"What are you doing here?"
"I should be the one asking that question."
"Why?"
"Because the last time we met, it was in Arkaim."
"Yes."
"How did you get here then?"
"I walked."
"That's not... in either case, what's with that title, Wandering Pariah?"
"What about it?"
"What have you been doing to earn it?"
"I don't know."
"But..." The conversation is going nowhere. It has been almost a summer since the battle in the demon castle when the gods vanquished Queen Pelomyx. Afterward, he went on a journey across the Dominion in search of answers, first going towards where the humans came from, only to witness the atrocities they were capable of inflicting on the defenseless civilians. Just like Shelnir who killed the child in his arms, they didn't hesitate to execute even infants.
It was irreconcilable with his ideals, but he also couldn't stop them. Still, he followed their path of destruction to see with his own eyes what his actions in the demon castle caused. Along the way, he found small villages and settlements still untouched by the war. Most demons he met turned out to be just like humans; many had their own tribal cultures and traditions, but they loved and feared for their families just as much as humans do.
Rolan looks down at Kamii, who returns the gaze with an expressionless one of her own. He's bound to a wooden pillar, and the little dark elf's companions are surrounding him. Every single one is a demon - and judging by their animosity directed at him they hate humans. It's a wonder that they haven't already attacked him yet.
Through their interactions, he could tell that they were led by the little dark elf. He wonders how she could have gathered demons like a giant minotaur and the Mohawk-toting muscular man behind her, even though she talks very little and isn't the most sociable person. She never seemed the type to lead, as she only ever followed Chloe.
Thinking of Chloe, the princess of the Dominion, he lowers his gaze and remembers the last time they saw each other. He had just helped kill Queen Pelomyx, and she had witnessed it. If he had met her instead of Kamii, he would have been killed instantly. Then again, he doesn't feel like he's in a very hopeful position right now either. After seeing all the unjust suffering that he caused with the queen's death, he now thinks it would be a justified punishment.
But maybe meeting Kamii here is a sign for him to find redemption. The crone told him to take back all the members of his group, who broke up after they defeated the demon queen. She hadn't mentioned the little dark elf, but he considered her an important member as well. Without her, Chandra would have most likely killed them before deciding to train them.
He had been on his way to find Gram at Chandra's fortress. Because she's an important person in the Dominion, she most likely left to join the frontlines. The big man might have left as well, and his journey might have been a waste of time. But he encountered the little dark elf long before even leaving the lands ravaged by the human invasion.
"I was on my way to Chandra's fortress." Rolan finally states the reason for his presence here.
"What were you doing in the castle?" Ignoring him, Kamii suddenly asks. She seems much more mature than she appeared to be when around Chloe, even more so than she was during their time with the six-armed demon.
"Chandra's husband is Oinos, the Walker in the Wild. He came to pick us up, and the gods made us join the battle against the demon queen." He answers truthfully. Even though it would be better to lie under these circumstances, he can't bring himself to do that just to preserve his miserable life.
One of the demons surrounding him steps forward with a deathly glare. It's the demon with the red Mohawk, who's only a little taller than him, but has a thick neck and a slightly hunched back. With a multitude of scars running across his face and two large tusks sticking out from the corners of his mouth, he has the appearance of a veteran of many battles. His overall appearance reminds him of a boar.
"Ya were there when the gods killed the queen?" He asks in a deep voice.
"I killed her." He didn't think that this would be the time and place to confess his actions - his crimes - but it just came out on its own. His life was forfeit, but the emptiness that had steadily filled his heart since the start of his journey was being drained away. It's as if a dam had broken.
"What?!" The minotaur jumps up from its seated position on a broken wall and stomps his hoof, cracking the paved ground under the force. He angles his body as if ready to charge at Rolan and gore him with his one good horn - the other is broken.
Kamii raises her crab arm, and he stops his movements. Despite her small frame and lack of words, she appears to have even such a fierce warrior under her control. But judging by her cold violet gaze, he can tell that he won't get any mercy from her either.
"Did you tell me this, thinking I wouldn't kill you?" She asks, her words showing him clearly that she's no longer the innocent little dark elf he knew.
"No, I didn't think so." Lowering his gaze, Rolan wonders what he really wanted to achieve by telling demons that he killed their leader.
