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The King's order came by royal page, rather than by mental compulsion, but was no less inescapable.
Give chase, he commanded, and so they did. Horses and plate armor were made ready, while the weapons, human or otherwise, always were. In no time at all, all ten of the King's Lances burst forth from the castle like a volley of arrows, scouring in all directions into the dark night.
Shin didn't know any better than the others which way their quarry had gone, but he was confident in his speed, and there was a strange, compelling sense that pulled him eastward. Though he had no wish to be the one to deliver the killing blow, when a flash of red cape caught his gaze, it was with a grim lack of surprise that he urged his steed after it.
The target turned out to be only a small demon, shrouded in the crimson hood and cloak favored by the rest of his clan. Blood showed poorly on those cloaks, Shin knew that well. The way the edges of it rippled around the demon's legs, lapping and fanning in the speed of the chase, put him unpleasantly in mind of bodies limp on the battlefield, red tatters hanging from his spear.
The demons that plagued them had no fixed settlement, roaming nomadic throughout the land. Yet they always came back to Oujou Castle, skirmishing here, infiltrating there, assaulting the kingdom with hideous black magic in the absence of numbers. It was a ceaseless, sneaking sort of warfare that battered at their defenses and their wills: enemies few yet elusive, slipping off into the night as soon as a counterattack could be mounted. So the Lances had been forged, and sent in retaliation: tearing down not only cloaked warriors, but caravans if they found them, even the huddled red tents that formed their temporary dwellings, stomping them flat wherever they popped back up, like toadstools after a rain.
Compared to sleeping innocents, a warrior at least made a less distasteful target. A thief or assassin, maybe, who'd infiltrated Oujou Castle and thought to get away with it. Shin would have to let that thought comfort him when it came to the inevitable, which would be soon now. Very soon.
The demon had noticed his approach. It was hardly subtle—the thundering hooves, the clanking plate, the killing intent. In a move of desperation, the cloaked figure cut to the right, towards the growing tree cover. Clever.
Shin hadn't yet closed the gap, leery of the demon's magic, but he had no more time to hesitate.
He couldn't let the thing escape into the woods where his steed couldn't follow; the Seal wouldn't let him.
Taking off his helmet for better aim, and squinting against the eye-watering rush of wind, he unhooked his javelin from its holder. Braced his off hand against his stallion's neck, and rose in his saddle. And with his entire body, he flung his weapon straight and true.
The demon gave a high-pitched cry of alarm, ducking to the side just in time to save his life. Barely.
The spear pierced his cloak and slammed into the earth, pinning it into place. As he tried to keep running, it was the demon's own garment that brought him up short, choking him. He turned in fright as Shin closed in, pulling so hard the cloak tore from him, hood falling from his head—but it was too late. In one swift motion, Shin leapt down from his mount and grabbed the demon before he could get away.
Though they were called demons, Shin was always caught off guard by their delicate, elven features. Slight body barely half his size, pointed ears; this one had budding horns growing from his head, just two nubs peeking from the thick, dark mop of his hair, silvery bumps with a dull shine under the moonlight, like pewter.
The demon had been clutching something while he ran, but in the impact of Shin's tackle, it went flying from his arms. It landed heavy enough to indent the dirt, rolling out a ladder of corners and hard edges until it thudded to a stop in the roots of a tree at forest's edge. He'd been so close to making it to cover, this demon. His stolen goods nearly had.
It was a small metal chest, maybe two palms wide, filigreed and ornate like something valuable, with its stout keyhole now facing upward, into the tree's winter-bare branches. It must have been precious, well guarded. Yet the demon had managed to lift it from the castle, and nearly gotten away with it completely.
Shin had been ordered to capture the demon. Surely that extended to what the demon had taken. But as he made a move towards it, a second red-cloaked figure emerged from the murky forest shadows. This one wasn't wearing a hood, but then he couldn't have, with the enormous curved horns atop his head, thick and bent as a ram's. One curved back so far it nearly kissed his head again, sitting against his golden hair like a crown or helmet. The other was shorn not far from his skull, just after the bend, and the empty space gave him an unbalanced, almost unhinged look.
"Hiruma!" gasped the captive in Shin's arms, redoubling his efforts to squirm free. "What are you doing here? So close to the castle—"
Which meant this was Hiruma the demon lord, leader of the clan. Hiruma ignored his underling's lack of deference, instead squatting down by the treasure box, where he gave Shin a grin full of sharp teeth. With the long, tapered point of his fingernail, he worked the keyhole for all of a moment before it gave with a click, and the lid sprang open.
Inside the box sat a dark cushion. The only thing nestled upon it was a crude silver ring, thick as the length of a man's finger from knuckle to first joint, edges rough-hewn and uneven. It had been formed from a longer band or strip, and etched over the seam where it was joined sat a thin blue cross, matching the ones on Shin's gauntlets.
No.
