Faces of Deception (24 page)

“Slag my boys, will you?” the devil growled. He twisted Atreus’s leg around like a wheel as Atreus wailed in pain and rolled to his stomach, still holding the chain. “Peel my best girl, will you?”

Tarch twisted again. Atreus spun to his back and found himself looking up into his foe’s sunken black eyes. Yago was sliding down the hill behind the devil, having just leaped across the crevasse.

“Before I’m done with you,” said Tarch, “you’ll be beggin’ me to kill you nice and slow-like!”

“I doubt it,” Atreus groaned.

He whipped the chain forward. Tarch hopped it with a quick one-two step and gave Atreus’s leg a savage twist, then abruptly let go as a pair of huge hands caught hold of his tail. His eyes flashed crimson, and he started to turn. Yago yanked him off his feet and spun him around, slamming the astonished devil into a serac.

There was a tremendous clatter, and the frozen monolith rained jagged shards of ice down on all three fighters. Tarch whirled on his attacker with slashing claws, but he was no match for the strength of an ogre. Yago cocked his arms back for another smash, flinging the devil out to the end of his tail, then swung again, stepping into the blow like a woodsmasher clubbing down a tree.

Tarch hit with a resounding crash. Something deep inside the serac cracked, and the monolith slumped forward. The devil let out a low groan and started to go limp, shook himself back to consciousness, and managed to fix on angry glare on his foe.

“One more time!” he hissed.

Yago brought his arms back for a smash Atreus prayed would finish their foe when a loud pop echoed across the ice. Tarch went sailing down the icefall, leaving his tail in Yago’s hands and trailing an arc of rust-colored blood. The slaver crashed through an ice slab and landed ten paces below Atreus.

Yago scowled at the writhing appendage in his hands, staring at the meaty stump as though he could not quite figure out what had happened. There was not as much blood as Atreus would have expected, and he had the sinking feeling that the injury was not enfeebling. He drew his knee up beneath him, and even this little bit of effort sent daggers of pain shooting through his leg.

Yago tossed Tarch’s tail into a crevasse and went crashing and sliding down the slope after the battered devil. On the other side of the chasm, Seema was reluctantly fleeing up the ledge as instructed. Rishi was nowhere to be seen, but there was no time to worry about what had become of the Mar. Tarch was gathering himself up to meet Yago, and the ogre was chortling with overconfidence.

“Careful, Yago!” Atreus called, pushing himself up on his good leg. “Don’t let him touch—”

Even as Atreus spoke, Yago launched himself into the air and landed on top of Tarch. They tumbled down the slope locked in a death clench. The devil was all but invisible inside the ogre’s grasp, and Atreus could well imagine those hairy arms crushing the slave master’s battered ribs.

The pair bounced off a serac and slid toward a smile-shaped crevasse lying across the slope below. Atreus started after them, then howled in pain as he put weight on his injured leg. He managed two hopping steps before he fell on his back and started to slide. Instead of trying to stop, he steered himself in the general direction of the combat.

Whether Yago saw the crevasse below him was impossible to say, but Tarch managed to free a scaly arm and start scratching at the ice. Slowly, the sharp claws arrested the pair’s descent, bringing them to a halt only five paces above the icy chasm. Yago rolled on top of his foe and sank his jagged yellow teeth into the devil’s neck.

Atreus’s heart leaped into his throat. Among ogres, this particular trick always brought the fight to a quick end.

Unable to free himself without ripping open his own neck, the victim either submitted or died. Atreus wanted to shout a reminder about not killing, but held his tongue. It would be too much of an advantage to let Tarch know they did not mean to slay him.

Atreus hit a shady spot and picked up speed. He rolled back into the sun, causing his leg no end of agony, and began to claw at the slush trying to slow his descent before he smashed into the brawl and sent both combatants over the edge of the crevasse.

A muffled bellow sounded from the battle. Yago released his death hold and raised his head. His eyes were wide with panic, his mouth was smeared with scales and blood, and Atreus knew instantly that Tarch had used his fear touch. The ogre slammed a huge palm into the devil’s chest, then jumped up and began to back away, oblivious to the danger of losing his footing or stepping into a crevasse.

“Yago, stop!” Atreus shouted, steering himself toward Tarch. “Look behind you!”

