Authors: Paul S. Kemp

The Hammer and the Blade (39 page)

BOOK: The Hammer and the Blade

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The sorcerer's facial features softened. His body lost height, gained hips, his waist narrowed, his chest swelled with breasts. In moments the magic had turned him from sorcerer to sorceress.

"What have you done to me?" Rakon said, his now high-pitched voice slurred. The transformation had healed some of his wounds. His face was bruised, red in places, but not the ruin Egil had left it moments before.

"You wanted to honor your damnable Pact, whoreson," Nix said, and jerked him to his feet. "So you will."

Accompanied by Egil, he dragged Rakon toward the devil, who still flailed and raged frenetically against his binding. Rakon seemed dazed, not quite understanding what Nix intended.

"Do you understand me, beast?" Nix said to Abrak-Thyss.

"The Pact demands a Norristru woman of childbearing age."

Nix pulled Rakon toward the binding and shook him.

"I've brought you one."

The devil stopped struggling. The eyes at the end of his arms fixed on Nix. The slits in his abdomen, his nostrils, flared wetly as he inhaled Rakon's scent.

"What?" Rakon said, finally understanding, his voice high-pitched and feminine.

"Let's have our own pact, devil," Nix said, and shook Rakon again. "This one is yours. But the others are left alone. Do we have agreement?"

Rakon struggled against Nix's hold. Nix shook him like a rag doll. Rakon's fear seemed to excite the devil, to judge from the further engorgement of his member.

"I think he likes you," Nix said to Rakon. "I'm sure he'll be a gentle lover."

"No," Rakon said, swallowing, going limp in Nix's grasp. "You can't do this. You can't."

Nix pulled him around and stared into his – her – face.

"This is what you would have done to your sisters! This is the fear they felt. Worse than fear awaited them. I've seen it, Norristru. I've seen it! And now worse than fear awaits you. You've earned it."

"Don't do this," Rakon pleaded. Tears fell from his eyes.

"It's done!" Nix said, the anger in his words spraying Rakon with spit. "And you did it!"

Nix nodded at Egil and the priest withdrew, picked up Rusilla and Merelda, and carried them to the far side of the room. Egil recovered his hammers, his crowbar, and stood at the ready.

Nix turned to Abrak-Thyss, holding Rakon like an offering. "Devil, what say you?"

The devil growled, a low, predatory sound that reminded Nix of a cat's purr.

Without warning, the energy sphere around the binding circle winked out. Rakon screamed, sagged. Nix shoved the sorcerer toward the devil and backed away fast toward Egil.

He drew his blade but needn't have worried. The devil grabbed Rakon around the waist with one of his serpentine arms. Rakon flailed, his small fists beating at the devil's grip, his screams high-pitched and fearful.

"Honor the deal, devil," Nix said, backing up until he bumped into Egil.

The devil did not even glance at them. Carrying Rakon, who screamed helplessly, the devil strode for the open door that led into the manse.

The old woman abased herself before the devil as he approached.

"Scion of the Thyss, welcome."

The devil neither paused nor acknowledged her. His girth barely fit through the doorway, but he squeezed through and inside, Rakon still screaming plaintively.

Nix knew where the devil was taking Rakon: to the hall of doors he'd seen in his dreams, a place of horror.

"It's worst the first time," the old woman called after Rakon. "It's easier after that. Take heart."

Rakon's screams were desperate. Nix endured them only by reminding himself of the generations of women who'd uttered similar screams as a result of the scheming of Rakon and his sires.

Egil shifted on his feet. "I don't know if that was the right thing to do."

Nix stared at the open door, the darkness beyond. "I don't know either. But death seemed… too neat an end for him. We both saw what'd been done here. If it was the wrong thing to do, it was my wrong thing."

"No," Egil said thoughtfully. "I'm with you. If it was wrong, then it's our wrong and we both own it."

"Well enough."

"We should go," Egil said.

"Aye."

Nix kneeled and looked into Rusilla's pale face, her intense green eyes. Her hands spasmed, probably some aftereffect of the drug her brother had been giving her.

"Can you hear me?" he asked her. "Do you know what I just did? Was it the right thing?"

They stared at one another a long while.

"The drugs, Nix," Egil said. "She can't answer."

Then her lips moved. She made no sound and he wasn't sure if the movement was intentional. He stared at her, willing her to mouth again what he thought he'd seen. She did and he read her lips.

Applause, Nix.

For a moment, he could think of nothing to say, then he stood and said, "I've been waiting for those."

Nix and Egil bound their wounds as best they could. They'd need to see a priestess of Orella when they returned to Dur Follin, maybe visit the Low Bazaar to procure a healing elixir or ten. But before leaving, they approached the old woman, Rusilla and Merelda's mother. She remained by the door, and at their approach hid her face behind the wall of her wrinkled, veiny hands. She rocked back and forth, muttering to herself.

"Is she… lost?" Nix asked.

"I think maybe," Egil said sadly.

"It's worse the first time," she muttered repeatedly. "Always worse the first time."

"Grandma…" Nix said.

She looked up between the gaps in her fingers. "Don't hurt me. Don't hurt an old woman."

At first Nix felt a surge of scorn, but it gave way to pity when he thought of Mamabird, thought of the pulsing doors of his dreams, the blood and screams, and what the poor woman must have endured in her youth.

