Chaos and Entropy

Author’s Note: Happy New Year to all!

Chapter 9…God’s Blood

The Warden put his hands around my neck and started to squeeze. As my sight went dark and my knees went weak, I had time for one last thought: So much for the power of prayer! Curses on all the gods anyway, starting with my dead father.

“Don’t kill it,” said a light, sultry voice from behind the Warden’s shoulder. The awful pressure at my throat lessened slightly. “Not yet. Let me see it.”

The Warden let go. I fell back against the wall and sucked in a great breath. While I choked and gasped, the succubus crowded past him to look me over. She had wide dark eyes (that reminded me very much of Haer’Dalis) and wide dark lips. She was as naked as the Warden and her figure was…improbable. When she leaned into me, her scaled tail twitched against my calves in a slow caress. She ran her long nails across my bruised throat. At my wince, she gave me a tiny smile that didn’t show her teeth. I suspected that was a good thing.

“Why, look, it’s a god’s child—and the spawn of one of the dark gods, if I’m not mistaken. Isn’t that right, sweetling?”

I nodded.

“Bhaal.” My voice came out cracked and hoarse.

“The Lord of Murder?” When her lips parted, I caught a glitter of something sharp. “How very interesting.” She gave me another of those close-lipped smiles and her hand dropped to my shoulder. “Has the time for Alaundo’s prophesy come so soon? Are you an assassin like your sire? Killed many of your siblings yet?”

“I’ve only met one, my brother Sarevok,” I said. “But I did end up killing him. Are there many more of us?”

“By all accounts, Bhaal littered Faerûn with your kin. Surely they can’t all be dead yet. If I’ve missed the fun, I’ll be so vexed.” She gave me a pout-smile. “This brother of yours, was he…puissant?”

Her hand dropped to my breast. I blinked.

“Oh, yeah, he was puissant all right. In fact…”

“Enough of this nonsense,” the Warden growled. He shoved the succubus aside and put his hand back on my throat.

“Let’s keep it,” she said. “I want to play with it.”

“Why should I let a sneaking, lying outsider spy live?”

“Is god’s blood so common that you can pour it out like dirty bathwater?” She pressed her breasts against his arm and ran her hand down his back. My position didn’t give me a great view but I suspected she stroked his nether regions. Yikes.

“Why not? I have no use for a dead god’s mongrel.” He gave me another shake.

“There are those who do.”

The cambion leaned over me. His breath was worse than a dead dog on a hot day. I shrank back against the wall.

“True enough. I might find a buyer.”

I guess I was lucky that the Warden was anxious to get back to his activities, for he turned me over to the bounty hunters.

“Aawill, Von’ith. Take her to the Master of Thralls,” he told them. “Tell him to collar her and hold her until I come to interrogate her myself.” Then he slammed the door behind us.

The silence dragged on as we stared at each other. I felt my sore throat. Two against one aren’t terrible odds but these two looked rather formidable.

“Thought I’d seen some berks in my life,” Aawill said. “But you take the cake. Came blitzing through that gate after us, did you? Now why would you do something so sodding stupid?”

As he spoke, he pulled out my wand and set it on the desk. Next he unbuckled my sword belt. Then the search got more personal as he emptied out my pockets. He found the padded bundle that held my potions, my slim case of lock picks and finally, the planar gem. His eyes opened wide.

“You came here for that?” he asked incredulously. Guess he recognized it from the playhouse. “Talk about taking the cake! Hope you think it’s worth it.”

“Especially after she meets the Master of Thralls,” the tiefling said. He snickered but Aawill frowned.

“We’re going to have to go see him ourselves, leatherhead. Does that sound good to you? I was hoping to avoid that treat myself.” In irritation, he gave me a shove that made me stumble into the wall. He picked up the gem and gave it a last look. “What’s so important about this sparkle anyway?”

“Gift from my mother,” I mumbled. “Sentimental value.”

“Yeah, sure. Hide your dark while you can. The cambion will pry all your secrets out of you.” He put the gem in his right pants pocket and motioned for Von’ith to pick up the rest of my gear.

“That succubus sure got me hot,” the tiefling complained, as he shoved my stuff into his pack. “Did you see the tits on her? I wouldn’t mind wearing the Warden’s boots right about now.”

“Not me,” said Aawill. “When I swive a girl I like to know I’ll end up with all my favorite bits still intact. I stay away from those long-toothed beauties.”

