“I didn’t think demons could be ‘Divine’ or anything like that. Feels kind of like an oxymoron.”
“An oxy-what?” Kerr asked from where she was cleaning the blood off of her arrows.
“Nephilim word,” Syd waved the question off. Of course, Kerr knew the truth that it wasn’t Nephilim so much as it was reincarnation, but where outsiders could overhear that was an easier explanation.
“It is a reference to the attribute, nothing more,” Eir explained. “Though Samleos is a god, after all. Not all that are divinely inspired are touched by one of The Nine.”
One of The Nine. Eir’s words reminded Jadis that she still had a lot to learn about religion on Oros. Back on Earth, Sunday school had never been a priority for her, but now that she knew from firsthand experience that gods were very, very real, she wanted to get some education on the topic. Especially since Jadis now knew that gods other than D knew about her and cared enough about what D had done by reincarnating her onto Oros that they had changed their “Covenant”, whatever that was supposed to be.
It was simple enough to figure by context that The Nine was a reference to the pantheon of gods that were worshiped on Oros. D and Lyssandria were presumably a part of that pantheon, as would be Valtar, D’s stepfather and the god most worshiped by the people of the Empire. There were other names Jadis had heard referenced, like Charos and Ulya, but Jadis didn’t know anything about those gods or even the names of the others. There was also the question of if The Nine that were worshiped in the Empire were the whole sum of all deities on Oros, or if there were others that weren’t worshipped locally for some reason and were instead worshipped in other parts of the world. Additionally, Jadis wasn’t sure if Samleos was the only “Evil” god around. Certainly he was the main villain of the world’s history, but that didn’t mean he was the only one. If there were other hostile deities out there, Jadis wanted to know about them.
So many questions had built up that Jadis felt fairly embarrassed that she hadn’t sought out any answers yet. But to be fair, she and everyone she knew who she would trust to honestly answer her questions had been busy dealing with the aftermath of the battle outside Far Felsen. Though there was one source she had thought to try during quiet times when she was alone that hadn’t worked out as of yet.
Lyssandria had told her that all she had to do was ask and she’d offer Jadis her guidance. Jadis had tried asking, but no response had come. To be fair to the goddess, Jadis wasn’t exactly certain of how she was supposed to do the asking. She’d tried talking aloud, praying, thinking really hard, and just clearing her mind in a meditative way. If Lyssandria had answered her, Jadis hadn’t picked up on the message.
Yes, she definitely needed to sit down with Eir and have a long discussion about religion. However, having that discussion while they were cleaning up the mess left by slaying a bunch of demons didn’t seem like the right time. Even less so since the hour was growing late and they needed to get back on the road if they wanted to return to the city before nightfall.
“I don’t think this manticore was possessed at all,” Volker was saying to Aila and Jay as the three stood over the creature’s corpse. “No sign of corruption, no notification upon death. Seems like it was clean.”
“It’s a male,” Aila motioned towards the dead beast’s hindquarters. “And that definitely possessed one back there was a female. They might have been a mated pair before the demons got to the female. He could have been following after her despite the possession.”
“Or the demon was trying to lure the male so he could be possessed too,” Volker mused, rubbing the blond stubble on his chin.
“Are manticores common around here?” Jay asked, poking at one of the monster’s quills.
“No, fairly rare,” Aila shook her head. “They don’t do well in the cold and Weigrun is too far south for the long summers and warm weather they prefer. But you still see them in the forests down here sometimes.”
“Some think Dryads breed them in these forests,” Volker whispered in a conspiratorial tone. “Though good luck getting one of their kind to admit it.”
That little comment just prompted even more questions. Dryads were a real thing on Oros? And they bred manticores? Was that specific or did they breed magic beasts in general? Jadis really wanted to know more about Dryads, though she was reluctant to reveal her ignorance in front of Volker or anyone else not of her company who could be listening. Instead she focused on the immediate.
