The wet plop of the horse’s poop dropping to the ground inches from his boot made him jump back. He scowled at the poop and then at the draft animal. It seemed Talas lacked in quality horses too.

Zynga cackled at the near miss. “Your mighty stallion agrees with me, it’s too blessed early to be up and about.”

John shook his head at how she liked to turn words like blessed upside down into a curse. He walked over to the iron rung and put his boot in it before climbing up and into the front of the wagon. He took the reins up and held them while he took a deep breath.

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“I listened to the stable master,” John said. “Read a treatise on it once too.”

“I’m going to enjoy this,” she said.

John ignored her and snapped the reigns. The draft horse jerked and took a step. The wagon shudder and scraped, barely moving. The horse stopped and looked back as if to say, “What the…”

Zynga howled with laughter far bigger than anyone her size should be able to produce.

John cursed and reached over for the lever that set, and released, the brake. He unlocked it and cracked the reins again. This time the wagon lurched forward as the wheels were allowed to turn.

Zynga was still laughing as John reached the outskirts of the outer city and left it behind. “You probably woke half the city,” he told her as she finally calmed down.

“And you didn’t even wake the baby-priestess you seduced and corrupted so she’d miss her vows,” Zynga said.

John snorted. “She didn’t want to be a priestess. She wanted more for her life. I did her a favor.”

“More? What, being a whore?”

John frowned. “Why are you, of all people, chiding me? You’re an imp! You should be thrilled.”

She grinned. “You can see me as I truly am but everyone else sees a saucy little halfling wench. Just as I can see the beautiful darkness in you that no one else does. As for how you handled that wonderful acolyte, I’m very proud of you, Master.”

John snorted at her use of the title. She was his familiar but the only thing he could count on her to do was complicate his life. That and dressing in clothing designed to be disruptive. Today’s was a short dark brown dress that did not go past the halfing’s knees. Given how she refused to sit like a lady, it was a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. Her peasant neckline was no better as each bump of the wagon made her overly large breasts jiggle and threaten to spill out. A half dozen times already she had to pull the material back up to cover her boobs.

“You’re the one waxing on about trying to deserve this new life and doing right by people. I’m hopeful you’re coming to your senses,” she said while glancing down at her neckline.

“And what would my senses tell me?”

Zynga grinned. “That you’re one of us, Master. You’ve asked and received the pact with Mistress. She’s granted you far more than any servant should ever expect, use her gifts to bring her power. Don’t get caught up foolish human morality. Those were rules and laws created to make sheep of the weak-willed and weak-minded.”

John clenched his teeth and tugged the reins to keep his horse on the road. He wasn’t bothered by Zynga’s lesson, he was bothered that he’d made a similar argument to Ela the night before.

They rode on across the open plains. The main road was worn down but filled with ruts and holes in the soft and sandy soil. They passed Riders and other wagons that were being driven off the road through the grasses near the road, but the grasses kept the ground firm and even for wheels and the legs of cattle and rider. Only people walked the road, everyone else used it as a guide.

“Here, take the reins,” John said after the sun was well on its way to the western horizon. He held the reins over to his familiar.

Zynga looked at the straps like they were holy symbols. “Why?”

“So I can get some food out of my pack!” he said. “I don’t think you want to dig through looking to feed me, do you?”

She scowled. “The mortal side of you is troublesome. You should see what you can do to please Mistress and ask her to remove the rest of that from you.”

John rolled his eyes. “I have no interest in that. I’m a man, not an infernal.”

She grinned. “Imagine how big your cock would be if you were?”

He shook his head. “I don’t need a bigger cock. Half the time mine is too big as it is and I have to use magic to make it fit.”

“You don’t have to use magic,” Zynga teased. “You could just shove it in.”

“Gah! What’s wrong with you?”

She shrugged. “It’s just a suggestion.”

“I gain power from pleasuring my partners, not from hurting them! If I gain power, than Mistress gains power. Making them suffer would not only be wasteful, but I have no interest in hurting people.”

