Chapter 31.1 - The Spoils of Battle
Trey woke up with his head resting in a puddle of muddy water. Rivia had left him there amidst the dirt and pig shit, and frankly he stank. His eyes took a little time adjusting to the light overhead and he could hear people shuffling around, talking, and crying… but the sounds of battle were over.
“You didn’t use your ‘Roar of the Banshee’ even once.” Atharost commented casually, eating an apple and sitting on the stone wall next to where Rivia lay battered and bruised in a kneeling position. A deep cut across her cheek was still bleeding and her right eye was swelling, marring her usually beautiful features. She kept her head down when Trey questioningly looked at her, and then he did the same to Atharost.
“I realize you probably thought it would silence the rest of us as well, but it would have helped more than hurt. They all had magic, while the guild who joined us only had some. My flying ability is a trait as well so it wouldn’t be affected by a silence. Next time, if in doubt, just use it.” Atharost continued, swallowing another bite as Trey pulled himself up out of the mud. The ifrit caught Trey’s eye and then looked down to Rivia. “Oh, are you wondering about her injuries? I took the liberty of punishing her for you because you were… unavailable. I saw how she ignored you in that first fight against the culn. I think she’ll be more compliant and willing the next round.”
Atharost hopped off the stone wall and Rivia immediately flinched, expecting another strike. Her lips quivered and she began to shake. A large single burn mark was also blistering along the back of her left hand that showed itself when she moved, and she clutched it to cover it up a second later with her eyes still downcast.
Trey sighed, taking Atharost’s offered hand and pulling himself up. He brushed off some of the mud, shook his head to rid his hair of the dirty water and looked around.
Bodies were everywhere. Of the prisoners the cultists had taken from the village, at least twenty of them were dead. Maybe more. A large pile of naked cultist bodies were stacked off to one side and the items that had been stripped from them were piled in an adjacent stack with a mage and two archers rummaging through them.
[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Oh ho! So you’re alive after all!” a muscular armored man with a deep booming voice called out as he walked over to where Atharost and Trey were standing. Trey did a double take when he realized it was the same old battlemage he’d fought with side by side earlier that day, and the man came up to give Trey a well earned handshake.
[Ancient Demon Dialect] “I thought you’d died! And how do you speak our language?” Trey commented, seriously curious and a little relieved that his battle buddy had lived after all.
The man scowled and folded his arms. [Ancient Demon Dialect] “I did die! But our priests are gifted in holy magic, some of them have the ability to resurrect. I was one of the lucky ones… we still had a couple of our number die the permanent death. Resurrection spells have long cooldowns and we couldn’t get to everyone…”
The older man glanced about sadly, head-bobbing off to an area where his dead fellows were still being collected and laid out beside some of the villager’s corpses.
“Anyways friend, we’re a demon hunter guild. As the name implies we specialize in hunting down demons and the cults that worship them, we’ve been tracking this bunch for three months!” He chuckled and clapped a hand on Atharost’s shoulder. “But by the gods we were happy to see that this one was on our side! When they started fighting you, we took the opportunity to strike and got a good lot of them before the true fighting even started! Many of the men wanted to thank you by the way. You did good work, Atharost, and you saved many of our number.”
Trey’s brows furrowed. A demon hunter guild? Why were they ok with befriending Trey and his minions then?
Atharost grinned and nodded in acceptance. “It is a first for me to be thanked by a human outside of my master. I appreciate the gesture and it was a pleasure fighting alongside you.”
“Well mannered too!” the battlemage said with a chortle. “My name is Tomrankan. What is yours, boy? The ifrit already gave me his, as did the demoness… but from what I’m told, she tried to get you killed?”
Trey shrugged as he glanced angrily at Rivia. “I’ll have a private talk with her later. Anyways my name is Trey and it’s nice to make your acquaintance.”
Tomrankan nodded and stroked his beard thoughtfully. He glanced over to the pile of loot that had been stripped off the cultists and then back to Trey. “So… You’re an infernal summoner?”
Trey nodded absentmindedly, watching the grieving families mourn their dead and feeling a little sad that he couldn’t have done more. “Yeah. I am.”
