Commerce Emperor - Chapter 7: The Berserk Flame

We had the Gilded Wolf surrounded by nightfall.

The two-floor establishment stood in the heart of Snowdrift’s slums, a bastion of sin and revelry in a sea of destitution. Much like the rest of the city, its timeworn facade bore the weight of a decade of decay. The marks of past brawls were etched into its wooden beams and walls like old battle scars, and the smell of ale and sweat hung heavy in the air around it.

The more I learned about the Gilded Wolf and its owner, Fenrivos, the less I liked it. On paper, Fenrivos was one of the few entrepreneurs left in the city. Exploiting the cataclysmic economic crisis to buy space on the cheap, he had houses destroyed to increase the Gilded Wolf’s size and expand its activities. When the inn opened its doors, locals and foreigners alike could enjoy a warm drink, the rush of furious gambling, and the pleasures of a courtesan’s company. All in all, the establishment reminded me of the House of Gold in Ermeline; except it catered to commoners with coins to spare rather than the noble elite.

But there were unsavory rumors in the slums about what happened in that place’s dark belly; of forbidden pleasures only available to a wealthier and more amoral clientele than the average sailor looking for drinks and women.

No one truly bothered to investigate Fenrivos, largely because he paid his taxes on time, helped keep the city afloat in these troubled times, and paid off inspectors. Alaire once found two men willing to testify against the man’s activities, but both were found dead in short order. The countess-to-be had planned to raid the place for a long time, only to be delayed by her grandfather’s illness.

Quite the fortuitous coincidence, if you asked me…

“We have closed off all access routes from the surrounding streets,” Alaire recounted to our group. The heiress had come equipped with a bastard sword, a buckler, an elegant helmet, and a chainmail shirt emblazoned with a silver pegasus emblem. “I even sent men to the sewers below. Nobody should be able to escape this place without a fight.”

Alaire and Marika saw to it that I came properly equipped for battle. They had me put on a lightweight metal breastplate over my padded gambeson, hardened leather vambraces and gauntlets to protect my arms, flexible legwear and chausses, and a strange helmet with a hinged peak projecting above the face opening. This ensemble should offer me good protection without sacrificing too much speed.

“What do you call this thing again?” I asked Marika while putting down the helmet’s hinged plate to cover my mouth and throat. “A sallet?”

“A burgonet,” Marika replied with a chuckle. She herself came in full plate armor and hid her face behind a visored helmet. She carried a sledgehammer too heavy for one hand to wield and a cloth bag on her back. Nothing decorated or fancy; just sturdy steel. “It’s called a burgonet, Robin. It should protect your head and maximize ventilation.”

“I don’t think there’s a weapon strong enough to beat some wisdom into his skull,” Alaire mused.

“Why would beating a skull make one wise?” Soraseo asked. Her crimson armor was by far the most elaborate of the gathered lot, though it surprised me she only came with her curved sword. I would have expected her to bring her shield for defense. “Beating skulls brings in stupid spirits.”

“No, that… forget it.” Alaire shook her head with a heavy sigh. “Remember that our goal is to capture prisoners and gather evidence. Corpses do not talk, so avoid a bloodbath if possible. Colmar can heal most injuries, but not death.”

“I don’t think a peaceful raid is in the cards,” I replied while drawing my rapier with one hand and my dagger with the other. I still struggled a bit with my essence sight, but even I managed to identify the dreadful aura radiating from the Gilded Wolf. This place reeked of evil. “The demon’s inside.”

Alaire nodded sharply. “Do you think you could contain it?”

To my surprise, Marika shook her head. “I’ve learned the price of letting a demon live,” she said. “You would regret it, Lady Alaire.”

“Demons do not surrender,” Soraseo added. “They lie to weaken the spirit and then strike at the back.”

“I see,” Alaire replied. “If you must kill to save your lives, no one will fault you for it.”

“So long as I am Lord Protector, lives will be fleeting, but the law will be eternal,” I quipped. Alaire rolled her eyes, but I ignored her. “I’m surprised you decided to come, Marika.”

“I don’t like fighting, but I can defend myself,” my friend replied with a shrug. “Your skill transfer will help, I won’t deny it.”

