The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (80 page)

Each commander had given a speech about what a great opportunity this was, and how they had never expected to see this day. It was all quite inspirational and rather emotional, but after the first two or three? Rupert rolled his eyes at the latest one. Zelda would also give a speech, as would Tom.

After that, Rupert was to swear fealty, which seemed like an odd thing to do to one’s father. But that did sort of sound like the story books, he guessed. Then Zelda and Fer-Rog would swear, followed by all the commanders. After that, Vaselle and the shamans were going to repeat their oaths. Talarius had agreed to swear to abide by the Rules of Hostage or something like that, and the rest of the entourage were encouraged to declare loyalty or friendship, but not required to swear fealty.

Tizzy, though, had a group of demons that he had hauled in for his baking that were going to swear. Apparently, they were all planning on taking up residence here. Rupert grinned at the thought of Tizzy’s drinking buddies living here. That should be fun if they were all like Boggy. He wondered if Tizzy would swear? The octopod had been telling his demon friends that he was Tom’s Lord High Muckety Muck, so Rupert would think someone with that prestigious of a title would have to swear allegiance. He was not really sure what a Lord High Muckety Muck did, but presumably Tizzy knew.

In any event, after that there would be the first short break as the staff that needed to be rotated for duty, or whose detachment wasn’t going to be swearing in for a while, would be excused. At that point, Rupert, Fer-Rog, Talarius and the guests would be free to go. He figured most would go up to the mortal suite, where snacks would be set out for them. True, none of them would need to eat in the Abyss, but most were in the habit, so Tom felt it only polite to have food and wine.

For some reason, Tom referred to it as the “skybox treatment.” Rupert looked up, trying to spot the balcony they would be using. There were an awful lot of these skyboxes. It was actually nice to see them clearly again. Tom had been able to part the rain around the mouth of the volcano so that the arena was dry. Or mostly dry; there were water troughs from up high that funneled excess water down to the lava below. Since it was still raining just outside the volcano mouth, there was quite a bit of steam and soot coming up from the volcano.

That soot was kind of a pain. It coated everything near the arena. At least the dining halls were soot free; he really did not want his food covered in soot tomorrow. Actually, outside the immediate area of the volcano, the soot disappeared. That seemed odd. He wondered if there was something in the system that was absorbing it. Actually, the dust level had been going down steadily lately. When they had first arrived, all the furniture had been very dusty in his room. It was less dusty now, yet not like someone had dusted. There was just less of it. Very odd.

~

Fierd was low on the horizon as Hilda and Stevos managed to get Teragdor back to the inn and into one of the small beds. The priest, barely awake as it was, began snoring as soon as they had him on the bed.

Hilda chuckled; Stevos looked at her. “I can see that he has been observing his priestly vows of moderation.” She laughed. “Orcs are all known, or so I’m told, to be able to hold prodigious amounts of alcohol. Our young priest here could barely hold as much as a Rod member.”

Stevos shook his head. “I don’t understand how you so easily drank the wargtowners under the table. Every time I went to the trenches to relieve myself, I had to surreptitiously do a cleansing ritual to stay even close to sober!”

“Ah, youth!” Hilda said with a laugh. “First, aside from being much older and more experienced, I also have a lot more mass! I cannot stress how much that helps. Plus, over the years, and particularly lately, I’ve gotten very adept at doing cleansing rituals under the table, so to speak. My principal mission right now unfortunately involves my drinking prodigious amounts of very expensive wine.” Hilda feigned dismay.

“And here I’m getting second-rate glargh!” Stevos said, laughing.

“Well, one nice thing is that even though buying enough glargh to drink everyone in town under the table while they revealed their secrets was quite expensive, it actually doesn’t come very close to my worst tabs in Freehold.”

“And no one objects?” Stevos asked.

Hilda shrugged. “It’s a bureaucracy, and it takes quite some time for the forms to make it through the system. Fortunately, we’ve been getting exceptional results, so… no complaints so far.”

“Nice work if you can get it.” Stevos shook his head.

