Sword Play

by Clayton Emery

  “On your feet!” boomed the great voice. Aching, Sunbright stood. Not back against the stone wall, as did Candlemas and Greenwillow, the sensible ones, but at the very edge of the promontory, before the gaze of the fiend and its fellows. Let them see how a brave man dies, Sunbright thought. At least he could die well.

  Movement caught his eye. From the ashes, his great sword Harvester levitated, spun, and came toward his hand. He almost hesitated to catch it for fear of bewitchment and contamination, but when the sweat-stained leather fit his palm, he knew the sword was all right. His father had borne it into battle, and now his son carried it, and would triumph. Or go down fighting.

  The pit fiend curled its lips around its tusks and seemed to ruminate like a cow. Then it pronounced, “You, manling, have this ludicrous creature to thank for your current predicament and that of your friends. I grant you a chance to take back a bit of your own. Strike off her head, so it might get an early start at eternal torment. Schemers fear separating mind and body above all. So strike hard and true. Show us the might of a barbarian’s arm.”

  As Sunbright weighed his great sword, Sysquemalyn was magically turned sideways in midair as if by invisible hands, until her head floated above an imaginary block, arms pinned at her sides. Her glorious red hair hung so long it brushed the ashes of the promontory.

  Sunbright stood unmoving, pondering. His thoughts were overwhelmed by the depth of Sysquemalyn’s treachery. To kill her a hundred times would barely sate his barbarian thirst for revenge. Now, through vanity and foolishness, she’d endangered the whole world, all Sunbright had ever known and a thousand times that. Perhaps her death would alleviate some of the suffering, both past and future.

  Unconsciously, he found himself raising his sword and taking aim.

  “Don’t hesitate, mud man.” Exhausted and discouraged, Sysquemalyn hung, unresisting. “Strike, and get it over with.”

  The great sword bobbed in the air as if it were alive and thirsty. Harvester of Blood was its name, but Sunbright hadn’t named it. Vaguely he wondered what he would have named the blade, given the chance. But that was a thought for another time.

  The barbarian backed away from the shivering mage, dropping the curved sword tip to touch stone.

  “No.”

  Chapter 15

  “What?”

  The pit fiend was not used to being disobeyed. Its tusked mouth fell open like a cavern, and fire and smoke gushed on its breath. The lesser fiends ducked their heads. A pair of erinyes perched on an outcrop were blasted from the wall, feathered wings afire, to spiral and plunge into the roiling lava below.

  Standing foremost on the promontory, Sunbright felt the heat of the pit fiend’s fury, felt his skin and eyeballs dry, his hair tingle as if about to ignite. Too, the roiling, sulfurous smoke sickened him, made his stomach churn, until he’d have given a year of his life for one breath of pure tundra air. The barbarian fought to keep his knees from shaking. To fight berserk in battle was one thing, for a man was busy then. But to stand up to a fiend and pretend calm was quite another. It gave a body too much time to think of the awful consequences. Still, a warrior’s wit must be a weapon too, as his people said.

  So he hollered down, “I mean, no, not without some other reward!”

  This gave the pit fiend pause. The idea of bargaining—especially when it could easily renege—was familiar and diverting. Scratching its lower lip with a claw like a slate shingle, it rumbled, “Other reward? You dicker from a precarious perch, manling. Here in my high hall I hold the whip. I offer you revenge, and you demand else. What would you offer in return?”

  “If I do this thing—behead Ruellana, or Sysquemalyn, as she’s called—will you let me and my friends go?”

  The pit fiend frowned as it pretended to ponder, then grinned tuskily. “To turn a human phrase, hell, no!” It gobbled at its own wit, and the ranks of underlings below its feet hooted and chortled and applauded.

  Sunbright waited, impassive, and let them laugh. He wasn’t sure what he bargained for except time. Perhaps the two mages behind him would wave their wands and pull a rabbit from a hat like some medicine-show mime in the marketplace. Perhaps they could rip open a portal for escape. Perhaps Greenwillow would spot a bolt hole and get away. Any delay could be valuable.

  Still chuckling, the pit fiend asked, “What else, mortal?”

  “Consider this,” offered Sunbright. “I’ll execute this mage and stay on as your headsman for one year if you release my friends.”

