Parasite Soul (28 page)

Simon said nothing.

“You led my men a merry chase,” she admitted. “I have no idea
how you got past their barricades. I heard stories of your visiting some
manner of horrible creature upon them in Brand. I admit I’m impressed.”

For the first time, Simon noticed the sheath tucked into her
sash.
Was that…?
His heart began to pump. It
was: Tiera carried the parasite blade. Had she then acquired the
same abilities he had? Did she know? His ability to defeat her
might hinge upon his ability to lose control of his stronger emotions before
she could.

Fortunately, Tiera seemed hell-bent on giving him ammunition.
“Brand,” she mused, focusing her attention on some other nightmarishly
outlandish torture contraption. “That was where your father lived, was it
not?”

“Why are you persecuting me?” Simon grated. Anger swelled
easily within him. “What did my father have to do with your petty little
vendetta?”

“I could have your tongue pulled with this.” Tiera hefted a
tool reminiscent of a hooked pair of pliers and clicked them ominously.
“But then I couldn’t hear you begging for mercy.”

“I did nothing to harm you.”

Her eyes flashed. She jabbed the torture implement in his
direction. “You, who was born amongst cows and sheep, who should never
have aspired to higher than shoveling their shit, spat in the face of the
Princess of Cannevish! Did you think I would leave such an insult
unattended?”

“I never meant to insult you.”

“And following this little session, you never will again,” Tiera
snarled. Her bleached cheeks flamed with building fury.
Simon’s heart experienced a tremor – no more than a hiccup, but he began to
panic. Fairly or unfairly, Tiera was angrier than he currently was.
How to calm her while his own fury built? He cast about for a topic to
distract her.

“You think us so different,” he said. “And yet, we almost
certainly have common ground.”

She sneered. “Is that so?”

Simon considered for a moment. “We both lost our mothers
young.”

This was the wrong thing to say. Tiera’s eyes ballooned then
shuttered, and she slammed both hands down on the table.

“My mother was a
queen
,” she hissed. “
Yours
was
likely a goat.”

Simon’s hatred of the woman spiked. Tiera’s eyes flickered in
surprise; she raised one hand partway to her breast, gasping, then dropped it
again as her sudden discomfort lessened.

Not nearly enough fuel,
thought
Simon. Out loud, he said, “Have you not persecuted me enough? I’ve
been on the run for…” He wasn’t sure how long anymore. It felt like an
age. “I’ve had to deal with your men, with the undead, with…”

Tiera frowned, sinking down in her chair. “The undead?
Explain.”

Slipped up
, thought Simon.
Shouldn’t
have said that. Can’t risk warning these people about Sasha until it’s
too late for them to stop her
.

“In a cabin. I was trying to take shelter there. I went
down into the basement. There was an… I don’t know. An undead
cannibal which hounded me. The same one which annihilated your troops at
Brand.” Simon excised his own abilities from his narrative.

Tiera considered, then laughed. “So. We have both lost our
mothers. We have both stumbled upon undead in the basement. We have
even shared the same handmaiden.” Despite himself, Simon felt
unaccountably gratified that the princess assumed he’d managed to bed Niu.
“Perhaps we are not so different after all.”

Hope blossomed; anger receded. Perhaps there could be a
different resolution to this conflict? Could he find some way appeal to
the humanity lurking beneath the mad destructive insecurity and
narcissism?

He snuffed the spark of optimism at once.
Perhaps, yes, if
Tiera’s men hadn’t stolen me only family from me
.

“Except that your men murdered my father,” he snapped, emotions
coiling tight.

A glimmer of pain flitted across Tiera’s face. “We have both
also lost our fathers,” she said after a beat.

Taken aback, Simon stared blankly. “The king… the king is
dead?”

“Thanks to
you
.” Rage simmered behind the princess’
cold eyes. She didn’t even look like she believed herself. Simon
had simply become the avatar of everything terrible in her life.

“I did not harm the king.”

Tiera sprang to her feet so violently that her chair
overturned. “This is
all
thanks to you! You… you made a
mockery of me! In refusing our union, you spat on the most desirable hand
in the land. You brought your father’s death upon yourself!”

Simon’s chest tightened. “You didn’t want to marry me.”

Tiera snarled. Literally. Simon heard her growl, deep in
her throat. “Of course not. I would not have you bring your
farmland filth into my bedchamber. But…” She left the rest unsaid,
but he felt it nonetheless. Her ego was hardly less fragile than pottery.

“Princess,” Simon began quietly as his heart seemed to seize.
It fought valiantly to beat, besieged into unnerving irregularity in the face
of Tiera’s fury. Pain clutched his chest like a dragon’s claw.
Still, he might almost have felt sorry for his adversary, this woman in
the process of murdering him, had she not been responsible for his father’s
death.

