The Way of Pain

by Gregory Mattix

  Nesnys shrugged, for the names meant nothing to her. “I am Nesnys, warlord of this army. Let us determine the worth of a father’s sword and the son who wields it, Elyas, Son of Wyat.” She spun Willbreaker lazily in her hand and took up a defensive posture. The stirring of bloodlust swelled in her breast, for she suspected the youth would provide the challenge the king had not.

  Elyas frowned at his battered shield then tossed it aside. He raised his sword cautiously, moving toward Nesnys, who held Willbreaker in a low guard position. The human came in quickly, stabbing toward her chest, a strike she easily evaded. Willbreaker slashed at his exposed flank, and he leaped away, the tip just nicking off his mail shirt. She followed it up with a low thrust then whipped that into a cleaving upward slash. Elyas sidestepped and parried her blade then lunged into her, trying to use his greater bulk to drive her off balance.

  Nesnys held her position, angling her sword down and in, slashing into his calf. He grimaced, but then was driving his shoulder into her chest. Nesnys gave ground, spinning away and battering him in the back with her left wing. Elyas stumbled, slipping in the churned muck of the battlefield, falling to a knee beside his slain king.

  Nesnys came in at once, Willbreaker sweeping down to strike his head from his shoulders. Elyas must have seen her reflection in the king’s absurdly shiny armor, for he suddenly threw himself backward, passing beneath her blade and knocking her lead leg out from under her. Nesnys would have fallen if not for her wing, the base of which she thrust into the ground to keep herself upright. The human slashed up at her, but she flared her other wing and deflected his blade. She regained her balance, spinning away to give herself space. Elyas regained his feet and came at her in a determined rush. She parried his attack high, stepping in to drive a knee into his groin.

  Elyas shifted sideways, instead taking her knee on his hip. He fell back a step, and she was on him, Willbreaker spinning and lashing out. Elyas ducked one blow and parried the next, but the third split the links of his mail shirt and opened a gash on his shoulder. The big man knocked her arm aside and thrust at her stomach. His blade carved a line across the side of her own scale armor as she narrowly spun away. They separated, each sizing the other up. Elyas was breathing heavily from his sustained fighting.

  “I’m impressed,” she admitted. “You fight well for a mortal, especially one young in years. Much better than your weak old king. Would that I had such courageous youths in my own army. Instead, I have tired old men in command and thugs and sellswords filling the ranks.”

  “Those are the only ones who’d undertake such a cowardly, dishonorable campaign against a peaceful kingdom.” Elyas spat on the ground.

  Nesnys smiled, liking his confident bravado. A natural champion, this one. “Perhaps you’ve the right of it. Join me—I can make good use of your skill at arms and youthful vigor.”

  Elyas glared. “Ask me that again over my corpse.” He rushed at her, longsword slashing and stabbing in a flurry of strikes.

  Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated on deflecting his blows. Willbreaker flared with sparks of energy upon each parry, but Elyas’s strength remained true, pounding away at her blade. He even managed to drive her backward a few steps with his strength and relentless determination.

  Nesnys was enjoying the contest yet had no desire to get pushed around the circle in front of her men. She parried Elyas’s next blow, deflecting his sword high, their blades sparking as they slid together, crossguards locking. She shoved, their might evenly matched for the moment, even forcing him back a step, but when he gained solid footing, he held his ground. He panted, sweat dripping down his face, teeth gritted inches away from her. A vein pulsed in his neck, and she briefly fantasized of tearing it open with her teeth and drinking his lifeblood.

  No, that would be a loss. I must have him for a plaything.

  Nesnys leaned her head forward and sank her sharp teeth into the hard muscles of Elyas’s forearm. Blood filled her mouth, tantalizing with its salty taste. He shouted in shock and pain, recoiling away from her.

  She was ready for that. The moment Elyas disengaged, she gave a silent command, and Willbreaker’s laksaar teeth broke apart, the sword melting into a lash. A quick snap of her wrist sent it cinching tight around Elyas’s ankle. She gave a powerful heave, upending the human, and he tumbled on his backside in the muck.

