by Dave Gross
Willing sacrifices?
I perceived the greeting—not the words, but their meaning—as a voiceless message in my mind.
Jeggare spoke to it in the language of Hell. The creature answered in kind. I could not understand what they said, but the count's haughty demeanor for once encouraged me. In their heated exchange, I recognized only the name "Ommors."
"What does it want, Count?"
He responded to something else the creature said before replying to me. "Blood and souls."
"It can have escape if Porfirio lives," I said. "Or it can have death."
"I will tell it you are deciding who will be its sacrifice. The moment it responds, we attack."
I nodded.
Jeggare spoke again. When he paused, I could wait no longer.
I was the first to strike. The Ray of Lymirin sizzled as it plunged into the creature's gelatinous body. An instant later, Radovan appeared to materialize from the shadows behind the beast. His big knife plunged again and again into the thing's abdomen.
The count's magic bolts drilled into the monster. Urno's axe crashed down upon its head, creasing its skull without reaching its brain.
Squealing, the monster rose from the floor, its wings a crimson blur. It clutched Porfirio's mangled body in its eight limbs. His fingers moved. He was alive!
I wanted to pour Iomedae's radiance into its infernal body, but the day's healing had sapped my god-granted strength.
We struck again and again until the creature sped past us. We pursued it up the spiraling passages and out the Delvegate, where it rose into the night sky, beyond our reach.
The count emerged beside me. He drew a scroll from his bandolier and cast it on himself. He crouched and leaped into the sky, pursuing the creature.
"Careful, boss!" cried Radovan.
No! cried the hateful voice that was not a voice. I have protected you feeble cattle far too long. Let the horde take you!
Jeggare threw another volley of magic bolts at the monster and soared toward it, his Shadowless Sword held out like the tip of a lance.
The monster drew Porfirio to its maw and bit deep. Its body swelled, glowing red in the moonlight. Porfirio howled in utter desolation, revived just long enough to endure the agony of the creature devouring his soul. The monster dropped him.
Jeggare hesitated only an instant before veering off to catch Porfirio's lifeless corpse while Ommors flew off into the northern sky.
Chapter Eleven
The Tower of Zura
Radovan
My hackles pricked up. It wasn't the cool night air that had my blood running cold. It was the waiting. Days after everything had gone to hell in the refugee village, we were sneaking into another wicked town. Only instead of one fiend waiting under the Thunderstair, there were thousands of the damned things waiting for us in Undarin.
It was enough to make a guy tense is what I'm saying.
The demonblooded sentry rounded the corner and saw Gemma crumpled on the walk. He was smart enough not to touch her, just not quick enough to check his back before I moved in. I got my fingers in his mouth and pulled back his head. The rest was quick and wet.
Gemma rolled up to her hands and knees. She was already crawling to the next corner while I shoved the body against the corner parapet. With his horns and long chin, the demonblooded didn't look much different from some hellspawn I knew back in Egorian. No wonder people get us mixed up with them.
I crawled after Gemma, pausing now and then to peek down at Undarin.
Below us a bridge connected the Widowknife Clanhold to the other side of a wide ravine that had been a river before the Worldwound. As Gemma and I snuck in, we saw a torrent of bloody waste gurgling out of the clanhold subbasements. The nasty stream trickled south before falling into the Sarkora River, way below.
On the other side of the bridge, the city of Undarin sprawled across the edge of the plateau before tumbling off the cliff. It crept across a few little islands in the river—rocks Alase had called Gorum's Chain—before crawling back onto dry land.
The Cliffside District echoed with screams and cracking whips. The bigger buildings had been turned into temples to demons, which the nutty Kellids took for gods. The biggest temple was for Deskari, demon lord of locusts, worst of the bad lot that came through the Worldwound when the Three first opened the door. That's where all the action was tonight. When the boss spied a procession headed down there, we knew we'd never have a better shot at sneaking into the Widowknife Clanhold.