I hoped so. I was starting to run out of retired guards to buy experience from. I had a plan to get around the shortage with Soraseo’s help, but since she intended to leave Snowdrift in the near-future, that well would eventually run dry. Considering Marika’s status as a hero and exorcist, Alaire agreed to a permanent skill transfer to improve her survivability.

“This essence…” Marika’s hands gripped her sledgehammer tightly. “It’s just like that sword…”

“That sword?” I asked. Did she mean like Soraseo’s sword, which she exorcized not too long ago?

“I’ll tell you another time,” Marika replied evasively. “Soraseo, Robin, can you stay close to me? If things are as I expect to find them, I’ll require your assistance.”

“I’ve got your back,” I said. Soraseo offered a respectful nod of agreement. “Let’s go now.”

Alaire whistled, signaling the start of the raid. Two dozen guards surrounded the establishment, with our heroic team going in first. Soraseo kicked the Gilded Wolf’s front doors wide open, releasing a tempest of noise into the street.

The tavern was full when we arrived. Hundreds of patrons drank and partied in a vast hall under the glow of flickering torches. The dim light cast shadows on worn floorboards, tables covered with food platters, and more ale mugs than I had ever seen gathered in one place. A commanding barmaid with silver-streaked hair and a crimson gown presided over the revelry like a queen. A dozen waiters and waitresses attended to the needs of a motley lot of armed men too drunk for their own good, craftsmen looking for a good time, sailors drowning their sorrows in alcohol, and drunkards exchanging bawdy jests with one another. The clamor was almost deafening, to the point I could hardly understand the few minstrels singing in the room.

It said something about Alaire that her thundering shouts pierced through the noise. “City watch! Everyone on the floor!”

She can search me anytime, I thought, though I wisely kept that joke to myself. Guards with clubs invaded the hall like a conquering army, silencing any shout or protest with a strike to the face. The wisest of the patrons—the kind not too drunk to think—immediately laid down on the ground with groans and complaints. The stupider among them drew weapons or shouted back, only to be quickly subdued by the more experienced and better armored city guards. The tavern staff wisely called everyone to not resist and obey the law.

We subdued the hall within minutes. While Alaire began to interrogate the barmaid and staff, I took the occasion to look around the place, immediately noticing stairways connecting to the upper floors.

“Where does that lead?” I asked a waiter lying down on the floor.

“The brothel,” he answered with his hands behind his back. Such a shame we had a demon to kill and criminals to arrest, or I would have sampled the goods. For the sake of public safety, of course.

Marika pointed at a pair of sturdy, locked doors on the eastern side of the hall. “What about those?”

The waiter clenched his jaw. “The kitchens.”

I’d never seen someone lie so poorly. The dreadful essence I’d noticed earlier flowed out of the hinges and locks. Soraseo didn’t waste time. Her blade shredded wood and steel like paper, carving a path.

It even sounds sharper than most swords, I thought as Marika and I followed after Soraseo, with other guards short on our heels. Stairs leading down to the basement awaited us beyond the destroyed doors. A thunderous chorus reached my ears, quickly followed by the sound of clashing swords and cheering crowds.

The Gilded Wolf’s fighting pit awaited us below.

We entered stands overseeing a sunken arena from above. The crowd here was smaller and wealthier than the patrons above, since such an operation required deep pockets and vetting to avoid loose tongues, but there were still dozens of spectators. Six combatants ferociously clashed on a floor of dirt streaked with dried blood, surrounded by the leftover corpses of three other men and just as many dogs. The smell of blood, and the raucous cheers of the patrons, drove the sweating warriors into a furious frenzy. I heard patrons too absorbed by the fight to notice us betting on their favorite warriors.

Arenas were strictly regulated in most civilized societies since they often generated Blights. That one could operate in Snowdrift for years spoke volumes about how much the count’s grip on the city wavered in the wake of the plague.

Tall torches were mounted along the walls, but most of the light came from a fire box at the arena’s center: a burning yellow flame larger than a man and brighter than the summer sun. I felt my hero’s mark shine on my skin the moment I lay my eyes upon that dreadful pyre. The sheer amount of corrupted essence erupting from it was downright intimidating.