The squad of Bernd’s Blades mercenaries was finishing up the grisly task of cutting the cyclopean eyes from the demon corpses so that they could be turned in for bounties. The captain or sergeant whatever his rank was of the men was talking with a couple of the other mercs, including Specht as well as the big man who had used the thunder shield technique. Jadis couldn’t quite hear what they were discussing, but it was clearly an argument.
Abruptly, the captain threw his hands up in a gesture of frustration and stormed over to where Jay stood with Aila and Volker.
“As you promised before joining us,” the man addressed Jay without preamble. “We keep the coin for the bounty on the demons from this hunt.”
“That’s fine,” Jay shrugged.
“Messer, we would have been in real trouble if they hadn’t—”
“Shut it, Heiner!” The captain cut the big man off. “A deal’s a deal! We’re not going to renegotiate now just because you have weak knees!”
Ah, that made sense. Messer didn’t want to share any of the profits, but Specht and others felt Jadis and her crew were entitled to a cut thanks to their contributions. She had told them that her company wasn’t interested in the bounties, and she had meant it. Now that they were bringing it up, though, Jadis realized she really wouldn’t mind some kind of monetary reward for her time and effort. She was running a business now. A business that had a lot of expenses, never mind the fact that her partners needed to get paid as well.
“Well, I said I didn’t need a part of the bounties,” Jay motioned with one hand towards the dead manticore. “But what about some of this thing? It wasn’t even a demon.”
“We didn’t agree to share a damned thing with your company,” the squad leader groused with his brows lowered. It looked like he was doing his very best to come across as intimidating, which just made Jadis mildly amused considering the man’s head barely reached her waist. “This is all our profit.”
“You don’t get any profit at all if you’re dead,” Jay replied flatly. After a moment, she amended her statement. “Dead from a combo of demons and an unexpected manticore, of course.”
Messer did not look particularly reassured by Jay’s clarification. She really hadn’t meant it as a threat, but by the way the man’s back had straightened, she could see that he’d taken it that way. Jadis felt like she owed a lot to Bernd’s Blades and she wasn’t about to let her relationship with the mercenary company sour just because this one man didn’t want to give her a cut for the work she and her company had done, yet she didn’t feel like she should just let the matter drop so easily either.
Folding her arms, Jay looked down at the stubborn man and raised one eyebrow.
“Am I really being unfair here? Or do you think that fight would have gone just the same for you and your men without me and my girls here?”
“Hmph,” Messer grunted, his expression still glowering. “Fine. You can have the tail on that one,” he pointed at the dead manticore at their feet, “but that’s all you get. Next time you want to muscle in on another company’s hunt, you talk to one of the captains.”
“Fair enough,” Jay nodded at the man’s concession.
With that dispute resolved, both Fortune’s Favored and Bernd’s Blades finished up their tasks and got ready to set out. For their cut of the bounty, Dys used her axe to chop off the meaty tail of the male manticore corpse. She hefted the heavy slab over one shoulder with ease, secretly pleased that she didn’t have to deal with trying to carry the large beast’s body back to the city. Bernd’s Blades had to carry that particular weight themselves, along with the possessed manticore’s bisected body as well.
Before they left, they set fire to the pile of bramble fiends they had gathered, leaving the demons to burn in a shallow pit they had hastily dug. Jadis set that practice aside in her head as something she needed to remember to do in her future forays into the forest. Leaving behind corpses for more demons to exploit was a bad practice.
Jadis and her companions followed the squad out of the forest and as far as the gates of the border fort, where they briefly met with Captain Renz, the fort’s commander, as well as a few other mercenaries that Aila knew from her time with the company. Renz, pleased to see the trio of Nephilim once more, seemed far less bothered by Jadis’ claim on the Manticore’s tail compared to Messer, but he did reinforce the point that now that Jadis was in a proper mercenary company, she needed to discuss joint ventures with leadership in the future.
If there was one parallel Jadis could easily make between the people of Earth and the people of Oros, it would be a reliance on bureaucracy.
