Troy Denning - Faces of Deception

They were a thousand paces from the bottom, working their way down a steep ledge between a mountainous ice slab and a narrow lateral crevasse, when Atreus glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye. He tapped Seema on the shoulder and whirled around. He found himself staring across an icy abyss deep into a bluish maze of horizontal crevasses and cockeyed seracs. It looked like some sort of crazy cemetery, full of open graves and monolithic tombstones.

"What is it?" Seema whispered.

"It can only be that tailed devil," Rishi hissed, leaping to conclusions. He glanced up and down the steep ledge, then started to push his way forward. "Hurry! We are doomed if he traps us here."

Yago grabbed the Mar from behind. "Stay put, or I push you in. And be quiet1" His deep voice rumbled across the icefall twice as loud as Rishi's.

Atreus eyed the crevasse beside them, peering down into its blue depths. At close to four paces, it was wider than he felt comfortable jumping from a standstill, but there was another way.

"Yago, remember that game your nephews used to play with me?"

The ogre scowled, thinking, then glanced at the crevasse and raised his heavy brow.

His answer was a cautious, "Yeah "

"Can you make it?"

The ogre scratched his head and closed one eye, measuring the distance. "Probably," he said, "but you know it don't work unless there's someone on the other side."

"There will be," Atreus promised.

Yago grinned and passed the supply bundle to Rishi.

Atreus looked across the crevasse into the maze of cockeyed seracs. He could feel the tailed devil out there watching them, nursing his cold anger. The Sisters of Serenity seemed a long way to come for retribution, but Tarch was after more than simple vengeance. He was after Seema, and Atreus suspected the slave master would be willing to travel a lot farther than this to capture such a prize.

Atreus turned toward Rishi and Seema. "When Tarch comes," he told them, "flee uphill and circle around. He'll be expecting you to run downhill."

Seema frowned and asked, "Where will you be?"

"Well meet you down in the valley," he said, "but don't wait for us. If we're not there before you, it means some-thing went wrong."

Seema shook her head. "I can't let you do this," she said. Tarch will kill you."

"He'll try." As Atreus spoke, a muffled splash sounded somewhere in the serac field. There's going to be a fight, Seema. The only thing you can control is whether it means anything."

Seema closed her eyes, then nodded. "No killing," she insisted again. "Not on my behalf"

"No killing?" Yago grumbled. This fight's going to be hard enough-"

Atreus raised his hand to silence his friend.

"We've given our word, Yago. No killing. If you can't abide by that pledge, then you'll have to stay-"

"Not on your life!" The ogre glowered down at Seema, then nodded and said, "You have my word."

"And you mean to leave me here with the woman?" demanded Rishi. To Atreus's surprise, the Mar actually sounded insulted. "I am as much a man as you. Have I not proven my skill in battle many times?"

"Too many times," Atreus said, "but someone has to stay-"

Atreus was cut off by an angry snarl and the sound of feet splashing through slush. He turned to see Tarch charging out from the seracs, his reptilian scales reflecting rainbows in the brilliant sun. Though the tailed devil carried no weapons, the claws at the ends of his fingertips looked more dangerous than any sword, and of course he had plenty of other surprises.

Atreus stretched the chain between his hands, calling, "Now, Yago!"

In the next instant, he was dangling upside down by his ankles, swinging backward as Yago cocked him to throw.

The wall of ice behind them was coming up perilously fast

"Throw, Yago! Throw!"

Atreus turned away just as his shoulder slammed into the ice, suddenly whipping forward and seeing the icy depths of me crevasse spin past beneath him. He caught a glimpse of Tarch's sharp-toothed mouth hanging agape, as he slammed into the devil broadside and bowled him over backward.

Atreus came down flat, driving the wind out of his foe's lungs and winning himself a much needed instant to secure his advantage. He sank his teeth into Tarch's ear and tasted something awful, like rotten fish. They began to slide down the slushy slope, and Atreus smashed an elbow into the devil's flank.

The blow would have broken the ribs of a man, but it merely irritated Tarch. The devil growled once and hurled his attacker off. Atreus kept his jaw clenched, nearly snapping his own neck as the devil's ear came off in his teeth. Tarch roared in pain and slapped at his wound, then rolled to his knees. Atreus was already on him, whipping the chain into the slave master's skull time after time. He did not worry about his promise to Seema. It would take more than a few blows to kill the devil.

In his confusion, Tarch actually brought his arms up to cover his head. Atreus switched his chain to the body and heard a rib snap. If he could break five or six more, the agony just might make the devil flee.

As it was, the pain only brought Tarch to his senses. The devil lashed out with a hammer-hard fist and caught his attacker in the shin.

Atreus felt something snap and fell screaming. He landed head down on his back and started a long slide toward a nearby crevasse, but Tarch saw no delight in such simple death. The devil caught him by his injured leg and reeled him back.

"Slag my boys, will you?" the devil growled. He twisted Atreus's leg around like a wheel as Atreus wailed in pain and rolled to his stomach, still holding the chain. "Peel my best girl, will you?"

Tarch twisted again. Atreus spun to his back and found himself looking up into his foe's sunken black eyes. Yago was sliding down the hill behind the devil, having just leaped across the crevasse.

"Before I'm done with you," said Tarch, "you'll be beggin' me to kill you nice and slow-like!"

"I doubt it," Atreus groaned.

He whipped the chain forward. Tarch hopped it with a quick one-two step and gave Atreus's leg a savage twist, then abruptly let go as a pair of huge hands caught hold of his tail. His eyes flashed crimson, and he started to turn. Yago yanked him off his feet and spun him around, slamming the astonished devil into a serac.

There was a tremendous clatter, and the frozen monolith rained jagged shards of ice down on all three fighters. Tarch whirled on his attacker with slashing claws, but he was no match for the strength of an ogre. Yago cocked his arms back for another smash, flinging the devil out to the end of his tail, then swung again, stepping into the blow like a woodsmasher clubbing down a tree.

Tarch hit with a resounding crash. Something deep inside the serac cracked, and the monolith slumped forward. The devil let out a low groan and started to go limp, shook himself back to consciousness, and managed to fix on angry glare on his foe.

"One more time!" he hissed.

Yago brought his arms back for a smash Atreus prayed would finish their foe when a loud pop echoed across the ice. Tarch went sailing down the icefall, leaving his tail in Yago's hands and trailing an arc of rust-colored blood. The slaver crashed through an ice slab and landed ten paces below Atreus.

Yago scowled at the writhing appendage in his hands, staring at the meaty stump as though he could not quite figure out what had happened. There was not as much blood as Atreus would have expected, and he had the sinking feeling that the injury was not enfeebling. He drew his knee up beneath him, and even this little bit of effort sent daggers of pain shooting through his leg.

Yago tossed Tarch's tail into a crevasse and went crashing and sliding down the slope after the battered devil. On the other side of the chasm, Seema was reluctantly fleeing up the ledge as instructed. Rishi was nowhere to be seen, but there was no time to worry about what had become of the Mar. Tarch was gathering himself up to meet Yago, and the ogre was chortling with overconfidence.