Hopefully it would be enough.
Peiros came back a few minutes later.
“I have seen no other demons. I do not know if the ones we fought were the only ones here or if there are more deeper in. I did not want to go too far ahead.”
“Thank you,” Kate told him. “Please take us to where you scouted, and we can figure out what to do next.”
Minutes later, they were deeper into the prison. They passed through rooms with tables and chairs, a small dining room, and a chamber that looked like it may have been used for discipline—or torture—if the bloodstains and the manacles bolted to the wall were any indication.
“We should be nearing the center of the structure, if my estimates are correct,” Peiros said.
They were in what seemed like a buffer room between the rest of the structure and where the prisoner cells would probably be located. It was a small room with a simple stone table—there were very few things made of wood in Hell, at least as far as Kate had seen—and two chairs. There were two doors: the one they came through and one on the opposite side of the room. The closed door had a small window with bars on it, and Kate peered through to a dark hallway, the end of which she could not make out. In the light from their current room, bars along the walls were visible in the hallway.
Kate didn’t like it that there was no light in the corridor. In general, Hell was a dim and shadowy place, but the demons did seem to need some light to see. The strange torches that had lit the chambers they passed through up to this point were made of something other than fire. They flickered with purple light that could only be some kind of magic.
Visimar took one of the torches from a sconce on the wall. He touched it to a spare he had picked up from the table, a long stone cylinder with no apparent marks on it. Purple flame bloomed into being. He looked to Kate, one eyebrow raised.
“We really need to take one of these back with us,” Jurdan said. “They don’t consume the handle, and there’s no danger of catching things on fire. Can you imagine what librarians would give for something like this?” His pained face wore a little smirk. Kate was happy to see his exhaustion hadn’t affected his generally humorous attitude.
“Sure,” Benedict said. “If we survive to get out. And if we can figure out how to turn them off. I’m not keen on the idea of walking around in Hell with a torch to announce our location.”
“Yeah, there’s that,” Jurdan admitted.
“Focus,” Kate said. She eyed the door with the bars in it nervously. She had a bad feeling about that corridor. “Let’s get this over with so we can see what is to be found in there.”
Jurdan readied his bow, and the others gripped their weapons. Peiros took the torch Jurdan had lit, and Visimar took the other one. Kate nodded and placed a hand on the door latch.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Scanning her team one more time to make sure they were ready—they were—she swung the door open and entered the corridor with her shield in front of her.
Nothing happened.
Peiros slipped through the door and came up beside her. He lifted the torch in front of him, allowing its pale purple light to illuminate a few feet ahead. With a soft whoosh, the entire hallway was bathed in purple light as torches set in the walls came to life.
Kate dropped into a more stable stance, and Peiros brought one of his crescents and the torch into ready positions, but no attack came.
Peiros turned to Kate and shrugged.
The corridor stretched on for a long way. When the light had flared, it was too fast for her to notice, but now Kate saw that every second torch on the wall was lit. The others remained empty as if waiting for something, for all the world looking like perfect stone cylinders and nothing more.
Kate jerked her head and Peiros moved up beside her. He dropped his torch to the floor and drew his other crescent. Together, they crept down the hallway, taking care to observe everything around them, especially the floor. A cleverly hidden trap could ruin their day, or night, or whatever time it was in this place.
Kate lifted one of the unlit torches from the wall as she passed and put it in her pack.
The hall was arranged with cells directly across from each other, the entire hallway one long row of facing chambers for prisoners. It was a common design in facilities for holding great numbers of captives in her world as well. She shivered to realize that prison design was something the two worlds shared.
When they arrived at the first of the cells, Kate and Peiros peered into the shadows of the shallow chambers. There was a crude pallet and an ancient bucket in the one Kate inspected, but nothing else. Peiros nodded to her, and they stepped up to the next set.
They traversed the hall like this, the others two steps behind them, watching for any movement. By the time they got to the forty-first set of cells, they had done nothing but wasted a regrettable amount of time.
A heavy door stood before them at the far wall, made of the same kind of stone as all the other doors they’d seen, but thicker, or at least denser. Kate got the impression that whatever lay behind that door was important.
“Do you feel it?” she asked.
Aurel swallowed. His face was tense, the muscles in his jaw standing out. She didn’t need his answer.
“It is something,” Peiros said, “a feeling…but I cannot hear any thoughts.”
Kate put her sword in her shield hand for a moment and tried the latch. It was not locked. She put her sword back in her right hand and met Aurel’s eyes. The dark man was well built for storming into an unknown situation. She just wished he had a shield. She didn’t like anyone being exposed.
Then it occurred to her that she was thinking about it incorrectly. She didn’t have to hold open the door. She did have a shield. Better that she lead the charge.
“Aurel,” she said in a whisper. “You open the door. I’ll go in first.”
“But Pretty Kate, I can—” he started.
“No,” she whispered back. “I have a shield. Open it.”
His face fell as if he had disappointed her. He looked to the others with pleading in his eyes, but none of them responded in any way. He breathed out a silent breath and put his hand on the latch.
