Twinned Destinies: A Cultivation Progression Fantasy

The demons’ march was a natural disaster. They rolled down the winding mountain paths, toppling trees, torching the plains, scaring clouds of crows and ravens and rocs to flight, whipping up stampedes of stags and boars, bears, sending the lesser serpents rustling through the underbrush. The ground they passed was leveled, pocked with craters, heaped high with ash and crushed bone; thigh-bones and skull-bones of all sizes, some still flecked with charred meat, lay strewn carelessly about. Look in front and you’d see a forest. Look behind, a desert. They even changed the sky—ahead it was clear and blue, but behind it was so stained it was flushed almost red. Smoke streamed up its face like streaks of tears.

Hours out, Octavius made camp.

“Make merry!” He crowed. “Rest well! For tomorrow, we take Jade Dragon City!”

He met Marcus’s eyes then with that too-wide grin of his, a gloating grin. He thought there was nothing Marcus could do.

***

When Octavius’ servant—Publius, Octavius had called him—came telling Marcus that Octavius wished to hold a private conference, Marcus assumed it was to gloat.

The warcamp he passed was a grisly carnival. To demons war was always a celebration, but the way they were partying it was like they’d already won. The air was thick with the smell of smoked flesh; he saw flesh roasting on spits tall as trees. They were strung up with all kinds of animal—fowl, boar, a drake stripped of its scales and gutted through its belly, even a human missing eyes and most of its fingers, mouth slack in a silent eternal scream. There were wrestling pits clumped with onlookers shouting bets. Beside them lay pleasure tents with the flaps wide open, spilling sounds which made Marcus sigh. Some of the action had even spilled onto the streets. Pleasure with demons was as violent a thing as battle; it mattered not the gender—each act was a battle for dominance. Truly they never seemed to tire of it.

Octavius’s command tent was pitched at the very center of it, staked to the ground with four drake’s teeth big as men. Its fabrics were stitched of human skin; Octavius felt it apt. Over the entrance a dragon’s skull stared out with its empty sockets, snarling empty threats at all who neared.

The guards let Marcus in without a word; their smiles did the speaking for them. What had things come to, that even common guards thought themselves better than him? But soon none of it would matter. He let their sniggering slip off him as he stepped through the tent flaps.

Inside it was unnaturally quiet. The sounds of the outside tried to follow Marcus in, but they couldn’t. They met a wall of calm. There stood Octavius, pacing before maps pinned to the tent canvas, maps strewn across the floor. There was a table but no seats. Octavius had never struck him as a creature who could sit still.

“Welcome!” said Octavius, smiling like they were old friends, as though he hadn’t spent the last few years tormenting him. “You must be wondering why I’ve called you here.”

“I am,” said Marcus mildly.

“You’re here so I can tell you the future. You’ve made such a career of it. I figure I’ll try my hand, and you’ll tell me what you think. How does that sound?”

Marcus shrugged. “I’ll listen. But I fear I can’t promise I’ll tell you what you want to hear.”

“So long as you listen,” said Octavius. He palmed a glass off the table and started filling it with bloodwine. There were two cups set out. “Would you like some?”

“No.”

Octavius shrugged, took a sip, and spoke. “Tonight, the sky shall be set on fire,” he breathed. “So full of Demon Hearts it will seem more red than black. And we shall fall upon the city, and thousands of lives, a thousand years of culture, shall be leveled to slag—just like all the rest. We’ll flay the Emperor, devour the peoples, break the will of the humans. And that shall be the end of it. That shall be my victory.”

“Congratulations,” said Marcus evenly. “You must be very happy with what you’ve done here.”

“Oh, I am,” said Octavius brightly. He strode up to Marcus. “You know, despite our differences, I have always admired you.”

“You would mock me?” sighed Marcus. “Now?”

“I’m serious,” said Octavius. He was short in human form—he always seemed bigger when he was on a stage, but he had this way of puffing himself up with his gestures, his affect, his tone. There was none of that here—that was what had been bothering Marcus since the start of this conversation. He spoke like he meant it. It was off-putting.

“I can sway people, touch hearts. But this is… small. On the order of the crowd. I was never good at the big things— on the order of nation, or of the campaign, or of the alliance. I’d always suspected it took a certain eye for the bigger picture.”

He took another sip. His expression grew pensive. “I studied you,” he said slowly. “Your diplomatic maneuvers, your strategies… I could name every offensive you oversaw in the Four Lords War. But I never could replicate them, not in war games, not in skirmishes. It was devilishly frustrating for me. For a time I thought it was innate—a third eye of the mind, if you will?”

