BlackWind

by Boyett-Compo

  The Amazeen had proved an eager receptacle for the suggestions Danyon had whispered into her ear about Montyne Vex. A slight detour on her way to Amazeen, a little diversion that would make her happy and cause Cree untold agony, might prove entertaining.

  “Swear you will not harm him nor let anyone or anything else on Amazeen harm him,” Bronwyn had made him pledge.

  “By my hand he will not suffer,” Danyon said to the shrill winds. “Nor will anyone or anything on Amazeen harm him.”

  It was all in the wording, he thought, grinning. He stood, hands on hips, and surveyed the barbaric lands spread out before him.

  Danyon was looking forward to the next few hours.

  * * * *

  Cree groaned as he woke. The vile taste in his mouth was far worse than any carrion flesh he had smelled in his lifetime. He had a headache unlike any he'd ever known and was so sick to his stomach he dared not open his eyes for fear he'd throw up. Not that he could lift his head, he thought, for he was boneless, numb everywhere, but at the agony spearing his temples. As his head was jerked up, the back of his skull slamming into something solid, he gasped, gagging at the pain.

  “Puke on me at your peril, Reaper,” a harsh voice screamed.

  Forcing open his eyes, Cree found himself looking into the face of his own death.

  “Aye, you know what is going to happen. Do you know where you are?” Ski'Ah inquired, her eyes gleaming with victory.

  He knew. The moment he saw the craggy walls surrounding him, he knew. The Amazeen called it the Abattoir, but the planetoid had been named Montyne Vex. It was the torture ground, the killing field of his kinsman, and despite himself, he felt fear. He knew he was chained with his arms and legs spread-eagle to the wall behind him. There was enough sensation in his body to know he was naked from the waist up, for the flesh of his back pressed against slick stone. Barefoot as he hung suspended off the cell floor, he felt the drag of the manacles on his ankles.

  And he knew what was coming.

  “I am your executioner, Reaper,” the Amazeen taunted.

  From the corner of his eye, Cree saw a cybot moving about, bringing in instruments of torture he had heard about as a boy.

  Ski'Ah turned to look in that direction. “Too bad the A.I.U. could not find the Rods of Discipline,” she said with a sigh, then looked back at her captive, her gaze traveling to the juncture of his thighs and back to his face. “I would have taken great delight in administering them.”

  The cybot and its loathsome arsenal was not all Cree had seen. He was stunned to discover the incubus standing nearby, a wide grin on his evil face.

  “You need a witness to my death, woman?” Cree mumbled, mortally ashamed when a helpless drool accompanied his words.

  “The cybot cares nothing for what I am going to do,” Ski'Ah snorted.

  One look at the Nightwind's grinning face—one thick brow jutting upward in mirth—and Cree knew the warrioress was unaware of his presence. When Hart crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the cell wall, Cree understood the demon would not lift a finger to help him.

  “You helped her to capture me, didn't you?” he threw at the incubus.

  “Try not to snivel when she tortures you, Reaper. It would be so unmanly.”

  Ski'Ah frowned. She looked about, as if feeling a presence but unable to see one. For a moment, she seemed unsure of her plan, then she suddenly relaxed.

  “Bastard, giving her a silent suggestion...” Cree muttered.

  “Silence!” Ski'Ah slapped Cree, the force snapping his head to the side.

  Danyon chuckled.

  Grabbing a handful of Cree's curls, the Amazeen dragged back his head and stared into his eyes. “You would tear me apart if you could get your hands on me, wouldn't you, beast?”

  “Unchain me and see, bitch.”

  Ski'Ah snapped the fingers of her free hand. “The grata,” she ordered the cybot.

  The instrument placed in her hand looked like a short-handled garden tool, a six-inch-wide row of five sharp teeth, glistening in the light cast by the rushes overhead.

  “Let's see how much of a man you are, Reaper!” Ski'Ah spat.

  Cree sucked in his breath as the device gouged into his flesh, but he made no other sound. He held Ski'Ah's vindictive stare, refusing to cast his eyes toward the incubus.

  Ski'Ah drew the tines of the instrument down Cree's chest, from his neck to his belly. As blood ran down the center of his torso, Cree felt the cuts begin to close, the parasite's healing power almost instantaneous.

