"They’re prisoners," Austin said. Already his mind was cataloging which demons they could kill and which ones were worth keeping alive to swell the ranks.
The roads around Grand Meridian were ablaze.
Malrec’s hounds had torn through the business district, torching empty storefronts with green flames to draw survivors into the street. Austin pushed through smoke, Seven holding his right flank while Elena guarded his left and Maelis backed them up. Rin darted somewhere above the rooftops; he could sense her through the brief summoning truce, the fox demon appearing in his mind as a faint red line.
Ahead of him, iron wheels screamed across shattered pavement.
The chain wagon passed between two burning buses. Reinforced black wood large enough to haul a siege cannon between its walls. Six leash riders marched beside the wagon. Four chain hounds prowled around the wheels. Green text blinked rapidly across the wagon’s cage compartment.
Austin smelled them before he saw them.
Fear. Blood. Ember-soot. Feathers. The choking animal musk of demons too long packed into a metal cage.
"Rin!" he called.
There was no answer.
Rin called over the roof tiles. "There are more riders inside the wagon."
"How many?" Elena asked.
"Enough."
Austin watched the moving cage. Assaulting head-on would only endanger the prisoners. He could try branching roots, but Grand Meridian was four blocks away. His connection to the vine network stopped at the hotel’s original border.
Then he felt new growth pulse beneath his skin.
[Stronghold extension available.]
[Range: 500 meters.]
[Cost: vitality drain and increased assimilation.]
Austin grinned ruefully. "I can reach them."
Elena gave him a questioning look.
"The street."
He dropped to his knees and pushed both hands against the broken street.
The Desire to feed stretched from his chest cavity out toward Grand Meridian. The hotel sensed his inquiry through trembling ground: a pulse. Another.
Black roots burst through the street’s seams, racing beneath pavement as it moved toward the wagon.
Pain stabbed behind Austin’s eyes. Everything doubled in his vision for a moment. Colors blurred together, and he felt for just an instant like he could sense every broken sewer line, underground cable, and abandoned basement beneath the road’s surface.
Roots tore through the lead chain hound from beneath.
Thorns sprouted through its gut and flung the hound into the air. The remaining hounds snapped forward, fangs bared. Riders screamed curses and pulled free their chain lances.
"Forget about them!" Austin snarled.
Seven plowed into the first rider like a steamroller. The demon’s chest folded beneath his grasp. Elena shot from behind cover of a totaled cruiser, bolt through the rider’s knee before he could fully unsheathe his lance. Maelis’ ember blasts burned like white fire through the smoke, tearing command scripts from two of the hounds’ collars.
The leash-less hounds stopped moving.
Austin charged at the wagon.
A chain lance sang through the air toward his throat. He caught it by the shaft, yanked hard, and tore the rider from his saddle. The demon collided with the road like a sack of stones. Austin stomped his boot into the rider’s chest.
"You said Malrec was taking them somewhere," he gasped.
"To the war camp," the rider gritted through clenched teeth. "Sorting grounds."
"What does that mean?"
The demon snarled.
Austin kneeled down and opened DEVOUR over his face.
A jet of black gas seared from the leash rider’s eyesockets and nostrils. Screaming, the demon thrashed against Austin until his voice hitched into silence. Memories flooded through devour: cages snapping shut, heatbrands against women’s skin, a horned woman kneeling in silver manacles, Malrec’s voice promising an ancient beast queen’s lineage to whoever delivered Austin’s head on a spike.
[Memory fragment uploaded: enemy destination located.]
[Humanity -0.1%.]
Austin straightened up. The rider twitched in the road where he lay, still conscious.
Elena eyed him critically. "You could have killed him."
"I need him."
The chain wagon began to sway.
Somewhere beneath its floorboards, a heavy green chain tore through canvas. It uncoiled toward Austin’s ankle, moving faster than any forged metal should. He staggered back as the chain snapped across the asphalt where he’d stood only moments ago.
"Vorth."
A voice rasped from somewhere inside the wagon.
"You always intended on breaking it."
Austin clenched his fists. It shouldn’t be possible. The Chain-warden had been imprisoned beneath Grand Meridian ever since they’d signed the prisoner transport covenant.
