Chapter 41

  Flamey Elizabeth Hyde was as excited as she was worried as she sat on the makeshift throne her followers had made for her. She waited anxiously, watching as the light of the torches danced and flickered on the twenty or so demons sitting on crates, barrels and on the ground in front of her in the large cellar under the house that had been given to her as her residence. Giaret, one of the women who belonged to Ashkaron, the owner of the house, came up to her and handed her a mug of water.

  ‘Please drink some, Princess!’ she said.

  ‘Oh, thank you, Gia.’ Flamey smiled at the woman, took the mug and drank, then handed the mug back.

  The woman was gleaming with joy as she rushed away, and Flamey was happy for her; she knew nothing came close to the satisfaction and joy of serving a proper princess, and that was a fact.

  ‘Not long now, Princess. They’re almost here,’ Khartagar, the captain of her personal guard said, standing on her right-hand side by the throne.

  ‘I know, I know, Kharti.’ She nodded to the demon. ‘But I’m nervous. This is important.’

  ‘I know, Princess.’ The captain nodded back to her. ‘That’s why I think we should bring General Tarashak into the fold. Then we wouldn’t have to sneak around him all the time.’

  ‘I know.’ Flamey hung her head. ‘But Daddy told me not to use my skills on him. I can’t just go and do it, he’d not be happy.’

  Khartagar sighed.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Unfortunately.’ Flamey sighed, too.

  ‘I understand. I’m sure he has a reason for not allowing it. We’ll manage anyway.’ The guard-captain conceded.

  They both sighed.

  Flamey had considered it many times over the past days; had she wanted to, she could have skirted the rule Daddy had set. He had told her in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want her to use Princess Charm on Tarashak — others were “fair game”, but not the general. She wasn’t sure why that was. But she no longer had the skill; it had changed into something else after level 10, and then something else again after another 10 levels. She could tell Daddy she wasn’t using Princess Charm, and it wouldn’t really be a lie, would it? But she was certain Daddy would be disappointed if she did that. So, she hadn’t used Princess Charm on the general, she hadn’t used Allure of the Princess, and she wasn’t going to use her new skill The Bewitching Princess either. Not on grumpy old Tarashak.

  She liked the new skill a lot; just as the first upgrade had been so much more powerful than Princess Charm, the new iteration — already at level 5 — allowed her to make friends, followers and admirers so much faster than before, almost instantly in fact. And it still had the word “Princess” in it, so it was still a good and proper skill. The number of her followers had been growing, almost three hundred of them now, which made it a lot easier to get around the city without Tarashak trying to stop her just because the old mage thought Daddy’s instruction to “keep her safe” meant confining her to the inner parts of the city. She didn’t fault the general for this; he was taking Daddy’s orders seriously — as any and all demons should — but she was a princess, and she had a job to do. Because Daddy was right: this city couldn’t hold out without her, this city desperately needed its princess. Daddy had known from the beginning, that’s why he had left her behind; she saw that now. And since she was the best princess Hell had ever seen — well, the only princess Hell had ever seen, probably — she was determined to keep everyone safe until Daddy returned. She had to; she was their princess.

  Khartagar had been right: it didn’t take long for them to arrive. The overseer of the city, Erlakhan, walked down the stairs and entered the cellar, four demons following him.

  ‘Princess, we are ready. Everyone is in place.’ Erlakhan bowed his head before Flamey as he arrived to stand in front of her, the others doing the same.

  The demon then stood aside to present the ones behind him. Flamey leaned forward to take a good look at the three scouts — members of her personal guard — and the crafter who had also come along. The three scouts stepped forward so she could have a better look. The two men, Etragar and Travarak, both fire-demons, and the woman, Renet-Lidan, an ice-demon, wore dark grey clothes instead of armour, countless bits and pieces of black fabric sown into their attire all over, even the enlarged hoods hiding their horns. Black cloth covered their faces, and parts of their exposed red or blue skin around their eyes were stained dark with pigments made from the rocks of the hill. This would do just fine, they looked like a part of the grey, rocky hill itself.

  ‘Oooh! Looks good.’ Flamey stood up and stepped off the dais for a closer inspection of her scouts. She touched the fabric flaps covering Renet-Lidan’s robes, and she could sense the ice-demon’s smile growing under her face-cover. She stepped back from her and turned to the crafter.

  ‘This is great work, Fertie,’ she praised Ferthokar.

  ‘Anything for our Princess.’ The man bowed deep. ‘And for Lord Hyde and the Fourth Ring.’

  The gathered demons murmured their agreements, and Flamey was pleased. She turned to the three scouts and grabbed the woman’s arm.

  ‘Renny, Be careful out there. I don’t want to lose any of you,’ she said to them, hoping the mission wasn’t going to end their lives.