  Nesnys was on him in an instant, pinning his sword arm to the ground by stomping her heel into his wrist. He bellowed in anger and rolled over, reaching to drag her down into the mud in a grappling match. The thought wasn’t unappealing, but she wouldn’t descend to such a level in front of her army. His hand slipped over the smooth scales of her armored thigh, seeking a grip. She looped Willbreaker around his wrist and cinched it tight, yanking his arm away. He grimaced as the tiny teeth dug into his flesh. With her left hand, she drew Bedlam Judge, the dagger formed from the bone of a droexhal. She languidly knelt atop his chest, her blade at his throat. His chest heaved for breath beneath her, the thick muscles of his arms taut as he strained against her.

  “Easy, there. The merest scratch will unleash corruption throughout your body and kill you in seconds,” she whispered, thoroughly enjoying their contest now, disappointed that it must end so soon. “I have but to tighten this, and you’ll lose your hand.” She stretched Willbreaker a bit tighter to illustrate her point.

  Elyas hissed with pain. His blue eyes were hard with fury and hatred, but he relaxed his snared hand, blood leaking out over the lash’s interjoined teeth.

  “Just kill me and be done with it, you evil bitch.”

  Nesnys growled a throaty laugh, running the flat of Bedlam Judge across his neck and the soft underside of his jaw. “I am debating doing just that.”

  ***

  Elyas was at the fiend’s mercy—he felt like a hog on display before the slaughter. She had him pinned with one knee atop his chest, and her other long leg was stretched out, her boot heel still grinding against the wrist of his sword arm. His left wrist was ensnared in the cursed whip-sword, and she had a knife at his throat. He believed her threat—his father had once spoken of a blade that could kill with but a scratch, and her dagger had an ill look to it, fashioned of some type of bone.

  Despite being at her mercy, he was awash in confused emotions: anger, for she was the enemy and had slain his king; fear, for she radiated malevolence, and he knew she’d kill him for the sheer pleasure; respect, for she was a truly skilled opponent; and even a bit of shameful desire, for she was beautiful and sensuous, and some dark place inside him responded to that on a primal level even though it disgusted him at the same time.

  Nesnys’s eyes were unsettling, like pupil-less silver coins. She stared into his own eyes with an unnerving intensity. Her full lips were slightly parted, red with his blood. The flat of her dagger’s blade was caressing his neck and jaw.

  “Do it. End me.” He tried to will her to finish him.

  Nesnys blinked, as if coming out of a momentary trance. Her tongue poked out and licked the blood coating her lips, and she gave him a chilling smile.

  “I think not. I claim you as mine.”

  He opened his mouth—whether to protest or curse her, he knew not, for at that moment, Nesnys reversed the dagger in her hand and drove the pommel hard into his temple. The demoness blurred in his vision and disintegrated into a burst of black ash.

  Elyas knew no more.

  ***

  Nesnys rose to her feet, feeling flushed and excited. The exertion of combat and the taste of the man’s blood had aroused her in a way she hadn’t felt for a long time. Not only did she want to hurt him and slake her thirst with his blood, she wanted to possess him, to fornicate with him.

  She barked laughter, aware then of the hundreds of soldiers milling around and gawking, having watched her back-to-back duels. The Ketanians had withdrawn following the loss of their king, battered and huddled a hundred paces away in confusion.

  I must focus on the task at hand—this is no t
ime to lose control. Later, I can sate my desires.

  She sheathed her weapons and plucked Elyas’s enchanted sword from the muck. “Secure this man and take him away. He is my prisoner. Send him with the other slaves on the galleys to the Pits of Leciras.” She looked around, aware that nobody was moving. At her glare, the spell was broken as men snapped into motion. “Also, I want a herald sent to inform the Ketanians they will be allowed to reclaim the body of their king. Withdraw the force a hundred paces.” This last was directed at one of her colonels.

  The man bobbed his head and began barking orders.

  Nesnys watched a pair of soldiers drag Elyas away and wondered if she could turn him to her cause. She smiled at the challenge presented. My plaything shall know the way of pain. And then we shall see.