  He nodded over his shoulder, risking a glance at the others. Through yellow-gray smoke he saw Greenwillow standing against the back wall, off to one side where she could watch the pit fiend. Her hands were empty, but her thumbs rested on her hips, ready to draw steel in a second. Candlemas—whom Sunbright still thought of as Chandler, and not exactly a friend—stood upright, podgy and bald and bearded but solid-looking. His arms crossed his chest, and for a second Sunbright was irritated at the man’s feigned casualness. Then he realized the mage could demonstrate non-aggression only by folding his arms: free hands in any position might be generating a spell. The raven pecked at rock, either oblivious or stupid or posing.

  The pit fiend wobbled its great horned head and flapped its leather wings erratically, like a sea gull battered by storm winds. It addressed not just Sunbright, but also all its followers as it bellowed, “You misunderstand, insect! Here, I reign supreme! There are no quibbles, no bargains, no repeals. You bargain whether to sever this upstart’s head or not, but I say you’ll do as ordered. Whether you become a headsman or lemure or black pudding or shoe leather is up to me and me alone. And so, I command you, strike off her head and kick it down here!”

  Well, it was worth a shot, Sunbright thought philosophically. He hadn’t really expected compassion or honor from a fiend any more than he would from a tax collector. And he could think of nothing else to do to stall for time.

  So he spit over the promontory into the lake of lava and took a fresh grip on Harvester. He shouted loudly enough for all to hear, “No, I won’t do it! Whatever this creature—be she Ruellana or Sysquemalyn or some other—has done to me, she is still closer to me than you and yours! I will not harm one of us for the amusement of such as you.”

  So saying, the barbarian stepped back a pace to raise Harvester high behind his shoulder, as if he’d lop off the head of the pit fiend itself. Then he bobbed his chin. “Bring on the fiends of the Nine Hells! Sunbright Steelshanks, son of Sevenhaunt and Monkberry, child of the Raven Clan of the Rengarth tribe, bids you battle the Harvester of Blood!”

  Enraged at the human’s presumption, the pit fiend raised long arms, howled some ancient oath, and pointed broken claws at the single man on the high ledge. “Attack!”

  In a flash, Greenwillow was at Sunbright’s side, calling, “Swing hard but spare me!” She added a bright, star-eyed smile, then turned to the grim work to come—their last battle, they both knew.

  First to attack were the winged erinyes. A dozen or more, naked but for wings, flapped and swooped at them. Clutched in both hands were chunks of broken stalactites like flint daggers.

  Sunbright waited, timing the attack, then swept Harvester like a long-bladed scythe. The sword sheared through a wrist, hacked toes from a foot, lopped off a wing. Out of control, one erinyes flipped over onto its back in midair, then plummeted toward the lava pool, keening like a hog at slaughter. Another, beating its wings at Sunbright’s head, had its belly sliced so a loop of guts spurted loose. A third, creased across the forehead, flipped backward and crashed before Greenwillow’s feet. Between jabs, the elf kicked the creature over the edge.

  The yellow-haunted sky was a sea of skin and wings and slashing daggers. Up close, Sunbright could see that the erinyes had complexions as chalk-white as those of a corpse, and their wings were not lustrous and sharp like a live bird’s, but dusty and ragged. Nor did they bleed when struck; it was as if he’d sliced leather. Sunbright didn’t strike to kill, in case he fetched Harve
ster up in a gut or bone, but conserved his strength and slashed to keep them back, for even this attack might buy them precious time to retreat—if there were any place to retreat. The erinyes were not hard to kill, for they were clumsy and crowded one another in the small space before the promontory. But they were so many, a dozen at least, with more flying from holes in the cavern walls, a sky-filling flock of them. Had they worked together and simply dived and plowed into the humans, their prey would have been smothered in seconds. As it was, Sunbright could only wade into the assault swinging his great sword.

