The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (61 page)

“Ritualized cannibalism?” Talarius asked with distaste. “Clearly these people are heathens of the worst sort.”

Tom interrupted, “Guys, we are getting off track here.”

“Sorry. Back to the topic,” Reggie said. “Why didn’t I get cookies either?”

Tizzy held up his upper hands as if trying to placate them. “I’m sorry, but the cookies were a house-warming gift. Did you just move into a new Dark Fortress?”

“No, but Lord Tommus just did,” Zelda pointed out.

Tizzy closed his eyes and grabbed his horns with his upper hands, rocking his head from side to side. “Okay already, I’ll bring cookies to the feast! But it’s going to take me some time. Do you have any idea how long it is going to take me to bake three or four hundred dozen cookies in my oven? I can barely fit a whole dwarf in it!”

Boggy gave him an odd look. “You have an oven? I’ve never seen it.”

“Guys… please?” Tom felt like he was going to lose it. He was under enough stress as it was; trying to work with Larry, Moe, Curly and Shemp all at once was too much. “I have to get back to open a gate for the next hunting party. So let’s get to what needs to be done.”

Antefalken frowned. “What were we trying to do? I’ve forgotten at this point.”

“We were talking about teaching Vaselle and Damien the Cool spell,” Tom said. “Or maybe they could make amulets or something like Talarius’s armor. Actually, that would be the best thing.”

Antefalken scratched his chin. “Well Vaselle told Damien and me that he runs a shop and creates arcane devices. I am not sure what type, and I am sure Damien could make one too. Let me discuss it with them this afternoon when Damien summons me.”

“Fine. I will contact Vaselle and have him get some clothes for Edwyrd, and we’ll come by.”

“Who’s Edwyrd?” Reggie asked.

“He’s me—it’s my human form,” Tom said, noting the knight turn to face him.

“So
you
are the Lord Edwyrd who sank the Oorstemothian ship?” the knight asked.

Tom sighed. “Yes, I was disguised as a human so as not to cause a panic. We were told the Oorstemothians were pirates attacking our ship, and having been hired to defend the ship from pirates, we tried to defend it. But then they nearly killed Rupert—in fact, I thought he was dead—so I sort of took the battle to them and sank their ship.”

Talarius was silent for a moment, thinking. “That makes some sense, but—”

“But being a demon, I can’t be trusted with the truth! Do you want to really know what was going on?” Tom asked. “Let’s get it out there before I go sending more D’Orcs into Astlan.”

“Go ahead,” Talarius said.

“Exador’s men ambushed a caravan with Rupert, Jenn and a bunch of others from Lenamare’s school who were fleeing Exador’s siege of the school. Gastropé was one of the soldiers, but Jenn fought him to a standstill. Jehenna summoned me; but she used a broken ring, so I came through of my own free will. Everyone else fled or perished, so I agreed to escort Rupert and Jenn to Freehold for their safety.”

Zelda, Reggie and Talarius had never heard this story and so were watching Tom closely.

“In any event, along the way, Exador sent several major demons to locate us and they distracted me and managed to capture Jenn.” Tom sighed. How many times had he told this story now? “Rupert came up with a scheme to infiltrate their camp as a lost boy, not unlike what he did in your camp.” Talarius nodded. “They put him in the tent with Jenn and Gastropé. Rupert, being a demon, was able to free himself from his ropes and then freed Jenn and summoned me. I opened a portal and pulled Jenn, Rupert and Gastropé into my cave.”

“These two people were either very brave or stupid,” Talarius said.

“Well, if you know Exador, he’s not a pleasant person. Staying was not an option,” Tom said. “Actually, given that we now know he is an archdemon, I can say he is pretty much everything you, Talarius, expect an archdemon to be. Not all demons are, but in Exador’s case—he seems to fit the stereotype.” Tom shook his head.

