Heretic Spellblade 2 Page 19

  “Consider it a lesson,” Nathan said.

  He raised his sword and unleashed a spell. His Champion charged in, flames flickering around her body.

  The manticore went down in short order. As Nathan had said earlier, greater demons were weaker than monogem Champions. The issue was that they were still dangerous, and he didn’t want Fei exhausting herself or getting seriously injured.

  “To me,” Fei shouted, gesturing for her knights to pull back.

  The knights began to peel away from the demons. Arrows and fire rained down around them. They were surrounded and getting back to the postern gate would be an effort.

  Shouting erupted from the walls. Nathan spotted Seraph gesturing wildly.

  Slowly, Nathan realized the beat of the drums had changed. The constantly increasing tempo had shifted to something quite different. It felt familiar, but very out of place on a battlefield.

  Almost like something he’d expect in a ballroom.

  Or maybe the bedroom, Nathan thought when he saw the reason for Seraph’s panic.

  Because the Messenger had finally arrived.

  Chapter 20

  If Nathan suspected that Kadria had misled him earlier, now he was certain of it.

  Kadria had described the Twins as the same breed of Messenger as her. Just as demons had physical similarities to one another, like manticores, Nathan had assumed he would be facing a pair of demonic Messengers with broadly similar physical and magical traits.

  Nothing could be further from the truth. If pressed, Nathan might compare the bronzed skin and four curly goat horns of Kadria to the woman floating in the air above the demonic horde. But that’s where any similarities ended.

  Kadria was a petite, lithe woman who lacked fat anywhere beside her thighs and hips. This half of the Twins was a big girl, in several ways.

  Bronzed skin, curly goat horns, tits nearly larger than her head, thighs thicker than her waist, long white hair, and a frame thick enough that Nathan doubted he could find bone even if he tried. The Twin looked like an extremely healthy girl, and she had all of the curves. Unlike Kadria, she didn’t wear jewelry or decorations. Her clothes were plain, consisting of a simple knee-length white dress with a black trim, although it showed her plentiful cleavage.

  From this angle, Nathan confirmed that was all she was wearing.

  “That’s absolutely a succubus,” Nathan said aloud. He’d wondered if Kadria was one, given her endless desire for sex. Now he wondered if his Messenger was a defective one, and the Twins were the real deal.

  Then again, Kadria had wiped out Nathan’s defenses before he had even had a chance to fight. The Twins were putting up a fight, but nothing too impressive.

  Perhaps Nathan would hold off on calling Kadria a defective anything.

  “A what?” Fei asked, puzzled.

  “Sex demon,” Nathan said. “They’re a myth. Or were, I guess.”

  Supposedly, a succubus had helped bring down Arcadia in his timeline. Trafaumh had stopped it. Jafeila had told Nathan about it, as she had been working for Trafaumh at the time.

  Fei’s eyes narrowed. “We’re going back to the castle. Now!”

  Although he agreed with her order, Nathan felt that Fei had ulterior motives. He blew a hole through the ranks of the demons. Spotting it, the knights began to retreat. They carried their wounded with them.

  The endless swarm of demons bore down on them. Fei’s breath came out in ragged rasps. Her muscles looked like steel cords as she hurled blue flames in every direction. Sweat poured off her. The gem in her collarbone shined like a beacon, and her knights used it like a guide while they fled.

  Nathan ordered an automaton to open the postern gate. Some demons tried to sneak in, but they were cut down by the automatons waiting on the other side.

  Then they were back inside, the gate slamming shut behind them.

  The drums continued in their strangely alternating beat and slower tempo. The succubus Messenger seemed to view her attack as a dance. Or perhaps a seduction.

  Nathan grimaced.

  Maybe he should have visited Kadria. Everything had happened so fast that a visit to his office would have been suspicious. Leopold was already furious with him. If Nathan’s relationship with Kadria was discovered, everything could be over within minutes.

  But at the same time, Nathan found himself almost completely in the dark.

