Chapter 18: The Devil Wears Dendrite

Shortly after Wrath had announced the start of the round, the chairs on the platform had dissipated, and the three demons had left Libby standing alone at the center of the disc.

Asmodeus had returned to his macabre, bone-wrought throne above with the other sovereigns. When Galen and Fenrow had left, they hadn’t said a word as they’d set her on her feet, gave her one last, unreadable look, and then used a portal to return to their terrace.

The screens flipped between live images of every face: the drow, the sovereigns, even the audience, their features and expressions captured in sharp, vivid detail.

The two brothers were leaning against the balustrade, their austere countenances unnervingly alike, their shared composure only highlighting their unmistakable resemblance.

Two crystalline cameras were slowly panning around her and circling like vultures. Every other display showed her standing there in her intricate, gilded plate armor, stunned and blinking against the glare.

Three stories below, Wrath’s Marauders were almost shoulder to shoulder, unmoving but for the subtle shifts of their heads as they slowly surveyed each other. Even from where she stood, she could feel the air between them crackling with tension. She had no doubt they were evaluating weaknesses, weighing their odds, and calculating their first strike.

“Can you feel it?” Asmodeus said hungrily, almost reverently. “The way the air thickens just before order unravels into chaos? I could drown in this feeling and never tire of it.”

He continued speaking, but whatever he was saying faded into the background as a console suddenly appeared in front of her. Constructed of the same black marble as the platform, the small podium had two blood-red sigils on its slab face that Libby shouldn’t have been able to read, but somehow could.

The first said:

Le’elah.

The second:

Letahta.

Somehow, she knew the one on top meant up, and the one just below it meant down. How she knew either of those things was another concern entirely, but it was quickly buried under the cacophony of sound from the surrounding stands and the shallow rasp of her own breathing.

“Before I give the signal to release my warriors,” Wrath announced, not bothering to rise from his throne. “Why don’t we give our little rabbit some claws?” The audience snickered and guffawed, a ripple of delighted malice passing through their ranks.

The illuminated panels overhead showed Asmodeus raise a single hand and snap his fingers. A vortex of flame suddenly surrounded her, making her tense, the fire close enough that she felt its heat lick at her skin and bathe her armor in a wash of searing warmth.

Then it dispersed, and three weapons hovered in the air around her, suspended in a slow, revolving orbit.

Drifting past her right shoulder was a polearm, the crescent blade etched with ember-bright runes and mounted to a long black haft.

Two hand-axes followed it, their dark steel heads thin and viciously curved with the same glowing script along their edges.

The last that floated into view was a short sword. It was narrow and double-edged with infernal sigils burning down the midline, the blackened steel bleeding smoke from its edges.

“Each blade has been imbued with an armor-piercing hex. Should they strike true, they are capable of breaching the plate of my Marauders and delivering a killing blow.” Asmodeus waved his hand in a lazy, dismissive arc. “Well ... assuming the tribute lives long enough to manage one, that is.” He laughed, and the sound was vicious and cruel and cutting. “However, my warriors have not been granted the same boon. They will have to earn their kills through steel and strength alone to prove their worth to me in this arena tonight.”

Her pulse was pounding in her temples as she regarded each weapon, her palms turning slick with sweat.

What good was a weapon if she didn’t know how to use it? She was more likely to injure herself than do any real damage to someone else.

She anxiously scanned the three options again. They’d clearly been crafted to suit her human stature, since she couldn’t imagine any demon wielding a weapon this small. Wrath’s champions were leagues above her height and weight class. The “smallest” of their ranks was easily two feet taller and at least a hundred pounds heavier than she was. Some of their weapons were longer than her and likely weighed just as much.

She glanced below to find that the endless rows of champions had gone utterly still. Then, as if on some silent cue, every visor tilted upward, and the collective focus of every single Marauder’s gaze settled on her all at once.

The world narrowed to a single, terrible point.

A deafening two-tone chime suddenly split the night air, and her heart stopped beating.

She glanced to the left just in time to see an enormous Wrath champion who stood a full head and shoulders above everyone else lift a spiked mace and send it crashing down into the skull of the closest Marauder.

