The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (81 page)

~

Sir Talarius skewered a piece of undercooked roast…
something
and took a bite. Not bad; the spices used were a bit unusual, or was that the meat? He shook his head. At this point, he would not complain. He had not eaten the entire time he had been in the Abyss. He had not gotten hungry, but it still felt pleasurable to resume the habit. He had drunk water of course, from his Flask of Holy Refreshment. It was always cold and fresh, and that had done wonders for his morale.

He wandered away from the buffet table, enjoying being in the presence of two other humans and not needing to wear his helmet. He kept it tucked under his arm, just in case, but it was nice to not have it on all the time. Admittedly, he had repeated his exercise of barring his door and sleeping without armor. It really did help him regain his strength to get a good night’s sleep.

He could have done without the orc conspirators of the demon, but while surly, disreputable, disagreeable, smelly, unpleasant to look at, and of low character, they were still better company than demons. He was not that familiar with orc shamans, but they were generally the best educated, or rather the only educated orcs. Presumably, they were capable of civilized conversation.

He walked over to the youngest one, the one with the seriously ugly pet that was sleeping in the room behind him. This young orc seemed to have been wounded at some point; he walked with a limp and one of his legs was twisted very awkwardly and appeared somewhat shriveled under his trousers. Talarius was not a good judge of orc ages, but he guessed by his small frame and relatively good looks—good looks in the sense that Talarius could eat food while looking at him—that this one was a youth of less than twenty years.

“So, how were you injured?” Talarius asked. He was a warrior, not a conversationalist. Yes, as a Knight Rampant, diplomacy, politeness and a courtly nature were intrinsic to his training, but he was a damn hostage to a demon lord in the Abyss. Screw courtliness. He no longer had the patience after the insanity of the last week.

The orc looked at him suspiciously. “Wyvern,” he finally said.

Talarius blinked at this information and looked down at the lad’s leg and foot. “It appears long set, so not recently?”

Tal Gor looked at him for a bit and then stared straight ahead. “It was my second hunt. I was thirteen. My three hunting companions and I encountered the wyvern. They died; I fought it off long enough for my father, who had been trailing us, to catch up and slay it.”

“At thirteen, you held off a wyvern by yourself after it killed three others?” Talarius asked.

“Yes,” Tal Gor said. He appeared embarrassed.

“Hmm,” Talarius said. “Apparently the legends of orcs being nearly impossible to kill are true. If a youth on his second hunting trip can hold off a wyvern for any length of time—that is impressive.”

Tal Gor looked at Talarius angrily. “You mock my weakness?”

Talarius did a double take and looked back at the youth. “Not at all. I compliment your strength and courage. At that age, I doubt I could have done the same. I was twenty when I encountered my first wyvern and it took two others to help me slay it. We were newly knighted and had had the best training available to warriors of the Rod.” Talarius shook his head. “No, most human youth of that age would have frozen in place, given up and allowed themselves to be cooked in the beast’s breath and then eaten. None could have done better; I doubt any would have lived.”

Tal Gor nodded, seeming appeased. He looked back out over the balcony.

“So you are a shaman to the demon Tom?” Talarius asked, probing a bit further.

“Yes,” Tal Gor replied tersely. “You are his hostage?”

“So it seems. I have no way of returning to Astlan, and am to all intents and purposes unarmed,” Talarius said. Tal Gor looked him over, his eyes briefly touching on Talarius’s hidden Rod of Smiting, his Rod of Lightning, and then scanning over the locations of his smaller blades.

“Clearly,” Tal Gor said drily.

Talarius chuckled. “You are the first person I have met here that I understand.”

“So how did you become hostage?”

Talarius shrugged. He did not want to go into it, yet this orc lad was the only one here who did not know of his shame. “Your demon lord challenged me to a duel for the freedom of his son, there.” He pointed to Rupert. “As well as his other friends. I accepted. We fought the fight of my life.” Tal Gor was looking at him incredulously. “I thought I had defeated him, and my hubris got the better of me. I let my guard down. He came back from what appeared to be death and possessed the priests surrounding me and quite a few archers. He used them against me. Admittedly, much the same way I had used them against him.” That was hard to admit, but what did it matter at this point?

“In any event, I could fight no more, even with healing, and I surrendered.” Talarius sighed. “He granted me mercy, and being rather upset, I tried one last time to skewer him with Excrathadorus Mortis.”

Tal Gor’s eyes widened and his breath was sucked into his lungs. “The blade that Sentir Fallon used to kill Orcus?”

Talarius blinked in surprise, he was shocked that the lad would know such ancient history. “The same. As the foremost Knight Rampant of Tiernon, it was my honor to wield it.”

