Richard Baker: Easy Betrayals

"Shut up," Belgin advised. The man fell silent, fuming and helpless. The sharper looked over the short scoundrel at Miltiades, striding along with unswerving determination. "Miltiades, do you have any plan of action when we find these creatures?"

"Smite them," the paladin answered. "Attack directly, with justice and righteousness on our side. Hit them hard."

"You'd make a lousy pirate," Belgin muttered. He scratched at his jaw, considering his next approach. "What if there are a lot of them? I mean, more than you can smite?"

The paladin looked over at him. "There are never too many," he said softly.

The sharper paused a long moment. "Right," he said thoughtfully. "Lady Aleena, perhaps you have some stratagem in mind?"

The Waterdhavian shook her head and met Belgin's gaze with a condescending sniff. "I'm working on it. I think I can come up with-wait, someone comes."

She broke off and drew Belgin and Miltiades toward a reeking derelict of a building, sheltering in the shadows of its overhanging upper stories. The bard tapped Marks softly on the shoulder and shook his head, cautioning the prisoner to silence.

From the gloom ahead of them, a familiar figure in shining silver armor appeared, flanked by a brawny youth in golden scale mail and a seasoned old warrior carrying a long quarterstaff. Miltiades started in disbelief. "It's Jacob! With Kern and Trandon!"

"Ho there, Miltiades!" Jacob called. With a quick sweep of his eyes, he surveyed the street, searching for threats. Satisfied, he turned toward their place of concealment. "You'll never believe who I found wandering around in this forsaken hole!"

"Kern! Trandon! What are you doing here? Where are the others?" Miltiades said, stepping forward to greet them. "Did you succeed in foiling Entreri's designs?"

Kern smiled. He looked a little tired, but cheered by the sight of his friend and mentor. "Well, we followed you after we finished our business in Doegan. Entreri and Noph are dead. The others chose to remain in Doegan to fight off the fiends."

'You destroyed the bloodforge, then?" Belgin asked.

Kern glanced at Trandon, then nodded. "Yes," he answered. "We thought we'd come after you as quickly as we could to help you track down Eidola."

"I should've known we'd end up here again," Trandon remarked.

"Where did you find them, Jacob?" Miltiades asked.

"Yes, where did you find them?" Belgin added. "And what drew you away from the fight with the skull guardians? Those things almost killed us."

Jacob trotted closer. "What's the plan, Miltiades? Is this Marks?"

He pointed past Miltiades at the small man bound in the lasso. The paladin turned at his gesture, looking over his shoulder at the prisoner who stood behind him. Jacob's grin faded and his eyes went dark as cold coals. In the space of a single step his great sword appeared in his hand, almost as if it were a part of him.

Betrayal, Belgin realized. "Look out!" he howled.

As Miltiades wheeled to confront the threat, Jacob struck. Betrayed and deceived, somehow the paladin almost deflected the attack from his flank, flinging out his hammer in a desperate parry. Jacob's blow smashed the warhammer from Miltiades's hands and hacked through his shining breastplate. Miltiades grunted and fell spinning to the ground, blood streaming from the horrible rent over his left shoulder. "Jacob!" he cried.

Without thought Belgin leaped to help the stricken paladin, but Kern was too close to him. With the speed of striking snake the smiling red-haired youth reached out with a hand that became a swordlike blade of bone.

"Now, now," he said, hissing in mockery.

Somehow Belgin twisted out of the stroke, taking a long, jagged cut across his scalp but keeping his head on his shoulders. White spots starred his vision. He stumbled and fell backwards to the rotten boardwalk, blinking. Doppelgangers. Of course.

Aleena began to work some kind of spell, but the Trandon-duplicate turned on her. With one brutal stroke he clubbed the graceful noblewoman to the ground with a forearm that had grown into a spiked mace. Aleena's half-formed spell burst in a shower of fiery sparks, hissing and sizzling in the dark mire of the street.

Marks howled as an ember struck him, then hopped away, hobbled by the lasso around his torso. Belgin caught the end of the rope and yanked Marks off his feet as he rolled away from Kern's attack. "Stick around," he muttered. The Kern-thing smashed its murderous blade down at the bard, but Belgin scrambled back and somehow found his feet.

In the street, Miltiades rose to his knees, groping for his warhammer. "When did you take Jacob?" he rasped. "When?"

“I haven't been Jacob in a long time, human fool," the blond-haired fighter replied. He raised his sword for the killing stroke. Miltiades, wounded and unarmed, raised his hand to ward off the blow.

From the darkness behind Jacob a gleam of silver drifted through the air, tumbling slowly before it crashed into the fighter with the shrill ring of metal meeting metal. What now? Belgin wasted a precious moment gaping at the scene in front of him before a flurry of violent slashes and stabs from the Kern-doppelganger sent him scrabbling and squirming backwards, narrowly avoiding an ugly death. "Bastard!" he swore angrily. He finally found the rapier at his belt and drew the blade in time to drive the false Kern back a step or two.

Behind the Kern-doppelganger, Jacob reeled drunkenly and stumbled away from Miltiades. A dwarven fighting axe lodged in the side of the fighter's head. Amazingly, the creature reached up and wrenched the gory blade from his skull. Then a small, stocky shape barreled into his legs, taking him down.

"Stab me when I'm not looking, will you?" shouted Rings. "Leave me to die in a stinking desert, eh? By Moradin's beard, I'll teach you better, you traitorous wretch!" The dwarf found his axe with one hand and set to work, slamming the heavy blade into Jacob over and over again.

Belgin danced back a step as the false Kern slid to one side, warily eyeing the new threat. The Trandon-doppelganger joined him, pressing Belgin with massive blows that split boards and splintered anything in their path.

"Come on! We can still get them!" he hissed to his comrade in arms.

"Not if I cheat," Belgin said. He raised one hand and spoke an old spell, one of the few he knew that was any good in a fight. From his hand, a green arrowhead of energy streaked out to strike the Trandon-doppelganger in its chest. The bolt of energy slagged at once into a vitriolic patch that seethed and bubbled, eating its way into the creature's body. Shrieking with inhuman pain, the Trandon-thing staggered back and fell, its heels drumming against the rotten planking.

The Kern-duplicate snarled in anger and struck back, cutting a shallow gash across Belgin's left arm and another under his ribs. The sharper riposted, running the doppelganger through its midsection with his rapier. The creature hissed and recoiled, then pressed forward again. "Fine," muttered Belgin. He danced back two steps, steadied his hand, then rammed the point of his rapier into the monster's left eye. The doppelganger collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Belgin panted and watched his fallen foes for signs of consciousness, his wounds stinging abominably.

No one around him was moving.

Aleena lay dazed on the ground, an ugly purple mark on her forehead. Slowly, Miltiades hauled himself to his feet. With his teeth clenched, he spoke a prayer to Tyr, and the blood coursing from his broken armor slowed to a trickle. Rings stood up as well, his axe dripping with gore. Belgin winced and sheathed his rapier.

"Good timing, Rings," the sharper said. "What happened to you? Jacob said you were dead."

The dwarf bared his teeth in a fearsome grin. "Oh, he sure thought I was. We found the portal you marked for us in the desert temple, and then that orc-kissing bastard ran me through without a word. He thought he'd killed me, alright."