Death realised Stroke never gave a specific time for when the Sentinels would give the signal. He was hungry, refusing the sloppy meals of porridge from the Valans, throwing the trays at the wall each time a guard slid it under the bars.

  The rotation of duty left Fiasco in charge of Death’s wellbeing. He could hear the bickering and laughter of guards on the other side of the dungeon doors; Fiasco was sat on a comfy chair, peeling an orange, eating the citrus like one would an apple.

  That door has a red shine to it… as does that key dangling at her belt… godsteel, I can’t break through that even I wanted to. I’ll have to fight her to get that key when the Sentinels give their call.

  Death bashed a fist against the bar to get her attention.

  “No need for that,” she said. “If you’ve got something to say, do it. I’m just as bored as you are.”

  “You know that no cell can hold me,” Death snarled. “Release me and I will spare you when I slaughter this city.”

  “Mhm, sure, how’s your back?” She could see the purple bruising through a tiny tear in the side of Death’s shirt. “The king could crush you under his heel like a snail. You should be grateful he gave the order to keep you alive until we find your friends. I’d take your head happily for what you did to my Quinn.”

  “The Cum Master?” Death asked. “You are bonded with the Cum Master?”

  “Why are you calling him that? I heard you say it the same way in the Leaky Knight.”

  “It’s not by choice.”

  Fiasco took the plate of porridge and slid it under the bars. As expected, Death took it and threw it to the wall. She stared at him with narrowed eyes, hands behind her back. “You don’t look like a cambion to me,” she said. “Except for those red eyes. Why are you out of Hell and here, huh? Are you looking for a war? Are you the one who scorched Lakevalor during that storm.”

  Death raised his hands in feigned accountability. “You got me,” he said boldly. “You should be terrified of what I could do to you if I could do that to an entire city. Release me, and I won’t harm you.”

  “You must think I’m an idiot. Everyone thinks the same. I won’t be swayed by your attempts to threaten me.” She hissed out a moan of pain and touched her blackening eye. “Damn the gods,” she said to herself. “Killian will be here to take over my shift soon.”

  “The Valans got you good too,” Death taunted. “And yet you serve them like they are gods.”

  “I deserved it,” she said. “I wasn’t in control of my power. If I didn’t get knocked out, people would’ve got hurt—hey! I’m not here to talk to you! Stop trying to get information out of me!”

  I already got everything I need, Death thought. A woman who cannot control her own powers is an easy target… but perhaps it is best I don’t kill her when I get out. Her power could be untameable even by me, I don’t know enough about it to take that gamble.

  A single Sentinel released a rumble across the dungeon. Death tightened his grip on the bars. Seeing how Stroke easily dented them during their conversation, he believed he could bend them to free himself with ease. He tested it, using a light among of strength—the iron was willing to bend. He held his strength and waited.

  She leaned on a barrel filled with grain, cleaning the dirt under her fingernails on a nail jutting out stone pillar. “Been a while since King Godwin has got his hands dirty… I hope he rips your skin off.”

  A second Sentinel rumbled. She her head upward, watching a close tower turn from blue to red, illuminating the dungeons with a bloody glow. She stood attentively, anxious.

  “Whats the matter?” Death taunted. “Not used to the Sentinels going red this close to the castle?”

  “You’re not gonna get under my skin,” she snapped back. “I’ve watched over worse criminals than you.”

  “Would you die for your king?” Death whispered.

  She didn’t answer immediately, originally refusing to entertain the tactic of fear from her prisoner. “I would,” she said. “The king is worth dying for.”

  He could tell her answer was not the truth.

  “Such a poor little thing,” he said charmingly. “Trapped in a great cage, performing out of fear of loneliness—who is the real prisoner out of us both?”

  “You’re wasting your words.”

  “Does a god ever waste his words?”

  “You’re not a god.”

  Death relaxed his voice into confidence. “You have no idea what I am.”

  The third Sentinel boomed and cast the other side of the dungeon into red. Death cackled as he began to bend the bars.

  “Stop that!” Fiasco demanded. “The Sentinels will cast you down! King Godwin won’t be happy with a corpse!”

  Death decided to show his amassed strength. With a boot to the bar, he gave kick after kick; he remembered the baby boar from when he emerged from the tomb, the throbbing pain of his ankle. He was strong. The bolts were bending, iron creaking, tearing from the stone like hooks from flesh.

  “This is your last warning!” she screamed. “Those Sentinels will tear you apart!”

  Time to test the truth behind Stroke’s claim, Death thought. If he has kept his side of the bargain, I shall consider him an ally from this moment forward.

  Death pulled back his fist and gave all he could muster. The wall of bars fell flat and rattled the dungeons with a deafening clang.

