“Lord! Lord!” the small demon called in a patois of Ninth Circle Demonique and the local human tongue. The horribly garbled language was barely understandable to anyone who knew either, and almost worse if you knew both. Venadrin cringed at the sound.
The lord turned, irritated, not noticing that Venadrin had paused to listen as well, just out of curiosity as to what might have excited the fool demon so.
“What is it?” the lord asked, his tone curt and edging on threatening.
The small one didn’t seem to notice. “Lord! The Wanderer has been spotted within your territory!”
“What?” The demonic Fal lord, master of all he surveyed, rose to his feet as he bellowed in rage.
The small demon cringed back, apparently just then realizing the position it was in.
“Tell me that again,” the Master ordered darkly.
“Th…the Wanderer, Lord. He has been seen.”
“Where? You will tell me where that…” The lord paused and started to look around.
Venadrin took that as his cue to vanish from the room, hoping he hadn’t been spotted.
Who, or what, is this…Wanderer?
*****
The capitol of the Master’s territory was filthy. The stench never failed to sicken Venadrin, no matter how much he was exposed to it. Lower circle demons were like a plague, the lowest three practically like rotting flesh made mobile by some unholy means. They left trails of corrupted flesh and expelled waste wherever they walked, and those were their better qualities.
He made his way through the uneven streets, dodging the more disgusting bits of detritus as best he could, working his way out to the outer ring of huts that circled the stone fortress and inner city that housed the demons.
The shanties were where the humans lived.
Venadrin stopped in front of a marginally larger hut than the rest, then stepped up to the door and kicked it in.
The “patrons” of the pub stopped their chatter and stared for a moment, silence greeting his entry. He glared around the room, daring any of them to say a word to him, and no one took him up on it.
Venadrin was well aware that he was far from the most popular man in the city, and he was plenty satisfied with that. He didn’t give a damn what any of them thought. The revolt against the Master had been stupid and would have gotten them all killed eventually. He didn’t care much for their lives, but he’d be damned if he let the likes of Damasc cause him to lose his life.
He walked across the room and hauled one of the drunks off the slab of wood that was serving as the bar, tossing him down.
“Give me a drink,” he said, looking at the man behind the slab with a dead-eyed gaze.
He’d chosen this place because he knew the “proprietor” and knew that both the man and his “fine establishment” had been in the city for longer than Venadrin had been alive.
The man wordlessly poured him a thick berry concoction that looked more like sludge than a proper drink, but Venadrin didn’t care. He took a deep slug of the sweet, sickly-tasting beverage and waved for it to be refilled as he put it back on the slab.
“You’re not the most popular man around these parts,” the server told him, refilling the rough cup.
“Ask me if I care,” Venadrin countered.
The man stared for a moment, then turned to leave. Venadrin lunged across the slab, grabbing his arm and hauling him back around.
“How long have you been here?” he demanded of the server.
“Too long.”
“A day is too long. How long?”
The server hesitated, then sighed. “Most of my life. I stopped counting a long time ago.”
Venadrin nodded thoughtfully. “Demons come in here by times, don’t they?”
“You know they do.”
“The name, Wanderer,” Venadrin said. “Heard of it?”
The server’s eyes darted from one side to another, which was answer enough for Venadrin, but he waited for the man to assure himself that they weren’t being listened in on. In fact, he took a look around as well.
Anything that so infuriated the Master, well it was something both important…and dangerous.
“That’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time,” the old server said after a moment. “A name that isn’t to be spoken openly around here.”
“There’s no one around us sober enough to hear you, let alone understand you,” Venadrin said firmly. “Tell me.”
The server sighed, then looked around again before speaking.
“It was during the wars,” he said finally.
“Everything was during the war,” Venadrin snorted.
“No, not the war. The wars. That name has been around a long time,” the server corrected him, “through the last several conflicts, at least, but some say that he was around during the first war.”
“Demon then,” Venadrin said, unsurprised. Few humans could piss off a Fal lord to the degree that he’d heard.
“That is what most think.” The server shrugged. “But whoever this Wanderer is, he’s killed more demons than anyone I’ve ever heard…if he’s just one man. Some think the title is passed down, or maybe just stolen. Now, why are you bringing up old ghost stories, Venadrin?”
“No reason.” Venadrin slammed down the drink and pushed back from the slab, getting to his feet. “No reason at all.”
“Then you shouldn’t be bringing things like that up, collaborator.”
Venadrin shot a glare over his shoulder to the speaker, a large man who was balling his fists up in obvious threat. Venadrin just snorted and turned his back on the man.
“Go ahead, if you’ve got the stones,” he said without looking back again. “We both know what’ll happen if you do.”
Long moments passed before he nodded curtly and sneered at no one…and everyone.
“I thought so.”
Venadrin walked out of the bar, silence following him.
*****
Venadrin thought about what he’d heard, trying to piece the real story from the rumor.
For the Master to be so incensed by the name, it was clear that this Wanderer wasn’t some legend. He was a real being and someone who could be identified, otherwise the filthy little scavenger demon wouldn’t have been able to bring that warning.
So probably not some line of humans sharing a name, but just another demonic piece of filth playing their never-ending games of chaos. One thing he’d learned quickly was that demons cared for demons just as much as they cared for humans, which was to say…not at all. They killed one another with a fiendish glee that even someone like himself couldn’t match on his worst day.
Despite that, they’d driven humans to the point of death.
Venadrin didn’t know how many human lives remained on the Earth, but he knew that however many it was…it was almost the end.
Once the last war had been lost, or won, depending on one’s point of view, the demon lords who had divvied up the world amongst themselves would begin corrupting the lives that remained. Animals, plants…humans…would all begin the Change.
In a few generations, there would be another Ninth Circle of the Hells, and more rotting, changing, filthy demons to fill the ranks and be used as fodder in the next war.
Venadrin idly scratched at his right arm, turning it over to show the purple and brown scab that had been growing there.
It might not even take generations, he supposed.
Humanity was dead already. The humans just hadn’t figured it out yet.
But they will, he thought darkly. They will.
Chapter 11
Morning came early, all the more so because of how fitful a night she’d spent, but the moment Elan heard motion around her, she was awake and moving too. There would be things to do, there always were, and perhaps there would be more training as well.