Chainers Torment

CHAPTER 19

Chainer and Kamahl hiked back toward the edge of the forest and the road to Cabal City. Chainer had slept until almost noon. The first thing he did when he awoke was to ask Kamahl to check his eyes. The barbarian reported that they appeared to be normal, and Chainer was both relieved and disappointed. The shikar felt like it was finished. He couldn't imagine anything more impressive than the vision he'd just had.

Kamahl took the news that the hunt was over as if he had been expecting it. Chainer was prepared to explain why, but the barbarian didn't ask. There was something about his manner, however, something defiant that made Chainer think his partner was planning to go back to Cabal City no matter what Chainer said. He didn't press the issue, still euphoric over his vision of Kuberr.

They saw virtually no wildlife at all as they reversed their course back through the forest. Chainer thought how vast the entire forest must be, and how many creatures it hid. He could probably go on shikar once a year, and he would still never see all of the Krosan before he died.

Kamahl was silent throughout most of the day, and Chainer was still too lost in his own thoughts to draw his friend out. They hiked through dinner and stopped to make camp only when the sun was on the verge of setting. At this pace, with the hunt concluded ahead of schedule, they were likely to get back an entire day sooner than expected.

The next morning saw them up at dawn and out of the forest by lunchtime. They stopped on the edge of the forest, ate the last of their provisions, and drank the last of their water according to the ritual. The only things they were allowed to bring back were in Chainer's head. With only a few hours of daylight left, they hiked into the deserted remains of what appeared to be a large Order camp. Kamahl scanned the vast plain that stretched out before him. "Chainer," he said carefully, "do you see an army? Where would a thousand Order troops go all at once?"

"Crusat," Chainer's stomach went cold with hate. "They were massing for a huge raid on the Cabal City pits." He grabbed Kamahl's arm. "We've got to get back there."

Kamahl was looking down the road at the Order's stable. "The Order always brings more steeds than it needs. Can you ride, Cabalist?" "I rode a hellhound once, I can damn sure handle whatever those toy soldiers sit on."

Kamahl grunted. "Good. Wait here, I'll go get us some transport." He paused, then added, "Provided you don't want to whip us up a pair of three-headed horses that breathe fire, or anything."

Chainer felt an unaccountable sting of insult. He smiled, however, and said, "Don't know if I'm up to a precise-creature casting right now. And in general, my monsters don't want to be ridden, and we don't want to ride them." "Order steeds it is, then."

Kamahl was able to appropriate two strong chargers from the Order stables without interference. There were minimal guards on duty and plenty of animals to choose from. Two things were obvious to Kamahl. First, the Order had taken from the Krosan forest a hundred times what he and Chainer had. Second, wherever the troopers had gone, they had gone there on foot.

Both Order horses were white, of course. Kamahl muttered an angry spell and then singed a hand print into his mount's flank. Chainer tied three of his snake rattles into the other horse's mane, then they rode east all night long without stopping. They were good horses, fast and strong. As the first rays of sunlight revealed the skull-image of Cabal City's huge arena and the spires of the First's manor, the chargers were sweaty and foaming and beginning to stumble, and both men brought their horses to a slow trot.

"Do you see that, Chainer?" Kamahl asked. Chainer had excellent night vision, but he knew Kamahl's was even sharper.

"All I see is the skyline. And… a crowd of people at the gates. Are those arrows?"

Kamahl drew his sword. Most swords Chainer was familiar with came out of their scabbards with a crisp rasp of metal on metal. Kamahl's, however, came out with a long, protracted hiss that lingered in the air like a threat. The huge weapon looked somehow right at home in Kamahl's fist, though the sword was almost longer than its wielder.

"The Order is attacking your city," Kamahl said. "I have a problem with that. Care to join me in solving this problem?"

"Oh yes," Chainer's voice was cold. "Yes I certainly would." He shook the rattles in the mane before him. "Will they get us there?"

"They'll last at least that long." Kamahl lifted his feet to dig his heels into his mount, but Chainer took him by the shoulder and called him by name.

