Chapter 3
Three
T hey didn’t even bother to bind my hands. And why should they? They outmatched me in every way. Against these monsters, I was weak and powerless.
Throk ensured I remained near the front, although Mira had likely been sent with the slaves toward the army’s rear. Somehow he could tell I was to blame for the death I’d created.
The army marched on, dragging us back to the mercenary camp—the last place I wanted to return to.
The trees I'd passed during my failed escape rustled their leaves as we went by, as though they were mocking me. Months of planning. Months of waiting for the perfect moment to act.
All for nothing.
Tears of rage and helplessness burned behind my eyes. What was I supposed to do now? How could I ever reach Gerand? For one wild moment, I imagined wrenching my guard's sword from its sheath and driving it through his chest.
But that would only get me killed faster.
Gods... what if Gerand was lost to me?
We first came upon the bodies of those who’d pursued us into the trees.
Tricken’s body lay cold and lifeless with ten other demons on the ground, their limbs askew and their faces a sickly shade of purple.
Foam mixed with blood slid over their cheeks.
Their unseeing eyes stared up into the clouded sky.
A dark satisfaction swirled within me.
A tall Spiritu Malignos demon with antlers and green skin along with the telltale black cracks across his flesh and orange glowing eyes, knelt next to Tricken’s body.
He pulled an obsidian knife from his sheath and cut into his own finger.
An ebony substance bubbled up from the wound.
Leaning forward, the demon drew a circle with a line through the center on Tricken’s forehead, then, chanting, plunged the blade into the corpse.
Tricken’s motionless form convulsed, and then his mouth fell open and an inky mist rose, curling upward into a cloud of blackness.
Within the vapor, a shape formed—Tricken’s horns, his wiry body, his eyes which now glowed a pale orange.
He stood on the ground, his form a soft, ghostly outline, as shadowy mist faded into a soft gray.
A glowing yellow cord strung about his neck attached to the knife still in the chest of his corpse on the ground.
Other bodied demons from Spiritu Malignos were plunging their knives into the dead with the same results.
I watched, fascinated and more than a little apprehensive, but my guard shoved me past the spectacle, and I lost sight of Tricken and the others.
The gray mist had settled around my ankles, like tendrils of foreboding as we walked. Throk and the others must be able to control it to a degree.
As we passed the last line of trees, and found ourselves in the camp, my steps faltered.
Demons were everywhere. Hundreds of them.
They lay scattered across the camp in eerie stillness, their bodies motionless, their skin turned the same unnatural shade of purple.
Some had fallen face down in the dirt. Others were piled together where they’d collapsed, tangled in heaps as though they’d tried to cling to each other in their final moments.
A few had crawled through the mud, leaving uneven tracks behind them before their strength gave out. A few clustered around the cooking pots, frozen where they’d fallen, as if they’d spent their concluding seconds trying to understand what had poisoned them.
The camp was utterly silent. No voices. No movement. Just the heavy, unnatural stillness of death pressing in from every side.
I’d feared the poison might fail, but it had worked far better than I’d ever imagined.
At least I made these monsters pay.
Throk paused and looked back at me. “You did all this, little human?”
I raised my chin. “I did.”
He shook his head, but then released a condescending laugh. “I admit I’m impressed. Unfortunately, your end won’t be pleasant either.”
He pointed to a demon plunging his obsidian blade into a dead body. “See that? It’s called a soul blade, used to raise spirits from the dead and bind them under my authority.”
The unsettled feeling in my gut only grew. “You’re raising the dead?”
Throk’s grin turned wicked. “I don’t think the spirits coming to life will be happy to see you.”
The Spiritu Malignos soldiers had spread out across the camp—different kinds of demons, probably from the four other demon nations.
And each possessed the shadowy lines and dull glowing eyes.
They hunched over the lifeless bodies of the mercenary demons.
They held the obsidian blades in their hands.
Blades pierced the dead, repeating what they had done to Tricken.
“Where is the main tent?” Throk demanded.
I didn’t see any reason not to answer. Making him angry would only hurt me, or worse, Mira.
“That way.” I pointed toward the center of the camp. “You’ll find a large tent located three rows over and seven tents up.”
He stalked in that direction, and my guard pulled me forward.
Black mist issued out of the dead bodies as we passed, coalescing into spirits.
When the Spiritu Malignos soldiers with the black lines on their flesh finished raising one spirit, they moved to the next, pulling the transparent spirit they held on a line that connected to their knife. They raised more and more.
They were creating an army of spirits.
When we came to the main tent, Throk pulled out his own obsidian knife. “Stay here with the human. Do not let anyone touch her until my return,” he instructed my guard.
“Yes, sir,” my guard responded as his thin fingers dug into my shoulder.
With that, Throk ducked and entered the tent.
My apprehension grew at his last words. Spirits were being raised. Spirits of the demons I had killed. If I managed to break the grip of the demon on me and ran, could I outrun an army of demons? Most likely not. And what of the spirits?
Could they do anything to me? They were intangible on this plane. Throk’s instructions forbade touching me, though perhaps he had intended that command only for his corporeal soldiers as they reanimated the dead?
I shivered as even more demon spirits were raised. Gods, I hoped they couldn’t touch me.
While my mind tried to work out some sort of plan, I watched a demon from Spiritu Malignos, a fox-headed one with the hands and feet of a human, raising the spirit of one dead demon and then another.
