Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound

by The Oathbound [lit]

  Kethry grumbled under her breath, but put more

  speed into her preparations. They sallied forth into

  the late afternoon, playing parts they had often

  taken before, Kethry assuming the manners of the

  rank she actually was entitled to, playing the minor

  noblewoman on a journey to relatives with Tarma

  as her bodyguard.

  As was very often the case, the marketplace was

  also the gathering-place for the offspring of what

  passed for aristocracy in this borderland trade-town.

  Within no great span of time Kethry had garnered

  invitations to dine with half a dozen would-be gal-

  lants. She chose the most dissipated of them, but

  persuaded him to make a party of the occasion, and

  invite his friends.

  A bit miffed by the spoiling of his plans (which

  had not included having any competition for Kethry's

  assets), he agreed. As with the common folk, the

  well-born had taken to closing themselves behind

  sturdy doors at the setting of the sun, and with it

  already low in the west, he hastened to send a

  servant around to collect his chosen companions.

  The young man's father was not at home, being

  off on a trading expedition. This had figured very

  largely in his plans, for he had purloined the key to

  his father's plushly appointed gazebo for his enter-

  tainment. The place was as well furnished as many

  homes: full of soft divans and wide couches, and

  boasting seven little alcoves off the main room, and

  two further rooms for intimate entertainment be-

  sides. Tarma's acting abilities were strained to the

  uttermost by the evening's events; she was hard-

  put to keep from laughing aloud at Kethry's perfor-

  mance and the reactions of the young men to her.

  To anyone who did not know her, Kethry embodied

  the very epitome of light-minded, light-skirted, ca-

  pricious demi-nobility. No one watching her would

  have guessed she ever had a thought in her head

  besides her own pleasuring.

  To the extreme displeasure of those few female

  companions that had been brought to the festivi-

  ties, she monopolized all the male attention in the

  room. It wasn't long before she had sorted out which

  of them had actually been to one of the infamous

  "Rites of Dark Desires" and which had only heard

  rumors. Those who had not been bold enough to

  attend discovered themselves subtly dismissed from

  the inner circle, and soon repaired to the gardens

  or semi-private alcoves to enjoy the attentions of

  the females they had brought, but ignored. Kethry

  lured the three favored swains into one of the pri-

  vate rooms, motioning Tarma to remain on guard at

  the door. She eventually emerged; hot-eyed, con-

  temptuous, and disheveled. Snores echoed from the

  room behind her.

  "Let's get out of here before I lose my temper and

  go back to wring their necks," she snarled, while

  Tarma choked back a chuckle. "Puppies! They

  should still be in diapers, every one of them! Not

  anything resembling a real adult among them! I

  swear to you—ah, never mind. I'd just like to see

  them get some of the treatment they've earned.

  Like a good spanking and a long stint in a hermitage—

  preferably one in the middle of a desert, stocked

  with nothing but hard bread, water, and boring

  religious texts!"

  No one followed them out into the night, which

  was not overly surprising, given the fears of the

  populace.

  "I hope it was worth it," Tarma said, as casually

  as she could.

  "It was," Kethry replied, a little cooler. "They

  were all very impressed with the whole ritual, and

  remembered everything they saw in quite lurid de-

  tail. It seems that it is the High Priest who is the

  one truly in command; from the sound of it, my

  guess was right about his plans. He conducts every

  aspect of the ritual; he calls the 'god' up, and he

  sends him back again. The god selects those of the

  females brought to him that he wants, the male

  followers get what's left, or share the few female

  followers he has. It's a rather unpleasant combina-

  tion of human sacrifice and orgy. The High Priest

  must be the magician that summoned the demon in

  the first place. He's almost certainly having the

  demon transform himself, since the god is almost

  unbearably attractive, and the females he selects go

  to him willingly—at least at first. After his initial

  attentions, they're no longer in any condition to

  object to much of anything. Those three back there

  were positively obscene. They gloated over all the

  details of what Thalhkarsh does to his 'brides,' all

  the while doing their best to get me out of my

  clothing so they could demonstrate the 'rites.' It

  was all I could do to keep from throwing up on

  them."

  "You sleep-spelled them?"

  "Better, I dream-spelled them, just like I did

  with our 'customers' when I was posing as a whore

  back when we first met. It's as easy as sleep-spelling

  them, it's a very localized magic that isn't likely to

  be detected, and it will keep our disguises intact.

  They'll have the best time their imaginations can

  possibly provide."

  Kethry looked suddenly weary as they approached

  their inn. "Bespeak me a bath, would you, dearheart?

