Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER TWO

A chorus of bowstrings sang out and the driver of the wagon behind them screamed, an arrow sunk into his side. Orcs boiled out of the brush, axes clattering on their shields. The little girls in the wagon woke, eyes wide, startling at screams and too shocked to listen to their father’s orders to lie flat in the cart.

All around Brin, people who’d been riding along, quiet as you please, pulled weapons from under provisions and wagon seats and jumped from their carts under a hail of arrows. Tam leaped out of the cart as well and unwound the spiked chain he wore around his narrow waist.

“Shar and hrast.” The priest spat. He shoved a dagger into Brin’s hand. “Under the cart. Stay low and hamstring them as they pass.” His chain lashed out, suddenly alive with holy fire, and caught an orc that sprang onto the road by the throat.

Brin’s ears were buzzing loud enough to drown out the screaming. He looked down at the blade in his hand-rougher than the one in his pack, smaller than the short sword he had in the cart bed. What had the priest said?

What had Constancia said? Loyal Fury, you fight like an actor. You’ll faint the first time someone draws a sword on you, Torm help me-

Brin gripped the blade, despite the fact he did feel light-headed and sick-he knew how to use a bloody dagger!

He looked up in time to duck a notched axe blade. It sliced past his head and slammed into the side of the wagon.

Instinct made him turn the dagger into the orc’s partly bare chest. It sliced through his pectoral and immediately caught on a rib. The orc screamed, a sound more of rage than pain, as he struggled against the stuck axe head.

Brin bolted.

The loose dirt of the forest floor made him slip, and his legs seemed suddenly too long and clumsy, but he ran as fast as he could as the clashing sounds of battle built behind him. There was no room in his head for thoughts of what Constancia would think, what the priest would think, what Torm-the god of duty himself-would think. All Brin knew was that he needed to get as far as possible from the orc with the axe.

Another fearsome roar rattled the air and a creature-half man and half dragon it seemed-barreled up the road. The refugees turned to contend with this new front. But the huge, wicked-looking sword the dragon-man carried avoided the humans and cut into one orc after another. He roared, and the crackle of lightning spread out from his mouth, leaping from orc to orc.

After him, on feet as quick as a deer’s, a devil dressed in well-fitted scale armor used a glaive to stab one orc and then vaulted over his body to kick a second.

Brin’s foot caught a wagon rut as he sprinted past. He sprawled forward, skinning his nose on the ground. He turned over, at the thud of feet. Axe-wielding orcs, three of them now, were chasing him down.

He hadn’t even made it across the road.

The orc in the lead slowed, just enough to pull his axe back over one shoulder.

Torm forgive me, Brin thought. He wished he could apologize to Constancia.

Crack!

With a gust of flames and shadows, something, some creature stood between Brin and the orcs, a horned thing in purple robes with a twitching tail. It raised both hands, gave a soft gasp of effort, and where the robes had fallen down its arms-its human arms-Brin saw veins suffused with black. Horrible clouds of something caustic and dark billowed out toward the orcs. Their screams drowned out the sounds of the fight beyond.

The thing turned on Brin. He glimpsed a face like a girl’s, but with strange eyes and horns. A devil.

“Oh, Loyal Torm,” he managed, before she grabbed him firmly by the arm, and he was yanked … away. The world dropped out from under him, and it felt as if he were being dragged through a bonfire.

He blinked, and suddenly, he was coughing at the sharp taste of brimstone and looking up at the fir tree that had been a solid twenty feet to his right when she’d first grabbed his arm.

The devil wasn’t looking at him. She was watching the orcs. One lay on the ground, half out of the thicket and dead or at least stunned into stillness, but the other two were trying to figure out where the devil and Brin had gone.

She didn’t give them much time to wonder. She tensed again, as something seemed to pulse through her. She spoke a soft word, and a smattering of missiles-a hail of burning sulfur-rained down on the orcs. They howled again, and sprinted toward the devil.

Brin pulled himself up and to his feet. He’d lost the dagger, but … surely there was something he could do to stop her … send her back to-

The devil cast another hail of fire and one of the orcs racing toward them went down. She grabbed Brin by the hand as the orcs reached them, but he twisted, trying to break free. The closest orc’s axe darted out awkwardly, and the flat of it smashed into Brin’s thigh as it swung past.

The devil twisted and punched a fist under the orc’s upraised arm. The orc cried out and dropped the axe. The devil gasped another word in some infernal language.

