The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (82 page)

“Down to business!” Beragamos said, shutting the door with a wave of his hand.

Hilda reached down into the bag she had brought with her and retrieved two very nice bottles of wine. “Since we are dealing with Astlan, I brought some better Astlanian wines this time.”

Moradel laughed. “Who else is for abandoning our predawn meetings for these new late-night meetings so we can drink more wine?”

Beragamos chuckled and waved five refleca wine glasses into being.

Sentir Fallon shook his head. “Is this what I missed last time? I miss one meeting and everyone starts drinking!” He laughed and sat down. “Here, I have a corkscrew!” A refleca corkscrew appeared in his hand.

“So can a refleca corkscrew open a material bottle?” Stevos asked.

Moradel shrugged as he opened one of the bottles with Sentir’s corkscrew. “It can if we believe it can. It’s all about faith, my lad.” He grinned. “Remember, faith is our core business!”

“So that we may all try both, I will pour slightly smaller glasses for each of us,” Moradel said.

After the four glasses were poured, Beragamos reached out and raised one up. “My friends, let us toast to faith! Toast to our faith in Tiernon and that his will be done!”

“His presence be known!” Sentir added.

“His foes be vanquished!” Moradel said.

“His will be done!” Stevos continued.

Beaming brightly, Hilda finished, “His glory and light to shine throughout the multiverse forever and ever!”

“Amen!” They all finished in union before drinking simultaneously.

~

Tal Gor had wandered off from the room to explore a bit more, get his bearings. He somehow found himself back in the Temple of Doom. It was weird to physically be here, so different yet similar to being here in his dreams. To see one’s dream made physically manifest! It was amazing. The proof it demonstrated—all of this demonstrated—in his and his people’s faith.

Gods were real! Orcus, the lost god of the orcs had returned as Lord Tommus, stronger and more powerful than before. Lord Tommus would set things right for the orcs and the D’Orcs and vanquish those who had sought to thwart his will and harm his people.

The temple was empty now, the normal watchers out at the ceremony. It was highly unlikely that anyone would try to contact the temple at this time. Other than the shaman from Gormegast, everyone who would try to contact Lord Tommus was already here. He, Tal Gor, apparently was the only one to come uninvited, so to speak. Uninvited, but not unwelcomed. Tal Gor grinned to himself. It felt good to be a part of something so much larger than himself, larger than his tribe or the orcs on his own world. This was a venture that would span the multiverse, bringing redemption and renewal to orcs everywhere. No more would humans and elves be able to treat his people as refuse, as garbage. With Lord Tommus to lead them, those who had shunned and spurned them would have to respect their strength once more.

Lost in thought, he almost did not realize that someone else had entered the temple behind him. The scraping sound of a boot against stone alerted him. A sound he knew well, the sound of someone with a limp. Tal Gor turned to see a very unusual figure in the room behind him, staring at him.

The individual was about the same height as Tal Gor; however, he was quite hunched over. He appeared to be quite old, although at one time quite handsome, Tal Gor supposed. He was also quite muscular. He had no wings, so was not a D’Orc, and certainly not an orc, but he was clearly jötunnkind.

“Hello,” Tal Gor said cautiously. The man did not appear threatening, but he was looking Tal Gor up and down quite seriously.

“You are Tal Gor of the Crooked Sticks?” the man asked abruptly.

“I am,” Tal Gor replied.

The man nodded. “You came to this temple on your own? Not called?”

“I did.” This was a rather odd conversation, or inquisition.

“That miserable fartbag from the depths decided you were a worthy rider and finally left the rest of us in peace?”

“Schwarzenfürze came to live with me. She took over my entire tent, in fact.” Tal Gor shook his head.

The man shrugged. “Sounds like her. Going to miss the bitch. Might have to visit.” He looked down at Tal Gor’s bad leg. “You a cripple?”

Tal Gor frowned. “I am not crippled. My leg was damaged fighting a wyvern, but I hold my own and provide value to my tribe.”

