The Hammer and the Blade

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nix rolled Egil over onto his back. The priest's eyes were closed, his breathing rapid and shallow. He looked pale. Nix cursed. How had he missed it before? The stumbles, the breathing.

"Are you sick? Wounded? What?"

No answer. He tried to imagine his life without Egil and couldn't, no more than he could imagine it without Mamabird.

Baras, Jyme, and the other guards rushed over, blades drawn.

"What is it?" Baras asked. "Oh, shite."

"What happened?" Jyme asked.

Nix gently tapped his friend's face.

"Egil? Egil?"

Egil's eyelids fluttered open. Glassy eyes fixed on Nix and the priest smiled.

"Bit," the priest said, and tried to lift his left arm. "Like Derg."

"Shite, shite, shite," Nix said, and pushed up the sleeves of Egil's cloak and shirt. His forearm was black, as big around as Nix's calf. The guards gasped.

"Why didn't you say something? Godsdammit, Egil!" The priest must have been bitten by the same Vwynn that bit Derg. "We could've used the jasper on you."

He felt the eyes of Baras and the guards on him but he didn't care. If he'd had to choose between one of them and Egil, it would've been no choice at all.

The big priest raised his right arm and patted Nix on the shoulder, the gesture sloppy, fading. "That peasant needed the coin more than us."

At first Nix did not understand Egil's point, and then he remembered the wagon driver outside of the Slick Tunnel, the silver pieces Nix had given him.

Grace, Egil had said. Alms.

"You fakking idiot. You godsdamned idiot. You're not even a real priest!"

Egil smiled, closed his eyes. "Do you think I'll see Gretta and Misa?"

Nix could not bring himself to reply. He sat over his friend, head bowed, mind racing. He had nothing left in his bag of tricks. For once, it'd come up empty. He'd come up empty.

"Maybe we should move him to the fire?" Jyme offered.

"The fire won't help, you fakkin' whoreson," Nix spat. But maybe the sorcerer could. "Get Rakon, Baras!"

"What?" Baras asked.

"Rakon!" Nix shouted. "Get over here right now!"

The sorcerer was still out on the glass, but not too far from them.

"Gods, mind your tongue, Nix," Baras whispered.

"Fak that and fak you! Rakon! Get over here! Now!"

"My lord!" Baras shouted. "We need assistance!"

Rakon left off what he'd been doing on the glass and made his way to the gathered men. His face looked drawn, strained. He stared down at Egil.

"He's wounded?" Rakon asked.

"He's poisoned," Nix said. "Same as your man, Derg. I used the enspelled jasper on your man and I don't have another. What can you do?"

Rakon looked taken aback by Nix's directness. "What can I do?"

"Am I unclear? What can you do to help him?"

For a time, Rakon did not answer. Again those turning gears behind his eyes.

"You won't like what I can do."

"Try me."

"There's a price."

"Name it."

"He's nearly gone. For him to live, someone else must die."

"A transference," Nix said. He'd heard of such magic.

"Yes," Rakon said. "A transference. One life for another."

The guards shifted from foot to foot. Jyme cursed softly.

Rakon looked meaningfully back to the campsite, a question in his raised eyebrows.

Nix, too, looked back to the campsite, licked his thin lips.

Rakon put a voice to Nix's thoughts.

"Derg may not live anyway. He's not as strong as the priest. You may have given him the jasper too late. Were he the object of the transference…"

Rakon trailed off, the dark possibility dangling before Nix.

"What are we talking about here?" Baras asked.

Rakon continued. "If you'd have known, if you'd have been asked to choose, you'd have chosen Egil."

"Of course I'd have chosen Egil," Nix said.

But Egil hadn't chosen Egil. That was the rub. The priest had known what he was doing and had made his decision. That's why he'd asked Nix if he had another stone.

Alms. Grace.

Maybe Egil was a real priest, after all.