It was no wonder Shin had felt some urge calling him in this direction. He hadn't known that King Takami no longer kept his Lance's Seals on his person, much less locked them away in boxes like this. They were hardly used anymore, true; by now obedience was ingrained into him and all the others, and a spoken command was sufficient. It had been ages since he'd seen the ten rings on his King's ten fingers, or been put under their sway. But to see it here—
In the demons' clawed hands—
Hiruma hooking a pointed nail through the ring to lift it, dangling, from its rest—
It was foolish, but his first instinct was to run.
As Hiruma rubbed it between his slender fingertips, sneering dismissively, "You got the wrong one, you runt," Shin whistled for his horse, and ran to meet it, dropping his captive in a senseless panic to get away.
"You got the wrong one, but it'll do for now," continued the amused voice from behind him.
Shin had a hand on the reins, a foot in the stirrup, when the compulsion came.
Like a dark flood, it seized his limbs, a hard fist around his bone and sinew that yanked him, unforgiving, to the ground.
He dropped, deadweight in a suit of armor.
Though he struggled against the force, muscles straining, heart thudding against the cage of his ribs, he knew it was no use. The Seal bound him to its holder, and if the King who had bound him was careless enough to let it fall to the wrong fingers, that only meant his already grim fate had darkened even beyond his imagination.
His Seal was held by a demon. No, by the demon.
And he was powerless to resist.
"Sorry," the smaller demon was saying to his lord. Shin couldn't look up to see him, face planted into the dirt, but he sounded like he was cowering, contrite. "There were a ton of boxes in the treasure room, and the guards were right behind me, and I kind of panicked? I grabbed the first one I could reach and ran."
"Eh, if you couldn't get the right one, the consolation prize is not so bad." Hiruma's voice was chillingly casual as he sent another sick wave through Shin's body, forcing him to rise to his knees, then his feet. As he was made to turn, he could see the demon watching intently, a hard glitter in his eyes like anger or disgust, even as his mouth worked a disjointed grin. "So kind of King Takami to bind his weapons so well. The Ten Lances of the Holy Kingdom, and now the strongest monster of them all is mine. How's that for Divine Providence? Go get that horse of yours."
That last command was meant for him. Shin could tell in the way the Seal underscored it with a pulse of insistence, and though it didn't puppet his limbs, that control hovered on the edges of him, like a guiding rail and a prod at his back.
The stallion always spooked when Shin was moving with the stiff, reluctant motions of his compulsion, but it came anyway when he called, and allowed him to take the reins once more. Shin wanted more than anything to swing onto its back and ride away, but the Seal kept his greaves firmly grounded.
"What do you call it?" Hiruma said, as Shin soothed it with murmured nonsense syllables.
"No name. It's only a mount." He'd secured his helm poorly in his earlier haste, and it was banging against the creature's flank. Adjusting the chain suddenly seemed like the most important task in the world.
"The King doesn't let you have personal attachments to animals, huh?"
"Such 'attachments' are unnecessary for a weapon like me." Mid-adjustment, Shin froze, belatedly realizing what was coming. He had always taken great pains to show he'd learned from those painful early lessons, and whatever other blood was on his hands, never again had it come from a faithful and innocent steed. But now nothing could be taken for granted.
"Oh?" responded Hiruma, low and dangerous, as if he meant to test that—and Shin acted, snapping the reins in the sharp signal that meant speed. The stallion took off like a shot, riderless and lighter for it, and Shin's helmet fell discarded to the dirt. By the time Shin was slammed back down to his knees beside it, the horse was far enough gone he couldn't have called it back no matter how the Seal compelled him. What hell there would be to pay for that, at least he'd pay alone.
The King had always reacted to such rebellions with a cold fury, as if any flaunting of his control, however small, was a grave insult.
Hiruma only laughed uproariously, even going so far as to slap his knees while the smaller demon looked on in alarm. "Oujou's monster cares more about saving his horse than himself? Is that what you're telling me?"
"One could be saved," Shin said, matter of fact even as he braced himself. But rather than pain, what came through the Seal was only more compulsion, if tighter this time. Back to his feet, clanking over to his javelin, yanking it from the ground with some effort. There was a tatter of red cloak still caught, but he wasn't given leave to pull it off, and it came with him, back to the demon's side, like some kind of flag.
When Shin went to hand over the spear, the demon took his gauntleted wrists instead, assessing of his new acquisition. The ring was still dangling precariously from one of his long, thin fingers, swaying with his every motion like it might at any moment fall.
Sensing Shin's scrutiny, Hiruma smirked. He began to run the ring along the backs of Shin's gauntlets where they gripped the haft of his spear, slow and deliberate, scraping and making little hopping clacks against the metal, even kissing the crosses on the back of each gauntlet with their match on the ring. The Seal was so close, Shin only had to turn his hand to take it, but the damned thing wouldn't let him. Even as it skimmed by the crook of his fingers, right within his grasp, he could only hold still, and let it go by.
"Hiruma," said the smaller demon nervously. "We're still so close to the castle. The other knights are probably out looking for us—"
"Yeah, we'll continue this somewhere more private," Hiruma agreed, and thankfully ceased his teasing. "Sena and I will go first. You meet us there, you monster. Since you sent away your horse, you'll just have to do it on foot."
