King of Chaos

by Dave Gross

  After I flew clean over Oparal and her stupid unicorn, I figured I'd hit the saint hard enough to drive the knife clean through her bird skull.

  I figured wrong.

  Whatever the thing was—and it sure wasn't a saint—it had a skull plenty harder than bone. The knife scraped deep into the side of its face. It would have taken off an ear if she'd had any. Instead I just sheared off some feathers.

  Saint Birdface didn't appreciate the free shave. She opened her yellow beak and let out one hell of a screech. She didn't sound half so much like an eagle as a banshee. Before jumping in, I should have asked the boss what his Shadowless Sword showed him she really was.

  The crusaders didn't notice the—what's the boss's word?—the incongruity. As far as the knights knew, I'd just stabbed Iomedae's messenger in the face. They drew their swords and came at me.

  "Hey, I'm not the bad guy here!" I shouted. "Come on, boss! Show them what we got."

  I expected to hear his magic message again, but he was busy trying to wipe out the illusion. I heard his riffle scrolls snapping off across the room. The illusion over the room and the bad guys stayed in place, but all of a sudden I could see little Alase.

  She knelt with an open hand on the floor, like she was feeling for tremors. Instead, a blue circle of light formed all around her, and the paint across her eyes blazed under her shaggy black bangs ...

  The Pathfinder Tales Library

  Novels

  Prince of Wolves by Dave Gross

  Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham

  Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones

  The Worldwound Gambit by Robin D. Laws

  Master of Devils by Dave Gross

  Death's Heretic by James L. Sutter

  Song of the Serpent by Hugh Mattews

  City of the Fallen Sky by Tim Pratt

  Nightglass by Liane Merciel

  Blood of the City by Robin D. Laws

  Queen of Thorns by Dave Gross

  Called to Darkness by Richard Lee Byers

  Liar's Blade by Tim Pratt

  King of Chaos by Dave Gross

  Stalking the Beast by Howard Andrew Jones

  Journals

  The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline edited by James L. Sutter

  Hell's Pawns by Dave Gross

  Dark Tapestry by Elaine Cunnningham

  Prodigal Sons edited by James L. Sutter

  Plague of Light by Robin D. Laws

  Guilty Blood by F. Wesley Schneider

  Husks by Dave Gross

  Short Stories

  "The Lost Pathfinder" by Dave Gross

  "Certainty" by Liane Merciel

  "The Swamp Warden" by Amber E. Scott

  "Noble Sacrifice" by Richard Ford

  "Blood Crimes" by J. C. Hay

  "The Secret of the Rose and Glove by Kevin Andrew Murphy

  "Lord of Penance" by Richard Lee Byers

  "Guns of Alkenstar" by Ed Greenwod

  "The Ghosts of Broken Blades" by Monte Cook

  "The Walkers from the Crypt" by Howard Andrew Jones

  "A Lesson in Taxonomy" by Dave Gross

  "The Illusionist" by Elaine Cunningham

  "Two Pieces of Tarnished Silver by Erik Mona

  "The Ironroot Deception" by Robin D. Laws

  "Plow and Sword" by Robert E. Vardeman

  "A Passage to Absalom" by Dave Gross

  "The Seventh Execution" by Amber E. Scott

  "The Box" by Bill Ward

  "Blood and Money by Steven Savile

  "Faithful Servants" by James L. Sutter

  "Fingers of Death—No, Doom!" by Lucien Soulban

  "The Perfumer's Apprentice" by Kevin Andrew Murphy

  "Krunzle the Quick" by Hugh Matthews

  "Mother Bears" by Wendy N. Wagner

  "Hell or High Water" by Ari Marmell

  King of Chaos © 2013 Paizo Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

  Paizo, Paizo Publishing, LLC, the Paizo golem logo, and Pathfinder are registered trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Campaign Setting, and Pathfinder Tales are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC.

  Cover art by Tyler Walpole.

  Cover design by Andrew Vallas.

  Map by Crystal Frasier.

