"No-one told me I was going to have to fight a necromantic duel today," said Freetrick. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing here."
"Defenseless?" Feerix swung to glare at DeMacabre. "This is your doing, Leech!"
"Why, my dear Dark Prince, I assure you I arrayed my forces here in this public place for no other purpose than to provide you the opportunity for your confrontation."
And now that Freetrick looked, yes, the people gathered behind DeMacabre did look distinctly array-like. So were they here to protect him from Feerix? They weren't doing a very good job of it.
"Unbelievable," Feerix spat. . A red gob smacked onto the stone a bare centimeter from Freetrick's foot. Did he see it writhing? "I have killed eleven siblings, drunk deep of their spinal fluid. I do not work like this!"
Freetrick fought for clarity. So all these people were here to watch while… "So this is like a game? Ha ha. Nice to meet you, Feerix. Put me down now."
"I believe I shall not. No…" Feerix twisted a hand and Freetrick's legs pivoted upward. Now he was lying, as if on a bed, supported at eye-level above the floor by a cocoon of black mist. "Tempest take the rituals. We are among witnesses, are we not? I shall simply kill you now, and be done with it." The ectoplasmic fingers around Freetrick squeezed.
"Oh," said a new voice, "how disappointing. Horrendous Morrow, Feerix."
In his cocoon of necromancy, Freetrick flinched.
"Bloodbyrn," Feerix said, "I should have known you would come back to me. Here. Now. As I dangle your new lover from my clutches."
"Release him, Feerix."
"What would you give me for the favor," said Feerix, "hmm? A night in your bed perhaps? Your father's banishment? The skull throne?"
"My forbearance? Dark Prince Feerix, surely you can see that agents of father's faction outnumber your own in this place. Release the soon-to-be-Ultimate Fiend, or face our wrath."
When Feerix spoke again, it was with a slight quaver to his maniacal bellow. "You would not dare attack a member of the line of Feer!"
"If the line of Feer is so weak as to defy custom and kill a defenseless opponent, your patrimony holds no sway over my actions."
"Such a one-sided duel would hardly be the great battle we of the Vile Halls have come to expect from you, your Vileness." DeMacabre said.
Feerix rocked Freetrick back and forth as he appeared to consider this. He looked out over the other people, presumably DeMacabre's supporters. And where were Feerix's supporters? "What you say rings of evil truth, Sangboise," he said, finally. "A weak and unskilled opponent, obviously ignorant in the black arts of necromancy, would do me no service as a victim. I might as well spear lizard-men in a slave pit. Very well!"
Freetrick was suddenly flying through the misty air. He hit the stone floor, and bounced, his armor throwing up a shower of sparks as he skidded to a halt. Dark ignobles and monsters shuffled away from him.
"I must have a worthy opponent!" Shouted Feerix.
Freetrick looked up to see the iron-girdled figure of his half brother towering over him.
"I shall teach you, I shall train you, and only then," Feerix sneered, "will I finally kill you."
***
Kendrick found the Paladin on the edge of the woods. The Chosen One of Naobel, stood under a pine tree staring at the stooped form of what at first appeared to be a tall man.
Night was approaching and the battle was over. The monsters had been killed or driven off, but not without cost. Men had died, mostly from the ranks of the Rationalist engineering corps. Died or been taken. Now, the remaining Rationalists huddled around the campfires scratching feeble runes onto their mirrors, waiting. Kendrick and the Ranger Levanick moved with purpose, however, seeking the Paladin.
As they drew closer Kendrick saw the prisoner more closely. He noted the crookedly jointed legs, the glint of scales where soft skin should have been, the eyes like volcanic glass. A lizard-man stood in chains, clothed in rough furs, shackled to the tree.
Kendrick stopped in his tracks, the smell of piss and rotted meat in his nostrils.
"Come on, boy," Levanick yanked Kendrick forward by the arm. "Do not be modest, you killed more monsters today than anyone save the Paladin himself."
"I killed so much…" Kendrick licked his lips and whispered.
"You killed well," Levanick insisted, then, to the Paladin: "Chosen. Excuse us for interrupting."
"'Tis no interruption, Ranger." The Paladin rolled his shoulders and scratched fingers through his close-trimmed beard. "Who hast thou brought me?"
