Amelia Thornheart

Chapter Six: Korvus the Mad Dog

As they approached the large group of humans huddling together in the square, Amelia felt a knot of anxiety grow in her stomach. It was bizarre. She felt comfortable around demons, yet the idea of being around humans felt strange, almost unnatural.

She figured she had inherited all of her powers from her game character, and had verified much of it; Amelia had previously found time to play around with her aether, to fold it upon itself in different ways as she prepared the intention to Speak some of the many Words she knew from the many combat branches she specialized in. It was a pleasant surprise to find they all seemed to be available to her, and most interestingly, they appeared to provoke certain emotions as they were prepared. Perhaps this was why healing made her feel so good.

Knowing that, and feeling the anxiety in her stomach, Amelia pondered as to whether she had also inherited the demonic trait of being mistrustful of humans, despite being a literal human herself.

Or was she? Whatever mysterious force had given her this opportunity of a new life, had built her the body of her game character, which, last she remembered, was polymorphed into that of a cute human woman. However, was she still in a polymorphed state? Was her true form still that of a mighty archdemon, and this current body a temporary veneer of… blue eyes and blond prettiness?

Serena had seemed to take to her quite well, which delighted Amelia, and so had Dagon and Tomes, other than the initial talk of murdering her, of course. Was this friendliness because she was still truly a demon behind the scenes, and they were picking up on this on a subconscious level?

Well, she could think more about that later.

They arrived in the square.

The mood was, at best, grim. Hundreds of humans, maybe half a thousand, were crammed in the square. They wore either work clothes or were barely dressed, huddling blankets against the cool air, despite the sun overhead. The Vengeance had attacked the port early in the morning, and many of the port’s residents had not woken up yet.

A separate group, numbering about a hundred, had been cornered off, and judging by the white and blue uniforms that looked so very similar to her own, Amelia made an educated guess that these were the remains of the defenders.

Their eyes were downcast, the atmosphere somber. The cries of children and women could be heard, and the wails of those in pain. Many of them clenched prayer beads, muttering comforts to themselves. Parents kept their children close, but many of the young seemed to be missing guardians, instead, what looked like older brothers and sisters were hugging their younger siblings close, speaking words of comfort to them.

Some of them would never again see their parents.

It was a terrible sight, an awful situation that tugged at her heartstrings. Amelia was powerful, she knew that much, and she also knew she was ignorant of this world. Could she have prevented this? All she had was power. She was sure she could have destroyed the Vengeance, saving the port from this fate. She could also have wiped out the fortress, the surrounding islands, and all the human aircraft, preventing the torpedo from hitting the ship. Or she could have simply left, and let the battle happen anyway.

What she didn’t know, is how she could have prevented it altogether, without making herself an enemy of one or both sides of the conflict. This was, she supposed, something solved in the realm of diplomacy, a subject that went very much against her brutally honest nature.

At the very least she could make things better, for both demons and humans. At least by doing something she could feel in control of a tiny part of this conflict.

“Hey…” she whispered to Serena, leaning in so only she could hear. “Are you able to provide them with any medical supplies? Aid from Hillbrand and her team?”

Serena shook her head, “They hate us, and understandably so. Some small number of them would accept care, but just attempting it would cause this situation to spiral out of control.” She bent towards Amelia, speaking even more quietly; “a decade of propaganda has led to some ridiculous beliefs ferment among the humans. Many of them believe we eat them.”

Amelia gave a solemn smile. “I suppose we don’t taste very nice, too stringy.” A weak joke, an attempt to lighten the mood. “Anything I should know, before I begin?”

“... you’re smarter than you pretend to be, aren’t you? I thought the concept of caution was completely foreign to you.”

“So unfair…”

“Firstly,” Serena said, raising a finger, “nothing big or flashy. Do it slowly, one by one.” A second finger joined the first. “Secondly, if asked, do not say you are a captive. Tell them the truth, you are under my employment, and willingly so. Thirdly, and this is the most important, do not imply in any way you have any connection to the human church, or any church for that matter.”

“Okay!” Amelia whispered back.

“... and don’t over-exert yourself!” she added, as Amelia stepped forward amongst the humans.

They were lined in rough columns, with just enough space for her and the demon guards to walk up and down the square. Amelia strolled forward, some murmuring having started as more and more humans, civilians and soldiers alike, noticed her. Amelia’s high perception made it easy to capture these snippets.