“You wanted to hurt that wizard. Billie the One Eyed,” she said.

John stiffened. “Yes, I did, but I did that with my spear, not by trying to beat him with my dick.”

Zynga cackled. “What a sight that would have been.”

“Take the damn reins,” he snapped and thrust them at her again.

Zynga frowned and took the reins. She held them as though they smelled bad and made no attempt to watch the horse that pulled the cart.

John turned and pulled his pack from the wagon. It sat next to the sturdy chest he’d purchased that contained his spell books. He pulled out a small loaf of bread wrapped in cloth and tore a hunk of it off. He rewrapped the rest of it and took the reins back in one hand while he chewed. The bits of sausage and fruit baked into it added flavor. Zynga looked on with disgust.

“You want some?” John asked her and held out the final bite.

“I don’t eat that,” she said.

“Not raw and bloody enough?” he asked before popping it in his mouth.

“At one time, maybe,” she said. “Now I have a more refined diet. I only need one thing.”

John stopped chewing and turned to stare at her. He opened his mouth to speak and nearly spit out his snack. He chewed and swallowed quickly and then took a drink from a water skin. “Do you mean that’s all you… eat?”

Zynga licked her lips and wiggled her eyebrows.

John frowned and then laughed.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded. “Mistress made your cum very tasty.”

“I have to feed you, but you and I can’t do… that. So the only time you feed is when I commune with Mistress and she’s pleased with me enough to reward me with a climax that you can lick up while I sleep through it.”

“Why’s that funny?”

“Because of the irony. I have to please her, which means you have to help me. So you need me or you starve.”

“I am bound to you. I do like you, Master… usually. If you were went full demon and stopped caring about the silly things you care about I’d probably have less fun anyhow.”

John considered how she liked to tease and torment him and nodded. “Aye, you probably would.”

“There are other ways, you know.”

“Other ways? To feed you?”

She nodded.

“I have no interest in you as a lover. It’s part of the original deal I made with Mistress, you said.”

“That’s true, but think back to last night. When you doused that acolyte with your seed you could have called me. Instead you let her slurp it all up and it did neither of you any good. You’d already wasted the power in it by spilling it on her and no in her.”

“Wait, if the power was wasted—”

“No, no, the power you could benefit from where you tie her to your will and can use her as you desire. The power I get from it would have still been there.”

“Oh,” Just said. “I— wait, I could have tied Ela to my will? Like, make a servant out of her?”

“More like a slave, now that you’ve crossed over.”

John gasped. He shook his head. “No! It bonded me to my lovers before. I could feel them and know them better. This isn’t…”

“Think on it, Master. You have let a single woman drink from you since you came back. The girl on the boat, Steff, but you let her go and give herself to that sea nymph. All the wasted opportunities… why is that?”

“They didn’t want to,” John said.

Zynga snorted. “Don’t give me that, you’re the chosen of Beytrixxa, the most powerful succubus there has ever been! Look at what she did to you, that is power rivaling the greatest demon lords! You could have done whatever you desired with them… but you didn’t. Why? Because you care. You care for their fragile sensibilities and minds. Once you have them in your snare you could twist them and shape them. You could make them the most craven whores. Instead, you leave them pining away for you and knowing they will never know a lover that will treat them as well.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad.”

“Isn’t it? What if you knew you could never cum again? Or even if you could, it would be nothing more than someone rubbing your floppy dick until you spilled a few drops of feeble seed? Would you not wish you could at least try to find your glory again? Would that not be a living hell in itself?”

John frowned as he considered her vulgar, but thought-provoking, argument. At last he shook his head. “No, it would not. There is more to a relationship than the bed—”

“There’s bent over the table, riding you in a chair, on the back of a horse, holding her doubled over her shoulders and driving down into—”

“No!” John cried. “I meant trust and love! Caring and respecting one another. Many marriages are arranged, among the wealthy and common, do you think they are perfect lovers? No, but they learn to love and appreciate one another.”

