Bernt looked at the mangled camp all around, feeling sick. Those demons had been tracking him.

  The entire fight had barely taken twenty or thirty seconds – as long as it took the priests to get involved. High Priest Hannis in particular had turned the fight around almost immediately. The bloody red light hung high over the man’s head like a judgmental eye as he pursued the fleeing enemy. While paladins were technically the martial champions of their respective gods, all of Noruk’s chosen were called to fight.

  As Bernt watched, the old man darted after a short, goat-headed demon and kicked its leg, tripping it. The creature twisted as it fell, flinging a gobbet of hellfire toward him. Impossibly, the priest slapped the flaming projectile to the side barehanded with snakelike speed even as he laid his other palm on the creature’s forehead. He followed it to the ground almost gently as it fell.

  Brilliant light flashed once more and the thing collapsed in a heap, dead.

  It was over. Demon corpses lay strewn across the ground, ten or more of them. They'd been surprised in their sleep, but the adventurers had reacted quickly.

  Their losses were minimal, all things considered. Three of the four people who’d been standing sentry were dead, and one adventurer had been struck by hellfire in his bedroll. Several others had serious hellfire burns, including a ranger whose leg had been burned down to the bone. Surin and Angjou provided healing, but not everyone was going to recover fully. Serious burns could only be fully treated by expensive specialists, through a combination of alchemical and clerical healing. Surin assured them that the temple would generously cover the costs, but they would have to take a boat to Teres when they reached Lochholme.

  Bernt’s group was, ironically, nearly unhurt. Elyn had dragged Regin toward the middle of the camp, away from the worst of the fighting, since neither of them could contribute much in this kind of situation. The others had fought, but they’d beaten their opponents handily. Bernt’s robes had some small tears in them and his face burned a bit where the imp had clawed at him, but the scratchy thornskin amulet had done its job.

  He almost hadn’t worn it to bed. The brambles were still occasionally scratchy, even if most of the ones that came in contact with his skin had broken off by now. It probably wouldn’t last much longer.

  “Hey. You alright?”

  Bernt blinked and met Uriah’s eyes. The man was waving a hand in front of his face.

  “What?”

  “Here,” the hydromancer said, holding out Bernt’s staff. There were scorch marks and pitting that cut through some of the carved runes on the end. “Sorry about the damage, I didn’t really have time to cast. That little demon came out of nowhere. We can probably get it fixed in Lochholme. I'll pay for it.”

  Bernt accepted the staff, inspecting it. It wouldn’t work as a focus until the runes were repaired. The heavy hardwood didn’t channel mana properly anymore, but it wasn’t too bad. After a moment, he handed it back. Uriah had grabbed it because he didn’t have his own focus anymore.

  “No, it's work equipment. We can get it reimbursed. You keep it, for now. I have a wand, anyway, and the staff gets in the way when I’m trying to cast with both hands. Just give it back when we get home.”

  Bernt also still had a weak general focus on his left hand in the form of an iron ring that he’d bought from Grixit the day they’d first met. It didn’t do much – it just recognized and helped the caster properly align a handful of common types of glyph formations within a spellform. Bernt mostly just used it to support his stoneshaping, but it could make most spells a little more efficient and quicker to cast.

  Uriah took the staff and nodded in thanks.

  “You might want to take a potion. Those scratches are pretty deep. You’re lucky that thing didn’t take your eye out.”

  Wiping some blood out of the eye in question, Bernt cast a torch spell and dug around in his bag for a minor healing potion. The priests had serious injuries to deal with, and unless he wanted scarring on his face, he’d need to do something about the scratches. While they didn’t work quickly, even a minor potion would see him fixed up in an hour or so. The damage was just skin-deep, after all.

  “How do you think they found us?” Torvald asked a few minutes later. The adventurers had settled down again, though the camp was still bathed in angry red light. Hannis apparently wanted the demons to know that his god was watching. Nirlig, having better night vision than the humans, had volunteered for sentry duty. The others, including a wide-eyed Baron Regin, sipped tea around the fire. Nobody was going back to sleep any time soon.

  Bernt swallowed, looking around the group. He needed to tell them.

  “I… I think I saw that same shade that jumped me back in Halfbridge. It tried to taunt me. So… I think they’re after me, specifically.”

  Torvald scoffed. “Maybe that shade is, but the whole pack of them? Come on. I’m the one that broke their huge soulstone during the battle, and we have three high priests here. We’re going to be the only people at the conclave who have actually seen the threat first hand. It’s natural that they’ll want to stop us. They’ve probably been spying on us this whole time and just waiting on an opportune moment to strike at us. There’s probably an entrance to the Depths near here. The real question is why they only sent demons. And why were they so weak? I barely saw any hellfire, compared to the battle in the Undercity.”

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  “Weak?” Regin choked. “I watched one of those things tear Tarik’s guts out with its bare hands – through his armor! I can’t believe he’s still alive!”

  “Don’t underestimate adventurers,” Elyn said. “They’re tough, especially the straight fighters. They can come back from almost anything as long as they get healing quickly enough. If you can get all the bits back in the right places. It’s the alchemical enhancements. He’s third rank, so he’s probably got a few. Survivability is usually the first thing they’ll work on.”

  Regin stared at the half-elf in horrified fascination. “How do you survive getting gutted?”