"What?" the barbarian growled. "The fight's started without us." "Thank you," Chainer said. He looked back toward the woods, at the battle unfolding in the distance, and finally at Kamahl's drawn sword. "Thank you for everything." Kamahl smiled for the first time in days. "Thank me after we clean house," he said, and spurred his charger forward, into the fray.

Their horses carried them as far as the main gates. There, Chainer and Kamahl dismounted. The barbarian charged forward to join the melee at the gates, where the crusat raiders were most numerous. He saluted Chainer before rushing off. Chainer himself needed to get inside, to rejoin his fellow Cabalists and determine where he could do the most good. He followed the walls of the city around to the south, where the secret tunnels were.

Cabal City was a city of over fifty thousand, but it seemed even more crowded with the entire population and over a thousand armed invaders on the streets. Chainer realized the battle at the front gate was mostly a distraction. The Order had attacked all three gates, not just the one to the east, and they were already running rampant through the city. The crusat troopers were not cutting down civilians in the street, but they were fairly trampling anything that stood between them and the Cabal strongholds at the center of the city.

Chainer had never been to war before, but he soon got the hang of it. The trick, he realized, is to treat the entire situation like a huge pit match in which you and your team were vastly outnumbered. As long as you hit what you aimed at, there was no shortage of targets. As long as you kept moving, there was no way for you to get pinned down. Also, the Order troops were focused on storming the arena, and none of them stopped to fight Chainer unless he physically blocked their progress.

After breaking a few bones and knocking a few invaders down, Chainer simply joined the headlong rush toward the arena. Cabal City's citizens were rushing there for sanctuary, or to escape via the docks, and the crusat was rushing there to bum it, or loot it, or whatever it was that righteous armies did. Chainer was headed straight for the Mirari, to defend it as he had once before. Only now, he was a full-fledged dementist instead of a pupil.

There was another crush outside of the arena as soldiers tried to get in and the door guards tried to keep them out. A few armed Cabalists grappled with sword-bearing soldiers. Chainer planted his feet, positioned his hands, and reached deep into dementia space. His hands flashed, and a carriage-sized wad of smoke and indiscriminate flesh arced high up on the arena's exterior wall, where it burst open like a balloon packed with splintered glass.

The wolf-monkeys that came out were even larger than their Krosan counterparts, and each had a small poisonous snake in place of its tongue. There were an even dozen in all, and twelve individual chains arced from the collars around their necks to Chainer's open hands. At first, the nightmare mandrills tried to attack anything that moved, but Chainer punished them with searing agony every time they snapped at a Cabalist. They quickly realized which part of the crowd was fair game, and the screams of monkeys mingled with the screams of the dismembered soldiers. Chainer even released two or three of them from theit collars, and they redoubled their efforts to rip the invaders to pieces.

Chainer darted through the momentarily unblocked entrance. A hook-handed door guard touched his weapon to his forehead in acknowledgment as Chainer rushed past. Before he turned the comer, Chainer physically and mentally pulled all of his wolf- monkeys in and rechained them all to the stone doorway. Now anyone who wanted to get in would have to get past the howling troop. Anyone who made it past them would either be Cabal or be disemboweled. Chainer sprinted toward the vault hallway.

He turned a corner and came face-to-face with a trio of troopers fighting a pitched battle against a huge, black hellhound and a four-armed cyclops, the hulking result of another dementia caster's efforts. The dog had clamped on to the end of one trooper's sword, while the other two jabbed at the cyclops with their spears.

"Chainer!" Fulla cried, stepping out from behind the cyclops. One of the Order soldiers struck at her, and she angrily turned and cast a snarling red-eyed rat into the man's face. He fell back screaming.

"Fulla." Chainer cracked a chain across the sword-bearing trooper's face. As the trooper recoiled, the hellhound tore out her throat. The big dog turned and barked once at Chainer, exasperated.

"Hello, Azza," he said. Chainer, Azza, Fulla, and the cyclops all closed in on the remaining trooper.