The man chuckled. “Me, I’m a cripple and proud of it!” He started turning around. “Come with me, boy, I have something for you!”

He started limping out of the temple.

Tal Gor frowned and followed. “Who are you?”

“Völund,” was all the odd man said.

Tal Gor frowned and thought for a bit as they went out into the corridor. He had heard that name. He blinked as memories of the stories came back to him.

“The smith?” Tal Gor asked.

Völund snorted. “Of course.”

“The smith who forged Caliburn? Arthur of Avalon’s sword?” Tal Gor asked.

“Called by humans Excalibur. Yes. You know human history as well as orcish?” Völund asked.

“When it comes to great weapons. And Durandal?”

Völund sighed. “And that.”

“And Gram? Destroyed by Odin and later reforged by Regin for Sigurd to slay Fafnir?” Tal Gor continued.

“Do you simply wish to recite my back catalog, or will you follow me quietly so I can remember the path?” Völund asked.

“I am sorry. But I am honored to meet you,” Tal Gor said. Völund shrugged, apparently not caring.

The two wandered down multiple tunnels, going deeper and deeper. Tal Gor began to be concerned about finding his way out. Eventually they came into a very large and complex chamber. The chamber was easily one hundred feet tall and thousands of feet in each direction, with large ducts crisscrossing the room to and from various holes in the walls and into giant buckets with what appeared to be large furnaces or lava pits below them.

It was quite warm in here and he could feel his amulet growing colder as it kicked in to compensate. The smith motioned Tal Gor to follow him towards one wall. Tal Gor had to work to keep his eyes on the smith. This workshop was absolutely incredible! There were tools whose function he could only barely guess at. Many of the furnaces appeared cool. He assumed that prior to the volcano’s restarting, this place had been largely inactive.

“No. Not completely,” Völund said suddenly. The old man had turned and was smirking at him.

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying,” the smith said, “that I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that this place was dead while Doom slept. I am saying it was not completely dead. This is the Abyss. Fire is not in short supply here, nor are noxious combustible gases for forging and welding. My forges have not all been quiescent for millennia. Most, yes. But not all.”

The smith continued on towards the wall. “It was more work, not having already molten metal. I had to dig up solid metal and melt it. But mining here is still easier and better than mining anywhere in Midgard.” He chuckled as they came up to a set of shelves and the old man began scanning them.

Tal Gor waited patiently for the smith to finish scanning the shelves until he found what he wanted. Rather spryly, the smith grabbed a ladder, and propping it against the shelving, he swiftly climbed up about fifteen feet. He quickly reached in and began pulling out a very long, narrow wooden box.

Tal Gor blinked. Given how hot it was here, how could that wooden box survive? He would have thought it would have dried out quite quickly. The smith managed to wrangle the box down and then carried it over to a large table nearby.

“It’s Denubian wyrmwood. Compared to where it grew, this place is quite chilly.” The smith seemed to be able to anticipate Tal Gor’s questions. The smith grabbed a cloth from under the table and quickly wiped the dust off the box, which had three latches along one side.

“In the old days, Orcus issued staves of power to each of his shamans, each one with a mechanism for mounting the shaman’s contact stone. I expect Lord Tommus will want me to create new ones for his new shamans. We shall see.” The smith turned to look at him. “Call me an old softy. But when I see someone who shares my impediment, and yet still outperforms all the traditionally abled, I get sentimental.” Tal Gor did not know how to respond to this. Völund simply smiled and turned back to the box and began unfastening.

“Now, I have one shaman staff left. I was constructing a rather different staff for one of Orcus’s most trusted shamans. Unfortunately, he bought the farm before I finished it. As did Orcus, for that matter.” Völund shrugged again. “So I finished it and put it on the shelf. I think you should have it, as the first new shaman and one who has overcome much to be the first, and perhaps one day, the best.” Völund opened the box, and Tal Gor moved forward to look at it.

