Brimstone Angels

CHAPTER EIGHT

South of Neverwinter 12 Kythorn, the Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

Farideh stared at Brin’s bloodied hands, Havilar’s words bringing her back to her senses like a slap to the face.

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

It had been divine magic. There was no disguising it, no excusing it. The prayer to Torm. The flash of light. The sound of the sword on the whetstone.

Brin’s face was pale, and he was holding his breath. His eyes watched Farideh’s, flickering like candle flames as he tried to discern something-anything-in her gaze.

“You lied,” she said.

“Yes,” he admitted. Then, with a nervous smile, “Well, no. You didn’t ask if I knew any divine magic.”

“I didn’t think I had to.” All this time she’d been afraid of Tam finding out, and she’d revealed Lorcan to not only a priest, but a priest of Torm-in all the Heavens, there wasn’t another god so opposed to the path she’d taken as the god of duty and law.

“I’m not …” he started to say. “I’m … certainly not the sort … to …” He sighed. “What is it? What are you afraid of?”

She blinked at Brin. It couldn’t be true. “The caravan. You didn’t use it on the caravan.”

“Look, I know what it seems like. But I’m not-truly-I’m not a priest. I’m not even a paladin, and I … I had lessons, with holy champions. They taught me some things. But not everything.”

“But this.” She looked down at Havilar, at the wound that was only a scratch and the drying pools of her sister’s blood. “They taught you to heal.”

Brin squirmed. “Sort of.”

“Did you use it on the caravan?” She shook her head. Tam didn’t know. He mustn’t have done anything.

“It … doesn’t always work,” he said. “I told you before. I’m not cut out to be Tormish.”

“But you didn’t even try. ”

“I would have been in the way. I would have-”

“You didn’t even try,” Farideh said. The shadow-smoke swirled around her as she surged to her feet. “You guess at my virtue, and look down on my choices, when you lie about everything, because …? Because you didn’t want your tutors tracking you down? Is that it?”

“You kept your secrets!” Brin said, raising his voice. “And I kept mine.”

“No one died because I kept my secrets,” Farideh said.

“And you don’t know anyone died for mine,” Brin said. “Besides, if I’d told you I knew a little divine magic, you wouldn’t even have spoken to me! You made that very clear in the woods.”

“I said I never met a priest who gave me a reason to trust them,” Farideh said, “and you’re just proving me right.”

“I’m not a priest!”

“Could you both just shut up?” Havilar said, still a little dazed. She pushed herself up. “I’m not dead. Who cares if he’s a priest?”

“Mehen, to start with,” Farideh said. “Lie down. You’re not dead, but you’re still hurt.”

“Mehen’s not going to care,” Havilar said. “Probably. I mean, he let Tam come along. Tam’s more of a priest than Brin.”

“Lie down!” Farideh said. “Gods, please, lie down before you rip what’s left of your wound open.”

She did so, but added, “Is this what you meant when you said I was getting upset because I was scared? I think you’re doing the same thing.” Havilar lifted her head, her speech a little surer, her eyes a little more focused. “If this is a lesson, you’re still a henish and I get it. You win.”

Farideh nearly shrieked in annoyance, “No one’s winning anything here,” but she gritted her teeth instead and covered her face with her still-bloody hands. They were shaking and her breath was uneven. She wanted more than anything to throw up, as if doing so would rid her body of the fear and the shock, and the virulent magic that churned through her, boiling up, looking for an outlet-

With a great, infernal shout, she flung her hands toward the woods, away from Havilar and Brin, away from where the archer had flown. The air cracked and a great gout of roiling flames streamed from her into the night.

She turned on her sister and Brin, panting. They were both staring at her.

“Fine,” she said. “Havi, you’re right. I was frightened. Watching you nearly die, almost being killed myself, and then having to cut arrows out of my sister’s bleeding gut is exactly the same as you feeling left out. I’m sorry. And you,” she said to Brin, “I’m still angry at you. You can say a hundred times you’re not a priest, but when Torm just handed you a miracle, I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t have to,” Brin said. “But it’s true.”

Havilar chuckled, half to herself. “Do we have to call you ‘Brother Brin’ now?”

Brin wrinkled his nose. “If you do, I’ll never buy you whiskey again.”