  Paizo Publishing, LLC

  7120 185th Ave NE, Ste 120

  Redmond, WA 98052

  paizo.com

  ISBN 978-1-60125-558-7 (mass market paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-60125-559-4 (ebook)

  Publisher's Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  (Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

  Gross, Dave.

  King of Chaos / Dave Gross.

  p. : map ; cm. — (Pathfinder tales)

  Set in the world of the role-playing game, Pathfinder.

  Issued also as an ebook.

  ISBN: 978-1-60125-558-7

  1. Lost books—Fiction. 2. Imaginary places—Fiction. 3. Good and evil—Fiction. 4. Pathfinder (Game)—Fiction. 5. Fantasy fiction. 6. Adventure stories. I. Title. II. Series: Pathfinder tales library.

  PS3607.R67 K56 2013

  813/.6

  First printing August 2013.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  For Liane Merciel and Robin D. Laws,

  with thanks for letting me borrow their toys.

  Chapter One

  The Watchtower

  Oparal

  Faster."

  Bastiel lowered his horn. His sooty mane whipped my faceplate as I rose in the stirrups to lean over his neck. The thrum of his hooves traveled up through the saddle grips and shuddered through my enchanted armor. Bastiel required no bridle, no reins—only a word.

  The unicorn galloped down the wet hill, his hooves plunging deep through the moss. The mud spattered against my greaves. A cold snap had laced the thawing earth with frost.

  Before us, demons swarmed the watchtower.

  Above them all hovered a trio of wrath demons. Their raw humanoid bodies and vulture-like heads loomed over the combatants as they shook noxious spores from their bodies down onto their foes. One demon tried to land, and the crusaders rushed to drive it back into the air before it could begin its storm dance. Surrounding them all, tiny fiends teemed like minnows in the foul miasma around the filthy black wings.

  On the tower roof, naked demons leaped upon steel-clad defenders. The Mendevian crusaders stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the crenellated wall. Their valor sang to my heart, but against the combined packs of fiends they were far too few.

  "Faster!"

  Bastiel galloped more swiftly than any horse, but within his great heart he found even more speed. We sailed toward the tower, the sodden earth churning like waves beneath us.

  At the tower's base, a gang of brimoraks assaulted a pair of knights. One glance at the fiends left a sick trembling in the vault of my stomach. Every paladin experiences a different reaction to the presence of evil. I once described the sensation to an irreverent friend who dubbed it "the butterflies of evil."

  Barely more than half the height of the men, the brimoraks threatened their foes with flaming swords. Their red-hot hooves left prints in cracked mud.

  The crusaders stood fast. Behind them, their squires freed horses from the stable abutting the tower. The penned animals bucked against the walls, terrified by the sulfurous vapors emanating from the little arson demons.

  One of the defende
rs caught a flaming sword on his shield and tried to shove it aside, straining against his foe's surprising strength. Before the fiend could bring the brand back into line, the knight—no, the paladin—called upon Iomedae and sliced open the demon's belly with his gleaming longsword. The brimorak dropped its fiery blade with a bleat and fell.

  "Sergeant!" The other knight pointed at me and Bastiel. His sergeant saw me. So did the brimoraks.

  So much for the element of surprise.

  I drew the Ray of Lymirin. Pure light flared from the thrice-blessed steel as the saint's choir sang in voices audible only to me—and, judging by his twitching ears, also to Bastiel. The sword trembled in my grip, eager to strike. I sat deep in the saddle, hugging Bastiel with my legs. The brimoraks braced themselves.

  Bastiel caught the first demon on his spiraled horn, tossing it aside. The point of my sword sparked off the curling horns of the second. The blow was nothing in itself, but the holy aura of the blade burned the fiend. It scrambled through the mud, howling and clutching at its head.

  Anticipating Bastiel's next move, I grasped a saddle grip and braced myself. The mighty unicorn trampled two more brimoraks before planting his front hooves. Momentum turned him around, pivoting him on his front legs. I clung to the saddle only by virtue of the fantastic strength my magical belt imbued in me.

