The Kingdoms of Evil (50 page)

She
did
move fast.

Finger-thick chain smacked into Freetrick the Monster Killer backhanded him across the face, and before he could react the black links had looped around his wrist and pulled him out from between the two girls.

Freetrick had no time to think. Instinct alone commanded him to grab the chain with his left hand and yank it toward him. The Monster Killer began to overbalance, but midway down, her fall became a lunge that brought her hands to his face.

Freetrick bellowed as her short, sharp fingernails gouged across his cheeks. Instinct brought up his hands to shield his eyes, and when the chain still looped around his right hand jingled, he realized…

Freetrick grabbed the chain and jerked his hand sideways. The hands left his face. Freetrick felt a moment of triumph, but then, as he hauled the Monster Girl away from him, Freetrick saw her face.

Her eyes were silver, twisted in anger and hatred. The muscles around her face and throat tensed as if to scream, but her jaws remained locked together.

Freetrick had time for two simultaneous realizations:

The Monster Killer was
fast
. Faster than any non-magical thing Freetrick had seen. He had no time to complete his thoughts or to even move before she was abruptly behind him.

And the finger-thick chain snapped around his windpipe.

Then there was only time to think:

The chain is a work of necromancy.

Freetrick put his hand to the black chain, and hoped he was right.

There was a spark and a bloom of darkness in his eyes. Then the loop of chain around his wrist snapped taught as the chain around his throat sagged.

Freetrick bent over, coughing. As his eyes refocused, he saw the whorls of black metal around him tightening, un-looping themselves. They were wrapping around his arm, retracting into a simple leash, which now pulled tight around the wrists and neck of the Monster Killer. Who slumped, and hung her head as if her last hope for life had been taken from her.

Freetrick raised a hand to the girl, but then blinked as something whizzed over him.

He whipped around to see the blood drop rush toward Ashwing, and the tentacular extension of Ashwing's necromancer's mist that flicked up to block it. The sizzling red spot turned in the air, veering like an angry hornet, leaving a smoking trail that wound around the necromancer's body as she twisted about in her attempts to evade it.

Hissing with anger and concentration, Ashwing thrust out her hands, and snatched the droplet out of the air. Black vapor exploded from between her fingers, and Bloodbyrn gasped as if in pain. When Ashwing opened her hand, the fingers moved stiffly, and the skin on her palm was livid and necrotic, as if with frostbite.

"You'll pay for that," Ashwing snarled, a huge column of mist curling over her head like a scorpion's stinger. "A pound of Sagboise flesh for this ounce of Skrean's."

"No!" Shouted Freetrick, "Ashwing, stop!"

"Again?" Ashwing's voice rose as she directed it at Bloodbyrn. "It seems you still have my lord's heart. Shall I give him yours?" Freetrick saw the black halo around her flare and extend, and there was a sharp cry from his fiancée. "That one almost got through, didn't it, Bloodbyrn? When the power in your blood runs out," Her voice had turned cold and slow, as content and deadly as a sleepy crocodile. "I shall separate your ribcage."

"Bloodbyrn!" called Freetrick, tugging the re bound slave girl toward the duelists, "you have to run! I'll…I'll---"

"You will what?" laughed Ashwing. "Dark and degenerate darling man, I happen to know that this day you have killed no more than a single ogre, and a rat with your breakfast. Even with my pet's life-energy, you will be no match for me, for I have feasted upon the deaths of thirteen slaves---Ha!" She snarled as she batted away another volley from Bloodbyrn. "You cannot hope to match me energy for energy. What would a Rationalist say, Kaimeera?"

"You're struck-out, lady."

"Bloodbyrn! I'll protect you!" Freetrick raised his hands and reached for the power even as his brain processed
'lady'?

Ashwing shrieked as the Kaimeera pounced on her.

"Fiend! Take the death!" It cried as it bore Ashwing to the ground at Freetrick's feet.

"No!" cried Freetrick, but the enormous round paws were already on her, and her head was already in the monster's mouth. Black mist seethed upward, slicing into the monster's flesh. The monster would be as helpless as the slave girl against necromancy. Ashwing would kill it, easily. Instantly.

