~~Three years before the Arrival~~

~~Jeskura~~

Her stomach was going to get her killed.

She stepped closer to the hole, talons scratching over the stones of the mountain, and she took a deep breath as leaned over the pit to take a peek. Of all the mountains in Gorzen she’d explored in her life, she’d never come to this one. Scary stories. Humans dying in the mountains was perfectly normal, but demons? She shivered and rubbed one of her wings with the back of her claws.

She looked up and sighed. The brimstone clouds were settling, and the burning vortex grew darker ever second. Night was coming. Go back home? Home, in her delightful little hole in a mountainside, she could sleep for the night and go on a hunt tomorrow. She’d be safe, no one would find her while she slept, and she’d be rested and less likely to break her fucking neck on Thorn Mountain. God damn, maybe her tree might have even grown some fruit?

Probably not. If she went back to her hideout, she’d be sleeping through the night hungry, get shit sleep at that, and wake up even more tired. No, she had to complete this hunt now, instead of betting on her tree being unusually charitable.

“Well Thorn Mountain, if you don’t mind, please don’t kill me? K? K.” With a quiet gulp, she perched on the edge of the large hole, practically a portal into a second Hell from the looks of it, and sank her talons into the stone of the mountains for grip.

She stared down at the hole, and at the bloodgrip vines and the blood on its thorns. Stupid humans just never learned. It was called bloodgrip for a reason. Well, whoever it was she was hunting, they were dumb, and following the smell would be easy with the idiot leaving behind a literal blood trail. If the fucker got himself killed before she could get his resonance, she was going to cry, cry like a fresh hatchling.

She breathed deep the scent of his resonance, and licked her lips and fangs as her stomach growled at her. Yeah yeah. She reached up and ran her claws along her horns a few times, then down her head’s tendrils as she hooked her wings over her shoulders and around her neck like a cloak. Having her wings spread in the hole would just get her hurt, torn up on bloodgrip. Not good.

She sank her claws into the vine, careful of the angry thorns jutting from its dry, brown skin, and she climbed down. And down. And down. Yeap, this hole was where she was going to die, deep in Thorn Mountain where people knew to not go, cause fuck Thorn Mountain.

A thorn scraped against her wing, and she froze. A few amber veins lined the large hole, tiny and mostly buried in thorny vine, providing just enough light for her to see a vine cut across the center of the hole and nudge her wing. Fucking. Wonderful. She tightened her wings to her back as best she could, and kept going down, cause while that thorn might have drawn a bit of her blood, she could smell a lot more blood from the fucking human that didn’t have the God damn decency to just let her eat him.

So, like any demon, she followed her stomach.

A tug on her horns almost got her panicking, but she forced herself to take a deep breath, and pull her head down. The vine scraped along the horn, thorns digging into it fruitlessly, and she sighed relief as she got past the vine. With her long, thick tail hanging beneath her, she felt around in the darkness for anymore fucking bloodgrip, going slower. She was stupid enough to follow her stomach into a big pit, but not stupid enough to let it kill her. Hopefully.

Her tail found ground, and she hopped off the wall. She landed silently, wings catching the air as she unhooked her wing claws from around her neck. Ok, landed, still alive, and only bleeding a little. Could have been a lot worse. And no way her prey was coming out that hole, meaning she was free to continue the hunt.

And damn, it was dark. Most caves had more amber, veins that caught the magma streams and let some light in. Not Thorn Mountain, no, because it was, as the humans put it, a shit hole. She groaned under her breath, and stepped over to the nearest visible wall. She placed her claws against it, and grinned. Blood, human blood, trails of it lined the amber veins. Her prey had come to the obvious conclusion that their only chance of not dying a horrible, thorny death, was to follow the light, what little the amber veins here provided.

They had to know this chase was doomed. The fuck was a stupid wanderer going to do in Thorn Mountain, other than die horribly, bleeding and spilling their guts as if they’d tried to climb through a patch of ... of ... what’d humans call it? Barbed wire? She’d check the scrying pool later to find out the name.

She leaned forward and prowled ahead, body low, tail out behind her to keep her balance as she stalked on her talons. Slow steps, quiet steps, so not even the stones of the cave announced her presence. There was enough room she could unhook her wings from her shoulders and keep them out a little, ready to spread to their full length and help her run someone down if she had to. But the amber veins were tiny, and didn’t catch much of magma, leaving the cave too damn dark for running or flying.