Shin wasn't released from his compulsion as the two demons slipped into the woods: the smaller one, Sena, scrambling to get his torn cloak back on, Hiruma laughing and flipping the ring into the air like a shining coin. Every time it left his palm, Shin felt like he could lunge after it, snatch his freedom in the space of that spinning toss. But every time, it fell back solidly into the demon's hand, and the breath crushed out of him again.
Only when they'd made it far enough into the tree cover that their forms were shrouded in darkness did Shin feel the hold release on him, just enough to let him move.
"Take the long way around," called Hiruma gleefully, as he disappeared from sight. "You'll know where to go."
***
The Seal was more lax on the walk, more like a steady pressure on his shoulder than rigid control, but he knew it wouldn't allow him any rest, much less to break away from his route.
He kept the forest at his right side, close enough that the branches overhead pierced the moon and clouds. The landscape to his left was barren, barely a hill to the flat terrain, offering little distraction from the churning pace of his thoughts. Though the Seal forced him onward, he could gain no sense of how long the journey would be; that was normal. Shin was used to walking endlessly to where his King needed him, through days and nights, plate heavy on his limbs. So, he was startled when, just before the amber break of dawn, the compulsion guided him between the trees.
The quiet clearing where he rejoined the two demons was sheltered by tall trees, isolated, well suited for violence. The Seal gave him no instruction, so he began to strip off his armor, letting the pieces clank to a pile at his feet.
Obedience was a familiar groove, worn in deep. So many times had he railed against it before, only to fall right back in, each time easier and more certain than the last.
King Takami hadn't used the Seal directly in so long, Shin had almost forgotten the brutal reality of living under its sway. The long march over had served an effective reminder. Each time he'd fought its pull—with all his being, every ounce of his will and might, only to find it made no difference whatsoever, that he hadn't faltered so much as a single step—had been another lesson in inevitability, and a self-administered one, at that.
Each time he began to think— maybe this time— if he only tried again— the Seal's unchanging pressure gave him correction: bearing down on him with that same steady force, as inexorable as his feet were tied to the ground, his body to Hiruma's will.
Alone, he'd walked as ordered, without even knowing the goal, only that he'd proceed as long as commanded. And the demon lord hadn't had to do a single thing; he hadn't even been there. A simple wish, and Shin had followed it the whole night through, until he at last ceased his struggles. Fallen right back into that familiar groove.
Once he was down to his padded gambeson, he knelt down at the center of the clearing, under the thin light of the coming dawn. He kept his chest up, and looked out straight ahead. With any luck, he wouldn't be required to participate in this next part. If he was especially lucky, and the demon lord only wanted his pain, he might even be held still for it. He didn't expect, however, to be lucky.
The demons might have been settling down when he arrived, but he hadn't paid particular attention. Now they approached, Sena out of the corner of his vision, Hiruma straight ahead, so he was forced to gaze into that grinning countenance, those mismatched horns. The touch of the Seal fell on his shoulders, like weights or hands anchoring him in place.
"Here are the legends of White Knight Shin, the first of the King's Lances," Hiruma proclaimed, and began to tick them off on his fingers, eyes alight like he was recounting a funny joke. "His spear has the power to rend the earth. Once, to thwart a band of escaping demons, he split the ground at their feet, and it swallowed them alive."
Shin was familiar with this brand of story, of course; he had overheard enough snatches of them on the town that he suspected they were a common topic of conversation across the kingdom. The townspeople seemed to take comfort in them, but he suspected that if these tales had traveled to the demons too, they were received quite differently. Rather than a protector of the land, he was a monster who had killed their kind before, and would again—unless Hiruma meant to neutralize that threat: take his hands, perhaps, his eyes, or simply end him while he had access to him, unarmored and unarmed.
"He's invulnerable to the demons' black magic. After a dark spell that took down an entire company of knights, Shin alone got up and avenged them. Hey, did you hear that, runt? Want to try a 'dark spell' on him and see if he pops back up?"
Sena gave a small yelp, startled to be acknowledged. "A spell? But I, what kind of—"
"He's as swift as the wind," Hiruma went on. Done with ticking off fingers, he kicked up Shin's discarded spear with a foot, and caught it deftly, plucking the scrap of Sena's red cloak from it. Then he mimed stabbing it into the air. He must not have been a spear fighter; he had terrible form. "He took down an entire horde of demons before they even saw him coming. Sounds kind of cowardly to me. Say, do you think that horde was made up of our warriors? Or just sleeping families, making camp after a long night's travel?"
Yes, it was looking more likely that retribution was what the demon lord was after, for all of their number Shin had slain. A stab with his own spear for every loss, maybe. Hiruma would have to be careful with it, if he didn't want Shin to succumb; that would be quite a few stabs. The Seal made him more resilient than normal men, but he could still bleed out.
"I'm not one to believe in word of mouth. But I've seen you in action myself." Hiruma twirled the spear around, and here he showed some agility with it, before he jabbed it into the grass so he could lean against it, casually as if he owned it. "Now I'll have all those legends, all that power, for myself."