Most of the hubbub came from the temple of Deskari, but there were other hot spots. A circle of cultists danced around a blood-caked statue of a muscle-bound demon, armored, horned, winged, clutching a lash of lightning. Just looking at it made me feel like something was uncoiling in my belly.
Viridio? I thought. Is that you in there?
Whatever it was—my devil, my own fear, or that salt pork that had gone off—it clenched and loosened, slinking away somewhere.
Another demon statue stood just on the other side of the bridge to Cliffside. The succubus spread its wings as if welcoming visitors to the fortress. I didn't like it, even from behind. It made me think of Shal and the harm it'd done Whalt when I got rid of her.
Down below, the Sarkora River split the city in half. Half a dozen little islands carried streets on their backs, connecting Cliffside to the southern bank. The demons had smashed most of the bridges, but one still connected Cliffside to the Steppeside.
Across the river I heard the aurochs lowing in their pens, and the slaves weeping in theirs. I kind of wanted to slip down there on the way out, pick a few locks, but that didn't seem like a smart idea. I didn't want to die in Undarin.
The sky was lousy with what looked like giant moths and locusts. They were really demons, most of them bigger than me, some as big as the stupid unicorn. The demons didn't fly like sentries. At least, I couldn't suss any pattern to their rounds.
That's the thing about demons. Even the smart ones got no pattern, no rules, no code. You can't predict them. You can't deal with them. If you're real lucky, you can hide from them. If you're less lucky, you can kill them.
You don't want to be unlucky with demons.
Case in point: The second sentry showed up early. One glance across the corner, and he spotted me crawling across the wall. A big Kellid, he called out in Hallit, "Hey!"
I rolled to my back and moaned like I was drunk.
The sentry lowered his voice, talking more Hallit words I didn't know. I understood the tone all right. He bought my act.
When he came around the corner, Gemma caught his ankle. He fell facedown over his spear. Gemma locked her legs around his neck and choked off his shout. He struggled to get his weight on top of her. He almost managed it before I cut his throat and pulled him off.
Gemma touched her chin. It was the sign criminals threw each other back in Egorian. I'd had a feeling she was a hometown girl. I returned the gesture.
Keeping low, we checked for any sign we'd been spotted. The bailey was empty except for a drowsy guard and some Arni-sized toad demon snoring at his feet.
Gemma looped a spider-silk rope around an inner parapet right above the guard. She made a harness from the other end and tapped her chest to say, My turn.
I lowered her, all smooth and quiet. She guided the rope with her ankles, like a spider. When she got close enough, it looked like all she did was stroke the guard's neck. She held his head in place while he slapped his hands against the wound and bled out.
The toad coughed mid-snore. Its bulging eyes opened, each the size and color of an orange.
Gemma signaled, Down. As she flipped herself right-side-up, the toad-dog belched. Its sticky tongue shot out, trapping Gemma's legs, trying to pull her close.
It was farther than I like to go when I'm not full fiend, but Alase and the boss both whammied me good before we went in. Knife in hand, I rolled over the edge.
I hit the demon dead center, knees on its back. Stuff a lot bigger
and nastier than its tongue surged out of its mouth. To make sure, I drove the big knife into its flat skull.
The impact knocked the wind out of me, and I'd cut myself pretty bad on its back spines, but nothing felt broke.
Caught between rope and tongue, Gemma gagged at the stench of the demon, or maybe at the sight of its guts all turned inside out. It took me a few slices to sever the tough muscle, but then she was free.
All right? I signed.
She shrugged and nodded.
Burglar signs weren't too different from Pathfinder hand-signals. Considering the kinds of jobs the boss did for his little club, that was no surprise. Pathfinders were all a bunch of burglars, when you got down to it.
We moved to the gate and peered between the bars.
Across a barren riverbed, an arching bridge connected the Widowknife Clanhold to the rest of Undarin. I thought "barren," but earlier we'd seen shapeless things oozing and seeping around in the gully.
Across the bridge, the succubus statue showed us her rear assets.
