Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (34 page)

She nodded.

I slipped through the hole, most of my weight suspended on a vector

of force magic, and dropped onto one of the crossbeams. It was already

creaking faintly as the wind outside buffeted the roof, and my own meager

weight made no impression on it at all.

I froze for a long minute, watching the men below. But no one reacted.

From where they sat in the torchlight the roof would be lost in shadow, and

there was more than enough background noise to cover any little sounds I might

make.

Carefully, I threw up an invisible bridge of force between the beam I

crouched on and the next one over. I crossed it on hands and knees, moving

slowly so as not to draw the eye. Still no one looked up.

Several nerve-wracking minutes later I was directly above the card

game. The players were intent on their cards, apparently still oblivious to my

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presence. Was this actually going to work?

Thankful that my magic was largely devoid of special effects, I

conjured up a small disk of stone and layered a set of spells on it. Effects I’d

done before, but this wasn’t going to be a stable enchantment. Just a hasty set

of single-use spells held together by conditional triggers. It only needed to

work once.

When I was finished I waited for a few minutes until they dealt a new

hand, and dropped it into the middle of the group while they were all busily

studying their cards.

The magic grenade fell silently through the gloom, nearly striking the

floor before the levitation spell caught it. A set of eight-foot force blades

sprung out along the edges as it rebounded, and the disk began to spin

furiously. In the blink of an eye it bounced back up to head height, then

wobbled up and down for a few seconds before the magic failed and it settled

to the floor.

The effect on the sentries was roughly comparable to dropping them in

a blender. Blood and gore went everywhere, and I had to close my eyes for a

moment. Turns out even the really hardcore slasher movies aren’t as bad as the

real thing.

But they died so fast the only noise was the soft whir of the force

blades, and a series of thumps as body parts fell to the floor. One of the

sleeping men mumbled and rolled over, but aside from that there was no

reaction.

Not trusting my good luck, I disposed of the other sentry quickly and

returned to the roof. Avilla was watching with wide eyes.

“You make the most terrifying weapons, Daniel. I’m glad you’re on

our side.”

I smiled grimly. “Thanks. Can you locate Cerise now?”

“Now? But, what about the rest of those men?”

“They’re not much threat to us asleep, and I’d rather not kill them if I

don’t have to. The way the floor is built I think the cellar is just dug out

directly under it, like your house. So if you can tell where Cerise is we can go

right through it, grab her and run before they have a chance to react.”

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“Well, if you’re sure.”

Unlike my sorcery, Avilla’s witchcraft involved a bit of a ritual

element. She pricked herself with a little paring knife, squeezed a few drops of

the golden fluid she used for blood into a small wooden bowl she produced

from somewhere, and sprinkled in a few pinches of crushed herbs while

chanting under her breath. Then she dipped a sewing needle in the mixture, and

threaded it with a hair plucked from her own head.

She held it up, and the needle swung as if magnetized to point at a spot

not far from the alter.

“There,” she pointed. “I think you’re right, we’re much closer than I

expected.”

“Keep that going, then, and hold on. I’ll get us down there, and see if I

can get a look at what we’re getting into.”

I took her in my arms again, noting in passing how natural that was

starting to feel, and dropped through the hole. Avilla buried her face in my

shoulder, her eyes screwed shut, but she managed not to make any noise. We

landed lightly a few steps from where her needle was pointing.

The instant my feet touched the floor the hollow boom of a gong

echoed through the temple, and a wave of hostile magic tried to smother my

defenses. Avilla’s locator spell flickered out like a candle in a storm, and my

levitation collapsed almost as fast.

“Ah, shit.”

My shield barely wavered before a fresh rush of power from my

amulet stabilized it. My power source was far too strong for the temple wards

to cancel out, but there was no telling what effect they’d have on normal spells

The soldiers were already sitting up and looking around, trying to find

the source of the noise. Guess I should have killed them after all.

I drew Grinder, and set Avilla down. She grimaced as her bare feet

touched the floor, and a burst of smoke rose up around her. She stomped her

foot and shouted angrily in what sounded like Greek, and a flash of golden light

drove the temple’s magic away from her.

“There,” she pointed. “Hurry! I don’t know how long I can hold the

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wards at bay.”

Grinder chewed through the heavy boards of the floor with little regard

for the magic that infused the wood. There were two layers of heavy planks

nailed to a grid of beams, easily a foot thick all told. But it didn’t slow me

down much. I carved a handhold first, then cut a generous chunk free of the

floor and boosted my strength so I could heave it out of the way.

Bright firelight shone up through the hole, but there was no time to let

our eyes adjust. The soldiers were grabbing up weapons and turning towards

us now, and I doubted my force blades would carry far with the magic of the

wards opposing them. So I grabbed Avilla, and dropped through the hole.

We landed on something big, with leathery hide and far too many

muscles. It bucked violently, sending us flying sideways to smack against a

wall of lighting. I heard Avilla scream, and found myself tumbling onto hard

stone with all my muscles convulsing.

I heard frantic shouts and chanting, but for a few seconds my wits were

too scrambled to make sense of anything. Something solid struck my shield,

and was thrown back with a frustrated snarl. Complex spells wove through the

air around me, hostile forces fighting one another.

I shook my head, and sat up slowly.

“Well, that was an unexpected bit of excitement,” Holger’s voice said

mildly. “It seems that the tales of your demise were a bit exaggerated, Daniel.

