Destroyer of Men

by AshlynFlagg

 

The gods have chosen a hero, a holy paladin of light to stand against the demon queen. Naturally, she's not very pleased by this. In an effort to defend herself and her people, the queen dispatches Qell'Itana, one of her most talented succubi, to infiltrate the hero's party, and orchestrate his downfall, but Qell'Itana isn't the only one with secrets on this journey, and a misunderstanding with one of their party members will change both of their lives forever.

CW: Discussion of death/violence, dysphoria

 

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I was home.

Finally, after months and months and months, I was home. The sky was crimson, the air smelled faintly of sulfur, and the endless wastelands stretched on and on past the horizon. The nostalgia hit me like a greataxe to the face, and it took every last bit of my will not to leap out of the cart and shout with joy.

Instead, I crinkled my nose as though the pungent air disgusted me. I kept my expression dour, every bit the rugged, veteran adventurer my companions thought I was. This was all part of the queen’s plan, after all, and if there was one thing I’d never do, it was disappoint the demon queen.

It began just over a year ago. An announcement had been made. The gods had chosen a new hero to stand against the demon queen. He needed a party of brave, pure, and powerful allies to join him in a campaign against “demonic tyranny”. When all was said and done, and the hero had achieved his destiny, the gods would grant a single wish to any who aided in the destruction of Queen Y’traxis, Destroyer of Man.

Naturally, at Y’traxis’ request, I volunteered. I approached the adventurers guild as Davis, a human man. With a bit of magic, I convinced them that I’d worked with a foreign guild in the past, and that I’d be of great use to the hero if I was allowed to accompany him.

After weeks of training and testing, I was selected to accompany the hero, and after several months of travel, we’d finally made it here, to my home, the demonic lands of Sak’Xxin.

“The air is foul here, give me a moment and I’ll cast a purification spell. Dying of poisoned gasses would be quite the shameful way to end our journey, especially after we’ve come so far.” Isabelle, the party’s healer covered her nose as she weaved her spell. She was quite the skilled mage, all things considered. It’s just a shame the humans don’t allow their women to branch out into more destructive spellcraft. I would’ve loved to see her conjuring fire.

“Go ahead, though I doubt it will make much difference. Our victory is ordained and assured, the gods would not allow us to fail so ignobly.” The hero, Trevor, a paladin from the order of light, smiled arrogantly at his companions, the very picture of undeserved pride. “Isn’t that right, Brother?”

He clapped a hand on the aforementioned brother’s shoulder, causing them to jump a little in their seat. Martin, the brother in question, was a paladin as well, though they didn’t serve any particular god or pantheon. They drew strength from within, their powers a pure manifestation of their own conviction and beliefs. They recovered quickly from the surprise, and nodded.

They were also, quite obviously, another demon.

I didn’t know why our queen saw fit to send yet another spy without telling me, but then it wasn’t my place to know. With her immortal power and immeasurable insight, I was certain there was some purpose to this addition that I simply was too shortsighted to see. Honestly though, sometimes I struggled to understand how the humans hadn’t noticed them yet. Just now, Martin had flinched at the hero’s touch, at being called his brother. Why would such contact frighten them so, if they were not a demon?

I suppose it didn’t matter that much. Soon, we’d make camp, and soon, the hero would be ambushed in the night, and we could both go back to our lives. As long as Martin could avoid discovery for a few more hours, everything would be fine.

*********

Dinner that night was a quiet affair. The humans were clearly nervous to be so deep in demon territory, in spite of the hero’s earlier bravado. Martin and I also suffered from our own nerves. Knowing that at midnight demons would strike the camp, and we’d suddenly find ourselves in a pitched battle against the gods’ hero himself, left us with an unease that made it easy to mimic the human’s nervous tension.

When our bellies were finally full, the four of us split off to perform our evening rituals. Isabelle started reviewing her notes – even now, she strove to perfect her spellcraft, developing new, increasingly complex spell matrices; Trevor kneeled down a short distance away, loudly chanting his prayer to the gods of light, and I retrieved a few alchemical supplies from my bag. I had everything I needed to brew a powerful paralytic, and I figured I ought to have every advantage I could get in the coming battle.

