The Long Way 4 – Fate Tracking (Patreon)

Turlesh was a Deathhound.

It had taken him a long time to rise to this form. Hatching as a lowly Rootcrawler, an Impreh class demon, devouring the smallest Parasystes in the Hellroots and being occasionally summoned by apprentice warlocks. He remembered the first time he had been called to the upper Leaves. How he had, despite his limited mind, immediately understood that they did not deserve what they had. The safety, even in the icy landscape that he had been presented with, and the lusciousness of the upper worlds.

From the moment they could move, the Omniverse’s firstborn had to fight. That was what they had been made for. Who enjoyed the fruits of their toils? Who enjoyed what demons prevented from being pulled back into the void it spawned from? Weak-minded little children, with fickle Sparks that didn’t survive their flesh. The Spark of a demon was sturdy, superior. It survived their bodies many times over. Only Sparkeaters could kill them, rare Parasytes, hated above all others. Only gods could kill them, the loathsome, righteous rulers, sitting by the unblemished Progenitor.

It was a demon’s every right to toy with the mortals. To indulge in the food. Food that didn’t taste like ash and bitter corruption. Not that the latter taste bothered the warped forms of the immortal monstrosities anymore.

Turlesh ate to grow. He loved to grow. He loved to eat. He loved to eat tasty things. Bones were his favourite. Gnawing splinter for splinter off the outer layers, only to reach the marrow and the remaining taste of life within. There was no greater joy. Boneless Parasytes, he hated eating them, but alas, it was his obligation and what he had to do to nourish his Spark. To expand his mind and power.

With time, he didn’t know how much, he came to evolve. A Fleshgorger, a Tempths class demon, was his second stage. Then a Boneseeker, a Dergil class demon, fitting given his favourite meal. He had become strong at that stage. Stronger than most of his kin. It was when she took interest in him. The ancient beauty that governed one of the thicker roots of hell. One whose presence made bark and caverns tremble. She invited him to the Court of Massacre.

He died and died again for her entertainment. Never did he feel more distressed when he disappointed her, never greater joy than when he made her laugh. Glorious were those days, where he was summoned into a delicious world only to return to one of bloodshed. To fight not only the despicable Parasytes, but also the demons that followed ones of the lesser Unreavs – one of those other individuals that dared to claim they were as fantastic as the Empress of Blood.

Further, he grew. A Fearseeker, a Deslors class demon, was the fourth shape he transitioned into. After aeons spent in the Court of Massacre, the Empress of Blood took renewed interest in him when he killed a Sparkeater all by himself. She elevated him from a mere member of the court to one of her elites. She wrote his name into her book, for all Warlocks to see that he was one of her favourites.

That was how he met him. How he came to be summoned by the Master. A man who wielded the forces of the Hellroots foolishly but with great aptness. He served as one of four demons for the Master. His fellow Fearseekers, Terlash and Purlesk, and the Mindeater Kurlesh. All of them chosen by the Empress, Jolene who whispered of truth into Apotho’s ear. He travelled with two, an angel and a human of great power. Three that travelled far and wide, a man and two women.

Turlesh had never tasted anything as delicious as that human’s ribs. So close to the heart, so delicately thin yet so filled with fickle power. A taste near divinity, drenched in betrayal and heartache, overseen by a no longer foolish Master.

There was enough power in her flesh to bring all of them to that next level. It had been a day to remember, when all four of them had become Deathhounds, Tharnatos class demons, and on which the essence of the angel had been reforged into a core for the Empress to reincarnate in the worlds she was entitled to walk.

‘All for the Empress and her chosen Master,’ Turlesh thought, as he stepped out of the portal. Months ago it had delivered them from this tainted Leaf to the one closest where Apotho had put up his base. Now the Deathhound had to retrace their steps. He had to return to the point where Apotho had separated from that abominable creature. That confusing thing, clearly from this world but capable of devouring Sparks. Turlesh’s instincts didn’t tell him to hate Apexus. His Master, however, did and that was reason enough.

He started running, passing through the corrupted landscape of the tainted world. Gnarled trees, freely roaming demons, and the fragrance of death in the air, all the signs of a veritable paradise of violence and power. How Turlesh wished he could stay. He was the strongest here. He could break what he wanted to, command who he wanted, eat whatever or whoever he wanted, but alas, he wasn’t here to claim the demon’s right to enjoy the fruits of the silver tree.

Before his four eyes, the world was a field of potential slaughter and through it ran the veins of magic. With all six of his limbs, he took hold of one such vein, used as his footing to traverse over a ravine in the scorched world. A Deathhound couldn’t fly, but they could use their innate closeness to the Omniverse and the source of magic to manoeuvre in ways lesser beings couldn’t consider. Many of the Tharnatos class demons had that ability.