“It’s… it’s that flame…” Marika trembled in a mix of dread and anger. “This is bad.”

A bell’s toll echoed in the pit before I could ask for details, ceasing the fight below and silencing the crowd. My eyes darted towards the source of the noise: an isolated balcony opposing the stands we were currently in. A tall, middle-aged man with graying hair stood there with two armored guards next to a bronze bell. At first glance, the stranger would have looked rather unremarkable except for his richer than average clothes… but my essence sight immediately picked up the sinister red aura radiating from him.

We had found our demon.

“Gentlefolks of Snowdrift!” The fiend waved a hand at us. “Please, a round of applause for the three so-called ‘heroes’ who have blessed this arena with their presence today!”

The drunken men among the crowd roared in delight at our presence, though most became quiet upon noticing the guards at our back. The demon was heavily outnumbered, but he remained strangely confident. That worried me.

“Fenrivos, I suppose?” I asked, signaling to my allies to cut off the stands’ exits. “Were you expecting us?”

“It’ll be Lord Fenrivos for you, false one. My mistress foresaw that you would come here.” The demon grinned ear to ear as he glanced at the yellow fire in the arena’s midst. “Alas, you are too late. The berserk flame of Belgoroth has already supped on a steady diet of pain, hate, and misery.”

Marika tensed upon hearing the name ‘Belgoroth’, though it meant nothing to me. “Too bad, we’ve got enough water outside to douse it,” I said before waving a rapier at Fenrivos. “Get him, boys!”

Fenrivos exploded into laughter and the room’s temperature suddenly spiked.

The disaster started with a slight disturbance at the edge of my sight, a simmering tension in the air, and a flicker of the torchlights. While spectators and guards alike remained oblivious to it, my fellow heroes and I immediately sensed the encroaching malevolence. Marika’s mark glowed beneath her glove, as did mine, and Soraseo’s let out a silvery light from under her helmet. The essence in the air thickened with corruption.

Marika, the only exorcist among us, let out a shout of warning. “Blight!”

The flame at the arena’s center let out a demonic roar, and the world trembled.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye. The combatants closest to the epicenter were thrown to the ground by a pulse of malevolence. Corrupted essence surged from the berserk flame in a tide of malice, infecting every inch of the arena. Glowing cracks spread through the floor like rifts leading into the heart of a volcano and spread outward. A few wooden benches among the stands caught fire, incinerating the spectators sitting on them; others contorted into macabre shapes that reminded me of fangs and toothy maws. The torches’ flames began to resemble snarling skulls of ghostfire.

And then came the monsters.

The dead dogs’ corpses on the arena ground rose back to their feet, with yellow flames erupting from their wounds and replacing missing flesh. The gladiators grew layers of red scales over their skin and black horns sprung from their skulls.

But worst of all, madness spread through the air. Some of the panicked spectators began to convulse and contort, their limbs snapping in unnatural ways. Others showed subtler signs of corruption: a glimmer of wild rage in their eyes, frothing saliva dripping at the edge of their lips. They snarled at our group and lunged at us like rabid beasts.

Soraseo jumped into the fray. Her blade swept across the berserk audience in a decisive swing and beheaded five men at once. I stared at the trail of steaming blood she left in her wake, horrified.

“What are you doing?!” I choked at the spectacle. The sudden display of violence shocked me, especially since Alaire insisted on avoiding a bloodbath. “We must incapacitate them, not kill them!”

“It is too late, Lord Merchant,” Soraseo replied with terrifying confidence and calm detachment. She cut down another maddened spectator without remorse halfway through her sentence. “The evil owns their souls now.”

“She’s right!” Marika shouted, though with a lot more unease. “They’re already turning into monsters! There’s no coming back from that!”

I opened my mouth to protest when one spectator bypassed Soraseo and lunged at me with nails turned into claws. I instinctively drew my rapier and impaled my attacker through an eye before realizing what I had just done.

To my horror, he kept going. The maddened spectator—a rich merchant from his choice of clothing—pushed himself along the entire length of my sword and attempted to strangle me with his bare hands. His teeth transformed into fangs, and when I looked into his one remaining eye I saw no hint of humanity.