So, prowling it was. Zel told her once she needed to slow the fuck down and learn patience. Now was a perfect opportunity, cause if she didn’t, she’d get herself killed.

Drops of blood, barely lit by the amber, took her deep into the mountain, and deeper, and deeper, until the air grew thick and stale. The wanderer she was chasing didn’t know this mountain used to have demons living it, from the Spires War. That meant traps and other nasties.

Fuck, she was going to be so damn pissed if her prey died before she could find him.

The tunnel opened up into a large cavern, and she stopped in the entrance as she looked the huge room up and down. Holy shit. This must have been one of Valzanal’s torture rooms. Demons from the Third Age were fucking assholes that tortured wanderers they captured for the fucking fun of it. Some holdover idiocy from the old legion, probably. There were still a lot of demons like that, but not to this point, with actual torture devices. Christ, one of the nearby devices looked like one of those chairs humans on the surface sat in so someone could shove something up their ass. And in Thorn Mountain, that something would probably make the surface’s pineapples look gentle.

Jeskura shivered as she stepped up to one of the torture racks up against the cave wall. Made of black metal, the damn thing was obviously meant to cut up skin without immediately killing the human. Jesus fucking Christ, the fuck was the point in that? Just eat and be done with it.

She moved along. It wasn’t long before she found some bones, and she sniffed them as she passed them. More wanderers, long dead. She touched one, and the bone crumbled, femur turning into dust. Holy shit, how long had—

Something groaned, and she jumped back, every muscle tightening and her claws digging into the stone beneath her as she prepared to fight. But nothing came at her, no lunging, frothing wanderer with an axe or anything. Frowning, she stood up again in her prowling stance and moved forward, squinting to see in what little light the weak amber provided.

Movement, along the walls. More groans in the darkness, and shifting silhouettes that cut across what light she had down here in the black. She took a deep breath, and stalked forward more slowly, turning each step into a touch test. And as she sank deeper into Thorn Mountain, she grit her teeth as her eyes adjusted to the increasing dark.

Remnants reached out from the walls, emaciated skin highlighting their frail bodies, eyes wide with both pain, and emptiness. Hairless bodies scarred with burns swiped at her, long, cracked fingernails, and lower bodies merged into the walls. Some had their stomachs open and guts hanging out, and the stupid bastards were too dumb to even try pushing them back in. They moaned, groaned, and slowly waved their arms at her as they reached out for her, tears on their cheeks, probably thinking she could free them, if they could think at all.

She pulled her wings in snug around her like a cloak again, and stood up straight as she stepped past them. Fucking remnants. She bit down her snarl; wouldn’t be good to make noise her prey might hear. But, as she continued stalking forward, she couldn’t help but look to the remnants around her. 34. 45. 322. 121. 99. Dozens more. The numbers carved in their foreheads caught just enough light from nearby amber that she could read them, despite the squirming and pained, slow wriggling.

The fuck had Val done to have so many remnants in one hallway? Sweet Jesus, the power she must have wielded for remnants to emerge here. Diogo’s home had remnants, sure, and there were always remnants at the Spire, thousands and thousands of them. But down here deep in a mountain with nothing but bloodgrip and stone, there was no reason for remnants to grow, especially now that Val was dead.

The fuck did Val do down here?

One of the remnants managed to get a hold of her tail, and she growled as she turned to face the fucking thing. A slash of her claws, straight down through the thing’s — some old man — face, and he collapsed, body going limp. Like the others, he stuck out from the wall at the waist with no lower body, and he dangled down against the remnants below him. They didn’t respond, groaning more and still reaching out for Jes. The one she cut, the number on his forehead changed from 121 to 120, before the remnant began to collapse.

Collapse, like, come apart at the joints collapse. Off came the head, the limbs, the guts, they all spilled down over the remnants below him in a waterfall of blood and gore. She frowned down at the sensation of the blood against the balls of her talons, and continued on. Just a remnant, useless, no nourishment there.

Through the groans and past the moans, she heard shuffling feet shift across stone. A pebble hit rock, and she snapped her gaze back to the path ahead. Dark, not enough amber to see anymore than ten feet, but if the human had gotten this far through this path, then she could risk some speed.