“Anyway, Gastropé and Jenn used this Cool spell to survive the heat in my cave, but it wouldn’t last long, so I had to find a way back to Astlan. I went searching and found your high priest, Verigas, summoning a demon of his own. I intercepted that call and opened a portal to let Rupert, Jenn and Gastropé back into Astlan. We tried to assure your priest we meant no harm, but he apparently overreacted and called out the Rod once we left. I was just trying to get Jenn and Rupert to safety in Freehold.”

Tom shook both hands in Talarius’s direction. “So, to be clear: there was no planned invasion, no nothing! All of that Lord Edwyrd’s invading demon horde crap was made up by Verigas to make himself look good after admitting to summoning demons. And the Oorstemothians? Well, they shot first; I considered it self-defense.”

Talarius just shook his head. “What a complicated story you have created.”

“Look, you can believe it or not, I don’t care. I have now told you the truth; I have put it out there. I have yet to lie to you about anything. So you can judge for yourself based on what you see me do.”

Talarius seemed to shrug. “I will take your story under advisement, as I do everything else.”

“That’s all I ask.” Tom sighed. “Antefalken, are we set? I am going to visit Vaselle later this afternoon; you tell me when. He and Edwyrd will then come visit you and Damien. We can put Damien’s mind at ease and discuss constructing some sort of Abyssal life support system for Astlanians.”

Antefalken nodded. “I expect him to summon me about a period after noon local time. Anytime after that.”

Tom nodded. “So early fourth period; that works.”

~

After a small eternity, the D’Wargs had been saddled, and the D’Orcs verified they had fastened securely. Tal Gor had run to his tent to retrieve his crossbow and quiver of arrows. He had not used them for much other than practice in years. Since the wyvern, he had only hunted small game and his crossbow was a bit over-powered for that, so he had been using bow and arrows. For large game, though, the crossbow was ideal.

All the D’Orcs had been amazed to see Schwarzenfürze harnessed. It was obvious that she was not much enjoying the gear, but she was permitting it. It took a few tries and a fair amount of patience from the D’Warg, but eventually he was mounted. Schwarzenfürze squirmed and seemed to be trying to force Tal Gor to a more balanced location while the other orcs mounted their D’Wargs.

Vespa lined them up two by two so that each orc could launch one at a time. Three D’Orcs hovered in the air around the takeoff area, prepared to help if any of the orcs had issues. Naturally, the orcs grumbled about being babysat, but the huntmaster was adamant; he wanted them to get some practice in first and be prepared for the eventual chases of the hunt.

As the shaman, Tal Gor was one of the first two in line, along with Soo An, his sister. As they were ready to begin flying, Schwarzenfürze seemed to finally settle down a bit, almost sighing. Suddenly, from directly behind Tal Gor, a very loud series of moist, splattering explosions erupted. The D’Warg behind him jumped out of line with loud snorting noises, causing its rider, Fel Nor, to reel to the left, where he began coughing and hacking before jamming his fingers in his nostrils.

Looking over his shoulder, Tal Gor was surprised as the other second-line D’Warg began moving away as well. It was at that point that the putrescent stench struck his own nostrils. Apparently, the aim of the noxious gas cloud had been straight back, and it had taken a few moments for the cloud to drift back to Tal Gor’s nose. He gasped for breath through his mouth even as Soo An did the same.

The third line of orcs began waving their hands in front of their faces even as their D’Wargs began giving them trouble. D’Orcs standing nearby began plugging their own noses and a few were almost retching, even as they laughed uproariously.

“Lilith’s dusty udders!” Virok cursed even as he plugged his own nostrils. “I thought I’d never have to smell this again!”

“It’s been over four thousand years since she’s eaten! How is this possible?” Vespa yelled between guffaws.

“Knowing Schwarzenfürze, she’s probably been saving it, letting it ferment for four millennia!” Virok said, laughing. His two brothers behind him finally had their D’Wargs back in formation, but the D’Wargs were snarling and snorting in displeasure. The poor beasts had no way to block their nostrils. By this point, everyone was laughing at the ornery D’Wargs.

“Tal Gor,” his brother Fel Nor exclaimed, “never in my life have I smelled something so disgusting. You could leave entrails out on a rock for days and not have such a smell! I shall never ride behind that D’Warg again.”

