Like the rank coming from the unwashed demon behind him.
“I cannot let my face be seen,” Cirayus whispered. “Few enough half-giants around, but everyone knows me. The moment they do, they’ll know I’m back. They’ll guess who you are.”
Vir immediately thought back to the words Cirayus told him in the Ashen Realm.
You cannot reveal yourself until we are ready. No matter what, allow none to see your tattoo. Do not give them even a whiff of who you truly are.
“What are you doing? I told you to lay down your weapons!” the man roared.
The man’s compulsion doubled, but so too did Cirayus’ counter compulsion, canceling it. Vir felt like a war was being waged in his head, only he was a confused bystander caught in the middle.
“On my mark, we run.”
Vir nodded subtly.
“That’s it, time’s up,” the demon barked. “Kill them!”
When Cirayus sprang forward, away from their enemies, Vir immediately followed suit. He blasted across the barren clay, Leaping three hundred paces, powering the Talent with his body’s prana reserves.
Not by choice, but necessity. Cirayus had, of course, warned him about the dearth of prana in the Demon Realm, so he’d been expecting it to be bad. Just not this bad.
Gods, this is nearly as bad as the Voidlands.
Despite Prana Current surging like mad, the drain wasn’t nearly offset by using Leap. It was like a leaky bucket being filled by a drip tap. The drip helped, but it’d never match the rate of consumption. Not unless Vir was extremely judicious with his abilities.
Still, Vir could leap like this a hundred times before he ran out of prana.
“I’d like to see them keep up,” Vir said, before realizing he was talking only to Shan; Cirayus was nowhere to be found.
The Ash Wolf looked at him judgingly.
Oh, grak! Vir thought, spinning around. Cirayus was moving fast, taking great bounding leaps augmented by prana… but he wasn’t using Balancer of Scales.
Their demonic pursuers followed hot on his heels, lobbing prana-enhanced spears and firing all manner of spells at the giant. Most glanced harmlessly off, thanks to Giant’s Hide, but Vir could see some small wounds on the demon’s back.
To Cirayus’ credit, he never once looked back.
“Shan. Rough them up, but don’t kill them. Not a lot of times we get to save Cirayus, so let’s not screw this up.”
Shan howled in anticipation.
They’re… monkeys, was Vir’s first thought when he finally neared enough to get a good look at their pursuers. Which, of course, meant they got a look at him as well, though that was less problematic for him than it was for Cirayus.
Unlike the giant, nobody knew his face here, and while he hadn’t yet applied any makeup, he was confident one or two sightings of his true visage wouldn’t compromise his identity. This was the Demon Realm, after all. He was loath to wear face paint all the time like he did among humans. These were his kin… though perhaps distantly related.
These demons were human from the neck down, their faces apelike, though their mannerisms showed obvious human intelligence. They all wielded either spears or seric talwars with so much curve they more closely resembled scimitars, and their small steel cuirasses hung over chainmail. All of this, plus their intricately carved, pointed helmets clearly displayed their level of advancement.
They also had tails. Long monkey tails.
They’d demanded his surrender and had used pranic arts. Whatever they were, they weren’t Ash Beasts. Ash Beasts didn’t wear jewelry like these demons did.
Wish they were, Vir bemoaned. He had no qualms about killing Ash Beasts. Unknown demons who just happened to be nearby?
Vir darted around the company of troops pursuing Cirayus, attempting to distract them. He was only partially successful. A group of five broke off their pursuit to engage him, clearly believing Cirayus to be the bigger threat.
Vir was about to slip into the shadows and come up behind them when he froze.
Can’t use that one, he remembered, grinding his teeth. Dance of the Shadow Demon was an Iksana Bloodline art. Iksana were exclusively Ghaels—gangly, hunchbacked demons—Vir was quite clearly not.
This is going to be a real hassle, isn’t it?
But while Dance was one of his most versatile abilities, it wasn’t like he was out of options. Not as he currently was.
“Shan, to Cirayus,” he ordered. “I’m more than enough for these grunts.”
Shan Blinked and disappeared. When Vir saw him again, he’d sunk his jaw into the armor of a monkey demon. By the demon’s cries, Vir concluded his armor had not protected him.
“Who are you? Name yourself! Are you with the rebellion?”
There’s a rebellion? Vir thought. Will have to look into that.
Vir easily bobbed and weaved around their thrusts. Though the five of them surrounded him, not a single one could land a hit. They couldn’t even get him to move from where he stood.
Then they started using magic. Unfamiliar demon magic.
A wave of searing hot air slammed into Vir, nearly sending him to the ground. The explosion that detonated after actually did.
Black smoke filled the air, and Vir coughed as he bounced off the ground. Prana Armor had protected him from injury, but it did nothing to clear the air.
Vir High Jumped, gasping for fresh air.
These warriors were far stronger and more skilled than the average human soldier. Not that they posed a threat to Vir.
I’m at a disadvantage since I don’t know how they fight. Vir had only become proficient at slaughtering Ash Beasts after fighting hundreds of them. His first time had been the hardest.
As Vir soared to the apex of his jump, he found Cirayus, still fleeing from a half dozen ape-men.
Shan had done a fabulous job of whittling the pursuers down, leaving a trail of injured bodies in his wake. At this rate, he’d have taken them all out in just a few more minutes. Cirayus could take a thousand of the sort of strikes the monkeys were lobbing at him, so despite the situation, their defeat was inevitable.
Time to wrap this up, then, Vir thought as he began to plummet back to the ground. Can’t let Shan hog all the glory now, can I?
Vir was, in fact, slightly annoyed. Opportunities to save Cirayus did not come often. He didn’t want to lose the giant’s favor to a wolf.
Still, Vir mused, without Balancer of Scales, he doesn’t have a lot of options other than to run. Especially since he doesn’t want to kill them or show his face.
Vir slammed into the ground—or more precisely, the leg of one of the monkey men.
The demon roared in pain, causing his buddies to look his way.
It’d been the wrong decision. With Haste active, Vir was a blur. And with Blink, he moved so fast he was almost invisible.
Vir delivered a punch to the gut of another demon, sending him flying back several paces. The demon was unconscious well before his body hit the ground.
Using the momentum from his attack, Vir swept two nearby demons. The hardness of his bone and the speed of his sweep meant that instead of simply knocking the two demons down, he broke their legs.
The remaining two jumped away, using an ability that looked very similar to Leap, though Cirayus once mentioned demons relied on their abstract Aspect tattoos for nearly all magic.