“That’s a rare class boy! Most of the ones we hunt are warlocks. The All Spirit doesn’t give that option very often! I myself am a battlemage class, if you hadn’t figured that out already. I already talked to the guild leader… she left with some of our injured while you were asleep but she told us that you were welcome to some of the gear that the cultists had.” Tomrankan put his hands on his hips. “We don’t have much use for most of it. The armor and weapons are good for us, as are the potions they had. But the trinkets and spell scrolls, if there are any, should be going to you. That demonic stuff doesn’t have any place with us, other than for study or selling purposes. We’ll also be giving you some of the coins they carried.”
Trey raised an eyebrow, definitely interested. He was certainly happy to be back in civilization and he could use any money he could get. Depending on what the items were they’d certainly help too.
“You’d just let me go? A demon hunting guild letting an infernal summoner leave?” Trey mused curiously, watching nearby soldiers strip the culn he’d killed of its ebony armor.
Tomrankan nodded with a smirk. “Of course. You really helped us out! Aside from that, if you’re a registered summoner or a registered warlock and avoid illegal activities there shouldn’t be any problems. At least… that’s how it is here in Yosemar. Other countries not so much and you’d be hanged outright for even associating with demons.”
Tomrankan snorted in irritation. “The king here is more focused on the money these cultists give him in taxes rather than the lives of his people, but that’s also why we have so much business in these lands. If the king’s men won’t protect his people, who will? That’s when we come in, and it pays handsomely. Anyways, society here may not like you much but it is a very legal occupation inside Yosemar’s borders. I… see you’re human at least. If you weren’t I’m not sure how that’d go over. Not sure why you came out of Oblivion either, but if you’re interested in staying in the area just get to the nearest city and make sure you register like all the others do. Necromancers have to do the same. It's the ones that don’t follow the rules that Yosemar has problems with. They go about murdering and sacrificing, burning down villages as you’ve seen yourself. It can become a real problem.”
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Trey humphed. “Makes sense to me.”
Far off on the other side of the decimated village, the large 6 legged demon-cat that Trey had seen earlier was being beheaded. It was already a corpse so he was confused as to why the two soldiers were doing it, but Tomrankan answered that for him after he caught the gaze.
“A trophy.” Tomrankan remarked smugly, pushing a hand through his grey hair with a grin. “That bastard got 6 of us before we put it down. Tough son of a bitch. It’ll look good on a wall plaque.”
Trey chuckled and shook his head while folding his arms. “Huh. I wish I could have had the chance to force it into a contract.”
“Impossible.” Atharost rebutted without a skip in his beat. “You can’t make a contract with someone else’s minion. You would have had to get its master to trade you the minion, or he would have had to gift it to you. If you would have killed the warlock first, the cat would have disappeared… and I suppose you could have waited for it to reappear from the nether days later and try your hand then. But you wouldn’t have been able to take it during the battle.”
Trey frowned and scratched his head to think about it. Good to know… At least that meant that while he lived, his minions couldnt’ be forced into contracts by other black magic practitioners.
Motioning for Rivia to accompany them, the three men walked across the village-turned-battlefield towards the spot where soldiers were shifting through the cultist’s loot. Trey looked for Napoleon’s body as they went, but he never did end up seeing it.
“Anyone find the imp?” Trey asked curiously, still looking around. There were a lot of corpses.
“I burned it.” Atharost replied under his breath. “Didn’t want his body disrespected… it’s how we ifrit bury our own dead. We’ll see him soon enough.”
“Hopefully not!” Tomrankan sputtered. He wiped the spit from his face in embarrassment as they walked. “I am very sorry for your loss. Losing a minion can be hard, I know. I do hope that you don’t mean it though, when you say that you will be seeing him soon. No reason to go and get yourselves killed if you can help it.”
Trey and Atharost gave the man a pair of small smiles. Neither of them said a word about Trey having the Earthborn trait or what it meant for Napoleon’s reincarnation. Napoleon would be back again in 5 days, give or take, and whenever that happened Trey would summon him from the nether realm. It sucked that Naopleon had to die, go through all that pain and lose a level, but at least it wasn’t permanent… for now. That kind of death would all change the second Trey’s permanence cycle switched OFF though, and even thinking about it gave Trey the creeps considering how many times he’d died thus far.
It’d been a lot. Would have been even more if he hadn’t had help, and if the trend continued he’d be a real gonner soon enough.
Putting negative thoughts aside, they came to the piles of loot taken from the cultists. It was a treasure trove of random shit piled about. People were loading and unloading supplies in boxes, barrels and crates with horse-drawn wagons parked along the dirt road leading into town. Villagers were being fed and consoled while the guild took time to mourn with the grief stricken victims of today’s events.
