Sword Play (27 page)

Sunbright didn’t pause. Still charging, aiming for the wall behind her, he kicked Sysquemalyn in the throat with heavy boots as she pitched forward in agony. The jolt knocked her into the wall, bounced her skull off stone. Bleeding red into red hair from a scalp wound, she collapsed into a heap.

Sunbright let her fall and scooched for his sword, which she had brought with her. Once he gained his weapon, he’d see if she needed another blow to kill or incapacitate her. Furious as he was for her callous use of him, her betrayal, and the attempt on his life for no reason whatsoever, he wouldn’t kill her unless she were still too dangerous to control. Their party might need her to escape wherever they were. So far he’d glimpsed only dark stone strewn with ashes.

And too, some part of his heart lingered with the traitorous mage. Some part of him still felt love and lust and longing for the sweet Ruellana who had never really existed. But Sunbright would stop her from using her magic first, for he was no lovesick fool.

Though it lay only inches away, he never reached his sword.

A swirling, like a miniature tornado, erupted from near his feet. Sunbright flinched and backed away, but within seconds the tornado turned green-brown and gray, then tightened around him. The spinning mist took the form of serpents, longer than horses and as thick as Sunbright’s arm, hissing and twisting and clenching tightly to enwrap him like iron bands. Four or five fanged heads ducked and bobbed against his torso, and he heard more hissing behind him. Round black eyes that glistened fixed him with an intelligent, hypnotic glare.

With a gasp, Sunbright filled his lungs to prevent their collapsing his chest and concentrated to free his hands and wrists that he might pry the beasts off. His mind warred with his body, curiosity with fright with ferocity. On one hand, he didn’t fear these serpents much, for snakes were rarely dangerous and he could wriggle free soon. On the other hand, they’d appeared magically and so couldn’t be natural beasts. Or could they, only magically summoned? Either way, he wouldn’t think overmuch, but fight to get free and deal with abstractions later.

He never got the chance. With a grunt, he was hoisted into the air so his feet dangled a yard off the ground. The serpents consolidated their grips and quieted. Just below Sunbright, Sysquemalyn lay sprawled and moaning against the rock wall, one shoulder crumpled lower than the other. But it was the astonished gaping of Greenwillow and Candlemas and even the raven that finally arrested Sunbright’s attention and made him crane to see.

Worse than any nightmare, was his first thought.

The humans and elf were perched on a sharp promontory that jutted over a vast subterranean amphitheater. Harsh red light flickered as jets of gas along the stone walls billowed smoke and flame. The bottom of the amphitheater was a pool of glimmering lava that bubbled and boiled and gave off a sickening, long-dead, stomach-churning stench. Ringed around the amphitheater on craggy terraces were wave upon wave of monsters: skeletal warriors clad in rags, jaundiced yellow genies with anvil-heads, twitching imps studded with horns and spikes, blobs that roiled and seethed with their own internal fire, and many more loathsome creatures of the cursed planes. The obscuring dimness and smoke were a blessing, a protection against screaming madness.

For worst of all was their master, a hideous giant who hunched on a round bluff rising above its monstrous ranks. Three times the height of a man, it was covered, from its blocky head to great splayed clawed feet, with corrugated red skin. Bright yellow tusks curled its lips below eyes as black as jet. Wings of blood-red skin curled half around its mighty, shoulders.

Though the twisted tusks dragged its mouth out of shape, there was no doubt from any of the watchers that the pit fiend regarded them with the greatest amusement.

Like new toys.

“Sysquemalyn!” boomed a voice that crashed like thunder in the vast chamber. “Sysquemalyn of Netheril, arise and meet your fate! You’ve been very naughty, human. Tsk, tsk! Plagiarizing the Nine Hells!”

The black-eyed pit fiend waited for a second, but not seeing Sysquemalyn put in an appearance, gestured. Gasping in pain, the female mage was jerked upright, her shattered shoulder bones ground to splinters in her tortured flesh. She was hoisted off her feet to hang above the promontory like Sunbright. Yet she hung as limp as a rag doll.

When she didn’t answer, the fiend made a two-handed gesture as if straightening a straw and, with a crinkly snap, Sysquemalyn’s shoulder was fixed, healed as good as new. The redheaded mage reached out and touched her shoulder tentatively, marveling that the pain had vanished.

Then from below came a dry chortle, like rocks grinding together. Both of Sysquemalyn’s shoulders snapped as if from invisible blows. The mage screamed until her voice cracked. And just as abruptly, the shoulders reset, and she hung limp, dripping with sweat.