But Nix wasn't. He tried to reconcile what he wanted to do with what he knew he should do.

"Nix…" Baras said, perhaps understanding at last.

"I already told you to shut up, Baras," Nix said. "Just keep your mouth shut. You have nothing to say here."

"These are the choices life forces us to make," Rakon said, though Nix wasn't entirely sure whether he was talking to Nix or to himself. "We do what we must for the ends we desire. It's why I put a spellworm in your guts. It's why you'd kill Derg."

"I won't allow Derg to be murdered for the priest," Baras said.

The other guards nodded, murmured agreement.

"Wait, is that what you're saying, Nix?" Jyme asked.

"You'd do exactly as I command," Rakon said to Baras.

"My lord!" Baras said, appalled.

"I haven't said anything," Nix said. "But you couldn't stop me if I wanted to do it. All of you couldn't stop me."

"It's wrong, Nix," Baras said.

Nix looked up and glared at him. "I know it's wrong! But Egil dying is wrong! I won't have it, Baras! I need another option-"

An idea struck him, a divine bolt of inspiration perhaps. He jumped to his feet and whirled on Rakon.

"You said someone has to die? What about one of those things, one of the Vwynn? You said they were the descendants of the people who lived here once. That means they'll work for the transference, yeah?"

Rakon raised his eyebrows, nodded after a long pause. "Yes. But then-"

"I'll get one," Nix said.

"Get one?" Baras asked. "What do you mean?"

"Fakking follow along, Baras," Nix snapped. "There are thousands of them just beyond these ruins."

"Thousands?" Jyme asked.

"No," Rakon said.

"No?" Nix rose and went nose to nose with the sorcerer. The spellworm roiled his guts. Not even Baras tried to move him away. "I'm going to get one. I'll bring it back and you'll cast your transference."

"You're going to go get one of those things?" Jyme asked, incredulous.

"I forbid it," Rakon said. "You can enter Abn Thuset's tomb alone, retrieve the horn alone. I don't need the priest."

" I need him," Nix said.

"Stop him, Baras," Rakon ordered.

Baras made no move toward Nix. "He seems determined, my lord."

"I'll kill him if I have to," Nix said to Rakon. He looked at Baras. "I'll kill you, Baras. No offense."

Jyme put a hand on Baras's shoulder, restraining him. "Not your fight."

"I'm telling you that you cannot leave," Rakon said.

"And I'm telling you to fak yourself. I'm leaving."

With that, Nix turned and walked toward the road. He'd take it back through the mountain of ruins, capture one of the Vwynn from the thousands lurking outside, and bring it back.

"Stop," Rakon said.

Nix's legs felt leaden almost immediately. He lifted one, then another. He tasted bile, felt nausea rising. He fought it, sought the hidey-hole he'd made for himself.

I'm Nix Fall of Dur Follin.

He thought of his days prowling the Heap, and took a step.

I'm Nix Fall of Dur Follin's Warrens.

He thought of Mamabird and took another.

He felt as if he was dragging boulders, but he kept walking. He reached the road. Vomit rushed up his throat and he puked in a spray before him.

"I… will… keep… going."

"My lord," Baras said.

"Shut up, Baras," Rakon snapped. "It'll stop you, Nix."

"It… might… kill… me," Nix said.

He thought of the old man he'd stabbed for bread and took another step. "But… it… damned… well… won't… stop… me!"

"I cannot have it, Nix. My sisters."

"My brother," Nix spat in answer. "Now loosen the compulsion or kill me, sorcerer. If Egil dies, I will not enter the tomb. I promise you that. I'll die first. And then so will your sisters. And even though they want you dead, I know you don't want them dead."

He glared at Rakon, wobbly on his numb legs, his hands slack and heavy at his sides.

The sorcerer stared at him, eyes narrowed. The guards looked on wide-eyed, gazes moving from Rakon to Nix, Nix to Rakon.

