Of fucking course, the girl had to be in the damn epicentre of the murderous bastard forest, the capital “city” of all things, still not much bigger than a human village but filled to the brim with murdering moon-shadow elves.

It made sense in a way, protecting the girl by putting her in their headquarters. She really was important it seemed. Of course, it could still be a trap to lure A'rgoth to their strongest village, but he didn't think the elf had lied to him.

A'rgoth was currently resting on one of the taller trees of the forest, he wanted to avoid running into a squad of elves, patrolling the forest at night, preparing to attack demons that travelled to close to their borders. Not many demons roamed the Umbarat Forest for that particular reason, so most of the demon slaying business was on contract for humans or other inhabitants of the mortal realm, as long as the pay was good it really didn't matter.

A'rgoth had observed one squad already, passing under his tree. They hadn't noticed him, he lacked the bright and angry aura of a powerful demon, the more power they had, the more difficult it became to hide one’s presence. But he himself was a well-trained average demon. He could conceal his aura, lower demons lacked this ability, thus making their presence known even if their aura was small and weak.

This ability in particular made him perfect for stealth missions, he couldn't take on whole armies like the greater demons, but he could defeat a few of them at once in combat.

He would have to sneak into the capital, he couldn't take them all at once, he would have to be quick, grab the girl and run.

It was a shit strategy, he could only travel the Umbarat Forest on foot, it had the nasty habit of not allowing interdimensional teleportation within its borders, something to do with the trees and their leaves causing too much interference.

And the capital was in the centre, completely in the centre, every way out was long in every direction. And he had no doubts, that the otherwise “hating each other’s guts” attitude would change among the elves if he would grab their precious moonstone girl. Moon-shadow elves in their little groups were bad enough, having them hunt you as a collective was a damn nightmare.

He still remembered the dark wars, when the elves fought as one, it had cost many demon-lives to defeat and ultimately drive them apart.

He sighed, he had looked forward to fighting them, but he knew if they caught him, the torture he would receive at their hands made the fun he had had with the elf earlier seem like a cosy pic-nick.

He almost didn't notice his hand moving to his stomach, tracing the leather jacket over where he knew the scars still marked his skin. If it hadn't been for Astarius saving him from the elven camp he would have died on the long run, and that was exactly what he was afraid of, taking long to die at the hands of moon-shadow elves.

After his general had abandoned his whole platoon and subsequently also the lower demons under their command, the elves had torn through them like a wildfire. They captured the ones higher in command and killed the foot soldiers mercilessly. They had bound them to wooden crosses made from sacred oak, he still had the scars on his back, where the wood had made his skin boil.

Seven days he had spent there but it had felt like a decade, he owed everything to Astarius. That was the reason he was sitting in the forest of leather ruining vines in the first place, he was in debt.

It had been a while since he woke screaming from the little sleep that demons needed.

Being in enemy territory made him afraid to sleep, not only because of his enemies but even more because he feared that his nightmares might come back.

The sun was starting to breach the horizon, time to go he thought, I have a lot of way to cover before dawn.

Back in the village the demon had first visited, the elf he had left was slowly regaining consciousness, this process aided by the bucked of cold water that was emptied over his head. He looked up into the face of another moon-shadow elf, he recognized him as the leader of another village not far from his own.

“ What happened to you? And why are you still alive?”

“A demon”, he managed to croak.

“We gathered that it must have been demons from the bodies in the huts, how many demons?”

“Just one”

“That could explain why we didn't sense demonic aura, but I still want to know; why you are still alive?”

“I don't know” he lied, it wasn't a full lie for he himself didn't understand why.

“What's your name?”

“Corhin”

“Well Corhin, seeing as you are the last survivor we shall proceed as tradition demands, you are now a member of our clan, we will heal and nourish you and we will prepare you for battle at our side, do you accept the offer?”

“I accept”, he answered as tradition demanded, seeing only opportunity, the demon would learn to regret keeping him alive.

A'rgoth meanwhile was roaming the forest, avoiding the settlements and heading towards the centre of the forest.

The headache, that had announced itself the day before, was now raging at full force. He had skipped sleeping a couple days in a row, which only made it worse.

He couldn't focus, he had trouble even orientating himself, heaven he didn't even know if he was travelling in the right direction any more.

He needed to rest, as much as he dreaded sleeping his body needed the time to restore its resources, he had burned through the life energy he had fed on in the village much faster because of his lack of sleep.

He found a cave, long abandoned by the smell of it, this would have to do, he thought.

He shrugged of his jacked and used it as a pillow, even demons need a bit of comfort after all.