Ashwing had more energy than Freetrick did, but his head wasn't being squeezed between the bone-crushing teeth of a monster. He only needed to hold her for a moment.

Freetrick threw his own necromancer's mist over hers…pressed down…the Kaimeera bit…

There was not even time for Ashwing to scream before her skull cracked. Her body twitched.

And a torrent of power slammed into Freetrick. The death energy nearly knocked him out. It terrified Freetrick, how
good
the death felt.

Freetrick looked up to see the light crystals growing from the wall glow brighter, then dim. In the sharp, red-shot shadows they cast, Freetrick could see the Kaimeera crouched over the would-be seductress, its claws digging into her shoulders, its mouth bloody, its eyes shut tight. His blood still racing from the death energy, Freetrick could feel necromancy working inside the Kaimeera. There was a spell inside the monster, siphoning energy from the death to power something complex, subtle, and dark.

The Kaimeera shuddered. Every muscle in its tawny body tensed, and it trembled, as if under terrible internal pressure. Mouth still shut, it made a sound like someone trying to scream past a gag.

"Oh!" Freetrick gasped, "Oh Words, oh True Words." Automatically, he reached out toward the Kaimeera's bloodstained muzzle.

"Careful, my lord," there was a splash behind him as Bloodbyrn stepped through Ashwing's blood toward him. "Do not reach too---"

A yellow eye snapped open. The jaws gaped, and blood ran from rows of triangular teeth. For a moment, the monster's body tensed, and Freetrick was sure—absolutely positive—it was about to leap onto him and rip off his head. He flinched back, the beginnings of a scream on his lips, but the monster did not lunge forward.

Instead, from the depths of that stinking pit, someone giggled. "It said I owed it a liver."

Freetrick's scream died, overwhelmed by disgust. He scrabbled frantically backward as the voice called out from the Kaimeera's throat. "Wait, my lord! Oh my lord Feerborg! Oh Tempest protect me! Lord Feerborg please listen! I have something I must tell you!"

Freetrick knew that voice. He had to close his eyes, had to shut out the terrible sight before he could answer. "…Ashwing?"

"Ashwing? My name? No, my lord I…oh Tempest, oh no!" For a moment, the voice dissolved into incoherent babble, then, "No wait. Oh. Oh, no my lord. She was mistaken.
I
was mistaken." The voice firmed, became confident. " I wish for but a moment, my lord, to...collect myself Sometimes…yes I see…sometimes it takes me like this, my lord. I mean…fiend." Freetrick saw that the Kaimeera had closed its mouth. Its yellow eyes gazed at him disconcertingly as sounds sifted from between its lipless jaws. There were no screams this time, but instead what sounded like the intonations of a conversation. Eventually, the yellow eyes blinked, and the jaws opened again. "Ah. Yes. That's what we'll do. Sorry about that, fiend." The voice was still female, but the intonations had changed. The hairs on Freetrick's spine rose as he heard what sounded like Ashwing speaking perfect, slangy Rationalist. "It's part of my magic, you know. This is what I was made for." The Kaimeera rose to its paws, pushing the corpse aside. "Wow. That'll wake you up. Anyway, no need to thank me, fiend. Just doin' my job."

Freetrick sank back against the floor. "You—you
ate
her head."

"Well, yeah," said the Kaimeera. It brought a soup-plate-sized paw up to its mouth and began to lick the blood off. "She was trying to kill your fiancée. And believe me when I say she would have had no problem killing you, too. Looks like we both owe each other our lives. I should say that's…" it paused, as if looking for the right word, "pretty cool. Isn't that what they say in the RU?" The wide porpoise mouth grinned at him.

Freetrick was saved from responding by Bloodbyrn. "Your voice is different, monster." Bloodbyrn's heels clacked on the stones behind Freetrick as she approached.

"Bloodbyrn." The Kaimeera glared at her over Ashwing's body. Then it shivered and inclined its bullet-shaped head, "that is so, dark lady. It is part of my magic. I was made to take the voices and memories of the ones I devour. A battlefield terror strategy that turned out to be..ah…" the yellow eyes rolled as it sought for the phrase, "not cost effective."