They both followed behind him on the lines attached to their bodies.
The fox-demon stepped up to them. “Your spirits have been saved from the underworld to serve the great kingdom of Spiritu Malignos. Will you swear your allegiance to General Throk and bind yourself to him, swearing to obey all that he says?”
A demon spirit that was a mixture of man and ram growled, “I ain’t swearin’ allegiance to no one. Go to hell.”
The Spiritu Malignos soldier grabbed the line, and it glowed a sharp red.
It spread down the length of the line until it reached the part wrapped around the demon’s neck.
Crimson lines appeared burning into the ram demon’s translucent flesh, spreading across his body as he screamed and writhed.
He tore at his body, but it did no good.
The red continued to spread, filling his eyes and sinking deeper into him.
It ripped him apart, and he evaporated into nothing.
The fox demon turned to the other spirit that remained.
“Will you swear your allegiance to General Throk and bind yourself to him, swearing to obey all that he says?”
The other demon spirit nodded, afraid and trembling. “Yes, yes, I swear. I swear.”
The soldier raised his blade and cut the line, and it dissolved into nothing. “Welcome to the army of the dead.”
More and more spirits gathered. A dreaded voice reached my ears.
“That’s her! She’s the one who poisoned us! She did this!”
I glanced behind me. Tricken stood among a large gathering of spirits, pointing at me.
All the freshly raised demon spirits turned as one, a deep-seated rage in their eyes. They’d kill me, and it wouldn’t be quick or merciful. I stepped back into my captor. I had nowhere to run or hide. Throk’s orders were useless against these murderous creatures.
They surrounded me and my guard, cutting off any retreat.
I was about to find out what sort of damage a spirit could inflict.
A werewolf spirit bent over and picked up a sword that lay at his feet. Shit. So they were able to interact with our world.
My guard drew his sword, his large ant-like eyes blinking from the side and his antennae quivering. “Stand down.” His weapon glowed with an eerie blue light.
But the werewolf demon swung his blade at my guard, who struck back. Their blades clanged together. I stumbled aside as they went at it, fighting one another in a fierce exchange of blows.
Without warning, in the middle of the fight, the werewolf’s sword unexpectedly fell from his grasp, landing on the ground.
The werewolf stumbled in bewilderment, surprise crossing his face. Murmurs of confusion ran through the crowd of spirit demons watching.
My guard lunged and rammed his glowing blade through the demon. The werewolf creature screamed before he dissipated into nothing.
“You will find that you have a finite window to engage with the world in a disembodied state.” The ant-bodied guard turned to the demon spirits, sword still in hand, mandibles clacking as he spoke. “By order of Throk, you will stand down and not touch the human.”
“Fuck that,” a spirit minotaur said, and he lumbered forward toward me. My guard was too far away. He wouldn’t make it in time. I found the demons had encircled me, blocking any retreat.
The minotaur reached for me.
My heart rose into my throat.
The demon froze, and then his eyes widened, his mouth opened as the same red cracks formed across his body. He let out a pain-filled roar and then he disintegrated into nothing right in front of me.
I gulped for breath. What in the hell? My guard was nowhere near me. No sword had dispatched this demon like the werewolf.
The rest of the spirits didn’t move.
“Let that be a lesson. You may attack me, but for any who dare break their oath of allegiance to General Throk,” my guard growled, “there shall be no underworld, no afterlife, no refuge beyond death—only complete and agonizing erasure.”
They watched me, those spirits, with their orange glowing eyes filled with deadly wrath. Oh, they wanted me for their revenge, but none of them came forward. Nobody dared to challenge.
I had upended their lives. And now they had become subjects in a new army that controlled every action.
As mercenaries, they scarcely resembled a military unit, free to depart whenever they pleased, satisfying any desire on a whim.
I had stripped them of their freedom as surely as they’d stripped me of mine.
I wasn’t the least bit sorry.
Throk exited the tent, and with a brief, unimpressed glance at all the spirits gathered around, approached us.
“I have news, boys.” His grin widened as he looked over the group.
“I have raised Lord Vaelor’s spirit, and he has granted us permission to remain on his lands while we conduct the Final Proving.
In return, we’ll be delivering him payment.
” His gaze settled on me, and a cruel smile spread across his face.
“She’s the price for his hospitality. And nobody—spirit or flesh—is to touch her before she is delivered into Lord Vaelor’s hands. ”
A low growl emitted from the assembled apparitions. Their unrest and desire to have me for themselves was almost palpable.
Throk must have sensed it as well. “The decision is final,” he said, addressing the spirits gathered. “Judging by Lord Vaelor’s reaction, I doubt she will be shown any leniency. Now, bodied soldiers, gather our new ‘friends’ and move out.”
The soldiers with their black cracked skin lumbered forward, ordering the spirits into a line.
Even if the spirits could only interact with this world for a short while, it was still enough time to inflict a horrifyingly violent death. Many regarded me through their ghostly gaze with such loathing, I was grateful for the temporary stalling of my fate.
“Don’t look so pleased, human,” Throk said. “You should have seen the fury of the good Lord. Apparently, your actions overthrew everything he was working toward. You were the only payment he asked for, so he must have quite the retribution planned.”
My relief evaporated. Shit, I was so dead.
“Take her to the manor, unhurt,” Throk said to my guard as his dark smile only grew. “Lord Vaelor will not want his revenge spoiled by any added trauma.”