Chapter 746: Reminder

“—at that point, Thea blocked his attack with her magic shield, catching Roul’s mace on the edge. I am certain that if she had not commanded the aegis to protect me that he would have caved my skull in with that blow. I took the opportunity to duck low and strike at his knee, using Capo Ferro’s technique, and I believe I pierced through his armor and landed a significant strike. Unfortunately, he countered with Thibault and kicked me away and I lost sight of him for a few moments in the dust cloud created by Demon Prince Desire’s and Alex’s passing. When he came back into view, Roul was lying dead on the floor, with Maeve crouching over him. I had assumed that she landed the killing blow.”

“No, he was already down when I got to him,” the Fetch corrected, one hand wrapped around a mug of softly steaming tea that she seemed too tired to drink. “He fell on top of Ammy, and I think he was stabbed by the malediction dagger when he landed on her. I’m not sure if that was what killed him, or bleeding out, or the poison Ammy threw in his face earlier, or what.”

“A combination of all three,” Severina let out a long breath as she responded. “Death by a thousand cuts. Even a mountain can fall if enough shovels dig away at its foundation for long enough.”

“Don’t give the guy more credit than he deserves,” Syd said as she put an arm around Severina’s shoulders. “You had him on the ropes. You would have beaten him if it had been a fair fight.”

“No fight is ever fair,” Sev replied pessimistically, but allowed herself to be drawn up against Syd’s side. “I have a long, long flight ahead of me before I reach the heights of swordsmanship that man had reached.”

There was a short silence between their small group where only the crackle of the campfire and the distant murmur of many voices in the background could be heard.

“Yes,” Noll finally spoke, his eyes reflecting the light of the fire. “A long journey. We’ll have to start working harder, together.”

“Together?” Sev asked as she stared at the old wolf with wide eyes.

“I need a training partner. Can’t use her, she’s too unskilled,” Noll motioned at Syd. Meeting the justicar’s gaze, his head tilted to one side. “You know Agrippa?”

“Yes!” Severina nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, I have studied his techniques as well.”

“Good,” Noll nodded his head. “Roul was always better than me when it came to Agrippa. That will change.”

“…I am trained in Bonetti’s Defense.”

Noll and Sev turned their attention onto the Paladin, Lucia, who sat quietly to the side, her greatsword laid across her lap, an oiled rag in one hand. The pale therion had been silent for most of the recounting of the fight against Roul and the Skull Blob, whose real name turned out to be Skulking Light. Lucia had fought against the spiked knight as well, and had been kicked down a hole, from which she had required rescue from Severina to get out of, since she had suffered severe wounds from the fight and the fall. Her injuries had been so bad that Sev had carried the woman out of the palace and back to Eir, where the two had received necessary healing. Jadis got the feeling that the Paladin was privately embarrassed by how easily she had been overwhelmed by the other therion’s skill but was too proud to admit it.

“Bonetti would have done poorly against Agrippa,” Noll commented after a few seconds.

“Perhaps you should train with us, when you are able to,” Severina glanced between Noll and Lucia. “To improve your knowledge of other styles of swordsmanship.”

Lucia sat still, rag unmoving as both Noll and Severina waited for her response. Eventually, she began polishing her sword again and nodded her head in agreement.

“Yes, thank you.”

Syd smiled to herself, glad to see the three working something out. She knew that it had to be frustrating to have fought so hard against Roul, been beaten, and then to have all chance of another fight taken away by dumb luck. It had to be particularly frustrating for Noll, who had once been friends with the insane therion. A final duel between the two would have been far more satisfying, but it hadn’t happened. The chaos of battle had stolen that chance and given the kill to Ammy of all people. Noll would just have to be satisfied with the knowledge that Roul had finally fallen, and his body had been added to the pile waiting for the pyre.