Only bestial fury.

“Behold!” Fenrivos gloated from his balcony. “The true face of humanity!”

They’re right, it’s too late, I realized. Even animals backed away from pain, but not my attacker. The berserk flame had robbed him of everything except for a murderous hunger. Fear, compassion, sanity… I couldn’t see any. If they escape, they’ll kill everything they encounter. Men, women, children, animals… they’ll keep killing until they die themselves.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. I drew my dagger and beheaded my assaillant in one swift stroke, the blade letting out a trail of flames in its wake. “I’m sorry.”

Fenrivos would pay for this atrocity.

Our guards, having expected a riot, quickly adopted a defensive formation; raising their shields in a line and using their clubs to push away attackers. A tide of maddened flesh crashed against their armored wall of steel. As for Marika, she swung her sledgehammer at the attackers’ legs and arms rather than their vulnerable areas. Though I granted her fighting skills, she didn’t inherit the will to kill. It would have meant her death in a situation like this one, were it not for her near-impenetrable armor.

Alaire and reinforcements rushed in from up the stairs, with the future countess immediately gasping at the terrible sight. “What madness is this…”

“Evacuate the tavern!” I ordered. Though they were far away from the flames to avoid the worst of the madness, I noticed two of the guards holding their heads as if struggling against a terrible headache. Their discipline might let them keep their wits longer than civilians, but not for long. “Evacuate!”

Alaire immediately protested. “But Robin–”

“This flame infects men with murderous madness!” I shouted. “It will contaminate the people upstairs unless they’re taken away!”

Alaire wished to argue further, until a maddened spectator jumped over her guards’ shield wall and attempted to tackle her. She repelled the attacker with her buckler and gutted him chin to groin, spilling steaming entrails on the ground. Alaire stared in horror at the corpse, whose arms still wriggled on the ground.

It’s her first time killing, I realized. Soraseo showed none of Alaire’s unease. The Monk single-handedly carved a crimson path through the stands, the blood of her victims invisible on her armor. She charged straight at the balcony which Fenrivos occupied. The demon’s two armored bodyguards, utterly unaffected by the madness, moved to intercept her with heavy halberds. Soraseo’s done it before.

It hit me that my mind was clear, an island of sanity in a world gone mad. My mark’s light pushed away the corruption that turned the arena into a hellscape. And while Marika was shaken by the bloodbath, she wasn’t convulsing like a third of our guards.

“Alaire, our marks protect us!” I shouted at the countess-to-be, who was helping a still-sane guard move one of their wounded comrades upstairs. “We’ll take care of it from here!”

Finally realizing she needed to get the civilians upstairs to safety, Alaire nodded sharply. “Don’t die!”

That’s the plan, I thought as the guards retreated upstairs, leaving Marika and I surrounded by blood and corpses. I hoped she was as good an exorcist as she advertised. “Can you destroy the Blight?!”

“No, but I can contain its spread!” Marika rushed towards the arena. “Cover me!”

Jumping into a fighting pit filled with undead and monsters wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I followed after Marika, my boots landing straight on the ashen ground. I could feel the ever-increasing heat infiltrating my leather and metal armor alike.

The berserk flame burned with an eldritch radiance and let out a guttural growl. Its power expanded past the arena, twisting the walls and ceiling with the shape of snarling, eyeless faces and fiery scars. Six demonic gladiators answered the call to arms, charging at Marika and me with unhinged ferocity as half as many undead dogs followed in their wake.

Not the best of odds, but Marika and I rushed at the flame without hesitation. We both knew the stakes at hand: the Blight would consume all of Snowdrift unless stopped.

Phantom instincts that weren’t my own guided my hands and feet. Ser Hugdan’s swordsmanship training. Freydis’ sharp hunter reflexes. The mark’s sudden boost in speed and strength flowing through my bones. They blurred together with my own experience in street fights into a dance of steel.

A gladiator came at me with his axe soaring through the air. I dodged with a sidestep, impaled him through the eye with my rapier, and twisted it to scramble his brain. Another demonic warrior flanked me with his sword, which I deflected with my dagger. His weight and strength pushed against my steel, and it should have brought me to my knees. Yet the mark’s power gave me just enough strength to push back and counter with a lethal strike.