  He sauntered out of his prison in a cloud of dust, dragging his Choking Chain along the floor with a whistle. “Seems the Sentinels like me,” he taunted. “Give me the key to open that gate.”

  The guards on the other side of the door rattled the handle. They called for Fiasco, bidding her to let them in to defend her.

  She rolled up her sleeves to show her runes, one arm tucked into her chest, the other stretched outward towards Death. “Run and get Killian Entrail!” she shouted to the guards. “I’ll restrain him until you find him.”

  The guards opposed this idea.

  “Just go!” she ordered. “I’ve got this.”

  “Restrain me?” Death chuckled. “I saw your little jester show at that tavern—you can’t use your own gift without losing control.”

  “Then take this!” She grabbed a barrel of grain and threw it at him with a strange strength he didn’t anticipate. “Bastard prisoner.”

  Death exploded the barrel with the ball and chain, the grain hit him like thousands of pebbles—some went in his eye, making it difficult to see. She threw another. The barrel cracked him in the middle of his chest.

  Gods, that was embarrassing, he thought. I didn’t expect her to have the gift of strength alongside what she displayed in the tavern. This city is full of surprises.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  A reckless attack from Death left his chain wrapped tightly on a stone pillar. She stared it for a moment, considering laughing at how embarrassing it was.

  Curse this chain, Death thought. This weapon has been nothing but a hinderance since the moment I took it… I really need to start killing more people to get a different weapon.

  He yanked the chain and turn the stone to rubble. The other pillars across the dungeon began to squeal under the added pressure.

  “This is your final chance to get back in your cell!” Fiasco yelled. “Don’t make me have to do this!”

  Death turned to look at where he once was. There was no cell to go back into. “No cell can hold me,” he growled. “Not… more than once.”

  The roof began to cave. She threw up an arm, the runes on her arm glowing bright; the stone held firm, sealing the cracks with a red magic. With her other, she aimed it at Death.

  He braced the power, his feet skidding across the ground. What is this power? This is not what it seemed to be when she used it against Killian Entrail in that tavern. My skin is blistering, feels like it’s melting, but my bones feel cold. My plan to get that key from her waist may be futile.

  He tried to swing his chain. When faced against her rogue magic, it was unable to move an inch forward. It connected with a wall, dragging Death with it and pinning him flatly against it.

  I can’t fight her, Death admitted to himself. I haven’t drained enough strength to fight whatever she’s using against me. Her gift must be telekinetic… but why the heat, why the difficulty in handling such a simple gift? Those runes obviously must be the source. Gods, this pressure against my chest and my head, feels like I am about to burst like stabbing a pregnant woman. I must find a way out of this, I see the fear in her face—she’s losing control, I will die from her inability if I do not act.

  She removed her hand away from the collapsing roof and tried to drag her arm away from Death by yanking her sleeve. She grew desperate, trying to let the falling debris hit her in the head in hopes it’d stop her gifts.

  The pain was growing too much for Death. So, in an act he vowed to never admit to anyone after this moment, he called out for the help of Beion Flame using the words once told to him.

  After a few seconds, a voice cut through their fight; Beion stood at a freshly spawn portal to Hell, hearing the blaring of the Sentinels and confused why they weren’t attacking him.

  “Well, Death, you certainly take the crown,” he joked. “Your little friends have summoned me three times since we last met, two of them were for simple conversation.”

  “A cambion?” Fiasco screamed. “I knew you were in leagues with those freaks!”

  “I’m sorry? I’m the freak?”

  She squeezed her fist shut will aiming it at Beion. The ceiling caved in, the floor turned to jagged rocks and crushed everything around him into a sphere of stone, wood, and dirt.

  Beion exited a portal on the other side of the dungeon. “I really need to change my deal with you bunch,” he sighed. “Next time you summon me… don’t make it feel like suicide.”

  “Get the fuck out of my city!” Fiasco pulled the ceiling down on Beion by snapping four pillars with her gifts like brittle bones. He gave another deep sigh before falling backwards into his portal, opening a third above her head and putting her into a headlock.

  “Close your eyes for this one, Death,” Beion advised. “This one will leave you seeing stars for weeks if you look at it.”

  All the flames of the torches combined into a magical mass in the centre of the ruined dungeon. At Beion’s command, it lit up the dark halls like an exploding sun. Fiasco screamed, nearly blinded by it. She grabbed Beion’s arm, the runes burning into his flesh and causing him to release her.

  “Hoh—wha—what? I am demon-blooded, how did you burn my arm like—”

  Fiasco connected an arm to each of his shoulders and pushed him against the ceiling of the room above. “You cambion fuckwit!” she said, her eyes full of blinding tears. “I’ll rip you in half! You don’t belong in Vatanil!”

