“We may be in the territory of something worse.”
“A big, flaming ray of sunshine,” Benedict said. “That’s you, Jurdan.”
Jurden flashed a smile and bowed to the other man. Benedict sniffed.
Kate hardly paid attention. She went to Aurel, whose dark skin seemed ashen with the pain. His eyes were set in concentration and slightly glazed. His arm looked as if he had been caught in a fire.
Jurdan started using some of their precious water to flush the limb, gently rubbing. Skin sloughed off, and Aurel sucked in air but didn’t scream again.
“Can you feel the arm, Aurel?” Jurdan asked.
“Yessss,” he said, drawing out the sound with clenched teeth.
“That’s good.”
Aurel glared at Jurdan, as did Visimar, but the loquacious man didn’t seem fazed.
“It means that the damage didn’t go so deep that it deadened the nerves. Or destroyed them. If it had, we would most likely have to take the whole arm. Instead, you may regain use of it, though it will be an ugly thing.”
“I…am too pretty anyway,” Aurel said in a gasp. His smile was more of a grimace.
Jurdan laughed and continued treating the wound. Once he had cleaned it, applied a salve he produced from his pack, and bound it up, he pulled out a small flask.
“I was saving this for our victory toast, but I think you may need it now.” Jurdan handed the flask over to Aurel. “Just a little, mind you. You’re not that injured.” He winked at the big man.
Kate had never seen Aurel drink anything stronger than weak ale, but he put the flask to his lips and pulled a swig from it. His eyes widened and his body shook for a moment. Then he coughed as if all the breath came out of him in one second.
Jurdan laughed again as he accepted the flask back. “It’s the strongest stuff I could find. Good?”
Aurel took a moment to get a breath then nodded. “The pain is less now. At least on the outside. My inside seems on fire.”
“That’ll pass,” Jurdan told him.
Peiros had been off to the side, glancing occasionally at Aurel and Jurdan, but giving most of his attention to the little book he had pulled from his pack. He was scratching furiously with a bit of wood.
Kate went over and saw that what he had was actually some dark material sandwiched in between two thin pieces of wood, no doubt to give it rigidity. It was tied together in several places to keep whatever it was within the wood.
“What is that, Peiros?” she asked.
“Ah, it is a scribing stick. I can mark on the paper without needing an inkwell or quill. I find it more convenient for missions. I knew a man in Salornum who made such things, and I have copied him. Mine are more crude, but they are functional.”
“But what are you writing?”
He held the book up to her so she could see. He had drawn a very good likeness of the cloud they had encountered, complete with the piles of bones surrounding the monster. Below it, he described the thing and what it did.
“I have not heard of such a thing before,” he continued. “Perhaps if I record it and we add it to the library, it will prevent our brothers from being injured as Brother Aurel was.”
Kate wondered at the man. She had been thinking only of surviving and maybe completing their mission. He was thinking of the benefits of their misfortune for future missions. Not for the first time, she was grateful she was surrounded by such experienced, competent people.
“Will you be okay to continue soon, Aurel?” Kate asked.
“I am ready now.” He grinned at her, though it still seemed strained. “Such a small thing will not keep me from the mission.”
“Very well,” she said. “Peiros, do you still know what direction the thoughts are coming from?”
Peiros pointed as if he had no doubt. Kate figured he didn’t have a doubt. So self-assured. Would she ever become so confident? She already was when it came to combat. Maybe experience would make her so in other things. If she lived long enough to gain the experience to get there.
“Let’s go, then,” Kate said. “We have a demon lord to kill.”
19
Kate kept an eye on Aurel during their travels that day. He never complained, but every little movement made him wince and his eyes had a sort of glazed look to them all the time, the type of look Kate had seen before in someone using most of his concentration to fight off pain.
Visimar passed by Kate as she was watching Aurel. He very nearly pushed her out of the way. She didn’t need to look to know what was happening, but she did anyway.
Benedict was glaring at Visimar, and Visimar returned the scowl as he moved up toward the front of the group, up to where Peiros was picking a path for them through the sharp terrain. The surrounding rocks were jagged and rough, obviously of volcanic origin. If they had such things as volcanoes in this place.
Kate reminded herself to ask the others exactly where here was. There was a sky, so they weren’t simply underground. At least, she thought the sparks of light above were stars and the blackness was sky. She would have to ask.
“Visimar,” Kate called to him, and he turned his pockmarked face to her. “Will you talk with me for a moment?”
The man gave one last look at Benedict and nodded his head. Instead of waiting for him to join her, she sped up and kept pace with him.
“What is going on between you and Benedict?” she asked.
“He’s an asshole.”
“Thank you for the information, but that is not what I asked. Why do you two act like two strange cats in a small room? I swear sometimes that you would draw your weapons on each other if the rest of us weren’t around.”
Visimar blew out a breath. “It’s personal.”
Kate continued walking, picking her way around a large, sharp boulder. She kept her eyes on him, navigating with her peripheral vision. She didn’t say anything.
“It’s not anyone else’s concern,” Visimar tried again.