  Bastiel kicked with his own considerable brawn and mass. The resulting sound told me his hooves found their target. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a goatlike head tumble across the yard.

  Bastiel danced himself back into balance. I straightened to survey the scene.

  Only one brimorak remained, the one whose horns I had creased. It had thrown itself to the ground, screaming and clutching its horns in a tantrum of agony. The sergeant ran after the fiend and stamped upon its neck, severing its spine with a single blow.

  The squires finished releasing the terrified horses, calming them with strokes and whispers.

  "My lady." The knight who spoiled my surprise attack doffed his helm and fell to one knee, gazing up with an all-too-familiar expression on his face.

  Bastiel snorted.

  "Stand up, soldier," barked the sergeant. The younger man stood. He could not have seen more than eighteen years before joining the crusade.

  The sergeant raised the beaver of his helm. Beneath it lay a battered face fringed with a red-brown beard. He saluted me properly and addressed me by the rank he saw upon my pauldron. "Captain, there's no time to report. They're overwhelmed on the parapets."

  "Follow me," I said.

  Bastiel's hooves struck the base of the tower stairs. Twice he barreled into vermleks, shoving them off the steps. The infected host bodies burst as they struck the ground, releasing their wormy contents. Behind me, the sergeant bellowed at the squires to cut down the escaping parasites.

  The sound of battle grew louder as we reached the spacious roof. Worse than the cries and impacts was a mad jabbering that came from everywhere at once. The sound battered the edges of my thoughts.

  Two dozen crusaders remained standing. Ten or so had already fallen, and twice as many fiends lay dead. Everywhere I saw deep gouges in the watchtower stone and in the shields and weapons of the defenders. Blood stained their white-and-gold tabards, and one or two clutched bleeding stumps. They were being eaten alive.

  I spied paladins among the common soldiers and low templars. One paladin lifted her warhammer to call down the radiance of Iomedae. The holy light scalded the nearby fiends, but didn't reach as far as I had expected.

  The shadow of the wrath demons fell across us. Their sickening spores fell upon us. Those that touched flesh began burrowing in. I felt one upon my face, but its tendrils recoiled as they touched the Inheritor's radiance—one of Iomedae's many gifts to her anointed paladins.

  The common soldiers were not so fortunate. The spores grew instantly upon setting root in their skin. Some screamed as green-black vines sprouted from their limbs and heads. A quick-thinking paladin sheathed his blade and produced a flask of holy water from his pouch. Sprinkling the afflicted while calling out a blessing, he vanquished the unholy spores.

  Eyes wet with revenge, the fiends turned on the paladin.

  I lifted the Ray of Lymirin and shouted, "Iomedae!" The longsword sang, its blinding radiance casting stark shadows across the watchtower. A holy breeze dispersed the remaining spores that drifted down from the hovering demons.

  In the light of the Ray, the lesser demons shrieked in agony, while the worse fiends gobbled curses at me. The veteran crusaders took the chance to cut down the confused mob. The sight of me astride Bastiel distracted only the demons and the novices.

  And one other.

  With his helm torn away, I recognized Ederras Celverian fighting across the tower roof. Our gazes met for an instant. As I turned back to the fray, I saw him do the same, jaw set in anger.

  A group of four crusaders forced a tusked demon toward the tower's edge. It grunted as they shoved all their might into their shields. The demon squealed as it slipped from the parapet and fell to the ground.

  Bastiel leaped over the nearest group of defenders, and we plunged into the battle. I guided the Ray through the demons' bodies. Their dismembered limbs streamed black ribbons, and they fell.

  "Stay back!" A fur-clad sorcerer cried out a warning as we approached. At her hip hung a quiver of icy javelins. Ice caked the tower roof all around her. Demons slipped and fell as they tried to reach her.

  I batted away a gibbering bat demon and cut another in half as Bastiel stopped short of the ice.

  A scythe-clawed demon managed to stand erect on the slippery roof. A crusader thrust a spear through its chest. The fiend chortled, perhaps at the crusader's ignorance of demonic anatomy. It pulled the spear through its own body, drawing the soldier close.

