Vendr swung the blacksmith's maul over his head and brought it down with all the strength he could muster, shattering the stonework at his feet. He pulled the head of the massive hammer from the cratered stone and struck it again just as hard, dust and fragments of masonry flying into his face and in all directions.
The demon roared with rage and struck the ground over and over again, cratering stone foundations that had been built to withstand sieges and had done so dozens of times with little more than scratches to show for it. Vendr struck it so hard that it shattered like glass under his intense strength.
Another strike saw the maul's haft snap like a dry twig and the head of it bounced up and snapped Vendr's head back, dazing the demon. He stumbled a few feet, trying to remain on his feet as white lights and dark spots filled his vision. After a moment's pause, he saw red again and threw himself into the stone, fists slamming against the ground like hammers until they were broken and bleeding.
When Vendr heard his knuckles break against the sharp splinters of rock, he heaved a great sigh in frustration and stood up, yelling at the Eternal Sanctum in the sky, shaking his bloodies, broken fists at it as if the gesture would make him feel any less robbed and enraged.
When his voice grew hoarse, the enormous demon slammed his fists into the ground one last time and then collapsed into the powder and dust beneath him, sending a cloud of it into the air.
The demon let what little remained of his boiling rage bleed out of his body, taking a long time to regain control of his senses as he lay in the destruction. It was going to take him a long time to get over this denial, however. Even if his rage was waning, things would not be the same in him until the human was dead and his head mounted on a pike. Vendr let out a groan and ground his teeth together until it made his head hurt.
"Usher Lanos," the demon said scathingly. He pushed himself to his knees and stared at his bloody hands, bones visible through patches where he had no skin left. "Next time...next time there will be no Brohund or Fentin."
Vendr stood, collecting the two halves of the maul from the ground and making his way away from the barracks with a number of former onlookers trying to busy themselves with something other than staring at him. He cared little for all the eyes that had been upon him in his rage.
Upon returning to the smithy, he placed the splintered maul on top of one of the anvils and tapped it with his hand. A blacksmith turned to him and nodded, quickly returning to his work on a blade in the forge. Vendr heaved a sigh and wiped blood from his eye, smearing red streaks across the side of his face in the process.
He left the smithy and returned to his personal quarters, finding two of his slaves filling the enormous bathtub with bucket after bucket of hot, steaming water. He motioned for them to leave and they finished their work, hurrying out of the small tent room without a glance to their master.
Vendr undressed and slipped tiredly into the water, every wound and bruise on his body coming aflame with pain. He took a discarded rag and began to rub the splinters of stone out of his skin, beads of blood rising through the open holes and running like water off his skin. He dipped the rag into the water and wiped his face with it, taking it away almost completely red with his blood.
A slave girl swept the flap of the room open just enough to get her head through, and nodded respectfully to Vendr.
"Would you like company, milord?" she asked, cheeks blushing red when Vendr turned his glare toward her.
"No," he answered, waving her away. After a moment's thought, he said, "Bring me torridroot."
"Torridroot?" the girl asked, eyes curious and confused.
"Nevermind," the large demon said, picking himself up and out of the water. "Refill the tub. And bring a bigger washcloth." Vendr took his tabard and wrapped it around his waist, fastening it securely with a belt of tanned flesh. The slave girl nodded in shame and left to do as he'd commanded.
She didn't know what torridroot was. One of the most widespread numbing agents in the Second Circle and she didn't know! Again, Mefur was giving Fentin and the generals all of the good slaves. Vendr clenched his fists in annoyance and left his quarters, moving through the encampment like a stalking giant.
At just over eight feet, Vendr was an imposing figure even here in Hell. His massive shoulders barely fit in most armor, and his arms were more like tree trunks than limbs. He was the champion of this army, and he looked every bit the part.
The giant admired his knuckles, mostly healed now after being cleaned. The few scars he did have still irked him however, especially the one on his face that Usher Lanos had left nearly three thousand years ago. Vendr had felt the sting of a thousand blades, been shot with every manner of projectile, had bombs thrown at him, been lit on fire. He'd suffered every manner of would one could imagine, and only a handful had even left a scarcely a scratch after it all.
But that human, he had given Vendr a wound he remembered every single time he gazed upon his own image. It devoured Vendr's pride in such a way that the giant felt bloodlust rising to the fore even now.
He nearly tore the flap off the front of the apothecary's quarters as he entered, a flurry of thoughts spinning through his head. Foremost among them was how close he'd been to killing the human earlier, and that oaf Brohund had stopped him only feet from his vengeance. Luckily, Usher Lanos had killed the dimension-spying demon before he could be of any more nuisance than he'd been already.