Just the other side of the gate stood a couple of guards. Light from the torches behind them threw long shadows over the bridge. One of the bruisers was all demon, a red-skinned brute with plates of armor bolted right through his skin and into the bone. The way he growled and shifted all the time, I figured it hurt. The other was a Kellid, tall as Kronug and twice as wide. Judging by his mane of spines, I guessed there was more than a whiff of demon in him.
I took a pebble from the ground and tossed it at Big Red, who didn't notice. Gemma did the same for Porcupine, who did. He looked behind him, didn't see us, and cursed his partner in demontongue. I grinned to think how things could have played out if we weren't in a hurry.
A ball of darkness covered up the guards and their torches. We heard their quizzical voices and then a familiar hum. The point of Oparal's holy sword swept out of the darkness once, but she had sense enough to sheath the thing before stepping out of the boss's conjured gloom. By the time they finished, Gemma and I had the gate open.
Naia and Erastus dumped the corpses into the gully. The moment the bodies stopped tumbling, a sloshing sound began moving toward them. I had a feeling the bodies wouldn't be there come morning.
The boss dispelled the dark, revealing himself and Alase, without Tonbarse. The big black wolf was too conspicuous for this kind of caper.
The boss took out one of the spell sticks we'd found in the Nekrosof catacombs. He broke it in half. After an instant of glamour, exact duplicates replaced the dead guards. There was nothing to them but looks and a bit of sound, but they'd fool anybody who didn't need a conversation.
The boss smiled in relief. He clapped me on the shoulder and whispered, "That was a spell quite beyond my ability. Now I understand how you must feel."
Things were going real smooth. That should have made me happy, but instead it made me nervous. From the start I said seven was too many for a sneak job. Nobody wanted advice from, you know, an actual burglar.
If it had to be seven of us, at least we got the right seven. Gemma was a devil with a knife and knew how to stay hid. Naia and Erastus were great shots and plenty stealthy, too. Neither Oparal nor the boss trusted the other enough to stay behind, and Alase talked herself in on account of it was her ancestral house.
The Kellids were only too glad to guard the Red Carriage. The crusaders would have followed Oparal into the Abyss, but most of them weren't made for the sneaky stuff.
The big problem was the stupid unicorn. It pitched such a fit that the boss suggested casting a spell to put him to sleep. Oparal said no, but it was too late. The unicorn heard what they were saying and came after me. Me! Arnisant reminded the pointy-headed horse who was boss, shying him off until Oparal cooled him down. In the end, both the unicorn and Arni stayed back.
After we got everybody inside the gate, the boss blew another couple scrolls to make Naia and Erastus invisible. They'd be our lookouts and cover any hasty retreats.
"Which way?" said Oparal. She looked up at the south tower.
The resident demon cult had been redecorating. After scratching their demonic symbols over Kellid carvings, they'd built a couple iron frames on the sides of the tower. The frames squealed as the wind tugged at them. They looked like a windmill's sails, but the shape was wrong. It took me a second to realize they were bat wings, or maybe dragon wings ...or maybe succubus wings.
I realized it wasn't wind-shredded canvas hanging from the rusty frames. It was human skin. The sight made my own skin crawl. I'd seen plenty of bad stuff in my time, just not so big and out in the open.
"The Tower of Zura." Alase pointed to the roof of the tower. Above the wings stood a sigil wrought of iron. It looked something like a moon-horned helm with jagged sides and a hook curling down for a nose. I'd seen it before.
"Have we come to the wrong place?" said the boss.
"No, this is the Widowknife Clanhold. Over there is the Tower of Dawn, and this was the Tower of Twilight. The Cult of Zura has stolen it from the Widowknife clan."
"What is Zura?" said Oparal.
"Demon lord," the boss and I said together.
"Maybe we should take this conversation inside," I said.
That time, nobody disagreed with the actual burglar.
Alase pointed at a little door at the base of the south tower, well away from the big entrance. By its rusted iron frame and the lack of a path leading to it, I figured it hadn't been used in a while. "We need to find stairs. The library is on a high floor. It looks down upon the plateau."