  I feel filthy—inside and out."

  The next night was the night of moon-dark, the

  night of one of the more important of the new

  deity's rituals, and there was a pair of spies watch-

  ing the streets that led to Temple Row with partic-

  ular care. Those two pairs of eyes paid particularly

  close attention to two women making their cautious

  way through the darkened and deserted streets,

  muffled head-to-toe in cloaks. Though faint squeals

  and curses showed that neither of them could see

  well enough to avoid the rocks and fetid heaps of

  refuse that dotted the street, they seemed not to

  wish any kind of light to brighten their path. Gold

  peeked out from the hoods; the half-seen faces were

  old before their time; their eyelids drooped with

  boredom that had become habit, but their eyes re-

  vealed a kind of fearful anticipation. Their destina-

  tion was the Temple of Thalhkarsh. They were

  intercepted a block away, by two swiftly moving

  figures who neatly knocked them unconscious and

  spirited them into a nearby alleyway.

  Tarma spat out several unintelligible oaths. The

  dim light of a heavily shuttered dark-lantern fell on

  the two bodies at her feet. Beneath the cloaks, the

  now unconscious women had worn little more than

  heavy jewelry and a strategically placed veil or

  two.

  "We'll be searched, you can bet on it," she said in

  disgust. "And where the bloody Hell are we going

  to hide weapons in these outfits?"
>
  In truth, there wasn't enough cover among the

  chains and medallions to have concealed even the

  smallest of her daggers.

  "We can't," Kethry replied flatly. "So that leaves

  —Warrl?"

  Tarma pursed her lips. "Hmm. That's a thought.

  Fur-face, could you carry two swords?"

  The kyree cocked his head to one side, and exper-

  imentally mouthed Need's sheath. Kethry took the

  blade off and held it for him to take. He swung his

  head from side to side a little, then dropped the

  blade.

  Not that way, Tarma heard in her mind. Too

  clumsy. Won't balance right; couldn't run or jump—

  might get stuck in a tight doorway. I want to be able to

  bite—these teeth aren't just for decoration, you know!

  And anyway, I can't carry two blades at the same time

  in my mouth.

  "Could we strap them to you, somehow?"

  If you do, I can try how it feels.

  Using their belts they managed to strap the

  blades along his flanks, one on either side, to Ward's

  satisfaction. He ran from one end of the alley to the

  other, then shook himself carefully without dis-

  lodging them or getting tangled by them.

  It'll work, he said with satisfaction. Let's go.

  They left their victims sleeping in a dead-end

  alley; they'd be rather embarrassed when they woke

  stark-naked in the morning. They'd come to no

  harm; thanks to Thalhkarsh not even criminals

  moved about the city by night, and the evening was

  warm enough that they wouldn't suffer from expo-

  sure. Whether or not they'd die of mortification

  remained to be seen.

  The partners left their own clothing hidden in

  another alley farther on. Muffled in the stolen cloaks,

  they approached the temple, Warrl a shadow flit-

  ting behind them.

  On seeing the entrance, Tarma gave a snort of

  disgust. It was gaudy and decadent in the extreme,

  with carvings and statuary depicting every vice

  imaginable (and some she'd never dreamed existed)

  encrusting the entire front face.

  The single guard was a fat, homely man who

  moved slowly and clumsily, as if he were under the

  influence of a drug. He seemed little interested in

  the men who passed him by, other than seeing that

  they dropped their cloaks and giving them a cur-

  sory search for weaponry. The women were an-

  other case altogether. Between the preoccupation

  he was likely to have once he'd seen Kethry and the

  shadows cast by the carvings in the torchlight, Warrl

  should have no difficulty in slipping past him.

  Kethry touched the swords woman's arm slightly

  as they stood in line and nodded toward the guard,

  giving a little wiggle as she did so. Tarma knew

  what that meant—Kethry was going to make cer-

  tain the guard's attention stayed on her. The

  Shin'a'in dropped her eyelids briefly in assent. When

  their turn came and they dropped their cloaks,

  Kethry posed and postured provocatively beneath

  the guard's searching hands. He was so busy filling

  his eyes—and greasy paws—with her that he paid

  scant attention to either Tarma or the shadow that

  slipped inside behind her.