“It is most definitely everyone’s concern. If we have to go into combat—and we will—we have to count on both of you. What if your refusal to cooperate with each other causes the rest of us to be killed?”
“We know our jobs. We won’t let personal differences stand in the way of doing what we need to do.”
“Your feud is already causing problems,” Kate said. “If it causes one of you to hesitate for a second, it could be too much. Now tell me what the problem is. Even if I can’t do anything about it, at least I’ll know what is going on.”
“Is that an order?” he said, but his face twisted, almost as in pain, when he said it. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. You are the leader of this team. Anything you say should be considered an order. Fine, I’ll tell you, but it won’t make a difference.”
“We’ll see,” Kate said.
“Fair enough,” Visimar said. “The first thing you need to know is that Ben and I grew up together. We lived in the same town, Dimgrove, to the southwest of Kalytras. We spent our childhood together. We were the best of friends, doing everything together. Both of us knew we wanted to be in the Order and we used to play games, acting out stories of our favorite heroes, especially heroes of the Black.
“It came time to take the trials, but just before they occurred, Ben came down sick. He was laid up for more than two weeks. The town healer wasn’t sure he was going to make it. I told him I’d wait until the next trial so we could take them together. He made me promise I would not wait.
“Now, as we were growing up, sometimes my younger sister Aleria would tag along with us. She was only two years younger, so it wasn’t too much of an imposition. She was my favorite sibling, so the three of us—Ben, me, and her—spent a lot of time together.
“As you would expect, Ben fell for Aleria and, to my surprise, she felt likewise about him. Before the trials, they even talked about getting married, though he insisted on waiting until he got into the Order so he could provide for her.
“I took the trials and p
assed. Ben was still sick, but I said goodbye to him, and he promised to see me in three years, when he took the trials and got into the Order himself. I knew he’d make it. We had trained together all throughout our youth, and he was as good a fighter as I was. The Order would have to be mad not to accept him.
“Only a week after I got to Gateskeep, having passed my basic training at Faerdham Fortress, the message my family sent finally caught up to me. My sister was dead. She had been murdered a month earlier, but the message didn’t find me until too late. I had missed the death ceremony.
“I got a few letters from home, but didn’t go back. It was too painful. My mother wrote how Ben and Aleria had fought and how she had run from him. No one was really sure what happened, but she ended up in a bad location where someone had killed her. The local magistrate thought he knew who had done it, but the man had disappeared. There was nothing to be done.”
Kate sighed. She thought about Jonathan. He was irritating, but she loved him. He was her brother. How would she feel if someone took him from her? How much more so if the two of them were close?
“I’m sorry, Visimar,” she said.
“No. Don’t be sorry. Death happens. It is part of life. But what I cannot accept is that the man who was supposed to be my friend, was supposed to be my brother, pushed her away and caused her death.
“He got into the Order in the next trials, as planned. I saw him the first day he came to Gateskeep. He looked me up and found me. I nearly killed him that day. I told him exactly what I thought about him and what he had let happen. We fought and I slashed the side of his face. We haven’t had a civil word since.
“I got into the Black five years after I joined the Order. A few years later, he also made the Black. We can work together, though it is better not to be on the same team or mission. The captain has been accommodating. We volunteered at the same time for this mission, and both of us were too proud to step down.
“Know this, Kate. We will both fight and die for you and for the team. I can’t say for a certainty that I will risk my life for Ben or that he will for me, but neither will we hinder the other. The mission is all, and the Black is the most important thing in both our lives. If the pain and hatred oozes out in the form of a glare or a harsh word now and then, I apologize, but you don’t have to worry about us doing our jobs. He’ll tell you the same.”
Kate accepted his words with a nod, but wasn’t sure he had the truth of it. All she could do was to wait and observe. She hoped she didn’t have to do anything drastic. She let Visimar speed up to stride with Peiros and she continued by herself, considering what she’d heard.
“I think we may be getting closer,” Peiros said later that day.
Day? Maybe it was night. Maybe it was even the next night, or day. It was so hard for Kate to remember how long it had been and what time it might be back in their home. Hell was gradually draining the life from her, taking her sanity and replacing it with something like a longing to see bright light again. If she had to stay in this forsaken place for much longer, she might drop dead.
Oh, Peiros was talking.
“The thoughts of the demons are stronger than before,” he continued. “Perhaps they have stopped or slowed down.”
The terrain had changed again. The area they were going through seemed like piles of ash, great cones of fine, grey dust that Kate thought might be made by giant insects gnawing on enormous trees, turning them to dust and excreting them. Or maybe enormous logs were being burned so completely they turned to ash instantly and settled down to the ground as a long funnel of the material fell from the sky. Except there were no trees.
The cone hills were solid enough, however, so Kate threw out all she was thinking about their origin.
She really needed to get out of this place.
“Kate,” Jurdan said. “Talk to us, Kate. I can see it in your eyes. The mania is on you. You have to interact with other humans or it will get worse. Talking will ground you. It’s why we always go on missions with at least two of the Black. One alone could succumb to the spell of the place. Well, other than Koren. He went out alone a lot. Kate!”
Kate’s eyes snapped open and she looked around groggily. “What was I saying?”
