Page 5 of Sealed By Fire (The Nature Hunters Academy 2)

“It’s a small price to pay,” said the demon. “I presume you aren’t using it.”

A picture of Shelly’s face flashed through Ra’s mind.There is only one person with whom I want to share my soul.“What I do with my soul is my business. Now, step aside.”

“I don’t think so, mortal. Pay the price or turn around and march back to the river. If you think you could make it out alive.”

“Icouldpay”—Ra drew his sword from his scabbard—“or I could remove your head from its shoulders”.

The demon chuckled harder now. “I could have my minions tear you apart limb from limb with the mere snap of my talons.” He held up a clawed hand and made a quick motion. Immediately, light sprang up all around them to reveal a host of demons of all shapes and sizes surrounding them. Ra didn’t take his eyes from the being in front of him. He shifted the sword to his free hand and pointed at the demon.

“Xozalgan, that’s it. I knew it would come to me.” Ra looked at the horde surrounding him and shook his head with a smug expression. “Well, I guess what they said about youistrue. I didn’t believe it personally.”

The demon made an expression that Ra could only interpret as a frown. “Whatwhosays about me?” It growled.

Ra could barely stifle his grin. Whoever said, “pride cometh before a fall” wasn’t talking about humans.

“Oh, just … the wizards in the overworld, a few necromancers, no one important, really. It’s nothing … forget I said anything.”

“What do they say?”

“I mean, I did hear some rumblings on a couple of the other levels, but as I said, I refused to believe it. Juzran, up on level three, he really said some nasty things about you. I told him he was nuts. He is a demon of envy, after all. You can never believe what they say.”

“What did he say?” roared Xozalgan.

“Oh, well, I don’t think I should repeat it,” said Ra. “Not here, you know, in front of your minions.” He made a quick nod to the beings gathered around them.

“Tell me now, human!”

“Well, Juzran said, and so did some of the necromancers up top, that Xozalgan was a coward who couldn’t win a fight without his underlings. And he said that you had no business running the seventh level of the underworld when you could barely keep control of a legion of imps.”

There was an eruption of sound from the gathered demons. Ra couldn’t identify the cacophony of noises, though he might say they sounded a bit like the chatter of a pack of coyotes when they’re on the hunt. Loudest of all was the noise that came from Xozalgan, which sounded something like a feral hog being crushed by a steamroller. Ra winced, and it took all of his willpower not to throw his hands over his ears.

“And that’s not even the worst thing he said,” continued Ra.

“What?” Xozalgan hissed.

“He also said you couldn’t even beat a human in a one-on-one fight to the death.”

The demon began speaking loudly and quickly in a language even Ra didn’t know, though he heard the word Juzran several times, and Ra got the gist of what Xozalgan was saying. All of a sudden the creature stopped chattering and stared at Ra. “I guess I can prove that idiot wrong right now, can’t I, human.” With another flash of light, a flaming sword appeared in one of the demon’s clawed hands.

“Wait just a second,” said Ra. “You were going to have me torn limb from limb, remember? Now, you want to fight me one-on-one? Are you sure you can beat me? Maybe Juzran was right about you after all.”

“I’ll kill you.”

Ra held up his hands. “Okay, no problem, I’ll fight you,” said Ra. “On one condition, if I win—”

“You won’t,” said the demon.

“Of course not. But if I do, you promise me your minions won’t attack me the second I defeat you.”

“Fine.Ifyou win, they won’t attack you.” More noise came from the assembled horde, and Ra could have sworn this time it sounded like a collective groan of disappointment. “But what do I get when I win?” asked Xozalgan.

“What you wanted all along: my soul, of course,” replied Ra.

“Deal!” Xozalgan leaped at Ra as he said the word, bringing his flaming sword down in a wide arc. Ra just had time to bring his own blade up to deflect the blow.

“That’s not very fair,” said the human.

The creature shrugged his rounded, leathery shoulders.

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