The Kingdoms of Evil (77 page)

"Yes." Feerix frowned. "But better a puppet on a throne than a free man on a pile of rubble, which is exactly what will become of Clouds-Gather if your meddling is allowed to continue."

Oh, right. Freetrick still had to find out what the maniac knew. "What meddling?"

"When I said I was spying on you, my lord, I was not lying." Feerix's smirk had returned. He spun on one ridiculous heel and walked toward the chained monster-killer. "Uncharacteristic of me, I know, but there you are. Your so-called private observation of the feeding of the monsters? What nonsense. I know what plans were discussed there."

"Oh yes?" The boiler pressure was dropping, but anger still kept dread from clotting the pipes. "What plans are those?"

"I fail to see why I should tell you." Feerix looked down and kicked with pretend casualness at the manacle around the prisoner's leg.

Freetrick allowed his lips to pull back from his teeth. "You've got nothing, Feerix. And I will not let you…" what? Do to Freetrick what DeMacabre was doing to Bloodbyrn? What whatever faceless informer had done to DeMacabre? "…think you can use me." He finished.

"Should I not?
My lord
?"

Freetrick stared into his half-brother's narrow, brown eyes—eyes like his own had been, before he had become the Despot of Skrea.

Feerix broke the stare. The prince turned from the prisoner and made a show of surveying the dungeon chamber. "You know, half-brother, at first I could not imagine what possible use you could have for keeping your assassin here." He kicked again at the chains connected to the manacles of the Monster Killer.

"No!" she gasped.

Freetrick looked at the dirty, dark-haired woman now staring up at Feerix with something very much like fear in her silver eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"Actually," Feerix grinned, "I am telegraphing my intentions quite loudly. It's not my fault your wit is too feeble to guess them."

"No! No!" Said the Monster Killer as if to herself. Her eyes darter to Freetrick's. "Kill me instead. Kill me," the eyes widened. "Please."

Feerix grinned down at the shaking girl. "Perhaps the Ultimate Fiend should be commended for his craft. Though only so far, of course. Because, half brother." He reached down, "it was very unwise to allow me into your larder."

"No!" Gasped the prisoner as understanding came, too late, to Freetrick. "Kill me instead!"

"No…" Feerix crooned as his gauntlet flashed black vapor, "kill
him
instead, minion."

***

Bloodbyrn controlled her reaction to her father's pronouncement of doom even as she traced its ramifications. "I trust the death you refer to will take place some time in the future," she surmised, "For, having arranged Feerix and Feerborg's meeting in the dungeons, you have made it impossible for Feerix to gather the witnesses he needs if he wishes to murder his rival in an official capacity."

"I am glad to see your powers of deduction remain undamaged," said her father, "indeed, daughter, I intend to give the Despot Feerborg one final chance to fall in line, and I am using Feerix to deliver the threat of what will happen if he does not."

"And if Feerix becomes sufficiently angry or careless to murder my lord despite his incentives to the contrary?" said Bloodbyrn, "as you know he is at times wont to do?"

DeMacabre raised an eyebrow, "then Feerborg dies sooner than we had expected, and we start over with you and Feerix." His head quirked as a thought occurred to him, "But it is no bad thing, I think, that you have not yet engendered the heir. It makes the situation…simpler."

Her father must have seen something of the shock she was attempting to hide. His fine brows drew together in concern."Really, daughter, I assumed you would be happy to hear of these new plans. After all, whether Feerborg is slayer or slain, you and I cannot lose."

No father
, Bloodbyrn thought,
it is
you
who cannot lose in the scheme you propose. I, on the other hand, stand to lose much.
More, in fact, than even she had been aware of until that moment.

"I see, father." With exquisite control, Bloodbyrn kept her voice free of the emotions cascading through her. "In that case, I feel I should make my way to the dungeons, myself," she performed, "I should like to examine my two potential masters at once."