Ser Hugdan had been an asshole, but a pretty good fighter nonetheless. I would send him a fruit basket if I ever walked out of this hellish pit alive.

At my side, Marika bashed a hellhound’s skull in with her sledgehammer and then attempted to keep two others at bay with wide swings. As for Soraseo, she had beheaded one of Fenrivos’ guards and pushed back the other with a relentless flurry of steel.

“Your false marks might protect your souls, but they won’t shield you from death!” Fenrivos leaped off the balcony, his body wreathed in the same crimson miasma as Sforza before him. “Guide my arm, Lord Belgoroth!”

The monster he became crashed into the pit with a thundering quake.

The man had become a hulking horror thrice his original size. Though Fenrivos kept the vague shape of a humanoid being, his head morphed into that of a vicious bull, and his feet into steel hooves. Thick shaggy fur grew over his skin, with the exception of the skull, which shed its skin and flesh to reveal the bone underneath. Two blazing red eyes glared at me from under a pair of deadly horns. A massive, ornate axe too large for any man to wield appeared in the monster’s callused hands.

The demon called his establishment the Gilded Wolf and transformed into a bullman. I felt cheated.

My amusement turned to terror when Fenrivos charged at us in a terrifying burst of speed.

He crossed the entire pit in an instant, the very earth shaking with every step. A demonic gladiator too slow to jump out of the way was trampled into fine paste under his hooves. Something so large had no right being so fast, but he was at our throat in seconds.

“Down!” I shouted a warning. I barely managed to tackle Marika out of the monster’s way before a fatal impact. We tumbled on the arena’s floor while Fenrivos crashed into the nearest wall with enough strength to shatter stone. The entire building trembled from the collision.

Unfortunately, one of the remaining undead dogs seized its chance. He lunged at me before I could get back to my feet, aiming straight for the throat. I raised my rapier, with the monster’s fangs closing on the blade. The beast climbed onto me and pushed, trying to pin me to the ground while Fenrivos removed his head from the smashed wall.

These things are smart, I cursed while shoving my dagger through one side of the dog’s head. It didn’t even flinch. And they don’t feel pain either.

Marika’s sledgehammer smashed the dog’s skull to pieces, destroying it. My friend grabbed my hand and helped me stand up. “Do you have a plan?” she asked me as we faced Fenrivos.

The good news, the demon had trampled all the small fry. The bad news, he was far worse.

“Yeah.” My hands tightened on my weapons’ hilts. “Try to stay alive.”

Fenrivos swung his axe with such speed that a whistling sound resonated when his blade cut through the air. Marika and I split in two directions to dodge. The axe split the ground in half, with flames rising from the rift.

My first instinct was to retreat and gather reinforcements, but the thought of my city turning into a hellscape kept me in the fight. I charged at Fenrivos while his axe was still stuck in the ground and stabbed him in the leg with my rapier. His hide and thick muscles proved as strong as armor, and my blade about as effective as a needle.

The kick that followed sent me flying.

My breastplate caved in, and my ribs would have followed were it not for the hard leather underneath. I landed a few inches away from the berserk flame, my vision blurring briefly from the crash. Ashes filled my nostrils, and I sweated so much I thought I might dry up in seconds.

I heard Marika call my name, though all noise became gargled to my ear. She managed to kneecap one of Fenrivos’ legs with her sledgehammer. Her weapon’s blow bent the bullman’s bones and caused him to grunt in pain. Fenrivos then backhanded her so hard that she crashed against a twisted stone wall and collapsed.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I cursed under my breath as I rose to my feet, “but I think I would rather face Sforza.”

“Sforza?” With Marika seemingly unconscious, Fenrivos turned his attention upon me. “Ah, you’re the one who wiped out the Knot of Greed in Ermeline, are you not? The Knot of Wrath won’t be so easy to deal with.”

“Knots?” I asked while leaping to the side to avoid a swing of Fenrivos’ axe. Once again the weapon narrowly missed me. I could dodge a hundred blows, but I wouldn’t survive a single hit. “What knots?”