Tal Gor shook his head. “So you missed?”

Now it was time for Talarius to sigh aloud. “No, I did not. I thought I had finished him off.”

“Did not seem to work then,” Tal Gor said, gesturing to the ceremony.

Talarius shook his head and gave a small, sad laugh. “Indeed, it did not. When he possessed the Church and Rod members, he broke into Tiernon’s holy illumination stream. He used the purified mana of Tiernon to heal himself and reverse Excrathadorus Mortis permanently.”

Tal Gor shook his head in amazement. “I take it Lord Tommus was not very happy with you?”

Talarius chuckled. “He opened up a hole to the Abyss under my feet and dropped me through it. He and his friends followed. And here we are!” Talarius shook his head. Talking about it, telling the story aloud to someone who did not know it, he came off badly. The demon had accused him of cheating. He had, and he had been dishonorable at multiple points. He shook his head. Why had he behaved that way? Was it hubris, as he had thought? Ignoring the great evil that Tommus obviously was, he, Talarius, had done things that he had always sworn not to do.

Several minutes passed in silence as Talarius was lost in his thoughts and Tal Gor digested the story.

Eventually Tal Gor broke the silence. “So this blade, Excrathadorus Mortis, it killed the demon prince Orcus permanently?”

“Yes, that is what the church teaches, and that’s what the demon bard says. If both agree, it must be true,” Talarius replied.

“Yet when you used it on Lord Tommus, he easily defeated its power and reversed it completely?” Tal Gor asked.

Talarius chuckled grimly. “Yes. It shocks the mind.”

“Yet was not Orcus one of the most powerful demon princes to walk the Abyss?” Tal Gor asked.

Talarius nodded. “That is what legends say. Behind only Sammael and Lilith.”

“So if Lord Tommus can easily overcome that which Orcus could not, does that not make him more powerful than the demon prince Orcus?” the young shaman asked.

Talarius closed his eyes. That was a thought he had been studiously avoiding. However, as much as he had wrestled with it, there was really only one answer. “It would seem that way,” he admitted.

DOF +9

Evening (Oorstemoth) 16-06-440

“…and know, my fellow colleagues, friends, associates, subordinates, assistants, admirers, articulate adversaries and all those others so assembled here in this gloriously, yet in no way garishly decorated reception hall at this hallowed, historic and honorable happening, that we seek not only to enable and enervate this experimental endeavor that seeks to engender an edifying and equitably egalitarian enterprise to extend the existence of law into the ersatz empire of evil; an expedition that emboldens so many earnest, and certainly not erstwhile exhibitions of emotions of trust and facilitation and goodwill between our organizations…” continued this most recent chancellor or councilor, or something with a title.

Arch-Vicar General Barabus surreptitiously pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it. He rubbed his eyes. They were only two and a half hours into the dinner. It was scheduled for eight hours. Fortunately, servants kept the food and wine coming. There were also nearby facilities to relieve oneself. It was apparent from both the setup and the behavior of the Oorstemothians at the party that such long dinners were not uncommon occurrences.

He reached for his water glass, glancing next to him as he did so and noting that his dining companion to his left, Wing Master Heron, had his eyes closed. That was actually reassuring to the arch-vicar general; Heron’s reaction showed that at least the Oorstemothian armed forces were human.

He glanced down the table to see Gadius and Gaius staring in rapt attention at the speaker. How could those two manage that? The knights did have to go through insane levels of courtly training, but he found it hard to imagine that even the best Church instructors could have prepared them for this particular ordeal.

He had been relieved when he had arrived in Keeper’s City to see that Gaius had joined Gadius here. Back in Freehold, Gadius had told him that Gaius was occupied on another Holy Mission. Apparently, that had ended. The knights were generally quite autonomous once they got to the Rampant level. Fortunately, when the chips were down, they always came through. Rescuing Talarius would obviously be something the knights would give a high priority.

As his gaze traveled idly down the table, noting Sir Lady Serah, he wondered where the knights were stabling their unique steeds. Very few stables would take a hippogriff, since that would obviously cause a panic among the horses. The two unicorns, one midnight black—War Bringer—and the other opalescent white—Peace Bringer—would probably not bother the horses much. However, their odd, all-knowing gazes would surely discomfort the grooms.

Actually, as Barabus thought about it, he wondered if mythological creatures were even legal in Keeper’s City. As far as he could tell, one needed the proper permit to vacate one’s bowels! He was not sure how long he could deal with the Oorstemothians.

Tomorrow they would see this project of Chancellor Alighieri’s, the one the chancellor had assured them had been specifically designed for just such a mission as the one they faced now. How that could be, he had no idea, but he saw very few options other than just giving up for now.

