The howling wind had long since replaced the beating war drums. And, over the wind, the cries of the dying carried.
The battlefield of ice and snow was littered with blood, interrupted only by the scattering of bodies, belong to both devils and demons alike. They stretched towards the horizon on all sides, empty eyes staring up at the white-grey sky of Cania.
Devils moved through the lines, finishing off demons unfortunate enough not to have died quickly, and leaving injured devils in desperate need of help. They didn't even bat an eye as they lined their pockets with anything of worth, from the fallen bodies of both their comrades and their enemies. Nobody moved the dead, and I suspected their bodies would litter the Wastes until the wind bleached their bones as white as the snow.
I picked my way through the mess, using the last of my lingering energy to keep my sword tip from dragging through the stained snow as I surveyed my surroundings.
I'd spent the last hour fighting as the devil's had, with swords and fists and brute, unrelenting focus, killing or maiming any demon who's path I crossed. At first I'd struggled identifying enemy from devil — of which the others seemed to have no such issue — but after a while, I found my rhythm.
To my horror, we'd been teleported right into the middle of the raging battle; me, my watcher and then the barbed devil's, the portal snapping shut immediately behind us. I'd had little choice but to help hold the line as the yellow-eyed tiefling had thrust a longsword that was not my own into my shaking hands, the force of demons bearing down upon us. I'd had little time to wonder at my apparent resistance to the brisk weather, as the first demon had singled me out, forcing me to defend myself.
As we had fought — the tiefling with knives, and me with the too-heavy longsword — I'd looked for opportunities to fall back; letting the devil's swarm around me towards their enemy. But my watcher's observant yellow eyes were always on me, his presence never far from my own. I found no opportunity to do anything other than survive.
And even that, only barely.
A bruise on my ribs — from a demon that had grappled me to the ice, only to find a throwing knife in his back — would make movement difficult for the next few days, and a cut along my cheek leaked blood into my painted eyes.
The paint itself had been surprisingly resilient. It had lasted, despite the sweat and blood, with only my joints flaking — knees and elbows dropping paint like little snowflakes of red and black. The most spoiled part of me were my hands — where my grip on the sword had rubbed my palms clean.
The exposed skin stung, impossibly cold, and I realised why the temperature of Cania's wastes hadn't frozen me to the spot, particularly given my risque outfit.
The paint was keeping the cold at bay.
And I knew that — even without my yellow-eyed shadow dogging my every step, even without endless expanses of nothingness on all sides — there was nowhere for me to go; not with the slowly peeling paint my only protection against Cania.
As I explored the battlefield, I shivered against the chill air, at the proximity of the other devils; a variable mismatch of races and genders. Despite others doing the same, the battlefield felt still, compared to the chaos that had raged only recently.
The tides had turned quickly in the devil's favour, the outcome determined long before we had even arrived. And, after we had gained enough ground and had killed enough of their numbers, the hordes of remaining demons had been forced to retreat. They'd fallen back, escaping through summoned portals, vicious snarls ringing through the humm of magic.
The easy-enough win made the need for my presence all the clearer. I wasn't here for any famed fighting prowess; I was here to show off, like a painted toy.
I suspected the devil's knew it too, and I kept the sword in my hand, not liking the way they looked at me.
I only stopped when I found an Erinyes' crumpled form, death-grey face gaping up at the sky. But it wasn't her that gave me pause, but what she had clasped in her hand.
It wasn't anything to look at. Certainly nothing like the one I had owned.
But it was a might better than the sword in my hand.
I claimed the longbow, grimacing as I grazed her already cold skin. Stringing it to my back, I then relieved her of the half-empty quiver.
"Like a carrion bird," the yellow-eyed tiefling chuckled from behind me.
I didn't turn until I was equipped, my lips pulling back in a snarl when I saw his ever-present smirk. He didn't seem concerned that I had attained an additional weapon. Didn't seem to even question it.
It wasn't like there was much I could do, here and now. I could kill a couple of them, maybe. But I couldn't take on an army.
His knives we're back in their spots, and he looked just as put together as he had the moment we'd left the throne room.
That was, until I looked closer.
His eyes were pinched, lined with the shadows of battle, and his shoulders were slumped in exhaustion. I suspected he'd hurt his shoulder at some point, as he held his right arm against his stomach, in a stance that wasn't quite as casual as he was hoping it looked.
I smirked right back at him, pleased to see he was having almost as terrible a time as me.
I wandered through the battlefield for a while longer, looking out for anything that might be of use. A knife for my boot. A lockpick. A potion. But the tiefling kept his bright gaze on me, standing so close that I could almost feel the heat radiating off of him, and I had no opportunity to claim anything of worth.
Eventually, a portal opened — so near that it could only be for us — and he ushered me through. The barbed devil's weren't far behind.
On the other side, the throne room was empty, Asmodeus gone.
The tiefling immediately took my weapons, hands reaching for them before I'd even had a chance to reorient myself.
Despite never having been far from each other on the battlefield, he searched every inch of me thoroughly, patting me down and ensuring I hadn't hidden anything anywhere. My back had been ramrod straight, my lips pulled back in a grimace, as he'd offered me a wink before leading me back to my cell. I made a mental note of the fact he hadn't checked my wildly braided hair.
After that, the days passed as usual.