"Loosen it!" Nix demanded. "Or everything you've done will go for nothing."

Rakon's thin lips tightened, the gears turning between his snake eyes.

"Let him go," Jyme said. "Gods. He's owed the chance."

Rakon glared at Jyme, then at Nix.

"My lord," Baras said, "if any of us can get one of those things and bring it back, it's him."

Rakon stared at Baras, then at Nix. "Go, then," he said, and the sorcerer's willingness to release him loosened the pressure holding Nix in place. His body recovered immediately from the nausea and pain.

"You're still bound to me, Nix," Rakon said. "This is a just a temporary loosening of the compulsion. You bring one back — alive — and I'll kill it to save your priest."

Nix nodded at Baras and Jyme, turned and started to head off.

"Wait!" Baras called. "I'll help you. Least I can do for… everything."

Nix shook his head. "You'd be in my way, Baras. Nothing personal."

With that, Nix put the hilt of his falchion in one hand and the hilt of his punch dagger in the other and headed off. The ruined tumble of stones bordered the road closely to either side, almost a tunnel cutting through the ruins that circumscribed the sea of glass. He hugged the deeper darkness to one side of the road.

Ahead, the ring of ruins ended, opened onto the wider expanse of stones and rubble that littered the plains beyond. He felt exposed the moment he crept out of the tunnel and into the moonlit ruins. Crouched low, he darted to his right and sheltered behind a megalith. There, he listened.

He heard movement out in the darkness, first from one direction, then from another: the scrabble of a claw over stone, the low growl of a Vwynn, the crunch of weight on the rocks. In his mind's eye, he saw the thousands of Vwynn he and Egil had seen from their perch atop the ruins. Thinking of their numbers accelerated his heart, but he pushed the fear down. He needed only one.

The wind blew from east to west, a steady breeze that whined over the rubble. He put his face into it and prowled the darkness, moving in silence, hugging the jagged hummocks of stone, all eyes and ears. He didn't have long to wait before he encountered the Vwynn.

Movement ahead froze him: a low growl, a curious chuffing. He licked his lips and moved forward in a crouch, hands tight and aching around his blade hilts. Lurking in the shadows of a towering pyramidal stone, he crept toward the sound until he saw the source — two Vwynn, idling at the base of a low hillock of jumbled stones.

He watched the scaled, inhuman demons for a time, fascinated and disgusted. The slits of their nostrils pulsed wetly with each breath and they seemed to communicate in a guttural, clicking tongue. They kept their eyes on the ring of ruins, beyond which was the caravan and the sea of glass.

He circled wide around. He spotted more Vwynn within easy earshot, dozens of them, some in groups of five and six, others perched singly and in pairs atop megaliths, their silhouettes dark and sharp in Minnear's light. All of them eyed the ruins, a demonic congregation of the faithful.

He would have to quick. They'd be upon him fast if they heard anything.

He stalked back to the original pair he'd spotted, went around to the opposite side of the hillock and belly-crawled up it. When he reached the top and glanced down, he saw that they remained where they'd been. He waited for the wind to put a dark cloud in front of Minnear. When it did and the darkness deepened, he rose, tensed, and leaped down.

He swung his falchion two-handed as he descended, neatly splitting the skull of one of the Vwynn. Blood and brains spattered his hands and it died in silence. The second Vwynn whirled on him, lips pulled back from its teeth in an angry snarl.

Before it could respond further, Nix slashed its knee. His blade's edge knifed through flesh, bit bone, and the Vwynn fell, shrieking. It lashed out with a claw as it went down, clipping Nix's cheek. Blood, warm and sticky, flowed down his face.

He jumped atop the writhing, screaming creature, put a knee on its bony chest, and slammed the hilt of his punch dagger into its face. The blow would have felled an ox but it seemed only to make the Vwynn angrier. Claws tore through his cloak, his leather jack, and bit into flesh.