“Sis, who’s that person?”

“A republican officer… ?”

“I’ve never seen her before… ”

“She wasn’t part of the garrison. A slave?”

She bent down next to a man who seemed to have been caught in an explosion. His body was riddled with small cuts and wounds, and his eyes were covered in bandages. A nasty bump on his chest suggested one or more of his ribs had broken, threatening to pierce through the skin. A young girl, perhaps in her early teens, was holding the man’s hand, her face wet with tears.

“Hello there,” she said, intentionally making her voice just loud enough to carry over the square, audible to all. “Is this man your father?” The girl’s eyes met her own, red and raw from crying. She looked Amelia over, before nodding slowly.

“Da’ worked in the warehouses… he… he got blown up-!” her voice broke at the end, unable to stop herself from sobbing.

“Would it be okay, if I healed him? Is that alright?” She let her voice take on the tone she had heard for so many years in the hospital. The tone she had grown to truly despise, the doctor’s bedside manner, but now… now she was the one rendering aid she began to understand its value.

“You… you can do that? Make da’ better?” The girl stopped sobbing, her eyes growing wide like saucers.

“I can. I would need to touch him, is that okay?”

“Y-yes! Please miss…”

Amelia gently touched the man’s chest, and invoking one of the lesser healing spells, golden light, with flecks of blue, traveled from her own body into the injured man. Within seconds, he was breathing normally, the cuts and wounds had closed up and the broken ribs mended. The man reached up and removed the bandages around his eyes.

“I can see… I can see! Oh, my daughter! My sweet, I can see your beautiful face again!”

“Da!” The girl threw herself into her father’s arms, weeping loudly.

“Thank you! Thank you, holy priestess! I’m not worthy… a thousand blessings upon you!” The man cried, grasping her hand with his own, his eyes brimming with gratitude.

“Thank you!” Amelia beamed, as the crowd now had its full attention upon her.

“She healed him!”

“Is she a captive?”

“A member of the church, here? Are we saved?”

“Why would they let her help us…”

“I…” Amelia said, standing up. The crowd grew silent as she spoke. “... am a traveling healer, not a member of the church, offering my services to those in need! I have obtained permission from the captain,” she gestured to Serena, “to render aid to all of you. I would very much like to heal those who need it, so please, allow me this kindness…” she punctuated her little speech with a polite bow. Hopefully bowing was seen as polite in this world’s human culture.

Unfortunately, the focus of the crowd now seemed to be on Serena herself, and the atmosphere that had started to be touched by optimism and hope was now laden with fear.

“The… sword demon!”

“The captain of the black ship!”

“We’re doomed!”

“Lord, save us!”

“Tsk!” Serena spat, drawing her firearm and firing it into the air. The sound of the gunshot sent birds flying into the air across the port, and within the square, the humans cowered. “I don’t have time for this! Amelia!”

“Y-yes, Lady Halen!”

“You have one hour. Heal whomever you can. Guards!”

“Yes, captain!” came a chorus from the surrounding demons.

“If any of them start causing problems, shoot them! If they’re too cowardly to accept the aid of my human then they can meet their maker! Someone get me Dagon!”

“Aye, captain!”

Well, that was a little bit aggressive, but it had kept things from escalating. Amelia put her hand up.

“Okay!” She said, trying to sound cheerful. “Who needs healing? Quickly now! I haven’t got long!” A long silence followed, then, a soft voice broke out.

“My arm… is broken. Please…”

“No problem!” Amelia bounced to the next person, and then the next, and the next after that. Each flash of gold and blue was followed by a flurry of gratitude and as the gratitudes rang out, the touch of hope once again fell upon the captive humans.

After a while, Dagon appeared and replaced Serena, who walked off towards the port’s citadel. She would wonder later what that was about. For now, she had more work to do, more happiness to spread.

Serena entered the citadel through the collapsed wall, the front entrance having been destroyed by the torpedo. She had to step over the dead, for the bodies of civilians and soldiers lay strewn about, half buried in the rubble. A demon guard led her through the stone corridors until they entered the office of whoever it was who commanded the port’s defender garrison.

She had to duck slightly, the human building not quite built to account for the extra height her horns gave her. Inside the office was a table with maps of the defenses they had overcome, and lying upon this table was the corpse of a republic officer, a gunshot wound to his head. A familiar demon, with pale grey skin, was standing beside the body.

