The Kingdoms of Evil (69 page)

Rough, long-fingered hands closed around Istain's elbow and hauled him up. Istain gritted his teeth and clamped down on Madene. Her furious impulse to strike out at the monster became a non-provoking twitch.

"I assume you thought that attempt at rebellion would impress me?" said Teirchoke, "I cannot imagine you thought the logic of your argument would sway me."

"Because if I threaten to tell Freetrick about you mistreating me, you can simply kill me or throw me in a dungeon, and Freetrick will never know I was even here," said Istain, furiously, to his captor and his meddlesome psychosis, both. "And without my weapons or any magic in this nation, I can't striking
intimidate
you."

This actually brought a smile to the old man's face. "Ah, it seems you have a better grasp on the situation than I had supposed. Clearly the stories about The Rationalist Union are true, and you are a nation of thinkers, not fighters. I wonder if your logical prowess can lead you to your one hope for survival at my hands."

"Can I be useful—?" Istain's mouth snapped closed as Madene realized what he was saying. "Madene," he subvocalized, mouth still closed "you will get us killed if you don't
shut up
now."

Banethorne hissed at him, but fortunately his master did not seem to notice Istain's internal dialogue. "Well, perhaps you can tell me whether or not you can be useful." The elderly dark lord stroked the armrest of his chair, and the whole mess rose up and swung about with another screech of stone and metal. "Banethorne, escort our prisoner behind me. I wish to show him something of my castle."

 "Istain, what are you doing? You can't offer this guy
help
! He's a dark lord of the Shadow!"

"Right," Istain subvocalized as he kneeled on the floor of a room somewhere in Teirchoke Despot Noggor's cavernous, badly-lit fortress, "so he'll have no compunctions about killing us."

"Better to die than serve the Shadow, Istain."

"Yeah well, I don't agree," not any more, anyway, "and this is
my
body, so I have a say over whether it stays alive."

"Well,
I—"
A sword prodded him in the back.

"Cease your
mumbling
!" Hissed Banethorne, "or you will serve my mastah with one limb few-ah!"

"I'm sorry," said Istain. He forced down panic and tried to think. If he was going to save Selene, he needed the power of Skrea behind him. That meant he needed Freetrick's help. Or someone's help, anyway. Imagine this as a program tree. If A then B or C, if
not
A, then…"Um…my dark lord?"

"The correct term of address is Fiendishness," said Teirchoke. He had settled his mobile easy-chair between Istain and the room's huge fireplace. He stood out as an angular black shadow against the flames, the room's only source of illumination.

"Villainousness," Istain corrected, "how can we…I mean,
I
help you?"

Teirchoke's smile gleamed in the firelight. "Mr. Banethorne," he said, "tell the Rationalist about the child who is no longer my son."

"Truly, Fiendishness?"

"Do not make me ask twice, Mr. Banethorne." Teirchoke lifted his right hand and grasped at the air in a gesture that was, for some reason, extremely threatening.

"Of course, Fiendishness. Ahem. His Fiendishness Teirchoke Despot Noggor," the servant said, his harsh voice oddly soft and sympathetic, "has been unlucky in his progeny. His son, whom we now must call…Thorchoke the…kind, was banished for his scandalous behavior from the nation of Skrea and all the Kingdoms of Evil."

"It took all of my acumen and ruthlessness not to join him in banishment," growled the dark lord. "I retain my name and
some
honors and privileges," his listless eyes flicked around the ostentatious castle, and his mouth quirked in self-conscious irony, "but with me will die my line's aristocratic perquisites. So unless the Choke line be relegated to Outer Dark Lordship, someone must restore our evil name. As my grandson is an idiot and my daughter is a woman, that task falls on my shoulders. Be glad you will never live to be so disappointed by your progeny, lad."

Istain nodded. He had only a vague notion of how aristocracy worked—if only he had Zathara in his head instead of Madene—but he understood the basic idea. Disgrace, banishment, loss of face. Which meant…

"Uh…" he said, "Villainousness, Freetrick and I have been best friends since we were children. If you gave me to him, you could name your reward."

