Tarma saw his alerted glance, and whistled shrilly
for Warrl.
From the crowd to the left of her came shouts—
then screeches, and the sound of panic. Warrl was
covering the distance between himself and Tarma
with huge leaps, and was slashing out with his
teeth as he did so. The worshipers scrambled to get
out of the way of those awful jaws, clearing the last
few feet for him. He skidded to a halt beside her;
with one hand she snatched Need from her sheath
and tossed her to Kethry, with the other she un-
sheathed her own blade, turning the operation into
an expert stroke that took out the two men nearest
her. Warrl took his stand, guarding Tarma's back.
Need had sailed sweetly into Kethry's hand, hilt
first; she turned her catch into a slash that mir-
rored Tarma's and cleared space for herself. Then
she found herself forced to defend against two sorts
of attack; the physical, by the temple guards, and
the magical, by the High Priest.
While the demon unaccountably watched, but did
nothing, the priest forced Kethry back against the
wall. As bolts of force crashed against the shield
she'd hastily thrown up, Kethry had firsthand proof
that his magics had been augmented by the demon.
Even so, she was the more powerful magician—but
she was being forced to divide her attentions.
Warrl solved the problem; the priest-mage was
not expecting a physical attack. Warrl's charge from
the side brought him down, and in moments the
kyree had torn out his throat. That left Kethry free
to erect a magical barrier between themselves and
reinforcements for the guards they were cutting
down. She breathed a prayer of thanks to whatever
power might be listening as she did so—thanks that
the past few months had required so little of her
talents that her arcane armaments and energy re-
serves were at their height.
Tarma grinned maliciously as a wall of fire sprang
up at Kethry's command, cutting them off from the
rest of the temple. Now there were only two aco-
lytes, the remaining handful of guards, and the
oddly inactive demon to face.
"Hold."
The voice was quiet, yet stirred uneasiness in
Tarma's stomach. She tried to move—and found
that she couldn't. The guards were utterly motion-
less, as lifeless as statues. Only the acolytes were
able to move, and all their attention was on the
demon.
His gaze was bent on Kethry.
Tarma heard a rumbling snarl from behind the
altar. Before she could try to prevent him, Warrl
leaped from the body of the high priest in a suici-
dal attack on the demon.
Thalhkarsh did not even glance in the kyree`s
direction; he intercepted Warrl's attack with a seem-
ingly negligent backhanded slap. The kyree yelped
as the hand caught him and sent him crashing into
the wall behind Tarma, limp and silent.
"Woman, I could use you." The demon's voice
was low and persuasive. "Your knowledge is great,
the power you command formidable, and you have
infinitely more sense than that poor fool your fa-
miliar killed. I could make you a queen among ma-
gicians. I would make you my consort."
Tarma fumed in impotence as the demon reached
for her oathkin.
Kethry's mind bent beneath the weight of the
demon's attentions. It was incredibly difficult to
think clearly; all her thoughts seemed washed out
in the red glare of his gaze. Her enchantments to
counter beguilement seemed as thin as silk veils,
and about as protective.
"You think me cruel, evil. Yet what ever have I
done save to give each of these people what he
wants? The women have but to see me to desire
me; the men lust for what women I do not care to
take—all my worshipers want power. All these
things I have given in exchange for worship. Surely
that is fair, is it not? It would be cruelty to with-
hold these things, not cruelty to bestow them."
His voice was reasoned and persuasive. Kethry
found herself wavering from what she had until
now thought to be the truth.
"Is it the bonds with that scrap of steel that
trouble you? Fear not—it would be the work of a
single thought to break them. And think of the
knowledge that would be yours in the place at my
side! Think of the power ..."
His eyes glowed yet more brightly and seduc-
tively, and they filled her vision.
"Think of the pleasure ..."
Pain lancing across her thoughts woke her from
the dreams called up by those eyes. She looked
down at the blood trickling along her right hand—
she'd clenched it around the bare blade of her sword
with enough force to cut her palm. And with the
pain came the return of independent thought. Even
if everything he said were true, and not the usual
truth-twisting demons found so easy, she was not
free to follow her own will.
There were other, older promises that bound her.
