Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER SEVEN

South of Neverwinter 11 Kythorn,the Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

Farideh and Brin did not speak until they reached the camp. The sun had set and Mehen and Tam were strapping on their armor by the firelight. Havilar paced-already armed and armored-her face drawn and pale. When she saw her sister and Brin break through into the clearing, she dropped her glaive and rushed at them.

“Gods!” she cried. “There you are! What happened? I lost you!”

“Nothing,” Farideh said. “We just got separated.”

“Right,” Brin said, too quickly. “Just a little turned around.” Havilar stared at both of them.

“You got a little turned around?” Havilar said, her voice slipping into a panicked pitch. “I didn’t know where you were. You might have been lost!”

“We weren’t,” Farideh said, waving her off.

“We were for a little bit,” Brin said. “But we’re fine.”

“And even if we were,” Farideh said, “you couldn’t have done anything about it that we didn’t already do.”

“She might have killed the owlbear,” Brin admitted.

“Owlbear?” Havilar shrieked.

Farideh pursed her lips. “Thank you, Brin. All right, you might have killed the owlbear that chased us, but we got away. Everything’s fine.”

“Everything is not fine, and don’t you dare pretend it is!”

“Calm down,” Farideh said. “You’re getting upset about nothing.”

Havilar’s cheeks turned red. “You think you’re the only one who matters? You think you’re the only one who gets to worry about anyone? First you throw yourself out into the middle of that fight and then-”

“Oh for the Hells’ sake,” Farideh snapped. “Havi, we’re fine!”

“Oh course you’re fine,” Havilar retorted. “Lorcan was watching out for you, wasn’t he?” She turned to Brin. “She lied before. She’s not a sorcerer.”

Brin flushed. “I … I, um …”

“Gods damn it, Havi, he knows, all right? Calm down and stop shouting.” Farideh’s chest tightened and she was all too aware of Tam, standing at the far side of the camp. “You’re embarrassing both of us.”

But Havilar kept her eyes on Brin. “Did she tell you I was the one who called him? That she snatched him up from me? I’ll bet she didn’t. I’ll bet-”

“Gods, Havi, stop it! You’re being jealous. No one left you behind.”

Havilar shoved her. “You’re being a henish. We’re supposed to be a team.”

“That’s a fair thing to say when you’re calling me a henish!” She pushed Havilar’s arm away, the shadow-smoke boiling up around her-

“Knock it off!” Mehen shouted. He seized both by the shoulders and yanked them apart. “You two are acting like a pair of hatchlings.”

“But she-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “Havilar, you need to calm down. You’re upsetting yourself, and saying things you and I both know you don’t mean. Farideh’s fine, you’re fine, everything’s all right.”

“And you,” he said turning to Farideh, “need to snap out of it. You scared your sister, whether you meant to or not, and that deserves a little kindness. And need I remind you,” he added, dropping his voice and switching to Draconic, “that bloody devil is supposed to stay away from you.”

“I know. He just came. I couldn’t do anything.”

“You told me he would stay away-so why does Brin know? Were you showing off?”

“No! I can’t call him,” she said. “He’s not like a trained dog. He just shows up.” She paused. “He said we shouldn’t go to Neverwinter. There was something-”

“We’re not changing plans now. Especially not because karshoji Lorcan said so.”

“He was trying to warn us. Like with the orcs. He was worried-”

“Worried about causing enough trouble.” Mehen said. “We’re taking Tam and Brin to Neverwinter. That’s it. And if I hear another word about Lorcan, I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” Farideh shouted. “Leave me in the woods back where you found me? Maybe you can find some other daughter who isn’t such a disappointment.”

Mehen threw back his head and roared, his sharp teeth bared. Farideh took a step back.

