His comrades called him all sorts of names; ‘Ears’, or ‘Lurk’ and ‘Cloak’ were the current popular ones, though in his past he’d been subjected to any number of monikers and epithets, from both the spirit of camaraderie and maliciousness. No one seemed to be particularly interested in his real name however, which was Jasin.

He was a half-elf in service to the Seventh Seal, Third File, a scout. Today, it was his job to patrol the western edge of the oasis, to make sure that nothing came screaming out of the desertic wastes and took them by surprise.

He didn’t much get along with the other elves in the Seventh Seal, who sneered down at him as if it was his fault his elven father tumbled a human woman. There were plenty of humans that looked at him in the same way in the various towns and cities and lands the Seal passed through as they searched for their next worthy battlefield.

It depended on the nation, but as a general rule, elves were purists, and a bastard half-breed like him had no place in their societies. Some humans were like that, too. The Anglish could be particularly prickly about it in particular. They were humanists, who saw that their race was the chosen race, the perfect race. Elves, Yamato, beastman races, all of them were some twisted mockery of the perfection of the human form, and a half-blood like him was a slap in their faces.

He’d made his home in the Seventh Seal, though. Captain Aldric was an honorable man, strict but fair. He employed based on ability and skill, not on bloodline. There were elves, humans, and beastmen in the ranks of the Seventh Seal.

Jasin was fortunate enough (or damned, as your particular persuasion dictated) to be gifted with a tiny spark of magic. Insignificant, really. Barely worth mentioning, except for the fact that he had invested all of it into changing the colors of his cloak to match his surroundings, so today, he appeared to be shrouded in the dunes of the desert.

He’d seen Aurene’s departure from the Seventh Seal early in the morning and wondered what it portended. She was Commander Daveth’s second-in-command and recently his lover. Was she heading back to Azsig-Noth to report their early success in securing the first oasis? Why? The Nothians weren’t exactly renowned for their military might, so reinforcements weren’t likely to be forthcoming. If they were sending for resupply, why didn’t the quartermaster or one of her underlings go?

Shortly after, one of Daveth’s scouts, an elven woman named Audra headed west. Even though he’d made no attempt to reveal himself she’d given him a cheerful wave as she headed west. She was uncannily perceptive. He watched her head out across the desert until she’d disappeared in the heat shimmers.

He observed a tribe of what looked to be spider-type beastmen successfully hunt a giant lizard with spears; he could hear their cheers as they gathered up their kill; he could hear their gossip though he couldn’t understand their language.

He also heard their screams of pure terror turn to screams of agony as a herd of some extremely fast-moving predators washed over them in a wave, claws slashing, jaws snatching.

He’d seen them before, too. They appeared to be a weird mix of lizard and bird, with their forelegs short wings, and were roughly the size of a small dog. They were pack hunters, and very ferocious. He watched the pack swarm over the much larger arachnid-women, reducing them to a jumble of bones in a matter of minutes.

After their meal, they all turned in another direction, and tore off across the dunes, faster than a horse could trot. He hoped Audra had not been caught in their path. She was surprisingly nice,for an elf.

He’d report to Commander Daveth about that swarm, however. A beast like that could decimate the Seventh Seal if they were caught unawares.

As he got up, there was a sense of discomfort that couldn’t be easily placed. He was thirsty of course, and there was the rather unpleasant sensation of sand getting into every nook and cranny, but that wasn’t it. He scanned the horizon; there wasn’t anything to see.

It was like he’d put on all of his clothes wrong, somehow. They didn’t fit right, they chafed and pinched. His nose itched, threatening a sneeze. His skin scrawled as if a thousand tiny spiders scurried across it. He didn’t know what any of it was, but he knew he had to get back to camp, and fast.

*****

“-if it wasn’t for this fucking headache,” Daveth was complaining, rubbing the side of his head and eyeing the sky.

