Steel Wolves of Craedia (Realm of Arkon, Book 3) (14 page)

You've learned a skill:
Demonic Combat Form.
Duration: 15 minutes. Cooldown: 60 minutes. When in
Demonic Combat Form,
a new slot is added to your action bar with an active skill called
Infernal Rage.
Furthermore, your armor class, physical and mental damage are increased by 10%.

Infernal Rage.

Instant cast.

Cooldown: 5 minutes.

Requires
Demonic Combat Form.

The demon falls into a frenzy, with every physical and mental attack dealt inflicting critical damage.

Upon activating
Infernal Rage,
the demon is rid of all stun, fear and immobilization effects, and becomes invulnerable to them for the duration of the spell.

Attention! Over the course of your life in the Realm of Arkon you have accumulated 137,012 hidden rage points.

Your
Demonic Combat Form
has been transformed to
Demonic Rage Form I
.

Demonic Rage Form I.
Unique skill. Duration: 30 minutes. Cooldown: 60 minutes. When in
Demonic Rage Form I,
two new slots are added to your action bar with active skills called
Infernal Rage
and
Aura of Horror.
Furthermore, your armor class, physical and mental damage are increased by 20%.

Note that this combat form is not final, and may undergo additional transformations in the future.

Aura of Horror.

Instant cast.

Cooldown: 5 minutes.

Requires
Demonic Rage Form I.

The blood of a true Lord starts to boil in you, and a
Fright
effect is applied to all hostile sentient creatures without mental protection within a 50 yard radius, causing them to flee in terror. The duration of the effect is determined by the creatures' mental resistance. With a resistance of zero, the effect lasts 30 seconds.

Your reputation has increased. The sentient creatures of the Netherworld plane are now unfriendly to you.

My god, what had I become! Yellow eyes, vertical pupils! And this was probably permanent. What would Alyona say? I was no longer human... Yet my clanmates' eyes shone with delight and trepidation. How the hell was this a cause for celebration?

"I didn't know myself," I answered Elnar, still kneeling, and lashed the tip of my tail at my bootleg. My voice had changed along with the body, taking on lower, menacing undertones. I looked at the fighters around me. "Grab the loot and the bodies. Elnar, I want the bodies of our fallen fished out of the water. We're going back to Farot."

I spent the entire road to Farot trying to untangle the mess that was my thoughts. I had forgotten all about my lacking combat form, so this was very much out of the blue. And what a form it was! Now, this wasn't revolutionary or anything—I remembered the community once buzzing about some druid receiving an advanced form of a cave bear after completing a special quest. The bear form he would shift into was nearly fifty percent larger than the standard version, and the image of his scowling muzzle was on the front page of every gaming site for at least a month. Such things happened from time to time, and didn't transcend the boundaries of game balance.

But why me? I hadn't completed any special quests, had I? And those hidden rage points... In this world even rage was part of some formula! My real self was a pretty chill individual, all in all—could this be a side effect of my bungled character creation? Or maybe it was all predestined from the very beginning, and the manifestation of my rage was part of a natural progression? I had no answers. But I wasn't despondent either—even in combat form my body remained humanoid, horns and tail notwithstanding. I hadn't grown any hooves, at least, praise Hart. The spikes on my wrists and elbows retracted under the skin with a simple mental command. The process of shifting wasn't painful at all, and the deep-black color looked pretty brutal. In the end, this made me stronger, and thus boosted my chances of finding my sister and punishing Cheney. And besides, I wasn't much bothered by my appearance. While in combat form I still thought and felt like myself, and still looked like myself after shifting back. I should remember to talk to Elnar about him calling me an "elder." I remembered the legend: in this plane elder demons were those whose veins contained a greater portion of the true blood that was used by Velial when creating Arkon during his retreat. But what was it doing in
my
veins? I wasn't there when it happened, that much was certain. And how did these elders differ externally from the rest? So many questions... I hoped that the answers would come in time.

What
did
hurt was losing the guys I'd fought with side by side for over a month. It hurt like hell, in fact. I gazed wistfully at Reece, who was riding in somber silence, Hurd's corpse slung over in the saddle before him.

The mage hadn't allowed anyone near his friend's body. "He dragged me out of Uriatta. I will carry him as far as the Flame, if I have to," he'd said quietly, gently placing the body in front of the saddle. The mage was staring off in the distance—eyes unblinking, jaw set, swaying slightly to the rhythm of his moving horse. Wherever his mind was, it wasn't anywhere near here.

But I couldn't afford to navel-gaze. Casualties in war were unavoidable, and I hadn't done anything wrong as a commander. No boss was supposed to berserk in that situation, especially three hours into the fight. Some other factor must have been in play, and I doubted I would ever know what it was. Perhaps the beast was aided by a patron deity? No matter! I would fulfill my promise. After the necessary convalescing, I would take my people to Suonu and seek out whoever it was that had been sending these armies here. And drown the bastard in their own bloody tears. Or, if not blood, whatever filth flowed in their veins. Was the plan ludicrous? Perhaps. But the way Elnar and the others were looking at me, I wasn't going to have any problems with recruitment. And another thing—I could now turn up anywhere in the Netherworld and feel relatively safe. Not that I was champing at the bit to go there—and besides, the entrance to that plane was sealed, as far as I knew—but it was a comforting thought just the same.

Could I have predicted a mere six months ago that today I would be leading a near century back to a fort we'd just defended from an army of undead, riding atop an enormous boar? I chuckled, fixing the scabbard at my waist. At least there was a purpose to it all! The way was now clear for the refugees to reach Xantarra without incident, including little Dara and Hert who had treated me to steamed milk back in Ballan. My biggest worry now was the state of my head archeress—whenever my eyes caught hers, I was taken aback by the anguish and listlessness that had settled in them.
Is it the deaths of her friends that's got her so distraught?
I wasn't so sure.
I should have a talk with her when we get back to Farot. No need to waste time guessing.