At first, Shin imagined some black magic ritual, sucking the life and strength out of him. Then cruel reality dawned, and horror with it. Hiruma's hand on the spear shifted, and there was the ring around his thumb. When he stroked the cross on its surface, it felt like a finger right down Shin's spine.
He'd been so blind. There was no need to kill him, maim him, not when he was entirely under the power of the Seal. There was no need to break a stolen weapon, not when it could be turned against its own people. No wonder the demon lord looked so pleased.
Shin tried to get up right there, that was how long it had been since he'd been under regular compulsion of the Seal, since anything more than a word had been required to keep him in line. Long enough that, for just a moment, he'd forgotten that he couldn't.
But obedience was a familiar groove. He knew he'd fall into it again. Be made to kill again. Not even by the Seal alone, but eventually, after enough bloody repetitions, of his own volition.
Back when Shin had been a naive, young soldier enlisting in the royal guard, he'd wanted to fight the demon invaders, he'd wanted to protect his kingdom. Even then, being forged into a living weapon, hunting at the King's command, had nearly broken him. To be turned on his own people next, to be commanded against his own kind by his enemies—that was a horror he couldn't fathom, that he'd never be able to bear.
"I won't do it," Shin said, against all evidence, because words were the only freedom left to him. "I won't be made to kill innocent humans."
"Who said you had to kill anyone?" Hiruma whipped the spear around to point at Sena, who gave another startled exclamation. "You just have to train up this weakling here. He's fast, but he can't fight. Yet. That's where you come in."
So the demons had their living weapons too. Despite himself, Shin felt a stab of pity for Sena and what he would've gone through, but that didn't change what he was now: Hiruma's weapon, aimed at the kingdom. Sena had proven himself fast and stealthy; he had already infiltrated Oujou Castle and managed to loot, well, Shin himself. If he could sneak into King Takami's inner chambers next, get to him with demonic black magic when he was asleep and vulnerable—
"I still won't," Shin insisted. "I may have been compelled into my King's service, but I won't betray him. I will never train your assassin."
"The runt? An assassin?" Hiruma all but fell over laughing, and even Sena looked embarrassed. "I just need him to steal what he failed to get last time. The treasury will be heavily guarded now, if that King of yours has any sense. This one will need to fight his way in. You'll show him how."
Which was no better than being made to kill directly; it was worse. His own body would fall eventually, enhanced though it was, and that would be the end of it. But if he was forced to empower other weapons, demon weapons, they would go on fighting long after his time. There would be no end to the bloodshed to come.
"I refuse," Shin repeated, mustering all the dignity available to a man pressed onto his knees, helpless and immobilized.
Surprisingly, Hiruma took it seriously. At least, he finally stopped cackling, and took another step closer. "That's not an option."
Even as a whisper of the Seal's power flickered through Shin, he gritted his teeth and persisted. "You will make me do as you wish, I cannot stop you. But it would be pointless to puppet me to train your weapon. It would be no different than training him yourself, without my compliance. And that you will not have."
"That's where you're wrong." The Seal's whisper was stronger now, bringing with it a tickling hint of the many types of pain he knew it was capable of: burning, twisting, rending. Hiruma's voice, by contrast, had gone softer, deadlier. "I know your King doesn't control you by command alone. It was years of punishment, wasn't it. Until there was nothing you wouldn't do to make it stop. Reapplied, until your entire being was focused on how to avoid it. Until he'd won that precious compliance of yours, isn't that right?"
The demon lord couldn't possibly have known that, but he didn't sound remotely uncertain, and his words brought back snatches of memory Shin had long tried to suppress.
The long march had been sufficient to remind Shin of the lesson of obedience. It would take more of that for compliance. More time, more pain. But if that was the only buffer he had to offer, before being turned to Hiruma's twisted ends, then he couldn't give in until then. He had to hold out until he shattered, even if it only meant the slightest delay in the demons' plans.
"You'll have to do it, then. Force it out of me," Shin said, and Hiruma laughed again, a surprised and delighted sound.
"You make it sound like such a chore."
***
Oddly, Hiruma didn't begin at once. Instead, he let Shin up, if only to contribute to the actual, mundane chores that remained. Reeling from the whiplash, Shin steadied himself in his assigned tasks. Not long ago, he would have balked at the idea of helping demons to make camp. Now it was a chance to shore up some strength for the trials ahead.
He built a rough firepit with stones, and gathered wood for it. When he didn't do it the right way, there wasn't even a stab of pain for correction. Hiruma just showed him how he wanted it, and went on with his own work.
It turned out that demons ate pretty much as humans did: game roasted on a spit, and a pottage of its drippings with foraged root vegetables. When the food was ready, he was given his share of it, and Sena too; though he was a mere weapon like Shin, they both ate at the same fire as the demon lord, and ate their fill. Hiruma was complaining bitterly about the lack of some spices that Sena had, in some way or another, lost. For Shin, who was used to taking in his sustenance requirements on a regimented and bland schedule, eating food, real food, was a forgotten luxury. He felt strangely human again, sitting at a demon campfire, warming his hands with a hearty bowl of stew.