The tunnel went on for a while, and she did a better job keeping her tail away from the remnants. They dangled from the walls, from the ceiling, and every so often some poor bastard grew up from the floor, often with only their face emerged. They never stopped groaning in pain, a chorus of misery and agony she was very familiar with from her days in the Death’s Grip spire, but that didn’t change how fucking fucked up it was. One of them, some bitch dangling from overhead, managed to get a hand around one of Jes’s horns, but remnants were too weak to do anything but cling like little hatchlings. Jes yanked her head free and suppressed the urge to kill this one too. Last thing she needed was body parts raining on her.

Ten minutes of sneaking through the tunnel of the damned — probably what that bitch Val called it — and she was finally out. It came out to a cliff edge, except she was deep under a fucking mountain, so calling it a cliff didn’t make sense. She crept low, getting on all fours as she peered over the lip of the edge, and she peered around into the vast darkness, doing her best to catch what amber light she could.

A huge cavern, with stalactites and stalagmites; nasty, sharp and jagged copies of their surface sisters. Bones everywhere, mostly human, some not. Remnants dangled from various chunks of wall, some with amber veins cutting over their limbs and burning them, others dangling by ankles or waists from the stalactites. And there was more. Bits of metal sat around, probably meera from how the black color shined, swords, battle axes, armor with enough curve and mass to protect the muscles on demons a shit load bigger than Jes, like devorjin and borjin, maybe even a fujara.

It was an arena. The cliff edge she hid along circled the pit, with plenty of stalagmites for holding onto and standing around. She could picture it easily, demons of the second generation, demons like Val, cheering on as brutes fought each other, or fucked each other, probably with humans caught in the middle in both circumstances. Considering it was Val’s arena, it wouldn’t be good for the humans either way.

Noise drew her attention down to the pit. Not the groans of the remnants; basically just background noise at this point. Someone was moving around down there in the pit, and with how little amber there was down there, with no bush fires nearby, shit was dark. Shit was really fucking dark.

But it was a big open cavern. She wasn’t some fucking tregeera or devorjin, she was a God damn gorgala. With a small grin, she licked her fangs, spread her wings, and took to the air. Plenty of room below the stalactites, and she took a deep breath as she soared over the spikes below. A hint of amber here, a hint of amber there, but never enough for her to get a good look at what was beneath her. The human was in there somewhere, she could smell him, and she was going to find him.

One of the bigger rock spikes that stuck out from the ground, close to the center of the arena, didn’t have the same jagged edges as the others. She glided toward it, caught her weight on it with claw and talon, hooked her wings to her shoulders and back again, and looked below. Noise. Someone below her grunted and growled, and it didn’t sound human. Fuck.

She snarled as quiet as she could manage, and lowered herself down the huge spike, one slow step at a time. Another deep whiff confirmed her worry: another demon was in here, and probably for the same reason she was. Fuck fuck.

She hopped down, and marched forward toward the sound. All sense of caution, gone. All worry and fear, tossed to the lava pits. Someone else had found her meal, and she wasn’t going to let that happen. She—

“What the fuck!?” As she stepped around another enormous stone spike, she found the body of her prey. A man, probably in his thirties, naked and fat and oozing sweat and blood. He was missing his arm, and a chunk of his back. Someone had gotten to him, killed him so fast he didn’t get to scream, and had already eaten chunks of him. Someone ... someone who sat by the prey’s head at this very moment.

A riiva demon. She squatted beside the wanderer’s torso, her hoof feet surrounded in his blood. She had the man’s heart in her hands, and she bit into it with gusto. That bitch.

Whoever she was, she stood up quick once she saw Jes, and stared at her. Or at least, probably stared at her. Riiva demons had four horns, two that came up out of the back and side of their head, like Jes and other gorgala’s, but they also had a couple that came out of where eyes would normally be. Big, beautiful horns, sure, but riiva demons were strange in how they didn’t really see, they sensed. How they sensed, no one knew for sure, cause they didn’t fucking speak Estian. Understood it, but didn’t speak it.

No wings on a riiva, and no tail either; this one was no different. Typical colors, lots of black, with red where the skin was soft, like Jes. A human face, like Jes, except for the giant horns coming out of a dark bone plate where eyes should have been. Humans called them satyrs sometimes. Riiva didn’t have tendrils though, but that just made their four huge horns really pop. Fucking beautiful.