Hilda shrugged again. “It is a nice change. However, it is a lot more fieldwork and pretending to be someone you are not. Here we were able to tell Teragdor the truth. In Freehold, I am almost in enemy territory. I cannot reveal myself to the Church or Rod outside the city, or to the wizards inside. If I did, they’d all go silent and cagey.”

Hilda looked down at Taragdor. “He really did seem to enjoy himself; I imagine he doesn’t get a lot of opportunities to socialize with his father’s people.”

Stevos nodded. “That is my understanding.”

“I have to return to Freehold for a few hours, and then we have another late-night meeting,” Hilda said. “Can you watch over him, work to ease his glarghvost, I think they called it?”

Stevos grinned and nodded. “That is what it is called. I like that name.”

Hilda gave an amused frown. “I like the name better than the beverage.” She shook her head. “Don’t fully cleanse him, just take the edge off. Part of an experience like this is the next morning. It makes the event more memorable.”

Stevos laughed. “I think you really must be an alcohol professional!”

“If only…” Hilda laughed.

~

“Well, it’s been nice to be back on solid ground for the day,” Jenn noted to Gastropé in the banquet room of the inn that Seamach had arranged for. She plucked a strawberry from the buffet table with her little wooden stick. Much to her surprise, she had found she really enjoyed strawberries with the funny bubbly wine they had at the inn.

“It is, but I am not in a hurry to settle down here,” Gastropé told her.

Jenn chuckled. “Fortunately for you, I suppose, I don’t think either of us will be having an opportunity to ‘settle down’ for quite some time.”

“Did you have a good day?” Maelen asked, coming up to them.

“It was a bit of an eye opener,” Gastropé said. Maelen raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

“There are actually orc shopkeepers here?” Jenn said.

Maelen moved his eyes around a bit in puzzlement. “And?”

“Did you know that orcs could be merchants?” Gastropé asked.

Again, Maelen looked puzzled. “Why couldn’t they? I am not aware of any place with laws against it. Although given so many prejudices out there, there might be somewhere.”

Jenn shook her head in amazement. “But everyone knows that orcs always side with the forces of darkness and armies of evil, and when not doing that, they are brigands, thieves and unsavory mercenaries.”

Maelen nodded slightly in consideration. “There are many that do tend to fall into those occupations and allegiances, but certainly not all of them. Not all humans are wizards, for example.”

Gastropé looked puzzled. “Most humans are not wizards.”

“And most orcs aren’t brigands or thieves. Orcs are generally a tribal people, often nomadic in nature. And yes, they do have a rather martial nature and don’t often get along with humans, or elves, but they are just people.”

Jenn was giving him a skeptical look. “Yes, but history books said that in most conflicts, they’ve sided with the forces of darkness.”

“Says the wizard who has spent the last month working hand in hand in close proximity with multiple non-bound demons?” Maelen asked.

Jenn clamped her mouth shut for a moment, then took another sip of sparkling wine. Gastropé coughed and took a sip himself.

~

“You smell like a cheap, beer-soaked barn!” Danyel fanned his nostrils as he helped Hilda get out of her over-clothes.

“If it only it had been that pleasant a venue.” Hilda grimaced, smelling the armpit of her jacket. “I will clearly need you to run me a quick bath before I go check on Trisfelt.”

She had been shocked to find the wards back up and once again unable to materialize inside Freehold. Fortunately, the guards were letting in anyone who was able to enter. She had asked the gate guards what was up and had been told that there had been more demon issues at the palace. Fortunately, while there had been a lot of property damage, no one had died or been seriously hurt.

Her first instinct had been to go directly to the palace, but then she realized she would never be able to explain her stench. Of course, she could have used a cleansing ritual, but she had already planned on a bath, and they’d said no one had been hurt. Thus, the best course of action was a hot bath. She shook her head in dismay at the lack of time. Fortunately, Murgatroy was sufficiently far east of Freehold that she had picked up an extra hour or two of fierdlight.