He sighed, tonguing his cheek.

“Well,” said Marcus, wondering what the game was. “I do not have your tongue. And with it you’ve outmaneuvered me. You’ve got your lieutenants in line. You’ve rallied an army and secured Lucius’ support. Perhaps we all wish for what we cannot have.”

“Hum.” Octavius paused. “I never thought I was capable of it, between the two of us.”

“You have certainly outdone yourself.”

“Why, thank you.” His smile flicked back on. “Do you still feel I’ve overextended, then?”

“Sometimes such risks pay off. Sometimes they don’t.”

“So you can’t admit it,” chuckled Octavius. He swirled the wine about. “We all have our pride, I suppose. Even you.”

“I’ve never claimed otherwise.” Marcus got the sense Octavius hadn’t called him to gloat. Not fully, at least. The younger demon was looking to Marcus for approval. It surprised him—he wouldn’t have suspected Octavius had ever wanted it. Then again they’d never spoken like this, alone, so freely, free of their titles and roles, simply chatting. It was strange.

“Why the sudden candor?” Marcus said.

Octavius considered that. “I’m not sure,” he mused. “Perhaps it’s because we’re coming to the end of things. I’m growing sentimental. I feel… I feel on the eve of a great change. When next we speak our relationship will be quite different, I suspect.”

Octavius had truly gone out of character. In public he would’ve said what he meant: that he would’ve conquered all of humanity. He would be undeniable then. If he wanted the Lordship, Marcus had no doubt the rest of the Warlords would back him.

“A word of advice,” said Marcus. “You have not won yet.” He nodded his head out the tent doors.

“Your men are celebrating. I would not follow them.”

“Come now.” Octavius’s smile grew catlike. “You always were so stuck up. You won’t even drink.”

“I drink,” said Marcus, and gave a smile of his own. “There is a reason I have been the Lord of Demons for five centuries, young one. I’m careful. I drink after the battle is done. Take care, Octavius.”

He turned to go.

“Where do you plan on going, exactly?”

“Back to my Palace,” said Marcus. He paused at the door, one flap raised, letting a wash of red light pool bloodlike on the dirt ground. “I’ve seen enough. I’m sure you can manage the rest of this campaign on your own.”

“Truly?” said Octavius. “I’ve almost finished them! You’ve been along for the whole journey—you won’t see it to its end?”

“I’ve never been one for gloating.” He swept out of the tent, leaving Octavius sitting there, silent, thinking.

Then the Warlord shrugged, picked up his glass, and kept drinking.

***

They had but one mountain range to cross. The sun was setting. His warriors were ready. They’d annexed this valley for their camp and all his troop were spread along it, some so eager they slobbered. A few were already demonformed, lunks of black jutting like stones out of a river of tanned faces. The vanguard were his Shield Cohort, his heavies, who’d demonform to elephants and rhinoceroses and golems. They would ram the walls, soak the first line of damage, and scatter the enemy. Five Kings helmed the front. Behind were his lights, the Blade Cohort, his raptors and mantises, drooling at the chance to slice through the scattered defenders. His Sky Cohort, the dragons, rocs, and lesser fowl, would take out whatever nuisances they had up on the walls. He had it all laid out. It was simple, brutal, effective—how could it go wrong?

He ought to take Marcus’ words with a drop of blood; the old Lord was scheming again.

Octavius stood to speak, beaming his smile over the masses. But just as he opened his mouth, he caught a black dot darting through the sky.

A Sevencolor Raven. His Sevencolor Raven—it was missing one of its legs. It announced its coming with a caw so loud it echoed across the valley floor, up the faces of the mountains.

It dropped a letter as it landed. Octavius tore open the seal. “What!—”

He froze. He reread the letter, then again, his eyes growing wider with each pass. Then his hands burst into a flame so brilliant it drew gasps from his army, had half of them cringing away.

He flung the ashes to the ground.

“We have been betrayed!” he screamed. “Drusila has double-crossed us. She has made war on our camps in the Demonlands!”

The timing. Right after his forces crossed the Blue Mountains—so they’d be too slow to turn back. Their hoards and their families were with bare defenses. Drusila had thirty thousand warriors ready to march. She also had a treaty with him. Demons had their honor; that should’ve been enough, but words were air. So he’d had that treaty ratified by Lucius… and Marcus.

Marcus’s words rang harsh in Octavius’s ears. About overextending. The way he’d smiled. “I’ve never been one for gloating.”