by Nathan Long
“But you could be killed.”
I gave him a look. “What was your line? A man’s honor is more precious than his life, or some shit? That doesn’t count for chicks?”
He made some answer, but I didn’t hear him. I was already speeding down the street screaming bloody murder.
Unfortunately, what with the wind singing through the airship’s rigging and all the boots marching and the armor jingling, nobody heard me until it was too late. The Aldhanan and his boys were already through the temple door before the crossbow guys who were guarding the ship saw me and started shouting.
“The demoness!”
“She’s coming!”
“Shoot her!”
I hopped like a bunny and their bolts zinged under me to kick dust off the street.
“It’s an ambush! Stop the Aldhanan! Call ’im back!”
They kept shooting, so I kept running, straight for the temple doors. They were closing! The fucking priests were locking out the reinforcements! Including Lhan, dammit. Oh well. I steamed ahead and bounded through the doors just before they boomed shut, and came down smack dab in the middle of Ru-Sul’s little stage play. I gotta hand it to him. He’d really done it up right.
The Aldhanan was standing in the middle of the temple with his jaw hanging open and the captain and the priest and the rest of his posse all spread out around him, all staring at the scene going on in the middle of the magic circle, which looked like something out of a drive-in horror movie. The candles on the big candlesticks were lit up all around the circle, and green smoke was rising up from a wide, wok-shaped hibachi full of coals right in the center, where a tall guy in black robes was chanting some mumbo jumbo and holding up a gold dagger in the shape of a pointy tentacle. Laid out on the floor at his feet were Sai and Wen-Jhai, both naked and bound and gagged and painted with weird symbols, and held down by more guys in black robes.
I wondered for a second who these black robe guys were, ’cause they were about to take one for the team in the most permanent way possible. I mean, they might just be pretending to be evil heretics, but they were gonna get their playacting priest asses chopped into tiny little pieces by real live swords. Maybe they thought they’d get their reward in heaven. Whatever. It wasn’t them I was worried about. It was my friends’ asses I was here to save.
“Aldhanan! Watch out! It’s an ambush! Behind you!”
The Aldhanan’s guards spun around at my shout, but just then an army of black-robed guys exploded out of all the tents around the circle and charged them, stabbing and screaming, while more shot crossbows down at them from the tops of the pillars all around the room.
At least ten guards went down with bolts through their necks and chests as the Aldhanan and his crew faced out to meet the attack, and a bunch more died from spear thrusts before they got themselves together and dressed their lines. Shit! It was already a massacre, and it had only just started.
“Aldhanan! Turn! Your daughter is in peril!”
The voice was high and sharp. I looked around and saw the priest with the fancy hat standing behind the Aldhanan and pushing him toward the circle where Wen-Jhai was being menaced by the fake heretic with the tentacle knife. Was he in on it? Was he Ru-Sul’s irrefutable witness? I didn’t know, and couldn’t worry about it right then. The guy with the knife didn’t look like he was pretending, or waiting.
I leapt right over the Aldhanan’s head and hit Tentacle-Knife with a flying tackle that sent us both rolling towards the pit. We stopped right at the edge with me on top, and he stabbed up at me with the dagger. Which is when I remembered I didn’t have a weapon.
Fuck!
I cut my hand catching his wrist, then headbutted him in the nose and stripped the knife from his hand as he shrieked and grabbed his face.
“Sorry, bro. I need that.”
I rolled off him and kicked him into the pit, then came up brandishing the dagger at the guys who were holding down my friends.
“Okay, you fuckers, now you’re gonna—”
“She attacks my daughter! Drive her into the pit!”
The Aldhanan was shoving towards me through his men, screaming bloody murder. He looked like shit. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been as healthy and happy as one of those gray-haired triathletes you see in vitamin commercials for old people—trim, fit, with a big white smile, a chin beard, and a mane of silver hair that flowed down over his shoulders. Now he looked like Gary Busey on a bad day. His cheeks were hollowed out, his beard was all over his face, and his hair was greasy and limp. His eyes, however, were blazing at me like purple death rays. Which, okay, was understandable. I mean, I was standing over his daughter with a sacrificial knife in my hand, but, come on, we’d been buddies, hadn’t we? Wasn’t he gonna give me a chance to explain?