Except this beautiful bitch was eating her prey!

“I’ve been chasing this wanderer for hours, you fucking ... arg!” She stomped over to the riiva, flared her wings, and stared at where her eyes should have been. “I should kill you! I should—”

Something happened then, that Jes was pretty sure was impossible. Never in her whole God damn life, not even as a hatchling, had this ever happened. The skies practically opened up, and for just a fucking God damn second, Jes could understand why the angels insisted on being such fucking assholes with sticks jammed right up their tight asses.

The riiva held out the half of the heart still left, to her.

“ ... you ... you’re giving this to me?”

The riiva nodded, and clicked in her throat several times. A high pitched, pleasant sound, almost like the dolphins Jes had seen in her scrying pool, but softer.

Jes squinted, obviously suspicious, and reached out for the heart. As she did, she braced her talons for a fight, digging them into the stone underneath them, but when her claws took the heart, the riiva didn’t attack. Demons fucking loved to attack when someone lowered their guard, but this one didn’t. Hell, she smiled, a tiny thing, and took a step back once Jes had the prize.

Jes kept her eyes on the riiva when she bit into the heart, but it was damn hard to keep her eyes open. So good. So damn good. The resonance dripped down her throat and filled her with the happy buzz she’d been craving, and the hunger vanished. The next bite turned the buzz into a full on bliss high, and she groaned as she scarfed down the flesh. Not that the flesh mattered. The resonance in the flesh, that was the good shit, that was what made the heart so God damn fucking amazing.

“Th ... thanks,” she said as she wiped her lips. “But, uh, why share?”

The riiva shrugged, and clicked a few times as she gestured to Jes.

“Yeah, I get that he was my prey, but I was just angry. You know the deal, riiva. Finders keepers. You got him. Didn’t have to share.” Of course, there wasn’t any reason Jes couldn’t have fought her for the kill, either, unless the riiva was an enforcer. Damn unlikely, though.

The riiva shook her head, dragged a finger along a stalagmite near an amber vein, and drew some runes. Riiva couldn’t speak Estian, but they generally knew enough to write some basic words, or their name. In this case, name.

“Daoka?”

Daoka nodded, and clicked her voice a few more times enthusiastically.

Jes couldn’t help but smile. God damn it, this riiva was cute. Whoever Daoka was, she was dressed for battle, same as Jes, lots of thin meera metal plates strapped to her chest, stomach, thighs and calves, bent, scratched, and dented with history. She had the skull of a devorjin on one shoulder, and those were big mother fuckers, so whoever this Daoka was, she had chops. Or she was a scavenger.

“Daoka. How’d you get down here? Different hunt?” Jes asked.

Daoka nodded.

“Been hunting here for a while?”

Dao held up three claws.

“Three days, nasty. Surprised one of Val’s traps hasn’t got you.”

With a heavy sigh, Daoka squatted down over their prey, and leaned her head forward, exposing a nasty gash under one of the larger horns.

“Ouch. Well, you ... you didn’t have to share, but you did.” Jes squatted down next to her, and held out her hand. “Thanks. I’m Jeskura.”

Daoka stared at her — probably — and after a time of what was probably some shock, took her hand. Yeah, this wasn’t exactly common behavior, and they both knew it.

“Don’t be like that,” Jes said, laughing. “You were nice to me, first.”

Dao clicked a few times, quiet things, and she looked down. Almost looked like she was ashamed, but without eyes, it was damn hard to tell.

“K, well, I’m fed. I’m heading back to my den.”

Dao’s head shot up at the word ‘den’, before slowly lowering to look back down at their meal. Dao’s meal, really, considering she’d jumped the wanderer, and killed him so damn fast Jes hadn’t even heard it. That took some skill.

“What? That why you been down here for three days? No den?” Jes asked.

A shudder ran through the riiva’s body before she nodded, clicking quietly. A sad sound.

“This ... this isn’t a good place to hide just cause you have no den. This mountain’s going to kill you.” Jes gestured at Dao’s head and the gash on the back of it. “What, did you get into trouble with Diogo? Can’t be seen around Gorzen?”