As much as Jadis wanted to spend some time catching up with Captain Renz as well as Specht and Volker, the sun was already dipping low in the sky. The days had definitely grown shorter as of late and she knew they had to get running or they wouldn’t make it back to the city before the gates were closed. Jadis wasn’t sure how easy it would be to get let back in once the gates were shut, though she was certain that even if they did close, she could probably just climb over the walls considering how high her vertical leap was. That would probably get her in some kind of legal trouble though, and she didn’t want the city guard on her back about it.
So, with a promise to meet up the next time they were in town in a few days’ time, Jadis and her group bid farewell to the soldiers in the fort and headed for Far Felsen.
“So, wasn’t too bad, was it?” Jay asked Sabina as they charged through the valleys towards the south. “Other than the surprise attack, I mean.”
“No!” Sabina shook her head. “It wasn’t bad at all actually considering I almost died in a sort of way I mean it wasn’t like I was injured or anything but that possessed manticore was terrifying because I’ve never seen one up close before that wasn’t dead so it’s a lot scarier when its coming right at you but overall I’d say it wasn’t too bad and I don’t mind going on more of these excursions at all but if I do I’m not sure I should bring a hammer as my weapon or at least not my only weapon because I’m not really sure how well I would have done if I’d had to actually fight in all that mess so I might need to bring a crossbow next time so I can do something useful.”
“A crossbow does sound like a good idea,” Jay nodded along to the half-elf’s rambling review of her first experience out in the field. “But don’t feel like you have to do any fighting. I know your talents are in crafting, not combat.”
“I know,” Sabina smiled brightly, then relaxed back into Jay’s arms. Clearly, the smith was enjoying the prized Princess Carry position. “But I want to be helpful! If I’m not doing something with my hands, I feel like I’m being idle and it makes me nervous and twitchy and I’d rather just do something than not even if it’s badly shooting a crossbow.”
“Then you’re welcome to give it a shot!” Jay laughed in acceptance of Sabina’s plan.
Jadis and her companions did manage to make it back to the city before the gates closed at sunset, but only just barely. In fact, they were the last ones through before the guards shut them at their backs. With the chill sea breeze sapping the warmth from their bones now that the sun was down, Jadis quickly led her group back to their guild hall. Sabina opted to join them for the promise of a warm dinner that was no doubt waiting for them with Hans in charge of meals.
That the half-elf had half expected the manticore tail to be their dinner was vaguely disturbing to Jadis. She wasn’t so sure about the idea of eating something with a human face, though Kerr assured her the meat was, in fact, delicious.
They were still discussing the merits of manticore meat when they entered their company hall. It took a moment for her to process what she was seeing, but in a second Jadis had her weapons raised and ready for combat as she caught sight of the monster occupying what was effectively her dining room. With a shout, one of her bodies moved towards the threat while the other two shifted to protect her unsuspecting companions.
“You must be the Nephilim,” the monster growled out from where it sat at their table.
It was only in that moment that the beast—or was it a man?—spoke that Jadis realized that the creature was literally sitting in a chair and Hans was standing nearby, a plate of hot meat pies held before him. While Jadis watched in frozen confusion, the beast-man casually swiped a pie off the plate and wolfed the whole thing down in one messy bite.
“You’re bigger than I expected,” he said around his mouthful of meat pie. “Figured it was all an exaggeration. You know how elves and humans can be.”
Syd, her most forward body, looked back at her team, gauging their response to the utterly bizarre situation. Each woman had a different level of confusion on their faces, but none seemed at all frightened. By their lack of reaction to the beast-man’s physical appearance, Jadis realized that she was probably overreacting, at least as far as her assumption that the guy was a monster. He had to be some other sentient race that she just hadn’t ever met before. Clearly, introductions were in order.
“Yeah, we’re the Nephilim,” Syd answered the beast-man as he took a big bite out of another pie. “And who the ever-loving fuck are you and what are you doing in my house?”
“My name’s Noll,” the beast-man snarled while showing off a set of large, sharp, shining white teeth from his wolf-like muzzle. “And watch how you fucking speak to your elders, whelp.”
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