Chapter 22 – Autonomy

“Explain to me exactly what happened.” Their city lord was not happy, and both of the others in the citadel tower knew it.

It was the next morning, bringing fresh sunlight through the spire’s stone entryway. Last night the imps had arrived, found their bunks in the camp barracks, and passed out from exhaustion. To say Kairon was eager to meet with his underlings was an understatement, but seeing their state he had relented. Whatever had happened could wait until the following morning. Or so he’d thought.

Shiny stood tall, frowning like his master. Vorathrex on the other hand kept fidgeting nervously.

The imp pointed accusingly at him. “He too loud. Humans heard coming and ran. Vorathrex chased.”

“And?”

“Found camp.”

The words were spoken like a death sentence. Probably because in this case, they were.

His general huffed. Seeing the look in his lord’s eyes, even his demonic rage was quenched into something almost resembling obedience… and shame?

“Fledgling… You said humans can’t share their story. We stopped them.”

“No. You chased to camp!” corrected Shiny again.

The big demon’s gaze flashed with irritation, but one cough from Kairon made that melt away. “There were strong humans there. Much stronger than I thought. I got… excited.”

“You got excited? Vorathrex, what precisely does that mean?”

Shiny answered for him. “Camp GONE.” He clapped his clawed hands together, glaring at the big general.

“The fledgling said to quarantine humans. To stop information from spreading. That’s what I did!” insisted the demon. “And look. We got lots of food. Aren’t you happy? The humans don’t know what happened. And we can eat freely.”

Kairon said nothing for a long moment. His mind went back to that initial summoning of Vorathrex. To that raw rage. And then to that hidden intelligence the big demon had finally shown. Come to think of it, Vorathrex has become far tamer to me specifically. It’s possible he worries about the dissolution threat I hold, but still… Is this an act? Is there an underlying agenda?

One part of Kairon’s brain thought on that while the other kept talking.

“To be clear, when you say the camp is gone and quarantined, does that mean no humans in that village still live?”

Two nods.

The black-scaled demon shook his head in disapproval. “Vorathrex, I’m very disappointed in you. What is the one rule I always tell you both?”

“No waste!” barked Shiny. “Life valuable. Spend only when need.”

“Exactly. And this was not needed. The four rangers, maybe. But their entire village? Vorathrex, can you not see what you’ve done? This is possibly even worse than just letting Lira go back to her clan. What do we do if the other humans find out what happened? How do we explain an entire village razed to the ground? Who will trade with us then?”

Vorathrex looked down.

This time when he inspected the massive demon, he really tried to parse what lay underneath. His eyes didn’t see five hundred pounds of demonic muscle. They saw a child whose strength far outstripped his means. The exiled general, strong but stupid.

His mind, however, disagreed. It saw what may lie underneath. A ruthless demon with his own motivations and desires, pact or no.

Kairon wasn’t yet sure which was correct.

In either case, he was starting to understand why Vorathrex had been exiled from his clan.

“You are to put Boney in charge of training the imps for today. You will have the day off. Spend it reflecting on what happened. We will speak tonight. While I believe in autonomy, there is a limit that you have crossed twice now. I cannot allow it to continue, as the soldier in you should know. Am I clear?”

“Fledgling… You must understand…”

“Am. I. Clear?” Kairon repeated.

Vorathrex made a nondescript noise, looked around uncertainly, and finally gave a resigned grunt. Heavy footsteps echoed in the dark tower as he trudged outside into the hellscape.

Kairon turned his attention to Shiny.

“Master… There were no shinies.”

He sighed. “Yes. I gathered that.”

“And Master. I think this how Vorathrex be. He get excited. Can’t control.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. For now, keep an eye on him.” High in the sky above, a much larger pupil narrowed. It too would be watching.

“Master?” Shiny asked uncertainly.

Between his efforts to encourage autonomy, his loose hands on Vorathrex’s actions, and his insistence to let his entire force go off without him… Kairon knew he only had himself to blame.

It didn’t mean he could change what happened, or even that he might have done something differently. After all, this had solved his issues. Possibly all of them if they could figure out a way to keep a missing village hidden from the other clans.

Kairon grimaced. “Sorry. I was just thinking. You know, I’m what my old managers referred to as a rationalist. You were right earlier, Shiny. Life is precious, but in the same way gold is. Only a life is worth much more. And just like coin, it should never be wasted without good reason. It did achieve our goals today. But it took far more value than it should have.”

“It saved life too. Ours.”

The demon gave Shiny a speculative look. The more time that passed, the smarter he got. It was a trend none of the other brood imps showed. Nor the wrath imps. Boney and the rest of the veterans from the battle had gotten more talented, but that was more in the realms of combat training and battle experience. Their intelligence was roughly unchanged.

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Shiny was the only one truly growing.

“It did. I need to think more about what happened, and then I will deal with Vorathrex tonight. At the end of the day, we still have a city to grow. Let’s go see what you managed to bring back.”

Before they made it to the stockpile, Veron intercepted them. He was being escorted by a wrath imp, who looked less than thrilled about his assignment.

“Master here.”

With that, the little warrior banged claw on chest before wandering off to join his brethren.

“Kairon-“

“Veron. How are you faring?”

“I… I’m fine.” His voice was clipped and short this time. It had more than a little fear tinged within, but clearly he was doing his best to keep calm. “What happened to Lira? And the others? I saw…”

“You saw the goods being transported back, didn’t you?”

A nod.

Kairon took a moment, considering how to best respond. Something he had learned early on was never to apologize more than once if you could help it.

“My friend, it seems that events escalated. There’s no easy way to say this. Your village was lost.”

The demon expected sorrow, outrage, crying, screaming, or something at least. Instead, Veron’s face only stared back at him.

“I see.”

Maybe he’s afraid that we’ll end his life next to finish the “quarantine” of what happened?

“How about this. For the time being, you will be our guest.”

These words did bring a measure of color back to the merchant’s face. Unsure of what else to say, Kairon assumed the merchant simply needed time to process the news.

“We will speak more this evening. If you need anything, have an imp fetch me. And Veron?”

“Yes?”