Paul Kemp - The Hammer and the Blade

Egil lay on his side beside him, still unconscious, snoring, drool collecting in his beard. The priest had a discolored lump as large as a gull's egg on the top of his head, the tattooed Eye of Ebenor with an eyeshine.

Nix swallowed down his dry throat, found it as coarse as sand. He flashed on the spellworm, Rakon's manic gaze, the slippery, squirming thing wriggling down his throat, expanding in him, stealing his will.

He thought of the mental space within himself that he'd tried to reserve. If he'd done as he intended, he could use that mental space as a starting point from which to try to slip the compulsion.

"I am Nix Fall," he said tentatively, the words little more than a harsh mumble. But even that small bit of resistance caused him a bout of nausea as the worm squirmed. The magic had rooted deeply.

He left off, in no condition at the moment to try to slip a compulsion. Instead, he sat up on an elbow and looked around.

Supplies filled the wagon: barrels of beer and skins of water, wheels of cheese, salted meat, sacks leaking onions and potatoes, rolled tents, straw and oats for draft animals, even a few stacks of firewood bound in cord. The abundance of supplies put him in mind of Rakon's mention of the Wastes. He'd hoped he'd misheard.

"Shite," he said.

Beside him, Egil groaned.

"Egil," Nix said softly, and shook the priest by the shoulder. "Egil."

The priest opened a bloodshot eye, blinked blearily, squinted at Nix, finally cocked an eyebrow.

"Nix?"

"Yeah. You all right?"

The priest lifted himself up, groaning and wobbly, and sat cross-legged. "Muzzy, but all right. You?"

"As well as I might." He touched the lumps on his head. "A bit tired of getting knocked unconscious, though. Let's avoid that in the future, yeah?"

"Agreed," Egil said, rubbing his head, the back of his neck. "Where are we?"

"I fear to guess."

"The last thing I remember clearly is that sorcerer's spell," Egil said, grimacing at the recollection.

Nix leaned forward, earnest. "Did you do as I said? When the spellworm went down? I told you to focus on Ebenor. Tell me you did that, Egil."

Egil's brow furrowed with thought and he nodded, but not convincingly. "I… tried. I thought of Ebenor, my faith, as you said. A lot of good it did, though."

"You may be surprised," Nix said.

Egil pinched his nose between his fingers. "How do you mean? Gods, my head. Not sure if it's a hangover or the blows."

"Both, I'm sure. Get it cleared. If we're where I think we are, we're going to need our wits."

"Aye. Gods, I'm thirsty." Egil eyed the barrels hopefully, but before he could grab one, the flap at the back of the wagon parted and a pockmarked, mustached face appeared, the hiresword Jyme, now helmed. He must have heard them talking.

"They're up!" he shouted over his shoulder.

"Not so damned loud," Nix said with a wince.

Baras soon appeared, also helmed. He looked grim behind his beard. "Welcome back."

"Uh, thanks?" Nix said.

Baras nodded at a blanket-covered pile in the far corner of the wagon. "Your weapons are there. You carry a lot of blades. Your bag with all the… things in it is there, too."

"Gewgaws," Egil said.

"As you say. The priest's hammers are there also." Baras leaned into the wagon and spoke in a lower tone. "Listen, don't get stupid because you're armed, eh? Stupid will mean you ride in the wagon unconscious. The lord Adjunct doesn't need you until we reach the tomb in Afirion, but I'd rather you awake and walking on your own feet, since I'm not sure your heads, hard as they are, can take another meeting with a sword pommel."

"Yeah," Nix said, massaging the lumps on his scalp. "We were just talking about that. Walking sounds right to me."

Nix crawled to the corner of the wagon and unrolled the oilcloth to reveal his blades, sling, pouch of lead bullets, his satchel of equipment and magical items, and Egil's hammers. He handed the priest his weapons and the crowbar he'd taken to carrying.

"I don't know how you survive with just hammers," Nix said to his friend, while repositioning sharp things all about his person.

"Crowbar, too," Egil said, as he slipped his hammers into loops on his belt. To Baras, he said, "You said Afirion, but we're not on a boat."

"I was going to mention that," Nix said.

"Mention what?" Egil said.

"We're not on a boat," Baras said, "because we're cutting through the Wastes."

"The Demon Wastes?" Egil asked.

"You know of others?"

Egil sniffed, cleared his throat, and said matter-offactly, "Then we're all going to die."

Nix just shook his head. "Traveling the Wastes is madness, Baras. Everyone knows that."

"My Lord Norristru-"

"Is mad," Nix finished. "No one gets through the Wastes."

Baras's face remained blank, the vacant look of a soldier falling back on a sense of duty to get him through. "We do and we will. My lord has his reasons for the route he's chosen."

"Then his reasons must be to get us all killed," Nix said. "Egil has the right of it."

"Give us his reasons," Egil said. "I'd hear them."

Baras shook his head. "His reasons are his own. Now, get up and get out. You walk like the rest of us."

He turned on his heel and left them, the flap closing in his wake.

The moment he disappeared, Egil scooted to the back of the wagon, stuck a hand between the flaps, and looked out. He hefted his hammers and closed his eyes in a silent prayer.

"What are you doing?" Nix asked.

"I'm getting out of the wagon," Egil said. "Isn't that what Baras said to do?"

"He did."

"I'm also causing a ruckus with these slubbers."

"You're what?"

"Meet you out there," Egil said, and bounded out the back of the wagon.

"Egil, wait," Nix said, but the priest was already gone. "He didn't say to cause a ruckus, dammit."

Outside, the priest shouted his usual challenges. A driver shouted at the horses and the wagon lurched to a stop. Horses neighed, men cursed, hurried footsteps trod on coarse ground. More shouts, curses.

Nix knew Egil wouldn't get far, but he didn't want his friend to get hurt. He put his falchion in his fist and slid out through the flap. He blinked in the drizzle and gray light of dawn.

He and Egil must have been unconscious several hours, for they were already in the Wastes, on the scree-covered plains east of Dur Follin. The jagged, broken boulders and rust-colored rockscape stretched around them, the land devoid of everything but the toughest scrub and an occasional malformed tree.

Seven of Rakon's guards, including Baras and Jyme, stood in a loose circle around Egil. The men had swords drawn, though they made no move to attack. An eighth had a cocked crossbow leveled at the priest.

Nix caught a glimpse of Dur Follin in the distance behind them, its crumbling gray walls and the monumental span of the Archbridge ghostly and faded in the dim light and rain.

Egil, hammers in hand, lunged first at one guard, then at another. The men backed off, positioned their blades defensively, but didn't engage.

"Come on, slubbers!" Egil shouted.

"I can order him to shoot," Baras said to Egil, nodding at the guard with the crossbow.

Nix filled his off hand with a throwing dagger. "He'll die before he fires. I don't miss at this range."

Eyes turned to Nix. The guards shifted on their feet. The crossbowman, a young man of perhaps twentyfive winters, licked his lips, backed off, and moved his crossbow from Nix to Egil, from Egil to Nix.

"Take your finger off that pull, boy," Nix said to the crossbowman, his dagger ready for a rapid throw. "Ere I put this dagger in your eye."

Egil lunged at one of the guards and he backpedaled so fast he slipped and fell down. Egil stomped on his wrist. He squawked with pain and released his sword.