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I have developed a liturgy of sorts, a ritual of all the things I need to do before entering into combat. I draw Durandal and a magic focus (the Starfire Jade Writing Brush, this time), I inform him whether he’s going to shield automatically or wait for me to call it out, and I begin the [Body Fortification] skill and circulate the elements I intend to fight with.
But even though I said I was entering the fight, I was doing so in order to stop a battle that was breaking out in the heart of the waterfront district, so I was coming up with a plan to put a quick halt to it.
Tenement buildings stood directly across from the warehouse, and the dim light of oil lamps was glowing in most of the windows, with the residents home and perhaps having their evening meals. For the moment, the opposing sides were wielding swords, but my Fairy Sight was revealing plenty of mana-active weapons on both sides. Civilians could begin getting hurt very soon.
Perhaps some were already hurt. The Viscount’s carriage had already been struck by a [Fireball]-shooting wand, and the horses hitched to it were panicking, trying to break loose of their harnesses. A second shot, or perhaps the initial shot, had struck the tenement across the street and flames were beginning to spread.
Although shouts of ‘Fire!’ emanated from inside, nobody was daring to come out and do anything about it. I needed to finish this quickly.
The situation was currently very dire for Amalis, who had entered this confrontation unaware of the large number of warehouse guards who could come in as reinforcements. They had already surrounded the Viscount’s group and were quickly tightening the ring. Once they finished encircling them, his guards would become overwhelmed. Fortunately, this meant they couldn’t launch any more large-scale destruction without hurting their own allies. Circular firing squads have an inherent flaw, after all.
I circulated a large dose of Holy mana as I landed, still maintaining [Vampire Cloak]. I touched down behind the last person on the left flank of the encircling swordsmen.
In spiritual voice, I chanted, [Sleep], and began picking Beretin’s people off, one-by-one, as I sprinted in a wide circle around the battle. The geometry of the fight being what it was, I couldn’t fire off an Area of Effect version of the spell without taking out Amalis and his crew as well, so this was the quickest method available.
Obviously, the others realized something was wrong as soon as their side started dropping. Long before I made it all the way around the circle, they were whipping their heads around, intent on finding their attacker. It was to no avail, of course.
Once I knocked out the last of the Viscount’s opponents, I allowed [Vampire Cloak] to drop. Amalis and his gawking defenders stared back at me in blunt disbelief.
Their expressions reminded me of how I was dressed. A backless chemise not too different from a babydoll nightie (although thankfully opaque), the silk slippers I got from Grandmother, and my sword harness.
However, my face is not well-known. Only Amalis was likely to have a chance to recognize me. I suppressed my embarrassment and rolled with the image they were probably seeing.
I sheathed Durandal, holstered the Writing Brush, dematerialized my wings, pinched the hem of my chemise and gave a quick curtsey. The arrogant pride of a fairy is not that different from the arrogant pride of a succubus, so I did my best to emulate it in my attitude.
“Good Evening, My Lord. I apologize for interfering and I hope that I may be forgiven for doing so. May I request that your mages quickly go do something about that fire across the street?”
Amalis came out of his stupor, looked over his shoulder to see the dangerous situation developing where I was indicating and made a gesture to send his people. The two mages and a constable hustled in that direction. Two more constables moved into protective positions around the lord, watching me with wary eyes. The remaining two got to work restraining the unconscious fighters. Meanwhile, the coachmen began to work on calming the horses.
The Viscount turned his scowl back toward me. “Aren’t you…”
I immediately interrupted, “… a passing adventurer who happened to spot a group of this fine city’s constables outnumbered in a fight. I pray that I can be forgiven for inviting myself to the party, My Lord. I was deeply concerned that your people appeared to be on the losing side.”
He cleared his throat. “A… passing adventurer?”
With a smirk, I told him, “We don’t all work in that other business, you know.”
After a cough, he stammered. “No… of course not. How might I address you?”
I curtseyed again. “Tia Mona, My Lord.”
That drew a couple more coughs. They were probably laughs of surprise he was managing to suppress. Obviously, he was aware of my traveling alias and hadn’t expected me to use it, but I didn’t have an alternate name ready at the moment.
I looked over at the warehouse. “My Lord… That warehouse has a very unusual magic screen on it. If my guess is right and you were trying to inspect it for that reason, would you like me to stay and assist?”
“For how much?” one of the wary constables immediately demanded. Adventurers are basically mercenaries, after all. It’s best to know their price in advance.
I gave him a sweet smile. “No charge, Mr. Constable. I have an understanding with the Lady of this duchy. That’s why I intervened in the first place.”
The Viscount didn’t look like he trusted me much, either, but he nodded. “We would value your assistance, then, Miss Mona.”
Once Beretin’s guards were all restrained and the fires (the damaged carriage and the tenement building) were out, we approached the dark building. I had learned in the meantime that Beretin himself was not one of the unconscious opponents; he had disappeared during the fray. Given that he could well be inside with an unknown number of comrades, we all had our guard up.
Just like police raiding a building, the constables gathered against the building on either side of the opening, ready to move in.
I don’t know if the rolling overhead door has been introduced to Huade yet. This building had large sliding barn doors like every other warehouse I had seen in this world. They were on slides rather than wheels and took the grunting labor of two constables to move, which completely eliminated any chance of sneaking in.