  “I bet that hurt,” Danyon suggested silently.

  Cree refused to rise to the demon's baiting, though the Amazeen had hurt him. The pain should have been minimal, but with his flesh tingling under the influence of the cinera, he realized his pain threshold had been lowered considerably. For the second time, fear formed within him.

  “She's going to cause you great pain before she's finished,” Danyon remarked, obviously intercepting Cree's unguarded thought.

  Cree cut his eyes over to the incubus. Hatred such as he had never known drove deep into his soul. As much as he hated the Amazeen, what he felt for the demon was ten times stronger. That hatred exploded into savage fury as Danyon flung at him a mental picture of Bronwyn and the demon lying in her bed, their bodies entwined, Bronwyn's arms wrapped around him.

  Ski'Ah jumped, her eyes widening as a howl of rage peeled from Cree's throat. “Cinera!” she screamed to the cybot, moving aside so the artificial intelligence unit could thrust the syringe into Cree's neck.

  Despite the thrust of the needle into his flesh, the red-hot sting of the drug shooting through his veins and causing crackling noises within his head, Cree did not succumb to the injection as he knew Ski'Ah had anticipated. The cinera did not cause immediate unconsciousness, nor, he assumed, did it bleach out the vermillion glow in his furious gaze.

  Danyon pushed away from the wall, as if half-expecting Cree to pull free of his fetters and come at him. He looked at Ski'Ah.

  “The Dóigra!” she yelled, likely receiving another mental suggestion. “Quickly! Give it to me!”

  The cybot slapped the Dóigra into its owner's hands.

  Ski'Ah thrust the weapon toward Cree, pressing the white-hot bulb at its end to his belly. As the tip touched Cree, a star-shaped burn blackened his flesh. He howled in agony.

  Danyon's eyes flared. Obviously, the odor of burning flesh, the ripple of involuntary muscle movement that shuddered through Cree stunned and excited the demon. “Hit him again.”

  Ski'Ah touched the Dóigra to Cree's body, holding it to his right pectoral. Cree writhed in torment.

  “Again,” Danyon whispered.

  With each new press of the Dóigra, Cree convulsed, his screams reverberating through the cell. By the time his upper torso and underarms were scored by the sizzling burns, he was whimpering, his anguished eyes locked on the Nightwind. Though agony engulfed his body, he no longer struggled against the torture, for he had no strength left. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth when he bit his tongue. “Demon, please. No more.”

  The Amazeen laughed, jabbing him forcefully with the Dóigra. “We are just beginning, Reaper! The worst is yet to come!” She stuck him again.

  “Please!” he screamed, his eyes locked on Danyon.

  “Enough,” Danyon said.

  Ski'Ah's maniacal chortles of glee drowned out the command. She stabbed Cree again.

  Cree howled in agony before Danyon grabbed the Dóigra from Ski'Ah's hands. She turned, her face contorted with rage. Outwardly shocked to see him, she did not move. But as full realization set in, her lips peeled back from her teeth.

  “You!” She came at him with her fingers curled into claws.

  The demon batted her away, shoving her against the wall. Her head hit the stone and she slid to the floor in an unconscious heap. Before the cybot could come to its owner's aid, Danyon spun around. With a sweep of his hand, he incinerated the mechanical being where it
stood. Just as Danyon turned around, Cree, now sagging against his manacles, passed out.

  * * * *

  Danyon drew in a long, calming breath, exhaled slowly, then walked over to his rival. He hated to unchain the Reaper. If he could leave the beast, he would, but he had sworn a pledge and he would make good on his word.

  Up close, the livid burns on the Reaper's flesh bothered Danyon. It was not the stench nor the blackened skin peeled back from Cree's ribcage nor the pain such wounds had brought that concerned Danyon, but the knowledge that it might take longer than a few days for the parasite to heal the numerous inflictions. It would not do to take Cree back to Bronwyn in this condition.

  “You are more trouble than you are worth, beast.” Danyon cursed as he knelt to break the fetters around the Reaper's ankles. He wrinkled his nose when he realized Cree had pissed himself during the torture.