With his eyes locked on hers, he nodded in time with a count. One, two, three.
He threw the door open and Kate rushed in, shield held high and sword at the ready behind it. The others were right on her heels.
The chamber beyond was empty.
It was a small room with a desk in the center, a chair, and two of the lit purple torches lighting the entire thing. It couldn’t have been more than ten feet on any side. Kate nearly crashed into the far wall when she entered. The walls to her left and right had doors in the direct center of the walls.
The tension was starting to get to her. Kate thought seriously of running through the structure opening doors until she reached something interesting. It was just impatience, though.
They chose the door to the left of the one they came through. They repeated the process, Aurel opening the door for her and her charging in with her shield ahead of her. After the third time, as Kate began feeling foolish for running into empty rooms, they finally reached something interesting.
Kate came through the doorway, half expecting another small room, but she knew without looking she’d entered a much bigger chamber. The air was less stale and slightly cooler. The floor was also different, with runnels in it instead of the flat stone they had been walking on up until that point.
The thing that was most different, though, was the table in the center of the room. It was larger than her bed back home at her family estate, made entirely of the same kind of stone the doors were made from, and tilted slightly.
In the restraints that seemed to be part of the table’s surface itself, there lay a pile of hair and black clothes. When it twitched, Kate realized what it was. A human. A human in a black uniform, though it was shredded almost unrecognizably. It was a Black brother. Or at least what was
left of him.
28
Kate took one step toward the table, but that was all she managed before a loud stomping sound assailed her from her left. She swung her shield around barely in time to meet a massive sword wielded by what could only be a demon commander.
Her instincts kicked in, and she angled her arm enough to deflect the downward blow. Even so, needles shot up her arm and then it went numb. She spun out of reflex, slashing at the form that hadn’t even registered fully in her mind yet.
Her sword scored a long gash across the demon’s breast plate, but did no damage. It did, however, distract her opponent enough that she was able to back away, out of range, and get a good look at what she faced.
The monstrosity before her was about the size of a demon commander, seven and a half to eight feet tall. It seemed even bigger than her remembered fight with the other commanders, but those had been in the open field, not inside a room.
It was humanoid and heavily muscled, covered with rough skin the color of the rocky terrain surrounding the gaol. Small thorns stuck out of its skin at random intervals and bony ridges swept back from the top and sides of its head. It had the same depthless black eyes almost all demons had, and its hands grasped a huge sword, longer than Kate was tall.
The demon screeched its rage and frustration that it hadn’t killed her yet, but its look promised it would remedy that problem soon.
It lunged.
And, suddenly, Aurel was there, his own great sword sweeping up to knock the demon’s weapon aside. At the same time, an arrow appeared in the demon’s eye, Peiros cut deeply with both crescents to hamstring the monster, Benedict’s sword drilled through the demon’s right biceps, and Visimar’s double swords opened up the wrist on the same arm.
The demon tottered, a confused grimace on its face.
It took one step more, trying to raise its sword but unable to do so, but then it fell to its knees. Five weapons descended, and the demon fell to the ground and stopped moving altogether.
Kate pulled her sword free from the eye she had rammed it through. The blade made a rough, grinding sound as it emerged, sliding off cartilage and bone within the demon’s head. She scanned the area for more enemies, then dropped her shield and shook her arm vigorously. It would be a while until her shield arm would be working normally. She hoped to get feeling back into it soon.
Peiros had already darted in the direction the demon had come from, checking to see if there were any more. He was only gone for a moment, and then he slipped back into the room shaking his head.
At least they wouldn’t be swarmed again. Probably.
As he came into the room, Peiros wore an expression she had never seen on his normally calm face. Anxiety? Concern? Fear? She wasn’t sure what it was. He looked to have eaten something both extremely sour and nausea-inducing. He mechanically padded toward the black pile of clothing on the table.
“Koren?” he said, almost in a whisper. “Is it really you?”
The figure lying on the stone table coughed and turned its head. Kate hadn’t realized she had been looking at the side of his face, with the mass of hair tangled and swirled around his features.
“Peiros,” the man said in a raspy voice like sand filled his throat. “It’s about damn time.”
Then his head slumped to the side and he stopped moving.
With Peiros washing his face with a towel he produced from his pack and a bucket of water nearby, the man revived in a few minutes. He coughed, cleared his throat, spat a glob of something on the floor, and fixed his eyes on the dark, curly-haired man.
“It really is you,” he rasped, reaching out to touch Peiros’s face.
While he was unconscious, they had broken the stone bands restraining his arms and legs. They weren’t able to figure out the controls for the bonds, if there were any, but an iron pole leaning nearby and Aurel’s strength did the trick.
“Koren,” Peiros said. “How is this possible? You’ve been missing for months. Even the most optimistic of us could not have hoped that you were still alive.”
A wheezing laugh projected from beneath the filthy hair and clothing. “What have I taught you about that, Peiros?”
A smile cracked the other man’s face. “Never to believe someone is dead unless you have observed the body unmoving for three days.”