When the food was gone, it seemed natural that Shin might then become the post-meal entertainment, but instead Hiruma started dividing out shifts to take watch. The demons slept through the sun's highest hours, and moved from dusk to dawn. Sena was given the first shift, and Shin was given one of the two bedrolls: thin, coarse linen, with an oily underside, suggesting waterproofing. He supposed they didn't need warmth, sleeping through the day as they did.
To Shin, the sun's position in the sky said it was time to start the day, but he wouldn't turn down the opportunity to sleep while he still could. He'd been riding and then marching all night, after all. He laid it out on the far edge of the clearing, as far from Hiruma's as possible, and closed his eyes.
When Sena came to wake him, Shin considered attacking the demon weapon, but a warning surge from the Seal put pause to that idea. He didn't have to look over to know that Hiruma's eyes were cracked slits, awake and watchful.
Sena took over the abandoned bedroll, apparently unfussed about a human having slept in it, and rolled it out by Hiruma's, where he was laying in the sun. Something about the idea of demons wanting closeness, having attachments, twisted Shin's gut. He'd torn many demons from each others' grasp: families, lovers, more. Most often he'd sent each following the other into death, so they hadn't been apart for long. It came to his mind now, the way they clung to each other, fingers interlaced, reaching, wailing.
Sena had paced through his watch, restless, peering, at least until Shin had fallen asleep. Shin sat himself against the trunk of a solid oak tree, taking advantage of the shade it offered. The Seal only commanded that he be alert, ready, silent. He supposed if he saw any threats, he'd find out what other compulsions had been laid upon him.
But there was nothing much to watch. The firepit was down to coals. The two demons were dozing, unbothered by the glaring daylight. The forest was alive around him, birdsong and chattering animals, but he heard nothing approaching, saw no untoward shadow break from the others.
As the sun crawled across the sky, his eyes fell on Hiruma again. He was spilling out of his bedroll, arms sprawled out wide, single curved horn framing his face; from this angle, it was possible to overlook that the other one was missing. The ring was loose around the index finger of his outstretched hand, held at an angle where its lip bit into the dirt.
Early in his time with the Seal, when King Takami had seen to his training personally, he remembered the temptation then too. When Takami had slept, and the ring had seemed so unguarded, and his desperation for freedom had been too great. He hadn't moved without pain for weeks after that, and he still wasn't sure if his vision had ever come back quite right. But even if the result was inevitable, he had to try.
From his side, Shin picked up the longest of the fallen branches he could find, because he didn't think the compulsion would let him go for his spear. At least he wasn't in his armor; the sounds of his movement would have given him away. With careful steps, he approached, breaking off leaves and branches as silently as he could, to leave a streamlined stick. It felt quite spearlike in his hand, and he thought he could—
Hiruma's eyes opened.
The hand with the ring snapped out, and snatched the thin point of Shin's makeshift spear.
Pulled it the rest of the way to his chest, though it wasn't where Shin had meant to stab it.
Frozen, they held their opposite ends of the spear, held each other's gazes, before Hiruma yanked the thing out of his hand, and snapped it in half against the ground. Sena, still sleeping, gave an unconscious groan.
Braced for the stroke of pain that would snap him in half as easily, Shin could already feel the rising nausea, the blinding flash that always came with it. But Hiruma just got up grumpily, pushing past Shin to go relieve himself in the woods. When he got back, Shin was still standing there rooted. Waiting.
Hiruma pointed to the bedroll he'd vacated, as strewn in disarray as his arms had been in sleep. "You'd better bet I'm waking you up early to take the rest of your shift. Sleep."
Shin realized abruptly that there was nothing holding him in place. He stared at Hiruma for a moment longer, even after the demon had turned his attention away. Then Shin went back to his corner of the clearing, and laid down straight in the grass. And he slept.
***
True to Hiruma's word, he woke Shin in the late afternoon with a kick to his side, and went back to sleep himself. From beside him, Sena looked up drowsily, and got up with Shin, coming to sit with him at the oak tree.
"Did something happen?" Sena wondered. "I thought Hiruma had the last watch."
Shin didn't say anything. He spotted the broken stick from earlier, and kicked one of the pieces farther away, only for it to roll back stubbornly.
"I'm sorry he's making you train me against your will. It's because I'm not strong enough to get it back for him." Sena's voice was soft and unassuming. With his face all innocence, Shin could have mistaken him for a human child, if he'd kept his horns covered.
Sena must have seen the direction of Shin's stare, because he put a hand over one of his horn buds, self-conscious. "Hiruma's horn—the missing one—that's what we're after. We need to steal it back from your king. But does it really count as stealing, if it's his in the first place?"
"That's ridiculous. Why would King Takami have a demon's horn?"
Sena gave him an incredulous look. "You mean you don't know?"
"Don't know what?"
"Where it comes from." The branch had rolled closer to Sena, and he picked it up, unconsciously repeating Shin's earlier attempt by using it to point right at Hiruma's hand, and the ring on it. "The thing that binds you."