While they labored and the door slowly moved, I secretly sent out a [Blood Tracker] in stealthed form, hoping to use it as a drone to get a preview, but it burst apart with a loud bang as it met the magic screen.
It had been no louder than a small firecracker, but naturally, the sound caused everyone to jump and drop into their defensive crouches. I stood there staring in astonishment at the place where it had exploded
“My… Miss Tia?” Amalis asked with a shaking voice as every other eye also turned toward me. My different reaction had singled me out as the culprit, after all.
I steadied my voice and apologized, “Sorry, My Lord. I tried to send a little spying spell inside, but they seem to have a defense against that as well. That was my mana exploding.”
The two constables opening the door just shrugged and got back to work. Soon the warehouse door was open, revealing a pitch-dark interior.
I gaped as one of the mages handed the guy in the lead something that looked just like a ‘potato masher’ hand grenade, but it became a bright light when he twisted the handle and tossed it around the corner into the building. The constables immediately charged inside.
Within, they spread out into a defensive semi-circle while beholding the interior with grave scowls. I had a pretty severe frown myself as I followed and saw what they were looking at.
The potato masher light cast a fair amount of light, but it was one lantern in the middle of an otherwise unlit structure. It had no walls within, just columns to support the roof, so the more distant parts were hidden in shadow, but we had plenty enough to look at in the foreground.
In cage after cage, their shackled cargo stared back at us with weary eyes. Most were female and human, although there were a number of beastkin as well. Some were lucky enough to have some scrap of clothing to wear, others were quite naked.
“That damned Beretin!” Amalis swore as he followed behind me. “No wonder he wouldn’t let my people in!”
I turned and leaned in close to him. With my voice low, I replied, “My Lord, I trust this is not the missing cargo you were expecting?”
He glared at me. “Of course not!”
The constables carried more ‘potato mashers’ with them to go through the warehouse. That was a little unnerving to see, but only for me, since I was the only one seeing them as potentially explosive.
The warehouse was chock-full of nothing but illegal slaves and very basic staple food to feed them. And they were definitely illegal. National law prevented Mother from declaring slavery itself illegal in Pendor, but she had found it possible to ban trading in slaves. Both the sale of slaves and the transportation of slaves for purposes of sale were absolutely illegal here. Unless these women had a direct, registered permanent owner who was personally traveling with them and had no intent to sell them at his destination after passing through Pendor, they were contraband goods.
One other clue made it certain. They were all women of childbearing age. Only one market preferred this commodity over strong male slaves. The collapsed Regaritan Empire.
When Cullen and his co-conspirators were kidnapping and selling pretty and often upper class women in the Empire, it had been a niche market consisting of corrupt Regaritan patricians and magistrates. While not all their aristocrats were corrupt, the empire was big enough and the corrupt ones were common enough to make it a lucrative business. But once the empire came apart and the demons flooded in, a whole new market grew.
Mid-level demons like imps and fiends can breed with human women to create half-demon soldiers called hellspawn. This was a faster means to augment their ranks than creating new low-level demons and cultivating them upward, since hellspawn grew into class D demons, equal to drudes and larvae, by the end of their accelerated childhoods of less than ten years. In demonic incursions into Orestania, we had yet to see any, but we had reports of them appearing in slowly increasing numbers on the other side of the Great Wall.
Before Mother’s ban on the trade, a slave trade had always existed, both directions, between the Empire and Orestania. People caught at it could pretend to simply be illegally continuing the trade and have no knowledge of any connection to demonkind. But childbearing-age women becoming the main stock in trade suggested a dire purpose. They could be forced to bear and raise hellspawn children, incidentally teaching them Ostish and Dorian as their mother tongues instead of the Regaritan that the human mothers on the other side of the mountains would teach them, a handy skill for the occupation troops of their planned future conquest.
The mages had called for backup when the fight first broke out. Once the reinforcements began arriving and the warehouse became secure, Amalis issued orders to begin inspecting all warehouses known to be owned by Beretin.
The situation was well in-hand. I bid the viscount goodnight after quietly telling him to deliver a report to the castle as soon as he could organize one, then flew back.
Kiki appeared while I was on my way, asking, “Big sis all done?”
“All done,” I agreed. “That was pretty unpleasant, wasn’t it?”
“Yup yup,” she chirped. She was inherently unable to sound anything other than chipper and cute as a result of her minuscule size, but her face showed a deep frown.
I touched down on my balcony once again, and opened the French Doors. Genette and one of the castle maids looked into the room immediately, having heard the doors open and Genette immediately rushed in.
“My Lady! I’ve been so worried about you!”
I assured her, “I’m fine, Genette. I just had an errand to run.”
But the other maid had disappeared rather than rushing in with Genette, and I found out where she went right away. Rod came barging straight into the suite with exactly zero percent of the expected protocol for entering a noble girl’s room.
“Ti!” he practically yelled as he charged me. Grabbing my shoulders, he demanded, “Tell me you didn’t go looking for them! Please tell me you weren’t going there!”
“Of course not!” I retorted, knowing that by ‘them’ he meant Mother and Uncle Owen. I was frowning at his terrible manners, but secretly, I was kind of touched, and feeling a little guilty. The prince had been fearing the worst, and he was calling me ‘Ti’.