Farideh frowned. None of this was making sense.

“You’re not a priest,” she said, “or a paladin, but Torm grants you magic? Even though you know good and well you stole that whiskey?”

“And I ran away from the orcs?” he added when she did not. Brin shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, to be honest. I told you, I make a terrible holy champion, but sometimes … it works.”

Her heart was racing now. “Sometimes? You had me pull arrows from her gut for a possibility?”

“I had you pull the arrows because they were poisoning her,” Brin said. “If I couldn’t do it, I would have run for Tam.”

“And if the archer’s killed Tam?”

Farideh looked out into the woods. She’d said it only because it might have happened, because both of them were too reckless and she was already so used to pointing these things out to Havilar. But Tam and Mehen were still not back.

How far could the fire have thrown the archer? She turned back and realized Brin was watching the forest as well.

Gods, what idiots, she thought, snatching up the rod. Brin grabbed his short sword, and they stood over Havilar. The orc could have easily doubled back and followed the sounds of their arguing. He could have killed them, all three, while they shouted.

And it would be all her fault.

“Brin,” she said, so quietly that even Mehen couldn’t have faulted her. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We all have secrets.”

“I’m sorry too.” He paused. “Have you told all of yours?”

“Yes,” she said. “I swear.” She swallowed. “Have you?”

The portal opened with a great gust of smoke and heat. The campfire swelled briefly as Lorcan stepped through. His gaze swept over the trio, but locked on Farideh. Whatever smugness, whatever gall had been in his expression fled and he ran to Farideh. He seized her by the arm and wiped at the streaks of Havilar’s blood that now smeared her face.

“What happened? Are you hurt? Get off your feet.”

“I’m fine,” Farideh said. She looked down and realized there was blood all down the front of her, soaked into the leather. “Oh. It’s Havi’s,” she said, but at those words she started shaking.

Lorcan let out a long sigh and gathered her up in his arms. “Heavens to Hells, I thought you were hurt.”

For a breath, Farideh let him. She was tired, her nerves shattered, and she just wanted to hide from the world. I won’t let anyone catch you, darling. For a breath, it felt like the safest place in Faerun, and she was so glad someone had asked if she was all right. This close, he didn’t smell like the portal. He smelled faintly musky, and like some exotic spice she didn’t know-

No-she pulled away, nervously smoothed her bloodied jack. “Havilar … Havi’s fine as well. Now.” Lorcan’s expression seemed to close, and he looked away.

“Of course she is,” he said, cool and unconcerned. “If she weren’t, you wouldn’t be nearly so calm, now would you, darling?” He crouched down on the ground beside Havilar. “Besides, you’re a tough one, aren’t you?”

Havilar’s mouth had fallen open. “Yes?” she ventured.

Lorcan looked over at Brin, his wicked smile turning into a sneer. “I see you’re doing perfectly well. Good to know you take your divine duty so seriously.”

“He saved Havilar,” Farideh said.

“He ought to have stopped the arrows in the first place,” Lorcan said.

“That’s enough,” Farideh said. “I told you to leave him be.”

“Or you’d leave, yes?” He looked her up and down. “And if you’d cast me aside, where would you be now? Cradling your sister’s dead body, I think. If you were a lucky little fool.”

Ignore him, she thought. You’re not a fool. But the shift from embracing her to calling her names was abrupt enough to remind her to be nervous. She held out the rod, her hand shaking only a little.

“What’s this do?”

Lorcan looked from her to it. “I told you,” he said, after a moment. “It helps you cast your spells better.”

“Much better, apparently,” she said. “I tried to make a fire bolt and I threw the orc who attacked us so far that Tam and Mehen haven’t come back from looking for him yet. What does it do?”

“It protects you,” he said smoothly, “when I’m not here to.”

“So if I use it against anyone it’s going to make a wave of fire that throws them a hundred yards away?” She pointed it at his chest. “What does it do?”

“I told you,” he said hotly. “It protects you. Improves your spells. Perhaps you need a little more practice with it.” He shoved the rod to the side, away from him. “Far be it from me to ask for a little thanks when that trinket is all that kept some mad orc from murdering your sister.”

Farideh narrowed her eyes. He wasn’t telling her everything, not by a long shot. But he was also furious, the throb of her scar told her that.

