Chapter 20 Daesra #2
Even in my anger I don’t want to dwell upon the details.
There are horrible contraptions for pulling bodies apart or boiling them in vats or hanging them from huge hooks like so much meat.
And that’s what they are for the most part—meat for the daemons.
Huge furnaces belch sooty black smoke into the already-dark sky, the only evidence of what they’re burning left in the faint golden motes of aether that rise like sparks.
I would think the daemons would chew even the bones when aether is so scarce, except in this pit they have enough shades to be particular.
Meanwhile, their own stunted souls are allowed to run wild, the daemons free to toy with their food in the most nightmarish ways possible before they feast.
It’s the most grotesque blood farm imaginable.
If you want something to break, might I suggest starting here?
That was Orseus-Isha’s suggestion when we were both looking at the blood farms, which means I probably shouldn’t listen to it, but still it’s tempting.
I’m beyond furious at this place for even existing—though that’s Isha’s fault, too, I suppose.
And yet he’s not here for me to unleash my fury upon.
If anyone other than Sadaré, my mother, or Pogli were standing before me, I would want to strike them down for simply stepping within range of my wrath.
You could drain all the blood farms… perhaps gather enough aether to challenge Isha himself.
My sword appears in my hand. Just as with the Gentle One, it would be a mercy to consume these suffering souls, destroy this place and all its daemons, and then go rip Isha to pieces. My mother isn’t here to stop me this time.
But someone is. Or something.
Before I can stride forward and begin breaking everything in my path, a massive figure steps out of the patchwork of fortifications to meet me.
My roar of rage after exiting the lake must have announced me as a formidable presence, or at least an intruder, because it’s the biggest daemon I’ve ever seen, at least three, maybe four times my height.
I haven’t seen many outside of here, since daemons generally like to keep to themselves, like the other monsters of the world, so as to keep killing rather than be killed.
My mother’s temple had been my own lonely lair, for the most part, until Sadaré joined me.
Arinae, she’d called herself then.
This is more like a daemon enclave, filled with loud and proud daemonic festivity in all its blood and gore. And this must be their leader.
His massive knotted legs take greater strides than I ever could, eating up the space between us on hooves the size of platters and vibrating the rock beneath us.
His skin is milky white, splattered in red blood, and stretched much too tight over the muscles of his broad body, which is unfortunately naked.
His black-veined wings spread wide behind him, resembling a bat’s, much like the Gentle One’s, though far bigger.
And yet he’s so large that I wonder if they can get him off the ground, like Pogli’s can’t.
His head is disproportionately large for his body, also a bit like Pogli—which is definitely an insult to Pogli—with thick curling ram’s horns and a gaping under-bitten jaw displaying too many rows of broken and rotting teeth that are evidently still sharp enough, judging by the flesh that’s caught between them.
The orbs of his wide-set, bulging eyes are a solid red.
In one clawed hand he holds a sword that’s twice as tall as me.
I see your horns are smaller. Reflective of your loss of potency, in taking a step down from being a daemon?
Godsdamned Isha’s voice in my godsdamned head. It makes me want to roar again.
I manage not to, and yet I can’t help glaring down at my own sword—and then glancing over the rest of me, making sure I’m not naked, since I just swam through a lake of fire.
My self-preservation efforts must have extended to my tunic, thank the gods, because it’s not only in place along with my leather belt and sandals, but the tears have been repaired.
I face the demon with a savage grin. “Apparently none of you learned the concept of discretion, but that doesn’t mean I can’t destroy you.”
“You are trespassing.” His voice rumbles from his throat like a boulder down a hillside. “I am king of the daemons, Eury—”
“I was brought here rather forcibly,” I interrupt with blistering contempt, “and I passed the daemon stage even before the burning one, so this is all familiar territory.” I stretch my neck and shoulders and ready my sword—as small as it looks next to his—before I add, “I’ve already killed one daemon.
” Never mind that it was my own internal daemon in my own internal pit, Pogli helped me, and I only actually severed its arm along with Sadaré’s, but I don’t mention all of that. “So how bad can you be?”
Fairly fucking bad, it turns out. Eury, or whatever the rest of his name was, must not have appreciated being interrupted, because the reach of his sword nearly cleaves me in half. I manage to leap away from the whistling tip, but it cuts a new gash in my tunic.
“Goat-fucker,” I snarl. Vaguely I remember someone calling me that once, or maybe I called myself that. I don’t have time to ponder as the backswing of his meaty fist catches me broadside. I fly through the air and land flat on my back on hard rock, my breath leaving me in a rush.
Gods, he’s strong. But that consideration doesn’t stop me for long, barely scratching the surface of my fury. I bound to my feet and launch myself at him. I duck under his next swing, dip around him, and slice through the tendon at the back of his leg.
Even that barely makes him stumble as he spins on me.
At least I’m faster, I think, as I manage to dodge his next attack. So I simply need to distract him, cause him enough pain, until I can consume his soul like I did the Gentle One’s.
When the daemon’s sword comes slamming down a hairsbreadth from my twisting shoulder, I roll through the gap between his legs—trying not to think about what’s dangling above me—and sever the tendon on his other leg.