“The Knots are everywhere.” Fenrivos’ wounded knee prevented him from charging at me, so he settled on swinging his axe around like a butcher. “We tie souls together in the service of the true heroes.”

I would have taunted him with the fact that there was nothing heroic about the Demon Ancestors, but I didn’t have time to catch my breath. I sidestepped left and right to dodge lethal blows. Fenrivos tried to push me closer to the berserk flame, hoping that what his axe couldn’t do, the fire would.

A new challenger came to my rescue.

Soraseo soundlessly landed in the arena, holding her bloody sword with one hand and the beheaded skull of Fenrivos’ last bodyguard in the other. She became a crimson blur that crossed over the pit in the blink of an eye, her armor simmering on her skin. Her sword slashed across Fenrivos’ heel before he could finish me off, forcing him to kneel and staining the arena’s ground with black blood.

“Douse the flame,” Soraseo all but ordered me. She tossed her head trophy aside and raised her sword with both hands. “I will get the victory.”

“It’s madness!” I shouted in disbelief. “You can’t possibly take him alone–”

Fenrivos snarled in anger and attempted to crush Soraseo under his axe. She stepped out of the weapon’s way with grace, the blade missing by an inch, and then swiftly cut off four of the demon’s fingers with casual ease. The exchange lasted a second, but by the end, Soraseo stood unharmed and Fenrivos shrieked with a bloody stump for a hand.

On second thought, she would be fine.

Leaving Fenrivos to Soraseo’s tender care, I rushed to Marika’s side. She was coughing ashes on the ground, wounded but alive. “Here, easy,” I said while offering my arm. I helped her get back to her feet. “Can you stand?”

“I think so… still blurry…” Marika grunted. In spite of her words, I could tell she would fall over the moment I let her go. “My bag… please…”

I grabbed the cloth bag on her back and revealed its contents: a gilded chain covered in encrusted runestones and arcane symbols. She and Colmar probably crafted it together.

“What are we chaining with it?” I asked in disbelief. “The demon?”

“The flame,” Marika replied.

Oh goddess…

I dragged Marika across the arena’s floor to the tune of Fenrivos’ screams of agony. Soraseo had severed his last functioning leg with a wide swing, forcing the demon to collapse face first onto the ground. The Monk quickly maimed his other hand before he could recover, her blade cutting through hard flesh and steel-strong bones with ease.

I was almost tempted to sit and watch the spectacle. Now that was a warrior. I couldn’t see Soraseo’s face beneath her visor, but the look in her eyes filled me with awe. Her eyes betrayed neither fear nor anger.

In fact, she looked bored to death.

However, for all of his might, Fenrivos’ threat paled before that of the ghastly flame he worshiped. The more blood we shed on the arena’s floor, the brighter it grew. The fire had grown into a pillar reaching all the way to the ceiling and staining it with corruption. The very air simmered and the smoke twisted into screaming human faces. An aura of overwhelming dread and tension weighed on my shoulders, suffocating me.

“What… what must we do?” I asked Marika, the heat was so great my tongue went dry. “It’ll swallow the entire city before long…”

“Let me take care of it…” I let Marika go and watched her work. She whipped her chain into the air like a lasso before throwing it into the fire. The flame let out an inhuman screech that sent shivers down my spine.

The chain coiled around the fire like a serpent. Marika did not direct its movement, at least not physically. My essence sight picked up a current leaving my friend’s hands and guiding the gilded links into the air. The chain swirled in circles around the berserk flame, weakening the heat. The fire stopped growing.

A black spot appeared in the fire’s heart.

There… there was something inside the flame. A humanoid shadow coiling inside the light like a worm in an apple. Its shape reminded me of a knight in plate armor, with the helmet vaguely resembling a lion’s mane.

And then it spoke.

“Daltia… What mischief are you up to, my old friend?” The voice was guttural, yet it sounded so very human. Its echo reverberated into the arena. “No… you are not her…”

A sharp surge of pain erupted from my hand. My mark glowed like the heart of the sun, as did Marika’s and Soraseo’s. The Monk, whose sword was firmly stuck in Fenrivos’ skull, raised her head to glare at the flame.