Thinking of Ammy, Jadis realized that she had lost track of the small catgirl. With her Syd self locked in conversation with the small group around the campfire, and her Jay self fast asleep inside her tent, she had her Dys self quickly finish her fifth bowl of soup, then excuse herself from the campfire on the opposite side of the small clearing so that she could go look for the Lares.

Halvor grunted around a spoonful of food at her departure, while Ludger and Thea both nodded in acknowledgement before returning to their somewhat one-sided conversation about shield skills. Tiernan didn’t look up from his bowl at all, and Dys was fairly certain that the gnome had fallen asleep sitting up. Nevan and Orla, though, both wished her a good night as the couple also moved away from the fire to retire to their own tent.

Dys moved slowly through the camp, the cloudy night sky overhead offering little in the way of light, but the campfires and torches giving her enough to see by. To one side, she saw Villum talking excitedly to Rein, a worshipful look on the young elf’s face as he managed to get a few words of advice out of the taciturn Hero’s companion. Across from those two she saw Meli and Tegwyn having a conversation with Eutychia and one of the other Dryads that had arrived by sea. They were discussing how to start reclaiming the landscape surrounding Kastoria from the corruption that had decayed it, and how they could possibly set up a temporary Dryad’s grove to make the effort easier.

As she continued to meander through the small camp area that had been reserved for their group, Dys saw more of her friends and companions. Sorcha lay curled up on top of her giant paddleweed, eyes half-closed as she listened to Sabina ramble on about an idea she had for converting airship propellers for use on sea vessels. Aila, Kerr, Bridget, and Noct stood around a cooking fire with Terrance and Humbert, the small group discussing the day’s battle from their different perspectives. Sitting in front of a nearby tent that was just past the cooking fire, Jocelyn and Cora tiredly leaned against each other’s shoulders, holding a quiet conversation that Dys was too far from to overhear.

Passing by the tent where her Jay self was sleeping off the terrible exhaustion that came from fighting a life or death battle, being infected by a disease that would kill most people in minutes, and having an arm ripped off, Dys confirmed that Eir was still inside with her other self. The saint was not sleeping but instead had turned her lap into a pillow for Jay’s head and was gently running her fingers through her hair, humming a lullaby that almost convinced Dys to crawl into the dark tent and join her Jay self for some well-earned slumber. She had not yet located Ammy, though, so she kept walking by.

Off to one side of the small clearing was the pavilion-style tent that had been set up with a table and chairs, maps and charts, and other sorts of supplies that one might need to plan an assault on a city. Inside, Wilhelm sat on one chair, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped together as he listened intently to the Demon Lord who sat across from him. Alex was in her more Nephilim-like form, her wings and tentacles put away for the moment. She spoke slowly, but clearly, repeating as much information about the fight against the Elder Demon Lord, as they had taken to calling him. This was hardly the first time she had told the tale, but Wilhelm had not been present to see the Demon Lord for himself. Jadis and Alex didn’t begrudge him his repeated questions and answered everything to the best of their ability when asked.

As Dys walked by the canopy, only briefly glancing in to make sure Alex and Willy were okay, she saw that the small possession Demon with the dark blue eyes was still wrapped around one of Alex’s right wrists. Jadis hadn’t had the chance to take a moment and have a real conversation with the Demon, but Alex had explained that the little Demon had made the choice to follow her, rather than the Elder Demon Lord and the will of the Urge. How exactly that had come about, Jadis wasn’t sure. Regardless, she still trusted Alex’s judgement, even if her decision to chase after Twisted Desire on her own had been a terrible one.

Twisted Desire. Demon Prince Desire. The thought of her still made Jadis angry. She’d been close. So very close to putting an end to that destructive monster’s insanity. But she had missed her chance due to the sudden intervention of the Elder Demon Lord, and no subsequent attempts at locating the severely injured Demon had succeeded. Desire had slipped away. Again.