"I give," the man said instantly. He dropped his spear and held up his hands. "In the name of-"

Fulla's ugly little sword split the trooper's skull before he could utter another word. For a moment she looked annoyed, and she held the bloody sword out to Chainer.

" 'I give.' Can you believe these maggots?" She wiped the sword on the dead man's uniform.

Azza barked, and Fulla waved the cyclops away. She stepped forward and hugged Chainer, rifling his hair like an indulgent aunt. "Azza was worried. And I've been so bored. You're not going to become one of those snotty dementists now, are you?" Then she stood and asked him brightly, "So, tell me everything. How was the forest?"

Chainer smiled. "Crowded. The shikar, however, was a spectacular success."

Azza sniffed the air and growled to let her fellow Cabalists know there was something coming.

"Well, little brother," Fulla said. "Can you show me what you learned in the forest, or do I have to clear this building of toy soldiers by myself?"

"Oh, let me show you," Chainer said. He felt his feet rise off the floor, and without seeing his reflection, he knew his eyes had gone black. Fulla's smile grew wider and crueler as Chainer drew on the power he had earned.

"This had better be good," Fulla said.

Azza whined softly, but held her ground.

Chainer crossed his arms as he floated and dropped his chin down to his chest. Fulla's cry of delight overlapped Chainer's cry of release as he snapped his arms down and his head back.

Ribbons of smoke and black light radiated out from Chainer's body in every direction. Most ran straight through the arena's stone walls without resistance, but some ricocheted back and forth inside the hallway. Chainer floated there for a few long seconds then gently settled onto the floor.

"That should do it," he said. His voice and his eyes were returning to normal. He gallantly offered his arm to Fulla.

"Do what?" Fulla took his arm but stared at him in confusion.

"I've just retaken the entire arena," Chainer said proudly. He stumbled, but Fulla caught him and propped him up against the wall. She whispered something to Azza, and the huge dog ambled over to Chainer and bent low, so that he could climb on.

"Thank you." Chainer eased himself onto Azza's strong back. "Skellum always said, 'It takes more out of you than you realize.' " The sadness and anger over his mentor's death was still there, but it didn't sting quite like it did before. Completing the shikar had gone a long way toward putting Skellum to rest. Using what he'd learned during the ritual to drive the Order out felt even better.

"To the vault, please," he said to Azza. The three walked through the suddenly silent building, but only Azza and Fulla were amazed by what they saw.

There were still small squads of troopers throughout the arena, but each and every Order soldier was covered in squirming serpents. Huge, venomous, in a wide array of unnatural shapes and sizes, the snakes covered each invader like a shroud. Those that could walk or run were being cornered and killed by the Cabal's guards. As each Order soldier fell, the body and any lingering serpents disappeared into the gloom.

Fulla made a game of counting the dead, but she had to give up when they came close to the vault and there was no one left. Outside, the battle raged on, but inside the arena, it had already been won. "How did you do that all over the building?" Fulla asked. Chainer was interrupted by a thud and a clatter as a live crusat trooper stumbled out of a door further up the hallway. The terrified man held his sword out in front of him with both hands, and he still couldn't keep its point off the floor. He had a sergeant's insignia on his shoulder.

"Hello, Bunkus," Chainer's voice was low but firm. "S-stand where you are," Sgt. Baankis said feebly. His skin was pale, and his eyes were unfocused. "In the name of the Order, I-"

"I'd stop citing things in the name of the Order, if I were you." Azza growled and tried to shrug Chainer off, but he patted her neck soothingly. "No, big sister. Leave him to me."

Baankis managed to get his sword pointed in Chainer's general direction.

"In the name of the Order," the sergeant repeated, "and in the name of Major Teroh, I-"

The chain shot across the room and wrapped itself around Baankis's throat before he could utter another word. The sergeant's jaw opened and closed, but no sound came out as the chain dug deep into his windpipe.

"In the name of the Order," Chainer maintained his low, even tone, "you have broken into our home, attacked our family, and tried to steal our property. Again. I can't think of a single reason to keep listening to you. Can you?" Baankis dropped his sword with a clatter and clawed at his throat.