“Relax, Fel Nor,” said Vespa, still laughing. “I am sure it will take Schwarzenfürze at least a few moments to recharge!”

Tal Gor rubbed Schwarzenfürze’s neck, truly enjoying her attack, of sorts, on his brother. This day just kept getting better!

~

“So what exactly is Exador proposing?” Lord Gandros asked the councilors in his room.

“That is not completely clear,” Randolf said.

“Not clear?” Damien asked. “He says he can prove he’s not an archdemon, yet he’s not clear how?” The wizard shook his head in disbelief.

Randolf shrugged. “He said he and the guests he had staying here would be more than willing to pass any test the Council decided was reasonable.”

“He sounds rather confident,” Jehenna noted.

“Too confident.” Zilquar squinted at his fingers, concentrating as he spoke.

“So we come up with a plan to test him and his colleagues, and if they pass, we know they are not the archdemons?” Davron said.

“Or they have managed to trick us,” Damien noted.

“All well and good, but what if they don’t pass? What if we expose them?” Lenamare asked drily.

“Then I am guessing we have three very embarrassed archdemons in the middle of the Council Chamber,” Gandros snorted.

Davron and Zilquar both grimaced. “I’m relatively sure that won’t be pleasant,” Davron observed. Zilquar nodded in agreement.

“In such a case, we would need to be prepared to bind them,” Randolf stated.

Damien arched an eyebrow and looked askance at the archimage, who had apparently just lost his senses. “Bind them? Bind three archdemons?”

Randolf shrugged. “Well, I admit, three is more than I bargained for, but I have been researching traps for a single archdemon.”

Lenamare looked at Randolf, giving a slight inhale of sudden understanding. “Interesting; I now see what you were getting at during our discussion the other day.”

Gandros did a double take between the two councilors. “The two of you were having a discussion? Have heaven and hell united?” Jehenna was also looking at Lenamare oddly.

“Strange situations make strange bedfellows.” Randolf grinned. Several other wizards grimaced, slightly uncomfortable with the allusion to the archimage’s catamite.

“How much more work do you have to do?” Gandros asked.

Randolf shrugged. “Thanks to Lenamare’s assistance I was getting close, but I’ll need to recalibrate to hold three archdemons.”

“Perhaps we should do them one at a time?” Davron asked.

“That would be best, but how do we schedule that? If the first one is an archdemon and doesn’t return to the Abyss, won’t the other two get suspicious?” Damien asked.

Zilquar frowned. “We could put the wards back up really fast.”

“That would get rid of all three,” Gandros noted.

“Unless they are prepared for it, under the assumption that that is the test we would devise,” Jehenna said.

“And we do need to come up with a test, still,” Lenamare noted.

“This is going to be tricky,” Gandros stated.

“Assuming we do discover that they are archdemons, and we put the wards up, how long can we keep them up and keep out three angry archdemons?” Damien asked.

“Long enough for the Rod and Oorstemoth to recall their forces, I should hope,” Lenamare said reluctantly.

“And then what? Previously, they did not use their full strength because they were in hiding for some reason. There would be no such constraint at that point,” Davron noted.

Gandros shook his head and sighed. “I would like to convene a meeting with Alexandros on this; he was not available this morning.” The Archimage rubbed his temples. “We need to buy some time, time to think this through. Time to look into bindings, time to look into banishings.” He looked back and forth between Lenamare and Randolf. “Is there a way to ban them from Astlan for a few centuries?”

Lenamare blinked and Randolf shrugged. Finally Lenamare spoke. “Well, we don’t quite know how they got here. All previous research indicated that manifesting on the material planes was very complicated and power intensive. That’s why we never expected to have to do such a thing.”

“In hindsight, a contingency plan for one of those times an archdemon did manage to manifest might have been a good idea,” Randolf noted.

Damien sighed. “I am wondering if we might need to consult with some religious authorities.”

Lenamare snorted. “I doubt such narrow-minded and opinionated mana channelers would have any useful advice to offer.”