Her scar … which hadn’t so much as twinged before the portal opened. If Lorcan had been watching her, if he’d come because he’d seen the blood, it would mark the first time he’d appeared without irritating her brand first.

He’d known where she was already. He’d come for some other reason.

Some other reason he wasn’t keen on sharing.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t bother if you’re going to be so ungrateful,” he said.

She kept her gaze cold and lowered the rod. “Thank you.”

“That’s better,” he said.

Mehen crashed back through the underbrush and into the campsite, his jaw wide, displaying the full array of his teeth for any threat to see. He tapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth and snapped it shut. “Karshoj vir henish,” he cursed. Then he froze and swung his head around to face Lorcan.

“What is he doing here?”

“I came to help,” Lorcan said silkily.

“Havilar was hit,” Farideh said. “He-”

In the chaos and the wall of Farideh’s flames, Mehen hadn’t realized Havilar had been hurt-Farideh could see it in the way his eyes widened, the way he suddenly ignored the fact that Lorcan was standing there, plain as the moon in the sky, and raced over to Havilar.

“You cut the arrows out?” he bellowed.

“They were-” Brin started, but Mehen cut him off.

“You cut the arrows out?” he said to Farideh. “What’s the first bloody thing I taught you about arrow wounds?”

“They were poisoned,” Farideh said. “She was dying.” Her voice slid into a tremble. Lorcan set his hand on the middle of her back, and she could only imagine how it looked: her devil protecting her when she’d put her sister in danger.

“You should have packed it and waited for the priest! The apprentice could have managed that much, if you weren’t capable. You could have killed her.”

“She was already dying!” Farideh cried. “She couldn’t have waited.”

“Did he tell you that?” Mehen said. “Did he tell you to kill your sister?”

“Lorcan had nothing to do with it.”

“I’m all right now,” Havilar said. “Look.” She pulled up her shirt. Blood still smeared her skin, but the wound was only a shallow cut.

Mehen scrutinized the wound. “If it was minor enough to be cured with your healing potions, it was minor enough to not mess around with cutting into her gut.”

“But …” Havilar started to say. Farideh shook her head, and her twin stopped. For all Farideh was nervous about priests, Mehen had less use for them in principle than he did Lorcan. He didn’t trust Brin for being a boy and a priest’s apprentice-revealing Brin had also secretly been a priest of Torm while Mehen was this angry might mean Mehen would never trust Brin.

“But …” Havilar said. “Everything’s all right. Next time we won’t cut out the arrows.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Lorcan said, and the promise of violence in his voice sent a shiver up Farideh’s spine. He was still a monster.

Mehen snarled. “Farideh, put him away before Tam gets back, or I’ll let my sword do it for you.”

She heard Lorcan’s wings stiffen and spread. “I beg your pardon?” he said.

“You heard me, devil,” Mehen said. “Take your useless self off.”

Farideh turned and set her hands on Lorcan’s chest, pushing him back from the fire. “Lorcan, please. Go. You’ll just make it worse.”

Lorcan narrowed his eyes. He took hold of her wrists and shoved them away.

“I’m going to find that orc.” He glared at Mehen. “Perhaps then I’ll be useful enough.” A few ungainly flaps of his wings, and Lorcan was airborne and flying into the wood.

Farideh watched him go, not wanting to face Mehen or Havilar or Brin. Her pulse hadn’t slowed, her hands were still shaking. She didn’t think she had it in her to soothe Mehen on top of everything else-especially if he was going to tear into her about Lorcan. Lorcan, who hadn’t done anything wrong this time.

Except … he’d come as if from nowhere, without the slightest twinge to her scar. And the rod that made a wave of fire, a strengthening of the spell she knew into something entirely different, something Lorcan wasn’t willing to explain.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Mehen said to Havilar.

“Yes!” Havilar said. “I just need help bandaging what’s left.” Farideh finally turned back to see Havilar watching her. Worried.

“Where’s Tam?” Brin asked.

“Still hunting that pothac orc.” Mehen looked up at Farideh. “What am I supposed to tell him? Did you think about that before you went for a spell?” She looked away.