Black blood spurted from the wreckage of his helmet, and the slain demon dropped dead to his knees. The giant Marauder used the momentum of the same swing to whip the mace sideways into the jaw of the next champion, spin on his heel, and then slam it into a third with a bone-shattering blow.

High above it all, the displays ticked down:

Champions Remaining: 104

Champions Remaining: 103

Champions Remaining: 102

For one suspended breath, not a single Marauder moved.

Then the powder keg ignited, and pure pandemonium erupted.

Armored bodies collided. Steel came up to clash against steel. Demons roared battle cries that devolved into guttural, splintering screams, and the first of many to fall were cut down.

Champions Remaining: 101

Champions Remaining: 100

Champions Remaining: 99

Champions Remaining: 98

Champions Remaining: 97

Libby stood rooted to the spot, her mouth open in silent horror. The violence below was incomprehensible, a churning mass of spraying blood where blades found throats and hearts and spines, the fallen crushed underfoot before they’d even finished dying.

However, not all of them were staying to fight. Clusters of Marauders had broken off from the fray and were weaving through the carnage, sidestepping duels and callously striding past the dead. Throngs of them were converging on the rock formations, gauntleted hands gripping stone as they began their upward ascent. Even more followed, resolving into a single, crawling mass of armored beetles that swarmed up the stone faces in relentless, gleaming ranks.

A shrill ringing flooded her ears, but her body was already moving on its own. Her fist slammed against the bloody sigil of le’elah, and the platform lurched into the air. She clung to the console, her heart lurching into her throat as her stomach dropped into her feet. She shot past rocky shelves and outcroppings, hurtling up through the cylindrical shaft cut into the center of the terrarium, the blur of stone rushing past a disorienting torrent of tri-colored streaks.

The platform glided to a stop with a stomach-turning lurch twenty feet below the cage’s vaulted ceiling. She exhaled shakily as she took in her new surroundings with wide, frantic eyes.

All three formations converged with her disc, their rocky protrusions flattening into shelves that jutted out to meet her platform’s outer rim.

She took in the three paths. The three impossible choices.

Now that she could see beyond her immediate surroundings, she was finally able to take in the monstrosity that Wrath had built to commemorate this event. The terrarium’s interior looked even larger than it had appeared from the outside. It was as if some spatial enchantment were in place, warping the landscape and allowing it to accommodate near-mountains in a space that only spanned a few city blocks.

Somewhere below, a veritable army of armored killers were slaughtering each other for the right to hunt her, for the chance to secure a fucking promotion and whatever constituted an eternal life in Hell.

The sovereigns floated only a handful of stories overhead, their platforms encircling the pointed crimson peak of the cage’s outer bars. Servants flitted between them. They bore trays of crystalline goblets and things that gleamed wetly in the glare of the arena’s bright lights. Their shameless revelry made her stomach turn, and she forced herself to look away before her anger could distract her from the very real threat climbing toward her.

A surge in the crowd’s cheers dragged her attention downward, and she stumbled to the edge of the platform on unsteady legs, swearing as she peered over the side.

What had to be at least two dozen Marauders were clearing where the platform had been only moments before and climbing higher with every passing second. Despite the arena’s sweltering temperature, a cold sweat broke out along her spine, the world tilting dangerously the longer she looked down. She twisted in time to see one warrior reach out and seize another’s ankle, wrenching him loose and sending his body crashing into two others on the way down. They plummeted to the bottom in a tangle of limbs, angry snarls ripping from their throats up until they plunged into the molten river below.

Indecision warred in her chest as her gaze swept across the ridgelines of the three formations.

Fuck fuck fuck. How was she going to do this? She couldn’t think, not with her heart trying to punch its way through her ribs the longer she watched.

Libby let her eyes fall shut, trying to force her racing thoughts to coalesce into something that resembled an actual, coherent strategy.

She needed to find the most obscure corner of this hellscape and wait this out until enough of them were dead and pray they were too busy killing each other to notice that she was missing.

That was the only chance she had. Because right now, the odds were so insurmountable that they were encroaching on impossible.

She also needed to fucking get it together. If she didn’t, she was going to get caught standing there like an idiot the moment Wrath’s champions reached the top.

She could wait to have her breakdown until after she was dead. Or, that stupid wisp of hope whispered, once she was free.