“Gyahhh!” Klemet cried out when he saw the red hand move past his eyes with the slow inexorable pace of sap sliding down a tree trunk. By the time the root snapped, he’d fallen back on his ass and stared up, sweat sprang to life on his face and ran through his growing beard.

‘I’m dead! I’m going to die!’ He thought and rolled over to throw himself face down into the dirt. “Lord!” He shouted in a high pitched squeak of alarm. “Forgive my words! I didn’t know it was you! I swear! I swear!”

The shovel bearing human let go of his tool and was down on his knees and prostrate in the same way as his companion, now that the Demon Lord’s little ‘trick’ was up.

“Die? Isn’t that a bit much?” Sadrahan asked, he put one hand on his hip and scratched his right horn, “You didn’t know it was me.”

“No! No, I didn’t! I-” Klemet raised his head, “Please, I’m working hard! I wasn’t thinking! I-” His stomach interrupted him again with a louder growl than before, “I- I just-”

Sadrahan cleared his throat and the human fell silent while sweat flowed in rivers over Klemet’s face, cleaning it as if he were taking a bath. “It’s fine. You didn’t know it was me. It was funny. And yes, my daughter is the cutest child ever to be born, I swear it on my very name.” He smirked as only proud fathers could, and Klemet went up a notch in the ledger of the Demon Lord’s heart.

Liln lost all control of herself, holding her sides, she began to belt out a deep, long laugh, arching her back and laughing at the sky while her black hair swayed to and fro behind her.

Klemet’s face morphed into a fragile, uncertain smile, his eyes twitched and his fingers closed around the dirt beneath him, eager to grab anything to steady himself. He forced out a light, airy, and very clearly fake laugh, as did the shovel wielder near him. ‘That bastard, that bastard tried to get me in trouble with the Demon Lord… that’s why he asked what he did! What if I’d insulted his child, what if I’d insulted him or said something…dreadful?’ There was no answer that was not terrifying, for himself or his wife or his unborn child.

Klemet closed his eyes. In the weeks since their arrival, Sadrahan’s appointment of him to work directly with Sarthas and Liln had given him a little higher status than the other captives. Such that he was able to sometimes ask the pair for things his people needed and see them delivered. The chance to gain more food for their expecting women was one such example, as was the promise that tomorrow they’d be able to go out and hunt for more. ‘Of course, this was inevitable, wasn’t it? Thanks be to the gods I didn’t make any nasty threats… I don’t think I said anything too terrible other than that bit about telling him to help me… but now what? If I’d done that to a lord back home I’d be in for the thrashing of a lifetime.’

Sadrahan however, didn’t seem to be the least bit angry. While Klemet’s heart was still racing, that lack of anger from the red giant of a demon was enough to slowly replace his fear with confusion and uncertainty.

“I’ve paced out the wall, as of now you’ve finished one hundred paces. That’s good work. Better than I expected.” Sadrahan said and tapped the wall with the claw of one finger, “I couldn’t help but notice your conversation however.” Sadrahan remarked.

“We make children the way you do. And I know nothing about these priests, but if that is what they’re teaching in the Kingdom of Sevenills, it’s no wonder your kind does what it does. And it confirms for me that we will have to face them again some day.” Sadrahan let out a low rumble, and Klemet squeezed his eyes shut tight to wait for the finishing blow.

‘Bastard… you tricked me into saying what I did! This is all your fault! I’ll haunt you! I’ll be reborn as a demon and come back to kill you myself! You did this!’ Klemet cursed in his mind and stretched out his neck a little, and then prayed to the gods, ‘Let it be quick!’

Sadrahan wasn’t really looking at the humans on the ground, his attention instead was on Liln, “Will it cause anyone trouble if we give the ones working on our walls a little extra food? If they’re doing more work they’ll break before they can finish. Look at Klemet, he can’t even stand up now and his stomach is making very rude demands.” Sadrahan tried another joke, and while Liln laughed, the humans only paled further. When she finally managed to reduce her mirth to a thin smile, she answered…

“We can give a small increase to those who are doing extra, I think. One extra bowl won’t strain our supplies, and I suppose if we extend the same offer to our own, we can finish it sooner and organize an even bigger hunt for a feast.”

Klemet opened his eyes and raised his head, “Extra food… you’re going to give us more… I’m… I’m not going to be killed? Lashed? Anything?”

Sadrahan scratched his horn and cocked his head down at the human, “Killed? Lashed? For what? Swearing by my balls? If one is going to swear by anything, it should be something big, isn’t that how it works?” Sadrahan smirked and watched as Liln began to wipe bloody tears of laughter from her eyes.