“He shot himself, the moment I entered,” said the demon, “but not before trying to burn these,” he passed a few sheets of paper, more than half of them burned, to her. “Blueprints. Some secret worth dying to protect.”

“Korvus,” she acknowledged, and Korvus nodded in return.

“Captain.”

Serena looked over the papers, she was no inventor, no genius of mathematics like her younger sister, but she knew enough to figure out what these papers described.

“A new torpedo. A new weapon,” she said.

“Aye. Think it’s what hit the ship?”

“Could be. It was launched from a light craft. The sizes match… but how? A new type of explosive?”

“No, even worse. Mages are saying there are signs of spellwork, where it hit the citadel. Lingering disruption in the aetherfield outside.” He spat on the body next to him. “Wiped out half a squad. Spellwork, in a torpedo. It must be runecraft, the old language.”

“Seven hells…” Serena muttered. The humans were always innovating, and the engineers of the other human kingdoms were almost certainly contributing to the republican efforts. “With this… a frigate could take down a battleship!” She felt a headache coming.

“They will never stop trying to kill us.” Korvus intoned. “Their false book… their lies. They will never accept that Christ was a demon. They cannot. It’s the source of all their evil cast upon us, their heresy.”

“Tsk!” She clicked her tongue. Reading over the documents, before folding them and putting them in her breast pocket.

“There’s something else, captain,” Korvus said, eying her. “Above.”

“Show me.”

Korvus led her to the roof. Overlooking the town she could see all the fires had been put out, and in the distance, the Vengeance displayed a flurry of activity as firemages undertook emergency repairs, welding plates of metal over the hole in the hull. The fading scents of battle, of charcoal and crystal explosives, still lingered in the air.

It was almost midday, the sun beating down warmth that was quickly whisked away by the cool breeze.

“That’s the other problem we have,” Korvus said, pointing down below. Serena followed his finger and her eyes met a figure, small from here, that was hurrying from one person to the next, short bursts of gold and blue erupting here and there.

She steeled herself. She had been waiting for this conversation. Of all the demons under her command, Korvus, the commander of the ground forces, hated humans the most. She would have to be tactful, as despite her being his commanding officer, he was, like her, a Speaker, and the chain of command between Speakers was enforced less by paper and military discipline, but by force and the threat of it.

“What madness has taken hold of you, captain?” He said quietly, watching the square below. “What have you brought into our fold? You invite the very cause of our destruction.”

“She is vouched for, Korvus. By me, the first officer and quartermaster.”

“Vouched for!?” He snapped, “How long have you known this… human? When did she board the ship?”

“I explained this before.” Serena had lied through her teeth when she had pulled in all her officers to show off Amelia for the first time. She had told them Amelia had long been employed by her family, a promising talent they had been nurturing to aid them for the future. It was a lie that was going to have consequences for the family, a lie for which she was going to have to write a very difficult letter to the patriarch. Hopefully, he could be persuaded of the value Amelia could bring, despite any possible loss of reputation and influence.

“You explained nothing! This has never happened before and for good reason! This was foolish!”

Serena felt herself starting to get angry. It was always like this, with Korvus. Always a fight.

“Anathor said the ship trusts-”

“Anathor said!” Korvus interrupted, spittle flying from his mouth. “The ship!” He turned, glaring at her. “Not everyone is on board with putting faith in the ship! And Anathor! He’s not even in the chain of command! He has no allegiance to you! He says it himself, he is the guardian of the ship, not the guardian of you!”

“I trust Anathor, he-”

“We don’t even know what he is! Huh? And you trust him? Has he ever told you what’s on the fourth deck!? Ever shared that little bit of knowledge?”

Serena narrowed her eyes at him. “Commander, if you keep interrupting me, you’re going to have a problem with more than just the human.” Korvus’s expression fell, and he turned back to the square, sighing.

“And now… you even defend her, over me.”

“Eighteen demons. Four sailors and fourteen shock troopers, your shock troopers. That’s how many she saved from certain death. Dozens of others were healed, Korvus. Dozens of your brothers, ready to keep fighting.” Just as she thought she would make some progress with him, Korvus shattered that, with another softly spoken question.

“She’s a Speaker, isn’t she?” He asked.

“... Yes.”

The wind picked up, caressing her hair as a painful silence took hold of them both. It was broken, eventually, by Korvus.

“A Speaker of Aseco?” He asked. “One of my soldiers told me she spoke one of his spells.”

“That’s right.”