Sir Lady Serah’s head nodded downward before jerking back up. Barabus grinned in triumph, very pleased to see that even his own knights had some limits of endurance! Yes, an odd thing to be relieved about, but dinners like this were not what warriors like himself, or Heron apparently, were trained for.

~

Dinner had been extraordinary, Gastropé thought, suppressing a loud belch. He shook his head slightly at the pain of choking back a belch. He was sure, however, that their alvaren hosts would have thought him crude.

He had never had pure alvaren cooking before. There had been some alvaren dishes at that crazy feast in the Grove, although his memory was not completely clear on that point. This, however, had been an entire meal of alvaren dishes. The flavors were sublime.

The conversation had been quite interesting as well. He and Jenn had confined themselves to smaller questions. The level of historical knowledge and world geography required to add anything relevant to the discussion was a bit beyond him. He grinned to himself; it was very difficult to sound knowledgeable when discussing history with a table full of people well over a thousand years old.

Oddly, Maelen managed to keep up his part of the conversation, even though he was an admitted babe by comparison. Trevin was also incredibly knowledgeable. While she obviously looked to be well over a hundred, that too would be but a toddler to the elves. However, she talked about events from a thousand years ago as if she had witnessed them herself.

The wine was getting to him; he found himself chuckling again. Yes, the enchantress was incredibly old-looking, but she would have been dust if she had actually seen the things discussed. Jenn glanced at him and his chuckling. She was smiling, having a good time even as he was. Probably the wine affecting her as well.

It was odd, in the soft candlelight of the room, to look at Jenn there smiling and think of her as the weed-wrangling wizard who had changed his career trajectory so much. She had been a most pleasant traveling companion for someone who had tried to strangle him when they had first met. She was also quite attractive in this light. Strange that he had never really noticed that before. Again the wine. He smiled brightly at her.

He was about to say something, probably stupid, when an urgent knock came at the door. It was late in the evening, the servants came and went silently; who would be knocking?

Dresdech, their local host and Seamach’s principal contact, rose to answer the door. He opened the door a small distance; Gastropé could not see who was on the other side.

“Bastien? You are a mess! You seem to be a complete wreck. What is the matter?” The concern in the elf’s voice was clearly discernable.

Gastropé saw Trevin sit up in surprise and look to the door from her wine glass. The enchantress seemed to find the breech of alvaren composure as shocking, if not more so, than Gastropé.

Gastropé could just barely hear the exhausted Bastien on the other side of the door. “I come straight, without stopping, from Murgatroy at my great-grandfather Neelon’s request.”

Dresdech shook his head. “What is the matter? He is not ill, is he?”

Bastien still seemed out of breath, or quite tired. “He is fine; however, he bade me to bring this urgent message to the Principality and the Grove.”

Dresdech blinked, clearly taken by surprise. “Come in. Come in. It is an ominous coincidence that we are here speaking Grove business this very evening. Trevin D’Vils is here.” He gestured for Bastien to come in.

A younger-looking elf entered, clearly disheveled and dirty with wild, windblown hair from a hard ride. His eyes glanced to Seamach, Bealach and Captain Ehéarellis, seeming relieved to see them and giving each a nod. His eyes traveled briefly over each of the aetós with a nod, and he managed to not wince at the sight of the dwarves.

When Bastien’s eyes finally lit on Trevin D’Vils, the alvaren ranger bowed deeply and gave her a bright smile. “Mistress D’Vils! Seeing you is a pleasure I have not had in over eight hundred years!”

“At your half-millennial! I recall, Bastien. It was a grand event. Your grandfather and great-grandfather were both so pleased!”

Gastropé blinked and turned to Jenn to see her already staring at him. Trevin was over eight hundred years old? Jenn mouthed something to him. “I take it back, she looks quite good for her age!” was what he thought she said. He could barely suppress a drunken giggle. He had to though, because this was clearly serious.

“What dire news brings you in such haste, good ranger?” Trevin asked Bastien.

“Yesterday, in Murgatroy, a party of twenty orcs flew in.” Bastien began.

Danfaêr, also tipsy, exclaimed, “I can assure you, Bastien, orcs do not fly!”

Bastien shook his head and retorted, “They do, Danfaêr, if they are on D’Wargback!” There were gasps from around the room. “Twenty orcs on D’Wargback, along with twenty D’Orcs!” Bastien added. The alvar all gasped; they seemed truly taken aback and upset.

“Dorks?” Jenn asked.

“What are dorks?” Gastropé followed up.

Trevin closed her eyes for a moment. “Not dorks; D’Orcs, pronounced D(uh) O(rcs). Depending on who you ask, they are either Demon Orcs, Dark Orcs or sometimes Death Orcs.”