“Enough!” Mehen looked back over his shoulder, to Tam and Brin and Havilar who was watching wide-eyed, and switched back to Common. “This is the watch order-the priest, me, Havi, Farideh, Brin. If you’re not Tam, eat your waybread and go to bed. And you,” he said to Farideh, “I don’t want to hear another word from you until we’ve both calmed down, understand?”

Farideh nodded tightly and brushed past Mehen to find a spot away from all of them. Her cheeks were burning, and she would have liked to curl up and vanish. It was a cruel thing to say to Mehen, but … it was only the truth. It was clear he’d rather have two of Havilar. It was clear she’d be better off if they did part ways once they reached Neverwinter, and so would Mehen.

Mehen lay awake and staring up at the cold stars, biding his time until the priest was ready to change shifts and turning Farideh’s words over and over in his thoughts, as if there were some way to see it that didn’t stick in his throat.

How could she think that? How could she believe he thought she was a disappointment? He wasn’t disappointed in her … just in her decisions, and that was simple enough to fix. She just wouldn’t. Too bad Farideh was as stubborn as a mule in mud.

Mehen could still recall Farideh at the age of six wearing too-small boots long into the sweltering summer, because she’d adored the rabbit fur trim. Mehen had laughed at her willfulness, and she’d been angry then, too.

But Lorcan was no pair of boots, and Mehen couldn’t slip into her room one night and throw him in the midden. He tapped on the roof of his mouth, anxious and irritated. If she’d had a room for him to find that devil in, he’d do worse than throw the bastard in the rubbish heap.

Mehen sat up. He wasn’t going to sleep, so he might as well not pretend. He picked up his sword and strode across the camp to the tree where Tam sat, his chain uncoiled in a sinuous line across the dirt. The priest watched, but only nodded as Mehen sat down and laid the falchion across his lap.

“You can take your turn sleeping, if you like,” Mehen said, staring at the fire.

“In a bit,” Tam said. “I don’t sleep a great deal these days. Might as well sit watch.”

“You don’t have some sort of …” Mehen waved a hand vaguely at the moon. “Rituals to attend to.”

Tam chuckled. “It’s not as formal as all that. She won’t forget me if I don’t make offerings for a night.”

“You gave her offerings enough in orc blood, eh?”

“Well, no. That’s not my lady’s taste.”

Mehen examined the serpentine curve of the chain. A dark patina coated every link, and only the spikes-sharpened not too long ago, he suspected-gleamed in the firelight.

He looked up at Tam. “Thought your sort preferred a staff. Or somesuch.”

Tam shrugged. “A relic,” he said. “From a previous life. I was a blade-for-hire. As it turns out, the chain plays well with the Moonmaiden’s magic.” He nodded at Mehen’s falchion. “Abeiran?”

“The design, not the blade,” Mehen said. “It was made for me in Tymanther.” He turned the blade over. “Meant for a lance defender honor guard, but no one makes things for ornament only in Djerad Thymar. It’s served me well.” He did not offer more, and the priest, to his credit, didn’t ask.

But Tam did say, “It’s not easy living in a world where the rules are all different than what you know. It’s taken me fifteen years to stop thinking everyone’s going to run me through the minute I turn my back.”

Mehen nodded. “Like learning how to walk and talk all over again.”

“Much the same, I suspect.” The silence stretched on before Tam spoke again. “What is it keeping you awake?”

“Unfinished arguments.”

“Ah. Well, you probably did the best you could, ending it there.”

Mehen tapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You don’t have children. You don’t know.”

“I do, actually,” Tam said. “A daughter. She’s … let’s see, twenty-four now? Lives in Baldur’s Gate, making ends meet as an antiquary and historian.”

Mehen fought back a sneer. Such a human assertion. “Kosjmyrni. Her mother’s daughter.”

“I suppose,” Tam said with an easy smile, “if you want to look at it like a dragonborn, then yes. But I’ve made it a point to know Mira. And we’ve had our share of arguments.” He nodded at the fire, at Farideh and Havilar’s sleeping forms. “How old are they?”

