RE: Monarch
Chapter 42: Enclave XII

After fending off their nonstop stream of advice and warnings, I said my goodbyes and headed to Ralakos’s estate. Erdos saw me coming and rolled his eyes, making it clear how he felt about my participation in this venture. He passed me by, leaning over to mutter. “Just don’t get in the way. Stay in the back with the rest of the support group if there’s any altercation. And for the lord below’s sake, don’t cast anything. You set any of my men on fire and they’ll never find your body. Now get in line.”

It was clear Erdos was unhappy, but at this point there was nothing he could do about it. He’d made his play with Ralakos and lost. Still, there was something to be said for winning with grace, and I had no reason to go out of my way to annoy him. I gave him a cheeky salute, and he scowled, striding away. Trying to make eye contact with as many of the men as I could as I walked towards the back, I settled in behind them. There were about fifteen in all.

A strange uneasiness settled in my stomach: it felt like something was wrong, like I was missing something. I shook my head. The paranoia had really started getting the better of me.

Erdos began to brief us on the situation, going into additional detail in a borderline sarcastic voice as if to spite me. The azmodials were known for being a particularly violent legion, but there were huge gaps of power between their lesser demons and their greater. The demons seemed uncharacteristically hesitant to escalate matters as of late, only retaliating when one of their bases of power were struck. Our goal was not to escalate. We were looking for traces of their main force deep within the the twilight chambers; a series of elven ruins linked by water, several miles past the farthest point of the surface caves.

That point stuck out to me immediately. I had no idea the elves had ever coexisted with the infernals within the enclave. Obviously, it hadn’t worked out, but there had to be quite a story there.

Erdos finished his briefing, and we set out at a half-jog. He snapped off a command in demonic I wasn’t able to parse, and the men picked up the pace. I did my best to stay in line. My gear was light for armor, but it was still armor, and by the time we reached the two longboats at the edge of the surface caverns, I was short of breath. Nowhere near as bad as it would have been only a few months earlier, but still more winded than I would have liked.

The man beside me bumped my shoulder. “Sure are recruiting them short these days.” A few infernals nearby chuckled. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the NʘvᴇlFire.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

I blinked up at him. He was massive, pushing seven feet tall, if not cresting it entirely. His helmet—though clearly modified for him—was still a bit too small, given his nose a flattened look. “I imagine everyone’s short to you, giant-kin. What the hells do they even feed you?”

More mirth amongst the men. Well, that was a good sign. Thaddeus told me once to never trust a group of soldiers on the eve of battle unwilling to laugh at a joke. They were likely holding themselves back out of dislike or treachery. Or alternatively, you just weren’t very funny. It seemed like Erdos’s dislike for me wasn’t uniform amongst his troops.

The tall infernal laughed heartily and offered me a blue hand that absolutely swallowed my own. “Theros.”

“Cairn.”

The strongest fighters and casters entered the first boat, while the rest of us piled into the second. I was genuinely surprised when Theros awkwardly crawled into the second boat, taking a seat beside me. For a moment, the entire boat shifted in his direction, threatening to topple us, before the rest of the men shifted in the other direction and balanced things out.

“You’re on the support team?” I asked.

The man in front of me scoffed and turned around. “Theros isn’t on the support team, he is the support team.”

“You embarrass me, Aron.” Theros shifted uncomfortably, jostling the boat.

I decided to press my luck. “Well, you do have me at a disadvantage. You all know what I can do, but I have very little knowledge of the rest of you.”

Aron shrugged. “Support team is mostly earth magicians. Relyre, Nephdos, and me.” He indicated two men respectively who turned to nod before turning to stare straight ahead. Dhame and Urish are water binders, Urish is the one propelling the boat back there.” I looked behind, and a round woman with bushy eyebrows shot me a grin, one glowing hand immersed in the water, the other clinging tightly to the boat. “Some of us have secondaries, but they’re obviously not much to speak of, as we’re in this boat and not that one. Though all things considered, we’re a bit light on firepower today.” Aron inclined his head towards the giant seated next to me. “And then of course, there’s Theros.”

“What do you do?” I asked, amused at the discomfort the giant was under from all the attention.

“Just… a bit of light magic.” Theros mumbled.