“You weren’t saying nothin’,” Benedict said. “You were going down deep into your own mind. Just like I did a few hours ago. You have to talk or you’ll go crazy.”
“Yes,” she said. “Crazy. I was having the strangest thoughts.”
“Tell us about them, Pretty Kate,” Aurel said. It was clear they were all taking turns speaking to help her out.
“Yes, please do,” Visimar said. “It helps. We really should have said something to you about it before we came to this place, but we’re telling you now. Talk about anything that reminds you of home, of our own world.”
“Will we ever see it again?” she asked. It was the first thing that came to her mind.
“Yes,” Peiros said.
“Absolutely,” Jurdan said.
“We will,” Aurel said.
“Yeah,” Visimar said.
“Probably not,” Benedict answered.
Four out of five wasn’t bad.
“What is it about this place that does this to us?” Kate asked.
“No one knows for sure,” Jurdan said, scraping his fingers through his hair and applying a tie to it to hold it back out of his face. They all had their masks on their belts, making it easier to breathe in the oppressive heat. And making it easier to communicate and fix their attention on a human face. “The best explanation I have ever heard was that we humans are not meant to be in this place. We’re not…compatible. Eventually, even with conversation and great strength of will, some believe any human will go insane. I think I might believe them. Just the smell alone could make me go mad.”
“That is not a heartening thing to think about,” Kate quipped.
Peiros looked into her eyes as if he was testing her sanity. “No, it is not. But thinking on it does cause us to recognize dangers and keeps us alert. It’ll do until we can engage in combat. Ironically, that is the best way to shake the effects of the mind fog.”
Mind fog. That was an apt name, Kate thought. She continued putting one foot in front of the other and tried to think of home. As Peiros said, it would have to do until she could kill something. One step at a time, one minute at a time, and she would survive this. She hoped.
“How long have we been here?” Benedict asked sometime later. It drew Kate’s attention, something that was lagging as they continued on.
“It has been a little over two days,” Peiros said. Kate wondered how he knew.
“Two days?” Benedict exclaimed. “It seems more like four or five. Are you sure? We’ve been traveling for a long time.”
“I am sure,” Peiros said. “It is understandable. This place seems never ending, even more so now than when I have been here before. Our missions were always close to the gate. I am unfamiliar with this territory. I am, however, accustomed to reckoning time here. A little over two days.”
Jurdan and Peiros shared a concerned look. Kate wondered what it meant. Were they in more trouble than she thought? She’d have to ask one or both of them later. For now, she would hold her peace. There were three others who had never been to Hell, and she didn’t want to worry them unnecessarily.
Instead, she changed the subject. “Aurel, how is your arm doing? May I look at it?”
“Of course, Pretty Kate. It is painful, but I am accustomed to pain. I am of the Black. Pain is my brother.”
“Then you have a strange family,” she joked, but moved closer to see his injury. She unwrapped it for him and inspected the wound. It seemed to be healing. It was still gruesome, a serious burn, but she didn’t see any sign of infection. She had learned a little about field medicine from Dante and more when she had served with the Blue.
“You see?” Aurel said, nearly all his teeth showing. “I will be good as new, as soon as we kill that demon lord and leave th
is place.”
“I do see,” she said. “No problems with movement?”
“Some motions are painful, but pain—”
“—is your brother, yes,” Kate finished for him. Though she didn’t think it possible, his smile widened.
Peiros stopped them a few hours later, though it wasn’t evident to Kate why he felt it was time to do so. She wondered if she would ever get that sense of this place.
They all rolled out their bedrolls and settled in to get some sleep. All except Benedict, who had first watch. Kate had the dreaded middle watch, the one that split the unlucky recipient’s sleep in half, making it more difficult to get adequate rest. She probably could have claimed a better time as the leader, but that was not the way she did things.
It would have been akin to her using her nobility to manipulate people and conditions to her favor. Many nobles did that, felt it was right to do so. She was not one of them. So, she lay down and went to sleep quickly.
The last thing she remembered was Benedict drawing his weapon, setting his shield close by, and sitting down on a bump in the ground, something that looked like a boulder that had been covered over by dust.
20
The entire world shrieked, threatening to rupture Kate’s ears.
She jumped up from her sleeping spot, drawing her sword in the process, and jerked her head back and forth, looking for the cause of the sound. She saw it within a few seconds.
Benedict was jumping around screaming at the top of his lungs and shaking his left arm violently. As she watched, he seemed to come to himself, take a deep breath, and halt his erratic movement. He reached over and grabbed hold of a stick or something like it on his arm. He gave a mighty yank, and Kate heard the tearing noise even from a dozen feet away.
The stick started wriggling in Benedict’s hand. It was alive.
Kate watched as Benedict’s screams of pain turned into shouts of rage. He threw the wiggling thing he had torn from his arm and, quick as lightning, drew one of his throwing knives with the same hand and threw. The blade went through the middle of the thing, pinning it to the ground. When Kate looked up from the impaled creature, she was surprised to find that Benedict had his sword in his right hand. She was impressed at the man’s speed.
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