We all knew, deep within our heart, what was staring at us through the fire. The enemy we had been empowered to fight.

A Demon Ancestor.

“Greedy fox, whose avarice knows no bound… and you, widow blinded by false love… my peers in name alone…” The shadow’s confusion turned to anger. It raised its left hand and a sword-shaped red symbol blazed on its back. “Why are you here? In this sea of flames and pain, there is nothing for you.”

“That voice…” Marika muttered to herself, her eyes alight with fear. “The memory… you’re Belgoroth…”

Her concentration waned slightly, and the weakened flame let out a roar of rage. The ceiling cracked. “Focus, Marika!” I shouted, trying to get her back on track before the whole place collapsed on us. “Don’t let him distract you! You’re almost there!”

“Yes!” Marika snapped out of her confusion and tightened her grip on the chain. Her gilded restraint coiled around the flame, slowly choking its heat and power.

“Your efforts are for naught,” the Demon Ancestor said, his voice grim and terrible. “The people of this land… the weak, the vengeful, the desperate… their voices summon me to end their misspent lives of sin… their suffering stokes my berserk flame.”

“If so mighty you are, demon, then you shall have my fury,” Soraseo warned. She stepped over Fenrivor’s beheaded corpse and stepped closer to the flame with her sword drawn. “I challenge you!”

Two red points lit up on the shadow’s helm. The Demon Ancestor answered Soraseo’s challenge with a simple sentence deadlier than any sword.

“Wallow in your sins, Mother-Killer.”

His words resonated in the pit like a curse. Soraseo’s sword fell onto the bloodstained ground, her eyes suddenly hollow. She looked as if her soul had been snuffed out from within.

No duel would take place. Marika’s hands let go of the chain, which intertwined around the flame in a dense net of metal. The fire shrank in size, its malice contained. I didn’t fully understand the mechanics behind Marika’s seal, but it managed to constrain the malicious essence flowing into the pit. The great pillar of fire was now no larger than me.

“To delay my coming is folly.” The Demon Ancestor’s shadow faded away with a final curse. “We shall meet again… when the City of Wrath opens its gates… we shall toast a cup of blood.”

His cursed flame lingered; sealed, but still burning.

I exchanged a glance with Marika, then checked on Soraseo. The Monk stood frozen in place, shaken and sullen. “Soraseo?” I called out to her. “Are you alright?”

Her silence was an answer in itself.

Fenrivos’ corpse burned away into nothingness, leaving only a familiar, skull-shaped golden coin behind.

We won the battle, but the war had only started.

The Blight had been somewhat contained within the Gilded Wolf by midnight, sparing the rest of the city; at least for a time.

Neither Marika nor the city’s witchcrafters knew how to douse the flame in the basement. Its malice had infected the tavern above, twisting its main hall into a deranged house of fanged pits, twisted walls, and ever-burning torches. Alaire immediately ordered her men to set barricades around the place in case monsters crawled out of it.

Casualties among guards were minimal, though a few demented ones remained in Colmar’s care for treatment. We arrested all of the Gilded Wolf’s patrons and issued arrest warrants for whoever had been foolish enough to invest in Fenrivos’ venture. I had the feeling a few cultists would hide among the greedy and the duped. We would interrogate many people by the night’s end.

“Belgoroth?” Alaire asked when we recounted our report. Colmar joined us too, his gloves covered in blood. He had been forced to amputate a few survivors.

“The Demon Ancestor we faced,” Marika replied with a scowl. “The Lord of Wrath. That’s his true, cursed name.”

I frowned. “I didn’t know.”

“I… I encountered his cult before. Unfortunately.” Marika looked away. “I didn’t think their reach extended to Archfrost.”

“If they could activate the Blight at any time, why didn’t they do so earlier?” Colmar asked. “Did we force their hand somehow?”

“I guess Fenrivos intended to unleash the Blight when it would cripple Archfrost’s northern defenses the most,” I said. “We already suspect the beastmen in the north to serve the Demon Ancestors.”

“Makes sense.” Alaire stroked her chin. “A Blight surging from behind our lines like a dagger in the back could have crippled our nation.”