Aldric himself wanted to whip out his handkerchief as if something unbelievably foul had washed over his senses. He eyed his commander and was about to accuse him of releasing that ungodly foul stench, when he noticed everyone around him behaving oddly. They scratched themselves incessantly, some, like Daveth, rubbed aching heads. A man by the Tross was unceremoniously vomiting into the dirt. Aldric’s clothes all felt as if he’d put them on backwards, or were perhaps a size too small.

You’ve seen this before. Where?

He dredged his mind for the memory, but the memory itself refused to be found, as if it too scurried in fear of- of-

Daveth crashed to his knees, and like a mighty tree in the forest, keeled over and slammed onto the ground face-first.

“Jonan!” Aldric called, his eyes watering from that stench-that-was-not-a-stench. He finally knew what it was, and he bitterly cursed the desert and himself for dragging the Seventh Seal into it. This was a horrible place to die. Still, his years of training, his commitment to discipline and focus, and his will, his need to survive coalesced around his heart. He would try to rally his troops, despite the inevitability of annihilation. They would at least die fighting.

“Jonan!” Aldric called a second time. “Call to arms!” He yelled.

Jonan heard the call and repeated it, dashing through the camp. The Seventh Seal was in a sorry state. Everyone complained of joint pain, headaches, dizziness, they kept scratching at themselves, or tugging on the straps of their armor, or adjusting their grips on their weapons.

It could have been a poison the Orgus left behind in the oasis, but Jonan didn’t think so. No, he was there when the army of Thud invaded the Valley of Rust, he was there when the Rusteans unleashed their blasphemies.

Ultimately, it wasn’t military might, or sorcerous aptitude, it wasn’t strategy, logistics, tactics, or even sheer numbers that overwhelmed Rust, it was a starfall, meteor, a miracle in a land bereft of gods that had obliterated Rust’s demonhost.

“Infantry, form ranks! Cavalry, saddle up! Archers at the ready! To arms, to battle!” Jonan yelled, eyes squeezed shut against looking at what dropped from the skies.

*****

With a sound of massive wingbeats in the air, something landed near Aldric, who lay sprawled in the hardpan, riding the edge of consciousness.

“Well this certainly offers no opportunities.” a baritone voice rolled across the hardpan.

“Shall I, then?” a husky feminine voice immediately asked.

“Duration?” The baritone voice demanded.

“...six hours should be sufficient, I should think.” the woman answered after a moment of thought.

“Remuneration?”

“Ten feet of hempen rope.” The female voice offered.

“Excellent. Done.”

The overwhelming sense of wrongness that pressed down on the entire camp lifted; the sense of discomfort faded, and those that had collapsed bagan standing up.

“Rise.” a girlish voice commanded, and Aldric frowned as he pushed himself to his feet, brushing sand from his coat, his trousers, his beard and hair.

He ostentatiously did not look at what told him to rise, but from his peripheral vision he could see thick curls of black smoke, flecks of ember and ash swirling.

“This one greets you and bids you that you should take this one to whomever commands.” the girl’s voice echoed hollowly, as if speaking through an empty container.

“I am-” Aldric began, but cut himself off. Wasn’t there some sort of rule or proscription against giving a demon your name? He couldn’t remember, but decided to play it safe.

“I am in command.” He replied, refusing to look at the thing directly.

Dirty feet. Tattered dress spotted with char-marks, pinhole burns, dusted with soot. Slightly shorter than the average elf. Massive wings that shed a constant boiling black smoke when they moved, occasionally trailing embers that flared and winked out.

“This one greets you. This one is Halja, unbound demonhost to Cthonaotel The Harvester of Contracts. You may address this one as ‘Ashwing’.” She offered.

Demonhost, and unbound, at that. Demonhosts were always bound through all sorts of magical tools and rites and things that Aldric didn’t particularly know or understand except that demons were anathema to the world, and only through binding them could one contain it, and eventually banish it.

