The soldier standing guard outside the tower drew his sword as we approached, he’d been watching us for a while now. “Who goes there?” He paid particular attention to the ogres behind us that were closing in. “Are they with you?”

Elmidath smoothed her hair and drew herself up. “Yes, they are. I am Lady Sarinknell, here at the personal invitation of Lord Biustarn.”

The soldier narrowed his eyes. “I see. Wait here.”

A section of the tower swung inward at his approach and he vanished into the tower. While I waited, I stared up at Lord Biustarn’s home. The perfectly square structure was carved from semi-transparent crystal that seemed to trap the sun’s light within, turning the otherwise colourless crystal into a riot of faux flame.

A few minutes passed without any sign of the guard before the crystal split open again and he emerged. “He’ll see you two now. The… others will have to wait outside.”

“One moment then.” Elmidath turned to the ogres. “I’ll have food sent down for you.”

She drew me along, into the tower, before the ogres could respond. I was all too happy to avoid another drawn out discussion and hurried inside.

The tower was even more spectacular on the inside. Light played across the inner walls, creating all manner of patterns. I stood there, fascinated, as the door disappeared behind us. Everything inside, including was, was dyed a deep red. The soldier allowed both of us a moment of amazement before he interrupted. “Lord Biustarn awaits you on the roof.”

Following him up the stairs through the sea of shifting red light made for a slightly bewildering experience. It felt a little as if I’d stepped into another world. A silly thought, given that I had literally entered another world so recently.

As advertised, the Demon Lord was waiting for us on the roof. Seated in the only chair, he was leaning against the battlements, looking out at the countryside. The tower concentrated the light far less up here and our surroundings took on something resembling their normal colour.

Biustarn’s guard announced Elmidath and was then dismissed. Once the guard was gone, Biustarn stood up. Looking us over, he smiled. I could hardly call it a warm smile, but there was at least a little joy to it. “I take it, based on your presence, that you were successful?”

Elmidath inclined her head and gave a little nod. “Indeed.”

“Excellent. Then allow me to formally welcome you, Lady Sarinknell.”

“Thank you, but I haven’t come here to be welcomed. I’ve come about your offer of alliance. Does that offer still hold?”

Lord Biustarn’s features drew together, becoming all business. “It does.”

“What are your terms? You were rather sparse on the details in our last meeting.”

“I’m aware. My terms depend on what you require from me…” he paused to glance at me, “and what you have to offer.” There was a flicker of desire as he looked at me. Which I dearly hoped was purely to do with my perceived worth rather than anything sexual. A rival Demon Lord being attracted to me, particularly a male one, was one of the last things I needed right now. I was probably just being dramatic; the idea was too farfetched to be real.

Elmidath paid not the slightest intention to my internal strife. “Then I’ll be blunt. I need soldiers to defend my newly claimed territory and I need them as soon as possible.”

Biustarn tapped the gold ring on his finger against the stone while he thought. “I can provide that but what do you have to offer in exchange?”

“What do you want?”

He wagged his finger at her. It seemed awfully patronising to me but Elmidath didn’t react. “Is this the best negotiating you can manage? You can’t just let me ask for whatever I want, you need to suggest something.”

Elmidath bit her lip. “You have a point but I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I can hardly suggest something when I know so little of your own circumstances. Could you at least give me a quick rundown of what’s happening around here?”

“Very well. I won’t burden you with the details but my principal concern right now is the Capital. Lord Azuren in particular. He’s pressing for another large-scale assault on Vorato and he’s requesting the support of every lord he can lay hands on. You shouldn’t be surprised if he contacts you sooner or later.”

I didn’t have much of an idea of what he was talking about but Elmidath seemed to be follow along fine, which was good enough for me.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I see.” Elmidath swallowed. “May I take a few moments to talk about this in private?”

“Certainly. Feel free to use the room below, I’ll have refreshments brought up.”

“Thank you, can you also send some food down to the ogres I was travelling with?”

He blanched a little at that, probably at having to feed such voracious beasts or having them close to his home. “I’ll see to it.”

I followed Elmidath back down and sunk into one of the chairs arrayed around a low table. “So, any idea what to do now?”

Elmidath smiled. “Not yet. You didn’t happen to come up with anything, did you?”

I spread my hands, there was no point in being duplicitous. “Nope.” Just following along with what Biustarn had been saying had been hard enough. “Who’s this Lord Azuren he was talking about? He sounds important.”

“Yeah, just a bit. He’s the only Demon Lord of the fifth circle.”

Which if I recall correctly, made him the most powerful demon in existence then. “Ah. And what about the Capital?”