"Private Engineer Kendrick Fairheart," said Levanick as Kendrick bowed, "the, uh, soldier of Hill Stock."
"Sir," said Kendrick. The lizard-man was staring at him. It had huge eyes. Kendrick could probably fit his thumb into one all the way up to the base.
"Yes, I remember his name. From where in these Hills art thou, son?" The Paladin smiled at Kendrick. His voice was mid-range, burred with the accent of a man who had never been far from his home in the Mountains, and surprisingly rough given how young he looked. Up close, Kendrick could see the warrior was only a little older than himself. But the Light of the Mountain moved and spoke with the absolute assurance of a man raised from infancy to do his job.
"Yerunel, sir." It was very far Down Hill from Angel's Keep. Practically in word-wizard territory.
The Paladin nodded, one large hand coming up again to rub at his beard. His eyes, shadowed under heavy brows, squinted as he looked Kendrick up and down. "A Betweener, then, born and bred."
"Yes, sir." Kendrick tried to stand straighter.
"Yes. Thou hast the look of it." The Paladin tweaked his own pointed nose and abruptly smiled.
"Thank you, sir. Uh, Chosen."
"And now thou art a warrior, defending our land from the Storm?"
"I'm actually in the engineering corps, sir. Chosen, I mean." Kendrick winced. Next to this man, he sounded as modern and frivolous as Istain.
"In truth?" The smile faded slightly, the dark eyes flicked sideways, toward the rest of the camp, "wherefor is that?"
"Well I just joined, sir. I took a leave of absence from school to help."
"School?" His eyebrows rose. "Rationalist school?"
"Uh, yes," said Kendrick, feeling unaccountably ashamed.
"And what was it brought thee here, son?"
"A friend of mine," said Kendrick. He had told this story enough times to stop his tongue from stumbling while he talked to the hero. "We were in college together, and he got in trouble. I am…trying to help him."
"Friendship is a great thing, son. Friendship is the place where honor meets love, and should be valued beyond price." The Paladin smiled again, and reached out to lay a hand on Kendrick's shoulder. "May you do much to help your friend, Kendrick Fairheart of Yerunel. And mayhap you may find service to your nation aids in that selfsame quest. Now—ah, Professor-Colonel. Good even."
Kendrick's shoulder moved under the Paladin's hand as he turned. Yes, there was Professor-Colonel Phinneas, the Rationalist Commander emerged from the woods in the direction of the camp with a foul expression on his narrow face.
"There you are, Paladin," Phinneas said, "where the struck-out hell have you been?" His eyes swept the scene, settled on Kendrick, and narrowed, "and what are you doing here, Private-Instructor Fairheart?"
"The same as I." The Paladin gestured at the lizard-man before them.
Phinneas glanced at it. The bristly gray mustache on his upper lip fluttered in a silent snort. "Trying to conduct an interrogation without me present, Paladin? Again?" His gaze flicked toward Kendrick and Levanick. "You two! If you want to talk to the Paladin you may go wait for him in his tent. That's an order!" He snapped as Levanick did not move.
"No, they shall stay," said the Paladin.
"Emeritus-Professor Paladin" Phinneas took a step toward his Betweener counterpart, "Let me remind you that your academic-military title is honorary. You may hold a rank among these mountain people, but accordi
ng to the government of the Rationalist Union, you are retained as a consultant, only. Do not order my soldier to—"
"I do not. I am the Chosen of Naobel and my orders bind any Naobelite who stands firm against the Storm. They shall stay, both of them."
Kendrick saw the Professor-Colonel twitch. At first he thought it was a flinch, but then he saw where the man's hand went. He held his breath, his own hand going to the weight that hung at his left hip.
But Phinneas's hand lifted from his holster. "Paladin," he said, his voice softer, more tightly controlled, "half our force is dead and the next column is two days behind us. Can your mangled lizard-man here tell us how to survive the next 48 hours?"
"It does," said the Paladin. "And I have not even to speak with it to know that our warriors may not be dead." He nodded toward the monster, which flinched in its chains. "Regard you the wound on its leg, Proctor."
"What, did your men brutalize this prisoner, Paladin?"
The Paladin shook his head. "My men, no. But brutal? Yes. Look, now. Mayhap the wound's shape will strike you as familiar."
