Chapter 61

  The room was deathly silent, the air felt like it was frozen despite the hellishly high temperature, and I held my breath while desperately trying to think of something to do or something to say as Riaret the Severing Strike stared into the single eye of the oversized cat sitting on her chest. Given that not only my squad members but the dreaded Fifth Ringers were scared of the critter and considered it a deadly enemy of all, I couldn’t even begin to guess what the general was going to do now. She blinked a few times, but she didn’t move; she remained lying on her bed, her halberd next to her. Maybe she wasn’t fully awake yet, but she would be in the next few seconds and then she’d realise what was going on and then all hell would break loose. This was going to be a mess, an unmitigated disaster, and I quickly prepared myself that a fight may be unavoidable now. After all, who wouldn’t be royally pissed to find a bunch of demons, a human, and a terrifying, space-eating monstrosity in their bedroom? I just hoped that all of us present would come out of this alive in the end, and that I’d be able to placate Riaret and explain things to her properly later. And to that end, even though I loathed to resort to psychic trickery, I activated my Will of the Infernal Tyrant skill. The skill was higher level than Master of Nightmares, but it was a lot more subtle, and I hoped a soft, psychic nudge would help a little in convincing her to accept me and my explanations, no matter how feeble they might turn out to be.

  Riaret finally moved. Her eyes still on the cat, she lifted her arms slowly. I thought she was reaching for her halberd, but instead she gently placed both hands under Mickey’s front legs and lifted him up.

  ‘What is this fearsome creature?’ she half whispered, her voice slow, soft and wondering.

  ‘Meow,’ Mickey replied to her immediately.

  ‘Ah. I see,’ she said, closing her eyes again.

  She saw … what? What was happening? She couldn’t have been fully awake, could she?

  ‘Meow.’ Mickey repeated his earlier statement.

  Riaret opened her eyes again and tilted her head on her pillow.

  ‘Have you come to kill all the filthy minotaurs with me?’ she asked. ‘You too are thirsty for their blood, aren’t you?’

  ‘Meow.’

  That’s when it dawned on me that Riaret still hadn’t noticed that the cat wasn’t her only visitor.

  ‘Rathar, are you still …’ I began to ask.

  ‘She can’t see or hear us. Except for Miekdiezraath-Jegronnod.’ The Kralsenite answered before I could finish uttering the question.

  Oh. Maybe this situation could be still salvaged after all. Maybe I could turn it around and still make a first impression that wouldn’t result in my immediate failure and demise.

  ‘Alright, everyone! Leave the room and wait outside!’ I ordered my squad. ‘Rathar, keep your skill going until I tell you to uncloak me!’

  Grashon, Lanny, my two scouts and two archers left the room quietly, along with the other hive mind demon, leaving me in the room with Rathar, Riaret and Mickey. It seemed the Kralsenites could mask all movements and sounds, which was very handy, as the general hadn’t noticed the door opening and closing at all.

  I looked around and found that the best place for me would be at the large table a few steps away from Riaret’s bed. I quickly pulled a chair and settled down at the head of the table in a way that I had an unobstructed view of her. I wanted to appear as calm and unthreatening as possible, and sitting quietly at the table was my best bet. I took my helmet off; keeping the nature of my being a secret wasn’t something I wanted to do. She didn’t seem too spooked by Mickey, so I hoped she’d take seeing a human for the first time in stride.

  ‘Alright, Rathar, stop in three, two … and one!’ I instructed him to call off his psychic camouflage skill.

  And I braced for impact.

  ***

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Rathar nodded, and I was now visible. And nothing happened. Riaret was still holding the cat up, staring at him and listening to his meows without noticing me. Good going, cat! I took a deep and silent breath, and it was time to announce my presence.

  ‘His name is Mickey,’ I said, speaking calmly and not too loudly.

  As I spoke Riaret moved; one moment she was in her bed, the next Mickey was up in the air, and a maddened looking demon general was in front of me with the sharp spike of her halberd an inch away from my throat. I didn’t have the time to react in any way, shape or form; damn, Riaret was like lightning on marine-issue stim-packs. I couldn’t be entirely sure, but the feeling I got from her presence was that she was a bit over level 40, and that she had put a lot of points into her strength, perhaps even her constitution, her focus being fast and deadly. I hoped my lack of reaction was coming across as calm and collected instead of the truth, which was being outmatched in terms of speed and reaction time.

  ‘Who are … what are you? What are you doing in my room? Give me one good reason I shouldn’t strike you down right now!’ She bellowed at me with the combined fury of the storms of every gas giant in every solar system I knew of.