Not so much.
The captain of his guard came in first, a hard-faced motherfucker with an eye-patch who looked like he was made out of leather and leaf springs, cutting down the heretics who were holding Sai and Wen-Jhai, but when he charged me, the Aldhanan pushed past him and started swinging at me like a psycho with a chainsaw. I dropped the dagger and dodged away, inches ahead of his sword—and almost fell into the pit just like he wanted.
“Hey! Stop! I’m on your side!”
He just kept coming. Dammit, I didn’t want to fight the Aldhanan! Maybe he’d get the idea if I fought the heretics. I ducked a swing from Captain Eye-Patch and snatched up one of the big-ass candlesticks, then jumped out of the circle and started laying into the fake heretics from behind. The thing made a good weapon—heavy duty wrought iron, lots of spikes, and as tall as me—and I cleaned house as I shouted over the fight to the Aldhanan.
“See! I’m fighting the bad guys!”
The Aldhanan looked confused for a second, but then Fancy Hat piped up again.
“Listen not to her unholy whispers! She seeks only to trick you into lowering your guard! ’Tis the same trick she used to steal your daughter!”
Okay, this guy was definitely in on the set-up. He was working way too hard to keep the Aldhanan fighting me, and unfortunately Sai and Wen-Jhai couldn’t come to my defense. I saw them trying, struggling on the ground and shouting into their gags, but the Aldhanan and his dudes were too busy fighting to stop and free them.
The Aldhanan snarled at me. “You cannot fool me, demoness! Come near and you will die like the rest!”
Fine, then. I could fight the fake heretics from outside the circle just the same as I could from inside. Except, actually, I couldn’t, ’cause the crossbow guys up on the tops of the columns were shooting at me now. In fact, the only reason they hadn’t killed me yet was ’cause the half-dozen heretics I was fighting had me dodgin’ and hoppin’ around like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. I had bolts zipping past my ears and spears stabbing at the rest of me, and I knew if I stopped dancing even for a second, one or the other was gonna make a pin-cushion out of me.
And it wasn’t only me who was in a bad spot. The Aldhanan’s boys were getting clobbered too. They were top-notch soldiers, and fighting smart and strong, but almost half of ’em had gone down in that first charge, and the rest were outnumbered two to one—and it was getting closer to three to one every second. Worse, it seemed like all the fire that wasn’t coming my way was concentrated on the Aldhanan. Bolts were bouncing off the floor all around him like hail, and I saw one punch down through his shoulder armor so hard his knees buckled.
“Aldhanan!”
Eye-Patch and surged in and hauled him behind a pillar, then stood over him like a one-eyed monolith, swiping at the bolts that glanced down at him from above.
I had to get up there and take those crossbow guys out, but the damned columns were as high as the pit Ru-Sul had thrown us in was deep. No way I could jump that high. Maybe I could throw rocks at ’em. I started trying to back outta the scrum, but before I could, one of the crossbow guys screamed and pitched off his pillar to splat right in the middle of the guys I was fighting.
>
If you think I wasn’t gonna take advantage of a gift like that you’re nuts. I mowed down half a dozen of the fuckers before they had a chance to recover, and the whole time more crossbow guys were taking the high dive—one, two, three, and a fourth, bouncing off shark lady’s finned head before disappearing down into the pit.
I looked around. The crossbow guys from the Aldhanan’s ship were pouring through a break in the side wall of the temple, and Lhan was leading them. The little smarty had found them another way in, and they were going to town, peppering the tops of the columns like they had their pieces on autofire.
“Alright, Lhan!”
I raised my jumbo candlestick in a salute, then waded into the fake heretics again. Without having to worry about death from above, it all suddenly went much better, with me cleaning house on the outside of the ring and the Aldhanan and his crew chopping priests down in the middle—and, a couple seconds later, Lhan and the guys from the ship dropping their crossbows and lining up on either side of me with cutlasses swinging.
“Good work, Lhan! I think you saved the day.”
He nodded, but wouldn’t meet my eye. “I did what was required.”
Still as chilly as a toilet seat in January, the punk. Before I could give him shit for it, though, the disguised priests’ nerve finally broke and they started running for the exits, and we got separated chasing ’em down.