"Why are you so grim, dar? Would you care to share your concerns?" the tifling officer steadied his horse, settling into a trot to my right.

"We've lost people back there, I don't see that as a cause for revelry. And why are you talking all formal like? Cut that shit out."

"Duly noted," James nodded. "I'll stop. But you're an odd one all right—only eight fighters have passed into the Flame, and their deaths were all worthy. Their rebirth will be equally worthy, have no doubt. Moreover, the fact that our incomplete century
only
lost eight against five hundred... That's not even luck. The gods favor you, Dark One..."

"Yeah, yeah. Listen, tell me more about 'elders.' As you might have noticed, my transformation was a bit unexpected, for me most of all."

"Elders are those who manage to cope with the true blood that awakes in them. It is a very rare phenomenon when it awakens in someone; rarer still is when whoever it awakens in is able to tame his rage and not turn into a monster. Only an elder can turn totally black while in combat form. I see now why you were marked by Ingvar."

"Well, at least one of us does," I chuckled. "Still makes little sense to me."

"No one is going to explain it any clearer than that. You can, however, visit Ahriman. All of his Throne Attendants are elders. Moreover, the legends say that he'd found some of them back when they were still ordinary demons."

"You mentioned having some of that true blood yourself, didn't you? About having elders in your family tree?"

"Well, yes," James smiled. "My great grandmother did sin with a fellow that had crawled out of the Netherworld. Nobody did learn his name. I don't know whether or not their union was consensual, but years later one of the clan chieftains—there were no princedoms yet—took a liking to her daughter. Succubi are hard to resist for our kind, as you know... As for the blood, we all have it—only you have a lot more of it. The banner should come out really well, by the way. Oh, and I'm starting to believe that we will recapture my family castle after all."

"Sure we will," I assured him. "Now, tell me this... It would seem that succubi are in high demand. So what are they doing in brothels if they can snag themselves a noble husband without any trouble?"

"Krian, if I hadn't seen you at work half an hour ago, I would think you really are a light one. Do you really think they want that? A demon of seduction lives to seduce, and that implies constant pursuit of new partners. I feel sorry for the poor son of a bitch who marries a woman like that without a trueblood oath. Even then, if the succubus doesn't have a sufficient amount of that blood, the oath won't mean anything to her. There are exceptions, of course. A woman may rebuff a dozen noble candidates, choosing instead some simple, entirely ordinary farmer, and the two will live in perfect harmony till the end of their days. You cannot rape a succubus—that would mean certain death for anyone. Well, except maybe someone like you. Besides, now you're going to..." the tifling paused suddenly, giving me a strange look.

"What?"

"Nothing. I was just going to say that when we get to the fort, your blood will be needed to make the banner. I'll go tell the blond girl to be ready."

James is up to something,
I thought, looking at the distancing tifling. He clearly intended to say something else. Oh well. So far the conversation hadn't shed much light on what was happening—I still didn't understand the difference between elders and ordinary nobles. But hey, at least now I knew that I could rape a succubus without fear of popping up at a graveyard. A dubious achievement if ever there was one, especially since I had never raped anyone, neither in my past life nor in this one. I had never even fantasized about it.
File that under "good to know,"
I snorted, watching the fort gates gradually draw near.

A pleasant surprise awaited me upon our arrival at the fort in the form of Schen the innkeeper's request to join the clan.

"I'm a pretty good swordsman, dar, and I know how to ride a horse," he said, meeting me on the doorstep of the inn. "And I can serve as your quartermaster, if need be. I hear there's a vacancy."

I assured Schen that I would be glad to have him, promising to take care of it tomorrow. I'd rather have a quartermaster sleeping in a cart on the way to Xantarra than an innkeeper sleeping in a situation when something akin to a funeral feast had to be organized for seventy four people. The rest of the day was a flurry of chores. First, I had to pump half a quart of my blood into a silver chalice with fanciful patterns carved on it, whereupon the dar and Hagedia got down to sewing the banner. Then I tasked two getare squads with preparing the funeral pyre, awarded the four rare plate pieces that had dropped in the battle, and settled into a chair before the monitor in my private room, mulling over how to best distribute the professions among the new clan members.

Later that evening, as I stood gazing into the blazing funeral pyre, I realized that yet another phase of my life had come to an end. Whatever recesses of my mind had been relating to my current reality as a game had been scorched out of my psyche along with the bodies of my fallen demon comrades. Gone was the taciturn Hurd, the bashful Osk, the jovial Surat. Damn it! I didn't give a damn that my people were in line for a new, perhaps even better incarnation. I didn't want to lose anybody else! Peering into the Flame, I swore to myself to do everything in my power to bring all my Wolves to clan level ten. Vows were material in this world, so one had better not use words lightly. But my resolve was sincere—the last thing I wanted was to find myself before this same pyre.

There was no grieving around the table—such things weren't allowed here. My guys were telling the new recruits about our adventures: the battle of Bone River, the beauty of the Swamp Cave, the heroism of Diarten the necromancer. I was compelled to talk of the beauty of the goddess of death, and share how I'd gotten the wolf cub emblazoned on my shield. Then Reece chimed in with the aforementioned strange dream of his in which he had apparently rebuffed—quite heroically—the lascivious advances of one of Ingvar's female sidekicks, in return for which she had shared with him their clan's song, and had vowed to visit him again some time.