The Hammer and the Blade

by Paul S. Kemp

  He swung his falchion two-handed as he descended, neatly splitting the skull of one of the Vwynn. Blood and brains spattered his hands and it died in silence. The second Vwynn whirled on him, lips pulled back from its teeth in an angry snarl.

  Before it could respond further, Nix slashed its knee. His blade's edge knifed through flesh, bit bone, and the Vwynn fell, shrieking. It lashed out with a claw as it went down, clipping Nix's cheek. Blood, warm and sticky, flowed down his face.

  He jumped atop the writhing, screaming creature, put a knee on its bony chest, and slammed the hilt of his punch dagger into its face. The blow would have felled an ox but it seemed only to make the Vwynn angrier. Claws tore through his cloak, his leather jack, and bit into flesh.

  Spit sprayed from the Vwynn's mouth, the rope of its tongue lashed about, and its fangs dripped poisonous ichor. Nix struck it again, again, again until it finally moaned and went still. He quickly checked his hand and arms to ensure he hadn't caught a poisonous bite. He was clean.

  Growls and snarls out in the darkness, the rapid tread of approaching Vwynn.

  "Shite."

  Adrenaline fueled him. He shoved his falchion in its scabbard, grabbed the Vwynn, slung it over his shoulder in a side-carry, and pelted back through the ruins.

  It occurred to him only then that he had no guarantee the ring of ruins would provide him safety. The Vwynn seemed unwilling to breach the ring, but would they respect its border when they saw Nix, realized that he was carrying one of their own? What if seeing him triggered such rage in the creatures that they all breached the ring and pursued him back to camp?

  Too late to worry about it. He ran as fast as he could.

  A Vwynn bounded atop a megalith to his right, crouched on its haunches for a moment, snarled, and bounded down. Nix pulled one of his throwing daggers from a belt sheath and threw it underhand, on the run. It caught the Vwynn in the leg as the creature came toward him. The Vwynn screamed, lost its footing, and flipped head over heels down the pile of stone. Nix ran past it without slowing, its shrieks of pain chasing him through the ruins. He could hear more of the creatures behind him, to the right and left, the scrape of their claws over stone, their wet chuffing.

  "Shite, shite, shite," he muttered.

  His legs burned; his lungs ached.

  He reached the road, saw the border ring of ruins just ahead. It was twenty paces away, ten.

  He stumbled with fatigue. He managed to keep his balance, but the error had cost him. The Vwynn behind him gained, closed on him, their snarls hot in his ear. He prepared to turn, fight, and die.

  Crossbow bolts sizzled out of the dark, whistling past his ear. They struck Vwynn flesh with heavy thunks, summoning screams and angry shrieks.

  "Run, you damned slubber!" Jyme called.

  The hiresword stood on the road, in the pseudotunnel, just inside the tall ring of ruins. Baras and two of the other guards stood beside Jyme, all of them now reloading crossbows.

  "Keep running!" Baras said, laying a bolt in his weapon.

  Another volley from Baras, Jyme, and the guards hissed past. More thunks, more screams.

  Nix staggered into their midst. Jyme and Baras caught him up and started retreating down the road under cover of the other guards.

  "They're not coming," shouted one of the guards.

  The Vwynn outside hissed and snarled in frustration but did not pursue. Instead, they slunk back into the ruins, into the night. Nix set the unconscious Vwynn down for a moment so he could catch his breath.

  "My thanks," Nix said to them, gasping for breath.

  "I give what I get," Baras said, and thumped him on the back.

  "Help me get this thing back to camp," Nix said, nodding at the Vwynn.

  Together, they carried the bleeding body of the Vwynn. The guards who'd stayed behind rushed toward them as they came out of the tunnel. Everyone crowded around the naked, scaled figure of the Vwynn.

  "How's Egil?" Nix asked one of the guards.

  "Alive still," the man answered.

  The creature stirred, rolled onto its side. Claws slipped out of the sheath of its fingers and it growled, showing fangs. It remained unconscious, but wouldn't stay that way.

  "We need to bind it," Nix said.

  "Get rope," Baras said to a young guardsman.

  The guardsmen hurried to the wagon and returned with rope for Baras. Nix snatched it from him.

  "I know how to knot," Baras said.

  "I slipped yours back in Dur Follin, Baras. I'll handle this."

  Nix bound the creature at wrist and ankle with a triple hook slip. He tested them, found them satisfactory.

  "Help me, Jyme," he said, and the two of them dragged the creature close to the fire, beside Egil. The priest lay flat on his back, pale under his beard, his breathing shallow, his forearm swollen and discolored.

  The creature's slit eyes opened, reflected the firelight. Muscles, veins, and sinew surfaced in its hide as it strained against its bonds. The guardsmen backed off a step, expressions nervous, weapons at the ready. The Vwynn's lips peeled back from its teeth and it hissed.

  "Rakon," Nix called to the carriage. "We're ready."

  The eunuch emerged from the carriage and assisted Rakon out. The sorcerer bore a black bag in his hands, his own satchel of needful things. He said something to the inscrutable eunuch and the huge man took station outside the carriage. Rakon eyed the Vwynn as he approached, his expression unreadable.