  Elven blade flashing, Greenwillow stayed close enough to the barbarian to keep them from being separated, yet out of range of the awful scything power of Harvester. With her slim true-steel blade, she aimed surgical stabs: throat, eye, breadbasket, groin. Stricken monster-angels would shrill and drop or fall back or flutter away, for they could feel pain, especially from her blade, which contained elements of silver. Yet never was there a pause in the furious, feathered attack. Always there were more and more targets above, before, below, to the side. Hale and hearty as she was, Greenwillow knew her arm would grow weary long before the beasts’ numbers were exhausted. Before long, she had been nicked on the forearm by a flint knife, sliced across the back of her hand, pinked on the shoulder before she shoved back the attacker with a blade tip jammed into its mouth. Overhead, the black raven flashed amidst the white monsters, striking and pecking at eyes and fingers. But even it lost black feathers that pin wheeled to ignite in the lava far below.

  Dancing back a pace for room, Greenwillow saw that Sunbright already bled in four places, including the side of his head below his topknot. Yet he ignored the wounds and watched his enemy, swiping at them so hard that his sword hissed in the air. But he was already grunting with the effort.

  From the corner of her eye, Greenwillow saw Candlemas hammering on Sysquemalyn’s chest. Thinking he’d gone mad, she shrilled, “Leave off your stupid feud and fight!”

  “I am!” returned the bald mage. “I seek to shatter her mystic bonds!”

  Abruptly, the feathered beings fluttered backward. Sunbright’s sword, in one last swipe, ticked only an errant white foot, shearing toes. Immediately the barbarian dropped the tip of Harvester to the stone to rest and panted in great gulps of the hot, fetid air. Greenwillow wiped sweat from her face with her wrist, hissing as the salt burned in a long slash. Both warriors watched the leader of the fiends below.

  The mighty pit fiend rolled its lips around its tusks as if tasting something foul. With a wave of clawed hands and a huge puff of wind, it blew the erinyes to either side of the cavern. Many, exhausted and wounded, crumpled like dust balls on the jagged stones and plummeted to crunch on dark rock, or plunged, sizzling, into the lava pit.

  Then, glaring at its foes with blazing hatred, the archfiend jerked its hands as if snapping a stick.

  The world dropped from beneath the humans’ feet.

  Sunbright had only a vague notion of what happened next.

  A grinding, crashing, rumbling roar drowned out all sound. Rocks as big as huts were crushed to powder, splintered and shattered on more stones. The cavern walls lurched sickeningly, and fiends of every sort jumped and scampered to get away. The raven squawked and beat the air to gain height.

  Only for a second did Sunbright fall; then a giant, invisible cushion blossomed under his rump and back. It vanished just as abruptly, and he crashed painfully, wracking his elbows and butt and head.

  Amidst a roiling cloud of ashes and dust, he saw he’d landed on broken rubble. Cracks big enough to trap and snap his leg ran everywhere. Groggily he realized that the pit fiend had reached out with magic hands and yanked down the promontory they’d fought on. The fractured stone lay beneath them in a mound of boulders and gravel, and from under it leaked yellow blood such as Sunbright had never seen before.

  But if he and Greenwillow had fallen half a hundred feet onto rock, how had they survived?

  “Rouse, rouse!” barked Candlemas. “There’ll be another wave!”

  The podgy mage helped a shaken Sysquemalyn to her feet. Her invisible bonds had been broken, Sunbright noted, probably in the shock of the promontory collapsing. And if Candlemas, or Chandler, were on his feet, he must have triggered the spell that had cushioned their fall.

  Now they lay at the bottom of the great cavern. Only the pit of boiling lava at its center was deeper, and Sunbright saw a yellow-red jet of it flung higher than the lip, burst, and drop like fiery rain. In the distance, seen through heat waves shimmering over the pit, hunched the pit fiend, shouting and waving and pointing—straight at them.

  All around them, the sides of the cavern rose, somehow looking larger from below than from above. And just as populous. The yellow blobs were thicker than fleas. Skeletal warriors toted ancient pitted bronze swords, and spiked imps capered to attack while the surviving erinyes flapped clumsily overhead.

  All this Sunbright took in with a glance, though there was much more he couldn’t see, either because the hellish red light flickered too wildly, or because the craggy fissures in the cavern walls sucked up any glow while spilling shadows. That Candlemas could conjure at all was encouraging, for it meant—perhaps—that they were not entirely unprotected from magic.

  Then the next wave arrived.

