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With our immaterial form attached to her, Shindzha jogged through the woods while using her Darkness-based magic, [Indifference]. It wasn’t a true stealth; nobody would fail to notice if she was using it while walking straight up to them. It seems that it simply turned the sounds and sights of her passing by into a part of the background. In a forest that should be alive with many nocturnal creatures, she simply became one more.
I knew there was more than Dark mana flowing. She seemed to also have Earth attribute at work. Possibly it was an innate skill, because she did not seem to have invoked it in any way. As best as I could tell, the skill was enhancing her body’s speed and endurance.
I suppose I should mention that the <I> in that sentence refers to Sen. Lhan was still here with me, but she was meekly letting me handle things while we were formless.
And I should also mention, I say ‘should be alive’ because, apart from the expected minor wildlife like mice and bugs and occasional pixie neighbors, the path that the Oto expedition would travel the next day was empty, and we were now finding the flanks of that path were equally devoid of inhabitants.
“Where is everyone, Mistress?” Shindzha wondered in a low voice as she jogged down a forest path. We were passing a crude round house of wattle and daub with an inverted cone of a thatched roof. I reached out with [Spirit Sense] to investigate it and found no inhabitants. Shindzha had done something similar, because she continued on, not stopping to investigate, already judging it to be empty.
That hut really bothered me. From the dimensions of the objects around and within it, it belonged to something like an ogre, or perhaps a little family of them. They’d had a big clay cockpit on a tripod over their hearth in the center of that hut, which lay shattered atop the remains of their last cooking fire.
It all looked very recent. They’d been living there less than a week ago, I suspected.
<How many miles back did things start getting like this, Shindzha?> I wondered.
I probably should also mention that I was using spiritual voice very lightly, since I was literally riding her back. We were stretching our time on patrol far past what we would normally do, by staying immaterial and speaking very gently.
“I think I may not have realized it at first. I thought this morning that I ought to see more forest folk, but I didn’t see until now that there are places like this.”
In a place with abundant mana springs, which can support far more large wildlife and forest folk than can exist in a mortal forest, she should have seen gnomes, goblins, ogres, and certainly a variety of lesser fairies. Also, she should sometimes encounter little hamlets of reclusive mortal creatures like halflings, dwarves or troglodytes, or the more solitary borderline monster types like giants or minotaurs. And she certainly shouldn’t have trouble finding prey to hunt.
Admittedly, until now we had been sticking to the forest trackways that these creatures traveled. They all tended to build their houses and plant their crops far from the literal beaten path. Shindzha had been patrolling the forests parallel to the path, not staying on it, but she had not been ranging particularly wide.
<Well, until tonight, you were on the lookout for threats, not looking for them in their homes,> I concluded.
In fact, before now, she would not have purposefully sought out those minor animal paths and spring melt channels that the forest folk use as their access to the actual trackway. Rather than lining the main road, they find hidden copses and hollows to homestead. This place reminds me of the home territory of a certain animated movie ogre.
“Maybe they evacuated, perhaps?” Shindzha wondered as we continued down the animal track. Her tentative tone made me feel she had a different idea about what happened.
<Shindzha, if you have another possibility in mind, please share it.>
“Well… Mistress, do you know about how some armies employ monsters as weapons?”
<Demonic armies use them quite often,> I agreed. <Mortal armies more often use monsters as muscle power and air forces, but using them as weapons isn’t unheard of.>
In particular, I had been hearing recently about all the burn victims whom Lady Tiana had been healing, due to a radical increase in fire and chemical weapons on the rebel side.
So had Shindzha, it turned out. “I fear that the local residents may have been taken captive for the army to the north of here. They have become quite interested in them as a resource.”
The idea of somehow tapping into the vast highlands of southern Orestania as a resource worried me for a moment, but…
<There’s no way that mortals could just walk in here and start trapping monsters, Shindzha.>
“I did not suggest that they did, Mistress,” she answered. “Before my lord ordered me to go attempt to intercept that aircraft and capture you when you came out, he had me capturing monsters for his mortal minions to use. I was by no means the only one doing so.”
I was immaterial, so I had no means to feel physical anxiety, no mouth to dry, no spine to chill, no jaw to clench, no gut to tighten. I could only feel a bleak dismay in my core.
<Shindzha, what do you mean, ‘mortal minions’? Are you claiming that the rebel army is actually serving your lord?>
We had known for a long time about demons disguised as humans supporting the armies that we faced. The Hamagaarans had demons mixed into their numbers, as did the Beradans in the Tabad who held Amelia and Chiara, and the attacks in Atianus and Narses by demons certainly suggested they were supporting the rebels. But to call those mortal forces his ‘minions’…
I had seen Lord Parna in Atianus. He was no demon. But I had never met Owen’s older brother Cullen, the former prince of Orestania. He had been exiled from Atianus, so he had vanished from public view before the original Tiana was born. Was the one that Parna and Fiore were seeking to make king really Owen’s brother, or could he be a demonic replacement like the baron of Cara Ita?
Of course, he didn’t have to be a demon. He could be under demonic control.