"So we shall be forced to listen to that harridan's voice from you until you eat someone else?" Bloodbyrn's foot, nearly vertical in its cruel high-heeled shoe, poked the headless corpse.

Freetrick realized she was talking to him. But he could think of nothing to say. What response could he make with that corpse lying there beside him on the cold floor? The way the flesh depressed under the Kaimeera's paws... "My lord?" Bloodbyrn was saying, and yet Ashwing had been alive.
I was talking to her. She was coming on to me. I was admiring her breasts less than five minutes ago and now—
he was suddenly, blindingly, catastrophically, sick. He didn't even have time to turn his head aside.

"Oh God of Words," Freetrick hung his head and coughed, "Oh Truth, she's dead."

Bloodbyrn made a sharp inhalation, as if she wanted to say something sarcastic. But then she simply reached down and tugged on Freetrick's shoulder spikes. "Get up, my lord."

Freetrick blinked up at her. "What?"

"Get up," her face was blank, "your pose ill-befits the Ultimate Fiend. You would behave so before a slave?"

Freetrick's eyes went to the evil, black metal links around his wrist, binding him to the hate-filled eyes of the mute girl. "Don't look at me," he whispered, and her eyes jerked away as if pulled by a chain. As of course they were.

"Strike it out!" Freetrick cried. "Strike out this whole struck-out place." And then as his eyes brushed over Ashwing's body again and he had to swallow another wave of bile. "I want to go home."

"My lord!"

Freetrick turned to see Bloodbyrn, her expression even more wooden than before. "I shall remind you again. Not in public."

"So striking what if this poor girl sees me cry?" Freetrick snarled "She's
dead
!"

"She is dead," Bloodbyrn agreed. "And I am not. For that I owe you thanks, I think."

"That was the Kaimeera who killed her," said Freetrick, lips numb, "not me." No, he hadn't killed her. Only given the monster the chance. As if that made a gibbering bit of difference.

"Very well then, do not accept my thanks," she tugged on his armor. "But if my lord remembers, we have errands that cannot be accomplished whilst you lie on the flood in a puddle of blood and vomit. We must clean this mess up before someone—"

"To late for that, Lady Bloodbyrn." Freetrick twisted around as cruel voice echoed off the corridor walls.

"Oh burn all my books," he panted. It was Feerix.

"Although I am not so convinced that this look does not improve the demeanor of my
mighty
and
fearsome
half-brother," Feerix sneered, "I find myself agreeing with the beautiful and, at least, deadly
looking
lady Bloodbyrn." The metal studs in Feerix's boots ground against the stone floor as he clacked to a halt before them. "I assume the slave girl and the vomit are yours, brother. Is the blood?"

Freetrick shook his head and shuddered.

"Pity," said Feerix. "Now attack me, you worm, before my amusement at your state gives way to fury at seeing the mighty lineage of our ancestors debased so."

"This woman striking
died
just now," growled Freetrick

"Believe me, half-brother, I share your grief." Said Feerix, "never again to taste the sweet desire of our cousin, Dark Princess Ashwing. In fact, it occurs to me that my grief must be more painful than yours, Feerborg."

"Although, if you ask nicely, I suppose I could teach you a technique that would enable you to
ride
her as I once did. At least until the rigor mortis sets in." Feerix's smirk seemed to draw closer as Freetrick took a step toward him. "What? Is my lord squeamish. A simple bag over the stump where her head once was—"

Freetrick hit him.

Feerix's arm flashed up to block, and their armor clanged. Freetrick struck with his left hand. Another clang. His foot stomped between Feerix's feet and his knee came up to clash off of Feerix's inner thigh. He completed the first measure of the gara step, and threw himself into the second.

The Gara had been invented in The Nation of Love as a way to turn dueling into a non-lethal sport. Various styles of older hand to hand combat had been modified, punches pulled, kicks redirected away from fragile areas. Now, Freetrick stripped off those gentlemanly conventions. He attacked Feerix with hands, feet, knees, elbows, ringing his armor like a gong.