Mehen shrugged. “Based off the midwife’s guess, seventeen. We’ll say eighteen once Mirtul rolls around.”

“It gets hard around then,” Tam said. “They’re grown women. It doesn’t suit well to send them to bed without supper or dress them down in front of their comrades.”

Mehen growled, low in his throat at the subtle judgment. “You don’t know my girls. Don’t make guesses about what they need.”

Tam shrugged again, seemingly unconcerned with the threat. “It’s how it is. They want your approval still-”

“And they get it,” he said. When they’re not being impossible.

“But they don’t need it anymore.” Tam stood and gathered up his chain. “Again, I don’t mean offense. You’ll do as you will, but make no mistake: they’ll grow up whether you like it or not. You can let them find their own ways, or you can keep them reined in and find out too late you’ve done them a great disservice.”

Didn’t mean offense, bah! Mehen glared at the priest’s back as he retreated to his own bedroll. Every day of the twins’ lives brought someone new telling Clanless Mehen he didn’t know how to raise his own daughters.

When he’d found them, coming back to Arush Vayem from a long hunt, no one in the village had wanted to take them in. Tieflings-twin tieflings-well, that was unlucky. And one with an odd eye, like a feytouched dog? Well, no one needed a priest of Beshaba to interpret those signs. The goddess of ill-fortune might as well have left her thumbprint right between the bumps of their budding horns.

It had broken Mehen’s heart, the way they’d all averted their eyes, claimed to have too many responsibilities, too many mouths to feed, too little knowledge of babies. Mehen couldn’t have his own offspring, outcast as he was, and he hadn’t been afraid.

He looked across the fire at Farideh’s sleeping form.

He wouldn’t trade a hundred eggs for her, even if she tried his patience, even if she pushed him to the brink of his temper, even if she refused to listen and contradicted him and thought she knew better when Mehen knew she didn’t. But if she came to harm because of Lorcan, Mehen would never forgive himself.

After all, he had raised her better than that.

I should tell her so, Mehen thought. Both of those things.

Seventeen. He had only been a year or so older when he’d taken them in. Younger when he’d been renounced by Clan Verthisathurgiesh, and left the capitol of Djerad Thymar to find a new home in Arush Vayem.

But that was different. He was dragonborn. At their age, he’d have been an adult in his clan’s eyes for several years-wedded and with at least one clutch of eggs hatched-and leaving Tymanther, losing the mate and the eggs, didn’t change that.

Tieflings grew more slowly. At three, a dragonborn was half-grown. At three, the twins had still been trying to master Common.

And at seventeen, they weren’t old enough to know what they needed. Mehen still knew what was best for them.

Wyssin, Lorcan knew, wasn’t an easy herb to sample. Especially for mortals. His sisters praised the way it strengthened their senses and sped up their reactions. Lorcan had pilfered a pinch or two before deciding it wasn’t to his tastes. It made every sound flare like a torch, every scrap of light sharp as a needle. The mind raced and the muscles twitched. Lorcan knew better than to get in his sisters’ way before a raid, if they had the stuff-any one of them might run him through before they even realized he was there.

So when the arrow punched through the edge of his left wing as he landed beside the small, smoky campfire, Lorcan wasn’t entirely surprised. Goruc sat huddled in the dark, assaulted, no doubt, by a thousand tiny noises from a thousand different directions. His hands shook as he set another arrow to his bow.

“I see you’ve been experimenting,” Lorcan said dryly. He winced, pushed the arrow through, and examined the bloodied tip. “Though, thankfully, not with the poison. Get your blades ready.”

“What for?” Goruc said. “You want to fight me? I could take you. I will take you.” He threw down the bow and reached for his axe.

“Heavens and Hells-no.” Why did he always pick the excitable ones? “Your quarry is near. They’re about an hour’s ride from here, right off the road. Go now, and you’ll catch them in the dark.”