Again all Brin smelled was brimstone and they were suddenly a few cart-lengths ahead of where they’d been, beyond the fir tree and behind some brush that overhung the side of the road. Brin fell to the ground and cried out with pain. The creature looked down at him, one eye blazing gold, the other silver. “Stay back!”

The second devil was nearly on top of them. She twisted, her glaive catching two orc warriors in the throat in quick succession, the end thrusting back into the first’s belly for good measure, as the first devil caught the same orc with a blaze of flames.

This close he could make out their faces-nearly identical. The same sort of devil. The world was full of monsters.

“What are you doing?” the devil with the glaive shouted.

“Changing the plan!”

“Well hit the damned archers at least!”

The devil who had Brin dragged another rain of sulfur into existence, sending the missiles searing through the forest. Screams followed. She did it again, the blackness suffusing her veins like rot.

He looked up to see the orc who had wounded him running toward them, his features fixed in fury.

“Ye gods!” he cried. He raised his hands, praying furiously-

The orc roared and swung his axe again. The devil-girl holding Brin by the arm didn’t flinch. Her hand came up again, and this time a great gout of flame streaked out of it.

The last of the three orcs toppled over, smoldering slightly and not moving. Another dozen or so lay dead around the caravan, and the remainder were running, crashing through the woods. The scaled man poked at a few orcs’ bodies. The other devil made a few flourishes with her glaive, but the battle had ended. Brin saw the priest drop his chain and rush to the side of a woman whose shirtfront was soaked through with blood. She wasn’t the only casualty. Brin’s hands started to itch.

“Are you all right?” the devil said, bringing him sharply back to the present. Her voice shook and her breath came hard. She reached out to touch his neck where the vein pulsed.

He slapped her hand away and she fell back. He tried to scuttle away, but a sharp pain in his leg reminded him it was injured. The devil leaned down and grabbed his hands again. But instead of teleporting, she hushed him.

“Look,” she said, her voice still light and uneven. “Look, you’re going to hurt yourself. Stop it.” She pulled a vial off her belt and held it out to him. “Here. Here! Drink it.”

He shoved it away. The gods only knew what was in there. She looked around-they were partially hidden behind an overgrown broom shrub. No one would see. No one would stop her …

Gods, gods, she was going to-

“Take the potion,” she said gently. “You’re having a fit of shock.”

“You …” He paused and swallowed. “You can’t trick me like that. Can’t kidnap me.”

She sighed. “If I wanted to kidnap you, don’t you think I would have already done it? You’ve got a wounded leg and you’re panicking.” She gave him a sad look. “I’m trying to help. You’re going to have a hard time walking if you don’t tend it.”

“Where … where are you going to make me walk?” he said, his voice drying up. Her cheeks burned brightly and she looked away.

The second devil-girl strode up and planted her bloodied glaive, tilting it away from her. “Eater of Her Enemies’ Livers,” she interrupted with a wicked glee. “I just thought of it.”

Her twin glared up at her. “Not now.”

“Why?” She seemed to notice Brin. “Oh. Well met. Is he dying?”

“No.”

“Good,” she said. “Then: Eater of Her Enemies’ Livers?”

The first devil sighed. “No. It’s too many words.”

The second girl scowled. “But they’re all the right words.”

“It sounds pretentious.”

“You mean ‘glorious.’ ” The second girl wrinkled her nose and turned to Brin. “What do you think?”

“Ab-about what?” he said. He swallowed. Was this how devils tricked one? Why couldn’t he remember? He could hear the clerics who had given him his lessons droning on about fiendish creatures, see all the lines of their faces, the whiskers of beards and the sleekness of severe coiffures … but the words weren’t coming to him.

Not demons-demons would have ripped him apart and been done. That was something.

“About ‘Eater of Her Enemies’ Livers,’ ” the girl said in an exasperated tone. “Is it pretentious or does it strike fear into the very core of your heart?”

“She’s trying to name her glaive,” the first devil explained. “Like in a story.”

The second one peered at him. “Maybe I shouldn’t ask you. You look a little peaked.”

“Yes,” the first twin said. “So stop waving your glaive in his face, Havilar.”

“Eater of Her Enemies’ Livers,” the second corrected.

