A group had gathered near the helm of the ship. Otto got the impression Captain Wainwright didn’t appreciate the company, but he also had sufficient wisdom to keep his opinions to himself. They’d been sailing for a week and were supposed to be getting close to the Land of the Demon Binders. Really close in fact. Yet the sense of foreboding was gone as was the creepy fog. No monstrous humanoid creature came out to greet them as they eased closer.
Otto turned to the captain. “Are you certain we’re in the right place?”
“Unless the stars have changed position while we were in Port Han. According to the measurements I took this morning, our destination is only ten miles due north.”
Otto had no reason to doubt the man’s competence at this late date. He’d gotten them safely to their destination halfway around the world. If that didn’t give you a boost of confidence in someone’s abilities, nothing would.
“What do we do?” Axel asked.
That was an excellent question. Unfortunately, Otto hadn’t the slightest idea.
“What do you think?” he asked Jet.
The woman shook her head. The situation seemed to have left her as surprised as the rest of them. “Something must have happened. If The Voice isn’t here and no one is maintaining the barrier, I can only imagine the worst.”
In a nation of demon worshipers, the worst might be pretty bad. It might also offer an opportunity.
“Take us in,” Otto said.
“Is that wise, Master?” Corina asked.
“Time will tell.”
Captain Wainwright turned the wheel, adjusting their course and bringing them in line with the port. Or so they hoped. Having sailed through that soup of a fog left them with only a guess as to where the precise location of the city was. At least this time they could see it coming.
An hour later Corina grasped his sleeve and said, “Wow.”
Otto couldn’t argue with her assessment. The port city lay directly ahead of them, its glory undiminished by obscuring fog. Black spires jutted up into the sky. Shorter buildings surrounded them like mushrooms at the base of a tree.
No wall protected the city from the surrounding wilderness. No doubt the unearthly aura kept any ordinary animals from wandering in. Anything else would quickly end up dead and transformed into a demonic host.
An explosion shook the air and a mushroom cloud of blue flames shot up into the sky.
“Those are the unholy flames of Abaddon,” Jet said. “There must be a major battle going on.”
“Who would be stupid enough to invade a country ruled by demon cultists?” Corina asked.
“Oh, I doubt it’s an invader,” Jet said. “Most likely the cults are warring amongst themselves. Usually, the nine High Lords keep a relative peace broken by only the occasional murder. But sometimes more serious conflicts break out.”
“How much do you want to bet this has something to do with events in the Celestial Empire?” Otto asked.
Jet shook her head. “Marius’s actions have shifted the balance of power. The other cults will want to weaken Astaroth’s power to restore it. Since Lady White is in charge of the cult’s operation in the empire, she will be forced to bear the consequences.”
The ship was only a hundred yards from the dock now. If they were to turn back, now was the time. Otto chewed his lip as he weighed his options. He had what he came for. Making a run for home was the safe move. But on the other hand, if he rescued Lady White, she would make a powerful ally.
“Orders, Lord Shenk?” Captain Wainwright asked.
“Take us in. Tie up at the farthest-out dock. Hans, prepare the squad. Axel, you’re on security detail. Have your archers use their mithril arrows. Anything approaches the ship that isn’t with me, kill it. No mercy, no hesitation. Clear?”
Axel nodded and started shouting orders.
“What about me?” Corina asked.
“You’ll stay and help Axel.” When she didn’t complain Otto turned to Jet. “You’ll come with me. I need someone to guide me to Lady White’s tower.”
Jet winced. “I’ve never actually been there. We only met once in Port Han and that was via magic. That’s where she inducted me into the cult. We’ve never actually met face to face.”
So much for that brilliant idea. If Lady White was taking the brunt of the assault, they could probably just follow the fighting right to her. That was as good a plan as any. The city didn’t look all that big, so the search shouldn’t take too long.
Otto led Hans and the others he’d selected for the shore party down the ship’s gangplank and up the dock. The explosion of demonic blue flame had come from a position a little to the left of where they docked. He angled that way even as more explosions rocked the city and filled the air with the stink of brimstone.