“Better?” crashed the voice from below. A saggy smile rippled around the tusks in the great red face. “Don’t fuss about such little pain, human. ‘Tis the merest warmup for things to come. You’ve earned special attention. Never before has anyone been so foolish as to usurp my corner of hell. Such presumption!”

“I… I didn’t usurp your realm.” Still hanging like a dead goose, Sysquemalyn hunched her shoulders in dreaded anticipation of more abuse. The fear haunted her worse than any pain. Her voice was tiny, quavery, like that of a chastised child. Her pride had melted in pain like sugar in the rain. “I… built this place on my own, made it myself.”

A vast gobble was laughter. The fiend’s wings twitched to the shaking of shoulders as broad as a ship. “Brave of you to lie when I can remove your organs one by one yet keep you alive. You did no such thing! You thought to borrow our power and not pay interest and then pretend surprise. Your little amusement has opened new portals into our realm, as a shovel shears through an anthill. Many new rents you’ve cut, through which we can issue to muster new strength for our war against the vile tanar’ri. Your people will pay the price of your presumption in blood, and fire, and rape, and endless pain, and bitter death. As will you.”

The awful gaze of black eyes, like pits themselves, turned on Sunbright. His soul felt seared by the gaze, even as his skin had been seared red by the blue-white star. The snake-bonds trapping him suddenly hissed anew, heads twitching and tongues flicking. Then the snakes dropped away, coiled a few times, and returned to the mist from whence they’d come. Released from their clutches unexpectedly, the barbarian dropped three feet to crash painfully on his knees. He was raw and chapped and slashed and burned from head to toe, and this callous dumping made his temper flare. But there was little—nothing—he could do to the pit fiend or whatever this monster was.

“On your feet!” boomed the great voice. Aching, Sunbright stood. Not back against the stone wall, as did Candlemas and Greenwillow, the sensible ones, but at the very edge of the promontory, before the gaze of the fiend and its fellows. Let them see how a brave man dies, Sunbright thought. At least he could die well.

Movement caught his eye. From the ashes, his great sword Harvester levitated, spun, and came toward his hand. He almost hesitated to catch it for fear of bewitchment and contamination, but when the sweat-stained leather fit his palm, he knew the sword was all right. His father had borne it into battle, and now his son carried it, and would triumph. Or go down fighting.

The pit fiend curled its lips around its tusks and seemed to ruminate like a cow. Then it pronounced, “You, manling, have this ludicrous creature to thank for your current predicament and that of your friends. I grant you a chance to take back a bit of your own. Strike off her head, so it might get an early start at eternal torment. Schemers fear separating mind and body above all. So strike hard and true. Show us the might of a barbarian’s arm.”

As Sunbright weighed his great sword, Sysquemalyn was magically turned sideways in midair as if by invisible hands, until her head floated above an imaginary block, arms pinned at her sides. Her glorious red hair hung so long it brushed the ashes of the promontory.

Sunbright stood unmoving, pondering. His thoughts were overwhelmed by the depth of Sysquemalyn’s treachery. To kill her a hundred times would barely sate his barbarian thirst for revenge. Now, through vanity and foolishness, she’d endangered the whole world, all Sunbright had ever known and a thousand times that. Perhaps her death would alleviate some of the suffering, both past and future.

Unconsciously, he found himself raising his sword and taking aim.

“Don’t hesitate, mud man.” Exhausted and discouraged, Sysquemalyn hung, unresisting. “Strike, and get it over with.”

The great sword bobbed in the air as if it were alive and thirsty. Harvester of Blood was its name, but Sunbright hadn’t named it. Vaguely he wondered what he would have named the blade, given the chance. But that was a thought for another time.

The barbarian backed away from the shivering mage, dropping the curved sword tip to touch stone.

“No.”

“What?”

The pit fiend was not used to being disobeyed. Its tusked mouth fell open like a cavern, and fire and smoke gushed on its breath. The lesser fiends ducked their heads. A pair of erinyes perched on an outcrop were blasted from the wall, feathered wings afire, to spiral and plunge into the roiling lava below.

Standing foremost on the promontory, Sunbright felt the heat of the pit fiend’s fury, felt his skin and eyeballs dry, his hair tingle as if about to ignite. Too, the roiling, sulfurous smoke sickened him, made his stomach churn, until he’d have given a year of his life for one breath of pure tundra air. The barbarian fought to keep his knees from shaking. To fight berserk in battle was one thing, for a man was busy then. But to stand up to a fiend and pretend calm was quite another. It gave a body too much time to think of the awful consequences. Still, a warrior’s wit must be a weapon too, as his people said.

