Queen of Thorns

by Dave Gross

  Six or seven of the demons raised their stolen hands above their heads, gurgling unholy prayers. The air around them congealed. The wasps fell to the ground while the demons crushed the insects in a frenzy of slaps and stomps.

  "Now," said the boss.

  By the time I realized Caladrel had stood, he'd unleashed three or four arrows. One jutted from the chest of a vermlek, blood spurting through its hollow shaft.

  Oparal charged the demons. Her sword struck quick as lightning and blazed twice as bright. Two demons came up behind her, black energy surrounding their hands as they reached for her. The boss riffled a scroll, and two gray bolts of magic struck each vermlek in the face. They howled and clutched their eyes as Oparal whipped her sword around and opened their bellies. Bloody worms as thick as my arm poured out of the wounds. Below each thick head, the worms split into four long tails, the tails further tipped with nests of countless tiny tentacles. The abandoned elf bodies slumped to the ground.

  The boss tucked his expended scroll back into his bandolier. I stayed close in case one of the worms went for him. Arni did the same, barking as a worm shot quick as a snake past Oparal. The hound jumped in front of the boss, but the demon didn't go for the count.

  It raised a dripping tail and pointed straight at me. In the squealing tongue of demons, it called out to its wormy buddies. Their heads swiveled in my direction. They rushed me.

  I tensed, deciding whether to stand or dodge.

  With a crack, Kemeili's whip caught the first vermlek by one of its wormy tails. The demon struggled to get free, but the curved flaps of the whip held it tight. Kemeili pulled it off course, giving me all the room I needed.

  I planted the big knife a couple of feet below the worm's five-jawed mouth. Dark blood sprayed up as I pulled out the blade, but the demon barely grunted at the wound. Maybe that's not where it kept its heart.

  Or maybe vermleks don't need hearts.

  It rammed its head against my ribs, knocking the breath out of me. Arnisant's jaws caught the worm just below its head. The hound shook once, twice, and the third time tore away a mass of ruined flesh and six inches of bloody windpipe.

  Turns out vermleks do need windpipes.

  We left it flopping on the ground and turned to stop the next one coming toward me. None even came close.

  Caladrel and the boss each put down another one with their swords. The ranger's big two-hander moved so fast that all I could see was its red blur. It hummed as it moved, louder when it touched a demon. In the instant it was out of its sheath, the boss's Shadowless Sword was damned near invisible. It looked as if everywhere he pointed his hand, some magic power tore wounds in the demons' flesh.

  Oparal cut the legs out from under two vermleks trying to break away. As the worms escaped their host bodies, she chopped them into pieces.

  Kemeili twisted the handle of her whip. Three long, wicked barbs grew from its tip. She lashed a vermlek across the belly, revealing the worm inside. With another stroke, she tore it out of its shelter. I filled it with darts from my jacket sleeves. It flopped a few times and lay still.

  It was over before I'd worked up a good lather. I thought about how the vermleks had looked at me, then I began to sweat.

  Oparal looked at me herself, eyes narrowing. The white light of her sword began fading. She raised it up and chopped the head off another demon.

  Caladrel joined her in the beheadings. The closer his sword came to the vermleks, the more it glowed like blood on a lantern pane. As the demons died, so did the glow.

  The boss had been right. It was good to have a couple demon slayers with us. I only hoped they didn't mistake me for one of the bad guys.

  Kemeili wiped the gore off her whip while the gnome looked us over for injuries. A gnome-sized whirlwind floated just above the grass behind him, but it hadn't left his side during the battle. He didn't find any wounds on us. "Not even a scratch!"

  Good thing, I thought as I fetched my jacket. Otherwise I'd have felt pretty silly setting aside what little armor I had. I promised myself not to do that again, even if it meant getting a little slime on my leathers.

  "Don't sound so disappointed," Kemeili said to the gnome. "Or maybe next time just help us fight them."

  He waved away her complaint. "I've seen scum like these a dozen times before. I knew you could handle them. They're boring."

  The boss knelt to examine the dead demons. I counted time in my head until he broke out his sketchbook. Fourteen seconds—a new record.