“We’re facing a large organization that spans at least two nations,” I warned my allies. I could guess who gave Sforza his cursed coin. “Fenrivos confirmed he worked in tandem with accomplices within Ermeline.”

“Three nations, Robin,” Alaire replied. “We managed to recover documents in the Gilded Wolf, including shipment records meant for Irem.”

At least this raid would help crack down on that mysterious network. “What did they send to Ermeline?” I asked. “Weapons? Drugs?”

Alaire scowled. “People.”

My fists clenched in anger. Marika paled in horror, and Colmar crossed his arms in silence. Only Soraseo did not react. She had barely said a thing since our encounter with Belgoroth.

“From what I could read, Fenrivos and his accomplices were shipping flesh,” Alaire explained grimly. Her fair face twisted in loathing; that such crimes happened in her city infuriated her as much as me. “They pretended to offer them passage to the Everbright Empire and other nations before putting them in chains. Men were sent to die in the arena, no doubt to fuel that horrible flame with blood. The women and children were sent to the Riverland Federation and Irem’s slave markets.”

When orphanages didn’t provide Sforza with enough flesh for his brothels or pickpocket bands, he imported them from Archfrost. The plague and civil war left no small amount of downtrodden people behind. How many families unwittingly signed on with Fenrivos, expecting a better future only to find themselves dragged deeper into despair?

“A slaving ring.” I struggled to contain my disgust. “There’s not enough soap in the world to clean trash like them.”

“We will get to the bottom of this, Robin,” Alaire promised with determination. “I swear it on my honor as a Brynslow.”

“If there is a ‘Knot of Wrath’ dedicated to Belgoroth, then we must expect all the other Demon Ancestors to have their own,” Colmar pointed out. “Now that we have come out in the open as heroes, we should expect future retribution from them.”

Marika crossed her arms, her eyebrows furrowing. “So these Knots are… what, a cultist confederacy?”

“A network of independent organizations,” I suggested. I couldn’t see how anyone could effectively coordinate a unified group spanning all of Pangeal. Each cult most likely acted on its own and cooperated with others when their interests aligned. “Fenrivos mentioned a mistress warning him of our coming.”

“I…” Marika cleared her throat. “The cultist I encountered mentioned a lady. It could be the same person.”

I nodded sharply. “We still haven’t cut off the snake’s head.”

“Perhaps our captives will tell us more,” Alaire said before changing the subject. “What about the Blight? Will your chain hold, Lady Marika?”

Marika shook her head with a sorrowful scowl. “There’s no seal in the world that can contain a Blight of this magnitude forever. I can replace the chain when it wears out, but a little essence will still leak through and poison the land around it.”

That didn’t reassure Alaire. “How much leakage?”

Marika hesitated a bit before answering. “The Blight will swallow the city in months rather than hours.”

Alaire sighed in despair. I tried to cheer her up. “Well, at least we gained time,” I said. “We can turn things around.”

“I hope so,” Alaire replied. “What solutions do we have?”

“One cannot entomb cancer,” Colmar said. “It must be excised or cured with medicine.”

I expected as much. “We’ll stick to my plan then,” I declared. “We renovate the city until it purifies the Blight on its own.”

Nobody voiced an objection. Our path was clear so far, with one exception. I glanced at Soraseo, who clung to her sword the way an old woman would rely on her cane not to fall. No demon could harm her flesh, so they targeted her spirit.

Mother-Killer… I knew better not to ask why Belgoroth called her that way. If the accusation was true, then the wound ran deep. Soraseo agreed to help until she could receive her letter of passage, but I hoped I could find a way to soothe her pain before she left. She needs a friend.

So many other mysteries bothered me. Why did Fenrivos call our marks false? And the blazing sword on Belgoroth’s hand… it felt strangely familiar, though I couldn’t put my finger on why. I had the feeling both of these details were related somehow.

A cloud of smoke suddenly erupted to my left, startling me. Everyone with a weapon drew it in alarm, none swifter than Soraseo. I expected a surprise attack, only to find myself facing a familiar face.

“Ah, Robin! How good to see you again!” Eris Belarra grinned at me. The many swords pointed at her throat did not appear to bother her too much. “What did I miss?”

The Wanderer was back.