The box was velvet, or some similar material that was heat resistant, and lying in the box was a… staff? It was not like anything Tal Gor thought of as a staff. Yes, it was a long, rod-like device, longer than he was tall. At the base was a large ball, similar to the head of a ball mace. The shaft was intricately carved wood—wyrmwood perhaps?—with metal strands wound about it. At several points there were smooth areas. One was at what would be hand height, so Tal Gor assumed they were grips. At what he surmised was head height, the rod split into two paths, bending into a circular frame before rejoining.

Inside the frame were what appeared to be metal claws or teeth, presumably for mounting the summoning stone. The outer edge of the loop had sharp-looking metal teeth, aligned for slicing an enemy. Above the circle was a large blue sapphire set through another loop in the shaft, and then the shaft continued perhaps four more inches before melding into a large, double-edged metal blade of about two feet in length.

Tal Gor blinked. The “staff” was actually a pole arm with a double-edged glaive at one end and a mace at the other. “Is it a staff or a very unusual pole arm?”

“Both. Use it both ways. The gem there is a mana pool that you should link to; it is designed so that you can bind it as a true shaman’s staff in the traditional ritual sense. The large loop holds your summoning stone. With the blades, teeth and ball, you can stab, slash, eviscerate and crush your enemies,” Völund explained.

“It’s unbelievable! For me, really?” Tal Gor asked breathlessly.

“Yes. Just do not tell the other shamans. I will be making them staves, I am sure, but it will take time. I will put this with your bitch’s gear. I got a harness for the box, and a holding cup for the base, and saddle ties for the staff itself. I will tell the D’Warg handlers to keep it safe.”

“Thank you so much.” Tal Gor bowed deeply to the smith.

“Use it to protect my girl and her rider.”

~

Lilith entered her private sitting room off of her bedroom, planning on curling up with a good book for the remainder of the evening. She waved the table lantern on near her favorite reading chair. The sudden light revealed Sentir Fallon. She was mildly startled but refused to show it. His shielding skills were truly amazing. She had not detected him in the dark with her demon sight or any of her other senses.

“So you’re back with more news, I guess?” Lilith asked.

“I am. I came indirectly, of course, from a meeting with our Astlan ‘Incident Response Team’ and have more news,” Sentir Fallon said.

“And that is?” Lilith pulled up another chair from a corner into the light of the lamp.

“First, Beragamos has ascertained from the Ithgar archons that D’Orcs have appeared in a trading city there, doing much the same thing as in Astlan.”

Lilith nodded. “As we rather feared.”

“And according to our on-the-ground agent who interviewed a large number of orc witnesses—”

Lilith interrupted Sentir. “You have an agent on the ground who actually speaks with orcs? Is actually willing to even be in close proximity with them? That doesn’t sound particularly Etonian of you.” She shook her head suddenly. “Wait—how do you get orcs to talk to one of your agents?”

Sentir smirked. “Yes, our principal field agent for Astlan is quite industrious and is very good at gathering information discreetly. They didn’t even know they were talking to an avatar.” He chuckled. “But beyond that, we actually have a half-orc priest who reported this.”

Lilith slowly shook her head and grinned rather mirthlessly at the avatar. “Things are changing, even within the never-changing world of the Etonians.”

“Not that much. We have simply realized that coming down to the material world in all of our celestial glory can sometimes be detrimental to information gathering. So our intelligence services are branching out.”

“You have ‘intelligence services’?” Lilith asked skeptically.

“Well, yes. Now. We are starting it with this incident,” Sentir said. “However, we need to do something about this. We need to stop this demon in his tracks. During her interviews, our agent discovered that the D’Orcs have openly said they will be paying a lot more visits to all the material planes, that their master, Lord Tommus, was planning on reestablishing all the old connections and raising the orcs and D’Orcs back to their former glory.”

“So were you two ever planning on sharing this with me?” a very calm tenor voice asked from the still-darkened corner on the other side of the room.