THE MISPLACED HERO

BOOK TWO

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE DEMON'S NOT THE ANTAGONIST?

Chapter One

Freedom

“You do not belong here!” the wolf called.

Gee, ya think? She closed her eyes tight and shook her head. “I know that,” she called down. “I’ll happily leave if you’ll just allow me passage.”

“Heroes’ Glade not for demons!” the wolf insisted. “You do not belong here!”

Geez, broken record, much? “My wing is broken,” she tried. “I can’t fly away, so it’s either stay up here or walk.”

The wolf threw its head back and howled, deep and long, with a warbling yip at the end. He was calling his kin, she knew. Now what?

She didn’t have to wait long to find out. Within a handful of minutes, the glade had filled with wolves of all flavors and description. Even a few ordinary timber wolves had answered the call. From the pack, a great dark grey dire, half again larger than the wolf who’d called, ambled into the clearing and looked up to regard her calmly.

She met his gaze and swallowed. She was a level fifty-six red mage, and would probably be double or more the level of anything down there, given this was probably a starting zone. But those eyes troubled her. Something told her there was more to him than there should be. He turned back to his pack, and she saw the pendant half hidden in the fur at his neck. That was a ward, or she’d eat her slipper. And judging by the glow of it, probably proof against anything she could throw at him.

She gave the glade and surrounding forest another scan. Somebody was guarding this place. Somebody vastly more powerful than she was, and that was worrying. She’d just gotten herself free, and did not wish to gain any new masters quite so soon. She wanted even less to be devoured by somebody’s pet dire wolves.

“Why are you here?” the great wolf rumbled, his voice carrying clearly without seeming effort.

“I don’t even know where here is,” she called down with some agitation. “And don’t wish to be wherever here is. I was carried along with someone else when they were...” how did she phrase what had happened. It hadn’t been a summoning by any means, but did that matter? On the other hand, did she want to lie to a creature whose talents she did not fully understand?

“I was caught up in a spell,” she finally admitted.

The wolf lowered his head, apparently having a think about that. He glanced over to the center of the glade where Chi, now that she knew to look, could see a gouge of freshly torn up soil.

“Do you serve the hero?” he asked.

The thought occurred that she should probably say yes, but once again, the potential pitfall of being caught in a lie stopped her. “No,” she admitted. “But I bear him no ill will.”

“You cannot stay here,” the wolf decided, his eyes once more meeting hers. “But you cannot set foot in the glade. Can you climb down the far side of that tree? If so, we will guide you out of the forest.

“Be warned,” he cautioned. “Make no move toward the glade. We will not allow it, and we are stronger than you.”

She bit back a retort. No single one of them approached her strength. But there were more than two dozen of them down there, and she doubted they’d be willing to stand in line and take her on one at a time.

Her mana was near drained from her sojourn through the void between worlds hard upon the intricate spell she’d been casting on Jack Grenell’s world, and would not soon recover with the submission collar clamped around her neck. And that was another reason not to pick fights. Holding herself still, she closed her eyes and concentrated, humming a sub-vocal altering spell. Her wings drew in, and her tail. Her horns shrank into her skull. She didn’t carry it all the way through, though. No full transformation that she’d have to continue to maintain. Just enough to not have her broken wing catching at branches and becoming even more damaged. Her skin remained bright red, her hair only a slightly darker shade of the same hue. Still a devil girl with orange-red lava eyes.

The tree was taller than it had seemed from the top, and the wolves, once she’d reached the ground, larger. The dark grey, who was obviously the pack leader, looked down on her from a nervous-making height advantage.

“I am Alshantar,” he told her. “This is my wood.”

Very formal. So be it. “I am Iktchi-Chi,” she answered back, bowing slightly at the waist. “Pardon me for intruding on your wood.” These petty rulers were ofttimes prickly about status, and she was in no position to be impolite.

The dark grey nodded and turned, giving the glade a wide berth. She followed quietly, surrounded by the silent pack.