“Tell him she owns a rod enchanted with fire spells?” Brin said. He shrugged when all eyes turned to him. “It’s not impossible. You can purchase such things in the large cities if you know where to look.”

“That could work,” Farideh said quietly.

“It shouldn’t have to work,” Mehen said. “I don’t even want to know where you got that bloody thing. But we’re selling it when we get to a large enough city.”

No, Farideh thought, she wouldn’t sell it. Not until she knew what its story was. Not until she was sure it was safe for someone else to hold.

And not until she found something better to replace it with.

She said none of this to Mehen, who stared at her as if he still didn’t know what to do with her, as if he wished she were anyone else. As if-perhaps-he was afraid of her.

When Lorcan found that stupid orc, he was going to rend the bastard limb from shitting limb. Tear out his veins and strangle him with them. Pluck out his bones and beat him to death-

No, he thought, scanning the dark woods below. Not yet. As much as it seemed that Goruc had botched the plan, he had also deepened the thing, entrenched it down into Farideh’s mind, as certain as the sunrise. If the orc came again and his arrows found another heart, she wouldn’t be suspicious or surprised. She would want revenge, he thought with a smile. She would do all manner of things to gain vengeance.

He thought of her standing there, covered in blood and pale with fear.

He would kill the orc afterward.

A light, small and cool, stood out bright and sharp among the bristling shadows of the firs and pines. Lorcan circled, dropping lower and landing behind a screen of sword ferns. He crouched low, peering into the darkness.

Not the orc, not at all, but a man, wiry and brown-skinned, carrying a chain that scintillated with a blessing that itched at Lorcan even across the distance.

The priest. The one Mehen didn’t want to know about Lorcan.

Perfect, Lorcan thought. He didn’t need a silverstar keeping Farideh company either. He took hold of the charm that granted him invisibility, and crept through the darkness toward the cool light of the priest’s magic. He matched his footfalls to the priest’s own, any sound masked by the silverstar’s steps.

Lorcan drew his sword. Faster than a spell and inarguably more satisfying. If they found the silverstar, the orc’s dagger would match enough to explain it away. A pity he couldn’t kill that little pretender paladin, who didn’t even try to protect Farideh.

The priest turned and looked directly at where Lorcan stood. Perhaps he’d heard something, but it didn’t matter. The charm was impenetrable. He could stare all he liked-

The chain lashed out, nipping at Lorcan’s elbow. He cried out and let go of the charm as he yanked his arm away, rendering him completely visible. The priest raised his eyebrows.

Forget the blade-Lorcan gathered up his own spell, something to make the priest burn from the inside out with the fevers and corruptions of Malbolge.

The priest reached calmly into his collar and pulled out an amulet. “Vennela.”

Lorcan’s spell fizzled into nothing. He clutched at another spell, a simpler thing, but it too collapsed. Cold horror seized him.

He reached for the sword again, but this time it was only to defend himself. The bastard priest had bound him, and nothing Lorcan set against him would work until the binding was undone. Even a quick lunge of the sword would probably knock Lorcan flat and screaming. Very slowly he set his thumb on the green ring, preparing to turn it, if that chain so much as twitched.

The priest looked him over once. “I’m not in the mood to hunt you right now,” the silverstar said. “It would just make both of us annoyed and I have other quarry. But make no mistake, devil, if you don’t flee now, you’ll be next.”

“And I suppose you’re not in the mood for my assistance either?” Lorcan said. “I only saw your light and thought you might be interested in … directions.”

The priest held up the amulet. It felt as if crystals of ice were growing in Lorcan’s veins, spearing the flesh and splintering the bone. He flinched.

“Trust me,” the priest said. “If I have to send you back myself, you won’t enjoy it.”

I could kill him, Lorcan thought. I could. What good is the blood of an erinyes if you don’t give into the bloodthirst now and again? To the Hells with the amulet-if he just dived at-

No, Lorcan thought. He stepped back. Whatever blood he carried, he was cleverer than an erinyes. Whatever bloodlust he bore, it did not approach his sisters’ suicidal mania. And the key difference: If he were an erinyes, or a full-blooded devil as this priest seemed to believe, death would only return Lorcan to Malbolge, shamed and delayed, but whole nonetheless. But if the priest killed the cambion, Lorcan would be as dead as any mortal, unless Asmodeus pulled him back from the brink of the Fugue Plane. A scenario Lorcan did not wish to test.

