The question was why, though.
The answer might be security, he supposed. Demons avoided the wastes like the plague, mostly because the weaker castes were vulnerable to sunlight and there was little cover to be had out here. The more powerful types could exist here with impunity, of course, but there was nothing to attract them out here. Not when the coast beckoned with its victims and powerful conjunctions of magical energy.
Even so, there were few humans who would voluntarily endure the hardships of the wastes for the rather nebulous exchange of security. Wastes or coast, security was a relative matter, and the world was dangerous wherever you went.
It would take a pragmatic and determined individual to decide that one danger was less of a threat then another, even more so for them to take along a child.
Unless, of course, they were being hunted.
Kaern's eyes fell on the sleeping girl again, letting his thoughts mull that idea around. It would explain both the presence of the girl and the demons. A hunted human, perhaps a member of one of those splinter groups, could very well locate his family in the wastes. For him, the danger of demons wouldn't be a dull background threat; it would be a blade waiting to fall across his neck at all times.
Fear could make a person do strange things, much like any other powerful emotion. It could make a strong man weak or a weak man a pillar of ferocity. Controlled, like all other emotions endemic to the sentient condition, it was a survival trait.
Uncontrolled, it was a death sentence.
And Kaern didn't believe that the child was in any sort of control of her fear at the moment.
Chapter 5
Venadrin felt mixed emotions as he saw the great city rise up in the shimmer of the morning sun. It almost appeared from nowhere, as if by some great magic, and it certainly was enough to awe a lesser person.
He’d see it all, though, and was educated enough to be proof to the foolish superstitions of the peasantry.
One of the great preachers—stupid old men who believed that their god, whichever one they worshipped this week, would save him—had once said something he would never forget: that doubt and questions were the luxury of the rich.
It was at once the most profound and stupid thing he had ever heard. Profound because it was true, and stupid for exactly the same reason. The collaborator hadn’t always been what he was. There had been a time, however brief, when he had counted Damasc and those like him as his closest brothers. It was the poor fools who listened to the preachers that finally did in the last of his noble idiocy.
If doubt and questions were the luxury of the rich, then Venadrin knew without a doubt that religion and faith were the opiates of the poor.
The war could have been won. It should have been won.
Humans were smarter, they were better warriors, and it was their world. If only one in ten had fought, even now, it would be over. To find one like Damasc, however, or one like himself, Venadrin knew that you’d be lucky if you searched through only a hundred.
He hated the demons, they were filth, but Venadrin hated humans more because they were sheep.
“Come,” he said, glancing at his charges. “The sun will be high enough soon to inhibit you. Best we get within the walls.”
The demons put a little more spring in their step at those words.
*****
The presence in the throne room was pervasive, ominous, and held a weight to it that threatened to drive all the air from Venadrin’s lungs.
This was the reason he had left the resistance, the reason he hunted his own.
The one demon he had met that he truly feared.
Oh, Venadrin knew many that were dangerous. Demons that could kill him as easily as one might snuff out a small flame, but he also knew that those things were vulnerable themselves. They, too, could be killed in turn, difficult though the task might be, but this presence…the Master, was another matter entirely.
“So, human.” The presence seemed to come forward, leaning its force into Venadrin from the great throne across the room. “Tell me of your success.”
Venadrin didn’t have to add the implied threat that was there. He knew what would happen if he were to report anything less than success. He swallowed, his mouth and throat dry from nerves even though he knew he had the required news to report.
“We tracked down Damasc, Lord,” he stammered out. “He had fled into the wastes, where he had hidden his wife and daughter.”
“And do they yet live?”
“No, Master.”
The presence looked him over, then focused on his group. “I see you lost many.”
Venadrin closed his eyes, wincing, but nodded. “Demasc was a formidable warrior.”
Please don’t ask more, he mentally begged. Venadrin didn’t know how the Master would react to the fact that a mere girl child had slaughtered seven demons, and frankly, he didn’t want to find out.
He almost sighed in relief when the presence seemed satisfied, falling back and waving negligently.
“Be gone. Your presence is sickening, human.”
Venadrin bowed even as he retreated, his every expression as obsequious as he could make it. He didn’t know if the Master even recognized them as such, but he knew better than to chance anything less than his best bowing and scraping.
Escaping the Master’s throne room was always an accomplishment, and he considered it one worth celebrating.
Venadrin sent his troops, if they could be called such, on their way. He didn’t know what they did for amusement on their own time and didn’t care to find out. His own amusements were all that concerned him, and he expected a few days of indulgence before he was again tasked with something by the Master.
****
For the first time since she'd been plucked from the brink of death, Elan didn't feel pain when she woke. She didn't know if it was from the powder that Kaern kept making her take or if she were really healing, but she felt almost human again.
And it only took six days.
She laughed softly, bitterly, as she sat up. A week then, since she'd tracked down the murderers who had attacked and killed her family. Eight days since she'd watched her parents die.
Elan closed her eyes. It was too much; she couldn't deal with it. The pain struck her again then, knotting her stomach and constricting her throat as she folded up and fell back down again.
"Hurts, don't it, lass?"
She turned her head, looking up at the profile of Kaern as he stepped past her and dropped some more scraggly branches down near where he built his fires.
"W...what?" she asked, swallowing her pain and wiping her eyes.
"Whatever you lost," he said simply, not looking in her direction.
She just stared at him then, not certain what to say.
"Don't feel like it now, but yer not gonna die from the hurt," he told her while fiddling with something in his pack. "T'ain't never gonna go away, o’ course...but ye'll get used to it."
She stared at him, listening to what he was saying, and couldn't believe what she'd heard. What the hell did he know about what she was feeling? What she would “get used to?”
"Few more days and ye may even forget the hurt for a couple hours," he told her, still not looking back. "A couple weeks and ye might even laugh again."
Her jaw was hanging open then as she stared at him, in wonder at the sheer idiocy of what he was saying. Her pain wasn't for him to observe, it wasn't for him to comment on. It was hers.
He glanced back her then, noting the glare without surprise. "I'm just saying that it's—"
"Shut up," she told him, gritting her teeth against a desire to say and do more.