  "Hold it down so it doesn't move," he ordered. He kneeled and started rifling through his bag.

  "Get its legs," Nix said to Jyme, while Nix took position at the creature's head. He held it flat by its bony shoulders, its scaled flesh cool and dry in his hands. The Vwynn twisted its neck to bite at him, hissing and spitting, but could not reach.

  "Mind the teeth," Jyme said.

  The Vwynn's legs flailed wildly, catching Rakon and causing him to drop a small container he'd been holding. Rakon cursed irritably.

  "Just get its legs, Jyme!" Nix said.

  The hiresword wrapped up the Vwynn's legs. The creature continued to struggle, squirming, hissing, and snapping its teeth.

  "Get a blade to its throat, Baras," Nix said, struggling to hold down the creature. "See if it understands that."

  "Aye," Baras said, and put a blade at the Vwynn's throat. The creature did not still at first so Baras pricked it with the blade.

  The Vwynn cried out in pain as a line of black blood flowed. After that, the Vwynn went still. The creature's slitted eyes darted wildly here and there, and it respired wetly from the lines of its nostrils.

  "Do it, Rakon," Nix said. "Hurry."

  Rakon removed two metal bloodletting tubes and a ceramic mortar and pestle from his bag. He jabbed one of the tubes into Egil's arm – the priest did not stir – and collected the blood in the mortar. Rakon then kneeled beside the Vwynn and jabbed the bleeder tube through its scales and into its arm. The Vwynn squealed and squirmed while Rakon collected its black blood.

  Rakon moved closer to the fire. Other than Baras and Jyme, who assisted Nix with the Vwynn, the other guards backed off. Nix understood. No man who made his way with sharpened steel felt comfortable around those who made their way with spells.

  "How long will this take?" Jyme asked over his shoulder, still holding the Vwynn's legs.

  Rakon did not answer. He placed the mortar in the edge of the embers to warm it, kneeled beside the fire, and stirred the mix of blood with a hollow glass rod.

  "My bag," he called over his shoulder.

  After a pause, one of the guards brought the black bag to him and withdrew.

  Rakon removed tubes of powder and small bottles of liquid from the bag, adding a pinch of this, a dash of that.

  The mixture in the mortar crackled. Rakon stirred it anew with the rod, intoning a chant under his breath. Soon the mixture emitted a puff of smoke. Rakon nodded, picked up the mortar, and stood.

  The Vwynn's eyes fixed on the sorcerer; its chest
rose and fell rapidly. A forked tongue licked the ridges of its lips nervously. Small clicking noises sounded from somewhere deep in its throat. Perhaps it had a sense of what was transpiring.

  Rakon moved to Egil's side and dipped his fingers into the mortar. They came away covered in a glob of a thick, clear substance.

  He rolled it between his palms like clay, thinning it more and more, letting the thin line his movement created spool to the ground at his feet.

  "What's he doing?" Jyme asked.

  "Hsst," Nix said.

  Rakon incanted as he spun and the thin line glistened, twitched. When he'd spun a length of it out, he took the spun end, held it to Egil's nostril, and whispered words of power. The line snaked into Egil's nose and kept going, more and more of it disappearing into the priest's body. Rakon held the other end, still incanting.

  The priest's body arched and thin lines appeared on his flesh, like veins but not veins, welts caused by the intrusion of the magical line as it wormed through his body. The process went on for a long thirty-count, and during that time the exposed line that Rakon still held changed from clear to yellow, then from yellow to the deep blue-black of a bruise.

  "Is it drawing out the poison?" Jyme whispered.

  "I think so," Nix said.

  Still incanting softly, Rakon turned from Egil and toward the Vwynn. He continued to work the blob of magical material in his hands until he'd spun it all out, and held the opposite side of the discolored line in his hand.

  The creature struggled anew, the blade at its throat no deterrent. Nix grunted with the effort of holding it flat, and Jyme laid his weight on the creature's legs to maintain his hold. Baras moved his blade aside and put a hand on the frantic creature's chest. The Vwynn whined, the sound high-pitched and frighteningly human. Rakon turned to the creature, holding the other end of the line between forefinger and thumb. He kneeled.

  "Wait," Nix said.

  Rakon halted but did not stop his incantation. He loomed over the Vwynn, an executioner with axe held high.

  "Wait?" Jyme said. "Wait what? Do it, man." Then to Rakon, "Do it, my lord."

  "No, wait," Nix said. "Wait, godsdammit."

  "It's just an animal," Jyme said. "Look at it. It'd kill us if it could."

  Nix knew it wasn't just an animal. The transference wouldn't work on an animal. The Vwynn was bestial, savage, but it was a thinking, feeling creature akin to a man. He was murdering it to save Egil.

  Nix had killed a helpless creature only once before. Then, he'd been a boy fighting for bread, and had stabbed the granther in the kidney when the old man had been too exhausted to fight back. He regretted it still, and he always would.

  And when he helped kill the Vwynn, he'd regret that, too. But he'd do it anyway. For Egil. He stared down at his friend's wan countenance and spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

  "No one ever speaks of this to Egil or I cut out your fakking throat. Rakon's sorcery healed him and that's the whole of the story. You don't know how it worked. It just did. Understood?"