“... that’s how I know you’re lying, captain.”

“Excuse me?”

“Speakers of Aseco come from one place, and one place only; the Golden Cathedral. They are all, all, under the direct command of the human pope, for their branch is one of the most divine under the human gods. It is only within the human Vatican, the holiest of places, guided by their strongest priests, could a human ever hope to commune with Aseco and his family. There is no way she managed it, secreted away in demon territory under your family.”

Seven hells! How did Korvus know that? She had only known about the origin of Speakers of Aseco when Tomes had told her earlier, and all her quartermaster did was read books!

“Ah…” she muttered, resisting the urge to grab her horns, “I’m getting pissed off, why do you have to make my job so hard, Korvus?”

“Likewise captain, likewise.”

“When did you get so smart? Never seen you read anything other than a battle plan.”

“... I had the motivation,” he said, a solemn expression on his face.

Amelia was working on the soldiers now, having healed all the civilians that needed healing. Dagon was staying near her, his presence, along with the surrounding guards, was keeping things under control.

How many people had she expended aether on? A hundred? Two hundred? Her reserves seemed endless and the human wasn’t slowing down. Amelia was invaluable, and Serena suspected whatever other secrets she had, would only make her even more so. The issue was, how could she salvage this situation, how could she convince Korvus?

Her mind raced, thinking of another lie she could tell before giving up. She didn’t know what Korvus knew about the situation. She was backed into the corner, with one last card to play, before things became very risky.

The truth.

“We… don’t know how she boarded the ship. It was early this morning. I was going to hang her, but then we figured out she was a Speaker, and then we talked, and then we made a deal…” Korvus was silent, not reacting to what she said. Perhaps, that was a good sign. “She’s not from this place, not from Cascadia, Korvus. She might have come from a different realm altogether. She has no dislike of demons, she even likes us. This was all verified with a truth-teller. Trust me on this, Korvus.”

“Hmm… trust,” he intoned. He clasped his left hand with his right, cracking the knuckles one by one. After he was done, he began working on the other hand. “My father…” he said, almost whispering, “... was a ship-builder. Not the metal kind, but the old one. Wooden. He would buy hardwood from the humans, republican traders, and have lift engines brought up from Centralis. He would build small hulls, transport ships, and the like. He and his workers were hard, honest men, and got on well with the humans, even if they always tried to cheat him a little on prices. We lived in a small village, under the domain of Greatlord Orlan, by the mountains.”

“... oh.”

Korvus looked at the sky, he wasn’t crying, but sadness bled from him nevertheless.

“They attacked us with the same ships we built for them. It wasn’t even the republican army at first, they came later. The initial assault was led by the fanatics, too unstable to serve in the Inquisitor Navy. Village after village. In the fighting, I came across the son of one of the traders I had broken bread with. He was cutting down a child. I killed him.

When I finally returned to my village, I had hoped that my family had escaped, but instead… instead I met them again… impaled on pikes. It was then, that I Spoke the First Word, for the first time.”

Serena gulped. “I didn’t know… you never said.”

“Humans… and demons too, call me a mad dog. Battle-crazed. Thirsty for blood. They use all these words, all these names, that suggest I’m somehow crazy, but the opposite is the truth. I had my mind set clear that day, and every day since.”

He turned to her, his eyes clear and cold.

“But you, captain. You are afflicted with the same disease that killed my father, my family, and my friends. For the sake of everything, the crew, my men, I cannot let this go on any longer.” Korvus raised an arm high, fist clenched. Serena was confused for a moment, before recognizing the hand signal that the combat troops used. Her eyes darted to the square, where she saw Amelia, bending over as she treated a wounded soldier.

Her eyes went wide. The square’s guards, some two dozen demons, were pointing their rifles straight at the human healer, who hadn’t yet noticed.

“I will cure you of your insanity,” the demon next to her said, dropping his arm in one swift motion.

“Korvus!” she spat out, but it was too late. A cascade of gunfire rang out on the square, and Amelia fell into a crumpled heap, her golden hair glimmering in the sunlight.

The world suddenly became very dark. She could see nothing but Amelia, unmoving. Her vision was surrounded by black and she could feel her heart, pounding like a drum in her ears. She was freezing cold and boiling hot, and the feeling of wetness was on her face. There was only one thing she could do, one action.

There was no controlling this.

Her aether frothed in delight.

She Spoke the First Word. Her Word.

“Narean”