“I’ve been running after them all day long,” Goruc said. “I need to sleep.”

Lorcan smiled. “But you and I both know you can’t rest while the wyssin is flogging your mind. Might as well take care of things now.”

Goruc blinked at him rapidly-Lorcan was only half-mortal, and he knew well how the wyssin made his thoughts race. Someone like Goruc’s mind was likely to come apart if Lorcan gave him too much to think about.

“Go north. Along the road. Give yourself a little more of the devilweed and you should have no problems finding the boy and the dragonborn.” He smiled. “I’ll check in on you once you’re finished.” He’d come through the portal near their camp in an hour or so. The boy would be dead, so would Mehen. He’d convince Farideh to come away from the Ashmadai and Rohini, and she’d trust him even more because she’d have to.

Goruc sneered. “Check on me? I’ll give him something to check on.”

“Yes, yes,” Lorcan said, waving a dismissive hand. “Don’t forget your blades.”

Goruc sneered at him, tensed as if he were about to attack anyway. He opened the vial and carefully dripped a line of the viscous liquid along his axe blade. A fringe of steam rose off the metal where the poison landed and dried almost instantly. He carefully slipped the weapon into its holster and repeated the process on the tips of each of his arrows.

Finally, Goruc pulled out his dagger with a trembling hand. Before poisoning it, he dragged the tip down his face from forehead to chin, skimming lightly over the eyelid. Blood ran down his face and into his eye.

“What in the Hells are you doing?” Lorcan asked.

“Mourning scar,” Goruc grunted. “The blood washes the weakness from my sight. The pain reminds me of my dead.” He scowled at Lorcan. “The ones your witch killed.”

Lorcan smiled and opened the portal of the Needle of the Crossroads. “Let that one go. She’s very well-armed these days.”

There was a moment-only a moment-when Farideh woke, where her mind was empty, her thoughts still, when she might be anyone but herself. An elf in the woods, a sailor on the Sea of Fallen Stars, a genasi general, or just a regular human girl stirring in a regular bed in Waterdeep. When she might not know Lorcan or Havilar or Mehen or anyone else whose raw and jagged feelings were turned against her.

But then she blinked, the world solidified, and she was who she was.

And Havilar was nudging her ungently with one boot.

“ ’S your watch,” she hissed. “Get up.”

“I’m awake,” Farideh said, sitting up and throwing off her cloak. The fire still crackled low in the pit. The dark shapes of Mehen, Brin, and Tam, still fast asleep on the ground, made a sort of broken wall around the site.

“I was shaking you forever,” Havilar said, tromping back to the tree she’d been standing watch beside and retrieving her glaive. “You have to take your turn you know.”

“I’m up!” Farideh pulled her leather jack on. “What is wrong with you?”

“Me? Nothing. I’m surprised you care all of the sudden.”

Farideh picked up the rod Lorcan had given her and turned it over in her hands. It didn’t feel like anything other than a stick of polished wood-except for the way it made it seem so much simpler to grasp the powers that fueled her spells-but considering the source it might be a gift she would always be grateful for or it might be a curse she’d spend all her life wishing she hadn’t accepted.

“Gods, Havi, you were scared for all of a few minutes. Let it lie.”

“You could have been dead.”

“Even if that were so, I’m the one who was lost in the godsdamned woods.”

Havilar shook out her blanket and laid it on the ground beside the fire with excessive care. “You weren’t even sorry,” she muttered, after she’d smoothed it out, “You’re never sorry.”

Farideh’s annoyance boiled over and it took all of her effort to keep her voice low. “Fine,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got lost. I’m sorry I got chased by an owlbear and didn’t wait for you to kill it. I’m sorry Lorcan finally showed up and practically scared the piss out of Brin. I’m sorry I didn’t stay lost so you could tear your hair and beat your breast and wail on and on about how upset you are-oh wait, no.” She gestured at her sister with the rod. “You seem to be quite capable of that one. You think I’m never sorry? I’m sorry every godsdamned day, so let this one stupid thing go. You got scared.”

