Chapter Ninety-One: To The City


    “What do you want?” Reza asked the almost two hundred men and women surrounding her. All she’d wanted to do was leave the city but these people had stopped her, and now she was pissed.


    “We want to join you!” One man screamed.


    “You’re our new leader!”


    “Bring on a new revolution!”


    “I work alone,” Reza announced. “I have no need for any of you, especially because if you come with me you will all die!”


    “We are the true army here. The Peacekeepers fired all of us, but we can take on anyone,” A woman shrieked. “Wherever you lead us, we will go. I can tell you are divine! You shall free us from the Revanchist’s rule.”


    “Why don’t you just stay here and live happy, free from the Revanchist?” The champion scowled. “I can do this job alone. If you had gotten in my way, even innocent, I would’ve killed you. Why do you want me?”


    “Because you can free us!” Another man screamed. “I saw how you started the revolution. I know that you picked a fight with a Peacekeeper to free the city.”


    “That may be,” Reza lied, “But that does not mean that I have need of any of you. As you can see, I did this all alone.”


    “No, you did not!” The man said. “Without us causing the revolution, you would’ve never gotten rid of the Lord.”


    “I thought you said I was the only one capable of killing the Revanchist.”


    “With our help!”


    “You can’t do it without us!”


    “You need us, Demon in Black.”


    “It’s Demon in Purple.”


    Sighing, Reza turned to her horse and sat astride it. Raising her daggers, the multitude fell silent.


    “You must not leave this city defenseless!” She exclaimed.


    “Many are already staying to protect the weak,” Someone called out. “We’re barely a third of the real army.”


    “Fine! I will allow you to be the Demon’s Disciples. BUT,” She screamed when the crowd began to roar in approval. “I will not ride with you. I have much to do, and a lot I must do alone. So, you will travel to the Revanchist’s capital city of Boavida, all of you, and when you arrive, I will appear and tell you what you are needed for.”


    “Who will command us here then?” A man asked. “My name is Hareald, and I am a captain. I could do it myself.”


    “Thank you for volunteering,” Reza narrowed her eyes. “Anyone else want to lead this army? Know that if you fail, you will be swiftly punished.”


    No one seemed to want to, so she turned to Captain Hareald.


    “Fail me and this life will be the least of your worries,” She growled, and, nodding, the captain saluted.


    “Aye, sir,” He said, before turning to his army. “Okay, lads, lassies, men of all color and identity, listen to me! You have two days to prepare. This first day you must say your goodbyes and pack anything you will miss. Then come back here at noon tomorrow. I know who you all are. If I don’t see you here tomorrow, there will be punishment. You are dismissed.” Turning to Reza, he cocked his head. “What will you be doing?”


    “I would like to travel city by city, slowly prying away the Revanchist’s grubby fingers before finally severing his hand. But I have not the time. So, I myself am traveling to Boavida where I will take on the Revanchist myself.”


    “So is this all a ruse then, to make us seem like we truly are your disciples?” Hareald scowled. “You do know we follow you, right? We’re invaluable to you.”


    “I know that, amor,” She said. “You shall be of much use to me, and I expect you to do much work. I cannot take on the Revanchist without some sort of hold on the city. Even the Demon cannot kill an entire city. So I will uproot it slowly, killing those I must, recruiting others. Once that is done, I shall wait for you to arrive. Then I shall take on the Revanchist.”


    “We shall be ready.”


    “Good. Eva is counting on you.”


    “Eva?”


    “You follow me and know not what I follow?” Reza frowned. “The Revanchist follows Dautha, a God we do not follow or obey. Anyone who follows him is anathema.”The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    “Any God that the Revanchist followed would be our enemy,” Captain Hareald said. “And who do we follow then?”


    “Our own God. One who cares for and protects us. She is why I am able to do what I can. Eva, the true Goddess. Do you believe it so?”


    “After seeing what you can do, I do. I saw what you did to the Lord. I am unashamed to say I followed you even from then. Only a Goddess could’ve given you those powers.”


    “I am a Champion of Eva, and it is my duty to see her work done. Will the disciples believe in her?”


    “I shall make it so,” Captain Hareald told her. “You can count on me.”


    “Good. Now I must take my leave. Boavida is waiting.”


    “Safe travels. May Eva guide you.”


    “And you.”


    “We shall be waiting for you when we arrive,”


    “No, it will be the other way around,” Reza told him. Tsking at her horse, she began to trot away. As she left, the captain saluted her and she nodded at him. Relaxing, he watched as she left, a smile on his face.


    She couldn’t help but smile as well.


    Reza Ateu, Sangue de Monstros, Demon in black, Demon in Purple, already had disciples, and the journey had only just started.


    “Oh, Revanchist,” Reza smirked. “You have no idea what is waiting for you.”