After the fight against the Elder Demon Lord and their escape back to the surface, Jadis, Alex, Bridget, and Noct had met up with Severina and Aila, then everyone else. It had taken a while for Eir and Jocelyn to put them all back together, especially with the Superior-Grade infections that had gotten into not only Jadis, but Bridget and Noct as well. The threat of such powerful diseases was so great that the two healers had not allowed them to leave their sides until they had not only been purged, but completely scrubbed clean of all debris that could possibly carry more of the dangerous illnesses. Fortunately, the sickness didn’t spread since Eir and Jocelyn were such powerful and proactive healers themselves. However, when Bridget had revealed that she had an intact jar of one of those superior diseases in her belt pouch, the human and the elf had nearly had conniptions. It was only Ammy’s swift intervention and securing the jar inside of her walking cauldron that had managed to calm the situation down.

There had also been the matter of Jadis’ missing arm. Initially, she had insisted that Eir use her limb regrowth spell on Alex first, since she had lost a number of tentacles to her fight against the other Demon Lord. Alex had rejected the offer, though, explaining that her tentacles would grow back, eventually. Since her arms and legs were still intact, she didn’t need a regrowth spell to continue functioning normally. So, Eir had given Jay her arm back, though not before Jadis had taken the opportunity to perform a little experiment, answering a question she had asked herself long ago about the limits of her Shifting Reflection. The answer turned out to be yes, and the experience proved to be just as horrible as she had imagined, prompting Jadis to vow that she would never shift around missing limbs again, if she could help it.

By the time Jadis had been released from Eir’s care and had gotten back out onto the battlefield, the landscape had changed dramatically. There were no more cultists running around. No more Greater Demons or Demon Matriarchs. No Demon Prince Desire calling the shots. The leadership of Kastoria was either dead or fled. However, there were still thousands upon thousands of lesser Demons, as well as a dozen more impenetrable domes left, so the fight had been far from over.

The truth was, the fight was still going. As Dys expanded the circle she was walking, she could see over the tops of the wooden palisade that had been set up around their clearing. To the east was Kastoria, its walls destroyed and several towers fallen, but there it was. Thousands of soldiers were still fighting inside, but only defensively, and with far less urgency compared to earlier in the day. Wilhelm, Jadis, and their companions had spent the last few hours of the sun’s light destroying what was left of the domes, and they had rooted out the worst of the Demons still haunting the city. It would take days, maybe weeks before all of the remaining Demons were rooted out of Kastoria, but with only the dregs remaining, the end was in sight. They were winning. In a way, they had basically already won.

Jadis would have felt far more confident in believing that if she knew for sure that Desire was dead.

Several of the seafaring Dryads had swum down into the depths of the flooded underground cavern and confirmed that Desire was gone. They had found the remains of her lower half, still pinned to the stone floor by Syd’s sword staff, which they had kindly retrieved, but no sign of Desire herself, alive or dead. They had found a few of Noct’s broken straps and chains, but they had been scattered down multiple waterlogged tunnels, and there was no telling if they had gotten there via Desire leaving a trail or if they had just floated there like flotsam in the maelstrom of the cavern flooding.

It was possible that Desire was still somewhere underground, beneath the city, or perhaps hiding inside the Opaline Palace or some other nook nearby, but Jadis doubted it. Desire wasn’t stupid. Crazy, obsessed, and utterly malicious, but she wasn’t stupid. She had done the same as she had done in the past; she had fled the area to lick her wounds. Maybe she had even tried to follow the polyhedron sphere that contained the Dead One and the Seeing One out into the open sea. Jadis almost hoped that she did, since it would practically guarantee that she would be eaten by some deep-water sea monster.

The Dryad riding the sea serpent that Jadis had spotted in the harbor earlier was still following the sphere as it slowly made its way south across the Siren Sea. He had sent a couple of messages via sea life to the other Dryads, but those updates were growing further apart thanks to how far he was going. From what he could tell, the sphere was heading almost straight south, with maybe a slight bend to the west, which would mean that eventually the sphere would make landfall on the shores of the Rubaline Dominion, the other nation on the continent that had been almost completely subsumed by the demonic invasion.