So he hollered down, “I mean, no, not without some other reward!”

This gave the pit fiend pause. The idea of bargaining—especially when it could easily renege—was familiar and diverting. Scratching its lower lip with a claw like a slate shingle, it rumbled, “Other reward? You dicker from a precarious perch, manling. Here in my high hall I hold the whip. I offer you revenge, and you demand else. What would you offer in return?”

“If I do this thing—behead Ruellana, or Sysquemalyn, as she’s called—will you let me and my friends go?”

The pit fiend frowned as it pretended to ponder, then grinned tuskily. “To turn a human phrase, hell, no!” It gobbled at its own wit, and the ranks of underlings below its feet hooted and chortled and applauded.

Sunbright waited, impassive, and let them laugh. He wasn’t sure what he bargained for except time. Perhaps the two mages behind him would wave their wands and pull a rabbit from a hat like some medicine-show mime in the marketplace. Perhaps they could rip open a portal for escape. Perhaps Greenwillow would spot a bolt hole and get away. Any delay could be valuable.

Still chuckling, the pit fiend asked, “What else, mortal?”

“Consider this,” offered Sunbright. “I’ll execute this mage and stay on as your headsman for one year if you release my friends.”

He nodded over his shoulder, risking a glance at the others. Through yellow-gray smoke he saw Greenwillow standing against the back wall, off to one side where she could watch the pit fiend. Her hands were empty, but her thumbs rested on her hips, ready to draw steel in a second. Candlemas— whom Sunbright still thought of as Chandler, and not exactly a friend— stood upright, podgy and bald and bearded but solid-looking. His arms crossed his chest, and for a second Sunbright was irritated at the man’s feigned casualness. Then he realized the mage could demonstrate non-aggression only by folding his arms: free hands in any position might be generating a spell. The raven pecked at rock, either oblivious or stupid or posing.

The pit fiend wobbled its great horned head and flapped its leather wings erratically, like a sea gull battered by storm winds. It addressed not just Sunbright, but also all its followers as it bellowed, “You misunderstand, insect! Here, I reign supreme! There are no quibbles, no bargains, no repeals. You bargain whether to sever this upstart’s head or not, but I say you’ll do as ordered. Whether you become a headsman or lemure or black pudding or shoe leather is up to me and me alone. And so, I command you, strike off her head and kick it down here!”

Well, it was worth a shot, Sunbright thought philosophically. He hadn’t really expected compassion or honor from a fiend any more than he would from a tax collector. And he could think of nothing else to do to stall for time.

So he spit over the promontory into the lake of lava and took a fresh grip on Harvester. He shouted loudly enough for all to hear, “No, I won’t do it! Whatever this creature—be she Ruellana or Sysquemalyn or some other—has done to me, she is still closer to me than you and yours! I will not harm one of us for the amusement of such as you.”

So saying, the barbarian stepped back a pace to raise Harvester high behind his shoulder, as if he’d lop off the head of the pit fiend itself. Then he bobbed his chin. “Bring on the fiends of the Nine Hells! Sunbright Steelshanks, son of Sevenhaunt and Monkberry, child of the Raven Clan of the Rengarth tribe, bids you battle the Harvester of Blood!”

Enraged at the human’s presumption, the pit fiend raised long arms, howled some ancient oath, and pointed broken claws at the single man on the high ledge. “Attack!”

In a flash, Greenwillow was at Sunbright’s side, calling, “Swing hard but spare me!” She added a bright, star-eyed smile, then turned to the grim work to come—their last battle, they both knew.

First to attack were the winged erinyes. A dozen or more, naked but for wings, flapped and swooped at them. Clutched in both hands were chunks of broken stalactites like flint daggers.

Sunbright waited, timing the attack, then swept Harvester like a long-bladed scythe. The sword sheared through a wrist, hacked toes from a foot, lopped off a wing. Out of control, one erinyes flipped over onto its back in midair, then plummeted toward the lava pool, keening like a hog at slaughter. Another, beating its wings at Sunbright’s head, had its belly sliced so a loop of guts spurted loose. A third, creased across the forehead, flipped backward and crashed before Greenwillow’s feet. Between jabs, the elf kicked the creature over the edge.