  When he'd delayed long enough that there was

  considerable grumbling from those waiting their

  turn behind the two women, he finally let Kethry

  pass with real reluctance. They slipped inside the

  smoke-wreathed portal and found themselves walk-

  ing down a dark corridor, heavy with the scent of

  cloying incense. When the corridor ended, they

  passed through a curtain of some heavy material

  that moved of itself, as if it sensed their presence,

  and had a slippery feel and a sour smell to it. Once

  past that last obstruction, they found themselves

  blinking in the light of the temple proper.

  The interior was almost austere compared with

  the exterior. The walls were totally bare of orna-

  mentation; the pillars upholding the roof were sim-

  ple columns and not debauched caryatids. That

  simplicity left the eye only one place to go—the

  altar, a massive black slab with manacles at each

  corner and what could only be blood-grooves carved

  into its surface.

  There was no sign of any bottle.

  There were huge lanterns suspended from the

  ceiling and torches in brackets on the pillars, but

  the walls themselves were in shadow. There were

  braziers sending plumes of incense into the air on

  either side of the door. Beneath the too-sweet odor

  Tarma recognized the taint of tran-dust. This was

  where and how the guard had acquired his dreamy

  clumsiness. She nudged Kethry and they moved

  hastily along the wall to a spot where a draft car-

  ried fresher air to them. Tran-dust was dangerous

  at best, and could be fatal to them, for it slowed

  reactions and blurred the senses. They would need

  both at full sharpness tonight.

  There was a drumming and an odd, wild music

  that was almost more felt than heard. From a door-

  way behind the altar emerged the High Priest, at

  this distance, little more than a vague shape in

  elaborate robes of crimson and gold. Behind him

  came an acolyte, carrying an object that made

  Kethry's eyes widen with satisfaction; it was a

  bottle, red, that glowed dimly from within. The

  acolyte fitted this into a niche in the foot of the

  altar near the edge; the place all the blood-grooves

  drained into.

  They worked their way closer, moving carefully

  along the wall. When they were close enough to

  make out the High Priest's features, Kethry became

  aware of his intensely sexual attraction. As if to

  underscore this, she saw eager devotion written

  plainly on the face of a woman standing near to the

  altar-place. She tightened her lips; evidently this

  was one aspect of domination that both high priest

  and demon-deity shared. She warded her own mind

  against beglamorment. Tarma she knew she need

  not protect; by her very nature as Sword Sworn

  she would be immune to this kind of deception.

  A gong began sounding; slowly, insistently. The

  music increased in tempo; built to a crescendo—a

  blood-red brightness behind the altar intensified,

  echoing the rising music. At the climax of both,

  when the altar was almost too bright to look at,

  something appeared, pulling all the light and sound

  into itself.

  He was truly beautiful; poisonously beautiful.

  Compared to him, the priest's attraction was insig-

  nificant. The line of women being brought in by

  two more acolytes ceased their fearful trembling,

  sighed, and yearned toward him.

  He beckoned to one, who literally ran to him,

  eagerly.

  Tarma turned her eyes resolutely away from the

  spectacle being presented at the altar-place. There

  was nothing either of the
m could do to help the

  intended sacrifice; she was thanking her Goddess

  that Need was not at Kethry's hand just now. The

  sorceress had been known once or twice to become

  a berserker under the blade's influence, and she

  was not altogether sure how much the sword was

  capable of in the way of thought. It wasn't mindless

  —but in a situation like this it was moot whether or

  not it would prefer the long term goal of destroying

  the demon as opposed to the short term goal of

  ending the sacrifice's torment.

  At least the rest of the devotees were so preoccu-

  pied with the victim and her suffering that they

  scarcely noticed the two women slowly making their

  way closer to the altar. Tarma looked closely into

  one face, and quickly looked away, nauseated. Those

  glazed eyes—swollen lips—the panting—it would

  have been obvious even to a child that the man was

  erotically enraptured by what he was watching.

  Tarma caught Kethry's eyes a moment; the other

  nodded, lips tightly compressed. The Shin'a'in

  swordswoman was past hoping to end this quietly.

  She had begun to devoutly wish for a chance to

  cleave a few skulls around here, and she had a

  shrewd suspicion that Kethry felt the same.

  The young High Priest looked up from his work,

  and saw the anomalous—two women, dressed as de-

  votees, but paying no attention to the rites, and seem-

  ingly immune to the magical charisma of Thalhkarsh.

  They had worked their way nearly to the altar itself.

  He looked sharply at them—and noted the fight-

  er's muscles and the faint aura of the god-touched

  about the thin one, then the unmistakable presence

  of a warding spell on the other.

  His mind flared with sudden alarm.

  He stepped forward once—

  He was given no time to act on his suspicions.