The ogre stopped, but could not bring himself to glance away from his scaly enemy. Tarch rolled to his knees. Atreus brought his good leg up, aiming a soggy boot at his enemy’s face. The devil scowled; then Atreus was there, feeling the satisfying jolt of his heel smashing into the slave master’s arrow-shaped nose.

The impact stopped Atreus dead and launched Tarch over backward. The devil landed on his back and slid headlong toward the crevasse below. As he was about to plummet into its grinning mouth, he whipped his legs over his head and somersaulted in the air and landed on his belly, his legs dangling over the brink of the icy chasm and his talons dug deep into its rim.

“Hurry Yago!” cried Rishi’s voice. “Go and finish him!”

Atreus glanced over to see Rishi rushing up behind Yago, having done exactly the opposite of what Atreus instructed. The little Mar tried to shove the terrified ogre into battle and succeeded only in convincing him to retreat farther up the hill. Atreus cocked his knee back and pushed off, launching himself at Tarch.

The devil pulled one set of claws from the ice and pointed up the slope. A roiling orange cloud erupted from his fingers Atreus smelled brimstone and scorched flesh and heard someone screaming.

He remained fully alert, gagging on the stench of his own burning flesh, watching the fire lick across his body, feeling his skin melt in the heat He saw Rishi dash across the slope to Tarch and start kicking at the claws still fastened in the ice. He heard Yago bellow, heard him come crashing across the glacier, felt the ogre’s big hands rolling him through the sizzling slush, felt the icy coolness against his stinging flesh, and smelled, at last, the flames hissing into steam.

Yago pulled him into his lap and cradled him against his chest. Atreus saw Rishi at the edge of the crevasse, peering down into its blue depths. All that remained of Tarch were a few rust-colored streaks on the brink of the chasm.

“I was afraid!” Yago moaned. “You needed me, and I couldn’t move.”

“Not your fault.”

The words echoed emptily inside Atreus’s head. He could not make his lips work.

He did the same thing to me.

“I am so … sor-ry!” Yago had trouble forming this last word, which was as foreign to the ogre tongue as the term for children won in a game of knucklebones was to humans. “What happened to me?”

The ogre smashed his fist into the side of his own face. The blow struck so sharply that Rishi gave a start and nearly plummeted into the crevasse.

Yago spit an orange tooth out onto the ice, shouting, “Coward!”

Atreus fought through his pain and managed to grasp the ogre’s arm. He shook his head.

Yago’s eyes grew glassy. “Am so!” the ogre insisted. “You saw me… just standing there!”

“Atreus does not blame you, my friend,” said Rishi. the Mar backed away from the crevasse and came up to join them, grimacing at Atreus’s condition. “The same thing happened to him on the slave boat. It is the devil’s touch.”

“It don’t matter,” growled Yago. “I made the Vow. Shield-breakers aren’t scared of nothing!”

“That is an impossible vow to keep. Every man fears something.” Rishi grasped the ogre’s elbow and urged him up the hill, saying, “And now let us go. What became of Tarch I cannot tell, but it is too much to hope that a fall of only a few hundred feet would kill him.”

Yago started to rise, then caught himself and sat back down. “Let him come,” he said. “I’m not running.”

Atreus squeezed Yago’s forearm and tried to nod. The effort sent waves of agony surging through his body, but he was terrified that the stubborn ogre would let his pride get them all killed. He could feel his own strength oozing out through his scalded pores, but just as importantly, he could tell by the nervous edge in his friend’s voice that Yago was not ready to face Tarch again.

“There, do you see?” Rishi asked, motioning to Atreus’s nodding head. “The good sir wants us to go. He needs Seema’s help.”

Yago scowled in thought, then reluctantly nodded. “we’ll go,” he said “but not because I’m scared.”

“Oh no, there has never been any question of that,” agreed Rishi. “I am frightened enough for us all. You are thinking only of the good sir’s welfare.”

Still scowling, Yago started up the hill. Atreus’s burns began to ache in earnest. He could not keep from moaning as the ogre’s clothes rubbed against his raw flesh. His broken leg became a distant throbbing, and he slipped into a murky world of pain and delirium. He grew desperately thirsty and started to shiver. Yago’s voice became a nightmarish roar, alternately trying to comfort Atreus and cursing himself for a coward. Amazingly enough, Rishi proved the staunch one, continually reassuring Atreus that he really looked no worse than before, perhaps even better. It was a terrible lie, of course, but exactly what Atreus needed to hear.