“That’s his seat of power, the last true demon city, from which he commands all of demonkind. At least in theory.”

“What do you mean in theory?”

“Let’s just say there are plenty of Demon Lords out there that have other ideas about how things should be run.”

“And are you one of them?”

Lady Sarinknell made a noncommittal gesture. “So, there you have it. Any ideas spring to mind now that you have a rough idea of what’s happening?”

“So the problem is that Azuren wants soldiers for attacking the humans but Biustarn doesn’t want to give them to him?”

Elmidath sat back, arm hanging over the back of her chair. “Basically.”

“Then I guess the simplest way is if he had some kind of excuse. What would be a good enough reason to get out of it?”

Bringing her hair over her shoulder, Elmidath ran her fingers through the dark tresses. “Being involved in some other war? That’s largely what soldiers do after all. But I don’t see how that solves any of his problems, since he’d still be entering a war. That would probably just make things worse, if anything.”

A thought occurred to me. “Not necessarily. There’s no reason he’d have to start a new war.”

Elmidath frowned, it didn’t seem like she understood what I was getting at. “I don’t think he’s involved in any wars at the moment.”

“Yeah, but what if he instead joined an ongoing war to help out his allies?”

Recognition dawned in Elmidath’s crimson slits as she realised what I was getting at. “Oh. We offer our own conflict with the Tertiums as an alternative? That’s not a bad idea.”

My excitement at having something to contribute faded as I considered the other side of my proposal. “But if he doesn’t want to send his soldiers for this other war, why would he want to help us in ours?”

“I think his problem with Lord Azuren’s war is that he’d basically be throwing his forces away with little chance of seeing any returns. Even if they did succeed, he probably wouldn’t get any of the credit, anyway.”

That sounded pretty typical alright. “Okay but what does he have to gain from helping us, then?”

“A valuable ally?”

“Is that what we are?” I wasn’t so sure.

Elmidath scrunched up her features. “We’re at least a little bit valuable. Even if we have almost no resources to offer.” She leant forward. “Besides, we’re not that useless. I should ascend to the second circle once our alliance is official and I’ve properly taken over from my late uncle.”

I wasn’t sure how any of that worked but it sounded good. “Okay, then it sounds like we have something to offer at least. Should we go back and talk to him?”

“We could. But there’s no need to hurry, we haven’t even had anything to eat yet. I say we think it over while we eat, see if we can’t improve on anything.”

The food arrived shortly afterward and we said little about our plans. We spoke few words at all in fact, in between shovelling food into our mouths. I couldn’t really remember what we’d eaten, it was all a bit of a blur, but it had all been delicious. Food tended to be when you were starving, though I’m not sure that was enough to recommend the practice. Especially when you’re trekking cross-country.

Fasting was all well and good for monks and other layabouts but it was hell when you were putting your body to work. Had I still been human I probably would have collapsed along the way. Was I actually thankful for my transformation? It was a strange thought.

It was only after Biustarn’s servants had returned to clear away the debris that we got back to business. Sitting there basking in both the sun and the afterglow of the meal, Elmidath looked so relaxed she seemed liable to fall asleep. “Maybe we should stay the night here, sleep on our suggestion.”

The suns were getting low in the sky and we weren’t in a terrible hurry. Surely we could afford a bit of R&R; the ogres probably weren’t going to be willing to move much more after being fed as it was. Speaking of the ogres… “What’re we going to do about our new friends, anyway? Didn’t they pledge to overthrow one of the other Demon Lords alongside us?”

Elmidath’s expression flowed from one of confusion to one of dread. “…I’d kind of forgotten about that. There was a lot of other things going on and that promise was only a spur of the moment thing.” She held her head in her hands. “You don’t think they’d be willing to cancel the whole deal, do you?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘willing’, I guess. I’m sure they’d be perfectly willing to accept that you were lying to them if you explain the situation. The only problem is that they’d definitely try to kill us afterward.”

“We could always take them by surprise, finish them off before they knew what was happening.”

I frowned. “We could, but it feels pretty dishonest. Even if they are kind of insane and violent, I feel like we have an obligation at this point.”

“I mean, sure, but… You realise the alternative is we kill a Demon Lord we had no prior quarrel with, right? I don’t think that’s any better and it’s definitely going to be more work.”

My eyes widened as a thought occurred to me. “Why not the Demon Lord behind the attack on the manor then? Wouldn’t he be the perfect target? We need to deal with him anyway.”

Elmidath nodded. “That’s a great idea. We might have to embellish things a little further but I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

Now that we had a plan for both of our current problems, I sat back with every intention of relaxing until I was forced to do something else.