Again, Daoka sighed, and ripped off another chunk of the kill. They got the heart already, that’s where the resonance was. Everywhere else was just scraps, with only little bits of resonance. Shit to feed to cannam. If she was willing to eat more of the human, other chunks of muscle and skin, just to get a sliver more resonance, than she was hungrier than Jes was.

“Ok, you’re coming home with me.”

Dao tilted her head as she looked up at Jes. Didn’t need eyes to show confusion. So Jes just laughed, shrugged, and took her hand.

“I don’t care what happened between you and Diogo. I have a score to settle with that sack of shit already.” She shrugged again, and pulled Dao up to her hooves. “You can sleep a lot better there than down here. Fuck me, I just know some leerp is gonna come around and get into my brain, if I slept down here.” Laughing, she pointed at her temple and pretended a leerp was worming its way into her skull through her ear.

Dao chuckled, and smiled. A big, happy smile, big enough to show her fangs. She had a cute smile, despite the sharpness of her chin and cheeks. Well, that was riivas for you, though this was the first one Jes had ever met that’d been generous. And damn it, that was like finding a forbidden fruit in a pile of shit stains like Diogo.

“Seriously though, fuck Diogo.”

Dao’s following smile and nod sealed it: the girl had bad history with the local fuckhead.

“I don’t care if he’s the bailiff, I’m gonna kill that sack of shit the moment I get the chance.”

Dao gasped and clicked a bunch in panic.

“Don’t gimme that. More than just me looking to off that bastard.”

Dao let out a long sigh, nodded, and chirped a few times. Quietly, as if Diogo might be listening.

Jes stopped, and looked at the riiva closely. “You’re afraid of him.” Dao hiding didn’t necessarily mean she was afraid of the bailiff. But her new friend’s response did.

Any normal demon would deny being afraid of anything. Of course, self respecting demons got themselves killed because of that pride, all the fucking time. Smart demons knew how to admit fear. And Dao looked down as she nodded.

“Yeah, me too.”

The riiva’s head lifted, startled, and Jes had to yank her head back to avoid the horns. Big horns on them riiva demons.

“But he’s just a devorjin. Dumb as all fuck. I’ll drop a big rock on him or something.”

That managed to earn a chuckling chirp from Dao, but her head lowered a moment later. Yeah, she knew the problem with Jes’s plan. Not only would dropping a giant rock on a devorjin probably not kill them, Diogo was just a little smarter than your average devorjin. He might actually look up.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

The walk back to the entrance was infinitely less scary with a friend. Eyeless demons handled the dark a lot better, and Daoka took lead, guiding Jes through and between stalagmites, up over the rocky wall of the pit, and back up to the outer edge that led to the tunnel.

“So, Dao, how—” Even with Dao in lead, there wasn’t any way the hoofed demon could avoid every spiky, nasty thing on the ground. So naturally, Jes tripped, the smooth side of her talons catching some vine. “Shit!” Down she went, onto a whole fucking bunch of stone and darkness. She managed to land on her hands at least, but some bloodgrip got her along the wrists and palms, and she growled with pain. “Fuck.”

Dao turned and squatted down in front of her, head tilted to the side; seemed to be her ‘are you ok?’ body posture. Slowly, she helped Jes back to her feet, and took a moment to gently run her fingertips along Jes’s skin, careful with her claws. That was a lot more touching than Jes expected from the riiva, but she didn’t stop her. Eyeless demons could feel things other demons couldn’t. Besides, she was hot.

“I’m fine I’m fine. Just, this place is such a pain in the ass without light. And the walls, all the fucking bloodgrip, big problem if I get it in the wings.” If they had some bushfire, it’d be easy enough to make a torch, but she didn’t see any bushes. “No wonder gorgala avoid these caves. One false step and I’m grounded for days.” And getting around Hell wouldn’t be easy without her wings.

Dao chirped happily, took Jes’s less injured hand, and got walking. Jes blinked down at the riiva, her three-fingers-one-thumb clawed grip, and how she guided Jes forward like she was guiding a hatchling. It was God damn adorable, except, Jes was on the adorable side of action, and she wasn’t used to that. She was badass, a fighter. She had three vratorin skull trophies dangling off her hip! She was not used to someone actually going out of their way to help her.