  Standing, Danyon removed the bands around Cree's wrists, allowing the Reaper to sag into his arms for a moment before dropping him none-too-gently to the floor. He stepped back, annoyed with the scent of Reaper fetor on him, and brushed his hands down his shirt in an attempt to rid himself of the offending odor. Knowing he couldn't, he kicked the unconscious man, cursing him.

  * * * *

  Cree grunted, then groaned, his eyelids fluttering open. He was too weak to move, wondering why he was on the floor, staring at a pair of dusty boots.

  “Get up,” Danyon snapped, prodding Cree's hip with his toe. “You're alive.”

  Though he hurt in a thousand places, Cree managed to flip over to his back, gasping as the flesh over his chest cracked open in a half-dozen areas. It was all he could do not to whimper and had to grit his teeth.

  “Are you sane or will I be forced to take a gibbering fool back to my lady?” Danyon questioned.

  “The Amazeen...?”

  “Over there.”

  “Alive?”

  “Aye. I've left her to your tender mercies.”

  Cree opened his eyes and stared up at the Nightwind. He knew better than to ask for any assistance.

  “Get up,” Danyon said, nudging him again with the toe of his boot. “There is a storm coming and I suggest we leave before it hits.”

  Cree forced himself to a sitting position, drawing in a sharp breath.

  “How long will it take you to heal?” the demon asked in a bored voice.

  Cree looked down at his chest and winced. It took most of his energy just to raise his head again. “A week...maybe more...

  “Hell.” He looked at the Amazeen. “What do you want to do with that garbage?”

  Glad only to be alive, Cree couldn't have cared less. He didn't even glance at Ski'Ah as he forced himself up to a crouch, panting with pain, his head sagging between his quivering arms.

  “You disgust me almost as much as the bitch.” With a snort, Danyon bent over, put his hand under Cree's armpits, and levered him to his feet. “Get up, Reaper!”

  “Merciful Alel!” Cree gasped as he stumbled, then kept his feet. He stood wavering in pain, the support of the Nightwind's hands removed.

  “You think that's pain? I will show you pain.”

  Before Cree could react, he felt the demon's hand on his arm, then found himself teetering on the edge of a vast crevice beneath which a bubbling cauldron of lava sputtered and hissed.

  “That is the Cave of Fire, Reaper,” Danyon said, pointing to the heaving mass of liquid flame. “From the Abattoir they brought your kin here and dropped them in. Can you imagine the agony they felt?”

  Cree didn't have a chance to answer, for the Nightwind shifted them through time and space, deeper into the cave system. Cree looked at row after row of skulls sitting on ledges that disappeared into the darkness.

  “Their heads might have been gone, but the parasite went into the fire pit with the bodies.” The room filled with the screams of a thousand Reapers.

  A momentary scene of a long-lost kinsman—his head lopped from his body by a Dóigra, his mouth open in an unending scream of agony as his flesh dissolved in the Cave of Fire—brought tears to Cree's eyes.

  “You are the last of your kind.”

  Cree shook his head. “Gallagher...”

  “I slew that bastard long ago. Think you I would have left anyone alive who hurt my lady as did that filth? He took Milady's bantling—I took his worthless life!”

  Despite the pain pulsing in his body, Cree straightened and locked gazes with the demon. In the dark eyes, he read the truth of what the incubus was saying and knew that was why he had been unable to locate Alistair Gallagher all those years.

  “The Amazeen would have killed you if I had not been here to stop her. If you leave her alive, she'll come after you again. Either kill or allow me the honor. Your choice matters not to me.”

  Cree knew the warrioress must die. “How far is it back to where...?” he began, only to find himself standing in the cell again, the Amazeen slumped at the base of the wall.

  Danyon stepped back, giving Cree room. “End her uselessness, then we'll dispose of the body. You need no evidence left that you were here.”

  Cree painfully made his way over to the woman, who was waking from her enforced sleep. He squatted down beside her, took her head in his hands and twisted, snapping her neck as easily as though it were a sliver of straw.

  “You were easier on her than I would have been,” Danyon said dryly and pushed Cree aside so he could lift the warrioress. As he straightened, he raised an inquisitive brow to Cree.

  “I know what I'm about, Nightwind,” Cree said. Though he did not have the strength to carry the Amazeen to the Cave of Fire, he wanted to be there when she was dropped in.

