by David Gross
Anvil and Rings backed up, watching the monster burn but ready for it to lash out. Belmer remained in his fencer's stance, ready for anything. Sharessa hobbled to a tree and held herself up, watching. The fiend kept on burning and screaming, but it did nothing to escape the flames. Then she realized that it wasn't howling in pain.
"It's laughing at us!" she cried out.
It turned toward her then, its lipless grin nearly splitting its fleshless face. The fiend took two slow steps toward her, and then Belmer flashed toward it, sword arm straight as a lance, lunging for the thing's chest.
The little man flew straight through the fiend. Despite his surprise, he recovered with a graceful roll that left him crouched and facing the opposite direction. It had simply vanished, leaving only its fiery corona and a stench of sulfur.
The Sharkers needed no order to regroup, backs to center, swords out and up. Sharessa was last to join them, hindered by her injured ankle. The last living sailor joined them, his face grim with the acceptance of his fate. Sharessa knew how he must feel.
"So much for our advantage," grumbled Anvil. "Now we're back where we started."
"No," said Belmer. "It's hurt, worse than before. If we're lucky, it's angry."
"If we're lucky?" said Rings, incredulous.
Ingrar's scream was a bolt of lightning, galvanizing them all. Anvil was moving even before Belmer. They rushed toward the sound.
The fiend had Belgin by the throat, pressing the round-faced gambler into a tree. At the monster's feet curled Ingrar, seemingly uninjured, but paralyzed with terror. The fiend dropped Belgin as soon as they approached. It had used them as its own lure. Now it turned toward Belmer. It wanted revenge.
Belmer rushed toward the fiend, feinting at the last moment. This time the fiend wasn't surprised, and it sidestepped in the other direction, wagging its long finger at Belmer in a mockery of human admonishment. The slender man attacked again, this time in earnest. The fiend hopped backward and landed in a low, four-limbed stance, crawling sideways like the scorpion it resembled.
"Surround it," snapped Sharessa. She lagged behind the others but kept coming. "Help him!"
Rings, Anvil, and the sailor spread out. Only Rings still had a torch, and he waved it to attract the fiend's notice.
"Here, you great stinking spider!" he called. The fiend grinned and turned toward the dwarf. Belmer lunged, but the fiend had faked its distraction. It deflected Belmer's thrust with one arm. Brindra's sword cut a deep line into the gray flesh, but the fiend's other hand was a blur, clamping down on Belmer's wrist. The swordsman snapped a punch at the fiend's chin, but the monster only smiled. Then it clutched Belmer's arm in both hands and twisted.
"Ah!" Belmer didn't quite scream, but his eyes opened wide in the pain. The sword fell from his hands, and the fiend stepped on it. Then it lifted the squirming Belmer up toward its face, jaws wide.
Anvil and the sailor hit the fiend's legs together. They tumbled together, grasping and punching ineffectually, trying to wrestle with the thing. The fiend rose in the struggling mass, lifting Belmer by his arm. It threw him to the ground with bone-crunching force, reaching down to peel its attackers from its legs. Rings rolled away nimbly, but the monster's long fingers found the sailor.
Sharessa looked for Brindra's sword. She saw where it had fallen, but Rings's torch was moving, shaking the shadows. She went down on all fours to crawl, hoping the thing wouldn't see her before she reached the weapon.
Rings waved his torch like a flag, trying to distract the fiend from its prey. The captured sailor turned toward the dwarf, shaking his head to warn him away. Then the big tail swept out, more powerful than a loose boom in a storm. Sharessa heard the solid blow and saw her friend fall limp as an empty sack. His torch sputtered on the wet ground and died beside him.
She heard her own gasp and stopped. The fiend hesitated, too, looking around slowly. Its face looked even more like a skull where it stood bathed in a shaft of moonlight. Its eyes moved toward where she crept in the darkness. Then the sailor spat a curse as foul as the fiend's breath and lashed out in futile struggle.
"Go ahead, you bastard! Do it! Do it!"
The man was brave. Sharessa saw his fingers seek the fiend's throat, even as the monster's claws scrabbled across his stubbly face. Then the curved claws found the man's eyes and thrust deeply. There wasn't enough time for a scream, only the fiend's howling laughter.