  Kadria had wanted to do something to help him with the Twins when they had first spoke, but he didn’t know what. More recently, she had suggested that the Twins weren’t going to use their full strength.

  Something about how Doumahr wasn’t ready for two Messengers at once yet.

  The Twins were apparently here to play, not to destroy the world. Nathan couldn’t tell anybody else that, and he didn’t want to. The other warning Kadria had given him was that although the Twins might not kill Nathan, they wouldn’t hesitate to murder everybody else.

  Particularly their competition. Now that he knew the Twins were succubi, he had a better understanding of what was going on and why Kadria kept saying they wanted to take him on a date.

  If he lost here, he might not die, but he probably wasn’t going to be a Bastion anymore.

  It was going hard to defend a fortress from a Messenger when he was firmly planted in their crotch every night.

  Nathan tried not to think about Kadria, or what her seduction attempts implied. She appeared to be a succubus as well. Was her aim to gain a powerful husband and retire to a peaceful world? He knew next to nothing about what Messengers wanted.

  By the time he and Fei reached the top of the walls, his thoughts were an absolute mess. He decided that thinking was a waste of time.

  The smart thing to do was defeat the Twins now and worry about Kadria and the entire concept of Messengers later.

  “Any idea what she’s capable of?” Seraph asked. She twirled her tonfas absentmindedly. Now that the manticore was dead, she didn’t have anything to do.

  “Nathan says she’s a sex demon,” Fei said.

  The beastkin knights listened in from nearby. They fanned out across the wall and prepared to fight off any demons that climbed it. Those close by could listen in, and their pricked-up ears were a sure sign they were interested.

  “Sex demon?” Seraph repeated dubiously. “You mean a succubus? What makes you so certain?”

  “You do see the same thing I do, right?” Nathan asked.

  Seraph looked at the flying Messenger. The Twin wasn’t doing much. Her fingers twirled her hair, and she stared into space. A nonexistent wind caused her dress to flutter—Nathan assumed she was using magic to make it move.

  “Do you assume all extremely attractive women are succubi?” Seraph asked.

  “No, but when their bodies are almost physically distorted to be that attractive, I do.” Nathan shook his head. “It also explains the composition of her horde. Demonology records suggest that succubi are magically aligned demons.”

  “Aren’t they mythical?”

  “Yes, but there’s enough evidence to suggest that we fought them during the time Omria walked among us,” Nathan said, trying to explain away his knowledge. Seraph gave him a dubious look. “Trust me, please.”

  Fei and Seraph gave him an odd look he was beginning to recognize.

  “I believe we may be reaching the limits of ‘trust,’ but very well,” Seraph said, voice deathly low. “Know that I’m doing this only because you’re everything I’ve wanted in a Bastion. But I don’t like being kept in the dark for so long.”

  Both Seraph and Fei turned back to the approaching horde and Messenger.

  Before Nathan forgot, he reached out with his mind. He found his connection to Fei and refilled the reserve of power in her sapphire gem. A squeak escaped her, before a much more erotic moan leaked out. Her muscles relaxed and her tail made slow circling motions.

  The beastkin knights stared at their captain with a mixture of awe and jealousy. Once recovered, Fei wiped away some dro
ol at the edge of her mouth and pretended that nothing had happened.

  Nathan pointed at Seraph, who waved him off. That made sense. While Fei was a power-hungry minx that burned magic faster than a bankrupt noble bled gold, Seraph was all about efficiency.

  Down below, another manticore leaped forth, but a lance formed of molten steel and flames tore it apart less than a minute later. Lava poured off the lance and oozed down the hill, consuming hundreds of demons.

  “Sen’s new fifth rank spell looks rather nasty,” Seraph said.

  “It’s one of Ifrit’s specialties. An anti-Champion spell that then denies territory afterward. Even if her target dodges the spell, they have to avoid the lance afterward,” Nathan said.

  “Like I said, nasty.”

  “When do I get a new ability?” Fei asked, shooting puppy-dog eyes at Nathan.