"Who? Ah, the new king? Pfah!" Teirchoke waved his hand dismissively. "No. Predicting the death of Feerborg would be redundant, since all Ultimate Fiends are assassinated sooner or later, but let us say that I belong to the school of thought that believes in the sooner half of the equation. DeMacabre might think he can keep the idealistic fool alive until his bloody little bitch spawns a whelp of her own. I disagree."

"DeMacabre?" subvocalized Madene in confusion, "Bloody little bitch?"

"Bloodbyrn." Istain remembered the femme fatal who had come to collect Freetrick. If
she
was one of the
good guys
…

"Well," blustered Istain, "Freetrick is pretty resourceful. He was always good at getting his way."
In dance practices, anyway.
"I would reconsider my, uh, estimation of him if I was you."

"Oh yes." Teirchoke smiled thinly. "I know all about his grand schemes. I was at his first council meeting, after all, and I have had reports of his subsequent behavior from my daughter. Why do you think I came all the way back here, with so much going on in Clouds-Gather? Because there is a chance, however small, that that your friend's meddling will tear down the Skrean government before he is killed. No." Teirchoke leaned forward. "DeMacabre and his faction are fools for believing they can use that nincompoop to their advantage. I choose another champion." He leaned back again, a smile on his wicked, wrinkled face. "Yes…Prince Feerix will pay handsomely for you."

In which the Ultimate Fiend redecorates his Room

"Wild snacks!" General Blaarg bellowed. "Ogres! Seal the doors!"

Freetrick scrambled to get his limbs back under him as the sand juddered with the concussions of running ogre footsteps. Freetrick stood to see one of the ogres on the ground, another clawing at a chain around his neck. Two more were trying to fend off a leaping maelstrom of scantily-clad female assassins. Then his eyes focused on the person directly in front of him, and Freetrick felt cold sweat prickle under his armor.

She was rising from her crouch, joints slowly straitening, long limbs stretching, light scattering off her large silver eyes.

Freetrick swallowed. "You."

The Monster Killer smiled. She took a slow step forward, and then the step became an arc that swung almost lazily through the horizontal before her foot swept into Freetrick's side. Then she hit him in the face.

Or tried to. As the kick to his midriff propelled Freetrick back, Chitinous, was suddenly in the space between them. The Monster Killer's hand slid across the black surface of the plates across the Chitinous's chest. Then General Blaarg's lackey rushed forward, saw-edged limbs snapping out and down.

"Why are you doing this?" Freetrick shouted at the Monster Killer as she dodged backward. "I told you I'd let you walk out of the striking Castle. I told you I'd give you a striking
ambassadorship
! Why are you still here?"

"Can I talk to you after I kill your henchman?" Sand sprayed up as she planted a foot and leapt forward. Chitinous's serrated forearms came up, opened, then
hesitated
. The monster looked over his shoulder, his eyes sliding around to look back at Freetrick as if asking a question.

"What—" Freetrick began, and then black ichor spewed from Chitinous's mouthparts and he twitched and slumped.

"To answer your question, Feerborg," the monster-killer said as she jerked her knife free of the stump of Chitinous's neck and straitened, "I am the Monster Killer. All the monsters are here."

She stepped toward Freetrick, over the twitching body.

"Minions!" Freetrick raised his voice, "defend yourselv—"

The monster-killer blurred forward, smashing into Freetrick's belly with a force that rang his armor like a bell and sent him pin-wheeling backward. Freetrick hit the ground.

He felt the floor strike him hard in the back, pressing the air from his lungs. The Monster Killer's outline blurred and refocused as she passed above him. Black sparks swam before his eyes.

Black sparks.

Freetrick's fingers clenched against the sand.

The Monster Killer blew backward in a black cloud of necromancy. The magic coiled around Freetrick, lifted him from the ground, and spun him to face his attacker, who leapt up to meet him.

Freetrick's arm came up to protect his unarmored face as the other sliced out at the place where she
should
have been, strike it! The Monster Killer seemed to flicker, faking a dash to one side, then suddenly appearing on the other.