  I shook my head in the negative at Rathar, who was sneaking towards the general, no doubt to subdue or kill her in an effort to protect the hive mind’s ticket out of the Fourth Ring. He didn’t look happy about the situation, but he stopped. I wasn’t entirely happy about it either; this could have gone so much better if not for the Kralsenites’ attempt to “help” things along. Well, it was time to improvise, and I did so with a fervent hope that I wouldn’t make the situation worse than it already was.

  ‘Have you ever met a human, Riaret?’ I asked her, keeping my voice calm and steady as if I had nothing to worry about.

  ‘A human? Is that what you are? One of the Blessed from the Surface World?’ she growled at me, not moving an inch, keeping her halberd levelled and aimed at me. She was something else, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I said to her. ‘And that fearsome creature is my cat. He’s from the deepest, darkest recesses of the Fifth Ring. An entity feared throughout Hell.’ I informed her as Mickey jumped onto the tabletop. Riaret’s eyes followed him as he walked over to me, climbed onto my lap, curled up and started purring. I placed a gauntleted hand on his back and began to gently stroke him, which he seemed to like, or at least tolerate.

  ‘Fifth Ring?’ she asked, still holding steady and ready to skewer me like a piece of monster meat.

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘And as to the reasons why you shouldn’t try to kill me, I can give you three.’

  ‘Go on!’ she said, her eyes narrowing but still fixed on me like a predator’s.

  I silently urged Will of the Infernal Tyrant to do its thing and give my words just a little bit of psychic umph, enough to convince the general that fighting me was a no-no. Otherwise I might just meet my end here.

  ‘Firstly, I don’t think you could kill me,’ I stated with a casual confidence I hoped didn’t sound forced. ‘Secondly, because I’m here to fulfil your wish to kill Third Ringers until there’s none of them left.’

  At that point I paused for dramatic effect.

  ‘And thirdly?’ she asked.

  ‘And thirdly, because I am Hyde, the ruling demon lord of the Fourth Ring.’

  Riaret’s eyes widened, and this time she flinched, albeit almost imperceptibly.

  ‘You? A Surface World creature?’ she demanded.

  ‘It's not set in stone that only a demon can rule here. All you need to do is kill a demon lord and the title is yours. Which I have done.’ I said, trying to shrug as if the topic was of no importance whatsoever.

  ‘Then maybe I will take the title after all,’ she said, leaning in, and along with her the halberd’s spike came closer, almost touching my chin.

  ‘You could try, but then I’d lose a renowned general who could have inflicted enormous losses on the Third Ringers,’ I said to her, looking straight into her eyes. ‘I don’t like waste, Riaret.’

  She didn’t move, her body language didn’t show any signs of withdrawing, but as I stared into her eyes, I could see and feel that she was confused, maybe faltering a little, but not wanting to give in. Not yet. This was a stalemate at best, and suddenly the idea of how to break it came to me.

  ‘Lanny! Would you please come in?’ I yelled.

  The door opened immediately, and my chef and attendant waltzed into the room. I even caught a glimpse of Grash trying to peek before Lanny shut the door in his face. Ah, the big grunt must have been almost as anxious as I was.

  ‘Yes, Boss?’ Lanny said as she arrived next to the chair I was sitting on, looking worried as she saw the deadly pole weapon aimed at me. Riaret eyed her warily for a moment before her attention snapped back to me.

  I summoned Lanny’s rucksack from my storage. Mickey meowed indignantly as the bag appeared above him, but I caught it and handed it to my attendant.

  ‘Be a dear and prepare a good breakfast for me and the general. We can’t discuss war on an empty stomach,’ I said to her. ‘Oh, and would you chop up some good meat for Mickey as well while you’re at it?’

  ‘Right away, Boss,’ she replied without hesitation and rushed out of the room.

  ‘Take a seat, general, breakfast will be served soon,’ I told Riaret.

  And I prayed to no-one in particular that the skill Siltram the Infernal Tyrant had developed a thousand years ago and had the good grace to pass down to his descendants, would grease the wheels, and Riaret would just sit down and have breakfast with me.

  The spike of the halberd slowly withdrew from my neck, and without taking her eyes off me, Riaret the Severing Strike pulled a chair for herself and sat down at the table. The relief I felt was intense and palpable; I wasn’t going to die here, not yet anyway, and I might just have a new general joining the ranks soon.

  [Skill: Will of the Infernal Tyrant reached level 6.]

  Ah, good stuff.