The first shrugged. She pulled a rag out of her haversack and handed it to her sister. “I liked ‘Kidney Carver’ better.” She took out a small leather roll and handed it to Brin. “If you want, you can use it.” Brin stared, dumbly. She unrolled it for him. It looked like a healer’s kit.

“Kidney Carver sounds common,” Havilar said. “Like some butcher’s cleaver.”

“Where’s Mehen?” the devil-girl said, still watching him.

“Cleaning up,” Havilar answered. “Why did you run out like that? He’s going to be furious.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Not now, Havi.”

“Yes now, Farideh,” Havilar said. “You ran out like you were going to start cutting all their heads off yourself. You never do that.”

Brin’s pulse was deafening. “To get me,” he said hoarsely. “You came out to … take me from the orcs.”

Farideh’s odd eyes settled back on him, and she nodded hesitantly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Are you feeling better?”

Havilar bent down and looked at Brin. “You look pale. Are you sure he’s not dying?”

“Ignore her,” Farideh said. “You don’t seem to be bleeding anywhere, so it’s likely a little bit of shock. Which having a blade waved in your face doesn’t help.”

Havilar made a disgruntled little noise and pulled her glaive back. “Worrywart.”

“Show-off,” Farideh muttered.

“I’m the show off? You’re the one slinging magic all around like it was pebbles. What’s that thing? That thing with the fire?”

“A fire bolt.”

“You did a fire bolt on an orc. A wounded orc.” Havilar put a hand on her hip. “That is the very definition of a show-off. Mehen told you to stay back.”

“Says the girl who managed to work a little twirl into every one of her attacks. You know Mehen’s going to tell you off for that.”

“Thrik-ukris!” a man’s voice bellowed, and both girls shut their mouths.

Striding toward them was the enormous scaled man-no, not a man. Brin remembered now: dragonborn.

He had seen dragonborn come to the temple of Torm once, and once before that in the markets of Suzail. They were fierce, disciplined fighters, new to the world of Faerun-new, anyway, since the Blue Fire had remade things a hundred years ago. This far north, they were few and far between indeed.

“What in all the depths and heights of the planes around was that!” The dragonborn man’s features were fearsome even though his movements were sure and calm. Like Havilar he was well fitted in scale armor over his own reddish scales, and along his jaw there were a series of holes, as if once he’d worn rings in that ridge.

He pointed a sharp-taloned finger at the first twin. “We had a plan. You leaped in there throwing fire like a street performer in front of fifty karshoji people, and then very nearly got yourself spitted on a pothac orc’s bastard sword. What in the Hells were you thinking?”

Farideh’s face contorted in anger. “Everyone can stop shouting at me, thanks. I was thinking they were going to kill him. Did you want me just to watch?”

She meant Brin. The orcs had been going to kill … He felt dizzy.

“If I hadn’t done something,” she continued, “then he’d be the one spitted on a sword.”

“Axe,” Havilar said blandly, scrutinizing her glaive. She looked down at him. “You can’t spit things on an axe though. Split. You would have been split on that axe.”

Brin turned and vomited on the ground beside him.

“Yes,” the dragonborn said sarcastically. “I can see you’ve saved quite the precious soul. What would they have done without him?”

“I didn’t get in your way,” Farideh said. “It’s not like they weren’t going to be able to tell what we are anyway. You let Havilar out.”

“Tieflings are one thing but warlo-” He broke off with a hissing sigh. “No,” the man said, “we can have this conversation later. When I lecture your sister for wasting her energy prancing around the battlefield like a godsdamned acrobat!”

“I killed seven of them!” Havilar protested.

“You killed five,” the dragonborn replied. “The two that limped off don’t count. And you could have taken nine.” He looked down at Brin, his eyes as cold and clear as a snake’s, but far more clever. “Are you done heaving all over the ground?”

“Y-yes,” Brin said.

The dragonborn reached beneath his breastplate and pulled out a much-folded, much-handled piece of paper. He smoothed it out and squatted down beside Brin so he could hold it close to his face. It smelled odd and musky, like dragonborn, concentrated. The page was a wanted poster-a picture of a sour-looking woman looked back at Brin. A pointed chin, a pinched nose. Dark, narrow eyes and darker hair with severe bangs. Brin’s heart started racing, and once more, he was afraid he was going to faint.

“You know her?” the dragonborn said. “You see her in that caravan?”

“No,” Brin said. He’d not seen her in the caravan, but he’d seen her nearly every day of his young life.

