The Oathbound (37 page)

Kethry, now no longer the tough, fit creature she had been, but a frail, delicate wraith, went down before him. Tarma tried to get to her, knowing that she was going to be too late—

But Warrl intervened, bursting from behind the crimson velvet hangings, flinging himself between the combatants long enough for Kethry to regain her footing and recover Need. She fumbled it up into a pathetic semblance of guard position; then stared at her own hands, wearing a stupified expression. After a moment Tarma realized why. Need was not responding to her—because Need could not act against a woman, not even
for
a woman.

And between Tarma and her
she‘enedra
were a dozen or so followers of the demon.

But some of them were the ones who had so lately been sharing her own body with their master.

She let herself, for the first time since her awakening, truly
realize
what had been done to her—physically and mentally. Within an eyeblink she had roused herself to a killing battle-frenzy, a state in which all her senses were heightened, her reactions quickened, her strength nearly doubled. She would pay for this energized state later—if there
was
a later.

She gathered herself carefully, and sprang at the nearest, taking with her one of the heavy silken hangings that had been nearest her. She managed, despite the handicap of no longer having
her
rightful, battle-trained body, to catch him by surprise and tangle him in the folds of it. The only weapon the Shin‘a’in had been able to find had been a heavy dagger; before the others had a chance to react to her first rush, she stabbed down at him, taking a fierce pleasure in plunging it into him again and again, until the silk was dyed scarlet with his blood—

 

Kethry was defending herself as best she could; only the fact that the bandit was once again not in a body that was his own was giving her any chance at all. Warrl’s appearance had given her a brief moment of aid when she most needed it. Now Warrl was busy with one of the other acolytes. And it was apparent that Tarma, too, had her hands full, though she was showing a good portion of her old speed and skill. At least she wasn’t in that shocked and bereft half-daze she’d fallen into when she first came back to herself.

But Kethry had enough to think about; she could only spare a scant second to rejoice at Tarma’s recovery. She was doing more dodging than anything else; the bandit was plainly out for her death. As had occurred once before, the demon was merely watching, content to let his pawns play out their moves before making any of his own.

Tarma had taken a torch and set the trapped acolyte aflame, laughing wildly when he tried to free himself of the entangling folds of the silk coverlet and succeeding only in getting in the way of those that remained. Warrl had disposed of one, and was heading off a second. Kethry was facing a terrible dilemma—Need
was
responding sluggishly now, but only in pure defense. She knew she dared not kill the former bandit. If she did, there would be no chance of ever getting her own body back. There was no way of telling what would happen if she killed what was, essentially,
her
body. She might survive, trapped in this helpless form that lacked the stamina and strength and mage-Talents of her own—or she might die along with her body.

Nor did she have any notion of what
Need
might do to her if she killed another woman. Possibly nothing—or the magical backlash of breaking the geas might well leave her a burned-out husk, a fate far worse than simply dying.

 

Now Tarma had laid hands on another sword—one lighter than the broadsword she was used to, and with an odd curve to it. She had never used a weapon quite like this before, but a blade was a blade. The rest of the acolytes made a rush for her, forgetting for the moment—if, indeed, they had ever known—that they were not dealing with an essentially helpless woman, given momentary strength by hysteria, but a highly trained martial artist. Tarma’s anger and hysteria were as carefully channeled as a powerful stream diverted to turn a mill. As they rushed her, evidently intending to overpower her by sheer numbers, she took the hilt in both hands, rose and pivoted in one motion, and made a powerful, sweeping cut at waist level that literally sliced four of them in half.

Somewhere, far in the back of her mind, a normally calm, analytical part of her went wild with joy. This strange sword was better than any blade she’d ever used before; the curve kept it from lodging, the edge was as keen as the breath of the North Wind, and the grip, with a place for her to curl her forefinger around it, made it almost an extension of her hand. It was perfectly balanced for use by either one hand or two. Her eyes lit with a kind of fire, and it wasn’t all the reflection of torch-flames.