“Or find the arms of a whore.”

John sighed and looked away. When he looked back he saw her grinning. “You may be the biggest curse I’ve ever had.”

Zynga’s grin widened and her eyes flashed red. She didn’t need to bother with the theatrics, he could always see her wings, tail, pointed ears, and reddish eyes now. He only had to pay attention to them to see them as anything other than a shadowy fragments.

John looked back to the road and saw they’d wandered rather far from it. A copse of trees was ahead of them though, which might promise a small pool of water. Even if it didn’t it would give him some cover to camp for the night. Khalas was another day’s ride to the north, if not more. He’d hoped to make the tiny village said to have a tavern and a smith between the cities. The rough terrain and his own inexperience as a driver meant they’d made slower progress in the wagon.

“Well make camp in those trees,” John said. “It looks like we’ve only an hour or so of daylight left.”

“There won’t be any maidens in the trees,” Zynga said.

“A night without a partner is hardly cause for concern.”

She shrugged. “Who knows, maybe you’ll find an druid or something you can seduce.”

“Or I could spend the night studying. So far I’ve barely learned anything from those books. I could control great spells and magic once… now I’m forced to relearn the basics of the spell forms necessary to summon light and fire.”

“Mistress approves of that, you know.”

“I know, she told me it was unexpected, but the more I could bring to serve her, the better.”

“You should be training with that spear too. The black one, not the long spear between your legs,” she teased.

“I should,” he agreed. “I’m stronger than ever before, seems a shame I don’t spend some time learning to use it better. Even my dagger.”

“Daggers, you mean?”

John thought to the matched pair of daggers he’d taken from Billie’s treasure cache. He still had them, but they were tucked away in his chest. They were worth something too, he was sure. He preferred the one strapped to his arm though. Mistress had given him that one.

“I’m keeping those to sell if I need to. I don’t have much gold left. We’ll need to find something to earn more.”

“Not much out here to find,” Zynga said as she looked around the countryside. “You could steal some cows, but selling them would be a chore. There must be something more fun… a good bit of thievery in a town, now that could be prosperous! Especially if we can pin the blame on a rival!”

John shook his head and pulled on the reins to slow the horse. It took a quarter hour just to get the wagon pulled in under the cover of the trees and once there he struggled to get the horse to stop. When it didn’t stop fast enough he tugged hard on the reins. John and Zynga both lurched forward when the horse backed up a step. Cursing, John secured the brake and ignored the giggling imp.

“Don’t forget to let the horse loose and feed him and rub him down and… what a pain.”

John ignored her and set about trying to remember how to take the harness and bit off the horse. By the time he was done the last rays of the sun were lighting up the grass to the west. Beyond he knew was miles of sand and then ocean as far as the eye could see.

Fortunately for John, the setting sun did little to inconvenience him now. With his demon-sight he had no trouble gathering fallen branches and sticks for tinder. He arranged them far enough away from a tree to not cause a fire and pulled and kicked the grass to expose the dirt to build a fire on.

He stacked the twigs and broke smaller sticks first before adding the logs. John didn’t bother with extra kindling or flint and steel. Instead he drew the form of the spell with a finger and finished it with a flourish that pulled the magic from the aether and created a plume of flame that ignited the sticks and branches.

John grinned and stepped back. Using a proper wizard spell felt good. Sure, it was a simple prestidigitation, but it was a proper spell and not magic contained within him and channeled by intuition and ability.

His smile faded. Impressed by a cantrip… he sighed. He was little better than an apprentice to a proper wizard. John sighed and looked up. Speaking of apprentice, he’d introduced Zynga as his apprentice a few times even though nothing could be further from the truth. Where was the capricious imp, anyhow?

A shape ducked behind a tree. A human shape. John scowled and looked around. He spotted an arm and a leg sticking out of the shadowed side of another tree. He kept looking but Zynga was nowhere to be found.