A chill went through Shin, despite the heat of the sun. "King Takami placed the Seal upon me."
"Yeah, but it's, you know," Sena lowered his voice to a whisper, "black magic, like you'd call it. You're supposed to be holy knights, how could he just make something like that?"
"Leave it, runt, these humans are clueless." Hiruma said without sitting up. He still had his back to them, so it was impossible to tell how long he'd been listening. When he spun the ring around his finger, Shin felt dizzy.
"He cut it from Hiruma's horn!" Sena burst out. "Took the power from it and used it to make… make horrible things."
"To make me," said Shin, who after all this time agreed that he was a pretty horrible thing. "You expect me to believe that all the King's Lances— All our Seals are made from—"
Hiruma sat up, apparently giving up on sleeping again. He held the ring up to his head, fingers waving, and Shin could see side by side that they were of the same material: the Seal that bound him, and Hiruma's horns, one whole, one broken from its root. "I only want back what's mine."
"We've been keeping Hiruma far from the castle," Sena explained earnestly. "If he gets too close, the horn might even be used to control him."
"But I'm not going to let that damn king keep the damn horn from my head," Hiruma snapped, dropping his hand. "That's why I sent the runt to get it back for me. And now that he's failed, that's why you're going to help him. Aren't you?"
Shin said nothing, still reeling. He wanted to deny it, refuse it, but the evidence was all there. The material of the ring, the same dull silver as Hiruma's horn, even with the same whorl lightly twisting its surface. How much Hiruma knew about the compulsion upon Shin. How easily he wielded it.
King Takami wasn't the same man he'd enlisted to serve, that was for certain. Could it be that contact with a demon's horn had twisted him, just as the horn itself was twisted—
"Once I have back what's mine, we'll leave." Hiruma stood abruptly, kicking apart his bedding, so he could look down at Shin. From this angle, the stump of his missing horn was hard to ignore, uneven break cast against the sun behind him. "No more conflict, no more war. We demons will all disappear from your precious kingdom for good."
It was what he'd signed up for, all those years ago. To protect his kingdom from an invasion, not to slaughter indiscriminately. If he could take the demon lord at his word, which he surely couldn't—
If they could get the horn back from King Takami, which seemed just unlikely—
"If Shin is willing to help us," said Sena, which was an equally big 'if', until he turned his earnest smile on Shin. Then it was a slightly smaller 'if'. "Couldn't he just go back? And help sneak it out to us? They trust him."
That, at least, Shin could answer for certain. "Now that my Seal has been taken, I'll be seen as an enemy. King Takami doesn't trust what he can't control. Unless—you plan to let it fall back into his hands."
Shin looked back toward Hiruma warily at that. Only a day away from the kingdom, and the idea already flooded him with a hollow dread. To be returned to the barracks, to be treated as nothing more than a mindless weapon, until that was how he even saw himself—
"Too risky. That's why you need this monster to shape you up." Hiruma picked up Shin's spear, his actual one, and brought it over to them. When he jabbed it at Shin this time, it was handle-first: an invitation. "You'll do it, right?"
The questioning tone was so foreign, Shin almost didn't register it was meant for him. To be asked, rather than simply commanded, just wasn't something a weapon experienced.
He found he no longer knew how to respond to such a thing as a request. But he took the spear, and stared fiercely down at it, and maybe that was answer enough.
***
Training started like this: they broke down camp and the three of them set off into the dusk. But before they had even left the woods, Sena broke off into a run, fleet-footed despite the heavy pack on his back, and Shin had no time to reconsider. He chased after.
The small demon was fast, which meant Shin couldn't catch him with speed alone. But he had a great deal of experience at hunting down demons, and that well-honed instinct kicked in. When he cornered the red-cloaked figure, it came with a jolting flood of memory: other hunts, exercising the same predatory cunning, leading to other crimson ends.
But Sena's hood slipped free when Shin came in with his spear, and he remembered at the last moment to pull his strike. Sena warmed up to the spar quickly, going from rudimentary combat skills to being able to dodge a couple blows, and even manage a slippery disengage from the locked point of Shin's spear. Which meant Shin had to go hunting after him again.
It was nothing like his own training, which no one could have endured without being forced by Seal, but it was intense and physical, an adrenaline-soaked blur of hunting and striking and grasping for his prey. Even in the course of a night, he could see the stark difference it made on Sena. Speed, stealth, agility, all of these were visibly improving, even as he flagged and his strength wore down.
Near daybreak again, when he'd run Sena to a bruised and sweaty heap, they met Hiruma at a new campsite, about a normal night's travel farther east. Hiruma had been working some sort of black magic when they'd separated, and the fruits of his labor were now visible: Shin's armor, helmet and all, had been animated to walk on its own, as if worn by an invisible knight. It met them at the edge of the forest, and eerily guided them back to the new camp. Shin followed it with horror, while Sena seemed delighted, and even met it with a polite bow, to which it tipped its visor, showing nothing within.