Sharessa scrambled for the sword, abandoning silence. All she could think about was the fiend's hot breath in her own face, its claws scratching upon her skin before tearing in and breaking her open. She grabbed at the ground, her hands feeling stones and soil and branches. She heard the frantic drum of her heart, the rush of blood throbbing in her ears. Her hands kept moving, rocks scraping her fingers, vines entangling them. Then she felt a light touch upon her shoulder. She smelled decaying flesh and brimstone.
But she also felt Brindra's sword beneath her knee.
Sharessa turned slowly and smoothly, her back upon the ground. The fiend straddled her, one hand on either side. It barely allowed its own body to brush against her, bearing down as gently as a lover.
Sharessa pressed herself against the ground, shrinking almost demurely. The fiend cooed and mewled, its arms curling around her from either side, almost tender in its mockery of seduction. Sharessa's hand extended slowly beside her thigh, reaching. She gagged from the stench, closing her eyes lest the moonlight reveal its face and she scream.
Her fingers reached the sword just as the fiend's arms closed tightly around her. She felt its jagged teeth on her cheek. She drew back her arm and pressed the point of the blade against its belly.
"Back to hell," she said, shoving Brindra's sword deep into the monster. The fiend bucked and shrieked, and Sharessa felt its steaming ichor wash over her arms. She thrust again, pulling up to find the monster's heart. Its claws savaged her back, raking deep wounds, but still she held tight, forcing the blade deeper still.
Then the screaming stopped. The fiend's grip evaporated, and the creature crashed to the ground like a rotten tree.
Chapter Eight
Beside the Fountain
When one of them stumbled, another was there to help. Belmer even took a turn carrying Ingrar, who had fallen deeply asleep again. Anvil had let the boy go reluctantly.
"And who'll carry your heavy carcass when you drop dead of exhaustion?" Sharessa had said.
None of them spoke of Brindra, but Rings was obviously thinking of nothing else. The usually cheerful dwarf stared grimly ahead, marching as if into death rather than away from it. Sharessa knew how he felt, but her own sadness was mingled with the joy of survival. She tried to think of those who lived rather than those who had died.
They stopped to rest often, first in rolling meadows, later in cultivated fields. They were coming closer to the city.
"You can spend a day to recuperate," Belmer said. "That will give me the time I need to learn the city." Sharessa wondered whether his decision was based solely on expediency. She liked to think that their employer had come to care about the others as she did. She hoped Belmer had become a Sharker.
The sun was high and bright by the time they reached the city gates. Eldrinpar was far better fortified than Sharessa had remembered, but she had always visited by sea before. When she saw higher walls and new battlements, she thought of the fiends they had faced last night. If the bloodforges continued to draw the monsters to Doegan, how long could the city withstand them?
"If we are questioned at the gate, we were caravan guards," said Belmer. "The fiends attacked us between here and-what is the name?"
"Parsanic," said Anvil.
"Parsanic," agreed Belmer. "We don't have time for questions about Redbeard and the Morning Bird. I want to locate the bloodforge and get on with it."
"You mean the woman," said Belgin, smiling faintly.
"That, too," said Belmer. His own smile was brief and businesslike. "But also the bloodforge."
Low adobe homes sprawled outside the walls of Eldrinpar. Mar children played on the unpaved streets, their brown faces laughing through the dust. Sharessa noticed Belmer's gaze follow them. His eyes narrowed in thought or memory.
"Many of the Mar live outside the city," explained Sharessa. "Most of them are farmers or servants. Some will never be more than beggars."
Belmer nodded but said nothing. His eyes rested on a small Mar youth standing apart from the rest. The boy leaned carelessly against the city wall, inconspicuous in the shade. He watched the other children play but did not join them.
"Only if they choose to remain so," remarked Belmer. Sharessa composed a question in her mind but left it there. They approached the gate, where fair-skinned guards stood watching the traffic. They stood alert at the sight of the Sharkers.
"Who are you?" asked one of the guards bluntly.
"Travelers from Parsanic," said Sharessa. "The caravan we were hired to guard ran afoul of fiends."
The gate guards seemed briefly dubious, but the Sharkers' wounds were proof enough that they had run afoul of something.
"You look more like pirates than caravan guards," remarked one guard, looking at their clothes. He didn't sound as though he were joking. Sharessa stepped toward him, trying to capture his eyes with her smile. The guard was looking at Belmer's foreign features and frowning. She had to take his attention off the others.
