Chapter 26

  The stone house — which had been offered to me the moment I asked a random local demon if there was a place with some privacy around here — had thick walls, so hopefully no-one could hear Flamey and I argue. The room we were in had only one window, complete with shutters made of the weird wood I’d grown used to seeing in that damned forest. Everything was sized for demons here, so I felt a little small. Under any other circumstances I would have marvelled at the simple but large demonic furnishings made of the same wood, the leather and fabric coverings, the lanterns that lit the room with non-magical flames for a change, and the chamberpots sized for demons. Those seemed to be the only substitute for a bathroom I was going to get. Needless to say, I had incinerated the contents with a well-placed Hell Lance spell after using it, long before I had let Flamey join me for a discussion.

  This was the first time my daughter had seen my human form out of the SAC but she had made no fuss about it; she had hugged me and demanded her next Crunchymel bar. I, of course, had given it to her, hoping it would put her in a mood more receptive to what I had to say, but my hopes had been in vain.

  ‘No! I am not staying here, I’m coming with you, Daddy!’ Flamey protested loudly and vehemently, just as I had predicted.

  ‘Listen, sweetheart. I told you the plan. It is important I do this. And I am not leaving you. I’ll be just away for a while to fight those stupid minotaurs. I’ll come back.’

  ‘Minotaurs are stupid,’ she admitted that much, but held her ground on the issue at hand. ‘But I want to go with you, Daddy! Please don’t leave me alone!’

  ‘Well, the thing is, Tarashak needs your help. And so do I,’ I said, leaning closer to her as she sat on a chair made for a grown demon, her legs dangling in the air. ‘There will be a lot of minotaurs coming, and he can only fight them if you’re here to help him. That’s why I’m … leaving Whirly with you.’

  ‘You … you’ll leave Whirly with me?’ she asked, her cat-eyes suddenly wide open with anticipation.

  ‘Yes. You know what Whirly does, right? You’ll sometimes need to send him out and tell Tarashak what you see on the control panel: where the minotaurs are, what they’re doing around the hills, and things like that.’

  ‘I see, I see,’ she nodded her head, obviously thinking very hard about this.

  ‘It’s an important job, helping Tarashak. He can’t do this without you. This whole town can’t do this without you. They need their princess to be here with them. Otherwise there is no hope,’ I said, laying it on rather thick.

  And I hated myself for it. The last thing I wanted was to use Flamey as bait and leave her in a place which was going to see the largest minotaur army in Hell laying siege to it in the coming days. Was she going to be safe here? No. Would she be safe if I took her with me? Even less so. This was the lesser of two evils, and I had to make it happen. Scaragar would stand for a long time; I had spent a lot on making sure of that, and I would be in touch with the general via my RMS, and the coffers had another 9 million RE for me to spend on emergency options if the walls or gates were ever breached, and I wouldn’t hesitate a second spending it. Tarashak and Reinos had reported adequate stocks of weapons, food and water, which would last the town for a month or two with some rationing. The garrison had been raised, the drafting of the citizens was under way — I could see in the RMS the army’s personnel counter ticking up — and my daughter’s personal guard unit would soon be ready to begin service. Everything was in place, and I had maybe another hour or two if I wanted to slip away from Scaragar without any minotaurs noticing me.

  ‘You promise you will come back?’ Flamey asked, looking right into my eyes, and I had to make considerable effort to not look away.

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  ‘I promise,’ I lied.

  I had no idea if I was going to make it or not. The plan was good, in my opinion, but war never offered any guarantees to anyone — something I had seen many times and almost experienced myself on a few occasions over my eighteen years in the Allied Systems Army.

  ‘You really promise?’ she asked, tears appearing in the corners of her eyes.

  She knew, didn’t she?

  ‘I will do everything I can to come back,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to leave you, you can count on it.’

  ‘Okay,’ she whimpered.

  She jumped off the chair and straight into my arms, hugging me as tightly as she could with her level 7 stats. She was warm and she was trembling as she pushed her face into my shoulder, sniffling, fighting a losing battle against her tears. I was almost losing that very same battle myself. I patted her head, stroking her long, blonde hair, whispering renewed promises of my return into her ear. I never could have imagined that being a father — even if an adoptive father under residual psychic influences — could mean this much love and joy as well as this much pain and torment to experience all at once. I would go out there and I would reclaim this realm from the minotaur scum; my princess deserved a Hell in which she could live happily ever after, even after I was gone, and I would make that happen no matter what. And … there was that dungeon and the surface world of course, I hadn’t forgotten about that.

  ***

  Tarashak had personally selected the ten demons to accompany me on my journey to raise my armies and to re-take the gate between the Third and the Fourth. I was only a little surprised to see both Reinos, and that hulking warrior Grashon amongst them — two demons who had once tried to kill me on first sight, then a demonstration of my prowess and a few servings of my Will of the Infernal Tyrant later, had become capable and trustworthy captains of my army, and now my traveling companions.

  ‘Alright, boys and girls,’ I addressed them as they lined up in front of the other gate of Scaragar.

  Reinos was the only mage, but Grashon had six men and two ladies, their bonded weapons looking sharp and dangerous. Grashon himself had a pair of short swords, two of his guys had spears, another boy and one of the girls were archers, and the last boy-girl pair had blades that were somewhat similar to Flamey’s Saerkhan dagger, but longer and not as curved. They all had their supplies packed in leather shoulder bags, and they looked ready to take on the world. I could sense their levels to be around 32 on average, which wasn’t bad.

  ‘I plan to reach Garoshek in ten days. Hopefully by then any minotaur army that might be putting pressure on the city will be on its way here and we can sneak in there to resupply and recruit. Then, we’ll be off to Orroth to check in with Riaret the Severing Strike.’ I explained. ‘We’ll move fast, we only stop to rest if our limbs are starting to fall off. Once again, we’re not taking any time out to fight wildlife or to level, that’s not our objective. Now, give me your bags, I’ll stash them away in my storage, maybe we’ll be a little faster that way.’ They didn’t argue, they all handed over their bags and watched them vanish in puffs of Hell Mana one by one. ‘Any questions?’

  They all shook their heads; they knew what was expected of them. With Tarashak named as garrison commander — not to mention the highest level demon in town — I was confident things would be handled well here as well while I was away. And if levels wouldn’t be enough to keep the townsfolk in line — although they seemed quite happy that they were now citizens of the Fourth Ring’s capitol — I had made holding Scaragar an official campaign objective in the “military” menu, which gave my general formal command of everything and everyone in town.

  I racked my brain to find something, anything, I might have forgotten, and I was sure there was plenty, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything as I stood at the gate with my escorts. We were as ready as we were going to be, and it was time to go. But not without saying goodbye to Flamey.

  She was standing with Tarashak and that Erlakhen fellow who had come to greet us upon arrival to Scaragar — the mayor of this demon town, for the lack of a better word. Behind them stood twenty of my daughter’s newly appointed personal guards; most of them I recognised from our time together in our forest camp and from our trek here. A few of the demonic faces didn’t ring a bell, but as her personal guards, their newly recieved titles obligated them to protect Flamey no matter what, and I was happy with that.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ I stepped to Flamey and knelt to bring myself face to face with her. Luckily she couldn’t see through the polarised visor, otherwise she’d have seen that her eyes weren’t the only ones tearing up.

  ‘Daddy! I’ll miss you!’ she said, and I opened my arms for one last hug. Which was something she was both good at and very generous with.

  ‘I’ll be back. You can count on it,’ I whispered to her.

  She nodded, sniffling a bit, then released me from her clutches, and now it really was time to go.