His horse snorted and stomped his hoof. John turned and looked. He saw legs behind the wagon. Someone was ducked down behind it. So that meant he was surrounded by at least three people. Three people that knew how to work together and be stealthy. He had an advantage in knowing they were there, but was that enough? Did they know about his magic? Had they seen him start the fire? For that matter, the magic he’d managed to learn was minimal. Parlor tricks meant to entertain and educate.

Then there was his other magic, but so far that hadn’t helped him as much outside of bedding his choice of women. Unless… maybe he was being assaulted by a group of Amazonian warriors?

John snorted and held out his hands. “I know you’re out there,” he called. “Show yourselves. You’re welcome to share my fire, but if you’ve something else in mind I have to warn you it won’t go well for you.”

The soft susurration of wind blowing the grasses and the leaves rustling were the only sounds to break the silence. John’s horse stomped and whickered again, then turned as a man walked up next to him and reached up to rub the horse’s neck.

John glanced over his shoulder and saw three others emerge from hiding. Two he’d known about and a third, a woman, that dropped from the limbs of a tree. She cradled a crossbow and shifted it to point at the ground in front of John.

“That’s kind of you,” the man near his horse said. He left the gelding behind and walked closer to John until there was only a dozen feet between them. He stopped there and said, “What sort of merchant rides a wagon with no goods in it?”

“I’m not sure,” John said. “I’m not a merchant.”

The man swept off his hat and bowed with a flourish, “My apologies, milord. Although what sort of lord travels without guards or even a driver?”

“I’m no lord,” John said.

“Well, a man with a horse and wagon, fine robes and a very fine weapon like that spear… that you left in your wagon, must be something special,” he said.

“I am special,” John agreed. He raised his hand and traced a new form into the air that opened a tiny rift to pull enough energy to generate four floating balls of light. The balls drifted away from his palm and went to each of the brigands, floating over them and drawing gasps and curses from each.

“A wizard!” one of them hissed. He started to back away.

John smiled to hide his anxiety. The lights were illusions. Sure, they cast a faint bit of light but any one of them could have noticed it wasn’t even enough to leave a shadow on the ground under them.

“Stop that,” the leader of the bandits said. “We’re not threatening you, we’re just passing through and saw your fire. Thought we’d stop and check to see if you were all right. A wagon this far off the road might have run into some problems… broken wheel or axle, maybe.”

“That’s kind of you,” John said. “I’m fine though.”

“Are you?”

“I certainly thought so.”

“Seems to me that a man that would use magic so readily against my friends is no friend at all. I mean, what kind of man risks traveling alone? Not a gentle, peaceful sort… more like the type that would take advantage of others. I think that it’s in our best interests to protect ourselves from you… and maybe help out other travelers as well that might run afoul of you.”

John chuckled and made sure he remained aware of the three others that were once again closing the distance toward him. “You missed your calling as a minstrel.”

“And now you insult me,” the man said and shook his head. His hand fell to the sword at his side. “I was going to offer you a chance of proving your good nature with charity. Donating your wealth to us as a gesture of good will. Now, I think, you have no good will.”

John shook his head and scowled. This was a lost cause. Zynga was nowhere to be found and he was outnumbered. He’d spooked at least one of them with the dimly lit orb floating above them, but that left an archer and three men with swords.

He called on his magic and, with a subtle flick of his fingers, sent a mystical rope of it that struck the female bandit in the chest and burst into smaller tendrils that snaked around her like the legs of a spider. The magic had her in its clutches, causing her to stiffen. Her crossbow jerked up a few inches and then lowered as the magic clenched tighter around her arms.

John directed another thread to break away and cover her mouth. Her jaw was clenched and her lips pressed together. She struggled, knowing something was happening to her but she didn’t know what it was. John poured more of his power into her, impressed with her resistance almost as much as he was worried about it. In the darkness the others had not noticed yet, but the longer her took the better the chance they would come at him.