The woman was Constancia. Utterly, undoubtedly Constancia.

Of course Constancia had come looking for him-it was her head once someone realized he’d fled. Brin had counted on the fact that no one would send out hunters and wanted posters for him-too many had too much at stake for his name to become well-known. But if Constancia had ridden out after him, if she hadn’t gone to her superiors at the temple or their family, then …

The poster spoke volumes: Constancia was apostate for losing Brin.

The dragonborn stood, muttering under his breath in a language that wasn’t Common. “Farideh, Havilar-you two stay here. I’ll sort out things with the caravan master.” He pointed at each of them. “Don’t. Move.”

“Do you think they need help?” Farideh said.

“Don’t you go near them,” the dragonborn said. “You don’t know anything about them and now they know too much about you. Chances are better than good you’ll need your own help when one of them gets skittish and decides to stick you. Stay. Here.”

“They might like us better if we gave them our healing potions,” Havilar said.

“If they’re stupid enough to be traveling this road without their own supplies, then you don’t want them to like you. And they have a priest, so stop making up reasons to go over there.” He stomped off, muttering in the same language as before, toward the caravan and the priest-who had moved on from the bloody woman to a man with a head wound.

I should help, Brin thought, but his mind was racing with concern for his cousin and concern about the devils. What was he going to do?

“Don’t mind Mehen,” Farideh said. “He’s just annoyed we aren’t having better luck up here.”

“We’re bounty hunters,” Havilar chimed in. “Only we have the worst quarry these days. Mehen took her off another bounty hunter who’d given up. Fari’s sure we’ve gotten ahead of her. It’s like hunting a ghost. Except you can lure ghosts.”

“No you can’t,” Farideh said. “Who told you that?”

“Everyone knows that. You use whiskey. In a little plate.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

Brin blinked at them, the fog of the fight dissipating and the reality of what he was sitting amidst dawning. “You aren’t devils, are you?”

Both girls turned toward him. Farideh’s mouth went small and tight and her cheeks flamed. Havilar burst out with a snort of laughter that she quickly smothered.

“Yes,” she said, waggling the fingers of her free hand. “Devils. We’re bounty hunters of the Hells! Come to steal you away!”

“Stop it, Havi,” Farideh said. “It’s not funny.”

“Oooooooh!” she wailed, trying to stifle her giggles. “We’ll fry your innards and spit-roast your heart! Boil down your soul for …” She looked at Farideh. “What do they do with souls anyway?”

Farideh glared at her. “They draw power from them. We’re not devils,” she said to Brin. “Haven’t you ever seen a tiefling?”

“No,” he admitted, though now he felt foolish. What would devils be doing on Faerun, chasing down errant novices like him? “I’ve … read about them. About you.”

Tieflings were the descendants of the unions between humans and fiends. While said union was many generations past, the taint of the devil’s blood bred true and all tieflings were cursed with strange, solid eyes; horns; and a tail. Many also had red skin, he had read, but the twins’ was fawn-colored-as ordinary as the Calishite priest and half the caravan in that regard. But their hair was such a black that it had a purplish cast, like a deep, day-old bruise … and their eyes …

He realized he’d been staring when Farideh said, rather delicately, “If you’d like to return to your family, we’d understand.”

“No,” Brin said. “I mean, they’re not my family, I don’t really know them. And I’m fine here. If that’s all right.” They weren’t devils. They were only girls. Girls who had saved him from marauding orcs. Orcs he had run from like a coward. He felt worse than sheepish.

Havilar and Farideh exchanged a glance, so quick he nearly missed it. “It’s all right. Is your leg any better?” Farideh said.

“Why are you traveling with them if you don’t know any of them?”

“Havi, hush. That’s none of our-”

“He doesn’t have to answer.” She looked at him. “You don’t have to answer.”

“They’re … it’s … It’s a refugee caravan,” he said after a moment. “But in reverse, I suppose. Returning to Neverwinter.”

“Neverwinter?” Farideh said. “I thought Neverwinter was destroyed ages ago.”

“It was. But they’re rebuilding it. And the Lord Neverember-well, he’s the one taking control of all the rebuilding and such-has called back the people who fled when Mount Hotenow erupted.”

Havilar looked at him askance. “Aren’t you a little young to have survived a catastrophe from thirty years ago?”