They walked for hours, with no sign of road or trail. At one point, the pack leader stopped beside a small stream, turning his head wordlessly. Chi knelt and drank deeply, tensing only briefly as the others dipped their muzzles beside her. Apparently, they’d decided that she either wasn’t capable, or wasn’t inclined to cause trouble. That was fine with her.

They broke clear of the dense forest as dusk was throwing its shadow across the fields beyond. Chi stopped just two steps from the last of the tree trunks, still in the shadow of its canopy.

“The highway is straight across the plain, no more than five or six lenn,” the dark grey informed her. Then he turned to look down at her. “It is heavily warded.”

Another, lesser wolf laid a freshly killed rabbit at her feet, and the whole lot of them turned back into the cover of the trees.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

She stood staring down at the bloody rodent for awhile, not moving. And when she did, it was only to gaze out across the darkening landscape.

The highway, such as it was, wasn’t difficult to find. She just walked straight for much of the morning. Getting near it was more difficult. The wards were strong, thick, and deep. Who put in so much time protecting an empty road? Nevertheless, she forced her way closer, struggling until she was able to scry for sign of recent travel.

Nothing. The road hadn’t been traveled in months so far as she could determine. What did that say?

Withdrawing to a distance sufficient that the wards no longer itched, she sat herself down cross-legged in the rich green grass, enjoying the sunlight on her skin as she gave thought to her position. Technically, her duties had ended when Jack Grenell had kicked her free of the bus and dragged her into the void with him. Did that leave any reason for her to continue searching for him?

No, she decided. She would not travel that dangerous path again. He was gone, and she would make her peace with that. Only sorrow lay along that trail.

In any case, she was free, for good or ill. She bore no obligation to her erstwhile master or its commands. Nor to Jack Grenell. She would enjoy her freedom for as long as she could.

Still... perhaps, if she happened to stumble across him at some point.... Perhaps she’d revisit any leftover imperatives as might remain. Perhaps, even, after she’d grown bored with doing what she wanted, when she wanted, with no threats of grisly death looming ever over her head, she might even seek him out. Just to see his reaction, of course. No more than that, certainly.

Which left her sitting in the grass in the middle of a distinctly non-demonic nowhere. Not that she minded the environs overmuch. Or at all, come to that. She’d been to too many bright worlds since being torn from her homeland those long centuries ago. She no longer missed that place, and found herself quite enjoying the light.

Well! She couldn’t return to the forest. Alshantar had made that clear. Which yet left a sizeable available arc of possibility.

She hadn’t questioned Alshantar at all during their trek, and not only because he would probably be ignorant of anything beyond his domain. He’d shown her free of the forest, and that had been enough. Now, however, she found herself wondering if maybe one or two small questions might not have been in order.

A highway, he’d called this meager line of cobbles. Barely a back country track to her eyes. There were no markings on the road. No signs. No indications from whence it came nor to where it led. Simply a row of cobbles ten or so feet wide. Enough for two small carts to pass one another, if they were careful.

So, she wondered to herself. Which direction? Left into nothing, right into nothing, or straight across into even less developed nothing.

As she wondered, the sun wheeled slowly overhead. She glanced up from time to time. Given its direction of travel, the road before her was trending roughly southeast to northwest. Or, perhaps the other way around. Further, given she was likely in a starting zone, she’d probably be on one end of a landmass or the other. Which helped not at all. Some of them were on the west, some the east, yet others in the north or south. And here she was, back to the start.

Finally, before the day drew too far towards night, she decided she’d leave it to chance. After all, something had drawn her here. It would not be completely out of the question for that same something to nudge her in the proper direction, right? Then she bit back that train of thought. Her taste of freedom was too fresh to surrender it to yet another master so quickly. Even an insubstantial one.

Regardless, she rummaged around in her deceptively voluminous belt pouch, fishing out a purple, fine point sharpie she’d taken to using for magical notations, and tossed it into the air to see which direction the purple cap sent her. The marker landed in the grass and she leaned over to see what it had to say. East, then, and a little south, but not so south as the road led.