Sounded like Lady White was putting up a fight. That was good. He’d hate to go to all this trouble only to find her dead.
“Shall I send out scouts, my lord?” Hans asked.
“No. We stick together. The team is small enough as it is. Besides, there’s plenty a scout would miss that I won’t. Just keep your eyes peeled for anything headed our way. And keep your swords out.”
Following his own advice, Otto drew his sword.
The first neighborhood they passed through, assuming that was the right word for the collection of low stone building clustered around a five-story tower, showed signs of recent battle. The most obvious of which was a claw mark five feet up one of the walls. Otto would hate to run into whatever made that.
The main thing lacking in the city was people. They hadn’t seen a single one, not even a body. Surely someone must live here other than demon worshippers.
When Otto posed the question to Jet she said, “There are ordinary people in the country, but only demons, undead, and mortal worshippers live in the city. A regular person with no magical protection would quickly end up a monster’s meal or a husk for a demon spirit.”
“Lord Shenk,” Hans said.
Otto turned to find a beast charging towards them. It was filled with corruption. Whatever the beast used to be, it clearly housed a demon now.
At Otto’s command, a twenty-thread lightning bolt crashed into the beast, blowing a hole in its side and slamming it into one of the stone buildings. Despite the grievous wound, the beast climbed back to its feet.
A second spell blew its head to bits and finally put it down for good.
“Let’s keep moving,” Otto said.
Another two blocks and the roar of flames grew louder. Smoke filled the streets, reminding Otto of his first visit. He summoned a gust of wind that blew the smoke away and revealed a magical battle unlike anything he’d ever seen.
Lady White crouched behind a berm of earth and stone, the warbeast she’d made from the giant cat thing he’d traded her for access to the city beside her. The beast had taken a fair share of damage. One of its legs was gone from the knee down and its skull showed through in places where the flesh had been burned away.
On the opposite side of the street, five figures in crimson robes hurled fire blast after fire blast at her. It was a standoff, but he doubted she could hold out for long outnumbered like that.
“Circle around,” Otto said. “When I distract them, attack hard from behind.”
Hans nodded and led the guys around to the right.
“What should I do?” Jet asked.
“What can you do?”
When she didn’t reply he shrugged and said, “Stay out of the way and keep a lookout. If anything else heads our way, let me know.”
“Okay.”
A few minutes later he spotted Hans sneaking up on the cultists in red.
Otto channeled ether through his sword and lashed out. Thirty threads’ worth of lightning, nearly his maximum output, arced out into the cultists. The attack hammered them one after another.
The first died instantly.
The second fell and went still.
The rest were only stunned.
But that was all Hans needed.
He and his men waded in, hacking and stabbing until nothing was moving.
Lady White stood, looked his way, and smiled.
They met halfway between their positions and before Otto had a chance to so much as offer a greeting, she hugged him. Of all the reactions he’d expected, that wasn’t one of them. Her body held the chill of the grave but also the curves of a beautiful woman. The result was an incongruous mix of sensual and repulsive.
At last she stepped back. “Astaroth must still favor me if he sent you to my aid. I thought to never see you again.”
“That makes two of us. I came primarily to deliver your follower.” Lady White looked over his shoulder at Jet and seemed to dismiss her immediately. Otto cleared his throat and continued. “I also hoped to discuss undead and how best to control them. But now I’m thinking our best move is to leave this place, quickly. Do you have a secure location where we can talk?”
Lady White stretched, straining the fabric of her thin dress before focusing once more on Otto. “Nowhere is safe for me here. Astaroth’s High Lord has cast me out of the cult. Abaddon’s followers were selected to hunt me and my familiars down. I’m down to my final warbeast and he’s not in very good shape. I would be grateful for transportation elsewhere.”
“I can arrange that.” Otto whistled. “Hans! We’re heading back.”
The good sergeant trotted over, mithril blade still bare in his hand.
Lady White shivered and moved away. “Could you put those swords away for now? Being surrounded by so much mithril makes me nauseous.”
“You’ll just have to bear it,” Otto said as they set out. No way would he leave the others unprotected in the corrupt land. He’d lost one man on this journey and he had no intention of losing another.