  The sorcerer uttered arcane words. Four snarling bolts of force shot from her outstretched fingers into the demon's head, blasting away an eye and half its face.

  Even that wasn't enough to slay the demon. It snapped its jaws at the spearman, spraying his face with ropes of bloody spittle.

  I leaped from the saddle and onto the ice, knees bent, sliding in a crouch. As I reached him, the spearman released his weapon and fell onto his back.

  He could not have timed it better.

  Hopping over him, I added strength to momentum and swept the Ray clean through the demon's neck. Its ichor steamed upon the ice as I slid to a halt beside the sorcerer.

  She intoned another spell while reaching for her javelins. I couldn't understand the words, but I heard Thuvia in her accent. She had crossed the Inner Sea and all of Avistan to join the crusade.

  Near the center of the watchtower roof, Bastiel gored what looked like a seven-foot-tall flayed man. Throwing the fiend back, he bucked and turned to bring his powerful hind hooves to bear. He battered the demon half to death before a pair of crusader spears finished the task.

  I guarded the sorcerer while she cast her spell. Warm winds rose around us. She tossed the icy javelins one by one, letting the whirlwind fling them high, up into the suppurating flesh of the hovering vulture demons. The fiends shrieked and bled, and we held up our shields to cover our heads as a rain of gore and spores fell upon us.

  "Paladins, with me!" I ran to the tower's edge, turning the Ray of Lymirin pommel-up before me. "Blessed Saint, let me be a window to your light."

  Paladins joined me on either side, murmuring their own prayers. One was the sergeant I met below.

  Iomedae's radiance suffused our bodies and made a beacon of the tower. Demon mouths gaped in agony, but I could not hear their shrieks.

  I heard only the choir.

  A few of the tiny bat-fiends fell flaming to the ground. The vulture demons screamed again, then vanished, teleporting to safety.

  My fellow paladins went at once to tend to the wounded. Bastiel picked his way delicately through the bodies, lowering his horn here and there to bestow a blessing.

  Sometimes I wondered whethe
r his magic came directly from the Green. If so, it was a wonder he could hear the choir. Had the Inheritor touched Bastiel after the unicorn chose me? Or had he always walked in the radiance?

  Miracles are not mysteries, I reminded myself. I need not question them.

  I went to one of the dying. I removed a gauntlet and lay my hand upon his brow. When he was safe, I moved to the next. When I had healed all I could, I rose and said, "Who's in command here?"

  I looked to those who were not tending the wounded. They looked at each other, counting the absences until the sergeant made a final calculation. He walked to Ederras and saluted. "You are acting captain, sir."

  Ederras nodded with obvious reluctance. "Thank you, Aprian."

  I drew the paper from my gauntlet and took it to Ederras. "Your orders."

  He glanced at the captain's insignia on my shoulder. His eyes hardened. "You joined the crusade less than a year ago." It was not a question.

  "Queen Telandia commended me to Queen Galfrey, who invested me with the rank upon admittance to the crusade." That should have been enough to satisfy anyone. I certainly had no obligation to say more, but an unbidden regret made me add, "Last summer I fought against the hordes of the Witchbole."

  Sensing my unease, Bastiel came to stand beside me.

  "A unicorn," scoffed Ederras. "Of course."

  Aprian winced, perhaps embarrassed by his commander's discourtesy. While I had learned to place little trust in first impressions, my opinion of him was only improving.

  Ederras's scowl deepened as he read my orders. Before finishing, he snapped, "We don't answer to the Silver Crusade."

  A few of the soldiers muttered disparaging phrases about freelancers.

  "No, we don't," I said, emphasizing the pronoun more than I intended. "We answer to Queen Galfrey." I drew the seal of the queen of Mendev from my pouch and held it up for all to see. Raising my voice, I announced, "Her Majesty commands cooperation in this matter. I need your sorcerer and twenty knights."

  "We just lost half our strength," hissed Ederras. "And you can't have Jelani. I need her."

  I understood his anger. If I had known I would find him here— No, it didn't matter. I had my orders.