Spit sprayed from the Vwynn's mouth, the rope of its tongue lashed about, and its fangs dripped poisonous ichor. Nix struck it again, again, again until it finally moaned and went still. He quickly checked his hand and arms to ensure he hadn't caught a poisonous bite. He was clean.

Growls and snarls out in the darkness, the rapid tread of approaching Vwynn.

"Shite."

Adrenaline fueled him. He shoved his falchion in its scabbard, grabbed the Vwynn, slung it over his shoulder in a side-carry, and pelted back through the ruins.

It occurred to him only then that he had no guarantee the ring of ruins would provide him safety. The Vwynn seemed unwilling to breach the ring, but would they respect its border when they saw Nix, realized that he was carrying one of their own? What if seeing him triggered such rage in the creatures that they all breached the ring and pursued him back to camp?

Too late to worry about it. He ran as fast as he could.

A Vwynn bounded atop a megalith to his right, crouched on its haunches for a moment, snarled, and bounded down. Nix pulled one of his throwing daggers from a belt sheath and threw it underhand, on the run. It caught the Vwynn in the leg as the creature came toward him. The Vwynn screamed, lost its footing, and flipped head over heels down the pile of stone. Nix ran past it without slowing, its shrieks of pain chasing him through the ruins. He could hear more of the creatures behind him, to the right and left, the scrape of their claws over stone, their wet chuffing.

"Shite, shite, shite," he muttered.

His legs burned; his lungs ached.

He reached the road, saw the border ring of ruins just ahead. It was twenty paces away, ten.

He stumbled with fatigue. He managed to keep his balance, but the error had cost him. The Vwynn behind him gained, closed on him, their snarls hot in his ear. He prepared to turn, fight, and die.

Crossbow bolts sizzled out of the dark, whistling past his ear. They struck Vwynn flesh with heavy thunks, summoning screams and angry shrieks.

"Run, you damned slubber!" Jyme called.

The hiresword stood on the road, in the pseudotunnel, just inside the tall ring of ruins. Baras and two of the other guards stood beside Jyme, all of them now reloading crossbows.

"Keep running!" Baras said, laying a bolt in his weapon.

Another volley from Baras, Jyme, and the guards hissed past. More thunks, more screams.

Nix staggered into their midst. Jyme and Baras caught him up and started retreating down the road under cover of the other guards.

"They're not coming," shouted one of the guards.

The Vwynn outside hissed and snarled in frustration but did not pursue. Instead, they slunk back into the ruins, into the night. Nix set the unconscious Vwynn down for a moment so he could catch his breath.

"My thanks," Nix said to them, gasping for breath.

"I give what I get," Baras said, and thumped him on the back.

"Help me get this thing back to camp," Nix said, nodding at the Vwynn.

Together, they carried the bleeding body of the Vwynn. The guards who'd stayed behind rushed toward them as they came out of the tunnel. Everyone crowded around the naked, scaled figure of the Vwynn.

"How's Egil?" Nix asked one of the guards.

"Alive still," the man answered.

The creature stirred, rolled onto its side. Claws slipped out of the sheath of its fingers and it growled, showing fangs. It remained unconscious, but wouldn't stay that way.

"We need to bind it," Nix said.

"Get rope," Baras said to a young guardsman.

The guardsmen hurried to the wagon and returned with rope for Baras. Nix snatched it from him.

"I know how to knot," Baras said.

"I slipped yours back in Dur Follin, Baras. I'll handle this."

Nix bound the creature at wrist and ankle with a triple hook slip. He tested them, found them satisfactory.

"Help me, Jyme," he said, and the two of them dragged the creature close to the fire, beside Egil. The priest lay flat on his back, pale under his beard, his breathing shallow, his forearm swollen and discolored.

The creature's slit eyes opened, reflected the firelight. Muscles, veins, and sinew surfaced in its hide as it strained against its bonds. The guardsmen backed off a step, expressions nervous, weapons at the ready. The Vwynn's lips peeled back from its teeth and it hissed.