  Sunbright heard the word “Lemures!” escape Greenwillow. He had time only to pick a platform—a raised rock fairly flat with gaps all around to slow the enemy—then they were fighting anew.

  To Sunbright’s eye, the lemures were pale yellow and half-melted, like badly dipped tallow candles. Vaguely human-shaped, their faces were naught but big black eyes like glass globes and sagging string-strung mouths. Folds of their skin hung in runnels, and long globs dangled from their outspread arms.

  And there were hundreds of them.

  The first to spill up the rubble mound Sunbright dispatched with his sword. Or so he thought. Aiming high, he smashed Harvester deep into the skull of a lemure to test its mettle. The sword’s heavy nose penetrated deep, popping a black eye to spill gore, knocking the lemure to the ground with a split head. But the wound only spilled a yellow ichorlike pus before it snapped closed …

  … and healed.

  Quick as thought, Sunbright “killed” another five. He rammed the sword point straight into the mouth of a wretch, twisted to set the hook, and ripped. The lemure sank to blobby knees. A questing hand from the right, the barbarian sheared off at the armpit, so it landed squishily at his feet and flapped like a grounded fish. He slung wide to the right and bowled over another with a half-severed neck, slung left and chopped the leg from another so it toppled on its fellow, rammed again to drive Harvester’s point through one head and pierce another crowding in from behind.

  But the first lemure he’d killed had heaved itself up to its hands and knees, shrugged off its fallen comrades, and now stood upright again. The yellow pus had run off its skull; Sunbright could still see a white line from the wound. And the lemure was shorter, having used its own body to rebuild. But it attacked anew. So did another that lacked an arm, but was growing a new one.

  And more were coming. The cavern was carpeted in yellow as lemures poured from holes in the ground, caves, or thin air, summoned by the howling pit fiend above the lava pit. Erinyes took to the air to avoid the pustular flood, and skeletal warriors and imps clattered out of the way or were trodden under.

  Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lemures deluged Sunbright, and none could be killed. His heart almost failed within him. “Staff of Garagos! We’ll never stop these things!”

  Surprisingly, a voice sounded by his ear. “Correct! They can regenerate indefinitely! Only a blessed blade can destroy them!”

  It was Candlemas, who’d crooked first and fourth fingers to wield some spell from just behind the warrior’s protection.

  Sunbright stabbed, hacked, stabbed again. “You enchanted my blade! That day, by the river, with magic potion!”

  “That was a lie! You needed confid
ence!”

  Sunbright swung hard enough to almost tag Candlemas. “I need to kill you when we get out of here!”

  “I’d be glad to die anywhere outside the Nine Hells!” retorted the mage. Then he hollered, “Duck!”

  Hollering “Volhm!” the mage slapped his finger-extended hands together.

  Sunbright scooched low, but still a clap of thunder almost bowled him into the mass of lemures pressing him. He was blinded as a lightning bolt scorched the air.

  Like the breath of a god, a hole appeared in the packed ranks of fiends. Scores of shuffling, dripping lemures were obliterated, blown to fragments and steam by the fearsome bolt. Yellow glop sprayed in the air and fell like hot rain. The ground itself was charred and streaked, and the acidic stink of burned, undead flesh hit the humans and half-elf like a hammer across the nose. Greenwillow and Sunbright gagged, and even the protected mages covered their faces. The air, already thick with yellow smoke, grew foul enough to cut. Stunned, the nearest lemures paused in their attack. But the hordes behind merely tramped on, climbing over their insensate fellows. More pus was crushed from yellow bodies, until it ran in rivers and spilled into the lava pit, where it hissed and steamed and stank abominably.

  In the brief pause before the next wave, Sunbright felt a cool hand on his scraped arm. Sysquemalyn pushed alongside him, hair bedraggled, eyes red, nose running. Over the thud of feet and the wailing of the pit fiend, she yelled, “Keep them back! You too, ’Mas, and you, elf. I think I can gate us out of here!”

  “Why should we trust you?” retorted Sunbright. The wave of lemures was only a dozen feet away, and he frowned as he inspected his befouled blade’s edge. It was dull from hacking through flesh and not-flesh. “You’ve done nothing but lie from the start!”