  “Probably an endless breath enhancement. It keeps you going for a while when you’re bleeding out, or drowning. It’s a whole process and it’s insanely expensive – but you don’t have to join any guilds for it. It’s worth it if you plan to get stabbed for a living. I wish I could afford one for myself.”

  Bernt let the conversation fade into the background as he sipped his tea. Torvald had a point, the Duergar would want to stop their entire group. But that didn’t mean they weren’t after him specifically as well. Also, the others still didn’t know that Nuros had put a price on his head – he couldn’t tell them without revealing his bond to Jori.

  But they were far from Halfbridge now, and out of reach of its political games. The time for secrets had passed, mostly. He’d been meaning to talk to them anyway, especially Elyn, ever since he’d found her on the boat. Only Uriah’s constant presence, and now Baron Regin, had held him back. He didn’t know or trust them as well as the others, but he couldn’t afford to keep waiting forever.

  Making his decision, he turned to the nobleman, who was listening to Elyn describe various alchemical enhancements with horrified fascination. While the alchemical details were proprietary secrets of the Alchemists’ Guild, it was well known that the procedures themselves were invasive and horrifically painful. Bernt cleared his throat and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Hey, do you think you could cover Nirlig’s sentry spot and send him back here for a minute? I need to talk to him about something.”

  Regin blinked at him owlishly for a moment, then understanding dawned and he got up.

  “Cover his…? Right, sure. Private conversation. No problem.”

  By the time Nirlig arrived, the others had picked up on Bernt’s mood, and Uriah looked downright suspicious. Rightfully so, he supposed.

  “I need to tell you guys about something,” Bernt said, keeping his voice low, “and I’m telling you with the understanding that you’re not going to spread it around, alright?” He narrowed his eyes at Uriah, singling him out. “That means you, especially, if you want me to try to help you with your advancement.”

  Uriah grimaced sourly. “What did you do?”

  ***

  It took nearly two hours for Jori to pinpoint Tallash’s last location. It was just a bare patch of rocks, but it was where her scent was the freshest. Jori grimaced thoughtfully. That was the wrong word. Strongest? Recent-est? There was nothing fresh about it.

  Picking a nearby boulder, Jori flung a handful of hellfire at it. It splattered messily, leaving black vitrified marks where struck. The mark might become important if Tallash was gone long enough for the smell to dissipate. And for Ed, who couldn’t smell things very well.

  The man sat on a nearby rock, packing his pipe again.

  “That’s the spot, then?” he asked rhetorically. “Alright. How long do we have to wait after one gets killed before they… pop back up here?”

  Jori shrugged. “Depends on the demon, I think. And how they die, or if they just get banished.”

  “So, you don’t know?”

  “A day or two, probably,” Jori said with a shrug. “I didn’t die on the mortal plane. I just know what Josie told me. When I was banished, it felt instant.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it was like for me, too,” Ed grumbled.

  Jori climbed up onto the boulder and stood up tall to get a good view of the surrounding area. It was completely desolate, gray and brown. The sky was a dull gray and black and she could see filthy rain falling in the distance.

  “Ugh, this place is terrible,” she complained.

  Ed chuckled, smoke coming out of his nose in little spurts. “Really? You don’t say. I’m not taking camping advice from Tallash, I can tell you that. I’ve got bruises on my ass. It’s like every rock here has pointy bits coming up in the worst possible places.”

  “No. I mean all of it, the whole world... what’s the point?” Jori gestured out at the dead landscape. “There’s nothing here except bugs, lichen and sometimes a soul or two, if you’re lucky. And demons, of course. But we fight over it like it’s some kind of paradise. Demon Kings and Lords control massive territories. They fight wars with each other all the time. Smaller demons serve the great ones to avoid destruction and to win souls. We make pacts with mortals to get them fresh, so we can grow even faster. All so we can get our own patch of rocks and bugs and lichen and fight other demons even more. But why? What’s the point?”

  Ed shrugged. “Souls, right? You just said it. Demons can’t grow without souls.”

  “But why?” Jori asked, pleading. “For what? There’s nothing to enjoy here. No good food, no interesting things to see or to discover, no friends, nothing with any kind of value. It’s all fighting and gathering souls and growing and fighting again. Sure, you can fight and win wars, but what do you actually get at the end?”

  Ed scratched at the back of his neck.

  “I don’t know. I suppose it’s not that different from back home, in that sense, just a lot darker. It’s one of the big questions. Why are we here?”

  Jori rolled her eyes. “We were banished!”

  “You know what I meant, imp,” Ed grumped. “It’s a big question because there isn’t an answer. Who’s to say what the point of it all is? You have to decide for yourself how to give your life meaning. I always figured it’s best not to overthink things.”

  “Well, I can’t help thinking, alright? I don’t think there is a point,” Jori said. “At least not here. This whole place is wrong. How is anyone supposed to be happy if everything is only terrible all the time?”

  Ed looked at Jori contemplatively for a long moment, then he slid down off the rock and turned to wiggle his fingers in the air a bit, like he did when he was casting a spell. The uneven surface of the rock flowed back, forming a back rest and smoothing the sitting surface in a very shallow bowl shape. Then he settled back down with a sigh and put his feet up on another rock.

  “You know, Jori, I think you might be the first person crazy enough to ever ask that question here. Maybe that’s why it’s like this.”