“Nothing to say to that? Well then, how about—”

“How about you stop this charade,” John snapped at him. “You’re bandits. Thieves. Brigands. Thugs. The worst sort of people that would pray on innocents and steal what they worked hard for because you’re too lazy to get it yourself.”

The man laughed. “That’s fine and good if you’re trying to rouse the cowards and fools. We’re neither… well, Terrence almost pissed himself when you put these damn balls of light over us. Tell me, will they go away when we kill you?”

John felt his magic slip inside the woman. She gasped as it raced into her and did what it did best, arousing her toward him to the point where nothing else mattered. He chuckled and held out his hand. Free of focusing on the woman he directed his magic to his spear. It flipped up and spun as it caught on the lip of the wagon’s side. Then it rushed through the air and passed within a few feet of the bandit leader before slapping solidly into John’s hand.

The bandit jumped to the side and then chuckled. “All right, I see. Well now, maybe you are a threat. Arty, put a bolt in his leg and teach him a lesson.”

“I don’t think so,” John said. “If she shoots me, how am I going to reward her by fucking her when we’re done killing you?”

The bandit leader’s laugh died the moment it began. Or, more precisely, the moment a crossbow bolt struck the boiled leather cuisse tied to his thigh. The hardened leather redirected the quarrel just enough so it punched through the flesh and muscle on the outside of his thigh as it passed through.

He stared down at his leg and staggered as the shock of the injury rattled him. “You traitorous whore!” he hissed at her. “Terrence, kill the slut! Azamos, cut that wizard’s tongue out of his mouth and I’ll rip his fingers off one at a time!”

John heard the woman, Arty, cry out and curse. Steel struck steel but he wasn’t able to pay attention to her, he had two men rushing toward him. He turned away from the leader and kicked the burning logs toward Azamos. When he turned back he found the leader was snarling and almost upon him.

John swung his spear, forcing the man to bat it aside. The bandit lunged forward after but his wounded leg slowed him. John was able to jump back and bring his spear between them before the bandit could run him through once and for all.

John knew his time was running out but the burned logs were sputtering and without the firelight it was hard to see under the trees. Hard for them, that is. John saw the bandit’s foot scuff on a stick. He wrenched his leg to keep from slipping or losing his balance, drawing a grimace and fresh blood staining his leg.

The bandit leader bided his time. John was thankful until he realized it meant Azamos was coming up behind him. John faked a lunge but the leader didn’t buy it. John hopped to the side and spun, keeping his spear between them and stopped the leader from going after him. He saw from his new vantage that if he’d waited much longer Azamos would have been able to stab him in the back.

Now the he had both of them in front of him John realized he had no idea what to do. He felt for his magic, desperate to find some way to use it. He could not seduce them— even if they were attracted to him he was not interested in them. The magic wouldn’t work. That left a few other tricks he’d learn, summoning objects or minor manifestations. He could create lights— not the phantom globes above them, but actual light drawing from the magic within him.

Wait! Lights… they still had the globes dancing over their heads. John relinquished one hand from his spear and drew a quick pattern that disrupted the form of the original spell. They blinked out of existence, startling three of the four by removing the distraction above them.

The fourth was the woman. She slashed across as Terrence cringed from the latest display of magic. Her sword smashed his aside and hit his hauberk hard. He grunted and staggered, bruised across his belly and gasping for breath. She smashed her sword down and drove his hastily raised sword down. A second chop knocked it down again and let her blade glance off his shoulder. She raised her sword a third time but he was recovering and braced his sword in both hands.

So she kicked him between the legs instead.

John’s opponents both swung at him instead of panicking with the elimination of the lights. He hissed as he had to swing his spear and jump back at the same time. Everybody missed but John had barely avoided having his arm chopped off at the elbow. His opponents were adapting rapidly to the darkness.

