Chapter 20
NEWS FROM THE SLUG
The enormous chandeliers in the throne room shone brightly in defiance of the night outside. They hung from the high, vaulted ceiling and dripped with intricately facetted diamonds of the highest calibre. Their light gleamed off the white marble floor and delicately carved pillars that stood around the outskirts of the room, tightly regimented like sentries. Enormous tapestries created from the finest threads and silks covered the walls, proudly portraying scenes of the fairy masters subjugating the lesser creatures. A plush golden carpet ran the entire length of the throne room, from the colossal double doors to a tall, marble stage where the queen’s ornate throne resided. Ten broad steps led up to the queen’s seat. Huge curtains that matched the carpet flowed down from the ceiling and draped across the floor, concealing everything behind the throne.
Over two hundred fairy nobles congregated in pools of fine costumery and pomp. They would remain there until the queen felt like retiring for the night. An even greater number of well-dressed royal slaves, their faces expressionless, milled about seeing to everyone’s needs. It was a noisy, perfume laden environment full of slander and intrigue.
Triana sat upon her golden throne, bored. Her iridescent wings moved listlessly as she listened to the latest gossip from the city. She sighed when she noticed Entwaine, her advisor, making his wizened way toward her along the carpet. One of these days, that old bastard would do everyone a favour and die, preferably while in a world of pain. Even though he was good at his job, he was ugly and looked like a prune. Triana despised anything that wasn’t beautiful to the eye and would have had him tortured and executed decades ago had he not been so useful. He had a bond with all the guards and knew everything that happened within the city walls. The revolting fairy was still a constant blemish to her perfect throne room, though.
She arranged her perfectly curled locks of multi-hued golden hair so that they draped alluringly across her ample cleavage. Not for Entwaine’s sake, of course. He was a slug. She did it purely for herself. Triana was thrilled by her resplendent beauty, and she was delighted to be looking particularly radiant these days. She had ensnared an attractive young nobleman that had been ‘entertaining’ her for several months now. He would wither and die as she drained his vitality, but right now, he was still so full of life. Triana was thriving on it.
Triana was a demigoddess and would therefore never age. Still, she had discovered that she could improve on her already wondrous appearance by taking the life force from others and channelling it into her looks. The technique gained effectiveness if the victim already had beauty, which her latest had in abundance. She glanced, once again, in one of the ornate mirrors nearby. She admired her beautiful face that was a softly defined heart shape. Gentle cheekbones underlined perfectly proportioned almond-shaped eyes of dark sapphire-blue. Triana particularly liked her cute button-shaped nose that was just slightly upturned and highlighted her features perfectly. She pouted her small mouth, defined by succulent rose-red lips. With a thought, Triana reddened her lips a half-shade and nodded in satisfaction at the result. Her small chin and daintily carved neck finished off her flawless visage that she prized so highly.
“Your most beautiful highness”, Entwaine creeped, as he reached her dais. “I am sorry to disturb your, ahem, you-time, but I bring grave news.”
Triana sighed heavily and dragged her gaze away from the mirror. She refused to look at Entwaine, though, because his face disgusted her, so she gazed instead at her beau positioned nearby for that very purpose. “Continue slug,” the queen said, with a disinterested wave of her dainty hand. She was careful not to allow her face to wrinkle in disgust and blemish her perfect features.
“Uh yes, thank you, your highness,” Entwaine said. He was all too familiar with the queen’s insults and ignored them. “I am afraid to report that a dark entity in the forest has destroyed one of our western patrols. I was too late to view what happened through their eyes, but I heard their thoughts before each was killed. Something came from the darkness and eviscerated them before they could see what it was. The only clue I got was a black arrow shot with extreme precision. They were all dead in less than three minutes. Nothing we know of could kill with such speed and ferocity.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her face took on a look of horror. There was only one dark entity she knew of that could do something like that, and he was supposed to be forever doomed to wander another world pointlessly. The pendant’s theft and destruction of her lawyers had raised her suspicions, and now this confirmed it. He was back, and the Pantheon must be working with him. She took a short time to contemplate her next move. A few ideas came to her, and her expression changed instantly to malicious delight.
The queen clapped her hands twice, loudly. “Leave us! Now!”
The nobles nodded and began to file slowly out of the room, including Fran, her beau.
“Not you,” She snapped. “Guards, take Fran to my bed chamber and feed him well. I will have him when I am ready.”
The burly orcs rushed forward and grabbed the beleaguered nobleman. The poor fairy whimpered as the hulking creatures dragged him through the golden curtains behind the throne.