“No!” Tiera shouted, leaning across the table. He felt her hot
breath in his face, flecks of spittle dotting his cheeks as she vented her
ire. “I am going to kill you, Simon Dragonslayer. I am going to
break
your heart
.” Her wrath was such now that Simon could feel his heart
stutter and falter. Spasms of pain stabbed his chest, each more
excruciating than the last. He fought not to black out as he concentrated
on his own rage, but Tiera had the upper hand. Her hatred was
deeper. He’d lost.

“One more thing we share,” he gasped, slumping toward the tabletop.

“We share nothing!” she yelled. A red mist clouded Simon’s
eyes. His heart protested every agonized, reluctant, infrequent beat.
“This idiocy ends now,
peasant
! I have killed you, if you are not
too stupid to know it, and my brother will kill your beloved handmaiden
bitch.” She reached across and cupped Simon’s chin, tilting his head,
forcing him to look into her eyes, though truthfully he could no longer see
more than a shivering blur. “He will tear out her throat and drink her
blood. Then he will defile her body! Let that be your last
thought.”

Simon laughed mirthlessly. In her moment of triumph, Tiera had
made a terrible mistake. His pent-up fear, anger, and loss swirled into a
blazing storm of wrath. He seemed almost to see his unleashed turmoil as
a writhing nest of crimson tendrils which lashed out toward his tormentor and
plunged into her chest, stabbing viciously at her heart. He could not see
Tiera’s expression through the cloud of life-extinguishing pain, but he saw her
jerk back in shock. She understood, too late, that her precious sword had
two
owners.

Moments later, unable to endure that consuming red maelstrom of
hatred, two hearts exploded as one.

The masked man seemed in no hurry to open Niu’s cell. He
prowled outside, lithe like a cat, studying her but paying Sasha scant
attention.

“Yes,” he said at length, molesting Niu with leering, predatory
eyes. “Yes, you’re a fine morsel. I will take pleasure in
this. I will also take my time.”

“You will not touch me,” Niu told him, more bravely than she
felt. She felt passably certain that was true, if only Sasha would snap
out of her catatonia.

“Don’t you be touchin’ her!” Oswald added gruffly, rattling the bars
of his own cell.

“You,” Mask told the giant disinterestedly, “Can rot in there.
I expect you’d taste of rank lard and stale sweat. Ah, but you.” He
returned his eyes to Niu. “Savory blood and tender meat, but in such a
lovely package, a magnificently-prepared meal from a master chef.”

“Open the door, then,” Niu said challengingly. She glanced at
Sasha, resisting an urge to nudge her. “If you dare.”

Mask laughed. “And spirited too! Like a ladling of one
of those flavorful spiced sauces from southern kingdoms over the dish.
Very well. If you are in a hurry to feed me, it would not be gentlemanly
to keep you waiting.” He reached out, twisted a key in the lock.

Simon
, Niu wondered anxiously,
retreating as the door swung open.
Are you still alive
? That
Tiera meant to kill him was certain. Mercy was a foreign concept to the
princess: Tiera was a mental child, petulant and cruel, and Niu had the
scars to prove it.

Tiera would feel the need to torment Simon before she killed him, so
with any luck Simon’s curse would activate in time to save him. This was
the hope Niu clung to. She couldn’t bear the thought of the good-natured
youth dying at the hands of that psychotic pallid witch. As frustratingly
naïve and incompetent as he could be, Niu was fond of the poor lovesick
pup. She couldn’t return his affections - her heart belonged forever to
Cihau – but if Tiera succeeded in fulfilling her murderous objectives, Niu
would kill the princess herself.

If, of course, she lived long enough.
Cihau,
she
thought as the leering Mask pushed into the cell,
I may be about to join you
in darkness
. She thought longingly of her lover’s touch, his
inquisitive fingers and gentle breath on her skin. Of rushing across
rooftops, leaping from one home to its neighbor as he laughed and challenged
her to surpass him. Of singing and dancing in the firelight below Inquai
Bridge, accompanied by the wondrous melodies he’d played on his
yerhu
.
And perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad.

“Not so fiery, then,” Mask decided, apparently disappointed as Niu
pressed herself against the stone at the very back of her cell. “Not even
a little struggle? Even the hare squirms in the claws of the eagle.”

“You are no eagle,” Niu breathed, desperate for Sasha, still
watching the proceedings, to intervene. “An eagle is noble.”