An unbound demonhost had no fetters, no limitations on its power, on what it could or could not do. There was no telling what threshold of power would be necessary to contain or slay such a thing, and even if Aldric had command of an entire battalion of high-ranked mages at his command, the demon could simply slip into a new host at its whim and leisure.

“What do you want?” Aldric began, but the demonhost frowned a little.

“How should this one address you?”

“Captain.” He spat.

“Agreed. For the duration of this contract, you shall be addressed as ‘Captain’ and be understood to treat on behalf of those you hold to be under your command.”

Fuck.

Even childhood stories warned about making deals with demons, and not only had he apparently made a deal with a demon, he was now solely responsible for the actions of the entirety of the Seventh Seal in relation to that deal.

“What ‘contract’?” Aldric demanded. “I demand to know the nature of this contract you speak of.”

The response was an immediate overwhelming pressure that washed over the assembled mercenaries and forced them all back a step. “Oh Captain, please.” The baritone voice mocked teasingly. “Someone of your standing should know that there are all sorts of pacts, bargains, contracts and arrangements... as well as remunerations, penalties, risks and rewards.”

Aldric glanced to the side; Daveth was still sprawled out on the ground. He was the only one to remain unconscious.

“What have you done to my subordinate?” Aldric asked.

“Ah, you wish to bargain, then. An information request. Very good. I have the answer that you seek. What is it you have to offer as a recompense?” the baritone voice echoed out of the lithe winged elf.

Shit. Shit, fuck, and damn.

What could an unbound demon want? It already possessed a host, possessed staggering amounts of magical power. What could it possibly need that it could not simply take on its own?

Ah. It had introduced itself as ‘The Harvester of Contracts’. The way it spoke, the way it behaved, could it only be capable of interacting with others through negotiation and contracts?

There was a problem, though. Aldric had no idea what this thing wanted or needed. A negotiation was something that occurred between two or more sides where everyone already knew, or could intuit what the other wanted.

“Information for information. An answer for an answer.” Jonan suddenly spoke up, stepping to Aldric’s side.

“Good to see you, Jonan.” Aldric muttered.

“Likewise.” Jonan muttered back. “We’re fucked, aren’t we?”

“Probably.” Aldric muttered back.

“An information exchange. A question for a question, an answer for an answer. Very good. Very, very good. We agree to this bargain, ‘Captain’.”

“We have put this one to sleep.” Ashwing answered. “Why are you here?” She asked.

“We’re hunting Orgus.” Aldric replied. “Why have you put Da-” He caught himself. “My commander asleep?”

“His kind often introduce an ... unpredictable element to a critical situation.” Ashwing answered, and then asked, “Why are you hunting Orgus?”

After a moment, Aldric responded. “We were asked to.” He was getting into the cadence of the thing, and it was answering with as little information as possible. So long as he had usable information, he could continue this question and answer session.

As the question and answer negotiation continued, a picture developed in Aldric’s mind; what the creature wanted. Some of it was easy enough: it needed consumables for its host. Food, water, clothing.

Another part seemed that it wanted something done, something it couldn’t do on its own. No matter how Aldric prodded or poked or tried to draw out an answer, it would simply respond, “that question would violate a bargain with a different client.”

Daveth would not be allowed out of his induced sleep until the deed was done. Where was the deed to be done? The Crystal Flats.

Audra had been sent out to the Crystal Flats that morning. What had happened to her?

“Ahhh, you wish to strike a different bargain with me?” was the answer.

No, no bargains. Not if he could help it. But he needed Daveth, so instead of northeast he’d take the slightly battered Seventh Seal west to the Crystal Flats installation, alongside that grinning abomination, ‘Ashwing’.

*****

As they were preparing to move out, Audra and Jasin appeared, both with bows drawn and a bead on their resident monstrosity.

On the one hand, Aldric had seen Audra put an arrow through a coin toss. She could easily put an arrow through the burning eyes of the thing, but on the other hand, what would it accomplish?

An unbound demonhost had limitless magical power. Surely it could evade an arrow or evaporate it midflight, or any number of things Aldric desperately wished his mages could do.