“That’s not all of it and you know it,” Havilar shot back. “First you took Lorcan and now you’re taking Brin.”

“Taking Brin? He’s not a pet-he can make his own decisions.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You think we were off having a tryst? I’m not even fond of him,” Farideh said. Then sense overcame her temper, and she looked at Havilar with new eyes. “Oh. Are you fond of him?”

“No!”

Farideh swallowed. “Are you fond of Lorcan?”

“That’s not it.”

“Then what is it, Havi? I can’t read your mind.”

Havilar crossed her arms. “You’re just …” she started. She turned away and tried again. “You’re going off with all these boys just because they give you things and talk to you, and you leave me behind with Mehen like something you don’t even want around anymore. I’m your sister. Doesn’t that matter?”

Farideh took a deep breath to calm herself. Concentrate every one of their arguments, and at the core, it was all about Havilar. It was always about Havilar.

“First, two people is not ‘all these boys.’ Second, you ran off without me the other night so how is it different? Third-”

But she never got to her third point.

A horrible, hollow sound interrupted her. Havilar cried out and fell back a step, clutching her midsection. Again the sound came, and Havilar started to fall, the shafts of arrows protruding from her stomach and ribs.

Farideh screamed-her sister’s name or just an animal howl? She couldn’t tell. Her senses were too full of the blackness of Havilar’s blood welling through her fingers, the whimpered pants Havilar made as Farideh caught her and slowed her fall. The uninterrupted dark beyond the campfire where the arrows had come from. The powers of the Hells beating her pulse for her, pouring their venom and flame and miasmas through her and into the etched rod she couldn’t loosen her fingers from.

A branch rustled and Farideh thrust the rod toward it. A blast of bruised light lit the forest beyond, sizzling with a sickly perfume. It lit the face of an orc for a moment before it struck him. Heavy brows. Deliberate scars on his forehead. A bow and an ugly notched axe. His eyes were hungry and fierce when he looked back at Farideh.

Him, she thought, not knowing where she knew the orc from, but knowing, certain, she had to kill him. He would kill Havi if she didn’t. He would kill Farideh if she didn’t.

She swept the rod forward and released a fiery bolt of magic toward the figure. The rod made the flame brighter, closer, hotter. It seared the orc as he approached and sent him scampering back.

Behind her, Mehen and Tam and Brin were awake and on their feet. She dimly heard Mehen’s bellowed orders, Tam’s clanking chain. The orc was charging at her through the brush. Let him, she thought, the pulse of the Hells whispering to her of vengeance, of protection.

There was hardly a need to pull-the powers were simply there, ready and waiting. She could see the lines of her veins, black and bulging, as the engines of Malbolge fed her. A storm of brimstone rained out of the air and shattered in sparks all around the orc. She saw in the flash of the spell, the priest leap backward to avoid the rain.

Mehen was shouting at her to stop, to let them pass, but she paid him no heed. It was her and the orc. She slashed the rod across her, and a wave of rotten-smelling heat roiled away and toward her prey.

The orc rolled under it, and came up much closer than Farideh expected. So close she could see the red line of poison dripping down the edge of his axe. Mehen shouted and she could hear him running toward her. Someone was praying loudly-Tam.

Farideh raised the rod, hoping to loose another fire bolt at him before the axe could fall.

Instead, a whole wall of fire exploded outward. It caught the orc as he started to swing the axe and flung him away like a rag doll into the pitch-dark night. Mehen and Tam barreled past her into the darkness of the forest.

Farideh shouted. She dropped the rod in surprise.

“M’henish,” she swore hoarsely. What in the Hells had that been? There was no answer-only the crashing of Mehen and Tam barreling through the forest and the crackle of smoldering brush where the flames had passed.

“Fari,” Havilar whimpered.