There was the geas she had willingly taken with
the fighting-gifts bestowed by Need, and the pledge
she had made as a White Winds sorceress to use
her powers for the greater good of mankind. And by
no means least, there was the vow she had made
before all of Liha'irden; pledging Tarma that one
day she would take a mate (or mates) and raise a
clutch of children to bear the banner and name of
Tarma's lost Clan. Only death itself could keep her
from fulfilling that vow. And it would kill Tarma
should she violate it.
She stared back at the demon's inhuman eyes,
defiance written in every fiber.
He flared with anger. "You are the more foolish,
then!" he growled—and backhanded her into the
wall as casually as he had Warrl.
She was halfway expecting such a move, and
managed to relax enough to take the blow limply. It
felt rather like being hit with a battering ram, but
the semiconsciousness she displayed as she slid
into a heap was mostly feigned.
"You will find you have ample leisure to regret
your defiance later!" he snarled in the same petu-
lant tones as a thwarted spoiled child.
Now he turned his attentions to Tarma.
"So—the nomad—"
Tarma did her best to simulate a fascination with
the demon that she did not in the least feel.
"It seems that I must needs petition the swords-
woman. Well enough, it may be that you are even
more suitable than your foolish companion."
The heat of his gaze was easily dissipated by the
cool armoring of her Goddess that sheathed Tarma's
heart and soul. There simply was nothing there for
the demon to work on; the sensual, emotional parts
of her nature had been subsumed into devotion to
the War
rior when Tarma had Sworn Sword-Oath.
But he couldn't know that—or could he?
At any rate her attempt to counterfeit the same
bemused rapture his brides had shown was appar-
ently successful.
"You are no beauty; well, then—look into my
eyes, and see the face and body that might be yours
as my priestess."
Tarma looked—she dared not look away. His eyes
turned mirrorlike; she saw herself reflected in them,
then she saw herself change.
The lovely, lithe creature that gazed back at her
was still recognizably Tarma—but oh, the differ-
ences that a few simple changes made! This was a
beauty that was a match for Thalhkarsh's own. For
a scant second, Tarma allowed herself to be truly
caught by that vision.
The demon felt her waver—and in that moment
of weakness, exerted his power on the bond that
made her Kal'enedral.
And Tarma realized at that instant that Thalh-
karsh was truly on the verge of attaining godlike
powers, for she felt the bond weaken—
Thalhkarsh frowned at the unexpected resistance
he encountered, then turned his full attention to
breaking the stubborn strength of the bond.
And that changing of the focus of his attention in
turn released Tarma from her entrapment. Not
much—but enough for her to act.
Tarma had resisted the demon with every ounce
of stubbornness in her soul, augmenting the strength
of the bond, but she wasn't blind to what was going
on around her.
And to her horror she saw Kethry creeping up on
the demon's back, a fierce and stubborn anger in
her eyes.
Tarma knew that no blow the sorceress struck
would do more than anger Thalhkarsh. She decided
to yield the tiniest bit, timing her moment of weak-
ness with care, waiting until the instant Need was
poised to strike at the demon's unprotected back.
And as Thalhkarsh's magical grip loosened, her
own blade-hand snapped out, hilt foremost, to strike
and break the demon's focus-bottle.
At the exact moment Tarma moved, Kethry bur-
ied Need to the hilt in the demon's back, as the
sound of breaking glass echoed and re-echoed the
length and breadth of the temple.
Any one of those actions, by itself, might not
have been sufficient to defeat him; but combined—
Thalhkarsh screamed in pain, unanticipated, un-
expected, and all the worse for that. He felt at the
same moment a good half of his stored power flow-
ing out of him like water from a broken bottle—
—a broken bottle!
His focus—was gone!
And pain like a red-hot iron seared through him,
shaking him to the roots of his being.
He lost his carefully cultivated control.
His focus was destroyed, and with it, the power
he had been using to hold his followers in thrall.
And the pain—it could not destroy him, but he was
not used to being the recipient of pain. It took him
by surprise, and broke his concentration and cost
him yet more power.
He lost mastery of his form. He took on his true
demonic aspect—as horrifying as he had been
beautiful.