"Rakon," Nix called to the carriage. "We're ready."

The eunuch emerged from the carriage and assisted Rakon out. The sorcerer bore a black bag in his hands, his own satchel of needful things. He said something to the inscrutable eunuch and the huge man took station outside the carriage. Rakon eyed the Vwynn as he approached, his expression unreadable.

"Hold it down so it doesn't move," he ordered. He kneeled and started rifling through his bag.

"Get its legs," Nix said to Jyme, while Nix took position at the creature's head. He held it flat by its bony shoulders, its scaled flesh cool and dry in his hands. The Vwynn twisted its neck to bite at him, hissing and spitting, but could not reach.

"Mind the teeth," Jyme said.

The Vwynn's legs flailed wildly, catching Rakon and causing him to drop a small container he'd been holding. Rakon cursed irritably.

"Just get its legs, Jyme!" Nix said.

The hiresword wrapped up the Vwynn's legs. The creature continued to struggle, squirming, hissing, and snapping its teeth.

"Get a blade to its throat, Baras," Nix said, struggling to hold down the creature. "See if it understands that."

"Aye," Baras said, and put a blade at the Vwynn's throat. The creature did not still at first so Baras pricked it with the blade.

The Vwynn cried out in pain as a line of black blood flowed. After that, the Vwynn went still. The creature's slitted eyes darted wildly here and there, and it respired wetly from the lines of its nostrils.

"Do it, Rakon," Nix said. "Hurry."

Rakon removed two metal bloodletting tubes and a ceramic mortar and pestle from his bag. He jabbed one of the tubes into Egil's arm — the priest did not stir — and collected the blood in the mortar. Rakon then kneeled beside the Vwynn and jabbed the bleeder tube through its scales and into its arm. The Vwynn squealed and squirmed while Rakon collected its black blood.

Rakon moved closer to the fire. Other than Baras and Jyme, who assisted Nix with the Vwynn, the other guards backed off. Nix understood. No man who made his way with sharpened steel felt comfortable around those who made their way with spells.

"How long will this take?" Jyme asked over his shoulder, still holding the Vwynn's legs.

Rakon did not answer. He placed the mortar in the edge of the embers to warm it, kneeled beside the fire, and stirred the mix of blood with a hollow glass rod.

"My bag," he called over his shoulder.

After a pause, one of the guards brought the black bag to him and withdrew.

Rakon removed tubes of powder and small bottles of liquid from the bag, adding a pinch of this, a dash of that.

The mixture in the mortar crackled. Rakon stirred it anew with the rod, intoning a chant under his breath. Soon the mixture emitted a puff of smoke. Rakon nodded, picked up the mortar, and stood.

The Vwynn's eyes fixed on the sorcerer; its chest rose and fell rapidly. A forked tongue licked the ridges of its lips nervously. Small clicking noises sounded from somewhere deep in its throat. Perhaps it had a sense of what was transpiring.

Rakon moved to Egil's side and dipped his fingers into the mortar. They came away covered in a glob of a thick, clear substance.

He rolled it between his palms like clay, thinning it more and more, letting the thin line his movement created spool to the ground at his feet.

"What's he doing?" Jyme asked.

"Hsst," Nix said.

Rakon incanted as he spun and the thin line glistened, twitched. When he'd spun a length of it out, he took the spun end, held it to Egil's nostril, and whispered words of power. The line snaked into Egil's nose and kept going, more and more of it disappearing into the priest's body. Rakon held the other end, still incanting.

The priest's body arched and thin lines appeared on his flesh, like veins but not veins, welts caused by the intrusion of the magical line as it wormed through his body. The process went on for a long thirty-count, and during that time the exposed line that Rakon still held changed from clear to yellow, then from yellow to the deep blue-black of a bruise.

"Is it drawing out the poison?" Jyme whispered.

