Then she stepped out and shut the door behind her. She looked at the captain of the city guard contingent. “Captain, I advise you to have your men stand down.”
“We can’t do that,” he said through gritted teeth.
“At least explain to me what is happening here before blood is shed,” Lash said.
“This slave showed up insisting that he needed to see you. He is acting like he owns the place,” the city guard captain answered.
Lash seemed to suddenly exude an aura of menace. It was like she was ten feet tall and the personification of dread. The guard captain backed away. All around him, Kyle saw hands quavering. A few even dropped their blades. If he wasn’t mistaken, someone had just unclenched their bowels in a most spectacular fashion, based upon the smell.
Strangely, Kyle felt the aura wash over him. He knew that he was supposed to be scared like death was breathing on his neck, but for some reason it didn’t affect him. He did, however, smile as Lash spoke up, “Given that this slave is the reason that the monster was killed, I suggest you give him some leeway. And you sure as Dod’s darkest hell don’t want to fight him.”
“Uhh… yes… suppose you are right,” the captain said. It was probably an act of triumph that he was able to pull himself together well enough to answer in a complete sentence.
Lash then took Kyle’s arm and led him down the hallway until they were far enough away from both prying eyes and listening ears. Her skin against his created a weird sensation in him akin to a static electric shock but it was like a shock was going from him to her and then not returning back as it should have. It felt broken, but Kyle didn’t know why.
When she stopped walking, she turned on him, fury in her eyes. “What are you doing? You can’t just go around demanding things.” Then she walked away from him and began pacing back and forth.
“I just wanted to talk to you. I have a plan and wanted to make sure I could count on you,” Kyle replied.
She stopped her pacing and turned to look at him. “Count on me. Count on me? It’s me who can’t count on you. I don’t even know what to make of you. I don’t know what to believe. Your pet celestial says that it is you, and you feel sorta the same, but not quite.
“And if it is you, then where have you been? Why’d you abandon us? You swore to always look after us. There are just too many questions. I can’t believe it is really you.”
Kyle was used to girlfriends feeling betrayed by him not keeping a promise to meet them or call them or whatever commitment he failed to keep. At the time, it had always felt more important to practice a little longer, view a little more game film, or just sleep a little more so he would be ready for the next game.
This was just new to him because for once he hadn’t done anything to wrong the woman. Well, unless his prior incarnation’s actions could be counted against him. He decided not to worry about that. He had enough to be responsible for just considering his own actions.
“Full explanations are going to require trust. It is clear that you don’t trust me yet, which is fine, because I don’t trust you yet. Hilde says you can’t be trusted, but she can tend to be overprotective,” Kyle said.
“Hilde?”
“Yeah, the fire angel that I summoned. She said that she spoke to you,” Kyle replied.
“Oh, you mean Qua’ardet Flammaurorae,” Marie said more as a statement than a question.
“Yeah, that’s way too long of a name. I just call her Hilde,” Kyle said, grinning.
“You are so different,” Marie said as she shook her head.
“No time to get into that now. We need to get to know each other better. That is, if you have decided that you don’t want to kill me on sight now.”
Marie hesitated a moment before speaking, “You have to understand, this is a lot to take in.”
“Uh, trust me, I know. One minute I was on top of the world after winning the World Series, and the next I’m trying to figure out what it means to be the war god,” Kyle said, staring at her intently as he tried to read the reactions on her face.
“Only half the words you just said made any sense to me. I will make you a deal. I won’t try to kill you, but you promise to explain what is going on,” Marie said.
“Fair enough, as soon as I know that I can trust you,” Kyle said. Then paused before adding, “It would go a long way towards helping me trust you if you can get Meeka to buy myself, Kierra, and Gilthan as her gladiators and, unless you have a better idea, Skrug too, to round out the five-man team. Oh, and I will need her to buy one of the other slaves here, an elf called Nyda.”
Lash looked at him and laughed. “I can see some of him in you, but still don’t get this. Who else could stand there with four manacles on and still start giving commands? For what it is worth, Lady Meeka is already planning on buying all of you, if the price is right. But I don’t see why she would buy some slave just because you asked.”
“She has an unawakened bloodline in her that I believe we can awaken and that will make her very valuable. You need to get her to agree to this, or you will force