  True to her word, Beion began to split. His clothes and skin were tearing at the middle of his body. He screamed in agony.

  She seemed to have forgot about Death entirely. He used her attention on the cambion to swing his chain into the side of her skull and knock her unconscious. Beion fell back into the dungeon through the ceiling’s hole, coughing up blood.

  “That was terrible,” Beion wheezed. “How are you blocking out the effects of the Sentinels.”

  Killian kicked down the doors of the dungeon, sword in hand.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Death growled. “Get us out of here.”

  They entered Hell through a portal as Killian charged for them.

  “You fucking cowards!” Killian screamed, attacking the rubble. “Come back and face me!” He looked at Fiasco’s defeated body, stomping to it and checking for a heartbeat. Once found, he threw her over his shoulder. “King Godwin will punish your weakness.”

  An owl hooted at Killian through the window. He scared it off with a growl. It flew high up to a Sentinel, landing on the readied arm of Stroke Valan, who dangled his feet off the edge, watching and listening to the battle for entertainment.

  “I have allied with the stranger, just like I believe you wanted,” he said to the owl. “Voiceless One, thank you for my new friend. Now, show me the path to Runaya.”

  ————————————————————————

  Death landed on his feet in a spacious room. He expected all decorations to be red or bloody. Beion’s room was yellow and green. Potted plants hung from the cave-like ceiling, shelves of books aimed to teach mages how to use spells. Above his bed, a painted portrait of Beion himself.

  Well, I cannot say I’m surprised, Death thought. I do recall this cambion saying his room had no doors… didn’t think he meant that literally… no windows, somehow Hell is chillier than I thought. If the power that woman has ever becomes controllable, it will prove a hard battle for me.

  Something wrapped around Death’s chest. Aleirica was in the room, squeezing him tight in a hug.

  “How wonderful to see you again!” she exclaimed. “Snow is not happy with you at all, I’ve heard. I doubt she will be happy when she knows you’re with me rather than her.”

  As long as she doesn’t command me to do something stupid as a cursed punishment, I do not care, Death thought.

  Beion removed his shirt and inspected his torso for any wounds that needed urgent treatment. Thankfully, there were none.

  “The fox and the girl have been out murdering,” Beion said. “A lot of bodies. You’d be proud.”

  “Killing peasants? That is standard.”

  Beion pulled a folded latter from his sock. “They even gave me this,” he said. “Said to give it to you.”

  Death snatched the letter and seared the information into his memory before putting it into his own pocket.

  Someone was threatening Godwin with information. This is the same writing as the note I gave to Stroke. Next time I meet with him I shall give him this letter too. He upheld his deal; he is not my enemy for the time being.

  Death kept his alliance with Stroke a secret. He declared his next target was King Godwin and his brother, Prince Harren.”

  “How brazen,” Beion sighed. “To achieve a palaver such as killing the king of Valan… I can’t help with that.”

  “I know it shall be difficult,” Death admitted. “Of course, I will need to find a weapon able to kill him… I could travel to the other nations to find this.”

  “Not a good idea,” Aleirica said. “If you think the Valans are strong… wait until you travel outside the borders of Valan. Their ancestors locked their nation away from deals with others, there are no trade routes, no ambassadors.”

  “The other nations make these two look like ants?”

  “Not entirely,” Beion interrupted. “The other nations are… how do I put this? Different. Scary.”

  “More power for me,” Death boasted. “For now, those two are my targets—I met them all.”

  “Even Stroke Valan?” Aleirica asked. “I thought he doesn’t like to talk or show himself?”

  “Well, he shown himself to me. That woman you and Aleion were cutting open in Caron, it was his childhood friend. She was not his servant. He loves her. He’s trying to save her.”

  Aleirica was hit with a sudden sadness. “Oh,” she squeaked. “Does he know that she’s—”

  “No,” Death interrupted. “I find it likely that Godwin knows. I find it even more likely that they’re hiding it from him.”

  “You didn’t tell him?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t ask.”

  Aleirica hit his shoulder lightly. “That’s cruel of you.”

  “I shall tell him if he asks,” Death said softly. “I do not know this man well enough to anticipate how he would react.”

  “And how would you have a chance for him to ask you,” Beion said suspiciously.

  Death came up with a lie on the spot. “Because I plan to allow myself to get captured a second time. It is the only way to get close to them.”

  “And the Sentinels?”

  “The Sentinels seem to like me,” Death said. “Beion. Aleirica. I am in Hell. I would like to stay here for a while, kill a few more that are of equal strength… I will need it in my future battles.”