At the campsite, Hiruma was still spelling something else, muttering to himself while bright autumn leaves swirled around his quick, slender hands. When he spotted the two returning, he stopped what he was doing, and the leaves fell back to a pile at his feet.
"I wasn't going to carry that," was all he said about the walking suit of armor, which came to a stop at the edge of the clearing. It even posed, looking for all the world like it was on display in an alcove of the royal castle, rather than framed by trees and brush.
As Sena collapsed flat to the ground, spread-eagled and exhausted, Hiruma came over to stare down at his weapon.
Then he dropped the ring into Sena's hand.
Shin flinched. Any comradery or pity he'd built for Sena evaporated into instant hostility, at the sight of his Seal being transferred so casually, with a toss. For an instant, he wondered if he could attack; Sena surely had nowhere near the command of the Seal that his lord did. It was Shin's own armor that barred him, outstretched vambrace slamming into his chest as he surged forward, while Hiruma gave him a warning look.
"What's this for?" Sena didn't drop the Seal, but pulled it protectively toward his chest, exhaustion suddenly fled in his alarm.
Shin knew what it was for. At the end of a training session with his King or his trainers, whipped and jabbed at every mistake, made to feel nothing sentient, just quivering flesh to perform on command, he would have leapt at the chance to do violence to the one who had visited it upon him.
But Sena only looked puzzled. Shin hadn't hurt him during their training, not for its own sake. Hadn't beaten the moves into him, the humanity out. Maybe that was his saving grace.
After a long, assessing look, cataloguing his weapon's wear, demeanor, and god knew what else, Hiruma bent to scoop the ring back up.
"Just checking," he shrugged, and went back to his leaves.
***
The days passed like this, making camp in the woods, taking turns at watch. The nights too, traveling along the road, Shin and Sena running ahead, while Hiruma kept a steadier pace behind, working spells or foraging or plotting the end of the world, whatever it was he did.
The spell with the leaves turned into a bedroll of Shin's own, a blazing autumn red and surprisingly soft under his back. No matter how much he tossed in the night, the leaves didn't fall apart, and the thing could be rolled up for carry, or worn as a cloak. Even though they traveled at night, Shin didn't need the warmth, training Sena as hard as he did. And the shade was too uncomfortably close to demon-red for him to consider wearing, besides.
Camp was no longer quite so tense and silent as it had been that first day, though Shin had never been one for conversation, and when he attempted it, it sometimes felt like they were speaking two different languages.
"Where are we going?" he asked one day, over his meal, and the demons both gave him puzzled looks.
"We're training," Sena pointed out, as if he could have forgotten. Hiruma had spelled some rocks to take on the chill of ice, and these, clutched to Sena's joints and muscles, seemed to be all that was keeping him upright.
"Yes, but we're traveling at the same time. Heading east." Frustrated with the continued blank expressions, Shin gestured around them. "We're at a new camp every night. Every day, I mean. If we were just training, we could keep the same one. Aren't we going somewhere? Towards your… home, maybe?"
"The world is our home," Sena said, while Hiruma snickered and put more wood in the fire. "No road leads us closer or farther."
"He's wondering when we're going back to the castle," Hiruma said, which hadn't been Shin's conscious intent, but true enough, he was wondering. A journey was impermanent; at some point it had to end. "We've already started turning around, you just haven't seen it yet. Once the runt's training's finished, we'll be right where we need to be."
***
It was months before they made it back to the kingdom, but that didn't account for how foreign it felt to Shin. He hadn't put his armor back on, not for a mission of stealth, and though even his gambeson had been more than he'd worn in recent weeks, he still felt naked in it now, sprinting through the castle courtyards.
The next patrol was coming by, announced by the leading halo of a lantern, and Shin urgently grabbed Sena and pulled him around the corner. It was Iguchi, a competent knight but not the most observant, and he felt sure they could wait him out, and motioned to Sena as much.
"Will he kill him?" Shin said suddenly, as Iguchi clanked his way to the front gate.
Sena jumped. "Kill who?"
It was obvious who. "Now that I know Hiruma, I don't imagine he'll be content with just getting the horn back. Tell me honestly. Will he kill the King? Or worse?"
"Worse, like what you thought he'd do to you?" Sena gave him a sad look that he pretended not to see. "He doesn't tell me his plans, you know that."
Then Iguchi's lantern disappeared around the wall, and the two of them raced on, Sena taking the lead as they entered the dim castle corridors, keeping to the shadows between wall sconces as best they could. Sena knew better than he did where the treasure room was, where the Seals were held; Shin himself had never seen it.
If the King had placed more guards in the days after the initial theft, he must have gone lax by now, because there was no one at the door. Sena made a small gesture at the lock, and then grimaced, embarrassed.
"Sorry, it's a bit different than last time," he said, and worked a second spell that looked entirely the same. The heavy padlock fell, and Shin darted his hand out to catch it, before it could clatter to the ground.
The vault was a narrow stone room, walls lined with countless stacked chests of different sizes. It was no wonder Sena had been unable to find the right target last time. A series of smaller chests, about the size of the one Shin's Seal had been stored in, were lined up on a wooden trestle table near the entrance, as though the King might often come in to take a look at them. There was a gap at the near end of the table, where Shin's Seal had been taken from.