“Another time then,” he said, and he was in the air before the priest could have the last word. Another time indeed-the silverstar would make a fit target. Right after Brin and that overcompensating plague-orphan, Mehen.

But first: Goruc.

The orc had been clever as well. Without his night-piercing sight, Lorcan wouldn’t have noticed the trail of broken grass that marked the passage of a dragging body across a clearing and up into the brush. Goruc lay still beneath a gorse bush, his hides blackened once more and his right arm bent inward.

“You,” the orc said, when Lorcan pushed the brush aside. He sat up, seizing his axe in his off hand.

“Me,” Lorcan agreed. “How much of that wyssin did you take? Or are you so stupid you can’t tell the difference between a human boy and a tiefling girl?”

Goruc bared his yellowed teeth in a cruel grin. “You can have her in the Hells then.”

“I think not,” Lorcan said. “What’s more, I have suspicions, Goruc, that you were not aiming to hit the glaivemistress, but her sister.”

“Your witch burned me again,” the orc said. “Knocked my shoulder loose when she threw me.”

“I gave you one order,” Lorcan said coldly. “One stricture that you were not to disobey. And yet you did.”

Goruc sneered. “What does it matter? I’m damned either way.”

“Oh, it matters,” Lorcan said. “It matters a very great deal.” He seized the orc by the shirt front, and used his thumb to spin the green ring that linked him to the Needle of the Crossroads.

Goruc had clearly never experienced interplanar travel. Lorcan slung the orc into the antechamber, and Goruc promptly vomited all over the floor. Lorcan closed the portal and seized Goruc by the back of his collar. Disoriented and frightened, Goruc could do little more than scrabble along with Lorcan through the haunted palace of Osseia, making pathetic whimpering noises.

Lorcan dragged him out onto the nearest balcony, thrusting Goruc’s torso over the edge. Below, the landscape of Malbolge, the warped and perverted corpse of the Hag Countess-Glasya’s unfortunate predecessor-stretched, horror after horror, away from the hag’s former skull and off into the distance.

“There,” Lorcan said, pointing to a mound in the midst of the oozing plains. “That is where you’ll begin-if you behave. They’ll harvest your soul and what’s left will get to enjoy the delightful experience of rising up the hierarchy of the Hells. In perhaps a thousand years, you’ll creep your way up to being a member of the legions and promptly be crushed by an angry war devil. And you will feel lucky for it.

“If you think what you’ve seen thus far is bad, remember Goruc: this is our home. This is what is normal. Now”-he seized the orc’s face and wrenched his head toward the east, where the finger bone towers rose up, where the first of the towers loomed-“that tower? Is full of horrors you can’t imagine. They torture the worst of the worst there. In there, that’s where they torture devils. Ever hear a nightmare scream for mercy?” Still gripping Goruc by the face, he leaned down to speak in the orc’s ear. “You touch my warlock and you will never forget the sound. I’ll make certain. Not even while you’re being dissolved alive in a lake of acid. I’ll pull you out before you’re gone though. There are so many ways to spend eternity in Malbolge.

“That,” he said, shoving the orc away and to the floor, “is how it matters. You’re right-you’re damned either way-but I decide how exactly your damnation proceeds.”

Goruc scrambled to his feet, trembling to his every extremity, gabbling in whatever tongue it was that orcs spoke. That, Lorcan thought, is much more appropriate. Damn Mehen. Damn the priest. Damn Farideh too if she was going to shove him away and listen to them.

“I’ll kill the boy,” Goruc said, finding his voice. “Just as you order.”

“No,” Lorcan said. “You want to be in my good graces again, Goruc? I want the boy. I want the silverstar. And I want the dragonborn. All dead beyond any cleric’s skill to return them. The tieflings you don’t touch. Understand?”

“That’s …” Goruc shook his head. “How? The boy is one thing and maybe the dragonborn … but him and the silverstar … They’ll have my head before I get close enough to take theirs.”

Lorcan sneered. “You’ll find a way. Or I’ll find you.”

Goruc shook his head. “You said they’re heading for the cities. I need more time. I can track them in the wilds but the streets of Luskan? I’ll be hunting them my whole life.”