"We won't hurt you, grandma."

"Of course we won't," Egil said. "You've been hurt enough."

She looked up at them, uncomprehending.

Nix kneeled to look into her face. "We're going to Dur Follin and we're taking Rusilla and Merelda. They can make their own lives there, free of… all this. You can come with us, if you wish."

She stared at him as if she didn't understand. Perhaps she didn't. Nix and Egil had destroyed the foundation of her world, as depraved and terrible as it had been.

"Do you hear me, grandma?"

Finally, she said, "This is my home. My son lives here with me. I can't leave. The Pact must be honored."

Nix did not bother to tell her that she no longer had a son, that the Pact was among the most depraved things Nix had ever seen. He looked up at Egil, who shrugged. Nix went to put his hand on the old woman's shoulder but she recoiled and he kept his touch to himself.

"You needn't ever be hurt by man or devil again," he said to her. "Pact or no Pact. Do you understand? Never again."

She looked past him, through him. "We are Norristru and we will honor the Pact. Rakon will honor it, preserve the line. House Thyss will be satisfied. We can rebuild our wealth…"

She went on like that for a time and Nix finally stood, shaking his head. She was what Norristru men had made her. Nix could not unmake her with his words; they had no such magic.

It was time to leave.

Bearing Rusilla and Merelda in their arms, they walked into and out of the Norristru manse. Nix was pleased to get out of the pain-haunted halls. They pretended not to hear Rakon's screams that carried through the cracked plaster on the walls.

The moment they stepped out under open sky, under Minnear's ghostly light, Nix swore.

"What is it?" Egil asked, turning, his free hand on a hammer haft.

Nix looked down at his feet. "I'm fakking barefoot."

Egil chuckled. Nix waited while the priest circled the grounds for a stable. He returned presently with saddled horses. They mounted the horses, Egil with Merelda, Nix with Rusilla. Nix felt awkward with his body pressed against Rusilla's, the smell of her hair in his nose. He reminded himself of recent events and banished all thoughts from his mind but the purest.

They spoke little as they rode away from the manse, heading for Zelchir's Fall, and from there, back to Dur Follin. After an hour of riding, the sisters could speak clearly, though their bodies were still mostly paralyzed by the drugs.

"Will the city be safe for you two?" Nix asked them.

"It's a big city," Merelda said. Her voice was lilting, musical. The sound of it made Nix smile.

"The Lord Mayor will be free of my brother's spells for the first time in years," Rusilla said. "When he realizes my brother had enspelled him…"

"Rakon will never enter Dur Follin again," Merelda said. "Oh, Rose! We're free."

"We are, Mere. At last."

"You will help us get situated when we arrive in the city," Rusilla said to Nix.

Nix chuckled, looked to Egil. "She gives orders like a noblewoman. And this time with her lips instead of her mind."

"Speaking of," Egil said, "how much of this did you plan from the beginning?"

"As much as I could," Rusilla answered.

"And how much of what we did was you and not us?" Egil asked her.

She looked off to the side and smiled, a secretive look. She was striking in profile, a strong jaw and regal nose. "Does it matter?"

"It matters," Nix said.

"Why?" she asked softly.

It mattered because he wanted to
be
that kind of man, not be made to
behave like
that kind of man. It mattered because he wanted to believe that the difference between him and Rakon Norristru was a gulf of moral sense, not opportunity and circumstances.

"It just does."

"Aye," Egil answered.

Rusilla was silent a long time. Minnear had vanished from the sky. Finally she said, "I don't know how much was me and how much was you. You have to answer that for yourself."

About the Author

Paul S. Kemp is a lawyer. That is bad.
  He is also the million-selling author of the Erevis Cale sword and sorcery stories and several Star Wars novels. That is good. Very good.
  He has appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list three times (twice on the hardcover list, and once in the mass market list).
  It's a little known fact that Paul has maimed eight men and three llamas using only an unsharpened pencil and a stick of Wrigley's gum. Now you know too. He does not hum show tunes. Ever.
  Paul lives in Michigan with his wife and twin sons.

paulskemp.com

Also by Paul S Kemp

The Sembia Series

The Halls of Stormweather

Shadow's Witness

The Erevis Cale Trilogy

Twilight Falling

Dawn of Night

Midnight's Mask

The Twilight War

Shadowbred

Shadowstorm

Shadowrealm

Star Wars

Crosscurrent

Riptide

Deceived: A novel of the Old Republic

Anthologies and Collections

Ephemera

Realms of Shadow

Realms of Dragons

Realms of War

Sails and Sorcery

Horrors Beyond II

Worlds of Their Own

Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales

Acknowledgments

To Marco and Lee, for believing in the book. To Lieber, Howard, Brackett, and Moorcock, for inspiring the book.

ANGRY ROBOT

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www.angryrobotbooks.com

All change

An Angry Robot paperback original 2012.

Cover art by Richard Jones of Artist Partners

Distributed in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.

Angry Robot is a registered trademark and the Angry Robot icon a trademark of Angry Robot Ltd.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

ISBN 978 0 85766 245 3

eBook 978 0 85766 246 0

Printed in the United States of America

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BOOK: The Hammer and the Blade

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