"I think so," Nix said.

Still incanting softly, Rakon turned from Egil and toward the Vwynn. He continued to work the blob of magical material in his hands until he'd spun it all out, and held the opposite side of the discolored line in his hand.

The creature struggled anew, the blade at its throat no deterrent. Nix grunted with the effort of holding it flat, and Jyme laid his weight on the creature's legs to maintain his hold. Baras moved his blade aside and put a hand on the frantic creature's chest. The Vwynn whined, the sound high-pitched and frighteningly human. Rakon turned to the creature, holding the other end of the line between forefinger and thumb. He kneeled.

"Wait," Nix said.

Rakon halted but did not stop his incantation. He loomed over the Vwynn, an executioner with axe held high.

"Wait?" Jyme said. "Wait what? Do it, man." Then to Rakon, "Do it, my lord."

"No, wait," Nix said. "Wait, godsdammit."

"It's just an animal," Jyme said. "Look at it. It'd kill us if it could."

Nix knew it wasn't just an animal. The transference wouldn't work on an animal. The Vwynn was bestial, savage, but it was a thinking, feeling creature akin to a man. He was murdering it to save Egil.

Nix had killed a helpless creature only once before. Then, he'd been a boy fighting for bread, and had stabbed the granther in the kidney when the old man had been too exhausted to fight back. He regretted it still, and he always would.

And when he helped kill the Vwynn, he'd regret that, too. But he'd do it anyway. For Egil. He stared down at his friend's wan countenance and spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

"No one ever speaks of this to Egil or I cut out your fakking throat. Rakon's sorcery healed him and that's the whole of the story. You don't know how it worked. It just did. Understood?"

"The priest isn't gonna care about this animal," Jyme said.

"You don't know him," Nix said. "And this is not an animal."

"What?" Jyme asked. "It's not?"

Nix ignored Jyme. "Baras, pry open its mouth with a blade."

Baras stuck his dagger in the creature's mouth, forcing it open, and Nix was uncomfortably reminded of Baras putting his blade against Nix's face to force him to accept the spellworm. The Vwynn flailed but it was too exhausted to resist much.

"Do it," Nix said to Rakon.

The Vwynn made a hopeless, desperate sound as Rakon fed the magical filament into its mouth and the line snaked down its throat. Almost immediately the Vwynn's body arched and it bared its teeth in pain.

The line pulsed, bulbs of black moving along its length, man and Vwynn connected by a cord of magic. Whatever the spell had taken out of Egil was now being pushed into the Vwynn. Rakon stood, holding the filament that bound man and Vwynn. He waited, waited, and then gave the line a hard jerk. It came free of both bodies in a spray of mucus, squirmed for a moment, then dissipated into nothingness.

The Vwynn seized, arched, exhaled loudly, and went limp.

Egil groaned, rolled over to face the fire, and started to snore.

Baras, Jyme, and Nix let go of the Vwynn's cooling body.

"How could its own poison kill it?" Jyme asked.

"It's not the poison that was transferred," Rakon said, gathering his things. "The poison had already done its work. The spell transferred death's grip on the spirit."

"Gods," Jyme said, standing and backing away from the Vwynn.

Baras cleared his throat, nodded at the Vwynn's body. "Let's get that carcass out of here."

"I'll do it," Nix said, looking at Egil, at the Vwynn. "It's mine to do."

Nix carried the Vwynn's body away from the camp and laid it gently, respectfully among the rocks. He covered it with a few stones, but didn't have the energy to do much more. He walked away without looking back.

Once he returned to the camp, he planted himself around the fire, keeping watch over Egil. Baras and Jyme joined him. None of them spoke. They simply sat, content with the silent presence of the others. Nix feared nightmares should he slumber — perhaps of the sisters' making, or perhaps born of his own deeds — but the trials of the day soon overwhelmed him. He lost the fight and fell into slumber.