"Seven!"
"I did not unlock him," Seven growled, pinning another rider’s head against the pavement.
A door slammed open on the wagon.
Vorth stepped through the opening in a chain harness; ribs pale and eyes wide. He was smiling, victorious. Dark root-marks slithered around his wrists, the Bastion covenant’s binding curse mark still gripping his flesh. He hadn’t broken his part of the deal. Austin realized with horror he had perverted it instead.
"They said you couldn’t leave Grand Meridian," Elena stated plainly.
"I didn’t leave." Vorth gestured at the street behind him. Broken trees and crumbled pavement littered everywhere, victims of Austin’s burgeoning abilities. "They forbid me from leaving the perimeter. They didn’t forbid the perimeter from coming to me."
Austin’s gaze dropped to the black roots extending beneath the wagon wheels.
"They wanted us contained," Vorth continued. "I just rearranged the variables."
The wagon trembled.
A countdown appeared in Austin’s mind.
[Warning: captive-severance clause triggered.]
[Time until release: 18.]
Rin vaulted into view next to him, claws dripping with rider blood. "You wanted to sacrifice the hounds. Take me."
She was gesturing toward the cage floor.
Austin understood.
"Locate the anchor."
Nine red afterimages dashed around the wagon. Rin tracked each one with hungry eyes, magic weaving between them as she followed different trails of chainedeath magic. Vorth raised both arms. Chains whipped out of the street and lashed around Seven’s ankles. The enforcer kicked them loose, hard, but there was no time to lose.
Maelis advanced on the chained wagon, both hands crackling with emberlight.
"I can burn the contract clause down," she explained. "But it will take part of my covenant magic with it."
"You have the right to refuse," Austin told her. "You don’t owe me that."
Her eyes flashed golden-white. "Trust me. I’m not doing this for you."
She slammed both palms against the wagon floor.
Warmth flooded into the cage walls, emberlight battling the cage contract magic’s green script as it tried to extinguish it. Maelis screamed, ancient burns across her throat flaring with fresh agony. Austin felt another piece of her strength wrench free.
Eight.
The countdown stuttered.
"Anchor!" Rin called from inside the wagon.
Austin dove headfirst into the smoke.
Green chain-links had been hammered through the wagon axle and into the ground. At its center, a spherical cage lock served as a guide marker and direct feed into the cage contract’s magic. Austin could devour it whole. Disassemble the thing and rip its purpose from its incantations. Didn’t matter. Time was too short for careful decisions.
He bit down.
DEVOUR spilled into his senses.
A metal knot burned through his teeth. Orders shot through his mind like poison: Do not harm prisoners. Protect Malrec’s assets. Punish intruders. Austin swallowed each command whole.
His bones cracked.
Dark tendrils burst through his skin.
[Chain Warden authority fragment devoured.]
[New player trait unlocked: Command Bite.]
[Assimilation increased by ]
The green chain exploded apart.
Crate doors burst outward.
Adult demons spilled from the wagon’s confines; a winged woman with one broken arm hanging uselessly at her side, a horned huntress, two battered shadow demons, and a silver chained lioness-eyed warrior several steps tall. Bruised. Bloodied. Furiously alive.
The lioness woman leveled a gaze of amber stone down at Austin.
"You are called Devourer?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Depends on who you ask."
"The Watcher," she corrected. "Someone Malrec wants destroyed." She snapped at the silver chains holding her wrists. "He calls his war camp the Beast-Queen’s offspring. My sister lives there."
The horn of a rider bike blared somewhere down the street.
More demons were coming for them.
Austin met the gazes of his newly liberated prisoners before sweeping his eyes upward to find Vorth standing across the street. The Bastion operative had slipped away while Austin and the others were fighting.
Not that it had been much of a fight, really. Taking back the chained wagon had granted Austin prisoners to bargain with, new enemies to hunt down, and another good excuse to slaughter whatever Malrec had hiding at his war camp. But it had also reminded him just how insatiable his thirst for power had become.
He gestured down at Grand Meridian.
"Take them inside," he ordered Seven, who nodded and snapped back to his feet. Then he met that lioness-eared warrior’s eyes.
"Where’s your sister?"
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