We’ll have to take care of that soon.”

The middle-aged priest was standing barely three paces from me,

surrounded by a group of priests and flunkies. All of them were armed, mostly

with long spears bearing elaborate runic decorations, and none of them looked

happy to see me.

The room behind them looked like a cross between a high school

chemistry lab and a medieval monastery. There were tables bearing elaborate

arrays of glassware, shelves crowded with jars and vials, and here and there

large books chained to reading stands or stacked in stone niches in the walls. A

handful of nervous-looking soldiers stood back against the walls, observing the

proceedings from a safe distance.

Unfortunately a swirling barrier of dense magic stood in the air

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between us, rising from a geometric design inscribed in the polished granite of

the floor. A circle enclosed by a triangle enclosed by another circle, all

heavily decorated with runes.

Behind me Avilla was sprawled on the floor, with a demonic-looking

creature looming over her. It was built something like a gorilla, but it was as

big as a horse and sported four arms and a tail. Its black and red hide

resembled a lizard’s, and it’s protruding snout hung open to reveal a mouth full

of sharp teeth. But the massive, erect phallus rising from between its legs left

little doubt about what it wanted to do with my companion.

Blocking its path was a much smaller figure that seemed equally

demonic at first glance. Her pale skin gleamed like ivory in the firelight, her

nakedness revealing an eye-catching beauty that could almost have been

human. But a sinewy tail lashed the air behind her, and her waist-length mane

of ebony hair floated in the air around her on a swirling vortex of black magic.

Then I looked closer, and realized it was Cerise.

Her slim hands had curled into claws, her eyes glowed red with

infernal magic, and she was dripping blood from half a dozen wounds. But she

gripped her silver daggers tightly, and stood crouched protectively over

Avilla’s prone form.

“Stupid wizard,” she hissed at me. “Not to bring honeylove into trap!”

“Yes, that could have gone better,” I admitted.

Holger chuckled dryly. “Indeed. Well, we were able to switch to a

dome configuration before the demon escaped, so no harm done. I’m afraid

you’ll be observing this little experiment from an uncomfortably close

distance, but perhaps that’s for the best.”

“Oh really? What is this, anyway? I have to admit, it’s not what I was

expecting.”

“It’s a bit of an experiment,” he explained. “I couldn’t bind Cerise

conventionally, since you had my only fragment of the Covenant Stone. But the

temple here in Lanrest has six demons that we’ve kept bound since time

immemorial, and your pet murder witch can’t help but feed on her kills. The

more of their essence she absorbs the more firmly their bindings apply to her

as well, and a woman is far more pliable than a demon. She’s already become

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fairly biddable.”

Cerise tossed her head angrily, exposing the horns that now sprouted

from her forehead. “Stupid priest. Too much demon. Go mad, eat your heart!”

“With the whole weight of our temple’s wards preventing you from

harming any member of the priesthood? I think not, young lady.”

The demon took one long step back from Cerise, and glanced at me.

Apparently it didn’t like what it saw, because it bared its teeth at me and

growled.

I ignored it in favor of looking around the interior of the prison.

Grinder was lying on the floor not far from where I’d landed. The blade had

deactivated when it left my hand, a safety feature I’d installed to keep it from

being used against me.

“I suppose that’s kind of clever,” I remarked as I eased my way around

the edge of the warded zone. “But what makes you think I’m just going to sit

around and let you do it, Holger? Any demon Cerise could fight, I can kill

easily.”

The priest favored me with a thin smile. “I think you’ll find that we’re

prepared for your heathen tricks, Daniel. You can’t reach outside the circle for

power, and the floor is quite thoroughly sealed against earth magic. Perhaps

you can beat one demon, but your personal magic will soon be exhausted. As

you can see, your golem and your blade have already failed.”

“Of course, that’s assuming that your own apprentice doesn’t kill you

first. She’s already fed on three of our prisoners, and I’m afraid she’s

becoming rather unbalanced.”

I scooped up Grinder, and glanced at Avilla. She was still sprawled

motionless on the floor, but from my new position I could see that she was still

breathing. One blue eye was half open, watching me intently, and the

oppressive pressure of the temple wards was nowhere near enough to crush the

bonfire of magic that blazed in her heart.

Cerise caught the look, and cautiously reached back to touch Avilla

with her bare foot. Something passed between them, a flicker of personal

magic I couldn’t quite read. But I thought I caught a hint of relief pass over

Cerise’s features before she scowled at me.

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“You fucked up,” she hissed. “Fix it.”

“I will. Last chance to back down, Holger. You’ve got a pack of

ungols roaming the town, and a clan of frost giants planning to attack at dawn.”

He frowned. “Do we? I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t take your

word for it, Daniel. Still, I suppose we’d best not draw this out.

Rathrenwisthet of the Devouring Horde, I charge you to kill that wizard.”

The hulking demon snarled, and rushed me.

I flicked Grinder back on, and braced myself with force magic. The

brute slammed into my shield, sending me sliding back a foot despite my spell,

and clawed frantically with all four arms.

I swung Grinder, and it tried to block instead of dodging. The violet

blade chewed through hide and flesh and the bones beneath with a snarling

shriek, spraying mangled bits of demon everywhere.

The beast staggered back, clutching at the cauterized stump where it’s