“Wrong. An eagle simply devours those weaker than itself, in
order to survive. It cares not at all for those qualities which humans
yearn to imbue it with.” Mask reached out, caressing her cheek with
skeletal fingers that slithered down her neck and traced a line along her
collarbone. Shivering, she caught his wrist and tried to shove him away,
but he might as well have been granite. She kicked out and met similarly
impenetrable resistance. Oswald shouted again. The vampire leaned
in close, so that his exhalation – more of a sigh of pleasure than a breath -
enveloped her in a shroud of rot. His gaze speared her. Transfixed
by the mesmeric light of his unreadably black, dead eyes, her breath caught and
she stiffened. A minnow staring into the lamplight eyes of a giant squid
could not have felt more overwhelmed.

“Is that your best?” Mask chuckled. “Is all your defiance in
your words?” His mouth gaped wide; chipped fangs glinted dully in the somber
light. “I hope you don’t taste of my disappointment.” He bowed his
head toward her neck.

Faced with imminent death, Niu tried to concentrate on Cihau, but
his handsome features had inexplicably taken on shades of Simon. She
focused and refocused, but his dark laughing eyes occasionally flashed a moody
sky blue; his rich black hair temporarily tangling into a ratty blond nest before
returning to its original luxury. Niu was confused: she was
positive that her affection for Simon was purely sisterly. Why then did
he contest with Cihau for her final thoughts?

A yawning abyss of sharklike teeth closed upon her neck.
Shivering, her fingers clenched on the stone, nails snapping. In that
moment of certain death, a flurry of motion caught the corner of her eye, and
abruptly she was free. Mask was flung from her, from the cell, and struck
the wall across the corridor with a clattering crash. With an expression
of astonishment, he slid down the wall, staring at Sasha in disbelief.

“About time,” Niu murmured, massaging her throat, grateful to find
it unmarred.

“From the way you were talking,” Sasha said unapologetically, “I
thought
you
wanted to handle him.”

“You thought I…?” Niu choked, but let it pass. The bruxa
marched to a very different drummer. “Sasha, can you
handle
this…
man…” She indicated Mask, who was on his feet again, “While I free Oswald and
look for Simon?”

“Absolutely,” Sasha said blankly. “You know I can.”

“Thank you.” Niu slipped out of the cell. Mask made a grab for
her, but Sasha charged him like an anorexic tiger and smashed him into the wall
again. His makeshift neck brace buckled, and moments later his head was
lolling grotesquely to one side like some disjointed marionette.

“You bitch!” he howled, holding his head upright by the hair as he
swiped at the bruxa with his free hand. His blow clipped Sasha’s shoulder
and she spun off sideways. In that moment, she seemed fragile, breakable,
like a doll, and Niu experienced a moment of intense concern for her. She
needn’t have worried; Sasha righted herself instantly and launched herself
explosively at Mask, twining her legs about his torso, shredding and savaging
his flesh with nails and teeth. It was no exaggeration to say that chunks
of Mask’s face and throat soon littered the floor as he thrashed about in his
wild, desperate attempts to dislodge her.

Mask had left the cell keys in the lock, and Niu wrenched them out,
slipping along to Oswald’s cage, where the giant gripped the bars in
white-knuckled agitation. He looked almost comical, like a mammoth
squeezed into a supply crate. Niu suppressed an irrational urge to laugh.

“Hurry, hurry,” Oswald urged, although Sasha, who was now battering
her disbelieving opponent’s face with his own mask, seemed to have the
situation well in hand.

“I
am
hurrying.” Niu’s hands were shaking, but she managed to
insert the key, a simple task made difficult by Oswald, who was rattling the
cage door violently. “Hold still a moment, would you?” She
twisted. The key groaned in the lock. The giant thrust the heavy
door open, Niu dancing nimbly aside just in time to avoid a face-full of metal.

“You got this, lass?” Oswald roared as he lumbered past Sasha and
her flagging opponent.

“Yes, of course.” Sasha was straddling Mask now; the vampire lay
prone on the floor, struggling piteously as the bruxa beat his head
relentlessly against the flagstones. Her assault was rhythmic, almost
casual. Niu imagined Mask’s expression would have been one of
astonishment, had he still possessed enough of a face to
have
an
expression. Sasha looked relatively unscathed; her left cheek was missing
a strip of skin and two of the fingers on her left hand jutted at an unusual
angle, but she clearly didn’t feel the pain. No doubt she could snap them
back into position without too much of a fuss. Niu judged it was safe to
leave her to mop up and followed the giant as he barreled up stairs which would
surely have buckled had they not been made of stone.

Oswald crashed through the door at the head of the stairway into the
prison’s offices. Soldiers stood impotently about, offering no
resistance. They appeared to be paralyzed not by the sounds of commotion
from below, but the sight of two of their fellows - who guarded an upward stair
- who had collapsed to their knees, gasping and frantically scrabbling at their
armored chests.