That coin toss, though. Right now the thing was docile, but if provoked, it could effortlessly wipe out the Seventh Seal.

If not, if it could be killed, what then? At least in this form it was shackled to a mortal form. Kill the body, the demon escapes, only to possess another. That’s why demons were bound. A bound demon would be banished back to its home... realm... when it’s mortal host was killed. An unbound demon was madness. Unfathomable, indescribable madness.

Aldric would have loved to have had a chance to kill the idiot mage that’d let an unbound demon loose on the world.

The Seventh Seal marched west, past piles of dried bones in the sun. Jasin reported the bird-lizard swarms that roamed the area. They reminded Aldric of the stories he'd heard of about piranha, fish that would go into a ferocious feeding frenzy and strip a body in moments.

A fierce march under a blistering sky brought the Seal to the Anglish installation, which was totally deserted.

The Anglish installation looked completely out of place with its gothic architecture carved from the stones dug up from the desert. Beyond the installation were the Crystal Flats themselves; a broad white glittering plane of land as if someone had leveled the land in every direction perfectly flat. Crystals were allowed to grow until they were roughly the size of a grown man’s fist, then harvested and boxed up for shipping to various parts of the Empire.

Even after three centuries of deterioration following the loss of its patron goddess, the machinery of the Empire still lurched onward.

There were signs of a struggle here and there; a dropped sword, a shield that looked to have been punctured in several places, darker patches of ground that could have been bloodstains. There was a conspicuous absence of bodies. Human, that is.

Here and there were the carapaces of giant wasps, fully half the height of a man, cruel stingers crusted with dried blood.

Inside the compound was a Temple- a bloated relic from an age when the Gods and Goddesses meddled with the world. It was ostentatious, grotesque in its vulgar display of wealth and authority. It could comfortably accommodate twice the numbers of the Seventh Seal with room left over. What was something like this doing in a desert?

Ashwing pointed at the Temple. “We desire the relic inside.”

Aldric gave her a baffled look.

“The Gods and Goddesses were purged from this world centuries ago. What’s stopping you from getting it yourself?”

The winged elf shuddered, causing embers to cascade from her wings in a shower of sparks.

“We are bound by ancient covenant not to tread on consecrated ground.”

Aha.

The Gods were gone, but here and there in the world were things that still held their power.

Eirawen. Of course. Why hadn’t he made the connection earlier? Eirawen was a Champion. She should have had little difficulty dealing with a demon, unbound or not. Why hadn’t he simply ordered her to battle the thing?

He had just made the second dumbest mistake in his life, and like before, he’d done it completely out of fear.

Daveth would have ordered Eirawen in a heartbeat, Aldric was certain. He wouldn’t have hesitated.

Aldric mentally flogged himself for his failure, even as he stepped into the temple.

Inside, the air was cooler. Some trick of air circulation, perhaps. Aldric made his way down the central aisle to the central heart of the six-lobed cathedral.

Amidst the iconography of a Goddess long dead was a statue of a woman unfamiliar to Aldric.

She was willow-thin, petite, almost elven in appearance, her hair done up in a high tail at the back of her head. Her face was wild, determined, fierce. A scar like a stroke of a brush started on her forehead and continued straight down through her left eyebrow and down her cheek. Aldric hadn’t seen the woman before, but he knew the dress, the poise, the facial structure; the woman had been Yamato. In the statue’s hands was a blade that looked to be carved from fulgurite, if such a thing could be believed.

At the foot of the statue was an epitaph; Aldric knelt to read the words.

HERE LIES SASAKI THE THUNDERBLADE; JUSTICAR WITCH HUNTER

HEROIC IN HER DEFEAT OF KIRK HELSTEAD, ARROGANT SORCERER AND HIS SIXTY-FOUR FOLLOWERS

HER SACRIFICE SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN

Aldrid didn't even know who she was. Likely a pre-Liberation hero; the Empire was rife with those. Back then genocide was a perfectly acceptable military tactic. “Kill them all, let the Goddess sort them out.” was practically the callsign of the entire military apparatus of the Anglish Empire back then.