When finally she was alone with Entwaine, she forced herself to look at him. “Fetch my daughter and that miserable servant of hers. They have only been in the tower for a few days and so should still be alive. Also, fetch my guard and a wheeled cage. He can’t resist damsels in distress, regardless of how much we’ve messed them up first. He’ll soon wish he’d stayed banished.”
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“Thy will shall be done, your highness,” Entwaine said as he inched backwards down the steps of the dais. A trick he’d perfected over the years.
“Oh! And Entwaine?”
“Your highness?”
“Send for that filthy elf, Astley. I have an important job for her.”
“Yes, my most wonderful, magnificent queen.” Her advisor grovelled in an oily voice.
“Ugh! You revolting maggot. Be quick about it, or I’ll hang you from a lamp post by your viscera.”
Entwaine turned and ran. His stupid hat and baggy brown robes flapped as he hastened out of the throne room.
****-****
There was a loud whumff sound as Devon stepped through the waygate. His body tingled and his vision blurred as the energy took him from the fairy queen’s realm back to the settlement. When his eyes regained their focus, he saw his four new students and Gwen lined up and standing to attention. When they saw Devon, they executed a perfectly synchronised salute. Well, four of them did; Gwen did her best to match the others while grinning.
Four of them were clad in black armour. Then there was Grace. She had begged for pink armour, and so, as he couldn’t think of a good reason why everyone had to wear black armour, he’d made her armour in a light, baby pink. He was going to get a reputation for spoiling his youngest student.
“Wow! When did you lot become soldiers?” he asked. “I was only away for a day.”
“I asked Abi to make us a knowledge pack on military training, sir,” Lorn said. Her face was devoid of emotion, and she stood rigidly.
Devon grinned and changed into his shadow cat.
In the blink of an eye, he was facing two shadow-cats, a centauress, a small arctic fox and–
Ffion, his infiltrator, had the polymorph ability, allowing her to change shape. He hadn’t realised her skill was quite that flexible, and clearly, she’d been practising. He looked closely at the black creature. It looked like a shaved fox, but twice the size and streamlined, with a long snout filled with evil-looking teeth that overlapped. It currently didn’t have claws, but he was sure it could develop some good ones if it wanted to. The most disturbing part was a black, scaly, muscular tail with three sharp spikes mounted to the end.
His horse gave Ffion a toothy grin and nuzzled her in a gesture of friendship. Then Jet changed into a shadow-cat and meandered over to stand beside Devon.
Devon said, his voice turning serious.
He received five thoughts of enthusiastic affirmation, so he turned and led his troops back through the gate. Most of them had never travelled far from their place of birth, and now he was leading them to another world. He had promised that their lives would get interesting. Now, it was time to deliver.
Once his students had got over the sensation of travelling through the waygate, he got down to business.
Six hours later, he’d taught them how to use the shadows to launch attacks and to come at the enemy from different angles. A confused, frightened enemy became fodder. Training with real enemies as targets made his students learn at a staggering rate. They quickly learnt to adapt and improvise and began to lose their nerves. Grace had developed a good tactic of sinking hostiles into the road by softening the ground beneath them then hardening it again. Then the group would go at them all at once.
Word of their presence must have got back to the palace as they intercepted one patrol after another, all heading to where they had last been. The group moved around constantly, and were impossible to track in the darkness.
Pip despatched one enemy after another with her new rifle. As he had suggested, she’d gone to Beks and got it custom built. Pip’s new weapon looked more like a plasma-gun. Devon could see the mana trail left by the gun’s ammunition as it left the barrel. It was an impressive weapon, but it didn’t change his mind about guns.
His squadron gradually abandoned all their fear and began to fight with absolute faith in their abilities. They’d made him proud. Ffion had particularly impressed him; what she lacked in spell quantity she made up for in a long list of mana-fortified abilities. She was lightning fast and utterly deadly, changing her shape as she fought to best suit the situation. With her quick imagination, she created creatures with features that were best suited for dismantling the opposition. Her spider form had proved highly effective. She had also demonstrated a very nasty talent called ‘ear worm’, which allowed her to infest and subsequently control a target just by touching it.
By the time dawn touched the streets of Triana, they had wiped out no less than twenty patrols. That meant over two hundred orc guards had met an assortment of demises as well as fifteen huge ogres that were escorting a caged wagon with two female fairies inside. They were both severely injured and looked like they’d been tortured for days. No one in the group knew who they were. Devon’s ‘divine truth’ spell showed one to be purer than most, while the other had an aura that was a russet colour which he didn’t know how to interpret. Fairies or not, they couldn’t just let them die in a cage, so they carried them back through the waygate with them.