“A- As you say, My Lord. And… I- Am I going to lose my position?” Klemet felt an icy tendril touch his spine. ‘As little power as I have, as little influence as I have, at least I have a few small privileges… losing those would be hard too…’

“Position?” Sadrahan asked, then clicked his claws together as he recalled, “Right, Sarthas minds you and your mate, you speak for the humans here, don’t you? Like you’re their voice.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s right, My Lord?” Klemet answered going from all the way down on all fours, he rose to go to one knee and bowed his head. “As you say, I’m… the Voice of the Humans.”

“That’s an excellent title choice, My Lord.” Liln added, “Sarthas wasn’t sure what to call the role. Calling them ‘talking tools’ just did not sound right.”

“We’ll stick with that, then.” Sadrahan said, “It makes sense, if we find others, elves and dwarves or who knows what, they’ll need ‘Voices’ of their own.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Liln remarked, “But will they be like these? Prisoners on quarter rations?”

“That depends on them.” Sadrahan said, “Whether they’ve harmed our kind or not.”

“We never… I never… I swear… we just took the land we were told was available to us.” Klemet protested afresh in a fit of boldness, ‘Stupid! I just get a position named and now I might as well have thrown it away!’ He cursed himself, but the Demon Lord didn’t speak, not right away.

“If that is true… Klemet, if that is true, then you were very unfortunate. You became our enemies when your city made us that way. I will give you more of a chance than your city gave to demons in the mines. I think…” Sadrahan felt himself deflate a little when he looked down at the trembling, fear-filled face, the ‘joke’ that he thought was funny a moment ago, now felt like idle spite on a helpless and broken man. Like offering to feed a wanderer and then giving them an empty plate.

His laughter was ashes in his mouth. “I think that when the winter has passed… we can’t let you leave. I won’t risk allowing any of you to go back to the humans and sending them this way. But perhaps your lives can improve. You want to farm?” He waved his arm out in a grandiose gesture, “I will have the whole mountain range in time. There will be room enough. Prove yourselves, show me there are no traitors here, and you won’t have to live this way forever.”

Liln sucked in her breath.

She didn’t know it, but she and Klemet had never had more identical thoughts. ‘So this is a glimpse into the mind of the Lord of Demons… dominating the whole range, a plan to bring other peoples that haven’t even been met yet, under his rule? A plan for a future clash with the city dwellers? I thought he wasn’t sure what to do with these, but after one short discussion he’s found a title of the sort humans like and laid out the hope of integration without giving him specifics to look for… they’ll work themselves to death when word of this spreads…’

“Now that I’ve paced this out, mark that spot,” Sadrahan pointed to the current placed segment of wall, and I will check again starting from there tomorrow. That is a promise.”

When Lord Sadrahan was gone, Klemet rose to his feet and went to the segment of wall that the demon indicated. He picked up his mattock close to the metal top, clenched the wooden handle in his fingers so tightly that his knuckles went white, and then used the sharp end to scrape marks into the wood.

‘I wish I could read and write better… but this is pretty close, I think. They may want to make a proper monument of it someday, at least this way they can find it.’ He thought, and scratched the metal against the wooden wall.

“What-?” His traitorous comrade asked, but Klemet cut him off.

“The Promise of the Demon Lord. He made his promise to us on the very walls we build… that’s a heavy oath… nobody would make a promise like that if they didn’t mean it. Not if they have any sense at all, he was promising us a future, on the walls of his own home, if we just earned it! Maybe he doesn’t trust us yet, but we’re getting a chance. If we don’t fuck it all up… we might be okay.” Klemet said with wild-eyed urgency.

“I don’t know… it sounded to me like he just wanted you to mark that spot so he’d know where to start counting tomorrow, are you sure you’re not overthinking?” The human worker scratched his dirty head while he asked the question, and Klemet was quick to retort.

“Nonsense. You heard the others. Liln, Batagan, and I’ve heard Sarthas. Whenever the Demon Lord says something, he really means two or three other things deeper. That’s why he was able to rescue a whole bunch of them from a fort, that’s how he got Batagan and Liln to capture us all, that’s why he was able to beat an entire unit of humans by himself… he’s not just strong, he’s a deep, profound thinker… even catching me off guard might have been a plan.” Klemet dismissed the shallow thinking of his traitorous colleague and kept a smile on his face while he sharpened a knife in his mind.

‘Even if it was, the Demon Lord was clear, there can be no traitors here, and Mican here tried to get me to insult the Demon Lord, maybe even to insult his daughter, he tried to get me in trouble. Maybe even tried to get me killed to take my spot… if he’ll betray me, he’ll betray anyone. Who knows if his wife would even get any increase in food?’ Klemet asked himself, it wasn’t too hard to imagine him hoarding a little, not after this.

“Looking forward to hunting tomorrow?” Klemet asked with the first cheery smile he’d worn in what felt like forever.

Mican’s face lit up, “Yes! I swear I could eat a whole bear.”

“I’m sure the bears feel the same way about you.” Klemet remarked, sparking laughter in them both while he planned out how to carry out the implied command of the Demon Lord.