“Witch Hunters” were carte-blanche killers sanctioned by the government to burn entire settlements to the ground if they even appeared to be deviating from holy canon. A line below the last caught his eye.

A GIFT FROM THOSE WHO COME BEFORE TO THOSE WHO FOLLOW AFTER.

He eyed the blade. It was clearly the relic the demon wanted. How to get it out of the statues’ hand, however?

He’d have to break it.

Why hadn’t the Anglish removed it already, if it was such a potent weapon? Maybe, if the Temple was still consecrated, maybe if the blade still had whatever powers blessed within it, maybe they simply weren’t able to remove it.

Maybe, just maybe, he could.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

He addressed the statue. “Lady Sasaki, a demon waits just past that door.” he whispered, his hand over his heart. “Maybe, just maybe your sword and the powers of this place could be our salvation.”

What was he doing, praying to a statue? Stupid idea. He reached up to take the sword, and it dropped into his hand as if the statue itself had let it go.

The blade was long, the lightning-glass a remarkable hue of blues and greens. Streaks of gold and strange minerals threaded through it. Whoever had crafted the blade was a craftsman of unmatched, peerless caliber. There weren’t many in the entirety of the world that could work lightning-glass with any degree of competence.

Outside, the demonhost waited.

His hand closed on the grip and a tingle of electricity sparked against his palm.

He stepped out of the temple; the sun struck him like a hammerblow against the cool of the temple.

“This is the relic you wanted?” He asked. Adrenaline spiked his veins, he was hot and ice-cold sweat trickled down his neck.

“Yes.”

He held it loosely in his hand; the electric tingle was driving him mad. It was obnoxious and it hurt.

He casually approached the woman, boots gritting in the sand.

He raised his hand as if to present the blade to her, and then lunged, thrusting the blade at her gut.

The demonhost moved, hand blurring, there was a crackle of ozone as the blade slid through some magical force, and then the blade punched into her belly. Aldric angled the blade up, forcing it up through her diaphragm, cutting into one lung and skewering her heart. He twisted the haft, and was blasted back in a coruscading shower of electricity.

The demonhost screamed; the demon within her howled, their voices overlapping as a massive blast of wind erupted out from them. Aldric lunged upright, grabbing her arms as her wings spread and she attempted to take flight.

The flesh of her arms writhed as if something lurked beneath. Choking on his own revulsion, he spun, and hurled her towards the temple. She staggered towards it, but regained her footing. He charged forward and kicked her in the chest, propelling her across the threshold and into the temple proper.

She promptly exploded in a shower of electricity.

Something else, shrouded in threads of electricity, eyed Aldric. He couldn’t look at it. He couldn’t look away. Its true voice was a chorus of un-sound from beyond light and life that scraped at his soul.

“Aldric Brightspire, son of Eamon Brightspire, I will remember this betrayal.” it intoned, and then with a ear-splitting crack of thunder, that presence disappeared.

The fulgurite blade clattered to the floor of the temple’s foyer.

Aldric staggered, and would have fallen were it not for Lynnabel. He eyed the woman, and nodded his thanks.

“You have acquitted yourself with honor, Lord Captain.” She stated simply and he nodded dumbly, still reeling from the shock of seeing, actually seeing a demon with all its artifice stripped away. His body and mind were numb, he felt as if he could pass out any second.

“Your orders, captain?” someone called to him.

Orders. Right. They were off-course in this sea of shifting sands, they had a job to do. There were still six more oases to recapture. The Seventh Seal was down an entire quarter of its fighting strength.

A shadow fell over him, and he looked up to see Commander Daveth peering down at him.

“Where the fuck are we?” He asked, and Aldric barked a laugh.

“Have I got a tale for you.” Aldric began, as he gathered his feet beneath him and stood under his own power.