  Kemeili shot me a silent question. What is he doing?

  I could have told her that the boss is a student of everything, but the truth is he likes weird stuff best. For instance, he calls himself a botanist—a fancy word for "gardener"—but the plants he likes most are the freaks like those whispering lilies he used to give his Pathfinder agents. They could plant one wherever they were, talk into the flower, and their words would come through lily's twin in the boss's greenhouse.

  I could have told her that, but I didn't want to lead her on. If she'd finagled her way into the group because she couldn't get enough of me, well, who could blame her? On the other hand, it was way too convenient. If the queen had sent Oparal, that left the temple to send Kemeili. And while the Calistrians were bunches of fun with their temple baths and prostitutes, guile and revenge weren't high on my list of good times.

  Kemeili waited for an answer until I shrugged and turned away, pretending to concentrate on cleaning the gore off my knife. Once the boss decided we had to bury the elven bodies and burn their demon hosts, I kept busy enough to avoid her for the rest of the afternoon.

  After we finished, we hustled east until the boss called a halt at dusk.

  It was about time, I figured, since I was carrying twice as much gear as anybody except the paladin, and I'd decided she was half giant.

  Actually, she didn't look half bad. I liked how the sunlight made her black hair shine almost blue, but she never cracked a smile, especially when she saw me looking back at her.

  The gnome dropped his pack. It hit the ground with a heavy thump. I grabbed the strap and hefted it. It was almost too much to lift in one hand.

  "Hey, Thick. How do you haul so much?"

  "Fimbulthicket," he corrected me, but then he smiled. He'd shaken off his morning grump, but he still winced as if every move brought out a bad ache in his bones. "I imbued myself with the might of an ant."

  "An ant?"

  "Proportionately, they are far more powerful than we gnomes. Even stronger than you humans."

  He called me human, so I liked him a little better, despite his stupid name. "So you cast a spell?"

  He nodded.

  "You got to teach the boss that one." I touched my own aching back. It'd be worth one of his riffle scrolls to lighten my load.

  The gnome shook his head. "It's not some arcane formula, but rather my connection to the Green that lends me power."

  "I get it. You're more like a cleric than a wizard. But the boss is a clever guy. Maybe he could figure out a way to do with his scrolls what you do with your Green."

  "Perhaps." The gnome shrugged, then brightened. "If he did, it would certainly be the first time that I ever heard of such a thing."

  The boss doled out chores, and no one seemed to mind his giving orders. Caladrel made a fire as Kemeili skinned the hares he'd shot while he scouted ahead during our hike. She was good with a knife, as I knew better than most.

  "Hey, boss. I could use a little help with that thing over there."

  He glanced at Kemeili and back at me. We walked off far enough that I figured the elves wouldn't overhear us.

  "I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to take Kemeili with us."

  "She is an official representative of the temple of Calistria," he said. "You realize they are the most influential sect in Kyonin?"

  "Yeah, yeah." He'd given me the long lesson before we'd arrived, and I could list the names of all the elf gods. I liked that they worshiped Lady Luck, same as me a
nd the boss, but their favorite was Calistria, the Savored Sting. "I'm just saying I don't think she's here for the right reason. Even if she was, she's going to be a distraction."

  "She is important not only to the success of our mission but to the continued goodwill of her temple, the court, and the queen herself."

  "Sure, but—"

  "Just keep her happy," he said. "That should not be too onerous. Or have you lost your touch with the ladies?"

  "Lost my—? Hey, now. You know that's not a problem."

  "I hear quite a few wild boasts, but when we face a situation that requires a certain subtle—"

  "Fine."

  "Fine?"

  "Fine, I'll keep her happy."

  "Excellent," he said, turning to go back to the others. He paused and added, "Just not near camp. Show some discretion."

  The boss and Oparal went off to fetch water, talking as they went. I had his tent set up and his gear stowed inside by the time they returned with filled canteens and waterskins.

  I stretched out Arnisant's supper by giving him a little at a time rather than throwing him a whole hare. By the time it was gone, he didn't even give me the starving dog routine. He just settled down at the boss's feet.