Lady White glared at him, but her expression quickly smoothed. She needed him and she knew it. More importantly, she knew Otto knew it as well.
The little group set out at a quick march back toward the docks. The sooner they put some distance between themselves and the cursed city the better.
They managed six blocks before Lady White said, “They’re coming.”
Otto sensed it a moment later. Concentrated corruption headed their way, four of them it felt like.
A gout of blue flame came roaring in only to be turned aside by Lady White’s magic.
“Run!” Otto said.
They broke into a sprint, abandoning all stealth for speed. Fortunately, the docks weren’t that far away and soon the ship was visible ahead of them. Even better, Axel had his archers on deck, bows at the ready.
Otto waved and pointed over his shoulder.
Axel nodded and said something to the scouts. Seconds later arrows arced over their heads.
No more fire blasts exploded.
The moment Otto made it up the gangplank, the crew cut them free of the dock.
“Keep watch.” Otto sent thirty-four threads through his sword and formed them into a huge arm that pushed the ship away from the dock and out to sea.
He fell to his knees, drained by the exertion.
When Otto finally forced himself to his feet, the ship had put on half her sails and they were making good time away from the cursed land. On deck, Lady White and a cowering Jet stood on one side, while everyone else gathered on the other side and watched her warily. Perfectly understandable given that she was an undead demon worshipper. Still, Otto couldn’t have this tension the entire trip home.
He made his way to a spot near the main mast, halfway between the two groups. “Hans, Axel, Corina, Lady White, if you’d be so kind as to join me.”
When all four had met in the middle Otto went on. “Everyone, Lady White is my guest on this voyage. Please treat her with the proper respect. You have nothing to fear from her.”
“What about that?” Corina pointed at the warbeast.
“Rest easy, child,” Lady White said. “It will do nothing without my permission. The poor thing has been through a rough time and needs to rest.”
Corina bristled at being called a child, but she remained silent which Otto appreciated. “Shall we descend to my cabin and discuss our arrangement further?”
Before Lady White could respond, something hit the ship, sending it lurching to the side. Otto sprawled on the deck but quickly regained his feet.
He looked up at the crow’s nest. “What was that?”
“Can’t see anything!” the lookout shouted.
“It was Dagon’s guardian,” Lady White said. “I didn’t think they would dispatch it after I left. It seems the High Lords really want me dead.”
Otto frowned. “Dagon’s guardian, you mean that thing that pulled us into port last time?”
“Correct.”
“Something’s coming right at us!” the lookout shouted.
Sure enough a long shadow was bearing down on the ship. They had about five seconds before it hit them again.
“Hang on!” Captain Wainwright said as he frantically turned the wheel.
The ship turned hard to the right.
Otto used threads of ether to brace himself.
“It missed!” the lookout called. “It’s turning back!”
“How do we kill it?” Otto asked.
“It’s a demon fused with a mass of corpses,” Lady White said. “It’s already dead.”
“Can you control it?”
Lady White shook her head. “The bound demon serves Dagon. It would never heed the commands of a follower of Astaroth.”
Otto snarled away his annoyance. He considered and rejected using the Heart. This thing had so much corruption in it, he doubted he had the power to transmute it all into pure ether even with the artifact’s help.
He peered closer at the approaching monstrosity. While the corruption ran through its entire being, there was a core at its center. It was as close to a heart as he expected to find.
A desperate plan formed. “Axel, get your archers ready. When I force it up, have them shoot mithril arrows into it.”
“How many?” Axel asked.
“All of them!” He turned to Lady White. “I’m going to need your help.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Be the bait. Stand at the rail and expand your presence. Call it to the surface.”
He hadn’t thought her pale skin could get any whiter, but it did. “You want me to challenge Dagon’s guardian? I’m strong, but I can’t defeat that creature.”
“I’ll deal with it. You just need to coax it to the surface.”
“Thirty yards!” the lookout called.
“Quickly!” Otto hustled her over to the rail rather more firmly than he’d intended. If she took offense at his rough handling, she had no time to complain.