  "The priest isn't gonna care about this animal," Jyme said.

  "You don't know him," Nix said. "And this is not an animal."

  "What?" Jyme asked. "It's not?"

  Nix ignored Jyme. "Baras, pry open its mouth with a blade."

  Baras stuck his dagger in the creature's mouth, forcing it open, and Nix was uncomfortably reminded of Baras putting his blade against Nix's face to force him to accept the spellworm. The Vwynn flailed but it was too exhausted to resist much.

  "Do it," Nix said to Rakon.

  The Vwynn made a hopeless, desperate sound as Rakon fed the magical filament into its mouth and the line snaked down its throat. Almost immediately the Vwynn's body arched and it bared its teeth in pain.

  The line pulsed, bulbs of black moving along its length, man and Vwynn connected by a cord of magic. Whatever the spell had taken out of Egil was now being pushed into the Vwynn. Rakon stood, holding the filament that bound man and Vwynn. He waited, waited, and then gave the line a hard jerk. It came free of both bodies in a spray of mucus, squirmed for a moment, then dissipated into nothingness.

  The Vwynn seized, arched, exhaled loudly, and went limp.

  Egil groaned, rolled over to face the fire, and started to snore.

  Baras, Jyme, and Nix let go of the Vwynn's cooling body.

  "How could its own poison kill it?" Jyme asked.

  "It's not the poison that was transferred," Rakon said, gathering his things. "The poison had already done its work. The spell transferred death's grip on the spirit."

  "Gods," Jyme said, standing and backing away from the Vwynn.

  Baras cleared his throat, nodded at the Vwynn's body. "Let's get that carcass out of here."

  "I'll do it," Nix said, looking at Egil, at the Vwynn. "It's mine to do."

  Nix carried the Vwynn's body away from the camp and laid it gently, respectfully among the rocks. He covered it with a few stones, but didn't have the energy to do much more. He walked away without looking back.

  Once he returned to the camp, he planted himself around the fire, keeping watch over Egil. Baras and Jyme joined him. None of them spoke. They simply sat, content with the silent presence of the others. Nix feared nightmares should he slumber – perhaps of the sisters' making, or perhaps born of his own deeds – but the trials of the day soon overwhelmed him. He lost the fight and fell into slumber.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Nix awoke late, well after dawn. Everyone else remained asleep. He coughed, spit, and heated the kettle of coffee in the fire's embers.

  He spotted Rakon near the edge of the sea of glass. The sorcerer had somehow removed a few shards of glass from the edge of the sea and they lay stacked on the ground beside him. Nix walked over and nodded at the shards.

  "How'd you manage that?"

  Rakon only grunted for answer.

  "What were you looking for out on the glass last night?"

  Rakon looked at him over his shoulder. "Why do you think I was looking for something?"

  Now it was Nix's turn to grunt.

  Rakon cleared his throat. "I was looking for something that would help us get through the rest of our journey safely."

  "And? Did you find it?"

  Rakon gathered up the glass shards. "We'll soon see. Get me my bag, Nix."

  Nix hocked, spit, and chuckled. "I'm not your fakkin' eunuch. Get it yourself. Egil almost died because of you. Him and me are here only because of your compulsion. You and your sisters could all die tomorrow and I'd mourn you not at all. Don't ever forget how it is with us."

  Rakon stared at him, a faint smile on his lips. "I don't forget anything."

  "Good."

  Nix turned to walk away and found himself staring into the enormous chest of the eunuch. The man had walked up behind him as silently as a ghost.

  "Speaking of my eunuch," Rakon said.

  Nix stared into the face of the bald mound of flesh and sweat. "You're in my way, oaf."

  The eunuch just smiled his empty smile and stood his ground. He stank like something two days dead.

  "You hear me?"

  "Let him pass," Rakon said. "And fetch me my bag from the carriage."

  The eunuch stalked off, not so silent this time, and Nix walked back to the fire and filled his coffee cup. Egil soon awoke, sat up, and rubbed the back of his neck.

  "What happened?" the priest asked, and looked at his forearm, the bite already healed to a healthy pink. "The bite?"

  Nix glanced off in the direction of the ruins, to where he'd placed the sacrificed Vwynn's body. "The sorcerer healed you."

  "The sorcerer? How?"

  "Sorcery," Nix said. "How else? Coffee?"

  "Yeah," Egil said. He looked to Rakon. "I dislike owing that one a favor."

  "We owe him nothing. Not a damned thing." Nix handed Egil a cup of coffee. "And listen, no killing yourself without my permission henceforth, yeah?"

  "I wasn't killing myself," Egil said, and winced a
t the bitter taste of the coffee. "But you only had one stone. I knew I could hold off poison longer than Derg. And if I did die, well, I've had many good moments."

  "I'm interested in having a few more. Well enough?"

  Egil inclined his head. "Well enough."

  While the rest ate and broke camp, Rakon retreated off by himself and engaged in some ritual involving the shards he'd taken from the sea of glass. Nix didn't bother watching him. Of late, he'd had quite enough of sorcery.