"Then what were you trying to do?" She snaps her crab pincer up and closes it around his neck. Only the thick wooden pillar to which he's tied prevents his throat from getting crushed, although there is an audible creaking sound coming from it.
"Maybe to find redemption?" He replies with a self-deprecating smile. Anyone can tell that his haggard looks, unshaven face and sunken eyes are a sign of hard times. She knows that he's somebody who can survive in the wild without a problem, so that appearance can only stem from inner turmoil.
"Not forgiveness?" Kamii tilts her head with an inquisitive look.
"I know that's not something I will ever find." Despite learning that the demons are, in many regards, better than humans, he doesn't expect them to show more forgiveness than the latter would under these circumstances.
"That's true." Opening her pincer and lowering it, she stares up at the former leader of their group. "But I won't be the one to judge you."
Suddenly, a broken sword the width of a grown man's waist flies at them from the side in an arc. Kamii raises her cursed arm just in time to block the blade. Sparks fly.
However, it's long enough to pivot around her crab pincer and slam into the pillar which Rolan is tied to. He screams in pain and looks down to find that the blade has cut deeply into the wood as well as almost all the way through his left arm, right below the elbow.
"Ireyo!" Kamii quickly grabs the giant weapon's hilt before it can be pulled back by the chain it was swung with. At the other end of it stands a child-sized demon with whiskers growing from their cheeks. A horizontal scar runs over the bridge of their nose, which looks recent. They have a pair of rabbit-like, fur-covered ears and pure red eyes staring at the human man in seething hatred.
"He killed the queen!" The voice of the rabbit demon is that of an adult woman's, quite unlike her appearance would suggest, and she sounds beyond enraged. "Let go of the Divider!"
"No. It's not your place to kill him." Never raising her voice beyond her normal volume, the little dark elf keeps her grip on the hilt of the massive weapon almost casually, while turning around to the masked woman in her entourage. "Sazi, tend to his wound."
"Are you sure you can trust me to do that?" Her hooded robe with long puffy sleeves barely hides her curvaceous figure, but the alluring voice of a mature lady that emerges from beyond the grinning mask completes her image.
"Yes, you're a healer." Replying in a matter of fact tone, Kamii stares into the eyeholes of the stylized visage.
"As expected of you." Tilting her head and sighing, the woman named Sazi shrugs in resignation. She implied that, given a chance, she might attack and kill Rolan herself, but the little dark elf's trust in her took the wind out of her sails.
"Ya serious 'bout lettin' him live?" The boar-like demon asks. Despite his fierce appearance, he doesn't let the emotions get the better of him.
"Yes. Onee-sama will judge him." With a quick motion, Kamii pulls the giant sword named Divider from the pillar, and Rolan screams again. She regards him with one last look, before walking away while dragging the blade behind her.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"You were fortunate." Sazi comments while washing her bloody hands in a bowl of fresh water.
"In what regard?" With a wry smile, Rolan lifts the bandaged stump of his left forearm. The thickness of the blade had pulverized his bones after the sharp edge had cut through the soft flesh, so there was no saving it anymore. It's just like him to lose another part of his being on this continent where even the world itself seems to have forsaken him.
"That I like Lady Kamii." The woman lifts her mask and shows off her desiccated and bandaged face. In place of eyeballs are dark empty sockets, but within, two red lights burn like tiny flames. "Otherwise, we would not be speaking like this."
Rolan successfully held back the urge to scream at the sight of her visage. This is the first time he has ever seen an undead who's able to speak and reason - unless he's wrong about her identity.
"And that I am Nefersobek Amunansazi of the Seventh Dynasty." She puts the mask back on and speaks in a self-assured tone. "You would have died from bleeding out if not for my surgical skills."
"I thank you for that." Even though he just lost half his left arm, he feels incredibly calm. Maybe the thought that he can meet Chloe again is giving him purpose. But before then, he would want to gather Runa, Gram, and Sigurd first. He knows the location of the former two, but the latter is most likely already in the empire, spreading the word. Maybe the crone will appear before him again like she has each time he found himself at wit's end.
"There is no need to thank me. I may have stopped the bleeding and cleaned the wound, but disease and infection may take more from you still." There's a hint of pleasure in her voice when she informs the human of this. "I may be a master surgeon, but I am not versed in medicine."
With this, she walks out of the tent with a wave of her puffy sleeve. Rolan sits up and groans from the pain of the gauze rubbing on his arm stump. Even with anesthetics and a bottle of rum in his system, the throbbing pain still runs up his shoulder with every heartbeat.
