The Kingdoms of Evil (83 page)

"Shall I
pull
the choke chain, Fiend?" Skystarke snarled, hands grasping the ends of the chains that bound the larger monster.

The Kaimeera bowed its head "Fiend, I can explain."

"You'd striking well better." Freetrick waved a hand to stop Skystarke from cutting off the Kaimeera's air, but did not resume his seat, "What the
hell
did you think you were doing?"

The beast looked cautiously up at him through one enormous eye. "Keeping you safe, Fiend."

"The audacity of it!" Bloodbyrn exploded, "My lord, when you are done with this reprobate I shall take pleasure in carrying out its execution myself."

Freetrick cocked and eyebrow at Bloodbyrn. Well, if she was going to be the bad cop, "Just tell me what you mean, Kaimeera," he said, much more gently than he wanted.

The monster's cocked eye went from Bloodbyrn to Freetrick. "As long as the Duke DeMacabre thinks you can give him a son, you have his protection, Fiend. But he was getting impatient, wondering if you were worth keeping around. I sent you to see Bloodbyrn and told him about it so he would know you two are…making progress, as it were." At a nod from Freetrick, it lifted itself off the floor and opened its mouth in a dolphin's smile. The face within the mouth was also smiling. "I see you have done so."

Bloodbyrn stepped forward, but did not, as Freetrick expected, threaten the monster. Instead her eyes were wide as she asked, "And Princess… my cat, monster, did you see where she…it…ran as you were skulking outside my secret hideaway?"

The Kaimeera bowed its furry head amid the loops of its bindings, "This servant has kept her safe for you, Dark Lady."

"Where? I mean, how did you know about her?" Bloodbyrn's tone went from relief to suspicion mid-sentence.

"Your father told me, of course," the Kaimeera answered.

"He knows?" The question was equal parts desperation, rage, and hope. How long had DeMacabre known his daughter's tenderness fetish? How long had he avoided mentioning it? Deceptions within deceptions. Freetrick could see how Skrea could drive a person insane.

"Yes—" Skystarke's grip tightened, and the Kaimeera's answer choked off. The monster was forced to stretch upward until it could open its killing mouth again. "Yes. My instructions were to see your father remained the only one who knew."

"Then by telling the Ultimate Fiend," Bloodbyrn raked Freetrick with a glance that was not entirely trusting, "you betrayed my father. How do we know you will not do the same again?"

"I
was
DeMacabre's spy, it was true, from the moment he arranged for me to accompany then betray the Dark Princess Ashwing." The bullet-shaped head came up and swung around on its leash to face Freetrick, "but then you taught us magic, Fiend. Now I know who must sit the Skull Throne, and I will do everything in my power to keep you there."

"Maybe DeMacabre told him?" The Kaimeera reared up and opened its mouth wider. Within that jagged maw, sitting atop the wide, pink, tongue, the face of the woman the monster had most recently devoured looked at Freetrick with a speculative expression. "I wonder, Fiend, if the Sangboise isn't playing the two of you against each other."

Freetrick looked at Bloodbyrn. The decision behind her amber eyes was so clear it made an almost audible
click.

"It is true." She looked back up at him. "My father holds Feerix as a shaved knuckle bone, a backup in case you are found wanting."

An ace in the hole,
Freetrick mentally translated. "At which point," he said, "you kill me. I'm guessing that's what he was talking to you about while I was with Feerix."

"I supported you, my lord," said Bloodbyrn, "even before Feerix had proven himself a traitor to my father's cause, I supported you."

"I mean, should I have been surprised you picked me over
Feerix
?"

Bloodbyrn giggled.

The Kaimeera coughed politely.

"What do you plan, monster?" Bloodbyrn demanded, twisting her head around. "You claim to support my lord, yet you keep from him vital information."

"How did
you
know?" Freetrick demanded.

The Kaimeera sighed, and settled onto its haunches, "I don't know for certain that Dark Lord Teirchoke holds your friend captive, Fiend, but I do know that he arrived by choggorenyth two nights ago. Then he tripled his guard and ordered a full complement of sacrificial victims from the main larder." The mouth behind the Kaimeera's shark teeth smiled. "He has also been bribing his staff heavily not to tell me anything." There was crusted blood between those teeth.

Freetrick held Bloodbyrn tighter. "I thought Teirchoke's despotate was all the other way on the other side of Skrea. What did Istain do, go into Allmen country and ride a striking horse across the border?"

"That we must ask him," said Bloodbyrn. "I assume, Kaimeera, that the Dark Lords North Ftagn, South Ftagn, and DeSangaise have done nothing so suspicious?"

Skystarke cleared his fanged maw."My re
pah
-ts indicate that the Duke DeSangaise did bite his mistress on the left elbow, which I understand is outside his
use-
you-al habits, but none of those Dark Lords have traveled or received any
prison
-ahs from outside the Necropolis for the past three sleeps. Of this I am
sa
-tain!"

"Teirchoke," Freetrick mused. "Teirchoke, the one with the son? No, the grandson. O…kay."

"Do not think this service compels the Ultimate Fiend's renewed trust, Kaimeera." Bloodbyrn said. "My lord, what shall the punishment do you plan to enact on this audacious—my lord, why are you grinning so?"

"Because I know exactly what I want to do," said Freetrick, "and I know exactly how to get past Teirchoke."

***

A hot wind rose from a pool of lava, stirring the hair that fell across Kendrick's brow. The new Paladin stood on the Bleaklands, looking eastward toward the looming bulk of Castle Clouds-Gather.