“Not me,” he said. “My parents. They fled and went to, um, Amn. I thought … I thought there would be something better for me in Neverwinter.”

Havilar squinted at him. “How old are you? Fifteen?”

“Seventeen,” he said hotly, forgetting to lie.

Havilar snorted. “You weigh as much as my glaive. What exactly do you think you’re going to be doing in Neverwinter?” she asked. “Not exactly fit for city-building. Also, your leg’s hurt.”

Brin scowled. He shifted to his feet and stood, gingerly applying weight to the leg. It bore him, even though it smarted. The axe handle hadn’t hit his knee. He could walk well enough until it could be healed.

“You’re still not about to clear a volcano’s remains,” Havilar said.

“It’s not all hauling stones and hammering posts,” Brin said. “Which I could do. It’s planning. And … constructing things. Opening stores. Making it a place worth staying in.” He dusted off his breeches. “It’s better than hunting criminals.”

Criminals. Constancia-Loyal Fury, it tore at him to think of casting her off to hunters like these. He wondered if Constancia rode with the holy champions. He wondered if it mattered against Havilar, quick and eager as she was with that glaive; stern Mehen; and Farideh with her magic. He’d never met a wizard who cast spells like that.

Sorcerer, he corrected himself. Wizards have books. Sorcerers just have magic.

Regardless, he owed Constancia. And now he owed these two-better they shouldn’t meet his cousin with her keen blade.

“If …” He hesitated deliberately. “Look, I haven’t seen your bounty, but if I were her and I were heading North … probably I’d go to Luskan.”

Havilar shook her head. “We do not want to go to Luskan.”

“It could be worse,” Farideh said, her eyes back on the cart behind them. “At least Luskan is the sort of place where no one cares what you look like.”

“It’s also the sort of place where you get stabbed in the night by pirates for no reason.”

“You’ve never even met someone who’s been to Luskan,” Farideh murmured. “You’re just repeating things you like the sound of.”

“Why are you such-”

Mehen returned then in a fouler temper than he’d left. After showing his leaflet to as many of the former refugees as would listen, he’d discovered that none of them had seen Constancia. Or at least, none would admit to it. And a fair number of them went out of their way not to talk to him at all.

“Brin says we should go to Luskan,” Havilar said.

Mehen scowled at Brin. “Did he? Which are you, boy, a thug or a hunter?”

“N-Neither?”

“Then I suppose I won’t be taking your advice,” he said. “Luskan can wait until we run out of options. Nobody’s going to help us in Luskan. It’s a Hellhole.”

See? Havilar mouthed to Brin.

Mehen looked up at her, then over her head, back at the caravan. “Farideh! Get back here! What in the Hells is wrong with you?”

Farideh was hurrying back from the lead cart, her cheeks scarlet. Brin hadn’t even seen her leave. The lead cart had been hit hard-the driver lay splayed across the seat with an arrow protruding from his ribs while his sister pressed a hand to the wound. Fortunately, she was also pouring a healing draft into his mouth.

Brin frowned.

The healing draft was in the same metal vial Farideh had been trying to press on him.

“Are you all right?” Mehen demanded.

“I’m fine,” she said. She turned rather deliberately away, to fuss with her haversack.

On the cart, the woman wrenched the arrow from her brother’s chest and he gasped. He sat up, wiping at the blood that slicked his skin, and breathing heavily-but breathing.

“Time to go,” Mehen said with a pointed look at Brin. He herded both twins ahead of him and down the road, without so much as a farewell. Both sisters glanced back once-Havilar with a jaunty wave, Farideh with a more solemn look-and it was only moments before they were down the road, and out of sight.

Brin went back to the cart. The cart owner was still alive-though nursing a wounded arm-and so were his daughters, and Brin said a little prayer of thanks.

“Monsters,” the man said, watching as the tieflings and the dragonborn headed down the road. “As if anyone with any sense would hand someone over to a pair of devil-children. One’s a curiosity, two’s a conspiracy. That and a dragonborn. Never know what those types are thinking.”

“Yes,” Brin said, shame in his chest. “Well.”

He realized hadn’t apologized for thinking they were devils. What had seemed like an honest mistake turned cruel and thoughtless when he heard the cart owner saying the same. He hadn’t thanked them for saving him either, or for saving the rest of the caravan. Brin turned to help Tam with another man, a farmer with a broken arm, wishing for all the world he was traveling with a pair of devil-children and a dragonborn.