    — — —


    The Champion of Eva, formerly a Beast Hunter, couldn’t ever truly let go of her beast hunting ways. She was still Sangue de Monstros, as much as it wasn’t her profession now. So, she’d only traveled a mile deep into a forest when she smelled it.


    A giant wolf. Two bears. And a deer/man hybrid. How the hell that had happened was anyone’s guess. Presumably, an ancient had messed up one of his spells and turned the deer and man into one entity. Either way, both the wolf and the bears were hunting it. What they didn’t know was that Reza would reach it first, and kill all four of them. It would be good practice for what was coming. And she would preserve the meat. Not the deer’s, as that bordered on cannibalism and even the Demon in Black strayed far from that, but the bears’ and the wolf’s would be delectable.


    The deer was closer to her than anything else, and a plan immediately formed in her head. First order of business: hiding. She decided to hide where she always hid. Once up the tree, all she had to do was wait for the deer to pass. Most likely, it would be on the run, aware of the beasts hunting it.


    It loped into view, and Reza gasped at the sight of it. Deformed wasn’t a word worthy of this…monster. The head was a human’s, except with fur on her cheeks, and a decidedly deer-like snout. Ears sprouted from the top of her hair, twitching this way and that. The right side of her torso was a human’s, naked, yet the right arm was a deer’s leg, and vice versa. Similarly, the left leg was a human''s yet with a deer-like paw, and vice versa for the right. There was no tail that Reza could see, but it wasn’t just the breast on her right side that told the champion she was a woman.


    The strangest part was that it was running on two feet. Clumsily, yes, but still on its hind legs, and, with only one human foot, and the other a deer’s, it loped around awkwardly, and thus gave Reza the perfect opportunity to strike at it from above.


    Her jump caught the deer-woman in the head and they both tumbled to the ground. Immediately, Reza reacted, standing up and swishing her knives through the beast’s legs, wounding it. The woman screamed, its human mouth cursing at her. It would never walk again.


    “What was that for, bastard?” The deer screamed.


    “You wouldn’t live long anyways,” Reza shrugged. The deer-woman screamed and cursed at her, reaching for her, but Reza moved away,


    Now I wait again, she thought.


    This time she hid behind a tree. Most likely, the bears and wolf already know she was here, but they would still be coming.


    Not long after she hid herself she heard pawprints, big ones, coming from a bear. Two, actually, she realized. They would be pretty big, but she could take on both of them fairly easily. The deer-woman screamed from behind her and she heard a crunch soon after. Clearly, it was dead.


    She craned her head and saw the bears, their heads lowered as they chomped on the deer. Snarling, Reza jumped towards the bears and threw one of her daggers, her armor encasing her already. The first bear fell to the dagger lodged in its face, and the other tossed its head up and rose on its hind legs. Reza reached out with a purple lightning fueled arm, catching it in the face, smashing it in. Bone and blood sprayed through the ground and her armor, and she grinned. She hadn’t ruined any of the meat, thankfully, in killing the beasts.


    Removing the dagger from the bear, sheathing it, and banishing her armor, she crouched over the corpses, looking over the skin she would remove later. It would make a good pelt, too, if she could find someone to do that.


    As she stood over the bear, a figure loped behind her, its shadow towering over Reza, and she cursed to herself. Fogo, I forgot about the wolf.  Hearing a growl, she slowly turned to the wolf who bared its—her—teeth at her.


    Reza stood up carefully and crossed her arms, waiting for the wolf to move. For a moment, stalemate. Then, the wolf nuzzled herself next to the champion, growling affectionately. Gapin, Reza reached out a hand and petted it. The she-wolf seemed to love that even more, and began to lick Reza’s pants.


    “Filha,” Reza whispered. “Your name is Filha. Take, eat the deer. The bear is mine. I can feed you some of it later.”


    Somehow understanding her, Filha loped to the deer and began to crunch, chowing on the dead beast’s chest. Reza watched it as she ate for a little, then began to skin the bears, removing what she must eat later.


    “You were famished,” She remarked to Filha. “Seems you need someone to take care of you. I’ll tell you this: I’d never kill an animal unless I would eat it!”


    Filha cocked her head at the champion, who sighed.


    “The deer-woman was about to die anyway. Plus, without it, I wouldn’t have gotten the bears or you, at least, not as easily. Will you shut up about it then?”


    Barking, the wolf returned to its meal.


    “Well, tell me when you’re done with that,” Reza told her. “We have a capital city to get through in a week.”


    Filha barked again and resumed eating once more. Reza finished preparing the bears and stuffed the meat in her pack, slinging it on the horse.


    “Hope you don’t mind the journey,  Cavala,” Reza told it. “Filha is with us permanently.”


    The horse just snorted impatiently.