"Fulla?" Chainer asked. "Azza? No? Then we're all in agreement." Chainer held his position until Sgt. Baankis silently expired. As the body fell forward, it collapsed into the length of chain and disappeared up Chainer's arm. Azza growled approvingly, and Fulla rocked from one foot to the other.

"Do it again!" she cried.

Chainer didn't hear them as he stared at his hand. Before today, he had never taken a human being the way he had taken the denizens of Krosan forest. He was surprised that it didn't feel any different.

After Chainer stopped them at the arena, the Order troops aborted their mission and began a costly retreat. The First ordered every able-bodied Cabalist to harry the invaders until they were a mile outside the city walls, and the righteous crusat raid on Cabal City ended in disaster. The outnumbered Order troops desperately tried to break out of the city they had just successfully stormed, fighting the city guards at the gates and the Cabal's killers on their rear flank. If the First had ordered the main gates closed, the entire raiding force would have been slaughtered. As it was, almost half of their number never left Cabal City again. Of those who stayed, only a handful remained dead.

Chainer had watched the retreat from Azza's back near the steps of the arena. He knew that there were huge, gargadon-sized monstrosities hidden in the caverns below the manor, but the First was content to keep them in reserve. It seemed he wanted the Cabalists to beat back the raiders themselves, and he wanted some of the enemy to escape. Chainer reminded himself that the First had global concerns which he would never be privy to, and took faith in the First's wisdom.

Once the furor at the gate had died down and the fighting moved beyond the city walls, Chainer and Azza went looking for Kamahl.

The big barbarian might have joined the running battle, but Chainer expected to find him close by. Kamahl had been more interested in defending the city than the Cabal. Chainer made no such distinction, but he was glad that something had sparked his friend's fighting spirit after the shikar.

The dead, the wounded, and the unconscious were scattered around the main gates like leaves in autumn. Scavengers from the squatters' huts were already poking around, looking for valuables. Azza growled angrily, and the scavengers wisely withdrew.

Chainer saw a few white-robed Samites milling around as well, looking for survivors to care for. There were also two or three black-robed Cabal healers, who were known in the pits as "leeches." The two groups took pains to avoid each other and communicated only through cold stares. Azza sniffed and whined. She bounded forward, almost tossing Chainer off.

Kamahl was lying face-down in the center of a charred and smoking circle. His sword was missing, and he had taken a heavy blow to the right side of his face. His right hand clutched at a stab wound in his stomach that was filling his tunic with blood. His hands, feet, arms, and face were horribly burned.

Chainer paused only long enough to stare at the Samite healer approaching them. She was tall and willowy with a concerned air, and she offered her hand out to Chainer. "I am Nibahn. I am a Samite. I can help him, brother. I can help all who suffer." She started to kneel next to Kamahl, but Azza stopped her with a growl.

"The Cabal is here," Chainer called, and one of the black-robed healers answered. Nibahn shook her head sadly, eyes pleading, but Chainer drew his dagger and began idly cleaning his fingernails. Azza growled again, and the Samite withdrew.

The Cabal healer bowed to Chainer and Azza. He had a wide black stripe tattooed over his left eye from his hairline to his jawline and a wispy black mustache. The healer was an oily little rat-faced toad, but Chainer trusted him because he knew how to motivate him.

With a wave, Chainer whipped a collar around the healer's ankles. He yanked the healer's feet out from under him, and Azza stalked forward, so that her huge head was directly over the healer's, and her great, snorting breaths puffed into his face.

"Take this barbarian inside," Chainer said, "and keep him alive. Do nothing apart from keep him alive and comfortable until I come for him." He leaned over the healer himself, almost overbalancing, and his eyes went black. "Nothing. Do you understand?"

The healer sniveled, his eyes darting between Azza and Chainer. "I do, big brother."

Azza turned and carried Chainer away. He saw the healer rise and motion for his assistants. He clearly heard the healer say, "Gently, very gently."