“Simon must be up there!” Niu yelled, pointing.

“Don’t get too close, lass!” Oswald returned, grabbing her
arm. “In fact, let’s get ourselves further away, eh?” He thundered
across the room toward the exit. The unaffected guards made no move to
stop them. All this strangeness was clearly too much for their
nerves. One of them even followed Niu and the giant into the street
where, attracted by the commotion, a small crowd of speculative passersby had
assembled.

“Make way, make way!” A young lieutenant was shoving his way through
the civilians with a squad of soldiers in tow. “You there!” He
pointed his sword at Niu and Oswald. “Surrender immediately or we will
gut you where you stand!”

Niu considered her options. She and Oswald faced a wide,
cobbled courtyard, sprouting from the center of which a cheerful fountain was
ringed by five ornamental oak trees. To the north stood a block of
administrative buildings, ancient and pleasantly rustic, probably crawling with
important potential hostages if they could make it that far. The road ran
east-west through the courtyard, narrower toward the east, but less heavily
defended by the soldiers who continued to pour into the area. Each man
was bristling with weaponry, and Niu and Oswald were unarmed.

She spotted an alleyway between two leaning buildings which had been
left more or less unguarded, but there was no way of telling whether or not it
might be an escape route or a dead end. This was little problem for her;
the rooftops were her domain. But Oswald? He would be trapped.
Besides, could she abandon Simon to save herself? Niu wasn’t sure she
could live with that scenario. Still, she had to make a decision.
Each moment she hesitated, more men filled the square until she despaired of
breaking through their ranks.

“Surrender!” the lieutenant shouted again. Niu noticed
some archers filing in behind their sword-wielding comrades, training their
bows upon the two renegades. “Surrender in the name of King Minus!
Men! A thousand lashes for the man who allows these fugitives to
escape! They have slain General Gharletto!”

Niu blinked. “We have done no such thing!”

“Silence, witch! The General is slain, and not a mark on him!”
The lieutenant was practically frothing at the mouth. “These devils will
answer for it. Where is Princess Tiera?”

“In-inside, Lieutenant Thornton,” quavered the soldier who had
followed Niu and Oswald out. “She is interrogating the peasant… but sir,
strange things…”

“Silence, soldier!” Niu could hardly believe the young officer could
muster such a head-splitting roar. “Why is your blade not drawn?
You are in the presence of enemies of the kingdom, yet you make no effort to
detain them? Arrest them, man!”

The soldier’s gulp was audible. He glanced up at Oswald’s
towering bulk and reached hopelessly for his sword. The giant caved his
face in with his enormous fist, and he collapsed like a tower in an
earthquake. Niu wasn’t sure whether she hoped the man had survived or
not; she doubted his own mother would be able to recognize him.

“Bring them down!” Thornton roared to his archers.

Niu tensed for the inevitable end. Oswald moved to shield her,
but she knew he couldn’t hope to survive the inevitable storm of arrows.
Then two things happened in rapid succession. Firstly, Sasha appeared in
the prison doorway, dragging the body of the unmasked vampire behind her like a
bone she hoped to save for later. Her presence distracted the unnerved
archers just long enough for a second miracle.

One of the trees ringing the fountain wrenched itself from the
ground, cobblestones buckling as roots tore free. For a moment it lurched
unsteadily, as though drunk, then it rushed the archers. Soldiers and
civilians alike collectively gasped with shock as it thundered into their ranks
like an enormous leafy bull, tossing men left and right like ragdolls. It
was momentarily followed by a second stampeding oak, then a third. Niu
could barely believe what she was seeing. The archers fell into disarray
as they struggled to avoid swinging branches and battering ram charges that
sent men flying with splintered ribs and shattered limbs. Thornton’s eyes
bugged in disbelief. Oswald chuckled.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said, pointing.

Niu and Sasha looked toward an unremarkable four-story office across
the courtyard, upon the roof of which crouched Hezben the leshy, his mossy brow
furrowed with concentration as he made use of the minimal resources at his
disposal. All five trees were all in action now, lumbering about the
square as citizens and soldiers alike retreated in panic before them.
Like their master, the oaks weren’t fussy about who they killed: Niu
watched horrified as several hapless bystanders were crushed between colliding
trunks and pulped beneath trampling roots.

Tearing at his collar, an apoplectic, shrieking Thornton commanded
his retreating men to resist. The trees opened throats with whipping branches,
flinging guardsmen high enough in the air that several men’s heads burst upon
impact with the ground. Red was fast becoming the new color of the cobblestones.
From the corner of her eye, Niu saw Sasha lick her lips appreciatively.