Tendays, Lorcan thought. He had tendays at best, now that she was asking questions about the Rod of the Traitor’s Reprisal, now that the boy was set against him, now that the silverstar had seen him. He unclenched his fists-Invadiah wouldn’t appreciate him asking for another of her treasures. He’d have to snatch it quickly, and not go after anything more.

“Give me your axe,” he said to Goruc. “I’ve something better to replace it with.”

Sairche watched Lorcan and the orc with the dislocated shoulder reenter the anteroom that held the Needle of the Crossroads, among other treasures of her mother’s, all but forgotten and sticky with the secretions of Osseia. She’d wiped down the trunk she perched upon, before settling herself behind a spell of invisibility.

Lorcan pulled down a case from one of the tidy piles and opened it. Inside lay an axe of shining mithral, with black runes inlaid down its haft. “Take it,” he said. “It will hunt the blood of your enemies.”

The orc lifted the axe with his good arm and tested its weight, his eyes shining and awed as though he held a relic. It was a relic, of sorts, Sairche thought. No one laid curses quite as strong as the one on that axe anymore.

“Now,” Lorcan said, snapping the case shut. He waved his hand to activate the portal of the Needle and seized the orc by his wounded arm. “Get going.”

Both flashed out of existence for a moment, but Sairche knew when to be patient. Secrets didn’t uncover themselves, even if Lorcan was being exceedingly sloppy with this one-especially for him. While she could count on one hand the number of her half-sisters who could aspire, perhaps, one day, to Invadiah’s levels of intrigue-if they didn’t get demoted by crashing in where they didn’t belong, or killed in some skirmish with another Layer-Sairche and Lorcan were different. Cunning Invadiah had no other cambion children.

Sairche wondered sometimes if their sire had been as cunning-or perhaps, craftier still; Invadiah still had the savagery her sisters became known for after the Ascension. But his identity was one secret Sairche had never managed to flush out. Invadiah had taken what she needed-twice-and never dealt with him again, as far as anyone knew. Certainly not to gain more offspring-Lorcan was the last of Invadiah’s efforts to expand her ranks. If she wasn’t going to get erinyes, she wasn’t going to bother.

And she certainly wasn’t going to see to the cambions’ inheritance.

The portal flashed again, and Lorcan stepped through.

“Does your orc know that axe’s cursed?” Sairche asked. With her words, the invisibility ceased.

To his credit, Lorcan didn’t look up at her. “Does it matter?” he said. “It will lead him where he needs to go and keep him from stopping along the way.”

“And when he can’t set it down?”

“Once he kills the people he’s hunting, he’ll be able to set it down.”

Sairche shook her head. “That’s the orc who wants to kill your, ahem, paramour isn’t it?” Now, that startled him. She fluttered her silvery lashes. “He won’t put it down until she’s dead, will he?”

“He doesn’t even know her,” he said, shaking his head. “But you’re right; he wants someone else dead, someone I’d rather he didn’t kill.” He finally turned to face her. “Who have you been talking to?”

Sairche shrugged. She didn’t need to talk to a soul as long as Lorcan blustered and shouted from the battlements about the orc staying away from his warlock. Connecting the orc to the fresh-faced little tiefling she’d caught him with had been a gamble.

One she wasn’t certain she’d won at yet-Lorcan might be a fool in some ways, but in others, Sairche had to give him his due. She was never completely certain if Lorcan was lying or not. With all those warlocks, he might be telling the truth, after all.

“Why?” she said, approaching from another tack. “Do you have confederates in stealing mother’s things?”

“Well, you, now that you’ve watched me and not bothered to do anything about it.” Pulling the door open, he added, “We both know she’ll be just as unhappy about that.”

“Hmph,” Sairche said. “Well-played.” But the game wasn’t finished.

Lorcan paused in the doorway, and for a moment, Sairche tensed, afraid he’d come after her with a spell or his sword-Sairche knew magic aplenty but her spells were better for ferreting out secrets than blasting attackers.

“Do you know,” Lorcan said, “how old you are?”

“Older than you. Younger than the Ascension. Why?”

He shook his head. “Curiosity,” he said, with a grin so wicked, she wondered if she ought to be worried about what he could do with such a detail.