Lady White raised both hands and corruption poured out of her. It reminded Otto of a warrior flexing before a fight to try and intimidate his foe. Compared to the darkness at the guardian’s core, Lady White’s power seemed a weak imitation.
“It’s rising!” the lookout called.
In an explosion of water, what looked like an amalgam of a dead whale, a giant squid, a shark, and a few other random beasts Otto couldn’t begin to recognize burst from the sea twenty feet from the ship. A scattering of burning red eyes all focused on Lady White.
For a moment Otto considered throwing her over the side in the hopes that the beast would spare the rest of them, but he dismissed the idea at once. She was too valuable a potential ally to waste.
“Axel!”
Bows twanged and mithril-tipped arrows soared out, hammering through the creature’s thick hide with ease. The magical metal burned away the corruption around them, but it hardly made a dent.
Now that they were in place, it was Otto’s turn.
He tapped the blade of his sword, connecting his magic to the arrowheads.
Now the hard part.
With every drop of ether at his command, he drove the arrowheads deeper into the demon beast. It thrashed and howled, spraying the ship with water and bits of rotten flesh.
The flesh started moving on deck.
Otto had no power to spare. “Hans! Deal with those things!”
The soldiers hurried out, stabbing the fleshy slugs with their mithril weapons and flinging them overboard.
Otto continued to force the arrowheads deeper.
Only feet separated the tips from the creature’s core.
With a final grunt of effort, he drove them home.
The core dissolved and when it did, the amalgam broke. Pieces of different creatures fell off, splashing into the water until at last the whale corpse that served as the primary body sank out of sight.
Otto blew out a long breath and staggered back to lean against the main mast. At this point, staying on his feet took every bit of his focus.
A moment later Hans was there, slinging Otto’s arm over his shoulder. Corina joined him a second later, taking the other side.
Otto glanced at Lady White. “Join me in my cabin. We still have matters to discuss.”
She gestured at her warbeast to remain behind and trailed along behind Otto and his companions. When he’d settled into his chair and dismissed Hans and Corina she asked, “What do you have in mind?”
“An alliance. You’re clearly no longer welcome in your homeland. Yet having been cast out of the cult, you still retain your power. That makes you useful. Especially your command over undead.”
“As to my power, that comes directly from Lord Astaroth. Unless I displease him, I’ll continue to wield his might. The High Lords are another matter. They rule the Land of the Demon Binders with an iron fist and any failure is severely punished. I may well be the first to escape that punishment. You mentioned the undead before. Why the interest?”
“Before I tell you, I want you to swear an oath on your true name to not betray me, my companions, or the New Garen Empire.”
Her bloodred lips curled up. “You don’t trust my promise?”
“You’re a demon worshipper. No offense, but that doesn’t make you the most trustworthy of allies. But your talents will be useful in what I think will be the final phase of my mission. In exchange for your oath, I give you my word that should your former countrymen come for you, I will be there to help.”
She studied him, clearly uncertain, but equally short on options. While she might survive on her own for a time, eventually that time would be cut short.
At last she said, “I swear on the name Alice Young to not betray you, your companions, or your empire.”
The corruption shifted around her, bands of darkness wrapping around her heart and head. He’d never seen such a reaction. It had to be something to do with her unique nature. He made a note to ask Lord Karonin about it.
“Satisfied? Now will you tell me what you plan?”
“While I have no proof, I believe the next leg of my journey will take me to the Dead Lands. That haunted place is filled with undead. Who better to help me on my journey than someone that worships the lord of the undead? I’d like to drop you off on the coast and have you search for Amet Sur’s capital. I can meet you there once I finish researching the final item’s location.”
“And what’s in this for me?” she asked.
“Safety? A place at my side as an advisor to the second most powerful person in the empire? You’d be surrounded by enough wizards and soldiers that no one would ever dare make a move against you and if they did, they’d be doomed to fail.”
Her smile broadened. “I like the sound of that. Very well, I accept your terms, but I will never call you master.”
Otto smiled back. “As long as you keep your oath and serve my cause, I don’t care what you call me.”
He didn’t add that the first thing he planned to learn was how to use her true name to compel her obedience. Oath or not, she was still a demon worshipper.