“So where were you all day?” Danyel asked. “Trisfelt stopped by to check on you after the dust-up. I had to tell him that you had been called to the countryside to assist a client with numerous ill servants.”

“Well, that works out extremely well then. It will more than explain my ignorance of the day’s events and give me a good excuse for questions.” Hilda chuckled. “You are turning out to have a calling for subterfuge!”

“What should I do with these?” He held up her jacket and gestured to the rest of the clothes she was wearing.

“Put them somewhere where they won’t offend our noses. I need to wear them again tomorrow.” Hilda said.

“Are you going to do a cleaning ritual on them?” Danyel asked.

That gave Hilda pause. “Hmm, for authenticity, I had not planned to, but my principal target there knows who I am.” She shook her head. “I think I will wait on a decision until after tonight’s meeting. I may have gotten enough information today that Stevos can wrap things up.”

“Stevos?” Danyel asked.

Hilda shook her head. “I’m sorry—you asked where I was. I was in Murgatroy.” Danyel gave her a blank look and shrug, indicating he had no idea where that was. “It is south and east of here eight or nine hundred leagues.”

Danyel raised his eyebrows. “Quite a jaunt,” he said dubiously.

Hilda smiled. “Not if you take a shortcut through Tierhallon. Anyway, I was with Saint Stevos Delastro of Murgandy.”

Danyel slowly shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

Hilda grinned. “I just met him last night. He is young as saints go. I am thinking about seventy or so. It is rather impertinent to ask a saint you have just met about their untimely and always tragic demise. “

“Sensitive subject then?” Danyel asked.

“Yes, but not just for the saint.” Hilda shook her head; Danyel looked puzzled.

“Let’s just say that if I told you the story that led to the canonization of Saint Tatiana, you would never drink another Bloody Tatiana again!” Hilda chuckled grimly.

Danyel grimaced. “I’ll get your bath ready.” He laid the jacket on the back of a wooden chair and moved into the bathing room.

Hilda followed. “So anyway, we were in Murgatroy, which is a backwater down in the Kingdom of Murgandy. Not sure it’s technically kingdom, or what it is.” She shook her head. “Anyway, we were interviewing a half-orc priest about incidents he had reported yesterday.”

Danyel paused in preparing the bath. “A half-orc priest? Is that even possible?”

Hilda smiled and made a shrugging gesture, raising her hands. “I know; who knew? However, he is very sweet, quite nice and does an admirable job. The powers that be have been quite impressed with his service.”

“Those are not words I have ever heard associated with an orc, or a half-orc.” Danyel shook his head.

Hilda nodded in agreement. “It gets even odder. To get direct information, the three of us headed out to Murgatroy’s wargtown.”

“Its what?” Danyel asked, puzzled.

Hilda nodded her head. “Wargtown. Apparently it is—or rather actually is, since I spent the day there and can attest to it—a place to stable one’s wargs.” Danyel was looking at her oddly.

“Wargs: those giant, scary wolves that orcs like to ride,” Hilda said, thinking he did not understand.

Danyel nodded quickly. “Oh, I know what they are; I think all of us were raised on horror stories of orcs on wargback and their raids. It must have been terrifying!”

Hilda waggled her head from side to side. “Not as much as one might think. The orcs watching over them took more of my attention, and after I got a few glasses of glargh in them, and me, I really didn’t notice them that much.” Danyel was shaking his head in disbelief. “And, to be fair, being dead and currently an immortal saint does sort of lessen the tension in such situations,” Hilda admitted.

Danyel chuckled. “So you were getting the warg tenders drunk to tell you about something that happened?”

Hilda nodded. “Yes. A group of twenty orcs had flown in on D’Wargback the prior day with twenty D’Orcs.”

Danyel shook his head and looked completely puzzled. “Flew in? On dwargback with dorks? Huh?”

Hilda sighed. These creatures really had such an awkward name. One would think that after who-knew-how-many thousands of years, they might have realized what it sounded like and gotten a new name? She grinned, preparing to fill Danyel in on more details.