Gastropé glanced at Maelen, who was looking extremely pale and sickly and looking in turn at Elrose. Elrose really could not actually look pale, but he did seem a bit ashen. Gastropé looked around the table; all the alvar were looking particularly nauseous. He did not think elves were supposed to have such reactions. The dwarves seemed more muted, with mixed reactions. The aetós also looked more neutral.

“What are they, though?” Jenn asked again.

Trevin shook her head, lost in thought at her own words and their implication. She sighed. “They are, or were, the agents of the Lord of the Underworld, the Damned Prince, Orcus.”

“Orcus? What or who is Orcus?” Gastropé asked.

“A vile being we thought dead four thousand years ago,” Captain Ehéarellis said. He looked to Bastien. “Neelon confirmed that these were indeed D’Orcs and D’Wargs?”

Bastien nodded. “I dragged him out onto the roof deck so he could see them wandering about the city.”

“Neelon is an expert on D’Orcs?” Darowin, one of the dwarves, asked.

Captain Ehéarellis gave a wry smile. “He spent the first half of his life, four thousand years, dealing with D’Orcs and D’Wargs up until Orcus was thought slain in Etterdam.”

Trevin looked sharply at Bastien. “You said they wandered about the town, so it was not an invasion? No massacre?”

Bastien shook his head. “While I was there, things were peaceful. Another messenger is hopefully a few hours behind me with more news. The rangers will be sending messengers every few hours with updates until there is a resolution. Hopefully, they leave.”

Trevin nodded. “So while they were there, they were not causing problems.”

Dresdech spoke up. “Murgatroy has an even larger orc population than Murgandor. It would be uncharacteristic for D’Orcs to make an unprovoked attack against a town with significant numbers of orcs.”

“So what were they doing?” Treyfoêr asked.

“Well, they stabled their D’Wargs in the wargtown and then they came into town and appeared to be shopping.”

“Shopping?” Jenn asked incredulously.

Bastien shrugged. “Again, others will have more information, but they seemed to be purchasing supplies.”

Dresdech was pacing. “I was young at the time, not even a millennia old, but as I recall, it was not unknown for the D’Orcs to mount hunting parties with local orc tribes.”

“You think they were out hunting and wanted to get some salt and glargh for their roast?” Darowin asked rather sarcastically.

“It does seem farfetched. But then there are many extremely odd things happening right now,” Trevin said.

~

Hilda and Stevos arrived at the conference room at about the same time. Hilda had come directly from her not-exactly-relaxing dinner with Trisfelt. Leaving Murgatroy, she had been looking forward to it as small point of sanity, a means of touching base with reality that would quite welcome. Something one needed after spending the day hearing stories of D’Orcs and half-dead deities trying to rise from the grave. However, to come home and find the wards up and that the main entry hall that one had become accustomed to passing through each day had been thoroughly demolished by an archdemon? That was not relaxing. Especially when it then turned out that your houseguest had accidentally provoked the archdemon into attempting to obliterate most the Council of Wizardry. She shook her head; she would love to have gotten Ruiden’s take on the battle, but he had not returned to the hotel until after she left. She had touched base with Danyel via their link to make sure Ruiden had come home.

“How is your priest doing?” Hilda asked, trying to get her thoughts back to more neutral ground. Neutral ground that before returning to Freehold had been the insanity she had thought to escape.

“Sleeping comfortably now. I cleansed him enough to sleep well. I’ve also placed a ward on his room in the event our actions may have caused unforeseen repercussions,” Stevos told her.

“A wise precaution. There seem to be a lot of unforeseen repercussions happening lately.” You never knew when a few questions might set off an archdemon, for instance. Hilda smiled at Stevos.

The door opened and in walked Moradel and Sentir Fallon. “Stevos, may I introduce Sentir Fallon, the other member of our small task force who was not able to join us at our last meeting,” Moradel said. “Sentir, this is Stevos, whom I have told you about.”

Stevos rose and bowed deeply. “It is an honor to meet you, Your Holiness!”

The young saint was obviously more familiar with Sentir’s work than Hilda had been. To be fair, she thought, he did work more with orcs than she did, so there was a good excuse.

Sentir Fallon smiled beatifically at him and made a relaxing gesture with his hand. “At ease, my friend; we are all comrades in the service of Tiernon here. No need for titles or honorifics.” He grinned more normally. “Not when the fate of the multiverse may be at stake!”

“Oh, my Tiernon!” Beragamos exclaimed, walking in behind them and hearing Sentir Fallon. “Are we not being just a tad dramatic?” He grinned at the assembled avatars. Hilda twisted her mouth to avoid commenting.