Laoko slowly tilted her head to the other side, wearing a subtle, almost welcoming smile, and she looked past Acelina to David. He froze. Again.
“He truly is unmarked.”
“He is,” Acelina said.
“And the rider’s arrival has something to do with him?”
“Everything has something to do with him, and the other unmarked. But those details are not for you. They are for Azailia.” Acelina flapped her wings twice, enough for Laoko’s hair to bounce against her hips. And ass. “And you”–she pointed at a nearby brute–“fetch the vratorin’s heart and give it to the unmarked.”
Everyone stared at her. This wasn’t happening.
Teleius frowned and snarled, like an upset dog. Laoko maintained her subtle smile and chuckled. She gestured to the brute, and the muscled juggernaut muttered, but didn’t disobey. Devorjin brutes were huge, all muscle, with no tail or spikes or horns of any kind, but compared to a tetrad, they didn’t look any more imposing than Acelina did. Still, everyone gave the brute room as he fetched the heart for David, and tossed it to him.
Catching bloody organs out of the air. What a world.
David scarfed it down. No time for a moral dilemma today, and no desire for one, either. The heart tasted amazing, and even the horrible memories of Vicus filing away in his brain barely warranted notice. The vrat had done some pretty dirty things, including a lot of backstabbings. He was sneaky. No wonder Teleius axed him.
The ache in David’s guts settled, and he rubbed his stomach as he paused and waited for the next wave of hunger. It came, but not as bad as before.
“You’re still hungry,” Laoko said, coming closer. Strut strut. “How strange.”
“Yeah, it is.” He did his best to maintain a neutral face, show no emotion, stoic and all that, but Laoko was a tetrad and David had only interacted with them through statues. They were just so damn big. The fact she had the same curves as Acelina only made things worse.
“You desire more?” Her nose was flat-ish and subtle, giving her an alien quality, with a small mouth and thin lips forever in a sly, analyzing smile. If they’d been sitting around a table, with various banners of various kingdoms, she would have been sitting at the head, a big crown on, and a wicked smile on her face as she forced everyone to sign a treatise they didn’t like.
“I… do, but Vicus said there aren’t any souls out here.”
Caera glared up at the tetrad. “That’s a good point, actually. What’re you doing here? There’s a lot of you. No chance you all came out here on a hunting trip.”
Teleius gestured in the direction Vicus had planned to take them.
“Zalia has some allies in that direction, near a pit where souls are frequently dumped. Three days away. Vicus was probably taking you there, not to Timaeus.”
“And we’re here,” Laoko said, “because we heard a mighty sound, and felt the ground break.” She gestured to the tregeera she’d brought with her pack.
“The nearby forest has been shattered,” the tregeera said, “and the ground has been churned. There’s a molten hole in the center of it all, too.”
A molten hole? The rider was free.
“Then we should get moving,” Acelina said.
“I would love an explanation.” The tetrad woman folded one set of arms under her chest, the other above.
“And maybe Azailia will give you one.” With a quiet stomp of a hoof, Acelina adjusted her wings and didn’t back down, even as Laoko got closer and stared down at her from a foot away. “But we will tell you nothing. Just take us to Timaeus, and if you insist, follow us to the spire.”
Laoko’s smile was relentless, but after a few seconds of deadly silence, she nodded and gestured to the demons around. Three dozen had become six or more, mostly vrats, brutes, and gargoyles, and they’d completely circled David and the girls.
“We taking the vermin?” Teleius asked, gesturing to the Las.
Daoka clicked twice up at the titan and stepped closer to the Las. Two hid behind her legs, while two stuck with Caera and David, and they bared their teeth as they spread their little wings.
“We are,” Acelina said.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
Again the silence tightened, ready to snap, and everyone set their eyes on the two tetrads and the spire mother negotiating on a knife’s edge. So this was what it looked like when two provinces were ‘friends’. Jes was right. These demons would have eaten them, Death’s Grip or not, if it not for Acelina.
“Teleius,” Laoko said. “I’ll take forty and bring them to Timaeus.”
“Fine. I’ll see what destroyed the trees, and what created the hole.” Hooking his axe back on his hip, he glared at David, and walked by. “If it was the rider, I’ll kill him.”