As soon as he had closed his eyes he was back, he could smell the smoke from the fires around him, they had dragged them into the middle of the camp, surrounded by the tents, where the elven soldiers swarmed to get a look at the spectacle, their spirits high on victory.

Eight of them were left, they had surrendered in the hopes of saving their troops, only to watch them be slaughtered.

“This is my fault”, the thought tearing through his head, had I not convinced the others to surrender, maybe we would have had a chance, we wouldn't have been surprised by the sudden attack. They had attacked the troops, when A'rgoth and a few of the others had negotiated the terms of surrender with the moon-shadow elves. After the betrayal he had thrown himself back into the fight. Killing with a new found vigour, but it wasn't enough, someone hit him on the head and the next thing he could remember was being mounted on the cross, seven others standing beside his.

His mind got fuzzy from the pain. His dream shifted to the torture.

His back burned, they had stripped him of most of his clothes, to maximize contact with the sacred oak, that burned demons like iron would a Fae.

They started slow, whips and irons so hot they appeared white. The pain was consuming him once more, his breath quickening, his mind was blank panic as he finally woke from his nightmare, he had bitten on his own tongue again, tasting the blood he almost vomited from the memories that came back and threatened to overwhelm him.

The shirt he was wearing was soaked in sweat, he would have to clean himself if he wanted to remain stealthy, because the enemy smelling you a kilometre against the wind was not helpful for this type of mission.

He got up slowly, his muscles aching and his head still spinning, he was getting the feeling the sleep had done more harm than good at this point, he would have to repeat his attempt later.

As he left the cave, he started to look for a stream or small body of water to clean himself up.

He found one not far from the cave, he put down the leather jacket he was still holding, luckily, he had not worn it when he slept, it was a pain in the butt to clean.

He striped himself of his sweat soaked shirt, putting it into the water and rinsed it out. After he had laid out the shirt to dry in the midday sun, he started to wash his torso.

He stopped as he saw his reflection in the water, he looked awful, not awful in the general sense just tired. Higher and average demons were quite handsome actually, they needed to be to advance at their prey, humans tended to be more trustworthy towards a pretty face.

He had dark hair, that was just long enough to brush at his shoulders, his face would have made an angel jealous if it were not for the scars that gave his face a more rugged look. One had nearly missed his eye, slashing up his cheek instead, another one had split his bottom lip, giving him a permanent frown on one half of his face.

His eyes were distinctly demonic, if the light hit them just right, they appeared a dark shade of scarlet. Humans often overlooked the small hints that betrayed a demon’s true nature, the second set of canines in the upper and lower jaw for example, also the eyes, to a human they looked brown instead of red.

His torso was littered in even more scars, as were his limbs, he could remember the pain he had been in, trying to regain mobility.

It had taken years to recover from the torture that had only taken a few days to inflict, he had enjoyed inflicting torture before the war, he didn't now. He had pretended in front of the elf, living up to his demonic reputation, you never knew who was watching, he had taken a risk letting the elf live.

He didn't mind killing and he loved fighting, but he knew what torture could do to a living being. He avoided it most of the time, but this time he wasn't able to avoid it.

Still, he couldn't dismiss the feeling of euphoria when the smell of fear had surrounded the elf in such a tempting way.

He could have done so much worse, torture is an art perfected by demons, his creativity was

endless.

But what

used to bring him endless joy and satisfied his need for adrenaline, it just wasn't the same any more, it made him have nightmares one could even say he was growing a conscience.

He was conflicted within himself; he had wanted to hurt the elf; he had craved the smell of blood and fear. It even satisfied his need for revenge in a way. But then the nausea had set in, the feeling of peeling skin had caused disgust rather than pleasure, he had remembered how it felt and he had stopped, the elf giving up his secrets not long after. A'rgoth wouldn't have continued regardless of the information given to him, but he didn't know that or rather he didn't want to admit it. He was a demon, he had done an outstanding job gathering information, he had stopped when he got it, that was what he told himself.

Astarius had noticed his lack of enthusiasm regarding his job, that was why he had sent A'rgoth to fetch the girl. He wanted to see if he had to dispose of A'rgoth, or if just had to recondition him.

A demon with a conscience is useless, a liability, hell was dependent on servants without remorse to function in its traditional ways.

A'rgoth knew he was broken, he had felt it the minute he had returned to his duties, but like a good little demon he had ignored the cues his mental health was sending him, his health insurance didn't cover therapy after all, but Lucifer should really look into that, burnout is a real problem among demons.

He put his shirt back on, still slightly damp. His headache started to act up again, making his vision go black at the edges, he vomited into the nearest bush for good measure.

When he was done with the last of his dry heaving he prepared to get up and return to his mission, that plan was thrown of course by the blade pressed to his neck.