This, at least, drops him to one knee. I vault onto his back, barely avoiding his clawing, grasping hand that could probably crush my rib cage, grip one of his horns to swing around to the front, and slash him across one bulging red eye before I drop to the ground and back away.
The demon screams, a sound as wretched as he is. And yet something about his eye makes me shudder, and not because it’s currently gushing black blood behind his clutching fingers.
My eyes used to be that shade of red. They might be the color of wine now, but this could have been me. Especially if Isha had found a way to claim me.
Instead, the maze spat out Pogli and me, looking like we do. Both Horizon and Sadaré played a major role in that, of course, but it wasn’t only them that brought me there.
But me as well.
I realize with cooling anger that I can’t swallow this daemon’s soul—I don’t even want to reach out and touch it—for fear of ending up no better than him.
As good as a daemon, once more. Never mind what would happen if I consumed all these unfortunate mortal souls trapped in the bowels of hell. I would never be the same.
I’d been about to do just that, but Eury stopped me in place of my mother.
I nearly feel like thanking him. I’ll settle for destroying him—though it will have to be in the usual, mundane manner, since I can’t rip out his soul or drown him in fire like I did the Gentle One.
Considering the heat down here, he probably loves taking fire baths, if he bathes at all.
Which I sincerely doubt, based on his smell.
He tries to charge me but only stumbles again. He pumps his great wings to take to the air, but they can’t lift his bulk off the ground.
“I knew it!” I crow, dancing backward, still angry enough to be a petty bastard. “You can’t fucking fly!”
He might be like Pogli in that, but Pogli is the most beautiful creature in the world next to this hideous beast. And, somehow, Pogli came from me, though I still don’t know how it’s possible.
He’s so much better than me, and yet he’s a part of me, like my sword.
That’s why they were both able to journey to the underworld with me, after all.
My sword. I turn it in my hand, the light of hell glinting orange on the quicksilver blade. I’ve always been able to change parts of myself more easily than anything else. Reshape them. Stretch them. I even managed with my tunic, both on the shores of the River of Hatred and in the Lake of Fire.
I look at the daemon surging toward me, using both his wings and his own blade, dug into the rock, to lurch forward. The blade that’s so much longer than mine.
Facing him squarely, I raise the sword of Sea, my birthright, high overhead, and bring it down like an ax to split wood.
Yet I swing with every bit of strength in my body—in my divine soul.
He’s not remotely in range, let alone close enough to strike with any lethal force.
And yet liquid light flashes out from the blade, slicing across the pit.
The daemon draws up short, swaying, his one solid red eye bulging even wider in shock. And then the suddenly visible seam from his head to his crotch frays with black blood, and he splits in half. The two sides of him slide wetly apart to fold to the ground with a crash.
I’d like to say I feel triumphant, but I’m far more surprised, staring once more at the sword in my hand. It’s not even bloody. But then the other daemons—who’ve gathered on the far side of their leader as we fought—abruptly drag my attention back to the situation in front of me.
I have an audience. A rather hellish one.
I still debate whether to continue hacking up the daemon, since the first Gentle One still had enough in her to try to retrieve her own head, and so perhaps Eury can slither back together and come after me.
Or perhaps I should try to chop all the daemons horizontally in half while they’re standing close together and not yet charging me, though I don’t know if I can manage such a feat whatsoever…
And then I realize they’re not only looking at me. They’re also glancing down at their fallen leader, particularly his oozing black blood spilling over the rocks, with gleaming hunger in their eyes.
Daemon blood must be powerful here—far more than a mortal shade’s—and yet another daemon is about the only one who could find it appetizing. I count it as a mark in my favor that I don’t. I hope that’s not only because I’m still sated on the Gentle One.
Either way, I don’t need to piece apart the daemon. The other daemons will do it for me.
It tugs on me to start backing away, my blade still raised in warning. But I don’t have time to fight these daemons and free these condemned shades. Not before I free Sadaré. I’ve been forced down enough detours as it is.
I keep retreating slowly but steadily, until most of the daemons are no longer staring at me, but rather at the meal spread on the ground. None of them are eager to bleed by my sword—to become the next serving. Eury is plenty for all.
When I deem I’ve gone far enough, I sweep my sword aside with a little bow. “Enjoy.”
That’s all the invitation they need to dive upon the corpse in a ravenous frenzy—I didn’t even have to use my abilities to encourage them. Grimacing, I turn my back on growling, wet, tearing noises, and run for the dark cliff wall behind me.
It’s time to climb my way out of the Pit of Hell.
Hand over foothold, that’s exactly what I do, since I’m worse at flying than even the daemon king was.
But I can manage this. I imagine that I’m climbing toward Sadaré, and that image of her, however smoke-blurred it may be this deep in the fiery, blood-spattered bowels of hell, carries me like a pair of wings.
That is, until I’m halfway up, navigating a particularly tricky sheer face by punching my fingers straight into it, when something seizes me by the belt—and snatches me off the cliff. I barely have time to shout as I’m torn away from the rock.
And high up into the air.