Paul Kemp - The Hammer and the Blade

Inexplicably, the road had been spared the ruin of the surrounding terrain. It was not paved with stones, but rather looked as if the gods had driven a chisel across the terrain, leaving the unmarred ribbon of the road in their wake.

Deadman's Way showed no cracks, and no scrub or weeds grew on its surface. To Nix it called to mind the same precise, flawless, uncanny construction that marked the Archbridge.

"This pristine after so long?" Nix asked.

"Now we know why he brought the carriage and wagon," Egil observed.

"Aye."

Rakon emerged from the carriage long enough to study the terrain ahead, and then the caravan headed out, following the road and making good speed.

Two guards paced the carriage to either side, which was driven by another guard and pulled by a pair of shaggy draft horses. The supply wagon followed, likewise driven by a guard and pulled by two horses. The rest of the group walked or jogged on foot behind and around the wagons, though from time to time one or another guard would ride on the wagon to rest his feet.

As they put more and more distance behind them, Nix felt as though he were swimming in ever-deeper water. Dur Follin was lost to the distance behind them. They were deep in the Wastes, the broken, red earth roofed with a cloudy, slate-gray sky. At least the rain had relented.

The others seemed to share his growing sense of ominousness. Now and again the horses tossed their heads and stomped at nothing in particular. The drivers kept cocked crossbows on the benches beside them, and the guards afoot held bare blades in hand. Egil shook his dice as they walked. The sky pressed down on them, a gray, miasmic blanket.

Nix worked at the compulsion as he walked, seeking a place within himself that the spellworm had not reached.

I am Nix Fall of Dur Follin.

But the effort itself — contrary as it was to Rakon's wishes — nauseated him, and he found it hard to keep pace with a roiling stomach. He resolved to work at slipping the spellworm during the night, when they camped. They had three, maybe four days' travel through the Wastes before they reached the Afirion Desert.

Assuming they lived that long.

He took a headcount. Including the eunuch and Rakon, they totaled eleven men and the sisters.

Eleven men.

He would have laughed if his jaw and head didn't hurt so much. Phrases moved through his mind, foreboding words he'd heard used to describe the Demon Wastes.

Cursed earth.

Ruined ground.

At the Conclave, Nix had read a few treatises containing theories about the Demon Wastes' origin. All agreed that the Wastes had once been fertile ground, part of a now-lost and forgotten civilization, probably the same one responsible for building the Archbridge.

Some held that a sorcerer had accidentally created a doorway to Hell and an army of devils had destroyed the realm and left the land barren. Others said a curse infected the ground, spreading incrementally closer to Dur Follin each year. Others said wrathful gods had reached down from the vault of night and smashed an arrogant people.

Nix had thought all the theories nonsense, but now, walking the Wastes, treading an ancient road that shouldn't exist, he wasn't as sure. The land was forsaken, a wasteland. Theories Nix had thought outlandish now seemed quaint seen in the light of the actual desolation.

"This road's better than even the Promenade in Dur Follin," Egil said.

"Makes no sense," Nix said, and then an idea struck him.

He fell to his knees and held the palms of his hands a finger's width over the surface of the road. He closed his eyes, concentrated on the skin of his palms, his fingertips.

"What are you doing?" Baras called from his right. "Keep moving."

"Hsst," Egil said to the guardsman.

The drivers halted the wagons. Rakon shouted from the carriage.

"What is going on? We are not to stop moving."

Nix's palms and fingertips tingled. The hairs on his knuckles rose and stood on end. He smiled, nodded, stood.

"It's enspelled," he said to everyone "The road. That's why it's remained intact. Powerful magic. Wearing thin now, but in its day it must have been powerful."

Egil eyed the blasted terrain all around them. "They might have used it to preserve more than just the roads."

Nix chuckled. "Aye."

"Why would anyone enspell a road?" Baras asked.

Nix shook his head. It made little sense.

"Get us moving again, Baras," Rakon said from the carriage.

"Yes, my lord. You heard him," Baras said. "Leg it."

Reins cracked and the caravan started again.

"I'm half-tempted to move at a dilatory pace," Egil said. "Slow these bastards down."

The moment he said the words, the priest burped loudly, put a hand on his stomach. His face greened behind his beard.

"You can't," Nix said. "And your body's telling you why. The spellworm's rooted deep and it responds to your intent. Just thinking something at odds with Rakon will make you sick at the least. Actually acting at crosspurposes will bring pain, just as it did before. Even death, if we push too hard."

They walked on for a short while before Nix said, "Did you say 'dilatory' a moment ago?"

"I did."

"Aren't I supposed to be the educated one in this pairing?"

"Maybe. But that'd make me the good-looking one then."

"Ha!"

Egil hung onto his own smile for only a moment. "Gonna be hard to get over on this sorcerer with this worm in our guts." He winced, probably as the worm did its work in response to his thoughts of getting over on Rakon. "I've no desire to be in his thrall or puking for the rest of my days."

"You won't. Retrieving the horn he seeks is one way to end the compulsion."

"What's the other way?"

"We slip it sooner," Nix said.

Egil looked intrigued. He glanced around to make certain none of the guards were listening. "Slip it how? Argh. Even asking the question upsets my stomach."

Nix spoke in a low tone. "When the worm first infected you, I told you to focus on your faith, yeah?"

Egil nodded. His hand went to the tattoo on his head.

Nausea rose in Nix — the spellworm exerting itself in response to his thoughts — but he endured it. He tried to explain things in a way that would make sense to Egil. "The purpose of that was to wall off a bit of your will from the worm before it expanded in you. Think of the compulsion as a net around your will. You think or do something at odds with the compulsion and it draws tight, making your own mind and body an enemy of itself."

"Thrice-damned sorcery," Egil said.

"Quite. But if you did as I said, you may have kept the worm's net loose or absent around your core. In your case, that's your faith."

"You think faith is my core?"

"You know better than to have to ask that. I mock your beliefs only because we've been blooded together. Anyway, you focus inwardly and find that place. You focus on it to the exclusion of everything else. You worry at it as you might an itchy scab or pained tooth. Gradually that'll open it up, expand it. Open it enough and you'll have enough space to slip the compulsion's net entirely."

"So you've done this before?" Egil asked.

"Of course not."

Egil stopped and glared at him.

"Keep moving!" Baras called.

They gave Baras an obscene gesture but started walking again.

"You're guessing then?" Egil said. "How do you know it'll work?"

"Guessing yes, but it's an informed guess."

"Informed by what? Your year at the Conclave?"

"Well, yes."

The priest shook his head. "Gods, man, that's a thin thread on which to hang hope. How will I know if I've slipped it? I don't feel that different except when I think about dropping a hammer on Rakon's head."

He groaned, the thought, no doubt, twisting up the worm.