  "What other varieties of fiend might we face?" the boss asked Caladrel.

  "The list is endless," said Caladrel. "The vermlek are the least of them. I have fought over a dozen kinds, but many others lurk in Tanglebriar or await summons from the Abyss."

  "This is why I returned to Kyonin," said Oparal. "To wipe this filth from our land."

  Caladrel raised his leather tankard in salute. "May you touch the Brightness."

  "A laudable goal," said the boss. "But I would be as glad to avoid them as to slaughter them. Our mission is to find Variel Morgethai."

  "We are all here to help you find your father, Varian," said Kemeili. He usually told people to call him by his given name 'in the field,' as he put it. Still, I didn't like the way she said it. Maybe he would have to be the one to keep her happy. That thought was more annoying than I'd expected it to be.

  "Are we certain he still lives?" said Oparal. "No one has seen him for almost a century."

  "I would know if he had died," said the gnome. He rubbed his knuckles. "I would feel it."

  The boss shot him a curious look. It was a weird thing to say. From the way everyone else looked away, I wasn't the only one who thought so.

  The gnome picked up on it too. "I would feel it in the Green. Variel has always been a strong presence in the land."

  Everybody nodded as if that explained everything, but it still killed the conversation.

  Caladrel and Oparal discussed the best ways to kill demons. Lightning and poison were useless. Fire, frost, and acid weren't so good either, but that mattered more to the boss, who had to pick the right spells to write in his riffle scrolls. Since I'd had the big knife whammied in Goka, I was all set to slice off a hunk of demon.

  As we banked the fire and got ready to sleep, I caught another of those looks from Kemeili. It was weird how she could look like a girl one moment—complete with a baby-doll voice that shouldn't have done it for me but, to be honest, kind of did—and then turn her head in the firelight to become all woman.

  Well, maybe part tiger, too.

  Sleep is what I wanted, and Kemeili looked like she had more than cuddles on her mind. I rolled up the elven cloak and shook out my jacket, trying to make it clear that I was ready for sleep.

  "What's that?" said Oparal. She sat on a fallen log beside the fire, her big sword across her knees. "That image on your jacket."

  I held it up, showing off the phoenix on the back. "Phoenix. Big flaming bird. They got them over in Tian Xia."

  "Did you see one?"

  "Yeah. Once. Kind of."

  Oparal tilted her head to the side, obviously not buying my story.

  "I had this jacket made to remind me of all the fights I had in Tian Xia. That's a land on the other side of the—"

  "I know what Tian Xia is."

  "Well, long story short, I got into a few tussles over there. Each of these pictures is kind of my souvenir."

  "Trophies of your kills?"

  I didn't like her tone. It didn't matter to me what god she wore on her shield. She had no business judging me. Still, I wasn't about to back down just because she wore shiny armor. "I didn't kill them all," I said. "Just the ones who got in my face with their righteous attitudes."

  "That's no phoenix." She held up her shield to show off the bird-woman—which now that I looked closer, did bear some suspicious similarities to the symbol on my jacket. Not the same, but close enough to make me wonder what the artist had known. "It was someone bearing the symbol of my order, wasn't it?"

  "Nah," I said. "It was a whole other country. Different gods and everything."

  Oparal reached into a belt pouch and brought out a little jar. She opened it and dipped in a finger before drawing a little sun on her brow, across her lips, and on the armor over her heart. "Tell me again who you killed," she said. "I will know if you lie."

  "That's enough," said the boss.

  "So you know what he did?" said Oparal.

  He didn't know, because I hadn't told him. The moment he hesitated to answer, Oparal knew it too.

  "There were two of them," I said. "Well, one woman in two bodies. I think one of them was a paladin. I wasn't looking for a fight, but they were. This phoenix on my jacket, that's what was left of them afterward."

  Oparal's eyes widened. No doubt she was surprised I'd told the truth.

  "Like I said, I wasn't the one looking for a fight."

  "You killed a paladin!" She dropped her jar of holy balm and drew her sword an inch from its sheath. It lit up the trees around us.