“Don’t!” David half spun on Caera’s back. Only a moment’s hesitation stopped him from grabbing the demon’s finger. “Don’t try and fight the rider.”
The korgejin glared down at him. What David had suggested was tantamount to telling some demons to stop breathing or eating, but this dumbass korgejin hadn’t seen what David had seen. A korgejin, just like him, getting chopped into flaming bits by the man in red and bronze armor.
They stared at each other, and Teleius broke first, grunting and flaring his wings.
“You, with me,” he said, and he gestured to swaths of demons. They followed, forty, maybe fifty demons taking scouting positions and running ahead while the big demon marched forward with a few brutes at his sides.
“Come along, then,” Laoko said. “We can reach Timaeus in a few days, and he can decide if he should honor your… request.”
Acelina scoffed, but said nothing, gave her wings another flare, and readjusted them on her shoulders as if donning a royal cape. The forty remaining demons watched, eyes roaming her body, or getting lost in her obsidian, featureless face. Her face or David’s face. Once they got used to seeing a spire mother outside a spire, it was David they stared at, squinting to see his forehead, some coming in close and directly observing him. The closer they got, the more Caera growled and snarled at them.
This was going to be a rough journey.
Unlike Teleius’s demons, Laoko’s didn’t fan out. A few did, but most stayed nearby, also falling into familiar positions they must have taken hundreds of times before. Some in front, some in back. Laoko stayed with David and the girls, and she glanced back over her shoulder many times, tilting her head as she analyzed them.
“Ericia,” she said.
“Yes, Laoko?” a demon said. A bat girl — diloja — ran up to her side. Six feet tall, skinny and dainty, but she had a few nasty scars on her shoulders, and she frowned back at the group before looking up at Laoko. Battle-hardened.
“We’ll be crossing the White Lands. Take a hunting party and gather hearts to feed to our guests.”
“Guests?” The bat girl hissed back over her shoulder. That was an angry girl. Maybe she’d get along with Jeskura.
“Yes, they are our guests. You don’t think a spire mother outside her tower, and one of the unmarked, qualify as guests?”
“I think they’re gonna get us killed.”
“Timaeus might agree. But imagine what Azailia would say if she found out we had this group and didn’t bring them.”
Ericia flared her arm wings and glared back at David.
“I suppose.”
“Good. Now, as you can see, the unmarked boy is unusual, and starving. I want him fed, even if that means a half dozen hearts. He must survive to see Azailia.”
“So she can eat him?”
Laoko nodded. “If she wants.”
Gulp.
The diloja glared back at David one more time, snarled up at Acelina, and took off, bringing a few vrats and gargoyles with her.
“Ericia does make a good point,” Laoko said, slowing down until she walked with Acelina on her right, David and Caera on her left. “Unmarked have been causing chaos, clock and counter-clockwise of the Grave Valley. We know one in Death’s Grip has been using Cainites–”
“David got that one!” Lasca yelled. “Killed him!”
Acelina, Jes, Caera, and Dao all threw glares at Lasca, and the little lady sulked and covered her eyes with her palms.
“One unmarked killed another?” Laoko asked, and she smiled down at David. “Why? Did you eat him for his power?”
“No. I killed him because Cainites are a problem and he needed to die.”
“But you ate his heart, yes?”
“I… didn’t. Didn’t get a chance to. His flesh melted in seconds.” It might not have been smart to share that, but it seemed innocent enough.
“Oh. Interesting.” She nodded, two lower arms still folded under her chest, one upper now holding her chin while the other combed her long dreadlocks over her shoulder. “I will make sure to tell Azailia.”
“You’re joining us all the way to the spire?” Caera asked.
“Of course. Vicus and his lot are… were but one of many groups in the Grave Valley, and some are not so quick to recognize the bailiffs as their leader, or Azailia as spire ruler. But Teleius and I do.”
“Smart, not biting the hand that feeds you.”
“Indeed. But you are from Death’s Grip. You understand what it’s like, warring against your neighbor.”
“Yeah,” Jeskura said, leaping ahead of them and looking back. “It sucked. Dao and I–”
Daoka clicked at her lover before shaking her head and gesturing to Caera.