  “You ask much of me. Put your hand on my arm and let us be done with this.”

  In the blink of an eye, Reaper, Nightwind, and Amazeen were at the rim of the Cave of Fire. As Danyon held the limp warrior, Cree put his face close to Ski'Ah's.

  “Burn in hell, you conniving bitch,” he said through clenched teeth, grinning hatefully at the rapidly blinking eyes that stared back at him in abject horror.

  Danyon took a step closer to the pit's edge and released his burden to the popping, hissing lava. As the warrioress fell, her mouth open in a silent scream, the demon smiled.

  The two men stood there for a moment, staring into the spot where the Amazeen's body had erupted into flame.

  “She felt the kiss of the fire,” Danyon said.

  “Good,” Cree said. “I meant for her to.”

  Danyon took one last look at the cauldron, then turned. “Think you're strong enough to find your way to the starjet?” When Cree didn't answer, he pressed further. “Want me to transport you there?”

  “Put your hands on me one more time and I'll barf,” Cree snapped. “I have your stench slimed to me now.”

  Danyon shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He pushed past Cree, chuckling. “I'll see you at the craft.”

  His pride refusing to allow him to ask for any assistance, Cree crammed his hands into the pockets of his dusty jeans and tightened the muscles of his jaw. He hurt so badly it was difficult not to groan with every step he took.

  * * * *

  When Cree reached the starjet, his jeans were caked with packed snow and he was shivering uncontrollably from the intense cold. His cheeks stinging from the blistering ice crystals, his chest and arms numb, his hands frostbitten, he had trouble gaining access to the interior of the craft. When he did, it did not help to see Danyon reclining shirtless at the captain's console.

  “Are you cold, Reaper?” the demon queried as he swung a leg that dangled over the chair arm. At Cree's growl, Danyon made a tsking sound. “And I didn't think Reapers ever got cold. How is it you look as though you're half-frozen?”

  Cree refused to answer. He yanked open the door of a utility closet and rummaged around until he found a dark green pullover. Wincing at the color, he ground his teeth and pulled the offending garment over his head, thrusting his arms into the sleeves with barely a grunt
of discomfort.

  “You do know that's a woman's tunic, don't you?”

  Ignoring the insulting remark, Cree stomped over to the navigational panel and stared at the screen for a moment.

  “It didn't occur to me that you might not know how to fly this thing,” Danyon said. “I'm sure after a couple of thousand years there have been an improvement or two. I would certainly understand if you admitted you weren't up to the task.”

  Cree sat down and typed in commands as fast as his stiff fingers would allow.

  “Do you know how to fly it?” Danyon asked with a yawn.

  “What difference does it make to you? Why don't you take yourself back to Terra and leave me be?”

  “Normally I would be more than happy to, but I promised Bronnie I'd see you home in one piece.” When Cree glared at him, the Nightwind shrugged. “I could easily transport you back before you could say what is on the tip of your tongue, but we're going to have to let you heal first.”

  The engines engaged. The dark screens scattered across the room pulsed into life. A low rumble caused the starjet to gently vibrate.

  “You knew she wasn't the one I killed in the morgue,” Danyon accused. “How was that?”

  Cree narrowed his eyes. He had not known it was the demon in Brell's form that fateful day. In retrospect, he realized he should have suspected as much. Turning his back on Danyon, he busied himself entering the data necessary to return them to Terra.

  “How did you know?”

  “Think you I would not have recognized my mate's bloodscent, demon? It was not her blood you spilled.”

  “Damn. I did not think of that. Do you know who it was I gutted?”

  “I don't know and I don't—”

  “Your pet. Ralph, was it?”

  Cree felt momentary hurt before he turned away, his thawing fingers moving faster across the console.

  “Oh, I should explain,” Danyon said. “Actually your Ralph was the Bugul Noz I befriend long ago. No harm, no foul, as they say.”

  Cree stopped typing to stare at the screen before him, where numbers flashed by in a long sequence. A Bugul Noz—he knew of such creatures, but had no idea he had ever come into contact with one. That he had, that the demon was being truthful, he did not question. Things made sense to him in a twisted sort of way, and he looked down at the console pad and began inputting more coordinates. When he moved from the navigational console to the pilot's seat, he refused to look at the smug incubus.