I was grinding a few zavrax nuts into powder when Martin saw fit to approach.

“Pardon the intrusion Davis, but… I’ve seen the results of your alchemy a few times now. Your potions are incredible, and I just- I’d really like for you-” The poor thing was really struggling. They must’ve been a lot more nervous about tonight than I thought.

“Would you like me to teach you?” They nodded enthusiastically. “Alright then, I will, and I’ll even let you have a bottle of tonight’s poison if you like. Never know when you might need it.” Their eyes grew wide as I spoke, and I shot them a wink and a sly grin.

“You’re making poison?”

“Of course! When you’re up against magic, plain old arrows just don’t cut it. Poison evens the playing field.”

Over the course of the next hour, I walked them through the entire poison brewing process, pausing on occasion to add snippets of trivia and basic alchemical principles. I was the best damn poisoner in Zar’Kanal, and easily measured amongst the top ten in all of Sak’Xxin, and I hadn’t received even a sliver of recognition for it since I’d departed on this mission. Needless to say, I was itching to show off.

“Honestly, poisons like this hardly scratch the surface of what alchemy can achieve. With the right ingredients, I could make arrows that explode on impact, gas bombs that erode stone to nothing while leaving living beings alone, or even a tasteless, colorless elixir that turns its drinker into a snapping turtle! The power that comes with the right kind of knowledge-”

“You can really do that?!?” They practically shouted, and I caught Isabelle glaring at us for a moment before returning to her work. I couldn’t be sure what it was, but something about that last elixir had Martin practically vibrating on the spot.

Wait.

Were they a fan?

I mean, I was quite well known among certain circles. My rivalry with Lady Duthrain was practically legendary, and I’d ended it a few years ago using the very same turtle potion I’d just mentioned. That had to be it. Before, they’d thought I was simply a talented alchemist, but now… they knew I was the best of the best.

“Of course I can, with the right ingredients. Unfortunately, most of the plants you need to make such a brew simply cannot be grown outside of Sak’Xxin. Transformative potions made with more mundane ingredients take years to come into full effect, and they’re significantly less thorough.”

“But you’ll teach me sometime, right?”

I chuckled at the young demon’s enthusiasm.

“Sure thing. As soon as this job is done.”

*****

Night fell suddenly, as it often does in Sak’Xxin. One second we were sharing jokes by the campfire, or rather, Trevor was insulting everyone the gods considered to be lesser while we acted like it was actually funny, and the next, we were enveloped in complete, inky blackness.

Martin offered to take the first watch, and I was going to take the second. The ambush should happen around midnight, so arranging the watch times this way meant that it was highly unlikely that either of the humans would be awake by then. As Martin took a seat on a boulder, right at the edge of our firelight, the rest of us laid down on our bed rolls and shut our eyes. I, however, had no intention of sleeping tonight.

I waited quietly with my eyes shut for at least an hour, just to be safe, before I sat up, looking towards my anxious ally. They were muttering softly under their breath, their voice sounding notably different than what it normally did. They often did this when they thought no one was listening, but since demons needed less sleep than humans, I often caught snippets of their little chants and phrases. Prayers to the demon queen, spoken in their true voice, no doubt. It was undeniably risky, but if our queen had put her trust in them, who was I to question?

“Heat from fire, fire from-”

With a subtle bit of magic, I enveloped them in a zone of magical silence, preventing any of their whispers from leaking into the camp. Then I entered the zone myself.

“You ready for this to be over?” I asked as I stepped towards them. Martin, the clumsy dork that they were, yelped and toppled over, startled by my sudden approach.

“Wha-?” They began, still in that higher, softer voice. They then made a show of clearing their throat and returned to their disguised baritone. “H-how long have you been up?!?” They cast a worried glance towards Trevor and Isabelle, both still fast asleep.

“I never fell asleep.” I winked cheerfully at them. “And you really don’t need to keep pretending with me. We’re in the same boat after all. Soon, this whole shitty situation will be over, and neither of us will have to hide what we are, right?”