When we all came back, the Aldhanan was kneeling beside Wen-Jhai in the middle of the circle as Captain Eye-Patch cut her free and his men saw to Sai. Monsignor Fancy Hat was standing behind him, pretending to be concerned, but looking like he’d just eaten a lemon, skin and all.
I gave the Aldhanan a salute and a smile as I stepped to the edge of the circle. “Still want to kill me?”
He looked up at me and I noticed he still had the crossbow bolt sticking up out of his shoulder armor. Damn, that fucker was tough. He shook his head.
“Questions first. Seize her.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TREACHERY!
Before I knew what was going on, I had about six swords poking me in the neck and Captain Eye-Patch was knocking my candlestick out of my hands.
“Beloved!”
Lhan got in between me and the guards, sword up. “My Aldhanan! What is the meaning of this? Did we not just save your life?”
“Did you? Or did you fail to take it?” His eyes flashed. “Take him as well.”
More swords poked at Lhan, and Eye-Patch knocked his sword to the ground too. But even though we were both disarmed and a few wrong answers away from being shish-kabobbed, all I could do was stare at Lhan. Was I hearing things? Had he just called me beloved?
The Aldhanan rose, wincing, and stepped towards us, crossbow bolt and all, but the priest put out a hand.
“Waste not your breath, my Aldhanan. They will tell you naught but lies. Kill them where they stand.”
Lhan sneered. “It is the priest you should kill, my Aldhanan. For it was he and his brethren who led you into this trap.”
I pointed at Wen-Jhai, who was being helped to her feet by Captain Eye-Patch. “Ask your daughter about it. She’ll—”
The Aldhanan shot up a hand. “Silence! All of you!”
Everybody shut up. He had that kind of voice.
“Now.” He turned to me, burning into my eyes with those violet lasers of his. “Why did you kidnap my daughter?”
“Father, she did not.” Wen-Jhai motioned toward all the corpses in black robes. “It was these villains, priests of Ormolu, disguised as heretics!”
Sai stood up beside her. “It is true, my father. The temple took us in order to lure you to your death!”
The Aldhanan turned to them, scowling with disbelief. “Daughter, son, how can this be? Why would—?”
Fancy Hat shook his head, sad. “It is as I told you, my Aldhanan. Their minds have been turned by the demoness’s foul sorcery. They speak the lies she commands them to tell.”
I’d had just about enough. “Oh, come on! Why don’t y’all just look for yourselves!” I nodded toward the dead guys. “They’re all priests under those black robes. Take a peek and see!”
Fancy Hat laughed and stepped to the nearest corpse. He threw back its hood to show a bald purple guy.
I pointed. “There! See! A priest!”
The Aldhanan folded his arms. “Many heretic cults also shave their heads. You will have to do better than that.”
Fancy Hat pulled aside the dead guy’s robe too, showing nothing but skin. “And I find no hidden orange. You see, Aldhanan? All lies.”
Goddammit! What was I thinking? Of course the priests wouldn’ta been that stupid. They woulda disguised themselves all the way down to their undies. But wait a minute! Hadn’t Ru-Sul shown us his orange robes under all his black? Yeah, but that was earlier. He woulda changed for the big show, just like everybody else, right? On the other hand, maybe not. The Aldhanan had shown up pretty damn quick. Maybe he’d been caught flat-footed. Maybe he hadn’t had time to change.
I started looking around at the corpses, hoping to see his, not that I could turn around or move my head much. The guards still had their swords at my neck, but I did my best, searching for Ru-Sul’s buzzard nose sticking out of a hood somewhere.
And then I saw it, but it wasn’t on a corpse. It was behind a pillar on the far side of the room, poking up over the gunsight of a crossbow that was aimed straight at the Aldhanan’s back!
“Aldhanan! Look out!”
I knocked away the blades at my neck—and cut the shit out of my forearm in the process—and kicked the Aldhanan aside just as Ru-Sul fired. The bolt whipped past his nose as everybody shouted at once and Captain Eye-Patch tried to stab me. I dodged ’im and bounded across the floor for Ru-Sul.
