Someone had roped an anchor around David’s ankles, turning every step into a giant pain in the ass. Limbs, heavy. Head, heavy. His eyes refused to focus, and his eyelids fought against him. He wouldn’t fall asleep by accident; that just wasn’t a thing in Hell. But not getting eight hours of sleep meant he and the girls would be stuck in this shitty, exhausted state until they did finally get some sleep. And it’d only get worse each night they didn’t sleep.
Caera knew the way, and they followed her, tails dragging and wings drooping. Even the Las had lost all energy, no more running around or jumping or squeaking or clicking, just slow walking. A bunch of zombies.
Hours later, a shape on the soft, dark ground awaited them. Caera froze, and the group did the same. Everyone traded confused looks, and the tiger prowled ahead, each step slow and deadly silent. They held their breath, and Caera motioned for them to come closer.
A dead gorgala, cleaved in half, body burned.
With a quiet growl, Jes squatted beside the corpse and plucked at it, lifted the wing, the tail, until she finally gestured to the fact the woman was in literally two pieces.
“Can’t even eat her heart,” she said. “Burned.”
David gulped down the urge to gag. Seeing bodies cleaved in two had become almost blase, but a burned body? Burned flesh was something entirely different, and he forced his eyes away from the charred skin. Even the meera metal armor looked melted in some places.
“What happened?” Lasca asked.
Caera gestured to the corpse, but moved on, too, and everyone fell in line.
“The rider happened. He’s got hellfire imbued weapons, like some of those Cainites did. Except stronger, I bet. Aera armor, aera weapons.”
The Las gasped.
It didn’t take long for things to get worse.
“More bodies,” Caera whispered, failing to suppress a growl as she pushed over the charred remains of a tregeera.
David stepped around a giant tombstone and froze.
“There’s more,” he said, and the demons came and joined him.
The open ground, dotted with more tombstones and metal fences, was covered in bodies. No imps or grems, but another gargoyle, a few vrats, a couple brutes, and a few others the charred and mangled flesh left unrecognizable.
“We’re following him,” Caera said. “I… didn’t mean to do that. I can’t smell him in this damn fog.”
Daoka clicked as she squatted down beside the corpse of a destroyed body with hooves. Another riiva, a satyr like her.
“He’s going toward Timaeus, too?” David asked.
Caera nodded. “He must be. Timaeus lives in a building a few days from here.”
“Then we follow the rider,” Acelina said. “We cannot hope to beat him to Timaeus, but what choice do we have?”
“We can hope the rider gets into a fight that slows him down?” Jes said. “Morning twilight will be here soon. Demons are waking up. It’s not like the rider can just–”
“Just what?” Snarling, Caera stood up and got in Jes’s face, glaring. “Just walk around and kill everyone in his path?”
Jes flared her wings. Caera had more than a foot on Jes when standing, but the gargoyle didn’t give a shit and she stood her ground.
“The fuck is your problem?”
“We’re all just cranky right now,” David said. “Let’s… dial it down a little, and think about what to do.” Both ladies glared daggers through him, and he put up his hands. “Don’t kill the messenger! I’m just saying, let’s try and get to Timaeus by a scenic route, and–”
A growl cut through the fog, and everyone spun. Weapons were out in an instant, Acelina’s included, and she flared her wings as she hopped back from the noise until the group were between it and her.
A demon stepped into view.
“You seek Timaeus?” they said. He said. A vrat.
He looked like most vratorins, over seven feet tall, humanoid and muscular, with a couple large black horns, a couple arms and legs, a long tail, and some black spikes on his back and joints. The classic demon, with a demon-y skull-ish face that bordered on handsome, with a pronounced jaw and eyebrow ridges. He had a black sword in hand, slabs of meera metal on his chest, and a big scar across his face. Unlike Caera, both of his black and red eyes were intact.
“We do,” Acelina said, casually walking forward as if she hadn’t just jumped back and put the group between her and a potential attacker. “We must speak with Azailia.”
The vrat blinked up at the spire mother.
“Why is a zotiva not in her spire?”
“Long story,” Jes said, approaching the newcomer. “The rider, is he here?”
Wincing, the vrat leaned against a tombstone, and his arms drooped, tip of his sword landing with a quiet thunk in the soft dirt.
“He came and went. I don’t know why he’s here, but he found us sleeping. We thought we could fight him. He slaughtered us.”
“You fought him and lived?” Acelina asked.
“I… resisted his aura. Barely.” The vrat gestured past them with his sword, to the bodies. “I haven’t lived this long mindlessly following my sin’s desires.” Or in so many words, he hid from the battle, resisted the rider’s violence aura, and let his companions die in a bloodbath.
David braced for some name calling, insults, anything to call out the demon’s lack of honor, but none came. Perfectly reasonable thing for demons to just let each other die, or kill each other to eat each other or take each other’s meals. Supposedly, the demons in the Red Pits and the Navameere Fields were far more militant. Maybe they’d care, but the Grave Valley was supposedly like Death’s Grip: no rules except keep yourself alive.
Which meant this guy would only expose himself if he saw a way to profit from it. It wasn’t like he could kill David and the girls, so he probably came to them thinking they were his best chance of survival. Which meant he probably thought he couldn’t get to Timaeus without help.
“You know the fastest way to Timaeus from here?” Caera asked.
“I do. I’ll take you, if–” His eyes froze on David. “Uh…”
David came up beside Caera and did his best to stand tall and strong. Short young man with messy red hair and freckles? Not exactly intimidating, but intimidated the demon was.
“You’ve heard about the unmarked?” Caera asked.
“I have.”
“What have you heard?” Jes asked, and she came up alongside the vrat. Daoka came up on his other side, quietly clicking, head leaned forward slightly in case she needed to headbutt the man and break him into kindling.