  "Put that away," said Caladrel. "They can see that light in Razmiran."

  When Oparal didn't move, the boss snapped, "Sheathe your weapon, or return to Iadara and tell the queen we have no use for you."

  Oparal shoved the blade back into place, but her eyes never left my face. I folded the jacket so nobody else could see the phoenix or any of the other figures carved into its leather. Eventually I turned away from Oparal and walked out of camp, half-hoping the boss or Arni would follow. But they didn't.

  I found a cozy spot just within range of the fire's light and sat down. What pissed me off about Oparal wasn't that she'd made me admit what I did. I didn't give a good damn what she thought. I just didn't like thinking about the people I'd killed. Most of them had it coming—killers themselves, or worse. Others came looking to kill me, and I shouldn't have felt a bit bad about killing them first.

  But this phoenix paladin, when she'd found me, she thought she'd found a devil. A monster, not a man. I tried telling her otherwise, but she wouldn't listen. So I could say I hadn't killed her. She'd killed herself.

  But that was a lie, and I knew it. The truth was that I beat her before I killed her. I could have walked away. Well, run away. But I could have got away—that was the point. I could have got away and left her there alive.

  But that's not what I did.

  Shoving the jacket under my head for a pillow, I lay down alone. When sleep finally caught up with me, it brought me nightmares about the people who hadn't had it coming.

  People I'd killed anyway.

  Chapter Five

  The Walking Man

  Varian

  While Caladrel and Kemeili clambered across the Walking Man's torso, Radovan stood on the shoulder and raised his face to the emerging sun. He squinted for a moment before allowing a thin smile to crease his broad jaws.

  That was a relief. Seeing him shake off the cloud that had hovered over him in recent days gladdened my heart.

  Thirty feet above the ground, Radovan shaded his eyes in mockery of an explorer viewing undiscovered territory. I knew just the painting he had in mind, for it hung in my gallery. Radovan's foot slipped in the damp ivy, but he caught himself before falling to the ground. He laughed away the near-f
atal accident and resumed his pantomime.

  Shielding the page of my journal from the rainwater dripping from the leaves above, I sketched him into my drawing of the Walking Man. As I worked, I heard the muted clank of Oparal's armor as she drew up beside me. She peered over my shoulder to inspect my sketch. "He looks too human."

  I added more flowers to the head-like lump surmounting the man-shaped amalgamation of trees, but I knew Oparal spoke of Radovan. Why else would she address me in Taldane unless she hoped he might overhear? Radovan's infernal features are hardly prominent compared to the horns and tails common to so many other Chelish hellspawn, but they are not so subtle that he can pass for human, as he often fancies.

  Oparal's stern demeanor gave me the impression she would have enjoyed seeing Radovan fall to his death. That thought may have been uncharitable, but some paladins are scarcely different from the empire's Hellknights. It was no coincidence that the center of worship for Iomedae and Asmodeus shared the same homeland. Both followings too often valued their particular form of order over general reason.

  That thought triggered a realization about Oparal's Taldane accent. "How long did you reside in Cheliax?"

  The question seemed to surprise her. "I ...I was born there."

  Of course, I realized. The elves reserve their scorn for those raised outside of Kyonin—outside of any sizeable elven community—not those who simply travel through non-elven countries.

  "In Westcrown, I imagine. You have visited Egorian, though. But you did not spend long enough there to adopt the Imperial pronunciation."

  "You have a knack for dialect, Count Jeggare. Before joining the Order of Lymirin, I made pilgrimage throughout the country. I visited every remaining shrine to Iomedae and built another wherever the Prince of Lies had usurped her place."

  There was no point in correcting her characterization of the Prince of Law. In private, I sympathized with her distaste for the Infernal Compact that bound my nation to an everlasting treaty with the forces of Hell. Since we were both outside the jurisdiction of our homeland, I felt a temptation to confide my devotion to Desna, but decided in favor of caution. Too often had I seen good friends and family denounced by the inquisitors of Asmodeus, sometimes fatally.