Within a day, he had crossed the entirety of the Leaf and emerged on the Branch of the Omniverse. He raised his long head, let his pointy tongue curve out of the many teeth, tasted air and magic and the power that connected everything. The origin to which all could be traced back and from which everything could be found. It was the Common Art of some demons, those that became Deathhounds most commonly, Fate Tracking, that allowed them to follow the steps of anyone they had met before.

The drawback of this incredible ability was written into its description: Turlesh did not know where the chimera slime currently was, only the path he had taken to get there. Even on that path, the Deathhound only knew the last step he had witnessed. Like a dog following a scent trail, Turlesh had to track the line Apexus had left in the nature of the Omniverse.

Once Turlesh had realized the direction of Ctania, he started running again. He didn’t need rest, not while he merely ran over the Bark. That his body oozed magic and attracted Parasytes didn’t bother him. The little ticks that scurried around everywhere were no threat to him. He had devoured them in the hundreds of thousands in his life. Their mass was only dangerous if he stopped to let a mass of them attach. As it was, he was like a magnet who moved quicker than his attraction pulled. The Parasytes scurried in his direction but were left behind before they could reach him, resuming their largely dormant state.

Turlesh would have loved to cleanse the brilliant tree of these pests, but he had his orders.

Similarly, when he reached Ctania, he would have loved to silence all of those screams. Heralry reacted to him with alarms and fearful screams. Survivors and rebuilders equally cowered before him. “Wiiiiissssssse,” he hissed at the guard who hastily abandoned his post by the stone structure that oversaw the Stem. ‘Terlash and Purlesk would waste time massacring these lesser ones, but not I. I am Empress’ loyal servant. My time is Master’s time. Wasting Master’s time is a sin,’ the demon thought, as he advanced on the plaza, his snout lowered.

He couldn’t withhold the occasional cackle. Burned into the ground were the ashes that remained of those sacrificed to summon Jolene. Those that remained alive, those that came to repopulate the Leaf, they didn’t know that the mere remainder of such a circle altered the world. Not by a lot, misfortune wouldn’t come to their crops and the children wouldn’t be born with horns. No, it was nothing that overt. It would have needed power and a new purpose to be used like that. Still, its presence would invite a stray, corrupted Spark to manifest as flesh. People would disappear in the dead of night. Just a few of them over the course of a decade. Enough to fill the dark streets with uncertainty.

Where Apotho dwelled, however short, the world was altered. Such was the presence of one who was the right of creation removed from divinity.

“S-stop right there, monster!” a brazen fool declared.

Turlesh moved one of his eyes at the adventurer. A man clad in simple grey armour, wielding a spear. The secondary lid cleaned small amounts of dust from the demon’s eye. The black slit in the red sclera moved on, just as the demon continued to move.

“I-I said…” shouts all around, demands of further away people that the adventurer should stay back. Then, a laughable attempt at a stab. The iron didn’t even leave a mark in the leathery skin of the Deathhound.

Turlesh kept moving. It had been somewhere close to the centre of the plaza. He could feel it, he was close to the start of the trail. He could also feel the continued stabs by the spear. The desperate attempts of vengeance by a man that was not strong enough to enact it.

“W-what are you doing?!” another man shouted and ran towards them. He wore flashy clothes, a fine blue vest and white pants, both shining in the summer sun of the Leaf. “Get away from that thi- AAAAAHHHH!” He screamed, as the tail of the Deathhound grabbed his ankle.

“Too briiiiight,” Turlesh screeched, dragging the man after him. He ignored both the desperate kicks be the second and the continued stabs by the first man. Still, the crowd around screamed for them to get away, all too cowardly (or wise, in this instance) to move closer than fifty metres. “There you are,” the Deathhound gloated, when he found the trail.

Happy, he raised his tail and smacked it back down with such force that the head of the second man cracked on the stone. Impotent rage echoed from the first adventurer, first in response to the death, then to Turlesh absent-mindedly biting the head off the corpse. The many canines that made up the Deathhounds maw messily reduced the skull into a gory mass of bone shards and brain matter. While he munched, the dully armoured man continued his useless nuisance.

Since Turlesh didn’t want the rest of the brightly coloured corpse anywhere near him, he discarded it by tossing it at the adventurer. Metal screeched over stone, when the two bodies, one still alive, slid over the pavement.

He focused on the trail and resumed his movements. The people of the rebuilding Heralry looked as the demon they feared vanished back up the Stem. Ten minutes of horror ended as abruptly as they had come. Most felt relief that only one brazen fool had died.

Turlesh was back on the Branch before long. It had been a while since he tracked someone with his Art. He would need to get the hang of it again. That would slow him down for a couple of days, but that didn’t ultimately matter. The slime would stop sometimes, he would be slowed by the need to eat or to rest, by idle conversations or the desires of the flesh. The demon would keep moving, running, following the track in deadly pursuit. He would be obedient. He would make it as quick as possible.

The Empress and her Master would be pleased.