My eyes widened. My knowledge was limited on the subject, but from what I’d learned it was an extremely uncommon spinoff of life magic. Though it was generally called something else.

“A divine magician,” I said, in awe.

“Light magician,” Theros corrected irritably.

“He don’t like calling it divine. Gives credence to the rumor his mum shagged an angel.” Urish crowed.

Ah, so that was the source of the friction. Divine magic was about as rare amongst infernals as Dantalion flame was amongst humans. I felt a certain kinship with him over that. We were both fish out of water.

“Even if she did, who could blame her?” I joked, trying to deflect the tension. “Urish, hypothetically, you’re really gonna tell me if an angel descended from the heavens—bound in perfect muscle, skin like creme, hands big enough to throttle a bear—with the sole intention of getting in your trousers, you’d say no?”

There was a moment of silence. “How much’ve I been drinkin’?”

Our entire boat erupted in laughter, voices echoing across the water. Erdos stood up from the front of the lead boat, drawing a finger across his neck. Still, Theros nodded at me appreciatively. Anomalies like us had to stick together, after all.

A strained silence fell over the boat as we transitioned from the shallow waters of the surface caverns into a narrow tunnel. There was a dull ethereal light emitting from the other side. The tunnel closed in, tighter and tighter, until the wood on the side of the boat scraped against the stone intermittently. Theros stooped down to avoid hitting the roof of the tunnel. Then, just when I thought the walls would close in on us, shoving the boat down beneath the water, we were out. The tiny river we’d ridden down expanded into an ocean.

I sucked in a breath. The cavern was gargantuan, bathed in an emerald green sheen emitting from crystal deposits hundreds of feet up. There were stalagnate pillars thick as trees, extending from the distant roof to the glassy waters below. Theros’s hand glowed gold as he weaved a circular sign that expanded from two dimensions into three, forming a floating lumen lamp that followed between both boats.

The ruins came into crept into view like blackened fingers, massive broken arches and crumbling towers that looped and swayed. I’d seen elven architecture before in books, but nothing compared to the real thing. It was always cast in light, rather than this strange, shadowy gloom.

In the center of the lake was a huge tower, sandwiched between two broken battlements, towering upwards, slatted with a dozen windows. The light from Theros’s lantern bounced off the water, illuminating one of the windows near the top where a twisted face—

A cold hand clawed at my spine, frigid tendrils working their way down my back. The window was empty, but the image was imprinted on my mind. Something looking down on us. Had it been there, really, or was I imagining it?

“Theros,” I whispered, “Can you move the light over towards the tower? Or focus it that way?

“What was it?” He whispered to me.

I shook my head. I didn’t know.

Theros’s eyes flitted to the battlements and towers, the light pointed emitting in that direction becoming more focused, dimming the rest of the beam. A high-pitched stuttering echo bounced off the water, so warped and refracted it was impossible to tell what it had once been.

Up ahead, Erdos held up a fist, and the boats came to a slow stop, drifting dead in the water. It was so quiet I could hear my pulse in my ears. There was an embankment on the other side, but it was a long swim. My paranoia whispered to me. Slowly, I reached into my pack and removed a potion, eased the cork off, and raised it to my lips, swallowing it in a single gulp. The briny taste went down with a shudder and I felt my heartbeat slow.

Thump Thump. Thump Thump.

Thump Thump.

Thump.

A half dozen white-hot beams of flame shrieked through the darkness. Theros’s head disappeared with a sizzle, neck charred and instantly cauterized by the beam. His floating light immediately dissipated, bathing the cavern in darkness save for the dozens of multi-colored spells flinging through the air, reflecting off the water. Theros’s body tipped over into the water with a large splash. Aron starting screaming, his once deep voice crescendoing in manic terror.

The first boat had been hit as well, and began to sink. Erdos shouted, voice barely audible over the shrieking of spells and cries of dying men. “Get to the shore!” A magma orange light as large and round as a boulder arced downwards, faster than anything affected by gravity, slamming into the center of the first ship, capsizing it in a spray of gore. A second light, blue, arced towards our boat.

The infernals around me jumped into the water in a mess of flying limbs and splashes. I prepared to follow. The last I saw of Aron, he was staring at the incoming projectile like a man entranced by a comet.

I dove into the frigid water. The explosion came seconds later, rattling my teeth, and turning my vision black.

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