"We usually sign on for ship voyages, it's true," she said, leaning closer. The guard finally met her eyes. Shar tugged idly on a shirt lace. The man's gaze followed as expected. There.
"We're exhausted," she said. She placed her warm hand gently on the guard's arm. "Can you recommend a good place to sleep?"
The rest was easy.
Within the gates, Eldrinpar was a different city. Aquatic images dominated the architecture, with wave patterns and marine imagery common on the grander buildings. The people were taller than the Mar, their skins more fair. Their clothes-flowing, brightly colored silks-were better, and they smiled confidently where they walked.
Not far past the gate stood a colossal fountain. From its center rose the huge bronze figure of a man wrestling an octopus that was rising from the ocean. Water jetted forth from every wave, pouring down into the wide basin. At its edges, people drew water in buckets or cupped hands.
That's what I need," said Belgin. "I'm parched."
He hurried toward the fountain. The others were quick to follow.
Sharessa dipped her cupped hands in carefully, pouring the cool water over her sticky face. Then she began to wash her hands in earnest, letting the dirty water run off into the street. She looked up to see Belmer leaning upon the fountain's edge, eyes closed in thought. Next to him, Anvil was wringing Ingrar's bandages dry. Bloody rivulets trickled into a drain in the street.
Rings sat alone at the edge of the fountain, staring dejectedly at the rippling water. Sharessa imagined that he saw Brindra's face in his own reflection. She moved over to sit next to the dwarf.
"We haven't had time to say goodbye," she said. "Not to Brindra or Kurthe, or even to Blackfingers."
Rings nodded. If his earrings jingled, the trickling water of the fountain obscured the sound.
"Maybe that's good," said Sharessa. Rings looked up at her, puzzled.
"Maybe it's better that we don't say goodbye. Remember when you and Brindra came back to Kissing Shark after drinking with those savages all day in Tharkar? What was that stuff called?"
"Koumiss," said Rings. He looked back into the water, the shadow of a smile dying on his lips. "Terrible stuff. Blackfingers was ready to have us both keelhauled just to get the smell off the ship."
"But then Brindra said, 'If you dip him into the ocean, you'll kill all the fish for a mile, and then what'll we have for supper?'"
Rings snorted, but his smile became more fond than sad. "Then she shoved me over the side, saying, 'Ah, I'm tired of fish, anyway'"
They both laughed a little, and the smiles lingered with their sadness.
Sharessa stood. "You know what Brindra would do now, if she were here?"
Rings looked up at her. "What?"
"This!" Sharessa pushed him hard, and Rings plunged into the water. He came up sputtering and furious. But when his eyes met Sharessa's, he burst into laughter. She offered him a hand to help him back out, ready to let him pull her in for revenge, but then Belmer stepped close.
"Stop that. We're drawing attention."
Sharessa pulled Rings out of the water and turned around. She followed Belmer's gaze to a group of armed men who had also been drinking from the fountain. They didn't look like residents of Doegan. Their clothes were of a different fashion, and their faces were foreign. They wore heavy armor and carried hammers and swords. Sharessa noticed that the cowardly Captain Turbalt stood among them, glancing at the Sharkers as he spoke to the tallest of the outlanders, a warrior clad in silver armor. When he saw Belmer staring back at him, he moved behind the armored men.
"Let's go," said Belmer. No sooner did the Sharkers comply than the foreigners stepped forward.
"Hold there," said the silver one. "We would speak with you."
"Perhaps later," said Belmer, smiling falsely. "We have pressing business in another part of the city." To the Sharkers, he said quietly, "Keep moving."
The outlanders hefted their weapons and spread out to intercept the Sharkers. Sharessa saw that several of them wore the symbol of a hammer as their badge. Were they foreign soldiers? Knights of an order? Adherents of the Fallen Temple?
"I said hold," commanded the tall knight again. "What are you doing in Doegan."
"That is no concern of yours," replied Belmer.
"I beg to differ," said the knight. "It can be no coincidence that upon my first visit to the Utter East I find the Sword Coast's most notorious assassin."
Surprise passed over Belmer's face like the shadow of a swift bird. In its wake was left a steely gaze aimed directly at Turbalt. The fat ship captain swallowed hard, then edged behind the knight, who spoke again.
"Tell us why you have come here, Artemis En-treri."
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