  Soon, Nathan hoped. If war with the Federation was on the horizon, he needed a second sapphire for Fei.

  The demons poured forth. Twice, they reached the top of the walls.

  The first time the automatons pushed them back before either the Champions or beastkin knights arrived to help. Only a few demons made it past the constant rain of arrows and flesh-melting oil.

  But the second time was different. The demons began carrying the bodies of their kin on top of each other like shields. They couldn’t use corpses because those vanished within moments. Whatever magic brought demons to this world didn’t keep them around for long after they outlived their usefulness.

  The source of the “demon shields” was the fact that the arrows and ballista bolts didn’t finish them off. The demons died almost instantly to the barrages of fire from Sen and the battlemages, as well as the vats of magical oil. But the arrows were a different story. Demons crawled toward the wall with bodies resembling pincushions. Many lacked limbs or were missing chunks of their head from where ballistae had struck them.

  So far as Nathan knew, demons felt pain. They screamed when they were stabbed, and they feared destructive spells. But demons didn’t appear to have internal organs, and nothing seemed to slow them. They had more in common with Nathan’s automatons than any animal or living being on Doumahr.

  Those crippled demons became the shields of the rest of the horde as they climbed the walls. When the oil poured down, they were sacrificed to allow the other demons to get past. This was how the second wave reached the top of the wall in enormous numbers.

  “Damn, that happened a lot faster than I thought,” Nathan said. Demons weren’t usually this smart. The advantage Bastions had over them was their raw stupidity.

  Either the Twins had smarter demons at their disposal, or they had another trick. Most likely the latter. Once again, the possibility of mental magic came to mind.

  A wave of angry, red beasts roared as it crashed over the wall and onto the battlements. The bamboo archers pulled back, retreating behind the steel automatons and beastkin knights. Although they fired into the melee with unerring precision, they no longer provided artillery support.

  “Fei, have your companies sweep in opposite directions,” Nathan ordered. He grimaced as he saw demons leaping down from the wall. There were too many of them for his automatons to hold back. “I need you to head down and protect the catapults. It’s too early to call a retreat to the rear wall.”

  Seraph had already charged off. Her waves of energy blasted into demons, and Nathan saw occasional ripples in the air. Ordering her around was unnecessary, as she had as much experience as Nathan.

  After she snapped off a salute, Fei began shouting orders to her knights. They were cutting down the demons nearby, but her lieutenants immediately relayed her orders.

  Order was quickly restored, but the battlements became an extension of the battlefield below. The catapults and ritual circles closest to the outer wall were abandoned, and spearmen took up defensive lines in the earthworks below. Fei coated the ditches with blue flames, but the demons kept coming.

  The inability of the bamboo archers to bombard the approaching horde greatly increased the pressure on the walls. Nathan didn’t even attempt to estimate the countless thousands of demons they had slaughtered. More kept coming. This invasion appeared endless. The drums kept beating, and the Twin hovered above it all.

  Was it time to pull back? But that meant he wouldn’t have anywhere to retreat to once the Twin unleashed her power. If she had some ability to take out an entire wall, the battle would be over instantly.

  No, he had to weather this storm. That meant he needed some way to retake the wall. He noticed that Fei’s reserves were running dry, so he quickly topped her up while she took a breather, then formed a plan.

  Or he had intended to, at least.

  “Why are you still fighting, my love?” a voice like a summer’s day shouted across the battlefield. Somehow, that voice whispered directly into Nathan’s mind at the same time. Other words accompanied her shouting, and Nathan wasn’t sure if anybody else heard them.

  “Please. Only us. Come. You’re so huge. Forget them,” the voice whispered, alongside many other sweet nothings.

  Nathan’s vision blurred. The demons in front of him congealed into a red mass, then vanished entirely. He saw the edge of the wall and the crenellations. In the distance, the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on hovered. She glowed.