“Damn right. It takes more than a little bit to kill me, and no doubt.”
“No doubt indeed,” Peiros said. The smile slid off his face and he looked the man over. “Are you seriously injured? Can you stand?”
Is this really Koren Merklen? Kate thought as she stood off to the side and watched the reunion. The hero of the Black? The legend? The way Peiros reacted when he saw the man, the relief and fondness, showed the two had been close. From everything Kate had heard, Peiros had been something of a protégé of the famous Black.
And it wasn’t just his manner that reinforced the claim. Aurel dipped his head every time the ragged man’s gaze washed over him. Jurdan’s eyes held more hope than she had seen since he had been poisoned. In fact, everyone seemed to be oozing respect. Benedict’s wild, crazy eyes shone with something nearing zeal and reverence.
The man grunted, grabbed one leg with both hands, and swung it to the edge of the table. He carefully moved the other leg, and then slid more than stepped to the floor. Both legs buckled and he almost fell, but caught himself with his arms, one on the table and one on Peiros’s shoulder. He steadied himself and stood up straighter, though he wobbled a bit.
“There,” he said. “No problem. Who’re your playmates? I recognize Jurdan there, though he seems to have seen better days. Aur…Aurel, right?” he said to Aurel. The big man grinned widely and nodded.
“Benedict Dressen,” Benedict said.
“Visimar Torten,” Visimar said.
“Yes, yes, I remember now,” Koren said. “A bit on the fuzzy side. The girl. Who’s the girl? She wears the black and has a mask at her belt, but there weren’t no girls in the Black when I left.”
“I am Kate Courtenay, Koren,” Kate said. “It is an honor to meet you, though the circumstances could probably be better.”
“Ha!” Koren laughed, this one more like a bark than the earlier wheeze.
“Kate is new to our ranks,” Peiros said. “She is the leader of this team. The captain believes her to possess great potential. She is also undoubtedly the best fighter among us.”
The unkempt hair moved as Koren’s forehead crinkled. “Best fighter, eh? Well, then, well met Kate Courtenay, leader of the team. What’re you about, and do you have room for one more old Black in your ranks?”
Kate smiled at the filthy man. “Most definitely.”
29
They explained their mission to Koren, and their predicament.
“So we must get back to the gate to prevent the army from flanking us and to get Jurdan treatment for his poison,” Kate concluded. “Do you know the way?”
“Sorry,” Koren said. “I have no idea where we are. They took me and moved me around. I haven’t been here very long. I don’t think. They just cleared the place out when Arkith left. There were only a handful of demons and the warden, there.” He pointed toward the body of the large demon on the floor. “They were going to finish their games and then dispose of me. Least, that’s what I could gather from what demon I speak. I was wishing for Peiros’s facility with language.”
“Arkith?” Peiros asked.
“Yeah, he’s a mage, a really powerful one. He’s been working on a project. Capturing me has been a big part of it. Not me specifically, mind you, but one of the Black, including his firestone.
“Arkith is working on something that will negate the protection of the firestones. A counter that will make it like the stones don’t exist at all. If he finishes it, we’re in real trouble. Imagine their forces coming through the gate and being impervious to our weapons. It will be a slaughter.
“Anyway, he did things to me, testing how the stone reacted and what kind of
protection it provided. He sacrificed a couple dozen of his own lesser demons to figure out what it does to them, too.”
“Your firestone?” Jurdan asked. “I thought they couldn’t come near one.”
“This one can.” Kore swiveled his eyes to the blond archer. “He wears some kind of gloves, heavily enchanted if my guess is correct. He never touches the stone directly, of course, but he has enough safeguards to put it into a container and take it where he wants. In this case, to his own laboratory away from here. He’s just putting the finishing touches on whatever it is he’s making to counteract the stones.”
“He…he took your firestone?” Peiros said.
“Yep. When we fight the next bunch of them, I’ll have to stay real close to one or more of you, or I won’t be able to harm them. Which reminds me, who’s got a weapon I can use? I seem to have lost track of mine.”
Peiros smirked and withdrew a scabbarded short sword from his pack. “It’s all I’ve got. Sorry.”
Koren gripped the hilt, and a bare hint of white teeth showed through his scraggly beard. “It’ll do, for now. I thought I’d never hold a weapon again.”
“If you’d like to use my shield,” Benedict said, “feel free. Damn szitrith injected me with its poison, so my left arm isn’t strong enough to use it.”
“Ooh,” Koren said. “Always hated those things. You’re lucky to still have an arm.”
“Peiros got to it in time.”
“Yeah, he’s good like that. Thank you kindly. I would love to use it. Wish that bastard Arkith hadn’t taken my death mask. I suppose this fearsome visage will have to do.” He gestured toward his own face and barked another laugh.
“Terrifying,” Jurdan said, producing a small field mirror. “Though you may want to cut off the dirtier bits. One of those filth-ridden flails you call hair swings in at you at the wrong moment, and it’s likely to put your own eye out.”
Order of the Fire Box Set Page 36
