead turned and slammed his shield into Feral’s back, sending the brown werewolf into Sharyn. The two werewolves embraced in a deadly grapple of fangs and claws, and Corbanis spun and swung blindly at neck level, following that up with another sweeping shield slam.

  Neither attacked connected, and he realized why after only a moment. The Tilcimer had used its speed to circle around the hallways and re-enter the room behind Sharyn. It stared at the two werewolves in their lethal embrace, clacking its front teeth together a couple of times while it weighed its options. One of its glowing green eyes turned to Corbanis, and a vicious, fang-filled grin crossed its face briefly before there was a blinding flash.

  The entire room exploded in fire. Corbanis closed his eyes momentarily against the brightness of the flash, and then opened them slowly to allow them to adjust to the flames. The fire was as nothing to him as a half-guardian, but Sharyn was not a half-demon, and also covered in fur. Corbanis brought his foot up to kick the table at the demon, but the Tilcimer was gone again. The demonhunter’s priorities quickly changed when he heard pained yipping followed by the distinctive cracking of timbers getting ready to give way. The house seemed to either be very old or very poorly built, and the fire was going to ravage it quickly.

  Corbanis dashed forward and grabbed Sharyn by the scruff of her neck, glad that even in her impressively large and dangerous battle form, she still had that animalistic give there for him to get a grip on. He dragged her to what he hoped was the back door on the far side of the dining area, and threw his armored weight against it. The door came cleanly off its hinges when struck by the warrior’s considerable weight, and he dragged the smoldering werewolf outside as quickly as he could. She was massive and muscular, but most of her weight seemed in her upper body, which allowed him good leverage. She was singed and somewhat in shock, but she seemed all right for the moment.

  The demonhunter looked around for the telltale traces of the demon’s glowing green eyes, but didn’t see it anywhere. “Watch yourself,” he told Sharyn, and the werewolf nodded her lupine head while she ran her clawed hands over her fur, making sure there were no smoldering flames.

  Corbanis rushed back to the house and collided with Feral as the werewolf stumbled into the doorway. He threw his full weight and momentum into the beast’s chest, knocking him back into the inferno. They fell to the ground, and Corbanis planted his knee firmly above Feral’s pelvic bone to pin him in place, then reared back and began raining down plate-gauntleted punches. Memories of the wounds his friends and, more specifically, his wife had suffered at the hands of this werewolf and its demonic ally flashed through his mind’s eye again and again, and he hardly noticed when the creature caught fire and began howling in excruciating pain.

  The demonhunter reached over and grabbed the edge of his discarded shield, and he lifted it
and slammed its edge hard into the werewolf’s throat, crushing its larynx. Feral, even aflame and in terrible agony, ceased struggling for a moment, stunned by the blow the demonhunter had just landed. Corbanis rose to his feet and picked the creature up with considerable effort, pinned it against the wall, and then stabbed it through the gut to staple it to the wall. He growled in its face before punching it twice more, then he yanked his sword free and cut Feral’s head off. Timbers cracked and groaned above him, threatening to give way, and Corbanis realized he had done what he’d come here for, and now needed to flee.

  The demonhunter walked out of the manor house, his armor glowing slightly from the absorbed heat of the flames, and he took a moment to inspect his sliced wings while he walked over to Sharyn. The damage was superficial, really; he figured it would heal without any aid in a couple of days. His companion’s injuries seemed more serious, particularly if burns didn’t heal as quickly – or at all – for a werewolf. He glanced around again for any sign of the Tilcimer, but saw nothing. He assumed it had fled, perhaps to find more allies or, at the very least, easier prey.

  “Are you all right?” he asked Sharyn, and he dropped to a knee beside her. She was still smoking, and patches of her fur were singed into a mess or burned away entirely. She looked terrible, and she didn’t answer right away, so Corbanis laid a hand on her shoulder and began to channel some of Zalkar’s power to begin the healing process wherever and however it could.

  “I will be,” the werewolf growled, barely intelligible coming from her battle form.

  “I hope your fur will grow back,” he said evenly. “A hairless werewolf may be too much for anyone to take.”

  Her bestial golden eyes turned up to him, but when she saw the expression on his face, she let out a throaty chuckle. “It will,” she managed. “Good thing, too. Clothes…in fire.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Corbanis said. He returned to the house quickly and rounded up her glowing-hot sword and what was left of her garments. The leathers had survived, though they probably wouldn’t last very long after the heat, and her undergarments were destroyed. He returned handed her what remained of her things, but she didn’t seem too concerned. He understood a few moments later when she shifted form again, and the hulking, dangerous man-beast was replaced by a singed but handsome black wolf.

  “I suppose that will do for now,” he approved. “Hmmm, and you can probably track its scent, no? Follow the trail of cinnamon?”

  The wolf nodded and sniffed the air a few times, and then Sharyn ran off toward the northwest. Corbanis took up her quickly-cooling sword and sheathed it across his back below his shield again, and he fell into step behind her at a conservative pace. There was no way he was going to keep up with her lupine form at a run, or even a jog, when wearing his plate armor. He kept vigilant, and stopped only briefly to watch the remains of the manor house blazing in the distance. At the very least, he had kept a long-standing promise to his friends, several of whom were now dead and couldn’t even enjoy the fruits of his labor.

  The fire left sun spots in his eyes from staring at it too long, but something biting his tail brought Corbanis from his introspection. He chuckled at Sharyn and began to follow her again, and they made their way northwest, in the wake of the demon and, hopefully, toward his children and their friends.

