Smile growing, she licked his cheek.
“You did some crazy shit, back there. You broke all the trees in our way, and then destroyed the whole forest, anyway. And then you buried the rider. You create a hellquake.”
“I just played the song. Whatever it is that listens to me did the heavy lifting.” He whispered straight into Caera’s ear. Much as Vicus already knew a lot and was proving useful, it wasn’t a good idea to hand a stranger every secret they had.
“But you’re the one who passed out. You’re the one who drained yourself, and now you’re starving. And… I don’t know if I’ll be able to find you any food. Hunting in the Grave Valley is hard, and Vicus says there’s no food around here. And–”
“I’ll be fine.” He summoned a smile, but his muscles weren’t happy about it, and he sagged in the pew. “Just tired. I won’t be playing the strings anytime soon, probably until I eat a… few dozen hearts, but I’ll be fine. Just need sleep.” He kissed her cheek, and she rubbed her horn against the side of his head, like a house cat rubbing their cheeks on their owner. “And you need sleep.”
“Yeah, I know. We all do. But I’m taking first watch.”
“Want me to–”
Daoka hopped over to him, clicked rather loudly straight into his face, and kissed his forehead.
“She’s right. Sleep the night, the whole night, and we’ll figure out what to do in the morning.”
He wanted to argue. Taking shifts was done as a group, with a third of them watching for one third of the night, cycling between everyone. That included him. But guilt about going to sleep vanished under the heavy weight of his eyelids, and as much as the gnawing pain in his guts demanded food, it also sapped his energy. Before he was out, he had the distinct impression he was borderline comatose.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~Mia~~
Evening twilight was coming. They’d avoided hellbeasts through sheer luck so far, but it wouldn’t last forever. Their group was pretty tough though, and could probably handle most hellbeast encounters, save for one very big problem: Vinicius was starving. He rumbled loud enough Mia borderline vibrated, still riding his back, and he looked around with the hunting eyes of a hungry predator.
“We need food,” she said.
Vinicius said nothing.
“I’m keeping an eye open,” Adron said. “But when I went through here last, I barely got a bite to eat. I avoided everything I ran into.”
“We don’t have that luxury,” Faust said, walking beside the vratorin. “We’re lost out here, and we have two big reasons we’re going to have trouble.” And because he enjoyed doing things in a grandiose way, the incubus did a small bow and flourish of his hand toward Vin and Mia.
“I’m not going to draw trouble,” she said. “I mean, demons won’t recognize me at a distance, right?”
“The clothes,” Kas said, marching behind. Much as the big guy usually walked on hands and feet, almost like a gorilla, he stayed more upright in the swamp. Less muck on his body that way.
“If it’s a big problem, then I guess I’ll go naked. But not yet. And something tells me the fact I’m wearing red silk and sandals isn’t going to be the deciding factor on whether we get into a fight.”
“Skimpy red silk,” Oudoceus said, finger raised, tail wagging.
“Shut up.” She glared back at the incubus and made sure the dangling silk covered her ass. “You’re sure this is the right way, Faust?”
All four incubi shrugged, and all four gestured back in the general direction they’d come from.
“Pretty sure Death’s Grip is back there, somewhere,” Locutus said. The other incubi nodded between themselves, sharing a thousand little ‘in the know’ gestures as subtle as a nod. They’d been together a long time.
“We push forward,” Vin said. “We kill whoever we find.”
This again. She bopped Vin on the shoulder, but he didn’t even glance her way.
“I’d prefer we didn’t kill everyone we come across. Allies can be useful, you know? Case in point, the Damall.”
Vinicius wasn’t convinced. With a grunt, he glanced around at the four incubi and the tetrad fujara, and then down at the vrat and sarkarin. Adron and Kas weren’t a part of the Damall, but they were still allies, and the reason Mia wasn’t dead. And if Mia had died, the rest of them would have died, too.
“We’ll find something,” Julisa said. “I grow hungry, as well. I–”
Mia threw up a hand.
“Do you–”
“You dare interrupt me? I–”
“Julisa! I… I feel something.”
Everyone froze. In the dead silence, all demons looked to her, waiting, and she stared down at the muck, waiting. There was something there, quiet and tickling. Did the others feel it? No. They all watched her, waiting for her to explain.
It was a buzzing sensation, like a vibration. Like a string vibration.
“That’s a–”
The swamp erupted into a boil. Dark gore shot up into the black fog and sky. Nearby mounds ripped apart, the twisting bones underneath scattering and plunging into the muck. The screams of distant remnants vanished under the rumbling of a hellquake, and everyone fell over, even Vin. Mia squeaked, tossed from Vin’s back, and landed on her side.
“What are you doing?” Julisa yelled, on her knees in the swamp with Mia.
“Me? I’m not doing this!” The egg? Where was the egg!? Mia spun, twisting in the black gore up to her hips. A lump sat on the swamp, and she scooped it up and set it in her sling. If that’d happened on hard ground, the egg might not have survived. Small blessings. “Faust? Adron? What’s going on? What’s–”
The ground opened up, and the swamp pulled out from under them. Like an avalanche, the black muck flowed and tumbled, twisting Mia until she sank beneath the ooze. Some small part of her brain screamed to keep the egg close to her chest, and she clutched it tight with one hand over her eyes as the swamp destroyed gravity and drowned her in an unending spin under its waves. Up and down disappeared, and the rumbling of the ground attacking the swamp above rose to a crescendo that buried the roars of the nearby demons.
The swamp sank underneath her. A break in the drowning gore enveloped her, and she opened her eyes. Gravity grabbed her again, and she spun in the air, twisting as waves of the black swamp fell with her into the darkness below.
A flash of blue light flew by, enough she figured out which way was down, and she turned to keep her back aimed that way, egg against her stomach. She landed a couple seconds later, onto more of the black muck, hard enough the wind rushed out of her lungs and her head sank back into the wet layer of swamp. But she was alive.
More of the black swamp rained on her, and blurry red shapes above followed it. With a loud squeak, she threw herself to the side as hard as her aching body could handle, landed on her back again, and hugged her egg snug to her belly. A splash of black gore fell on her, and she hid her face against her egg until it passed.
Vin, Julisa, and Kas landed on their feet, each earning giant splashes that hit Mia again, and again. Some of the other demons were already down with Mia, covering their faces from the splashes, and once the last incubus landed, that was everyone.