He saw me coming and tried to crank back his piece for another shot, then gave up and ran. I caught up in two steps and grabbed him by the neck. He tried to stab back at me with a dagger, but I tapped his noggin with my candlestick and he went all wobbly.
“Alright, fucker. Let’s go.”
I dragged him back to the circle and shoved him down as the guards swarmed me and Captain Eye-Patch put his sword to my neck again.
“You assaulted the Aldhanan! You will die for this!”
“Yeah yeah, fine. But just look at that guy first! He’s the leader of these guys, and he’s a priest. He showed me his orange robe this morning, I swear it!”
Fancy Hat was practically jumping out of his skin at this. “No! Do not touch him! He is another demon! Throw him into the pit or he will corrupt you with—”
Sai stepped forward and yanked Ru-Sul’s hood and cloak down to the middle of his back, showing his chest and arms. I groaned. No orange robes. He was as naked underneath as the other guy. But the Aldhanan still gasped, and so did Captain Eye-Patch.
The Aldhanan turned on Fancy Hat. “Ru-Ranan, is this not your assistant, Ru-Sul? He who you said was ill and keeping to his bed?”
“By Ormolu, it is!” Fancy Hat pasted on a surprised look and backed toward the Aldhanan, pointing at Ru-Sul like he was seeing a ghost. “Deceiver! Pretending to be devout when all along you were a filthy heretic!” He turned to the Aldhanan. “My Aldhanan, forgive me. I did not—”
And all of a sudden he had a sharp little knife at the Aldhanan’s throat and was hissing around at us all like a cornered cat.
“Drop your weapons! Drop them or the Aldhanan dies!”
The Aldhanan tried to elbow Fancy Hat in the nose, but the old priest was quicker than he looked and got behind him, gashing him good under the chin with the knife. It wasn’t a killing cut, but it was deep enough to make the Aldhanan stay very very still.
He held up a hand as his guards started surging forward. “Stop! Do as he says! Lay down your arms!”
The guards and crossbow guys didn’t look very happy about that, but did as they were told, and the place suddenly sounded like a slot machine paying off, as all their weapons cling-clanged off the stone floor
.
Fancy Hat looked at me. “You too, demoness. Ru-Sul, throw the weapons into the pit. The plan can still be salvaged.”
I snorted, disgusted, and was about to what he said, when I got an idea. We were all in the circle, and all standing around the wok-shaped hibachi thing, which was still full of smoking charcoal, and the Aldhanan and Fancy Hat were closer to it than the rest. Hmmm.
I tossed my weapon down like everybody else, but made sure it hit the lip of the hibachi as it fell. Crash! The wok flipped up and over and threw glowing charcoal all over Fancy Hat and the Aldhanan. As I’d hoped, they did the predictable thing, and threw their hands up as all that hot crap came flying at their eyes, and that’s when I stepped past the Aldhanan and punched Fancy Hat square in the face.
He flew back like a broken kite and came down all splayed out and stunned. Behind me, all the guards were shouting again, but I ignored ’em and hauled Fancy Hat up by the neck till his feet were dangling.
“Alright, jack-hole, what’s this all about?”
Captain Eye-Patch shouted in my ear and tried to turn me around, but then somebody else moved him away and stood beside me. It was the Aldhanan. He touched my shoulder, then turned those laser eyes on Fancy Hat.
“Now, Ru-Ranan, answer Mistress Jae-En’s question. What is this about? Who is behind this?”
He choked and sneered. “I… say… nothing. You may… do your… worst!”
The Aldhanan motioned me forward, and I walked Fancy Hat over to the pit and held him out over the edge. “How ’bout now?”
“Never!”
“You sure?” I reached out and twisted his neck, forcing him to look down. “Ain’t a high enough drop to kill you. You’ll just break your legs, then sit there and starve to death.”
“Aye,” said the Aldhanan, smiling. “Alone in the pit at night, with the ghosts of Durgallah’s dead rising from their bones, asking you why you burned them alive. Asking—”
Fancy Hat whimpered and started kicking. “Stop! I will… speak! I… will—”
“Coward! You will not!”
There was a confused shout from the guards and I looked back. Ru-Sul was charging through them, straight for us.