  Chapter 8

  The Ammon Nor Prime portal destination was a broad, flat-floored tunnel, one that resembled a mine. The portal’s illumination showed that the tunnel sloped upward steadily, and Taren noted the rails in the ground where ore carts had once been brought through into the Hall of the Artificers. A pinprick of light far in the distance denoted the tunnel exit, while in the other direction, it ended abruptly at a mass of rubble a short distance behind the portal.

  Almost immediately upon exiting the portal, Taren coughed and gagged from the tunnel’s foul air, heavy with a thick stench of decay overlaying a musky reek. The portal faded out, leaving them in pitch blackness, their breathing loud in the silence.

  “I recognize that stench,” Creel growled. “’Ware, for there’s gloomclaws about.”

  He and Mira set Ferret down. Final Strike rasped leaving its scabbard, and with his left hand, Creel withdrew from a pouch one of the orange crystals from the Hall of the Artificers. He’d pried it from the wall while they awaited Mira’s exploration of the eastern wing. When held aloft, the crystal illuminated the space around them for about five paces with a soft orange glow.

  A leathery fluttering sound came from the ceiling above, followed by furtive, shadowy movement. Black shapes resembling suspended cloaks rippled as if stirred by a wind, then sagged down. Taren glimpsed a tooth-lined maw underneath one creature’s body, much like an octopus he’d seen a Leestead fishmonger selling during a trip to the coastal town. The sight of the alien creature had both disgusted and frightened him when he was a young boy, and the old fear returned with a vengeance at the sight of the gloomclaws. A ring of short tentacles with sharp claws on the ends surrounded the beast’s toothy maw.

  “Watch out!” Creel shouted.

  The nearest gloomclaw detached itself from the ceiling with a soft squelch, fluttering down toward the group, its clawed tentacles whipping about.

  Creel cleaved through the beast, hacking two tentacles and a section of its rubbery body free. Oily ichor spattered the ground, and the monster made an angry oorack as it flopped around on the ground, spewing an inky fluid.

  Two more loosed themselves from the ceiling. Mira struck one with the end of her staff, but it seemed to do little damage to its rubbery body. Instead, its tentacles latched onto her staff, and it left a slime trail as it tried to devour the weapon, the teeth snapping shut loudly. She slammed it into the next gloomclaw to descend, dislodging the first beast, and the two tumbled into a squirming knot.

  Creel stabbed and hacked at the mass, ichor spurting out as the beasts squirmed and thrashed. More movement came from the ceiling around them.

  Taren slipped into his second sight and saw the murky amber vitality of over a dozen of the creatures. Only the nearest few were stirring from their torpor, yet he knew the others wouldn’t remain immobile for long. He focused and felt the earth magic all around him, a deep well of it. He grasped at the magic and felt it surge into him with minimal effort.

  Half a dozen more of the gloomclaws were fluttering down by then, threatening to overwhelm his two companions, who were already battling two or more apiece, Mira having little luck with her staff. As each beast landed, it contorted then squirted forward across the ground on its tentacles, as if its body were a bladder releasing air to propel it forward. Taren thrust his hands out before him, and coils of fire crackled forth, torching the nearest monster and casting a harsh illumination in the tunnel. He turned his attack to the others, the beasts shriveling from the blast, slime boiling off their hides before withering and leaving charred husks in their wake. The already foul air was filled with the creatures’ ooracks and greasy, reeking smoke. Taren’s eyes watered, and he coughed, but he bathed the ceiling and walls all around them with flames, clearing them a path. In the distance, he could sense more shapes fleeing deeper into the tunnel to escape the fire.

  Creel hacked apart the remaining gloomclaws Mira was holding at bay.

  Taren reduced the flames to small tongues surrounding each hand like gloves, comforted by the magic and unwilling to let go for the moment.

  “Would you mind? This shite is like glue trying to get it off.” Creel thrust Final Strike into the tongue of Taren’s magical fire surrounding one hand, burning away the ichor on the blade. “You might want to do the same, Mira.”

  The monk nodded and briefly stuck her staff in the flame as well, pulling it free before it could catch fire. Taren reluctantly let the flames extinguish, coughing and supporting himself with hands on knees as a wave of dizziness swept over him.

  Creel sheathed his sword. “Let’s move before they come back. Your flames made them retreat, but here in their den, they’ll regain their courage soon enough.”