She retrieved the marker, stood and set out. Not straight towards the direction the cap had pointed just yet. She’d yet to cross the road, and that she wanted to accomplish with as short a path as possible, as it was quite uncomfortable to be near, hobbled to the ground as she was.

Sunset found her limping painfully along in tall grass beneath scattered trees. She hadn’t seen anything larger than a crow the day long, and no sign of people or other sentients at all. That was somewhat worrying. After all, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that this world might be peaceful.

Quite the contrary. The manner in which both she and Jack Grenell had been snatched here indicated that there was something going on requiring a hero’s intervention. Enough so to warrant snatching one up not even destined for this world. Nor had the wolves given her any hint that the local situation might be benign. Nor, come to that, had the obscenely thick layer of wards that had been set on the only trace of civilization she’d come across since being hurled into that tree. For all she knew, these folk had a demon lord of their own to contend with, whose power level she could only guess at.

The moon rose some few hours later, and she smiled. It was a nice big one. She hadn’t caught sight of it the previous evening due to its having been masked by the trees she’d been lying in the shadows of.

She found herself a clear patch of grass and lay back, stretching her wings as wide as she might. Moonlight would increase the rate at which her mana replenished. Perhaps by the time it went down, she might have a go at mending her broken wing.

Much to her surprise, a second moon, smaller than the first, joined its bigger brother in the sky. Iktchi-Chi’s skin began to glow softly, and her smile grew. Now we’re talking! She thought happily. She stretched languorously and sighed, closing her eyes and surrendering to the sensation of moonlight against her skin. She wondered idly if this sort of thing happened every night here, or was that too much to hope for.

Sunrise found her fast asleep, a soft smile still on her face. Her eyes opened at the first touch of light, and she stretched, yawning wide. She felt as rested as ever she could remember, despite the distinct nip in the air, and her lack of any sort of substantial clothing. She was a devil girl, after all, and provided her own warmth.

Her stomach grumbled, lending the single discordant note in her contentment. Sitting up, she looked about. Still no sign of civilization, and by this point, she’d wandered quite far from the warded road. She couldn’t remember ever seeing an entry portal so far out into the wilderness before.

Of course, having picked a direction at random, she may well be traveling away from such things. She simply didn’t know. This wasn’t her world, after all, and so she wasn’t attuned to it. No amount of experimentation since awakening in the tree the previous day had managed to bring so much as a mini-map into view. Whatever system of navigation they used here, if they used one, was sufficiently foreign that she couldn’t access it.

Shrugging, she dipped a hand into her belt pouch, searching for some of the limited stock of food she’d stored inside. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to be had. She’d grown lax during her time on Earth, and had taken to procrastination where supplies were concerned. Spoiled by the plenty around her, she’d allowed it to slip her mind that not all places were so filled with plenty.

Her stomach growled anew at the thought of one of those steak and cheese omelettes from that diner down the street from Jack’s employer. Oh, and the coffee they served with the little cups of flavored creamer.

Her hand came clear of the pouch holding half a granola bar with the packaging literally bitten off. That would be Cha’s doing. That minx just could not keep her claws off of— she shook her head. Best not to think of Cha or what she might be up to. Or Kahn for that matter. There was nothing she could do for them now, nor they for her. She got to her feet and unwrapped the remains of the bar as she walked, stuffing the wrapper into the pouch.

The area remained empty of life save the songs of birds and subdued hum of insects.

It was a further several hours before she became aware of the odor. A human wouldn’t have, nor most sentients. She, however, was a devil, and very attuned to fire. What she was smelling was old smoke, and not the sort that came from campfires or fireplaces.

She raised her nose in the air and turned slowly about. There! She decided, facing more to the south. And not so far off. And now that she’d zeroed in on the acrid tint, others intruded. Blood. Offal. Terror. Goblins. And something strange she’d never encountered before.