Alase knew that much because of a poem she'd memorized. She'd learned it from her uncle, who'd had it from his mother, and so on like that. The boss would have preferred it if somebody had written it down, but it was better than nothing.
Opening the tower door was a piece of cake. Once I caught its pins, I realized I could have raked it open. If the whole place was that loose, I could go wherever I wanted.
Slipping the picks back into their secret pocket in my sleeve, I felt the bulge of one of the riffle scrolls the boss made me carry. I didn't like having them.
For one thing, they spoiled the line of my jacket. For another, just the other morning I'd conjured a surprised-looking phantom pig that disappeared in a cloud of farts.
Having a knack for scrolls was all very good, but I didn't want to rely on one in a tight spot.
I peeked inside to make sure it was clear. The others joined me, and I shut the heavy door real quiet. The boss twisted his light ring. A row of furnaces ran along one wall, rusty iron vats set in the wall above them.
I had a listen at the inside door. When it checked out, I raked open the lock. Every bit as easy as I'd figured. Before we left, I wanted a look inside those furnaces. They reminded me of something I'd seen before. They were rusted shut pretty good, but I got one open enough for a look inside. A big hole had rusted through the tank set above the furnace.
"What do we need to know about Zura?" asked Oparal, trying to look over my shoulder. She could see just fine in starlight, but here in the pitch black, it was all me. I saw that the furnaces heated the vats, which were connected to big vents on top.
"She was the first vampire," said the boss. "Once an Azlanti queen, she discovered the secret of longevity through hemotaphagy."
"What does that mean?" said Alase.
"Blood-drinking," I said. My voice echoed in the iron chamber, real spooky. Also, I liked showing off I knew the big word.
"Some say Zura's fall heralded the Age of Darkness in ancient Azlant. As a vampire, her sins were numberless. Upon her death her soul fell into the Abyss, but rather than suffer she throve, becoming both vampire and succubus. In the Sodden Lands, the Koboto people worship her as one of the Three Feasters. Both the Bekyar tribes of the Mwangi Expanse and the halflings of the Kaava Lands—"
Oparal cut in. "How much of this information do we need, Count?"
"Those who would dedicate a tower to Zura either worship vampires and succubi—"
"Or else they are vampires and succubuses," I said, trying to be helpful and lighten the mood at the same time. The way everybody looked at me, I knew it was no use.
I climbed inside the furnace—it was roomy—and poked my head through the hole in the tank above. Six big vents rose up from the tank. They were narrower, but I figured I could slip inside. Plus, now I knew what the furnaces were for.
"You see what we got here, boss?"
"Hypocaust."
"Bless you."
Oparal shot me a dirty look, but I saw the ghost of a smile haunt the corner of her mouth. She thought I was funny. She just didn't want to let on. What she needed was a good laugh, a few pints, or maybe just one hell of a straight-up fight. Anything to take her mind off the crusader she'd lost.
If losing Porfirio was hard on Oparal, it was worse for his buddy Dragomir. The Ustalav had been all grins and laughs early on the night we spent in Valahuv, but he looked like he'd lost ten pounds overnight. His pretty eyelashes, which for a while made me worry I'd have some competition with the ladies, now made his half-closed eyes look sewn shut. He was starting to give me the creeps. I was glad they'd left him back with the carriage.
The reincarnated paladin was the first of the crusaders to die on this mission, which to me seemed like some kind of miracle by itself.
Of course, he'd been the second to die, too, which was a whole different kind of miracle, and not the kind even I could laugh about. None of us pointed out that Porfirio had brought it on himself by poking his nose in. That Feinroh Balemoon guy did that for us while he was running us out of his village, screaming that we'd turned their god away from them.
At least Feinroh still had the bird. The way the crusaders were looking at him, he was lucky they didn't pluck and roast that god, too. Instead, they collected Porfirio's body, and we left with our fresh water.
"I don't understand," said Alase. "What does ‘hypocaust' mean?"