Now he didn't need to be paid an estate, a fortune, and a horde of slaves. It lessened Vendr's anger to not have his lord pay the demon for his services in the human realm, but only slightly.
"You came for something, milord?" asked one of the apothecary's lackeys, a thin, wiry demon bearing a large tube of dark fluid on his back like a beast of burden.
"Torridroot." After a moment's thought, the demon's frown lightened. "And vanilla scents, Oils, incense, what have you."
"I suppose this falls under the acquisition request from a commanding officer?" the demon replied, wetting the end of a quill with blood from his tongue. A large sheet of parchment unfolded from his long, filthy sleeve.
"Yes," the giant grumbled. He watched the lackey slip away through the cloth doorway and then disappear amongst the various chests and jars and shelves of materials. Vendr waited outside the apothecary's quarters and idly thought about the demon he'd nearly killed earlier.
As strong as she seemed, coming through a human portal had robbed her of her greater powers and left her comparable to a mortal in Vendr's eyes. He'd split her nose and lips with ease, not even using a tenth of his strength to shatter her face and teeth and break most of her ribs. He flexed his fist and almost felt her hair between his fingers, clenched tightly around silken fibers.
It had been a long, long time since he'd struck a woman. It was difficult to imagine how many souls he had slain in his life, but to his credit, not one had been unarmed unless Fentin had ordered him to do it. The thought of striking that woman down in cold blood on orders rubbed him the wrong way. He was almost relieved Fentin hadn't wanted her killed.
"As much as I could find, milord," the lackey said, drawing Vendr from his reverie.
Without looking down at the demon, Vendr took the bag from him and made his way back to his tent, undressing as he entered. He handed the bag of herbs and pleasant-scented items to one of the slaves and swept open the flap before him.
In his bath tub rested a woman he didn't know.
"Hello there," the woman cooed smoothly, nudging her shoulder as the slave girl Vendr had ordered to fill up the tub massaged her shoulders with a look of anxiousness written across her pale features. "Care to join me? There's more than enough room in here for the three of us."
Vendr grunted. "Get out."
The woman slapped the slave girl's hands away and stood up, clearly annoyed.
"And refuse a gift from your lord? I was sent here as compensation for-"
Vendr's hand reached the succubus' throat in an instant, and he placed its partner between her legs, lifting her off her feet. "There is no compensation for denying me vengeance. Leave. Now." Vendr removed his hand from the succubus' neck and she gasped for breath, her glare faltering as he pushed three fingers into her core and lifted her out of the bronze bath tub with one hand.
She attempted to dissuade him by using her powers to enthrall him, but he shook her influence off without much effort. He'd been hardened by thousands of years of war, and his mental facilities were far beyond what the common harlot could hope to enrapture without having incredible focus and strength herself.
Vendr set her down on the ground and removed his fingers from her, opting instead to grab her head in a tight knot and slam her skull against the lip of the tub. It rang like a bell so loud that the slave witnessing the act collapsed to her knees, holding her hands to her ears. Vendr dragged the dazed succubus out of his tent and instructed two slaves to take her back to the succubus harem where Fentin had no doubt gotten her from.
Vendr returned to the bathtub and grabbed it, stilling the remaining vibrations causing it to ring. The slave girl took her hands away from her head and looked up at the giant, as if she were looking upon a god.
"Get up," he ordered. Without question, she stood, trembling with a mix of fear and physical trauma.
"Your will, milord?"
"Bring me the torridroot. I have great need of an escape," he said dryly, getting into the bathtub without looking at the girl. She left the room and quickly returned with a large, misshapen lump of fibrous vegetation in her hands.
"Here you are, milord," she offered, extending her hands toward him with the torridroot resting in her palms. He took it and bit into the disgusting thing, grimacing as he chewed it into pulp and sucked the foul juice from its fibers.
"Take some," he said, holding the root out to her.
"Milord?" she asked.
"Girl, if I did not want you to have it, I would not have offered it. Take some," he explained in a short tone. She nodded and took a small bit of it between her teeth, chewing it slowly. Vendr snapped a large bulb off the root and handed it to the girl. This time, she didn't need to be told to take it, and let him drop it into her palms wordlessly.
Vendr forced a swallow of foul juice and took a deep breath, numbness spreading through his thoughts. torridroot was one of the few things that remained soothing to him. Most other distractions had lost their luster in ages past, but this was a constant, a firm rock that he could always fall back upon for a mirage of tranquility.