Sometime later – it seemed hours, but could not have been more than three or four minutes-Seema came bounding and sliding down the slope. “How bad?” she demanded, dropping the supply bundle at Yago’s feet. “Put him down where I can see him. Get those rags off him. Pack him in snow. Rishi, talk to him ! Keep talking ___”

Atreus’s companions rushed to obey the healer’s orders. His body roared with pain. When the tattered remnants of his clothes were pulled free, he could not help screaming. As much as it hurt to be touched, the cold slush had a numbing effect on his burns, and his anguish dulled to a raw ache.

Soon, he felt Seema’s hands on him, rubbing his wounds with some minty-smelling potion. The sting faded completely, leaving him to a deeper anguish inside his seared muscles. Seema uttered a spell in the exotic language of her magic, then pressed her lips to Atreus’s. He remembered the kiss of the day before and tried to steal another, but she only wet his lips with one of her potions, using her own tongue to dribble it into his mouth.

A languid fog rose up to engulf him, and he prayed he would fall into insensible sleep. Instead, he slipped into a terrible waking dream, aware of his anguish but apart from it conscious of what was happening but unable to do anything about it.

“What’s wrong with him?” demanded Yago. “He’s going to live, ain’t he?”

“I have taken away his pain,” answered Seema. “The rest is not for me to control.”

“Don’t you say that! You’re a healer. Heal!”

“I have done what I can, but my magic is weak,” Seema said. “What happened to Tarch? Was there killing?”

“There will be if you don’t do something… and fast!”

Don’t threaten her! Atreus wanted to shout the command, but he could not even whisper it, could not even shake his head. He was a spectator in his own body.

“I am sure Seema is certainly doing her best,” said Rishi. “She is as fond of Atreus in her way as you are in yours.”

“She has a bad way of showing it,” snapped Yago. “If she would have let us kill Tarch in the first place…”

“I could not have done even this much for Atreus,” said Seema. “Now tell me what happened. If you did not kill Tarch—”

“He is most certainly alive!” said Rishi. “I saw him moving in the bottom of the crevasse.”

This was not what the Mar had told Yago, but Atreus was hardly in a position to correct him.

“I will try another time.”

Again, Seema uttered one of her spells, then pressed her lips to Atreus’s and dribbled more of her potion into his mouth. He slipped further into his dream-world, so that events alternately rushed by in a blur or crept past in excruciating slowness. He did not feel any stronger.

“Wellllll?” Yago’s voice was deep and torpid.

“I don’t know,” Seema replied.

“You mean it isn’t working!” Yago was silent for a moment, then asked, “What happens to your precious magic if Atreus dies? You might as well have flamed him yourself, for all your high talk about not killing.”

Seema recoiled from the anger in the ogre’s voice.

“That is hardly fair.”

“Is too!” growled Yago. “He should’ve never made you that promise. But how could the boy think straight, with you batting them pretty eyes and flashing them white teeth? If he dies, it’s on your head, not mine.”

The conversation came to Atreus as though he were listening to a trio of ghosts. Seema fell silent. Some dim part of him realized he should be speaking in her defense, that he should be telling Yago he knew exactly what he was doing, but Atreus could barely gather his thoughts, much less make them known.

After a moment, Rishi said, “Nobody is to blame for what happened to Atreus except Tarch. Perhaps my friend Yago, feeling that he may have in some way failed his master, is putting the blame he feels — “

“What blame?” Yago snarled.

“Then again, perhaps not,” said Rishi.

But Yago was not done yet

“If not for Seema and her promise, we’d have been rid of Tarch a long time ago. He wouldn’t never have touched me!” the ogre bellowed, shaking his head angrily. “The blame here don’t belong to me. You can’t go fighting devils unless you mean to kill them.”

“You are right, of course,” interrupted Seema. “This is all my fault.”

“You bet it is!” said Yago. “What are you going to do about it?”

Seema was silent for several moments, then said, “I have caused many deaths and much pain, and that is why my magic has grown weak.” She laid a cloak over Atreus, and be could not help groaning at even its light touch. “We have no choice but to take him to my valley.”

“I doubt he can survive such a long journey,” said Rishi. “Surely, it would be better to let him rest and take our chances that he will recover.”