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The floor of the arena was coarse with sand, and I tumbled over the grains, feeling the creature coming for me like an arrow through a storm. Its thin body makes the strike more precise, and I hear the crowd collectively hold its breath.
I pretended to be dazed, which served me well. The beast misses my chest as I dodge its exposed fangs, and I crouch. In this position, I move as fast as lightning and pluck the creature out of the sky like a pesky buzzard.
The crowd gasped in unison as I began to tear the beast’s wings from its connected bones. The cracking sound is like that of shattered limbs. It cried out a pithy, pathetic cry of pain, and I feel nothing for it, not an ounce of empathy. It is, after all, the meaning behind our battle, imminent death, by graphic means.
Once the wings have been removed and tossed aside like yesterday's lunch, I take the body in my hands, still wriggling with life, and chomp down on the head.
The crowd cannot get enough as I crush the beast’s skull with my own fangs and powerful teeth. Its blood spurts out in fountains of red delight over the crowd, who yelp with encouragement for the further mutilation of the corpse.
I do as they ask because I’m their slave. A slave to the desires and wants of the people who lack a proper channel to express their own anger. I’m okay with being their vessel, yet I yearn. I always yearn for more.
I ingested the head of the beast and tossed the remains into the crowd of demons. It jostles around, and the observers take the pieces home as souvenirs, which is a common behavior.
The King stood and applauded me, and I bent over, taking a bow as my body shrank back to its normal size. I’m satiated for the time being. My thirst for violence has gone into hibernation for the moment.
He came to me after the excitement died down, as he often does. I go to one knee, as is the custom, as he approaches, his gold and blood red shaded robe skittering over the beast’s remains.
He clapped slowly, a smug grin painted across his face.
“Well, done, as usual, good Varzig,” he gloated, voice gritty and ominous. “You really do know what they thirst for, don’t you?”
I nodded, facing the stained grain of sand as he tapped my shoulders, an indicator that I may rise from my respectful position.
I do so and meet at the King’s chest-line. My body is still thick and menacing but deceptively smaller than most of the demons around me. It’s something useful to take advantage of when facing a conniving enemy.
“I’m afraid that your wicked behavior has landed you in my favor, dear one,” he said, his mouthful of grimy teeth shining in the torchlight. “I must beckon you to join some other selected rabble-rousers on a mission of utmost importance. Should you accept my glorious victory?”
I stifled the urge to sigh so as not to displease the King. It’s safe and prudent to garner not only his attention but his favor too. But I have been receiving almost too much of it when it comes to my assumed temperament. The shattering of bones and homes and dreams is not the only convocation I long for.
Nonetheless, I cannot reject him, so I nod, forcing a smile upon my face as I lean forward once more to bow.
“It would be my great honor to satisfy my King and his needs, good sir.”
The King is unsightly with his glee, clapping his hands together and leading me back to his lair while his guards follow close.
He informs me, with an obvious thrill, that my team and I are going to be sent to the realm of Protheka in search of the Legendary Tome of Lendatis, a powerful, magical artifact.
I listen intently. It’s an object I had heard of before, mostly through tavern talk and rumor mills. I wondered why the King required such a thing, yet, I did not question him. There will be time for that later, once the mission is proven successful.
“Is the soz’garoth unable to locate it?”
I speak to the King back in his lair, with him sitting upon his throne made of demon skulls, the foreground to a stifling hot ashen valley. A soz-garoth demon is a sorcerer of sorts, the kind that will be able to send us through the portals to the planet of requirement.
The King sighed and shook his head, the light of amusement leaving his eyes.
“We have worked for hours upon hours to locate the artifact, but it appears to have been used recently, which makes it all the more evasive. We have narrowed down a small vicinity that you and your other chaos-causers will explore and demolish for your King.”
The King has the habit of referring to himself in such a way, but I suppose it happens when an ego grows to the size of a mountain.
I nod and agree to take on the mission in a leadership capacity. This seems to thrill the King as he wrings his hands together, jumps up from the throne, and welcomes me to meet the other chosen demons.
I met the demons who will come with me to the planet Protheka, and they are nothing to scream about. They, too, are gilak demons, known for their strength, intimidating presence, and pension for devastation. It makes me sigh to see myself in too many of them, beyond my own intelligence and ambition to become something so much more useful.
Something so much more satisfying than some vexed monster.
The King sends us to the portal destination designated by the soz’garoth demon. They are the only demons, along with a few other privileged ones, who can summon a portal to a whole other world.
The process is tedious. The world as we know it spins around, and our guts flip a few times while blasting through radiant colors. We arrived on the planet within an abandoned dark elf stronghold, which was damp and wretched with its stench. Orcs have been here, and they aren’t exactly known for their hygiene, neither are demons, really, so I push through an inclination to wretch and begin to move forward out of the dark.