"Of course you would, my daughter. Marvelous." Her father smiled down at her. "And perhaps you might care to place a bet?"

"Of course, father." It required every ounce of energy in her body, and every minute of her training at the Ladies academy to do so, but Bloodbyrn smiled back. "Despot Feerborg to win."

Freetrick blinked the stars from his eyes to see Feerix was still standing over the Monster Killer, his fingers twitching as the black cloud of his Life-twisting spell writhed over her body. She moaned."Feerix, stop this."

Freetrick pushed himself upright. He had nothing in his magical reserves. "So what happened to waiting until I was good enough to put up a fight before you killed me?"

"My lord!" It was Bloodbyrn's voice echoing down the corridor outside, "my lord, do not let him into the...
exsanguinations
! My lord, now that you have allowed your half-brother to both build reserves of power and enter the dungeon, you must---"

Feerix gestured and the door to the dungeon cell slammed closed on Bloodbyrn's cursing.

"Feerix," said Freetrick, "we both know you can't just kill me here. Now just release the girl and let's go to my office and talk there."

"You still do not understand? What farce!" Feerix threw back his head and laughed. Bizarrely, the Monster Killer, still cocooned in black mist, also giggled. "No, I won't kill you today, my lord." His sneer twisted and his head cocked toward the Monster Killer, hanging chained to the other wall as the mist blew away from her transformed body. "She might, though."

Feerix's necromancy coiled around the Monster Killer. There was a sound like tearing gristle. The very light and air of the room bent in impossible directions.

Freetrick realized he had a chance, now, while Feerix's mind was occupied with life-twisting. He ran forward. A chance. A chance to do what? Freetrick's arm rose to come between him and the head of his half brother. To kill his only family? Freetrick's razor-edged gauntlet paused.

There was a quadruple
crack
of parting metal and something smashed into Freetrick's stomach.

He had a confused, red-lit impression of tiny, overlapping scales, huge, mad eyes, and teeth blurred with motion before a line of pain slapped across his face.

The Monster Killer no longer needed a dagger.

Frantically, Freetrick attempted a roll-disengage. Onyx claws flashed past his eyes and newly scaled skin clattered across his armor as he twisted out from under her and sprang to his feet.

The door rattled again. Freetrick brought his arms up to block another slash to his face.

"You don't have to fight me!" He yelled at the woman. Ex-woman.

"Ah ha!" said Feerix. "And once again my lord talks during a fight. Bad form, my lord. It can cause nothing but distraction—but I see you've just discovered that for yourself. Watch out, my lord, I made those claws sharp!"

Freetrick tried to keep his voice level as another attack forced him back another step. "Stop this. You don't have to do this."

The Monster Killer hissed and redoubled her attack. "Just to have another necromancer make me into something even more horrible?"

"Such despair!" crowed Feerix, as Freetrick made a grab for the monster-killer's wrist and nearly had an eye gouged out for the trouble. "I rescind my statement about talking while fighting. Now, as an exercise, see if you can crush her spirit before she kills you. That would be a victory of a sort, I suppose."

Freetrick tried to ignore the heckling. "I
can
protect you," he panted, "trust me."

"Trust?!" The word became an inhuman howl as the monster-killer spun on one foot to sweep the serrated edge of a long shin into Freetrick's side. Unfortunately for her, the movement was nearly identical to a gara step, and Freetrick's instincts brought him up off the ground in a spin that placed the main force of the kick more or less on his ass. Freetrick sent a blessing to the First God's fashion sense for his armored rear and rode the kick through the air like a man on a merry-go-round.

It took a full second before the laws of physics and the surprised monster's reflexes caught up with him, and Freetrick flew out from the spin at a tangent.

Freetrick thanked the First God for his armor again when he crashed into the wall.