And now his followers saw for the first time the
true appearance of what they had been calling a
god. Their faith had been shaken when he did noth-
ing to save the life of his High Priest. Now it was
destroyed by the panic they felt on seeing what he
was.
They screamed, turned mindlessly, and attempted
to flee.
His storehouse of power was gone. His other
power-source was fleeing madly in fear. His focus
was destroyed, and he was racked with pain, he
who had never felt so much as a tiny pinprick
before. Every spell he had woven fell to ruins about
him.
Thalhkarsh gave a howling screech that rose un-
til the sound was nearly unbearable; he again
slapped Kethry into the wall. Somehow she man-
aged to take her blade with her, but this time her
limp unconsciousness as she slid down the wall
was not feigned.
He howled again, burst into a tower of red and
green flame, and the walls began to shift.
Tarma dodged past him and dragged Kethry un-
der the heavy marble slab of the altar, then made a
second trip to drag Warrl under its dubious shelter.
The ground shook, and the remaining devotees
rushed in panic-stricken confusion from one hoped-
for exit to another. The ceiling groaned with a
living voice, and the air was beginning to cloud
with a sulfurous fog. Then cracks appeared in the
roof, and the trapped worshipers screeched hope-
lessly as it began to crumble and fall in on them.
Tarma crouched beneath the altar stone, protect-
ing the bodies of Kethry and Warrl with her own—
and hoped the altar was strong enough to shelter
them as the temple began falling to ruins around
them.
It seemed like an eternity, but it couldn't have
been more than an hour or two before dawn that
they crawled out from under the battered slab,
pushing and digging rubble out of the way with
hands that were soon cut and bleeding. Warrl did
his best to help, but his claws and paws were meant
for climbing and clinging, not digging; and besides
that, he was suffering from more than one cracked
rib. Eventually Tarma made him stop trying to
help before he lamed himself.
"Feh," she said distastefully, when they emerged.
The stone—or whatever it was—that the building
had been made of was rotting away, and the odor
was overpowering. She heaved herself wearily up
onto the cleaner marble of the altar and surveyed
the wreckage about them.
"Gods—to think I wanted to do this quietly! Well,
is it gone, I wonder, or did we just chase it away for
a while?"
Kethry crawled up beside her, wincing. "I can't
tell; there's too many factors involved. I don't think
Need is a demon-killer, but I don't know every-
thing there is to know about her. Did we get rid of
him because he lost the faith of his devotees, be-
cause you broke the focus, because of the wound I
gave him, or all three? And does it matter? He
won't be able to return unless he's called, and I
can't imagine anyone wanting to call him, not for a
long, long time." She paused, then continued. "You
had me frightened, she'enedra."
"Whyfor?"
"I didn't know what he was offering you in re-
turn for your services. I was afraid if he could see
your heart—"
"He didn't offer me anything I really wanted,
dearling. I was never in any danger. All he wanted
to give me was a face and figure to match his own."
"But if he'd offered you your Clan and your voice
back—" Kethry replied soberly.
<
br /> "I still wouldn't have been in any danger," Tarma
replied with a little more force than she intended.
"My people are dead, and no demon could bring
them back to life. They've gone on elsewhere and
he could never touch them. And without them—"
she made a tiny, tired shrug, "—without them,
what use is my voice—or for that matter, the most
glorious face and body, and all the power in the
universe?"
"I thought he had you for a moment—"
"So did he. He was trying to break my bond with
the Star-Eyed. What he didn't know was all he was
arousing was my disgust. I'd die before I'd give in
to something that uses people as casually as that
thing did."
Kethry got her belt and sheath off Warrl and
slung Need in her accustomed place on her hip.
Tarma suppressed the urge to giggle, despite pain
and weariness. Kethry, in the sorceress' robes she
usually wore, and belted with a blade looked odd
enough. Kethry, dressed in three spangles and a
scrap of cloth and wearing the sword looked totally
absurd.
Nevertheless Tarma copied her example. "Well,
that damn goatsticker of yours got us into another
one we won't get paid for," she said in more normal
tones, fastening the buckle so that her sword hung
properly on her back. "Bloody Hell! If you count in
the ale we had to pour and the bribes we had to
pay, we lost money on this one."
"Don't be so certain of that, she'enedra." Kethry's
Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound Page 23