Suddenly, the entire tent is ripped away, and radiant sunlight blinds his eyes. Then, a massive shadow looms over him, and the minotaur lowers his head towards him with bloodshot eyes peering out from under his thick helmet. He snorts air through his nose and regards the wounded human with a wrathful look.
"Stop that, Zancrax." The Mohawk man steps between the towering demon and Rolan. "He'll get his judgment in due time."
"Don't stop me, Terog! My family was killed in Arkaim, and one of those responsible for that is here!" The minotaur named Zancrax stomps his hoof and balls up his fists until cracking sounds emerge from his knuckles. Those hands look like they could crush a human's head like a raw egg.
Rolan lowers his head upon hearing about the death of civilians in Arkaim. He had been unable to save a child, faltering under the words of a goddess. If only he had been strong enough to block her attack back then.
"I don't like it either, but ya heard what the missus said!" Terog puts a hand on the axe at his belt, and the tension in the air is about to explode.
"You two-" Sazi begins to intervene, but suddenly stops. Maybe she thinks it's an inevitability and would rather he dies sooner than later, instead of letting him continue to disrupt group cohesion. Kamii and the rabbit demon Ireyo are absent, so if he were killed now, they would only have to apologize later.
"Will my death bring back your family?" Rolan suddenly looks up with a determined expression. It wasn't that he lacked the strength to oppose Shelnir; he didn't have the resolve. His mind had been in turmoil after everything he learned about the demons, but a part of him had still been clinging to his old values. And he listened to the goddess even though she was clearly in the wrong.
"You what?!" Zancrax pushes Terog aside like a fully grown person would a child, and brings down a fist right next to the stretcher the human is lying on. The ground shakes under the impact.
"Nothing will bring them back now!" Raising his voice, Rolan returns the minotaur's glare with a firm gaze of his own. "So many died because of me."
He lowers his head once again and thinks back to his actions. Only a summer ago, he believed that just killing the demon queen would resolve everything. It had been a belief he clung to until the moment he brought down his holy sword, and its light destroyed the monster before him.
Even before he first met any real demons, he doubted that all of them were evil creatures with no redeeming features. His time with Urial and her family of Nightmare breeders, as well as the moons he trained under Chandra taught him that the demons were only different from humans in their physical appearance.
The death of the demon queen at his hands opened the doors for a human invasion. Instead of bringing peace, it only invited more suffering to both humans and demons alike. Soldiers with families on one side and civilians on the other side are both dying - for what?
"Give me a chance to atone." Looking up at Zancrax with pleading eyes, Rolan speaks in an imploring tone. Terog steps in and delivers a resounding punch to his face, which causes him to fall off his stretcher.
"Don't gimme that crap!" The boar demon roars at him, and even the minotaur looks surprised. "I'll make sure ya live to die at the hands of Lady Chaos. Before then, all ya have to do is to keep your mouth shut."
"I want to do more than just wait for my inevitable death..." Holding his bruised cheek, the battered human sits up from the dirt ground, then rises to his feet unsteadily. "Punch me more, if that appeases your anger."
"Oh, it's on. Ya asked for this." Terog winds up for a hook.
"Stop." Kamii's voice calls out to him from behind, and he staggers to a halt. "I told you that Onee-sama would be the one to judge him."
"He was askin' for it." The boar demon points at Rolan.
"Even then." Walking forward with Ireyo in tow, the little dark elf approaches them. Her violet eyes are free of any emotions as she regards her former group leader, who's bleeding from a cut on his lip. She looks down at the stump of his forearm, where blood is seeping through the gauze again because he involuntarily used it to push himself off the ground without even noticing the pain. "See to that, Sazi."
"To order a queen around like this, Lady Kamii is really incredible." The woman in question shrugs and speaks in an amused tone.
"Terog, Zancrax. Fix the tent." Kamii reprimands the two.
"Hey, it wasn't me-" The latter begins to complain, but he's shut up by a silent violet gaze. The demons seem to respect or even fear this little girl despite her small stature. Rolan witnessed her power first-hand and knows that she isn't somebody to be trifled with.
"And you, keep quiet until Onee-sama comes back." Directing this at the human, she says with no regard for their past together.
