Clayton Emery - Sword Play

Squinting, Sysquemalyn pouted red lips. It was hard to see into the fearsome blue-white brilliance, but…

" 'Mas, dear, did you see that? The manling just vanished. But how? I didn't do that!"

Pinned by stone-snake arms, Candlemas groaned. No matter how bad things got, he'd often noted, they could always get worse. And just had.

"I think," he growled at Sysquemalyn, "you've finally attracted the attention of…"

He, too, vanished.

Sunbright landed with a crunch on his shoulder, fetching his head a solid crack that made it sing.

Grunting, he flopped on his back. But he was unfettered and alive, though he couldn't guess how, and so he snatched Dorlas's warhammer from his belt and crouched to bash his way to freedom if possible.

In an eye-blink, three people flickered onto the stony ledge where he stood: Greenwillow, Sysquemalyn, Candlemas. The raven appeared a moment after.

The podgy, bald mage finished his sentence. "…someone big."

Sunbright attacked.

He didn't sound a battle cry, for while it may have startled his foe, it also would have warned her. He simply leaped and swung the warhammer from the end of his arm.

The long tapered head, five pounds of hardened steel, struck Sysquemalyn at the juncture of neck and shoulder. The weapon would have crushed her skull or snapped her neck if the light weren't so bad or the footing so uneven. As it was, the warhammer shattered her shoulder to flinders, for her shield spell was down or magically drained. The thud of the blow and crunch of bone made Greenwillow and Candlemas grunt.

Sunbright didn't pause. Still charging, aiming for the wall behind her, he kicked Sysquemalyn in the throat with heavy boots as she pitched forward in agony. The jolt knocked her into the wall, bounced her skull off stone. Bleeding red into red hair from a scalp wound, she collapsed into a heap.

Sunbright let her fall and scooched for his sword, which she had brought with her. Once he gained his weapon, he'd see if she needed another blow to kill or incapacitate her. Furious as he was for her callous use of him, her betrayal, and the attempt on his life for no reason whatsoever, he wouldn't kill her unless she were still too dangerous to control. Their party might need her to escape wherever they were. So far he'd glimpsed only dark stone strewn with ashes.

And too, some part of his heart lingered with the traitorous mage. Some part of him still felt love and lust and longing for the sweet Ruellana who had never really existed. But Sunbright would stop her from using her magic first, for he was no lovesick fool.

Though it lay only inches away, he never reached his sword.

A swirling, like a miniature tornado, erupted from near his feet. Sunbright flinched and backed away, but within seconds the tornado turned green-brown and gray, then tightened around him. The spinning mist took the form of serpents, longer than horses and as thick as Sunbright's arm, hissing and twisting and clenching tightly to enwrap him like iron bands. Four or five fanged heads ducked and bobbed against his torso, and he heard more hissing behind him. Round black eyes that glistened fixed him with an intelligent, hypnotic glare.

With a gasp, Sunbright filled his lungs to prevent their collapsing his chest and concentrated to free his hands and wrists that he might pry the beasts off. His mind warred with his body, curiosity with fright with ferocity. On one hand, he didn't fear these serpents much, for snakes were rarely dangerous and he could wriggle free soon. On the other hand, they'd appeared magically and so couldn't be natural beasts. Or could they, only magically summoned? Either way, he wouldn't think overmuch, but fight to get free and deal with abstractions later.

He never got the chance. With a grunt, he was hoisted into the air so his feet dangled a yard off the ground. The serpents consolidated their grips and quieted. Just below Sunbright, Sysquemalyn lay sprawled and moaning against the rock wall, one shoulder crumpled lower than the other. But it was the astonished gaping of Greenwillow and Candlemas and even the raven that finally arrested Sunbright's attention and made him crane to see.

Worse than any nightmare, was his first thought.

The humans and elf were perched on a sharp promontory that jutted over a vast subterranean amphitheater. Harsh red light flickered as jets of gas along the stone walls billowed smoke and flame. The bottom of the amphitheater was a pool of glimmering lava that bubbled and boiled and gave off a sickening, long-dead, stomach-churning stench. Ringed around the amphitheater on craggy terraces were wave upon wave of monsters: skeletal warriors clad in rags, jaundiced yellow genies with anvil-heads, twitching imps studded with horns and spikes, blobs that roiled and seethed with their own internal fire, and many more loathsome creatures of the cursed planes. The obscuring dimness and smoke were a blessing, a protection against screaming madness.

For worst of all was their master, a hideous giant who hunched on a round bluff rising above its monstrous ranks. Three times the height of a man, it was covered, from its blocky head to great splayed clawed feet, with corrugated red skin. Bright yellow tusks curled its lips below eyes as black as jet. Wings of blood-red skin curled half around its mighty, shoulders.

Though the twisted tusks dragged its mouth out of shape, there was no doubt from any of the watchers that the pit fiend regarded them with the greatest amusement.

Like new toys.

"Sysquemalyn!" boomed a voice that crashed like thunder in the vast chamber. "Sysquemalyn of Netheril, arise and meet your fate! You've been very naughty, human. Tsk, tsk! Plagiarizing the Nine Hells!"

The black-eyed pit fiend waited for a second, but not seeing Sysquemalyn put in an appearance, gestured. Gasping in pain, the female mage was jerked upright, her shattered shoulder bones ground to splinters in her tortured flesh. She was hoisted off her feet to hang above the promontory like Sunbright. Yet she hung as limp as a rag doll.

When she didn't answer, the fiend made a two-handed gesture as if straightening a straw and, with a crinkly snap, Sysquemalyn's shoulder was fixed, healed as good as new. The redheaded mage reached out and touched her shoulder tentatively, marveling that the pain had vanished.

Then from below came a dry chortle, like rocks grinding together. Both of Sysquemalyn's shoulders snapped as if from invisible blows. The mage screamed until her voice cracked. And just as abruptly, the shoulders reset, and she hung limp, dripping with sweat.

"Better?" crashed the voice from below. A saggy smile rippled around the tusks in the great red face. "Don't fuss about such little pain, human. 'Tis the merest warmup for things to come. You've earned special attention. Never before has anyone been so foolish as to usurp my corner of hell. Such presumption!"

"I… I didn't usurp your realm." Still hanging like a dead goose, Sysquemalyn hunched her shoulders in dreaded anticipation of more abuse. The fear haunted her worse than any pain. Her voice was tiny, quavery, like that of a chastised child. Her pride had melted in pain like sugar in the rain. "I… built this place on my own, made it myself."

A vast gobble was laughter. The fiend's wings twitched to the shaking of shoulders as broad as a ship. "Brave of you to lie when I can remove your organs one by one yet keep you alive. You did no such thing! You thought to borrow our power and not pay interest and then pretend surprise. Your little amusement has opened new portals into our realm, as a shovel shears through an anthill. Many new rents you've cut, through which we can issue to muster new strength for our war against the vile tanar'ri. Your people will pay the price of your presumption in blood, and fire, and rape, and endless pain, and bitter death. As will you."