As planned, Shin kept watch at the door, but he couldn't help but glance back into the room, with increasing frequency, as Sena unlocked them one by one with his magic. Ring after ring was revealed, different widths, slightly different curves, all the same demon-horn pewter. Like puzzle pieces, he could envision how they'd unfurl and stack to form the curl of Hiruma's lost horn, how it would fit to his head like its mate.
"There they are!" came a familiar cry, and Shin looked up just in time to see a javelin come flying at him. He ducked on reflex, and swung the thick wood of the treasury door around to use as a shield. When the javelin thudded into it and clattered to the ground, he swiped it up, and found it even more familiar than the cry.
"Sakuraba," he realized, and then Sakuraba himself was there, short lance at the ready.
Shin had thought he might have a moment to convince his once-comrade, but Sakuraba was moving with the stiff strides of compulsion, and his short jabs had none of his usual grace to them.
"One of the chests is empty!" Sena reported, a tad too late.
King Takami appeared behind Sakuraba, in full armor easily distinguished by the gold crown welded to his helm. He wasn't even wearing Sakuraba's Seal, only holding up a gauntleted fist that no doubt clutched the ring within.
"Then find the right one!" Shin demanded, even as he blocked a stab of the short lance, bringing Sakuraba's javelin around to awkwardly hold it off. But no, if the King had had the foresight to arm himself with a Seal, he must have been prepared for this. He must have known what Hiruma was truly after.
Shin ducked past Sakuraba's next jab, and out into the corridor. There, hanging from around the King's neck, was a thin chain, and from it, the silvery curve of a demon lord's horn, clanging against his breastplate with every running step.
Shin didn't think, only acted. Tuned out Sakuraba rushing at him again, tuned out Sena's cry of horror, tuned out all but King Takami and the thing he wore at his chest. He hefted Sakuraba's javelin, just slightly off in weight and shape from his own, but one he knew well enough. And sent it flying.
The javelin couldn't have pierced the King's armor, no, and indeed it bounced off the rounded gorget. But not before severing the chain that held the horn, sending it spiraling straight down to the ground.
Before it could hit, a clawed hand came out of nowhere, and caught it.
And Hiruma was straightening with a heady cackle, horn caught square in his fist.
Time stopped. Or rather, Hiruma's magic moved so fast, it might as well have. Shining rings came flying from the treasury, joined with one pried from King Takami's fist, to meld onto the end of Hiruma's horn, molten like quicksilver as he held it back to its rightful place on his head.
King Takami's helm tore from his head, exposing his naked face, his shocked expression, and the crown tore from it like ribbon. A gold band of it split and flew to Hiruma's horn, taking the place of some missing piece, to hold the broken horn back solidly in place
A missing piece. What missing piece?
Shin realized abruptly that Hiruma was still wearing his ring. Shin's Seal.
Beside him, Sakuraba was reeling with his new freedom, unbound from his Seal, and the other Lances around the kingdom must have been doing the same.
But Hiruma still hadn't given up Shin's. Why? What more could he have planned for it?
Grinning madly, Hiruma took Shin's ring from his finger, and held it aloft. With a full crown of horns, even if one was held in place by its band of gold, he looked more regal than ever, and even more wild. He began to mutter some spell, some incantation, and a dark energy gathered around him, in swirling eddies that lapped away the light of the torches but not the gleam of the ring. Shin remembered this ritual, from the day he'd first been bound, and felt a visceral revulsion for this familiar sensation, like the prickling of a gathering storm, that he'd felt at the start of it all.
But when the storm came crashing down, it fell like a great wash of rain, cleansing a leaden heaviness from Shin's body that he'd forgotten he was carrying. The spell had been cast, and yet he felt freer, rather than the opposite. Lighter, as if a great weight had been lifted from his body, like he'd finally shed his armor after an endless campaign.
When Hiruma brought his hand down, the ring he held no longer bore a slim blue cross over its seam—but instead, a golden crown.
King Takami must have noticed at about the same time, because he immediately turned to run. He only got a few clanking steps in his armor, before he was pulled down to crash onto his hands and knees.
"Ever since you took my horn, I've stayed just out of reach, so you'd never be able to use it against me," said Hiruma conversationally, as they gathered around the fallen King. "You should be thankful for it now, since it means I don't have much to avenge. But the same can't be said of him."
Shin looked up, just in time to see Hiruma fling the ring toward him. He caught it in his bare hands, and finally understood how it felt, after all these years, to be on the other end of the compulsion.
Power thrummed through him, as much as he'd been made weak. A limitlessness, in equal measure to how abjectly he'd been constrained. Standing over the kneeling King, holding the King's Seal in his hands, he could only stare over him, toward the chaos in the corridor.
Entirely chipper, Hiruma strode over to the treasury to pick up his own weapon, ignoring the gathering clamor knights as if they weren't there.
Together, the two demons slipped between every knight that grabbed for them, easily as shadow, and left just as promised.
And thereafter was no more war.