“He speaks as if he does, Mistress,” she confirmed, enhancing my anxiety. “And the last three times it became my turn to serve in his harem, he required me to use stealth to slip unseen into the human palace where he was staying.”
I metaphorically choked back my dismay over the idea that some demon had been using her that way. Shindzha had mentioned in the past that every relationship among demons was transactional. For all I knew, rather than being a victim of power harassment, she could have been actively advancing her career by that method. So I might be completely out of line if I forced mortal standards on her by suggesting she were a victim.
Instead, I steered us back to the original subject.
<So you are saying that you were capturing monsters for the mortals to use in the rebel army?>
“Well, not the mortals exactly,” she answered. “It takes too long for mortals to tame and train monsters. Most of the monster tamers in that army are actually demons in disguise. We have certain demonic methods to control monsters.”
That wasn’t news to me, of course. Diurhimath had been somehow under Trisiagga’s control, as had a large number of monsters she threw at us, back in the Carael mines. And potentially, the dragon she’d called her ‘pet’ as well, although we never did learn why she’d had him terrorizing the northern countryside.
The information that demon monster tamers were embedded in the rebel army though, I needed to get that intelligence back to Narses as soon as possible.
That thought reminded me that I had an opportunity for more intelligence here. Important things like…
<Shindzha, what is your former lord’s name?>
Since I had just realized we never asked. From what she was saying now, he was clearly a high-ranking demon.
I felt very little surprise when she answered, “He is the Great Lord named Durash, Mistress. All the demons east of the Great Wall are under his command.”
The same archdemon who threatened me personally via a remote speech spell after I killed his minion, Trisiagga.
It made sense. Demons of the same rank only cooperate for short term, specific goals unless they serve demons of higher rank. The actions of the demons here in the eastern end of the continent have been very well-coordinated, and the Demon King, Astaroth’s avatar, has yet to be reborn. This only makes sense if all the demons involved on the operations against Orestania were working for the same demon lord.
<You worked for Lord Durash directly?> I asked, just to confirm.
She sounded a trifle smug when she confirmed, “I did indeed, Mistress.”
After a bit, she admitted, “Lord Durash’s generals are his actual vassals. In truth, the women like me whom he also keeps as direct minions are more pets than vassals. It amuses him to give missions to the women he sleeps with. But I am the only hellspawn to achieve such a position. The rest are all true demonesses.”
She sounded genuinely proud of her achievement. I decided to not say anything negative about it.
But then she turned slightly melancholy, while asking, “Will I ever serve you again, Mistress?”
I mentally jolted slightly once I understood what she meant by ‘serve’, then answered, <You cannot feed me again until my babies are born, Shindzha. Because of your demonic physique, it isn’t safe for them. But afterwards, you will feed me just like the other Servants.>
Her voice turned slightly shy as she replied, “Very well. But I can do other things than feed you, Mistress.”
Her tone made it clear what ‘other things’ she meant. Like any other Servant, she saw our relationship as essentially sexual.
I blushed a bit, in my mind. Although, in my current state I couldn’t actually blush.
<It doesn’t matter to you that we are both women?>
She giggled slightly. “I’m very used to it, Mistress. In the lord’s harem, we had sex with each other for his entertainment. Especially during his meals.”
<Our relationship is different, Shindzha. You don’t do such things just because I require it. I will share such an embrace with you only if you are welcoming of it.>
She was quiet for a while, then noted, “I would welcome it, Mistress. And it occurs to me, I will likely never have sex again, unless you desire me. I cannot meet with demons or hellspawn anymore, after all.”
It struck me that she sounded quite depressed about that. And I have to admit, this was an issue for her that I had not considered until this.
We were in a small meadow with a stream running through it at that moment. I spotted an acceptably dry patch of ground near a relatively still pool and went over to materialize there, facing her.
Her eyes grew when she saw me. It was a moonless, starry night that reminded me of my ‘fairy walks’ with Mother, which must be why I had materialized without clothing. Perhaps it’s also why I chose the Tiana version of me instead of the Senhion version. But we were far from any witnesses, so standing out in the open naked to the cool mountain air simply did not bother me. I smiled at her.
“Come here, Shindzha.”
She walked up to me while pulling back her hood, revealing her curling horns and brown hair. Her strange eyes weren’t wary, but they looked uncertain. However, the important part was, they did not appear unwilling.
I took her hands in mine as she arrived and gave her a smile.
“May I kiss you?” I asked.
Her lips parted as she stared at me for a moment, then she nodded.
The first kiss we shared was more of a lover’s greeting than anything sexual. To be frank, just like I have no vampiric urges in the [Blood Effigy] form, I have very little sex drive. Not zero, but not much. It’s basically all in my mind, lacking the parts that depend upon autonomous functions.
Her hand moved to my breast, which didn’t stir much in me either. Just like with Ceria, I would mostly be giving rather than receiving if we continued.
I brushed her hair, then leaned in and whispered into her ear, “I shall take care of you when the time and place are more appropriate, my Servant. That is a firm promise. Will you patiently wait for me?”
She breathed her reply, “Yes, Mistress.”