When getting closer and finally coming to a stop, he saw that it wasn’t just one pile but multiple. A separate pile of bloodstained clothes, broken swords, crushed potion bottles and burned accessories were being selected out as trash. The nearest archer, a lean man who looked young but grew locks of silver hair, was busy wading through the first pile that’d been stripped off the bodies. He was sorting out the trash from the good stuff, laying anything he thought might be useful off to the side in another pile where a robust and bloodied mage was setting out the pieces one by one to inspect them. The mage would concentrate for a couple of seconds, turn to the second archer - a blonde girl who must have still been in her mid-teen years, and told her what to write down. She would then scribble it onto a parchment, place the parchment next to the item and lay it down on the ground in an organized grid of squares she’d made in the dirt.
[Human Dialect] “Morphi!” Tomrankan called out, giving the rotund mage a start.
The bald, baby-faced and hooded figure whirled around angrily. He let out a humph when he saw the old battlemage. Then he gave Trey and the two demons a rude snort of acknowledgement, but didn’t say anything to them otherwise.
[Human Dialect] “Tomrankan, I thought I told you not to scare me like that!” Morphi muttered irritably, turning back to the tiny wooden figurine of a horse he’d been examining. “What can I do for you, ya old bastard?”
[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Morphi here is our guild’s leading identifier. His level is incredibly high and he’s very skilled with the task. Legend has it that all he did was identify the local school girls back in his village until he was the ripe age of 45 and that’s how he got so good at it!”
[Ancient Demon Dialect] “I can understand you, half-whit!” Morphi snapped coldly, earning a chuckle from the male archer and a look of confusion from the teenage girl.
Tomrankan just shrugged, then exchanged grins with Trey and Atharost.
[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Then let’s keep it this way for now, they can’t speak the human tongue. You know why I’m here.”
Morphi gave them a condescending gaze and stood up, brushing himself off and putting his hands on his hips with a humph. “I don’t like the idea of giving up our hard earned valuables. I don’t like it one bit. Without us, they would have died! Aside from that we need ALL of this to pay a death fund to the families of the dead. You know the contracts - they’re damn expensive.”
Tomrankan shook his head adamantly, folding his arms and beginning to look serious. “You know what Lalia said. They helped, and without them more of our men would have died so they get a share too. She’s the boss, you just have to follow orders.”
The rotund mage scowled even more deeply and huffed. “Very well. Do they want to wait until I finish sorting this out? Or do they wish to take from the items we’ve already labeled? I’d prefer to get this over with if possible so I don’t keep fretting about what useful loot these demon scum will be taking from me.”
Trey raised an eyebrow and shook his head at Atharost when the ifrit became visibly angry.
“I’ll just take a look now and get out of your way, I won’t be long I promise.” Trey said, giving a gracious smile and a nod to Tomrankan.
He moved over to quite the selection they’d placed on the ground with the parchments scribbled along each of them, but Trey couldn’t make out what the parchments meant. He frowned, scratched his head and tried identifying them only to fail spectacularly with the first five tries. A wooden shield with a gem centered within it, a black ring with a skull, a rolled up scroll with glowing letters, a rather large battle axe, two cloth bags, glistening blue rope, a small brown book, the list went on. There were over fifty of these items already identified and he didn’t know what any of them did.
“I had guessed you couldn’t read either. Would you want some help?” Tomrankan offered with a friendly smile. “You’re allowed to pick three choice items, and we’ll give you a small amount of coin as well.”
Trey put a palm to his forehead and sighed loudly, but nodded in appreciation. “Yeah. Could you point out the ones that have anything to do with Dark, Chaos, Curse and Fire magic? Same goes for miracles…. Or really anything that you think would be useful to me. Uh… I could use some new light armor as well if you’ve got any of that. These clothes are ruined.”
He took a look at his worn leather pants and utterly destroyed cloth vest. Jesus, he was in bad shape.
The next couple of minutes were spent following Tomrankan around the grid created out of the dirt with a knife. Trey tried not to step on the carved lines and saw the blonde girl scowl at him at least twice when he failed the effort. He didn’t know why she’d organized it like this but it was densely packed and kind of ridiculous in his opinion. Meanwhile, his minions Atharost and Rivia stood in silence at the edge of the makeshift grid.
By the end of their little adventure, Tomrankan had bent over to pick up 6 different items. He bade Trey follow him a few feet out and sat down with the gear, spreading it out for Trey to have a look.