  The three of them bowed their heads, and Renet-Lidan answered.

  ‘Our scouts are the best,’’ she said, then looked at the other two demons, who nodded. ‘We’ll be talking to the captain throughout so you will know how we’re getting on. It will be done.’

  ‘I will keep you informed of everything.’ Khartagar assured her as well.

  ‘Okay, good,’ Flamey said. ‘Then, it is time.’ She announced, and everyone got moving.

  ***

  Flamey stepped out of the house, her retinue filing out onto the street right behind her. The plan was in motion now, no turning back. She watched as the three scouts — the best among her personal guards — rushed away to meet up with their teams at the eastern gate, where all the soldiers on duty were her followers. This was a risky operation, they all knew it as well as she did, but they had all agreed to it with great enthusiasm anyway — an advantage of The Bewitching Princess. She wasn’t sure if it was right or wrong to get everyone to do what she wanted this way. Daddy was of the opinion it was better to make friends without using the skill. And she would have if the circumstances were different. Still, she had done her best to hold back and not use her skill’s full power, otherwise her followers would have become mindless slaves incapable of any meaningful thought of their own. That power she was keeping for someone else. But in the meantime, Daddy’s capitol city needed to be protected, so she had no intention to give her plan up, and no intention to get caught by grumpy old Tarashak. It had to be done. Ah, this was nerve-wrecking.

  ‘Princess, it’s time to go. The general must be waiting already,’ Khartagar said, and gestured for her to start walking.

  Flamey nodded and began walking towards Tarashak’s place, which was a tent he had set up on the square at the western gate. Twenty of her personal guards followed her, and demons parted ways before them, waving at their princess, wishing her success in her endeavour to protect the city. Everyone on this street was a follower, so she waved back to them and hoped she wouldn’t disappoint them. The plan was good, and she was sure it would slow down the stupid minotaurs' efforts to undermine the city in the most literal sense.

  Flamey arrived at the western gate after ten minutes. Her guards spread out to form a loose protective circle immediately, which she thought was as unnecessary as being followed by them everywhere; who in this city would wish their princess any harm? No-one. She was their princess.

  Tarashak was waiting in front of his tent, looking weary and annoyed as always.

  ‘Ah, Flamey.’ He grumbled as soon as he saw her. ‘Late as always, and before you bring any of your usual excuses forward, I’m not in the mood to hear again how busy a princess always is or how “good hugs” take time. I don’t even know what that means.’

  ‘Hello Tar-Tar!’ Flamey greeted the grumpy old general.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ he snapped at her, and Khartagar and a few guards in earshot glared at the archmage angrily.

  ‘Sorry, I forgot. Hello, Tarashak.’ She smiled at him and waved behind her back to calm her guards down before they’d overreact.

  ‘Every time, Flamey, every time.’ The mage complained as he gestured for her to follow him up to the ramparts. ‘If that flying thing wasn’t as useful as it is, I wouldn’t even bother with you.’

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  ‘Whirly’s great, isn’t he?’ she grinned at the general.

  ‘Somewhat useful.’ He nodded, reluctantly.

  ‘Any news from Daddy?’ Flamey inquired.

  ‘Reinos says the battle isn’t over yet, and that your father is about to duel the enemy general. I’m sure he’s fine.’

  Good news. And of course, Daddy will slay the enemy general, she didn’t have any doubt.

  ‘You have to tell me as soon as you hear anything new!’

  ‘I will, I will.’ Tarashak sighed as they stepped onto the ramparts. He peeked over the parapet. ‘For now, let’s have a look at how things are down there.’

  ‘Okay,’ Flamey chirped and summoned the crate which served as Whirly’s home.

  It appeared in a puff of Hell Mana, she pressed the buttons on what Daddy called a keypad, and the crate opened. Khartagar helped her take Whirly out, placing him on the stone, then she took the control panel.

  Princess, the scout teams are outside now, they will be in position in ten minutes. Her guard captain’s voice rung in Flamey’s mind.

  Okay, I’m almost ready. She answered, her thoughts leaving her mind and landing in the captain’s.

  This was so annoying, so very annoying. How come she could mind-talk with Khartagar but not with Daddy? Why did she have to rely on the grumpy general to know he was okay? How was this fair? Or practical? Unfortunately, she didn’t have the time to fume about this horrible injustice; she had to be ready by the time her scouts would be. She closed the crate and sat down on it, then she switched Whirly and the control panel on. The screen flickered to life, showing her the now familiar flow of strange text written in a language Daddy called English. She didn’t understand any of it, she only knew that if everything was green, and if the bar in the corner wasn’t empty, then Whirly’s battery was okay, and he was ready to fly. She worked the controls happily and with ease, and the agile creature rose into the air to embark on another one of his daily flyarounds.