  He took a step forward. Something held him back. His body felt heavy, as if it knew this was wrong. His muscles were like lead, and his blood ran thick enough that he felt that his heart was choking. If somebody cut him open, he wasn’t even sure if his blood would be liquid.

  “You want us. We want you. We can play forever,” the voice continued. “You can forget that silly little goat.”

  Little goat? His mind tried and failed to focus on somebody who came to mind from the image.

  He took another step. Then another. The wall was so close. Nothing else mattered.

  “Nathan!” a familiar voice shouted in his ear. He barely heard it.

  Something grabbed his arm. The sensation felt distant, as if his arm was miles away.

  “Nathan, what are you doing?” He recognized the voice suddenly.

  A moment later, a pulse of magic blasted through him. It didn’t hurt him, because Champions can’t hurt him, but it cleared his head. He shook off the rest of the feeling running through his body.

  Seraph stared at him in confusion, one of her arms wrapped around his. It was a deeply uncomfortable sensation, due to the bulky tonfas she wore.

  Her expression relaxed when he stared back at her.

  “You’re back. Finally. I almost didn’t believe you about her being a succubus. Now I do,” Seraph said. “I think you need to retreat, before you break your legs stumbling over the edge.”

  Nathan realized what had happened.

  The Twin had hit him with a mental attack. Some form of suggestion that tried to make him jump over the edge. No, to make him head toward her.

  Looking toward the succubus, he saw her looking at him, arms outstretched. She gave him a broad smile and blew a kiss his way.

  “I don’t think breaking my legs was the intention,” Nathan drawled. His body no longer felt heavy, besides a specific part of it. He willed his erection to go away. This was a battlefield, and it felt deeply uncomfortable to have one while wearing full armor.

  “Nathan—” Seraph tried to say.

  The next moment, the Twin opened her mouth and began to weave another seduction spell.

  Nathan dove into his mental world. Time dilated as he drew on the power of his binding stones, granting him plenty of time to figure out a plan to protect himself mentally.

  “My, your mind is as impressive as your cock,” the Twin’s voice whispered in his mind. He felt something run across his crotch. “My name’s Laura. You’re Nathan, aren’t you? Kadria’s told me all about you.”

  Oh, shit.

  Chapter 21

  Nathan whirled, but he was the only being in his mental world. Giggles echoed aroun
d him, and invisible hands caressed his body beneath his armor and clothes.

  This should be impossible. He knew from experience that Messengers were affected by the time dilation effect of the binding stone, just like any other being. What made the Twins special?

  Were they truly more powerful than Kadria? Did he even have a chance?

  He shut down that line of thinking. Giving up in advance was the path of defeat. He was a survivor. He had won so many battles and lived for so long because he had always searched for a path to victory, no matter how bad things got. Only Kadria had pushed him to use his ultimate contingency.

  Within his mental world, his binding stones and leylines glowed with their powerful magical presences. Tethers ran between them as per normal.

  Oddly, the tether connecting Nathan with Kadria was visible for once. Normally, he barely felt it. Now, it was a fat pulsing tendril of power attached to the binding stone at Gharrick Pass. There seemed to be another binding stone at the far end, one that felt oddly familiar, but he wasn’t connected to it.

  A moment later, he lost that feeling of the binding stone. The tether remained, but he suspected that Kadria had cut him off from sensing anything on the other end. What was she up to?

  So far as he could tell, she wasn’t draining power from his binding stones, and he lacked the power to stop her from doing anything. If this was the strength of the tether she had attached to him, it was several orders of magnitude stronger than anything he even knew could be created.

  A hand began caressing his length in earnest, and Nathan grit his teeth. This might be his mental world, but he didn’t have time to waste.

  “Get out of my head,” Nathan muttered.

  He summoned as much power as he could from his binding stone. Mental wards weren’t his specialty. That was likely how Kadria had crushed him so easily in his timeline. But he had been learning more about them recently, and he wasn’t going to lose like this.

  Something slipped past his focus while he was casting. He didn’t have the time to deal with it. It was either cast his ward now, or let the Twin have her way with him.