Felt nice, honestly, and Jes smiled down at Dao’s hand. It also worked following her, since Dao didn’t have a tail or wings or anything to get in Jes’s way. If there’d been more light than just a few amber veins, and if Dao hadn’t been wearing metal armor like Jes, it’d have been a great opportunity to check out her ass, too. Riiva demons always had great asses, jumping around like they did.

The walk through the tunnel with all the remnants sucked. Jes stayed low. Dao stayed super low, with how big her horns were. The crying faces, the swiping hands, the moans and groans, the thousands of fingers, it sent a chill through Jes’s body just as bad as the first time.

“Valzanal must have been a really bad bitch, to earn this,” Jes said, gesturing around them at the remnants. She had to speak up, to get over the sounds of the damned.

Dao chirped, also loud enough to punch over the moans surrounding them.

“Yeah, horrible.” She ducked under one remnant who hung low from the ceiling. Another, she smacked with her tail, getting the fucker across the face. Better that than having the disgusting thing grab her. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around Gorzen Mountains. You from the Crag?” Most riiva were.

Daoka nodded, and chirped a few times. Soft, sad clicks.

“Shit went down in Gazra Crag with Tacitus?”

More clicks, sad and weak.

“That sucks. Sorry to hear that. I’ve never met Tacitus, but from the few times I’ve flown by the Crag, he seems to run things pretty tight, and he’s a sneaky fucker. Saw more than a few demons skewered.” Not like it was only remnants getting tortured out there. Bailiffs did love to make examples of demons that stepped out of line. Caught stealing from a bailiff? Skewered on a big pyke of meera, right up the cunt or ass. Caught messing with the bailiff’s enforcers? Skewered. Caught getting a piece of ass from the bailiff’s favorite betrayers, fucking or eating? Skewered. Caught taking any fruit from any forbidden tree the bailiff might have? Skewered.

Doaka shivered, clicked several times, quietly, and shook her head as she stepped out of the tunnel of remnants. Out here with more amber veins, it was easy to see Dao was scared.

“Well, I’ll help you get set up here in Gorzen. Until you are, you can stay at my place. Safe there, hidden.” And it had a treat waiting for them, if they were lucky.

Dao looked back at her, smile growing, and she nodded as they stepped into the subtle light of the hole above. Night had come. The red clouds above lost their light, the burning eye of the vortex shut tight, and the amber veins in the cave dimmed to a gentle glow. But it was still brighter than the pit they’d just come from. Not bright enough she felt comfortable climbing up through a deep hole with shit loads of bloodgrip everywhere, though.

“Uh, maybe we should wait till morning? I’m gonna get my wings all cut up climbing in the dark.”

Dao let go of her hand, tilted her head to face up into the hole above, and jumped, grabbing some rock and bloodgrip without issue. With a few happy chirps, she scrapped her hooves against nearby vines, and the dark hooves cracked them off. Crack crack crack. They fell like rain, and Jes smiled as she watched them bounce and roll along the cave floor. Daoka used her huge horns too, grinding them against some vines, hooking them, getting the back sides of the vines smooth before she moved onto the next one.

This girl was too nice. Maybe she’d be happier in the Geeraz Tombs? She was way too good for the likes of Gazra Crag, or Gorzen Mountains. Or Death’s Grip, for that matter. Maybe she’d be happier in Grave Valley? Fuck, that was so far away, but Jes had heard Azailia and her bailiffs weren’t such hard asses, like Zelandariel and Death’s Grip’s bailiffs were.

Leaving Death’s Grip? Ha. Fat fucking chance. The trip would kill them both.

Jeskura tightened her wings to her back and shoulders, nice and snug, and once Daoka created the room, she jumped up. She might not have had Dao’s legs, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t jump a good ten feet. Claws found vine, and she winced as she prepared for pain. No pain. Dao had done a damn good job.

It took them almost an hour to climb a hole Jes had originally come down through, slowly, in twenty minutes. Most of the time was spent waiting for Dao to clear a climbing path for Jes, but she worked fast, and Jes couldn’t help but chat while Dao worked. Clickers like Dao weren’t usually interesting to talk to, but this one was strangely fun, and good at getting a lot across with only pitch changes.

By the time they got to the top, they were both laughing. And that was strange. Christ, when was the last time Jes laughed when on a hunt? Two years? They—