Attempts had been made by the sea serpent to break the sphere, but all efforts had been made in vain. The shields protecting the polyhedron were too strong. Too strong for even Tamar’s curse. The Goddess of Storms and Seas had cursed the Demons for eradicating the Merrow, so that whenever they went into deep water, great sea beasts would be compelled to attack them. The Dryad hadn’t gone into detail in his report, which probably wasn’t even possible with the message being carried by a tuna, but nothing that lived on the bottom of the Siren Sea had been able to stop the sphere thus far. Jadis would have been willing to try attacking the sphere again herself, if it wasn’t under a mile of water.

It was another frustration, letting those two cultists get away, but Jadis had to remind herself that not everything had gone wrong. They had succeeded in their goal of retaking Kastoria. Three Demon Matriarchs had been slain. Half a dozen Greater Demons had also been killed, including the Skulking Light, which had certainly been the most dangerous of them all. Roul was dead, and he had been an enemy that could have spelled disaster if he had continued to wage his own private war against the empire. The majority of the Demons who had invaded Volto had been gathered in Kastoria for the siege, so once they were all defeated, there would hardly be any remaining for the Voltonians to deal with. The battle for Kastoria was, when Jadis looked at it from a strategic viewpoint, a massive victory.

And yet, she still felt like her job wasn’t done. Because it wasn’t done, was it? Desire was still out there, and so were dangerous cultists like that robot who had certainly been responsible for the creation of the impenetrable domes. And so, too, was the Elder Demon Lord, who had done an excellent job of demonstrating just how much stronger Jadis needed to grow before she could make sure that everyone she loved was safe.

At least all the levels she had gained from the fighting that day had taken her a few steps closer to her goal.

Coming to a halt at the base of one of the platforms that lined the palisade surrounding the hilltop where they had made their camp, Dys could see Ammy’s bright red flames peeking out from above. The Lares was sitting with her knees folded against her chest, one shoulder leaning against a wooden timber, her face turned towards the distant city. Lifting herself up, Dys silently settled down onto the platform, legs crossed under her, so that she was next to the small witch.

“You know, once we’re done here, I’m going to have to follow Willy,” Ammy stated quietly after a while.

“Yeah, I know.”

“I might not see you again for a long time.”

“Maybe,” Dys agreed. “Then again, I don’t know if you are aware of this, but I can fly really, really fast. As long as I know where you are, I can visit pretty much whenever I want.”

“…you think you’ll have the time?” Ammy asked, her tone as small as a mouse. “You’ll be pretty busy, with Fortune’s Favored, and your airships, and all the Demons, and Hope, and your lovers…”

Dys put one finger under Ammy’s chin, forcing her to look up and meet her gaze.

“You are my lover. That means I’ll always have time for you, and I’ll always be thinking about you. I’ll always love you.”

Ammy nodded, her head ducking away as she made a sniffing sound. Then, the Lares crawled into Dys’ lap, curling up into a ball. When Dys ran her hand down her side, the purr that followed made her grin.

“I’m going to have so much sex with you until I have to go, your cock is going to fall off.”

Dys snorted, choking on her laugh as she tried not to make too much noise.

“Well, if it does, Eir can regrow it for me next week and we’ll keep going.”

Letting out a long, comfortable sigh, Dys let her fingers play through the flames of Ammy’s hair, enjoying the warmth against her skin. However, she paused after a few moments, prompting the little Mystic to turn her head and look up at her.

“What?”

“Nothing. You just reminded me, I’ve got a couple of errands to run tomorrow. I’ll have to take Alex with me for the flight.”

“What errands? Where are you going?”

“There are a couple of messages I have yet to deliver. One from a god, the other from a dead man. I really, really have to take care of both of those before I forget again. I feel like I can’t move on until I do.”

There was another short space of silence between them as Ammy absorbed Jadis’ words.

“Then we’ll have lots of sex when you get back?”

Dys laughed.

“You’re damn right we will.”