"Where is Chloe?" She saw him killing her mother, but was taken away by Mithra before a battle against the gods could begin. As far as he could glean from the actions of the demon army and the rumors circulating among the civilians, they're currently not led by a central figure, so Chloe isn't sitting on the throne.
"I don't know. But she'll be back." Turning away, she concludes their short conversation. "Rest."
A few days after their encounter in the walled village of Roaris, they moved on. Kamii and her group's destination was Zohigal, the capital of the southern barbarian tribes, but she decided to make a detour around Ajurai, the fortress of the Ajura clan. Rolan told her that Gram may be living there now. She saw the whole group in the demon castle, so it's safe to assume she already considered the likelihood of all of them to have had a hand in the death of the demon queen. Maybe she wants to capture Gram and present him to Chloe as well.
That's probably what the crone was telling him to do. To gather those responsible for this misery so that they can be judged by the one who has every right in the world to do so. She's most likely a demon after all.
Their journey took them across hilly plains littered with collections of forests, reminiscent of the Slaettermark where they essentially started their journey after meeting Chloe. After twelve days, the landscape changed and gave way to a steppe, which soon began to look like the surroundings of the ajura fortress they stayed at. Rocky hills and buttes were jutting out of the dry ground all around them.
Another two days later, Rolan's strength gave out, and Zancrax was tasked with carrying him. The minotaur refused to do so at first, but Kamii's persuasiveness broke through his obstinate exterior. Even though the haggard human had lost an arm and a lot of blood, he had walked on his own two feet and kept up with the healthy demons for such a long time.
By the time they reached Ajurai five days after he had collapsed, he was wracked by fever and already delirious. The stump of his forearm was swollen, and the onset of gangrene was visible. Just as Sazi had explained, she was only a master surgeon and understood nothing of the aftercare required to maintain the health in the patients. In fact, she was more of a corpse experimenter than a surgeon that healed the living, but she never told Kamii that.
"Oh, it's you." Batamira, Chandra's great-grandnephew, and deputy governor of Ajurai during her absence, welcomes Kamii and the other demons. He watched their training with Chandra from time to time but was usually too busy with administrative work to interact with them much. Still, he could instantly recognize the cursed crab arm. "And is that the human boy? What's wrong with him?"
"Help him." Is all the little dark elf says.
"Are ya really goin' that far to save him?" Terog asks but receives only a silent gaze in response. But then she shakes her head and speaks up after all.
"He shouldn't be dying from something like this. Onee-sama will be the one to decide whether or not he dies for his crimes." She states in a matter of fact tone.
"What'd he do?" Crossing all three pairs of his arms, Batamira asks curiously.
"He killed Queen Pelomyx." Kamii answers truthfully, and all the ajura surrounding them stare at her with wide-open eyes. When they realize she isn't joking, their faces darken in anger.
"Why would you want to keep him alive?!" One of them shouts, and the others support his complaint. They seem to have enough discipline not to attack him or even stoop so low as to throw rocks. The fact that he's being carried on the back of a giant minotaur that towers over even the powerfully built ajura may be another reason - even though they're members of the most powerful demon clan.
"Do explain, little one." Bending down to take a closer look at the little dark elf, the deputy commander of the fortress inquires with a frown.
"Because none of us here have the right to take away the opportunity for Onee-sama to exact revenge on him." Standing her ground against the giant ajura warrior who looks like he's twice as tall as her, she replies in a steadfast tone.
"I see. Who's that Oneh Sama you're talkin' about?" Scratching his chin with one hand, Batamira glances at the feverish Rolan.
"She's the daughter of the demon queen." Kamii doesn't speak with pride or make it a grand announcement. To her, it's a simple fact, a response to the question she was asked. A murmur runs through the gathered warriors.
"So he's goin' to be a present to her when she returns, huh?" Shrugging, the deputy commander looks into the eyes of the little dark elf, as if to gauge her reasoning for delaying the inevitable. There's no way the princess wouldn't kill him the moment she lays her eyes on him. "Have it your way. We'll keep him alive."
"Is Gram here?" With the first topic out of the way, Kamii brings up the next.
"You mean that big human, right? Yeah, he came back shortly after the battle at the capital and has been stayin' with us since. Should I get him?" Turning to one of his aides, he prepares to have him call over Gram.
"No, bring me to him." The little dark elf lifts her crab pincer to stop him. "I want to talk to him alone."