  Chapter X – Collateral Damage

  Ballycastle, a walled city on a bluff that overlooked the merging of three rivers, had thankfully remained untouched. It took the Silver Blades only a couple of days to get there by riverboat, and they had elected to remain for a short time. The lord of the city, a local baron named Richard Ferreira, had scouts investigating between his city and their neighbors in Bantry, and Erik wanted to see if they found anything before he moved off blindly. His suspicions were that the demon was going to head south or east after its failed attempt at Bantry, but he wanted to be sure. If they had to return to Newport, Erik was going to be disappointed.

  Ballycastle was not given its name idly: the city had sprung up around a citadel on the bluff. Erik was pretty sure it was constructed in the sixteenth century, originally intended for a dual purpose. While its primary goal was to stop invasion from the south in the case of Newport being overrun, it also served as the last bastion of resistance should invasion come from the north. Thanks to its strategic position at the joining of the three rivers, it could serve as an evacuation point for people fleeing to Newport, and also keep pursuit from using the waterways to harry the refugees. No matter which way its enemies came from, Ballycastle was well-situated for defense.

  Erik found the city quite impressive. The citadel crowned the topmost, southern edge of the bluff, and was home to Lord Ferreira, an economist and philanthropist who oversaw a few trade guilds. A tiered, whitestone city had gradually sprung up along the expanse of the hill, almost making the bluff appear to be a man wearing a long, white cloak when viewed from the east or west. Even from the minute the half-guardian and his siblings and friends had arrived at the eastern river port, Erik wondered why he never heard much about this city or its majestic splendor. Lajere had been a prosperous and well-ordered city, but Ballycastle was the kind of place Erik imagined he wouldn’t mind living.

  The demonhunter roamed the marketplace on the city’s middle tier, purchasing supplies and food for his companions while they took care of other tasks. Erik planned to stop in the local church of Zalkar afterwards to see if they had heard anything new or had any additional orders from Kari. Katarina and Sherman went to the lower tier, where they were attempting to buy horses to speed up their travels once they knew where they were headed. Gabrius went to the church of the Ghost, presumably to do the same thing Erik was planning to do at Zalkar’s church. Aeligos was out looking for alternative sources of information, Serenjols was picking up oil and maintenance kits from the local smithy, and Sonja had gone to investigate the home of a local sorcerer.

  Erik couldn’t help but smile when he thought of his sister and her newfound confidence in her arcane power. While she had apparently blamed herself for what happened to Typhonix, everyone in the family was thrilled with her breakthrough in the use of magic. Sonja had always been one of the bigger brains of the group and a very capable fighter, but now, with her arcane power unleashed, Erik was sure their group would be much better equipped to deal with trouble of the nature he and Kari would get assigned to counter. As much as the thought of his siblings getting harmed made him hesitant to welcome battle, he had to admit to himself that he was eager to see what his sister could do.

  The humans of the southlands were usually wary of half-demons, but Erik kept his tags out over his breastplate, his helm hanging from his belt, and tried to keep his demeanor light and pleasant. He was able to make his purchases without trouble or the feeling he was being taken advantage of, and some of the merchants were amiable enough to chat lightly with him about the rumors out of Bantry. The people here seemed confident in their lord and his precautions to keep them safe, and they were thankful to the gods for Bantry’s success in rebuffing the efforts of the attackers. There was still no confident assessment of what the threat was, but Erik hoped that would change when Lord Ferreira’s scouts returned in the next day or so.

  He made his way south to the upper tier, where the churches and temples were located. In an uncharacteristic design, the citadel and temples were at the top of the hill, with the majority of the personal dwellings on the next tier down. The market district comprised the third tier down, the fourth was the housing district for those who worked farms, fields, and stables, and then the lowest tier was the stables, the ports on the east and west, and the cavalry garrison. Erik was used to cities like this being organized with the richest at the top of the hill, and the districts and people getting progressively poorer as one descended.

  The church of Zalkar was easy enough to find, even tucked amongst all those from the combined Citarian-Koryonite pantheon. It was a lot smaller than the one on the campus of the Order, and appe
ared to be manned only by a single priest and his assistant. Erik saluted the priest and introduced himself, and asked if there were any messages from the Order. The smiles he received from the two human men made him curious, and the way they glanced at each other and chuckled made him nervous.

  “There is indeed a message for you from the Grand Commander,” the priest answered. He introduced himself and handed Erik a folded note.

  “Thank you, Master Killian,” Erik said absently, and he opened the note and read it quickly:

  Erik,

  If you could refrain from breaking any more mayors’ noses or arresting any more people over obscure animal protection laws, it will make your travels easier. More help is on the way to you, and should hopefully reach you before you cross the Hazelmore River. There was a big fight involving our other friends, but we will talk about that when you get home. Stay safe, and return victorious. Love justice, but do mercy.

  –Kari

  Erik looked up at the two men, who began chuckling again, and the half-guardian let out a snort. Before he could say anything, though, Aeligos came into the church, his breathing heavy as though he’d been running for a while.

  “There you are. I’ve been looking for you for the better part of an hour,” he said. He took a few seconds to get his wind back, and then gestured for Erik to follow. “There’s smoke to the south; looks like a homestead along the river was set ablaze in the night. The scouts are back, too, so Lord Ferreira wants to meet with us as soon as possible.”