Her remaining opponents stumbled over the bleeding, disemboweled bodies of their erstwhile comrades, shocked and numb by the turn in fortunes. Just last night this woman had been their plaything. Now she stood, blood-spattered and half-naked as she was, over the prone bodies of five of them. They hesitated, confused.

Warrl leapt on two from the rear, breaking the neck of one and driving the other onto Tarma’s waiting blade.

Eight down, seven standing.

Seven? There were only six—

Tarma felt, more than saw, the approach of one from the rear. She pivoted, slashing behind her with the marvelously liquid blade as she did so, and caught him across the throat. Even as he went down, another, braver than the rest, lunged for her. Her kick caught him in the temple; his head snapped to one side and he fell, eyes glazing with more than unconsciousness; Warrl made sure of him with a single snap of his massive jaws, then dashed away again to vanish somewhere.

Five.

Tarma held her ground, and Warrl ran in from under the hangings. The man he jumped had both a short sword and shield, but failed to bring either up in time. Warrl tore his throat out and leapt away, leaving him to drown in his own blood.

Four.

Tarma charged between two of those remaining, slashing with a figure-eight motion, knowing they would hesitate to strike at her with the swords they’d snatched from their sheaths for fear of striking each other. She caught the first across the eyes, the second across the gut. The one she’d blinded stumbled toward her with blood pouring between his fingers, and she finished him as she whirled around at the end of her rush.

Two.

 

Kethry tried to simply defend herself, but the bandit wasn’t holding back.

So she did the only thing she could; she cast Need away from her, and backed off far enough to raise her hands over her head, preparatory to blasting the bandit with a bolt of arcane power.

 

Warrl leaped on the right-hand man; tore at his thigh and brought him down, then ripped out his gut. Tarma’s final opponent was the first that showed any real ability or forethought; he was crouching where Warrl couldn’t come at him from the rear, with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. His posture showed he was no stranger to the blade. She knew after a feint or two that he was very good, which was probably why he’d survived his other companions. Now she had a problem. There was no one to get in his way, and the unfamiliar feel of her transformed body was a distraction and a handicap. Then she saw his eyes narrow as she moved her new sword slightly—and knew she had a psychological weapon to use against him. This was
his
blade she held, and he wanted it back. Very badly.

She made her plan, and moved.

She pretended to make a short rush, then pretended to stumble, dropping the sword. When he grabbed for it, dropping his own blade, Tarma snatched a torch from the wall beside her and thrust it at his face, and when he winced away from it, grabbed a dagger from the litter of weapons on the floor and flung it straight for his throat, knowing that marksmanship was not a thing that depended on weight and balance, but on the coordination of hand and eye—things that wouldn’t change even though her body had shifted form considerably. As he went down, gurgling and choking, to drown in his own blood like one of the men Warrl had taken out, she saw that Kethry was being forced to take the offensive—and saw the look of smug satisfaction on the demon’s face as she did so.

And she realized with a sudden flash of insight that they had played right into his hands.

 

“Why do you do nothing?” the little priest asked in pure confusion.

“Because this is a test, human,” the demon replied, watching with legs stretched out comfortably along the platform. “I have planned for this, though I shall admit candidly to you that I did not expect this moment to come quite so soon, nor did I expect that the beast should regain its life and the swordswoman her mind. But these are minor flaws in my plan; however it comes out, I shall win. As you may have guessed, it is the sorceress’ spirit that inhabits my servant’s body; should he slay her, I shall be well rid of her, and my servant in possession of a mage-Talented form. Should the swordswoman die, I shall be equally well rid of her; should she live, I shall simply deal with her as I did before. Should my servant die, I shall still have the sorceress, and her geas-blade will blast her for harming a woman, even though she does not hold it in her hand—for she has been soul-bonded to it. And that will render her useful to me. Or should it kill her, she may well be damned to
my
realm, for the breaking of the oaths she swore. So you see, no matter the outcome, I win—and I am in no danger, for only my own magics could touch me in any way.”

