Free Dark Gods Rising by Mark Eller, E A Draper

so big a dozen of them couldn’t have fit in my hand. Seemed to pull ‘em out of nothing, he did. The fellow didn’t even have pockets on account of he wasn’t wearing pants.”
    “I suppose those diamonds captured a lot of attention,” Larson noted wryly.
    “That they did,” Carrid agreed. “Well, everybody knows devils enjoy my whiskey, so the fools bought the hellborn several rounds of my cheapest rotgut, sort of wanting to get the hellborn drunk so they could rob them at dice, or so I assume.” He gave Larson a knowing smirk. “That sort of stuff doesn’t normally happen in my place but I’ve heard of somebody doing it once or twice a few years back.”
    “Of course, it doesn’t,” Larson said, disbelieving. “Your tavern is just as famous for its upstanding customers as it is for your foul whiskey. I’m told your cheap stuff tastes like sour piss.”
    Carrid nodded. “Sure does. My secret ingredient, matter of fact. Arvid piss gives it a unique kick. Anyway, by the time the devil finished his third tumbler and lost his fourth diamond to a bad roll of dice he figured something wasn’t right with both the whiskey and the dice. Instead of calling his opponents cheaters, getting angry, and bashing them over the head like most of my honest patrons would do unless they used swords and knives and such, the devil simply started pulling off limbs and throwing bodies out the door. Pretty soon the two demons joined in, and that’s when things got interesting.” He smiled. “Good fight and it taught the smart ones to never cheat a devil.”
    “Any idiot should know that!” Larson snapped.
    Carrid shrugged. “Most of my customers are idiots else they wouldn’t be in my tavern. Now if you don’t mind, I got work to do.” He looked around. “Might as well do a little more cleaning up before hauling stuff in.”
    Idiots. Death, dismemberment, and panic in the streets because of idiots and hellborn.
    Except in Larson’s opinion it wasn’t just the idiots or the minions of the Two who had caused this mess. It was the Downs as a whole because it owned an infectious and unwholesome attitude. Apathy.
    “Doesn’t this bother you,” he demanded of Carrid as the tavern owner scrapped bits of flesh off a chair. “Hellkind crawl from a hole in your tavern. They wander the streets, terrify the citizens, and bring death. A few years ago it was a trickle, but the hole is growing wider, and the flow is increasing.”
    “Not my business,” Carrid said. “Making money’s my business, so the hole’s been good to me. Besides, King Vere says it’s a’right, so it can’t be too bad. ”
    “It’s a slap in Anothosia’s and every other virtuous god’s face!” Larson almost shouted. “It’s allowing Zorce’s get to leave the Hell She and They created in the deeper caverns to imprison all of hellkind.”
    “It’s said the Seven created Hell several thousand years ago,” Carrid said reasonably. “The vent in my cellar grew large enough for smaller things to crawl out more than two hundred years back. If the bitch goddess didn’t like the little thingy’s getting out maybe She should have sealed it shut back then.”
    “It was intended as an airshaft,” Larson explained, “and only the lesser hellkind could crawl out of it, but these last years it’s become bigger and more dangerous. All of Yernden is under threat.”
    “Maybe,” Carrid half-heatedly agreed, “but I’m not. Me an’ Hell get along just fine. Apparently the king feels the same.”
    A bitter smile crossed Larson’s face as he remembered the outrage the Order had felt when King Vere announced that none were to touch the Tavern, explaining how Zorce and Athos were misunderstood and had every right to live amongst the good peoples of the world. After all, it wasn’t hellkinds fault they were nano-cursed, whatever that meant.
    Bah! What a load of horse shit. Vere’s decision two years earlier to allow the tavern to remain open and