Kendrick's fingers tightened on the grip of his axe as he thought about the Evil that lurked there, then tightened more as his thoughts turned to the witch who might even now be rejoining that Evil.

There was simply no way his larger party of men could catch up to her smaller one. And even if he had had runners to spare to chase the necromancer, her goblins ran faster, even loaded, than could any man. Saving Zathara would mean storming Castle Clouds-Gather. That, Kendrick had known for some time.

The still men followed gladly enough. Although Kendrick had never considered himself a good leader, the week's march across the dark desert had taught him otherwise. It was simply that Kendrick could not master the lying and manipulation that most leaders used to bend others to their will. But when Kendrick marched after truth, after Good, men followed.

Besides, over half of his force were now converted monsters. They very literally owed their lives to Kendrick and his mission.

No, the dissention, the chaos, the Evil, in his ranks came not from those who had once been monsters, but from those who had always been men.

"I'm sorry," Kendrick turned to stare at Phinneas. "What were you saying?"

He was gratified to see the Rationalist's normally composed face wrinkle in a an aggravated snarl. "A frontal assault." Phinneas repeated, "is impossible, Kendrick. We'll all be killed."

Kendrick turned and looked coldly up at his one-time superior. "Well? What do you suggest?"

Phinneas's face smoothed over again, but his eyes still burned with intensity as he spoke his blasphemy: "I suggest we go home."

"I will kill you, Phinneas," said Kendrick, "before I allow that."

Phinneas looked at him. His beard had grown in around his mustache in the past weeks, and the Colonel-Professor looked tired and very old. "Attacking that city," his eyes flicked at the terraced cone of Castle Clouds-Gather, and the Necropolis that squatted at its base, "will be like walking into a meat grinder, Kendrick."

Kendrick would have liked nothing better than to kill this man, to kill him slowly and relish every second of the stuck-up Bookworm's agony. Unfortunately, the Covenant was clear on this point:
we cause no anguish.
Not to humans. But a human who turned from Good and worked to further Evil? On the rights and protections due to such a traitor, the holy document was silent.

Still, it would be reasonable to give the man a chance to redeem himself. "The Necropolis will have more monsters," Kendrick explained. "We can convert them to our cause and make our army large enough to stand a chance."

The old fool shook his head. "We would have to convert the whole striking city. And we both know that even if every monster converted cleanly into a healthy human soldier who agreed to fight for us, we would never have the time to
say
the prayers to
get
the magic to
make
the conversions before the necromancers swoop down on us."

"We'll hide in the city," said Kendrick. "Convert it little by little. Build temples to Naobel."

Phinneas snorted. "You can't be serious," then, at Kendrick's stony expression, "Do you honestly think the men will stand for it?"

"The men will have no choice," said Kendrick. "We don't have the supplies to make it back to the border."

"Maybe not, but possible starvation in the desert is still better than guaranteed destruction at your hands." Phinneas stared sourly out at the laboring camp around them. "Your men will desert.
I
, Kendrick, will desert."

"You will
not
!"

Kendrick noticed a group of soldiers staring at him. He lowered his hands, forced his voice lower. Since he had started killing monsters, his temper had begun to grow short. It was a problem he would have to correct. "I am as serious as the True Words of the Covenant. The Covenant that
binds us,
Phinneas, to this mission!"

"And what is this mission, exactly?" Phinneas said, "I supported the pursuit and capture of Tinesmurk, but then you kept
stopping
to rout monsters on the way. Obviously holding the queen hostage wasn't your intent. Obviously rescuing your friend Zathara wasn't your intent. So why are we here?"

"Look." Phinneas sighed, then leaned closer, obviously unaware of how close he was coming to death. "Kendrick, I think I have been very patient up to now. But now you need to tell me."

Kendrick backed away, unnerved by the man's closeness. "Tell you what?"

Phinneas glanced around them, as if to check for eavesdroppers. "Tell me why I should trust your plans any more,
Paladin."

What a weird question. "Of course you can trust my plans, Phinneas. They are supported by the Covenant."

"That's as may be," said Phinneas, "but what
other
authority are they supported by?"

"What higher authority is there?"

Phinneas blew air through his mustache. "Common sense, perhaps?"

Kendrick reflected that
his
common sense would have him insert his thumbs into the Rationalist's eyes and push, just to hear the screaming.

"Phinneas," he attempted to explain, again, "the world is huge and cruel." Kendrick spoke as if to a raw convert, but if the Professor-Colonel felt patronized, he made no sign of it. "We can't hope to understand it well enough to trust our own judgment. All we can trust," he held up his talisman, "is this. Naobel."

The men had prayed enough that the name of the god sparked a reaction. The wheel-stone spun up, then burst into light and flew upward and eastward, humming at the end of its chain. It pointed like the needle of compass at the menacing bulk of Castle Clouds-Gather. "It commands us to fight against Evil. To destroy Evil is our sacred duty, Phinneas." The talisman dimmed and sank back to the vertical. Kendrick let it fall back against his chest. "The quotation is: '
We shall fight your evil
wherever
we may find it.'"

The Colonel-Professor looked sour. 'Wherever we find it
in our nation
.' Is I believe the complete text."

"Is this not our nation?" Kendrick swept a hand out to indicate the camp around them. "We are the nation of Between, no matter where we may find ourselves. Does our god not hear us when we pray to Him? Does He not reward us in our quest against Evil?"