  Taren’s dizziness passed quickly, and his companions hoisted Ferret’s litter once more. They swiftly headed up the incline toward the circle of light. Taren marveled at the fact he had wielded the fire without exhausting himself unduly.

  I must be getting the hang of this, he thought, pleased.

  After a few minutes, they reached the mouth of the cave. A number of rusted-out hulks that had once been mining carts were decaying into ruin near the exit. The tunnel entrance was midway up the side of a rounded hill, and as far as the eye could see, low knolls extended into the distance. A thin mist clung to the low-lying areas between hills and in the gullies. A broken trail led down from the tunnel and wended away between knolls off to their right. The track was overgrown with bristly yellow knee-high grass and thorny weeds, the land reclaiming the trail by which supplies had once been delivered to the Hall of the Artificers.

  Taren was relieved to feel a clean, cool breeze on his face as he stepped outside the tunnel, and he breathed deeply. The morning was overcast and chilly, but he was glad to be back under open sky once again. His companions seemed heartened as well.

  “The Downs of Atur.” Creel studied the terrain. “This puts us north of Ammon Nor, then. With any luck, we can skirt past the battlefront and make it to Llantry without having to fight our way there. Let’s stick with this old trail. Hopefully, it’s the quickest route out of here, but be on your guard, for many monsters call the Downs home.”

  Mira and Creel bore Ferret’s litter slowly down the trail, careful not to lose their footing on loose gravel, while Taren watched for any signs of danger. They reached the base of the knoll and entered the thin, yellowish mist, which carried a faintly sulfurous odor.

  For a couple hours, they made slow progress following the overgrown trail until Creel called a halt. He and Mira were winded from carrying Ferret for such a distance. They set her down gently on the path as if she were still flesh and blood and merely asleep.

  Taren was relieved to be able to rest his feet. He sat down on a large rock and drank from his dwindling water skin; the water was a bit warm but still eased his parched throat. Down in the gullies between the hills, the temperature was quite warm and humid with the stale, sulfurous air trapped with no breeze to scour it out. He mopped some sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

  Creel heaved a sigh, gazing at Ferret with a forlorn look on his face. He had his silver flask in hand. “I hate to say it, but we aren’t going to make it all the way back to civilization with he
r. Eventually, some dangerous monsters will happen upon our spoor, and we won’t outrun them by carrying the lass at this pace. Unless either of you has any better ideas what to do about her, perhaps we’re best off laying her to rest.”

  Taren could tell the words pained Creel greatly. He studied Ferret’s metal face, the construct’s features smooth and indistinct like those of a mask. In the daylight, the metal had dark brass highlights on top of a steely gray, like a well-tooled suit of armor. Nothing remained physically of the spirited young woman they had known, other than the humanoid shape. Even with his second sight, the spark of life inside her was faint, a mere trace of the vitality she had held. He didn’t like the idea of leaving her behind either, but he could think of no better solution. He glanced at Mira, who met his eyes solemnly. She shook her head slightly, face sorrowful.

  “I think you’re right,” he admitted to Creel. “If we do happen to discover anything that might aid her, we can always come back for her with horse and cart. In her condition, burying her isn’t likely to do any more damage so long as we wrap her in blankets to keep away the dirt and moisture.”

  He didn’t hold out much hope of finding a cure though he voiced the idea for Creel’s sake. Perhaps when he reached Nexus, he might be able to seek out some piece of vital knowledge, for the city was a magical, wondrous place. Easilon, on the other hand, was not likely to provide answers outside the Hall of Artificers, from which they’d emerged empty-handed.

  Creel took a long drink from his flask then nodded. “Aye. We’ll find a suitable place for her.” His gaze turned back to Ferret’s still form. “Sorry I failed you, lass.”

  “We all did,” Taren said sadly.

  Mira nodded in agreement, looking distraught.

  After resting a few more minutes, they resumed their travel, Taren assisting Creel with Ferret this time. He marveled at how much the automaton weighed, but considering she was solid metal, he realized he shouldn’t be surprised. Her outer armor, for lack of a better term, seemed to be some unusual alloy although the metal seemed exceptionally hard, judging from the construct they had battled earlier.