They stared at me, dumbstruck. Had they not realized I knew? Did they really convince themself they’d been able to keep this hidden? They remained at a loss for several seconds, eyes flicking about, landing everywhere but on my own, running through every possible response that didn’t involve just admitting who they were, but naturally, they came up blank.

“You’re really like me?”

I nodded.

“So you… uh… you really want to use your wish to have the gods turn you into a woman?”

I nodd- Wait, what?

“No..?” I drew out the word, wondering what could’ve possibly driven the girl to that conclusion. Plus, if that’s what she thought we had in common then… “Are you human?”

That was apparently the wrong question to ask. Something broke behind the (apparently human) woman’s eyes, and she started bawling loudly.

“But I thought-? You said you were like me! I’m a human! Of course I am! J-just because I’m different doesn’t mean I’m some kind of monster!”

I didn’t think. I just moved. Before I even realized what I was doing, I’d crashed into her with a flying tackle of a hug, squeezing her tight as I ran my hand up and down her armored back.

“Oh honey no. No no no no no that’s not what I meant. That’s not what I meant at all, you lovely little paladin. I promise I would never think that of you.” I held her close, whispering promise after promise, each and every one of them completely true.

“Then why did you ask that?” She hiccuped a little, having barely recovered a small measure of control over her emotions. “What else could you possibly mean?”

“That… is a bit of a difficult question, but I think it’s one you deserve to see answered.” I released her and stood up, stepping back a few feet to give her a clear view. “I’d like to introduce myself, and if you’re comfortable once I’m done, I’d like you to do the same. My name is Qell’Itana, I am a succubus and poisoner in the demon queen’s service, my pronouns shift with my mood, although they/them is usually a good fallback, and I’m here to kill the hero. Though I seem to be mistaken, I thought your circumstances were similar.”

With that, I reverted to my true demonic form. My feet were replaced by cloven hooves, my tail snaked out behind me, my horns erupted from my skull, and I towered to my full 7 and a half feet of height. Since it had been a while, I also gave myself an ample chest for the hell of it.

Hells, I missed this.

I looked down to see the paladin, stuck somewhere between pointing a holy symbol at me and groveling at my hooves, her face flushed bright red. Slowly, I crouched down closer to her level.

“Y’know, Paladin, I’m still willing to teach you transformative potion brewing if you want. I don’t have any brews that could give you a human form just yet, but I think you’d make such an adorable little imp. A tiny red paladin who can barely lift her sword.” I laughed a little at the thought. “We could look into some other options too, if you’d like. It should always be your choice, after all. All you need to do is look away from what we’re about to do tonight.”

“You’re really going to kill him?”

“Yep.”

“But… doesn’t the demon queen want to destroy humanity? I’ve heard what you demons call her, ‘The Destroyer of Man’, I-I can’t just look past that!” She was (quite hesitantly) reaching towards the sword on her belt, but all I could do was laugh. Like… I really really laughed, loud and ugly, because holy Hells. Was that what the humans thought we meant? Really??? Fuck, that’s amazing, and I absolutely needed to rub the queens nose in it next time I saw her.

“We call her the destroyer of MEN. That’s an important difference. The poor woman’s straight as an arrow, but every damn man she’s ever courted turned out to be a woman like yourself. We call her that because quite literally every man she’s ever set her sights on had something awakened in them by the end. Hells, she’s gonna be so embarrassed.”

For a moment, the paladin looked at me like I’d gone mad, before she too started to giggle along. She really was too precious, this one. She needed to survive tonight, regardless of anything else.

It so happened that our little laughing fit ended just as my comrades arrived. A single lamia slithered her way into our little bubble of silence, eyeing us both strangely.

“So, Paladin, what’s it gonna be?”

She looked at me, eyes shining with more hope and joy than I’d ever seen from her before.

“My name is Beatrice. Do what you must. Just… don’t hurt Isabelle if you can help it.”

And then she turned away, staring off into the deep darkness. I drew an arrow, its tip dripping with the poison Beatrice had helped me make earlier.

“Of course, my cute little Beatrice. It will be my pleasure”