The lizard-man hissed as they bent forward to examine its trussed leg. The bite marks were carved into the flesh of its thigh by savage force, evil and strange, and yet…
"Ranger Levanick, show him," grunted the Paladin.
The lizard-man looked up at them and hissed as they approached, and the chains around its limbs jingled in the chilly air. The ragged pelt the monster had wrapped around its body quivered bizarrely, and Kendrick realized it was no dead animal skin, but another Skrean monstrosity, shaggy and amorphous. Limbs like the tentacles of a furry octopus writhed, and a loop-pupiled eye swiveled around to fix him with wise and alien regard from around the lizard-man's shoulder. Kendrick gritted his teeth at the pulpy obscenity of the thing.
"Worry not. It but wears a shaggor." The Paladin's voice was cool as shadowed granite, rough and immovable. "'Tis high up the Hill and late in the season for the lizard-folk. This one must be of high status indeed, as they measure such things, to warrant this garb. Show him, Levanick. Merely ware you not to step within reach of the tentacles. "
Levanick kneeled, placed pointer finger and thumb against the corners of his mouth, then brought his hand up, his fingers still the same distance apart. Holding Phinneas's eyes, the Ranger moved his impromptu calipers over the crescent-shaped wounds on the monster's thigh. Kendrick thought of a turkey's drumstick with a bite taken out of it. There was a flare of joy, dark and hot like blood, but Kendrick quickly controlled the emotion.
"Humans did this?" Even Phinneas's normally smooth voice rippled with disgust.
"Only human-shaped, councilor," replied the Paladin. Then, as if to himself "Of all the blasphemies of the Storm, the ghoul-folk, are surely the most heinous."
"Ah," said Phinneas, "you mean wendigos." The ripples had not left his voice, "I…I was under the impression that we had eradicated them in these mountains."
"Beseems they have returned," The Paladin turned from the grisly sight at their feet in an abrupt swirl of forest-colored leather.
Kendrick's blood ran cold. Wendigos were the subject of more Betweener fright-stories than any other monstrosity. Ogres could tear a man's limbs from his body, goblins could steal an infant from a locked room, lizard-men could ambush lone travelers, but at least those monsters looked like monsters. As the Betweeners said, 'the only sign of the ghoul-folk is the smile they wear when they eat you.'
Teeth like his own had made those wounds in the flesh of that creature... How hard the wendigo must have bitten. How hungry it must have been. Or had it been the simple joy of rending flesh that had driven those teeth?
"Returned?" Demanded Phinneas, "Or been made? Have there been any disappearances in this pass, Emeritus-Professor Paladin? Villages fallen out of communication?"
The Paladin shook his heavy head, "I do not know, Professor-Colonel."
"Then what striking good are you?" The Rationalist nearly snarled, "Strike it, man. We're less than two day's march from the Skrean border! If there is a necromancer loose in these woods—"
The Paladin's gloved hand came up, and the Rationalist's words dried up fast.
"Such is my fear as well," The Paladin was saying, "but are the men taken, and not simply killed, mayhap we might still preserve them from worse a fate. One way or the other."
Phinneas's breath sucked in through pinched nostrils. He opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, then abruptly shot a hard glance at Kendrick. "Well," he said, "certainly we must discuss what to do next, but not, I think, in front of raw recruits to the engineering corps." He turned to Kendrick. "Private-Instructor Fairheart, when I have need of a rail line laid, I will call for your services, but for the moment---"
"Hold."
Phinnaes's mustache bristled. "What?" His words started as a snarl, but modulated quickly to chill efficiency, "what is it, Emeritus-Professor Paladin?"
But the Paladin turned instead to Kendrick and Levanick. "Levanick, I want your advice in this matter. And you also, son. I would like you to observe as well." He cocked an eyebrow at Kendrick. "Perhaps you might learn something useful."
"What?" The Professor-Colonel's voice took on an outraged grate, "now wait just a minute, Paladin."
"They stay," said the Paladin.
"They most certainly do not." Phinneas's hand went to his hip again. "I don't know what you're thinking, involving that boy in this, but you'll do nothing with consultation and confirmation from me."
The Paladin raised an eyebrow. "'That boy?'"
The Professor-Colonel made an angry slicing gesture with a hand. "Enough games, Paladin. We all know about Fairheart here and his connections." He jerked a thumb eastward, Uphill.