  ‘Good. The damned thing can still fly.’ Tarashak commented, standing over Flamey, watching the screen on the control panel. ‘Now, I want you to direct the contraption along the western side and see how much progress the damned minotaurs have made since yesterday.’

  ‘Okay,’ Flamey said.

  She flew Whirly over the wall and down, aiming the creature’s all-seeing eyes at the wooden structures protecting the thousands of minotaurs swarming at the base of the hill. She touched a button, and Whirly’s “infrared” eyes showed them the sea of heat the hordes of demons represented at the base. As Whirly got lower and closer, and as the sentries noticed him, enemy archers and mages began to separate from the crowd, climbing up the hillside to get closer and try to shoot him down.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look like the enemy will run out of demons to swing pickaxes or fling spells,’ Tarashak said, sneering at the screen. ‘Precious little we can do about them from up here.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t look like it,’ Flamey agreed.

  The hill was large, and it would take a lot of time to dismantle it, but as Tarashak had been observing every single day, the stupid minotaurs were in limitless supply. This was why she wanted to do something, anything, to reduce their numbers and slow them down, even if just by a little.

  Princess, our scouts are in position. Khartagar reported, standing a few steps behind her and the archmage, his mind-voice clear in Flamey’s head. Finally, the time had arrived.

  ‘I’ll take Whirly to take a look at the other side as well,’ she said to the general.

  ‘It’s probably the same there. Wasn’t it you who said something about wasting the creature’s battery, whatever that is?’

  ‘Oh, the battery is fine today, it’s … in a good mood, I think.’ She tried to say something that would make just enough sense to not raise the general’s suspicion.

  ‘Fine, it’s your contraption, not mine.’ Tarashak sighed and leaned closer again to the control panel’s screen to observe Whirly’s flight to the east-side of the hill.

  She switched back from infrared to normal view and flew Whirly higher, around the hill, noticed only by a few enemy sentries — which was fine, Whirly was fast. Then she directed him to get lower as he approached the east side where her scouts were lying in wait.

  Kharti, almost there. She warned the guard captain.

  Scouts are ready. The reply came.

  Flamey was now nervous; it was up to her and Whirly to distract and lure the enemy where the scouts wanted them, but it was the scouts who were out there, risking their lives to make this plan a success. It had to be a success — princesses did not balk or fail their tasks, whatever they may be. And neither did scouts in a princess’ employ.

  Whirly was close, almost there, and as the minotaur sentries called out the approaching flying menace, archers and mages attacked it, trying to swat it out of the sky. Flamey maneuvered the flying contraption expertly, dodging arrows and spellspawn darts and lumps of rocks the enemy was hurling at him, but she needed to get even lower, even closer.

  ‘Flamey, you’re taking the thing too close,’ Tarashak warned her, his eyes still on the screen.

  ‘I just want to have a closer look,’ she said.

  ‘What for? It’s the same as yesterday, and the day before that and before that,’ the general said, not sounding so happy.

  ‘I’m a princess, and that’s what I want to do. That’s what for,’ she replied, and even she knew it was a weak explanation.

  But at the same time, the plan was working. She could see on the screen that the minotaurs were in the same frenzy as always when Whirly made an appearance. Well, mostly the archers and mages who could attack at range. They really wanted to take the flying creature down, didn’t they? Sending Whirly lower than usual was risky, but she had to dangle the bait for the enemy. And the archers and mages took it: in the hope of destroying or capturing Whirly, they were already climbing higher on the eastern hillside than they had ever done, lobbing spells and arrows as fast as they could, never noticing the scout teams blending in with the terrain, waiting for those venturing too far from their groups in their desire to be the one to destroy the flying menace.

  Princess! We’ve got them. We’ve got two. Time to go. Kharti’s voice rung in her head, and she felt tempted to switch to infrared again so she could see her scouts returning to the city with the prize.

  ‘Well, they’re at least annoyed about your flying friend,’ the general commented, unaware of what was really happening.

  ‘They are, aren’t they?’ Flamey smiled at him innocently. ‘I think the battery isn’t very happy now, so I’m bringing him back.’

  ‘What is a battery again?’ Tarashak asked.

  ‘It’s … what makes Whirly fly.’

  ‘How does “Whirly” fly again?’

  ‘With the battery.’

  ‘Right. This is going nowhere,’ Tarashak muttered. ‘Bring the thing back, and we’ll have a look again tomorrow. Maybe we’ll see something that will help next time.’

  Then he walked away.

  Kharti, how are they doing? Flamey sent her thoughts, turning back to look at the captain.

  Two teams are on the way back. One team … well … The guard captain reported but stopped mid-sentence, his face in a grimace of anger, or something equally unpleasant.