The first time Von’ith put his hand on my ass, it may have been an accident. The second time was not.

“Hands off the merchandise, Goat-boy,” I told him.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Keep your dirty hooves off me then.”

With a growl, he twisted one arm behind my back. With the other hand, he grabbed my ass and gave it a squeeze. Von’ith leered down at me to check my reaction. When I squirmed, he slid his hand down my pants and started kneading me in earnest. He pressed up against me. When I jerked away, he laughed and released my arm so he could put his other hand down my pants. His height made him lean down pretty far. That’s when I let him have it.

I slammed my elbow into his jaw as hard as I could. That hurt him worse than it hurt me. I hoped so anyway because the pain flared up my arm in a way I’d regret later. Then I tried to kick straight through his knee. Too bad my strength spell had been dispelled but still, his leg collapsed. He roared with pain. He reached for me but I danced back—right into the half-elf’s arms. Ack! Where had he come from? He’d been on my other side. I tried to twist out of his grasp and almost succeeded until he grabbed a fistful of my hair and slammed me against the corridor wall.

“I’m going to kill that little prod,” Von’ith said.

“Let’s just take her to the demon. That’s payback enough, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t. I’m going to scrub her good. She broke my sodding kneecap.”

“You can stand on it, can’t you?” Aawill said, with more than a touch of scorn. The tiefling scowled as he rubbed his knee. He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. Then he gave me a hard slap that sent me back against the wall. He slapped me two or three more times. A lot of guys are reluctant to use their fists on small women but I could tell he was working himself out of that little quirk. His friend saw it too.

“Easy there, Von’ith,” said the half-elf. “We don’t want to have to carry her, eh?”

“She doesn’t look that heavy.”

Now I have no moral objection to begging for my life, but I figured appealing to Goat-boy would be like throwing grease on a hot stove. So I turned my pitiful eyes to Aawill.

Who shrugged, cuffed me and said, “Should have kept your mouth shut, berk.”

People were always saying that kind of thing to me. I’m not sure why.

The short, brutish interlude that followed left me on the floor gasping and retching.

I’m not exactly sure how normal people react to a beating. I’ve been around adventurers too long and none of us are normal. I don’t like pain—I hate it, to be clear—but a beating doesn’t make me fall apart. (It does sometimes make my taint kick in and I was already starting to feel hot behind the eyes.) My thoughts ran along two paths: I hope I don’t get too messed up was one. And I hope my turn to hit comes soon, was the other.

“Von’ith,” said the half-elf. “Maybe you should try rubbing over scrubbing. Less mess, you know?”

I didn’t quite follow this but Von’ith apparently did.

“Right here?” He looked down the corridor. A couple of guards were still in sight; they had passed by with no comment or interference a moment earlier.

“Find an empty room,” Aawill suggested. The two men exchanged one of those exclusively masculine glances. Oh. I guess they meant that kind of rubbing. Great. At my look, Aawill said, “Hey, I’m doing you a favor, clueless. Would you rather lose teeth?”

Some favor. Maybe I’d get the chance to do him one. Goat-boy, tail lashing, dragged me to my feet. I was pleased to see him limping, but not thrilled to be pushed into an empty storeroom. Hurray for social conventions. My rape would take place in privacy.

Now was the time for a spell. Now was the time for a good, quick spell. As soon as he shut the door, I moaned and bent over like I was going to be sick. The tiefling let go of my collar and stepped back so I wouldn’t vomit on his feet again. I whispered the words to the Blur spell and came up with my hide-out dagger in my hand. The berks hadn’t checked my boots.

I stood. Before he realized I was armed, I slashed the tiefling’s throat. Papa Bhaal would have been proud. I thought the wound was mortal but I didn’t get time to admire my work; Aawill drew his blade. There wasn’t much room to maneuver in the crowded storeroom, and the stacked boxes and barrels hindered us equally. My spell made me hard to hit but by no means invulnerable.

“If you kill me, the Warden’s going to be pissed,” I said.

“Doubt it.”

I jumped back from his attack. Parrying was never my strong point.

“Well, the succubus is going to be pissed.”

“Who cares?” He slashed at my arm. Hit me, too. Cut my sleeve, drew blood. “So that’s god’s blood, is it? Looks like any other blood.”

“It’s not. You want Bhaal’s curse following you around?”