The vision of his Mistress’s hands wreathed in dark flames filled his mind. John stepped back again to keep from letting his foes press their advantage while he sought the significance of the flames. They’d been dark and they’d burned inside of him, opening his core to her and letting her fill him with her power and change him. That was the physical manifestation of his pact with her. That was when she’d twisted him so that he’d become part infernal.

And, damn him for being a fool, he didn’t know enough about demons to know what all he could do with his magic outside of influencing woman. The flames then… there had to be a reason he’d though of them.

John kept his spear extended, using the reach to keep the bandits at bay. His other hand he held back and up. He reached for the magic again and willed it up into his hand. It began to manifest around his hand as a non-light aura. He focused on shaped it even as both of his opponents cried out and rushed him.

John flung his hand out swung his spear wildly. The black flames shot forth from his hand and struck Azamos on the top of his head. It writhed and covered him, crawling across his head like an insidious living thing. Azamos howled and let go of his sword as he jumped back. The sword didn’t fall, it was stuck fast in John’s side.

The bandit leader was shuddering and swinging his sword back and forth. He clutched his right hand to his stomach, his hand balled into a fist while blood poured from it. He blinked and snarled and limped further and further back until, at last, he was able to straighten again. He lifted his hand and opened his trembling fist. He had a gash across the his palm from John’s wild slash, crossing from thumb to the meaty bottom. The flesh was spread to the bone. He clenched his fist shut and tucked it back against his belly.

John grabbed the sword in his belly and grunted as the shock of it rocked through him. The magic in his hand raced up the blade but John pulled it back before it could reach him. It was his magic, but he wasn’t sure if it would obey him. Would it help, or hurt him?

John collapsed to his knees as he pulled the sword out. It hadn’t even gone all the way through him, but the pain was intense. So intense he swayed on his knees and nearly passed out.

Mistress’s voice drifted through his mind. She wasn’t speaking to him, he was remembering something she said. He focused on it and made out her words, “Pleasure and pain are one and the same.”

John snarled. How would anyone find pleasure it being stabbed?

“You’re going to pay, wizard!” the bandit leader spat as he staggered forward. His leg was stained red and now so was the thick leather covering his belly.

John clutched his spear and drove the butt into the ground. He wasn’t going to enjoy the fire in his belly, but he’d be damned if he was going to stay on his knees for the thief in front of him.

The other man shook his head and clawed at his eyes, scratching his forehead and cheeks raw and bloody. The black flames had receded and died when John pulled them back. Now Azamos could see again, though his face stung and blood dripped into his eyes from the damage he’d done to himself. He spotted his sword on the ground near John’s feet. He drew his dagger and then staggered as a crossbow smacked into his shoulder.

A crossbow. Not a crossbow bolt. Arty had thrown her crossbow at him. She howled as she charged after the hurled weapon. Azamos deflected her sword with his dagger and drove his fist into her side. Arty grunted and drew back, gasping for breath.

John pressed his hand tight against his side, the pressure helping him focus. The bandit leader swayed as he walked forward, sweating dripping down his face and running along the creases in his face caused by his savage sneer. He swatted hard, driving John’s spear out of the way and advanced a step while John managed to back a half step up. They both had their weapons back in place before the bandit could strike again.

John winced as the man’s blade struck the shaft of his spear just behind the blade. He was hitting with all his strength, trying to drive it out of John’s hand. John hauled it back up but the bandit leaned back to let the four-edged blade slip past him and then he swatted at it with sword again, twisting John as he refused to give it up.

The tension in his side made John stagger to the side, sparing him from a reverse chop that would have cloven his face and shoulder. John recovered and brought his spear back around. The bandit was too close though, the spear shaft struck him on the arm, doing nothing but leaving John exposed.

John’s growling opponent hit the blackened shaft so hard it was ripped out of John’s fingers. John went with it, falling to his knees again and feeling the fresh agony the impact caused in his side. He reached for the spear but the bandit leader kicked it away just as his fingers brushed it.