  Well, what? She demanded.

  One team, Travarak’s team. They were noticed as they moved. I can no longer hear him. He said.

  Which meant Travarak was dead, possibly along with his whole team. Flamey knew that much. And the news hurt inside her chest. She had to ignore it; the others were on their way back. It didn’t take long for Whirly to fly back and land on the rampart next to Flamey. She wanted to be there to greet the returning scouts — they were her people after all, demons who were willing to give their lives for her. She packed Whirly away in his crate, and she made her way back to her residence along with her retinue of guards.

  ***

  As Renet-Lidan, Ertagar, and their eight scouts stood before her, bowing their heads, smiling and celebrating success, she felt nothing but anger and a stinging sensation in her chest. Travarak and his four scouts were lost. She had seen death, but she could have never imagined that losing demons she was directly responsible for would feel this bad. Demons who followed her out of love and loyalty — regardless of the method such love and loyalty had been achieved. They had been hers, and she had lost them. Five excellent scouts had perished, but the other ten had brought back with them what she wanted: not one but two minotaur mages.

  Renet-Lidan and Ertagar stood in front of her, their dark, stone-like clothes stained with even darker blood. They were injured, Flamey realised, but it seemed she didn’t need to worry: the healing aura Daddy had given to the city was working, and the two scouts didn’t show any signs of succumbing to their injuries. The two, large beast-demons of the Third Ring were writhing on the basement’s stone floor, both tied and gagged so completely that they could barely move or even let out a whimper, let alone cast a spell. Distasteful indeed that her plan called for mages with earth-spells; if not for that, she’d have summoned her Saerkhan daggers and sliced them up without hesitation.

  ‘Princess, we’ve done it!’ Renet-Lidan finally spoke, her boot resting on the head of one of the minotaurs. She looked happy.

  ‘It went better than expected,’ Ertagar added. ‘They really are throwing caution away when it comes to landing a hit on Whirly. Almost as if they’ve been ordered to drop everything and go after the flying critter the moment it shows.’

  ‘That may very well be the case,’ the ice-demon scout mused.

  ‘Good work, all of you,’ Flamey said as she stood from her throne. ‘I’m … sad that Travarak and his team have been killed.’

  ‘It happens. It’s war,’ Ertagar said, almost shrugging.

  ‘They took a few of the scum with them, so it’s not so bad,’ Renet-Lidan said, still smiling.

  Flamey knew and remembered that before choosing to conform to Daddy’s form, she would have shared the two scout leaders’ sentiment about death and killing. She wouldn’t have batted an eye. Now, though? She was sad, and it was a new experience, just as the kind of pain she had felt at the time she thought Daddy would leave her. Was this what humans were going through all the time? If it was, it wasn’t always fun to be human. But she knew she had to power through it; she was a princess, and as such, certain unspoken standards applied.

  ‘Yes. They did well, you all did. Now, let’s see if I can get these minotaur mages to change their minds about wanting to invade and kill.’

  Flamey directed her gaze on the two minotaurs; large, brutish, stupid and in possession of the kind of skills she needed. She felt The Bewitching Princess whispering to her, telling her it was going to be easy to use the full force of its power, and since it was only two targets, it was going to be fast too. This was going to be the first time she would use it without restraint, without worrying about her target’s wellbeing, letting the skill turn them into blinded, mindless servants. Even at a lower level, the second iteration of her skill had been enough to inspire love, loyalty and adoration in anyone, using half of the psychic power it would have been capable of exerting through her aura. With this third iteration, she could turn the worst of her enemies into servants who would die for her if ordered. If it ever reached its fourth iteration, she couldn’t even imagine what it could do to a demon. No wonder Daddy was wary of the skill. Well, minotaurs deserved everything that was coming to them, including undying devotion to a princess, so she was sure Daddy wouldn’t mind.

  She called on The Bewitching Princess; she felt as the skill focused the psychic aura on the two minotaur mages with ease, and a second later the unfortunate enemy mages stopped writhing and wriggling on the ground.

  ‘Untie them!’ she instructed the scouts.

  Once the ropes and gags were removed, the two minotaurs stood up. They didn’t look around, nor did they try to fight or escape. Their beady, minotaur eyes were fixed on Flamey, gleaming with something unnatural that scared her for a moment. She took a deep breath and stood from her throne.

  ‘I am Flamey Elizabeth Hyde, the Hellfire Princess of the Fourth Ring.’ She announced to the two captives. Both threw themselves to the ground, prostrating themselves before her, confessing their love, never-ending loyalty, and their wish to fulfil her every desire immediately and forever. ‘Well, well, well,’ Flamey chuckled at them. ‘In that case, you are going to help me dig.’