"You know…about Freetrick," Kendrick suddenly felt very cold. Professor-Colonel
"Feerborg, now," said Phinneas. "Why do you think you progressed through basic training in two days, boy?"
Levanick's mouth was set in a firm horizontal line. "You're in the center of the blasted storm, boy. Time to choose what trees you want to cling to, or you'll be blown away."
"Then I think there is no reason why the boy should not see what concerns him." The Paladin said, turning toward the lizard-man.
Its head cocked to follow the movement. Breath rose from under the shaggor's flabby folds to turn to steam in the crisp mountain air.
"Wheel stones out." The Paladin commanded, and both of the other Betweeners did as instructed.
"Hold it out—no, by the stone, not the chord," whispered Levanick.
Phinneas stood with his arms crossed, silent.
Three hands holding three ring-shaped stones stood reflected in the lizard-man's black eyes. It hissed.
"Naobel," murmured the Paladin.
A deep triple boom washed over the clearing. Light flared, faded, steadied, and the lizard-man flinched back as if burned. The shaggor on its back erupted in queasy squirming motion, like a nest of furred worms.
"sssss-Top thatss."
The Paladin squinted. "Creature, answer my question. Whom dost thou serve?"
The lizard-man hissed and stuck out its tongue. It was long and purple-black in the light of the amulets.
"Answer me," said the Paladin, "I command thee in Naobel's name." At the sound of the name of the god, the Paladin's amulet flared brighter, and the lizard-man pressed back against the tree, shaggy tentacles flopping down loose from its scaly body. Its hiss changed pitch, became a squeal of pain.
When the lizard-man looked back up, one of its eyes was no longer black. White showed around the iris and pupil, the eye now noticeably smaller than its partner. The muscles on the side of its face nearest the Paladin bunched weirdly, scales flaked off its skin.
"Hurts" it gasped. "Why? Kill you…" A tooth fell from its mouth.
"Gibberish," whispered Kendrick. What was happening to the creature?
The Paladin held up the pitiless amulet. "Whom servst thou, monster? Naobel."
Shudders
wracked the lizard-man's body. Fur and slime sloughed off the dangling tentacles of the shaggor. "Sservve…hurts. Liar!"
"Yes?" The Paladin's eyes flicked to Phinneas, standing outside the pool of brightness. "And servst thou the Death, or the Fear? The Blood?"
The lizard-man spit out another rotting tooth. "Nots them. Agh…pain." It looked up at the Paladin, its new, bizarrely human right eye blazing with hatred. "Liar. Kill---"
"Naobel!"
The monster screamed.
"It serves not the king of the evil." the Paladin called to the Professor-Colonel. "But…I have not heard tell of this so-called Liar fore now."
The Professor-Colonel narrowed his eyes as the lizard-man squealed in pain and outrage.
"Maybe he's some new wendigo leader?" offered Levanick. "That sort often gather lesser monsters in around themselves."
"Most likely," the Paladin agreed, "I shall finish the job, now, Professor-Colonel Phinneas."
"Wait." Phinneas said, scowling and striding forward. "Lizard-man, do you know of any creatures in this area who serve the Blood?"
"Liar!" Screeched the lizard-man, "kill you!"
"You shall not," the Paladin raised his amulet higher.
"Wait, strike you, Paladin" said Phinneas, "What about the Death?"
"Kill liar…you…liar." The lizard-man was no longer capable of supporting its own weight. It lolled against its restraints, legs kicking, spitting blood and more pointed teeth.
"Naobel." Another wash of light, another scream of agony.
"Wait until it answers!" Phinneas stood over the shuddering creature on the ground. "Are there any camps of those loyal only to the Skull Throne?"
The lizard-man opened its mouth, but the Paladin was already speaking, "be done, monster! Thy life is ended. May Naobel remove thy curse from thee!"
The lizard-man had opened its mouth to speak, but no words came out. There was a terrible ringing in the air, and a terrible light. Then the monster was writhing against the tree, squalling amid a nest of befouled tentacles. Kendrick stared in sick fascination as the tentacles of the shaggor deliquesced into foul slime, then as the bones of the lizard-man seemed to twist under its skin, the skull warping as if deformed by enormous external pressure. The creatures squealed in anguish as the blessing of Naobel ripped them apart.
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