John lost his balance and crashed forward on his face. He struggled back up while the bandit reversed his grip on his sword so he could plunge it into John’s back. John lifted himself up, his dagger pulled from the sheath on his left arm and clutched in his hand. He jammed it into the inside of the bandit’s thigh and released a feral laugh when the tip struck bone and grated off.

The bandit leader tried to jump and twist, but his leg was doing its own thing independent of his will. He crashed to the ground and rolled, then howled at the renewed against in his hand. When it hit the ground.

John reached for his spear and called it to him with his magic. He used the butt of it to help him rise again and he continued to use it as a staff to stagger over next to the spitting and cursing thief.

John snarled at him and lowered his spear until it was touching the man’s leathers over his heart. “This… this is justice,” John said.

The man spat at John.

“Your soul is mine now, cur. Mine to torment for as long as I live. Mine to punish. Mine to rip apart for decades.”

His snarl faded as he digested John’s words. He shook his head and opened his mouth. John thrust his spear home before the man could speak. The blade parted the leather like it was water. He sheared through bone like they were twigs. He struck the thief’s heart and cut it in quivering quarters by the crossed blades of his spear.

John lost sight of the man as his soul was yanked from his body and drawn up through his spear. The raw power flooded him and burned away the aches and the agony before it swirled and settled into his body, feeding his magic on its way to a special place deep inside of John where his magic imprisoned what remained of the bandit and began a slow and maddening torture that would last for years, if not centuries.

John blinked and his eyes, which had gone black as midnight, returned to their normal sapphire blue color. He turned and lifted his hand from his side. His robe was whole again and he knew without looking that the crippling belly wound was no longer life-threatening. He still ached, but the wound had closed and the worst of the damage had been repaired.

Arty was on the ground, her sword lying several feet away. She bled from a cut along her cheek and had more blood on her hands as they clawed at Azamos’s throat. Her legs were wrapped around him, trapping him against her.

Azamos had lost his dagger during the fifth too but he’d grabbed a log that had been part of John’s fire. He swung it, ignoring the still-glowing parts the burned his flesh, and struck his former thief in the side of the head with a solid thump. Her eyes crossed and her hands went limp. Her head struck the ground and her legs relaxed around him.

Azamos sneered and tossed the log away. He found his dagger in the grass and leaned over to pick it up. He pulled it to her throat, ready to slit her from ear to ear, and then stiffened as John’s spear was thrust into his back. The blade burst through the front of his hauberk and drained a river of blood onto Arty’s chest and neck.

John shuddered as a second soul was absorbed through his spear and added to his collection. He guided it into the same pit the bandit leader now existed in and hoped they would suffer all the more for being in each other’s eternal company.

John ripped his spear out and kicked the body aside. He stared down at Arty and tilted his head as he took her in. She cut a fine figure in her hunting leathers. Not large breasted, but still womanly. He hungered to add her soul to the mix, but a moan followed by a cry lifted his head. The first man she’d fought, Terrence, had risen to his knees. He held his head and stared at the scene before him made all the more horrific by the darkness.

The man gained his feet and staggered. He swayed as he tried to run and made it nearly a half dozen steps before black flames enveloped him. He howled as his vision was taken from him. He stumbled and fell, crying out and digging at his eyes to try and scrape the darkness away.

The man gasped when he found he could see again. He saw the ground before him and reached out to crawl forward. John’s hand grabbed his shoulder and flung him over onto his back. He hit hard enough to knock his breath away and leave his mouth gaping like a fish out of water. He stared up as John towered over him. He stopped trying to reclaim his breath, he knew if he had it he’d only use it to scream.

John, eyes black as midnight and wreathed in unholy dark flames, spun his spear around and drove it into Terrence’s belly and up into his heart. Terrence didn’t even have time to stiffen or curse as John drained the brigand’s soul from his body and left his body broken, lifeless, and forever banned from life.

THE END OF CHAPTER TWO