Freetrick gasped a breath into his bruised lungs, aware of his dwindling magical resources. He had only killed two guinea-pigs this morning, and now, burning necromantic potential fast as he could, Freetrick could barely keep up with her.

A foot appeared in the air in front of him. Freetrick accelerated sideways, losing more death energy. He needed to do something creative, but she wasn't giving him
time
!

A tendril of black energy slashed along the ground, seeking to trip her, but her feet never
touched
the striking ground for more than a moment before she leapt up again. Black clouds swirled through the air, but the Monster Killer didn't seem to care if he blinded her. He couldn't evacuate the air from the area without suffocating himself. But maybe—

The foot that had been swinging toward his head suddenly flipped upward as a hurricane wind exploded underneath them. For an instant, Freetrick and the Monster Killer floated, unsupported. She had nothing to push against. No way to attack.

"Help!" Shouted Freetrick into the sudden stillness. " It's okay to striking hit the women!"

There was a gurgling, chittering, screeching cheer.

Freetrick hit the ground and suddenly the Monster Killer wasn't in front of him. She was behind him, pushing, toppling him forward.

"Still?" Freetrick cried, catching himself with ropes of darkness and halting his fall. He spun in the air to face her. "Give up, strike you! There's no way you can win now."

She spared not a glance at the monsters rushing up on all sides. "Only if by 'win' you mean 'survive,'" she said, and launched herself at him.

Freetrick pulled himself into the air, higher than the arc of her leap could take her. The Monster Killer dropped back to the ground in a crouch, snarling up at him, then spun up to slice her knife through the belly of the first monster to run into reach. He was a secretary Freetrick hadn't had a chance to talk to yet.

"Tempest blast you!" he shouted, and reached out with night-colored tentacles to yank her off the ground. The monster-killer's wide, crazy eyes seemed to expand as she rushed through the air toward him, and her small smile never wavered.

"What is wrong with you!" Freetrick shouted at his attacker as he held the struggling Monster Killer 15 feet above the bottom of the Audience Pit. "I thought you were a freedom fighter. Protector of the innocent, you told me! Can't you see I'm trying to make things better?"

"If you really believe that," she said, "then you are the most insane dark lord I have ever met." She was still smiling. "And I have met many."

Below them, Freetrick was peripherally aware, virgins and monsters were still fighting. There was a hot tingle as a dying woman stumbled through the shadow his body cast against the ground. The fight had become more even, but the monster's weren't winning as easily as he had hoped.

Bloodbyrn, for her part, seemed to be doing fine. She was standing, arms and legs spread in a martial stance, blood from her wrists flowing into a cloud of droplets orbiting around her. Bloodbyrn crooked her fingers, made a pass in the air, and Freetrick saw a warrior woman's screaming attack turn into a headlong tumble as her legs spasmed out from under her. Even as the dead attacker slid to the sand at Bloodbyrn's feet, she was turning, flicking out another drop of her blood.

A deep, cold part of Freetrick's Frantic mind cursed the waste of a death. He needed the energy.

But it wasn't as if he was in much real danger. The women, foreigners all, were as helpless as monsters against the magic of the Kingdoms of Evil. As long as he could keep this advantage…

"Call off your people," he said, "and we can talk."

"I have no desire to talk with you," answered the Monster Killer, "and they are not my people any more than they are yours. I merely gave them a chance to fight."

"You aren't making this easy."

"I should not have to," she said, raising an eyebrow in a very Bloodbyrnesque expression. "Kill me, if you think it will help."

"Don't tempt me—" Freetrick said, and then his necromancy ran out.

Freetrick and the Monster Killer dropped out the air. She rolled. Freetrick didn't, but a pair of huge, horny hands closed around his ribcage and turned a bone-shattering impact into a mere armpit-bruising.

Grimp set him down.

"Thanks," gasped Freetrick.

"Duty could demand no less!" Squeaked the little white creature from amidst Grimp's tangled fur. Close up, it looked a bit like a monkey-armed rabbit. Then the huge, shaggy troll turned under his translator, and a massive arm swung like a gun-turret to catch a leaping woman across the belly. "Excellent! Now, if the fiend will cast his shadow across this snack Grimp has immobilized…"