“Oh gods,” Farideh cried, and she dropped to her knees beside her sister.

The arrows had buried themselves deeply in Havilar’s gut.

Fatal, she thought, Mehen’s voice lecturing them about caring for wounds. Fatal, always fatal without healing.

Farideh reached for her belt, but the healing potion was missing. She grasped at the belt, it had to be there-then remembered, no, she’d given it to someone else’s sister to save someone else from an arrow wound.

“Mehen!” she screamed. “Mehen!” But there was nothing for Mehen to do. Tam could do something. Tam could do healing. “Tam!”

Havilar raised a hand and grasped at her own belt. Havilar had a healing potion too, Farideh remembered. She clutched alongside Havilar’s hands, trying to find it in the dark, among the pouches and buckles and blood. Their four hands closed on it, pried it loose. Farideh took it, but her fingers slipped on the cap-why couldn’t she grab it?

Brin was there, kneeling beside her. Where had he come from? Where had he been? She kept twisting at the cap, but Brin took the vial from her, and only then did Farideh notice her hands were slippery with Havilar’s blood.

Brin cracked the vial and poured half over Havilar’s wound, and half down her throat. She coughed and bits of the yellowish potion came back up, as well as a gout of her blood. Her eyes were terrified, and she clutched Farideh’s shaking hands in her own.

The wounds started to heal, the blood slowed … but it didn’t stop. No magic pushed the arrows back from Havilar’s ruined gut. The healing wasn’t working.

“Poisoned,” Brin said. “We have to get the arrows out. Do you know how to do that?”

“She’ll bleed to death,” Farideh said, the words coming out in a rush. “You don’t take the arrows out because she’ll bleed to death.”

“No,” Brin said, “I promise she won’t. Just get the arrows out.”

Farideh blinked back tears and nodded. Please be right, she thought. Please don’t let the last thing I said to Havilar be such a stupid, pothac argument. She crawled to her haversack and took out her knife, hoping it was sharp enough.

Havilar’s eyes were wild with pain and terror and shock. Brin held one hand behind her head, telling her to stay awake, to hold on.

Farideh could not look at her sister as she sliced into Havilar’s belly. Short strokes, small cuts, just enough to loosen the barb and pry out the arrow. The blood was gushing up now, over skin and yellow fat. She’d avoided the gushing vessels, but there was so much blood still and it was all over her. Still, she cut and wept, while Havilar whimpered.

She pulled the arrows out one by one and cast them as far as she could into the darkness. Brin was talking, but all she heard was a droning and the sound of her own thoughts: Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die.

Havilar was so pale, nearly gray. The last arrow came free, and Brin clapped his hands over Havilar’s belly, over the fountain of blood that welled up there, through his fingers.

“Loyal Fury,” he said, his voice shaking, “aid this servant of your justice.”

The air between hand and skin glowed with a sudden golden light. The hairs on Farideh’s nape stood on end and the light intensified. Havilar screamed again, but something strange and sharp, like the ringing of a sword being sharpened overlaid the sound. Farideh squeezed her sister’s hand hard as the light became blinding and the ring of the sword and Havilar’s scream twined into one sound … then faded.

Havilar lay still, her eyes shut.

“Havi!” Farideh cried, and she tapped her cheek. “Havi, no, Havi, wake up!”

Havilar twitched away from her sister’s hand by the second tap and flinched. She groaned and her eyes fluttered open. “Am I dead yet?”

Farideh burst into tears and threw her arms around her sister’s neck. “No, gods. No. You’re fine. You’re fine. Brin, oh gods, thank you! Thank you!”

Havilar reached up and hugged Farideh back. She was sorry. They were both sorry. Neither needed to say anything. It would be all right.

“Brin?” Havilar said, sounding dazed and weak. Farideh let her go.

“I’m here,” he said, leaning closer.

“I didn’t know you could do a priest’s magic.”