“I ... see,” the priest replied, staring at the bloody combat before them, mesmerized by the sight.

 

Tarma realized that they were once again playing right into the demon’s hands. For if Kethry killed the one wearing her form, she would damn herself irrevocably, once by committing a kind of suicide, and twice by breaking the geas and the vow her bond with Need had set upon her—never to raise her hand against a woman—three times by breaking her oath to her
she‘enedra.

And by such a betrayal she would probably die, for surely Thalhkarsh had warded his creature against magics. Or Need would blast her into death or mindlessness. Should she die, she could damn herself forever to Thalhkarsh’s particular corner of the Abyssal Plane, putting herself eternally in his power. It was a good bet he had planned that she must slay the bandit by magic, since Need would not serve against a woman—and certainly he had woven a spell that would backlash all her unleashed power on the caster. Kethry would be worse than dead—for she would be his for the rest of time, to wreak revenge on until even he should grow weary of it.

Unless Tarma could stop her before she committed such self-damnation. And with time running out, there was only one way to save her.

With an aching heart she cried out in her mind to Warrl, and Warrl responded with the lightning-fast reactions of the
kyree
kind, born in magic and bred of it.

He leapt upon the unsuspecting Kethry from the rear, and with one crunch of his jaws, broke her neck and collapsed her windpipe.

Both Kethry and the bandit collapsed—

Tarma scrambled after the discarded mage-blade, conscious now only of a dim urge to keep Kethry’s treasured weapon out of profane hands, and to use the thing against the creature that had forced her to kill the only human she cared for. Need had hurt the demon before—

But she had forgotten one thing.

She
wasn’t a mage, so Need’s other gift came into play; the gift that protected a woman
warrior
from magic, no matter how powerful. No magic not cast with the consent of the bearer could survive Need entering its field.

The spell binding Tarma was broken, and she found herself in a body that had regained its normal proportions.

 

This was just such a moment that the priest had been praying for. The spell-energy binding Kethry into Lastel’s body was released explosively with the death-blow. The priest took full control of that energy, and snatched her spirit before death had truly occurred. Using the potent energies released, he sent Lastel’s spirit and Kethry’s back to their proper containers.

There were still other energies being released; those binding Lastel’s form into a woman’s shape, and those altering Tarma. Quicker than thought the priest gained hold of those as well. With half of his attention he erected a shield over the swordswoman and her partner; with the other he sent those demon-born magics hurtling back to their caster.

 

 

Kethry had been stunned by Warrl’s apparent treachery; had actually felt herself dying—

—and now suddenly found herself very much alive, and back in her proper body. She sat up, blinking in surprise.

Beside her on the marble floor was a dead man, wearing the garments she herself had worn as Lastel. Warrl stood over him, growling, every hair on end. But her mage-sense for energy told her that the tale had not yet seen its end. As if to confirm this, a howl of anguish rose behind her
“Noooooooooooo....”

The voice began a brazen bass, and spiraled up to a fragile soprano.

Kethry twisted around, staring in astonishment. Behind her was Thalhkarsh—

A demon no longer. A
male
no longer. Instead, from out of the amethystine eyes of the delicate mortal creature he had mockingly called his toy stared Thalhkarsh’s hellspawn spirit—dumbfounded, glassy-eyed with shock, hardly able to comprehend what had happened to him. Powerless now—and as female and fragile as either of the two he had thought to take revenge upon—and a great deal more helpless.

“This—cannot—be—” she whispered, staring at her thin hands. “I cannot have failed—”

“My poor friend.”

The little priest, whom Kethry had overlooked in the fight, having eyes only for the demon, his servants, and Lastel, reached for one of the demon’s hands with true and courageous sympathy.