Behind the sudden sparkling points of light that had bloomed in Freetrick's vision, Feerix whooped with laughter. "Was that
intentional
? My lord, be confident that even if you fail miserably as a despot, you are the best blasted jester I have yet laid eyes on. But oh please," doubled over with mirth, he still managed to wave a hand in the direction of the monstrous Monster Killer. "Deliver your final cut now, before in my laughter I rupture something."

Freetrick turned to face the oncoming lizard-woman, and realized his back was now against the wall. "Please!" He shouted, "I can help you!" He prayed fervently that he could remember how to pull off the step he was about to do.

"The novelty of this pleading is wearing thin," Feerix said, "in my opinion, you would do best to drop that joke and find a new one."

As the Monster Killer lunged at Freetrick, he bent backward to drop his unprotected face below the sweep of her claws, then braced his feet against the ground, stuck out his arms, and heaved.

It didn't exactly work. In the correct step, Freetrick's hands would have closed around the Monster Killer's hips, and the force of his legs would have been transmitted to her center of gravity. Instead, his armor locked and Freetrick couldn't bend backward far enough to get his hands that low. The Monster Killer took the force on the lower edge of her ribs, and so rather than tossing her backward through the air, Freetrick could only give her a violent shove, throwing her off balance.

For a moment, the monster-killer was off her guard. Freetrick kicked at her legs as she teetered. If he could knock her off her feet, he would be able to pin her to the ground, and get a chance to talk to her. Assuming he could make sure Feerix wouldn't hear what he had to say—

A mist of fine, red particles sprayed into the air and the cell door swung open to smash into the adjoining wall. Freetrick stumbled backward as the blood mist buffeted him, then cleared to reveal Bloodbyrn, striding through the doorway with a terrible expression on her face and a ring of keys in her hand.

Freetrick saw his chance. "Bloodbyrn! Distract Feerix—strike it!"

The Monster Killer had seen her chance, too. Freetrick whipped his head sideways and the claws raked across his ear and not his eyes. He felt flesh tearing. "Feerix!" He shouted again.

"Wha—" Through the ringing in his ear, Freetrick heard his half-brother's shocked cry drown in a liquid hiss. Would that provide enough distraction for Feerix? Would it be enough distraction for Bloodbyrn?

Freetrick barely managed to avoid another attempted blinding. No time, strike it! "I can help you." Freetrick tried to pitch his voice so that only she could hear him. If only he had been able to pin her. "Listen to me. Find Grimp. He works for the Dark Synod. He'll tell you everything. You never have to be vulnerable again!"

"Vulnerable?" She faked a strike at his face, then kneed him in the belly hard enough to bruise, even through his armor. "Lord Feerix has promised to send me back to Dewmnor, where I shall know strength greater than any of my sisters," she said as Freetrick gasped and fell back. "Naïve fools!" She spat, bearing down on him, new madness burning in her eyes, "I will go back to the black forests of Dewmnor and grind the bones of their skulls between my teeth!"

"Listen to me," Freetrick hissed desperately as he blocked another attack, "Grimp's working for me. He's going to teach Rationalist magic to the monsters. You get it? You'll be safe from Necromancy! You'll have power of your own!"

The next blow did not come. Later, Freetrick would curse that opening, which he wasted as he looked up at the Monster Killer with hope.

There was a bellow and crash from the red cloud across the room, then Feerix's voice. "Mutate your flesh, bitch! End this farce! I cannot kill you!"

"But I can kill you," sang Bloodbyrn, "I would be doing castle Clouds-Gather a service on both political and aesthetic levels."

The Monster Killer's still silver eyes snapped down as Freetrick leapt at her. She
must
not tell him. Feerix
must
not know. Freetrick seemed to float above his own body as it turned and twisted, lashed out with gauntlets at the scaled woman.

"Lord Feerix!" The Monster Killer's new claws clattered off his armor, then swooped up to strike his gauntlet away. Freetrick knew his choices now, complete lack of choices, but how the hell was he going to kill the struck-out traitor with no necromancy?