“Sounds like a load of tief to me. Why don’t you do something god-like?” He cut me again. Same arm, too. The first cut was little more than a scratch. This one was deeper. “Impress me.”

There was a low whisper of words and suddenly my skin shimmered.

“Your pathetic spell-slinging doesn’t impress me.”

Maybe not but it impressed me, because it wasn’t my spell. Already scrambling for my life, I jolted into hyper-awareness. The half-elf cocked his blade, ready to cut my arm off this time. Abandoning the chance for a counter-attack (which I didn’t have the reach for anyway), I leapt backward. I managed to knock over a crate and roll behind it. A blinding white flash of lightning ripped from the empty air behind Aawill and struck his back. I threw myself flat on the ground. The bolt bounced, striking the wall and reflecting back at him.

There should have been thunder. Such destruction should have been accompanied by a terrifying racket. But the lightning zigged and zagged across the room in silence, only broken by the wet sounds that came when it hit what soon became nothing but meat. I shut my eyes but they burned with afterimages. Or perhaps the light was so bright that it burned right through my eyelids.

The bolt seemed to ricochet endlessly in the small enclosed room. Or maybe there were new bolts. Cowering on the floor, I couldn’t quite tell where all the lightning came from. I just knew it was everywhere. I was hit several times myself but was miraculously unharmed.

Well, there was no miracle to it, of course. It was the protective spell my savior had cast on me. When the lightning finally fizzled away, the storeroom door opened.

“What took you so long?” I snapped.

“Now that’s gratitude for you,” Mekrath replied. He shimmered in the doorway, with his invisibility mostly worn off but still blurring his figure. He moved into the shadow behind the door.

“If you want my gratitude, show up before the bad guys beat the crap out of me and not after.”

“Told you not to antagonize the planars,” he murmured. “Dead, are they?”

“Cooked,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the smell. “I hate to tell you this, but your gem is in that fellow’s pocket.” Not that there was much left of him. Or his pocket.

“Lightning won’t harm the gem. Fish it out.”

“Me? Touch that? I think not.” Aawill hadn’t just been cooked. He’d been partially blown to pieces. But in the end, of course, I was the one who had to pat and prod and dig around in the disgusting remains. Give the dirty work to the Bhaalspawn, right?

Right.

I felt a little better once I’d retrieved my sword and collected the rest of my gear. I jammed Mekrath’s wand into my waistband and opened up my wet, squashed bundle of potions. All of my healing potions but one had broken, damn it. I drank the last one down. As its cool magic washed away my cuts and bruises, some of my irritability washed away as well.

“Hand me the gem and let’s fly,” Mekrath said.

I looked up from pocketing the disappointing amount of coin in the tiefling’s purse. I’d also picked up Aawill’s very nice blade and was trying to decide what to do with it. Haer’Dalis could pull off hanging two swords from his belt but I’d feel like an idiot trying to emulate him. Probably hurt myself, too. Maybe I could get Mekrath to jam it into his pack although the mulish look on his face was not very promising.

“The gem is safe in my pocket.” I’d tucked it into my hidden inner pocket this time.

“You’ve already lost it once. Give it to me.”

My eyes narrowed.

“You must think I just fell off the pumpkin wagon,” I said. “Do I look that naïve? If I hand over the gem now, what’s to keep you from leaving me here if things get hairy?”

“Mistrust engenders mistrust,” he said sententiously. With more urgency, he said, “The point is to get out of here before things get any hairier. Listen, fool, that gem is a beacon to anyone sensitive to planar energies. It will be safer for us both if I carry it.”

“Guess we’d better move fast then. How are we going to get the actors out of here? I wanted to steal one of the control rods and just walk them out but from what I hear, that won’t work. I heard something about needing a Master Orb or something. So do you know how to drop one of those cage shields or should I go look for the orb?”

Mekrath slapped the side of my head. Hard, too.

“Ow!”

“Corellon Larethian, save me from idiots! No, I do not know how to neutralize the shields. If you have some half-baked heroic plan to wrestle the tanar’ri for control of this demiplane, all I can say is—SHIT!”

Mekrath disappeared. I whirled around as the door flew open. Four men crowded around the doorway. One stepped in.

“That must be the one the Warden’s looking for,” he said. He took in the bodies and wrinkled his nose. “A spell-slinger, huh? I hate spell-slingers.” His lips turned down. “Berk, you’ve just piked yourself over but good.”