They left me in the paint and what apparently passed as armour. As time passed, the red-black colour peeled and flaked, littering my icy cell floor, and the dark colours smudged across my body.
When he'd brought me my meals the second day, the sight of me had elicited a surprised laugh, leaving my skin red with embarrassed anger. I was thankful he hadn't been able to see it beneath the mess of paints.
It was three days after the fight that they came for me again; the barbed devils silent behind the tiefling. Like the time before, they waited as the two women stripped me, washed me and then painted every inch of my bare skin afresh.
I was pleased to see the bow and longsword in the tiefling's hands when I was finally ready, and snatched them from him right there in the throne room. I was surprised when he let me.
He pushed me through first, a splayed hand on my upper back.
The fight was the same. Another skirmish with the demons. Another white battlefield.
This time, I managed to acquire and hide a lockpick in my hair, losing the tiefling in the crowd of pressing bodies for a few scant minutes. And — though I knew it would do no good against the lock-less doors in the castle — I couldn't help but smile.
It was the next time they dressed me for battle and pushed me through the portal, that I slipped up.
I'd been fighting alongside the tiefling, as always, when a particularly agile demon had attacked him from behind. Aiming, I'd released an arrow, my response purely automatic. The arrow flew true, piercing her through the throat only moments before her knife would have found purchase in his back.
Our eyes met amidst the chaos.
He'd seen.
The surprise on his face mirrored my own, before he'd tipped his head with a feral smirk, rounding on the dying female and finishing the job.
When we returned that night, my meal was twice as large as usual, and I finished every bite of it; ravenous after the gruelling day. He didn't say anything as he dropped it off, his face cool and unreadable.
Afterwards, I took the lockpick I had hidden in my braids, stabbing it through the splintered timber of the waste bucket for safe keeping.
The next time we were forced to fight, there was slick ice below our feet — the frozen lake making each movement of our feet dangerous. There'd been a keep at our backs, polluting the sky with smoke. Here, the army of demons had been at their thickest.
We fought desperately that day, our booted feet finding no purchase on the ice, whilst our enemies held on with clawed feet or bore down on membranous wings. We'd been forced against each others backs as one such demon had swooped at us with outstretched claws. It was only because of the added balance gained by him standing hard against my back, that I think we survived.
Many others hadn't been as fortunate. And it was with only one of the barbed devils that we returned. The tiefling could barely hide his amusement at the loss, the smirk stuck on his lips as they led me back to my cell. When he returned later that day with my double-serving of food, I caught him whistling. The food had been piping hot, fresh from the stove.
The days that we didn't leave to fight in the seemingly pointless skirmishes, I trained. I trained harder than I ever had before.
I knew I couldn't keep this up indefinitely, at some point my luck was going to run out.
But I needed to survive as long as I could. Long enough to sneak out a weapon. Long enough to fight a battle near a settlement and escape. Long enough to do something…
I didn't want to die. But I certainly didn't want to remain here forever.
And nobody was coming for me.
They didn't even know that I needed saving, let alone where to start looking.
No. I was going to have to get out of this one alone.
It was by the seventh or eighth battle that I was surprised to find a city at our backs. A great glistening walled city, with spires of ice and glittering towers.
"Mephistar," the tiefling had told me when we'd landed amongst the rows of devils. At my blank look, he'd added with a mocking laugh; "The capital, you ignorant berk."
Of course Mephistopheles had named it after himself…
Across a field of ice, ridges of snow interrupted the horizon. It was between two such peaks, that an army of demons waited. I could hear the drums Valen had recalled once, long ago. The sound carried on the wind along with the swell of snarling voices.
The battle had started like any other; the two armies clashing, the sound like a roar of thunder.
And, like always, I'd kept away from the front lines; the tiefling seeming content to pick off the demons that pushed through the wall of defending bodies.
His knives would flash, cutting down any demon that managed to get too close for my bow or longsword to be of use. We fought with the fluidity of those that had done so many times before, covering each other's weaknesses and leaving those that we knew the other could handle. It almost felt like old times. Almost.
As we fought together, I would almost forget that he was following the orders of Asmodeus. That he fought at my side only because he'd been commanded to keep me alive. And that, when this fight was over, he would march me back to my cold empty cell without a thought about what I wanted.
He fought differently to what I had come to expect of a devil or demon. He was agile, quick and calculating. His tail would extend far behind him for balance, as he would bounce on the balls of his feet. He would never seek out an enemy, but would wait for them to fall into the trap of underestimating his smaller frame.
Amidst the chaos of the fighting, I almost didn't hear it; the sound of my heart hammering in my ears, as if keeping time with the drums, almost drowning everything else out.
But I think some part of me would always recognise the sound.
I heard the roar of anger, followed by the thud of something heavy connecting with a body. I could see the devil's nearby pushing in on the attacking demon, solidifying their defense.
Except it wasn't just any demon.
His flail spun, connecting with a hook-clawed devil, before charging head first into the next. His armour was different — a simple black suit of plate mail, no different from that worn by any of the other demonic cannon fodder. Fresh blood covered most of his pale face, drops of it running down his chin.
But I would recognise the tiefling's blue eyes and mess of red hair anywhere.
It was impossible. Yet there he was.
My voice was a whisper, drowned out by the thudding of my heart.
"Valen."