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The first shriek sounded from upstairs. It cut through the fresh conversation and killed it. Everyone downstairs sat, waiting. A second scream came, piteous, all hope gone, choking sobs followed it.
The farmers got up and paid their bill. Only the two fighters were left. And they, like us, were travelers with no other place to go.
Celandine nodded. I motioned to the host, and he came over. There was a light dew of sweat on his face.
“Good sir, we are ready for our room.”
“Was the stew to your liking?”
“The food was good, but we seem to have lost our appetites.”
“He is a high priest of our people. But to strangers, who do not understand, well…he may seem extreme.”
“On the contrary, mine host, I do understand. Even in other lands some magics drive the sense from a man.”
The host looked nervously about as if someone might overhear. He said, “As you wish. Your room is to the right, the first door. It is as far away from the noise as I can put you.”
“We appreciate that.”
He nodded, and we stood. Celandine followed me, hooded, eyes down, more to hide her anger than to hide her face.
We mounted the stairs to the sounds of screams. The screams became words, a prayer. I didn’t need to look behind me to know Celandine was stiffening. The girl was praying to Mother Blessen. She was praying to Celandine’s God.
The prayer was cut short as if she had been cuffed. We stepped into the dark hallway, and both of us simply stood as if waiting. The child’s voice rose again in prayer. He was beating her. But she had decided that she would probably never see daylight. So she prayed, and he hit her. Celandine let her hood slip back. She turned to me wordlessly, and I met her eyes.
I whispered, “The token?”
She nodded.
There was logic to it. The girl was inside the Black Demon Inn. The token was inside a demon just as the prophets had told us it would be. My sword sighed from its sheath, and I hefted my shield, balancing it on my arm. She smiled at me then. Fear danced in her eyes, but that curious strength that she had when healing, it was there, too.
She whispered to me, “You must cut off his head, or take out his heart. He will simply heal himself otherwise. And you must kill him as quickly as possible, for he can do us all great harm.”
“Surely he has used most of his power already tonight.”
“He is high in the favor of the dark Gods. He may have more than his own power to draw from.”
I prayed silently. “Balinorelle, let it not be so. Guide my hand and allow me to slay this demonmonger.”
Celandine waited for me, and we walked to the room. She opened the door quietly, for we didn’t want to alert the men down below. I went in ahead of her, shield held close, wondering if it would help.
The girl lay on the bed partially nude. Her small breasts and entire upper body were covered with the green spreading sickness. It was something that killed thoroughly and quickly. The black healer lay next to her fondling her diseased body. Celandine closed the door behind us.
The man said, “What do you want?”
He spied Celandine behind me and leered. “Have you come to offer a gift? For a gift as fair as she, you could have much.”
“I have come to ask if you will sell the girl to me.”
He stared down at the dying girl and laughed. With a careless hand, he healed her, the disease absorbing into his skin, where the green sickness faded away. She was pure and unblemished once more. “I don’t think I’ll sell her to you, elf. But I might trade.”
I shook my head. “No, black healer, no trade.”
He knelt on the bed and said, “Then you can fight me for her.” A thin smile curled his lips. He gestured, and I felt claws sink into my cheek. Blood trickled down my face, from under my helmet.
He laughed. “How badly do you want her?”
I wiped the dripping blood with the back of my hand and said, “Badly enough.”
I advanced, holding shield and weapon up, but another claw raked me across the ribs as if my armor were not there. Stealth gained me nothing, so I rushed him. He motioned, and my sword hand was cut and bleeding.
A sorcerous claw raked over my eyes. I shrieked and fell to my knees. I gripped shield and sword in the crimson dark. Blind, I fought the pain and the panic. I had been trained to fight blindfolded: darkness was darkness. The pain was overwhelming, and I crouched and tried to think past it, tried to hear past it.
A sound, footsteps. The girl’s scream. A rush of cloth that was Celandine’s dress. The heavier sloppy footfalls of the black healer.
“It seems I will enjoy two beauties tonight.”
Celandine backed away from him but kept close to the bed and the girl. She called out to me, “Bevhinn!”
He moved round to the foot of the bed to come at Celandine. I had to make my first strike deadly or all was lost. I listened to his breathing and his movements. I would go for stomach and chest, not knowing if he was facing me or not. Then he spoke again. “Such a pretty pair.” He was facing away from me.
I rose and struck. The blade sank into flesh. I pulled it free and struck point first through his neck. The blade grated on bone and was through to open air. I knew where everything was now. I took five strikes to cut off his head. The smell of blood was thick and violent.
Celandine said, “Bevhinn, you’ve killed him.”
She was beside me lifting off my helmet. I felt her fingertips touch my eyes. I felt the pain again like a lance through my brain, and it was gone. I blinked.
The black healer lay sprawled on the bed. His head was a short distance from his body. Blood soaked the bedclothes to drip on the floor. The girl looked up and smiled her gratitude at me. She paled only a little at the sight of the headless body. She had probably seen worse things in her stay in Lolth. Celandine retrieved the girl’s cloak and spread it over her torn dress.
I cleaned my sword on the edge of the sheets and sheathed it. I forced open the wooden shutters on the window. I strapped my shield to my back, and scrambled out to kneel on the sloping roof. The girl crawled out to me, and Celandine followed.
We slipped unseen and, hopefully, unheard to the ground. I led the way to the stables. We entered, and the boy scrambled down from the loft where he probably slept. I said, “Come here, boy.”
He came, but he was afraid. I gripped him quickly and put a hand over his mouth. “Find some rope and cloth for a gag.”
Celandine and the girl moved to obey. The boy’s eyes were huge with fear, showing the whites of his eyes. “Boy, we will not harm you.” He wasn’t convinced, and I didn’t blame him.
When he was tied with some good-quality rope and gagged with a questionably dirty rag, I shoved him up in his loft. Hopefully, no one would find him before morning.
We saddled the horses while the girl kept watch. So far no alarm had been raised. But sooner or later the host would raise courage enough to check the strange noises from the healer’s room. We had to be away before that.
We led Ulliam and the horses out onto the road, but I motioned for them to follow me back the way we had come that day. When we felt it safe to talk, Celandine asked, “Why are we going back?”
“We cannot go on to the next inn. You and the girl might be able to disguise yourselves, but Ulliam and I are not so easily changed. We could run back to the wild lands, but the Loltuns would chase us down. We are at least five days from the Meltaanian border. Every hand will be against us by morning. We must leave Lolth tonight.”
“But how?”
“We’re going back to the demon, Krakus.”
“The help of demons?”
“Let us hope so.”
The girl rode our spare horse, and she rode well enough. We raced through the night, riding the horses hard because we wouldn’t be needing them much longer.
We came at last to an area of newly cleared land. The demon’s shattered stumps and trees were piled high on either side of the road.
I left Celandine and the girl-child with Ulliam and the horses. And I crept through the woods toward the two men who were guarding the demon. One was simple, a dagger thrust in the throat when he went to relieve himself. But the other stayed near the fire and kept his sword naked and near at hand. Guarding a demon seemed to make him nervous. Every time Krakus rattled his chains, the man kept staring back at the demon. I stepped up behind him and put my sword through his throat. I cleaned the blade in the tall grass and sheathed it. The demon was watching me with eyes that caught and reflected the fire.
