Lisa Smedman: Viper's Kiss

Davinu seized the cord and motioned for the other cleric to cut it with the knife.

The demon twisted, knocking the knife out of the cleric’s hand. As the cleric scrambled after the knife, the demon wrapped its tail around Davinu’s neck. “You annoy me,” it said in a voice deeper and more malevolent than any mortal man’s. Then it constricted.

Davinu clawed at the tail that was choking him. “Cut… cut….”

Behind him, the shields that had been circling through the air clunked to the floor.

Foesmasher drew his sword and lunged forward, slashing at the cord, but missed. His blade whistled through the air, narrowly missing the cleric who was holding the demon.

The demon slithered out of the cleric’s grip, then thrust all six of its hands out at once, as if fending off foes. Tendrils of shadowy darkness sprang into being around it and coiled themselves around its body. Foesmasher shoved the cleric aside and thrust at the demon, but the tendrils coiled around the weapon, halting it. The darkness slithered up the blade and licked at Foesmasher’s bare hand, and the baron dropped his sword. Foesmasher backed away, his fingers moving creakily as he tried to force his hands to obey him.

These mortals want to play with swords? the demon mused, tightening its grip on Davinu’s neck.

Davinu’s face purpled.

Then swords they shall have.

“Swords!” Arvin shouted. “The demon’s going to use magic to—”

A loud whirring noise filled the air as thousands of tiny blades sprang into existence, forming a curtain of steel around the bed and enclosing Glisena, Marasa, Arvin, and Davinu inside it. The remaining clerics screamed as the blades slashed into them. The whirling weapons clattered off their breastplates but sliced into exposed arms, legs, faces, and throats; five of the clerics fell, mortally wounded. The remaining three staggered back, screaming, bloody but still on their feet. Foesmasher, well behind them, was still struggling to pick up his sword; the demon’s magic seemed to have sapped the strength from his arms.

Outside the chamber, fists pounded on the magic-locked door. Arvin could hear the muffled shouting of the soldiers.

The demon, its tail still wrapped around Davinu’s throat, glanced around the room. Which one, it mused, was I supposed to kill? It gave a mental sigh. All of them, I suppose.

Davinu leaned back—dangerously close to the whirling blades—pulling the birthing cord taught. “Cord…” he choked. “C-c-c….”

“You cannot banish me,” the demon gloated in a voice like thick, bubbling blood. Not while I am bound by—

“Shivis,”Arvi n shouted, summoning his dagger into his glove and leaping forward. The demon tried to twist aside but failed. With a clean stroke, Arvin severed the birthing cord.

Davinu staggered, the demon still wrapped around his throat. Blades clattered against the armor that shielded his back; one sliced through an unprotected spot near his shoulder, leaving a deep slash. He recoiled from the whirling curtain of steel and struggled to speak the words of the prayer that would banish the demon—Arvin could hear them echoing in Davinu’s thoughts—but there was no air in his lungs.

“Marasa,” Arvin shouted. “Banish the demon!”

Marasa, busy with Glisena, ignored him. She threw something to the floor—the afterbirth she had just pulled out of Glisena’s wound—and pressed the two edges of the wound together, chanting a healing spell. She realized the danger—Arvin could hear it in her thoughts—but without a restorative spell, now, Glisena would bleed to death. Just a moment more, and Marasa would cast the banishing spell.

A moment they didn’t have.

Davinu collapsed, unconscious. The demon released him and coiled its tail under itself, rising like a rearing snake, the lowermost pair of its six hands resting on its hips.

Outside the barrier of whirling blades, the three clerics who still stood were casting spells. One shouted commands at the demon while holding out a gauntleted hand; another had summoned a shimmering mace into his hand. The third chanted a prayer that caused a glowing sword to rush toward the demon, but the weapon broke apart before reaching its target, scattering into shimmers of light. Foesmasher, meanwhile, had finally picked up his sword and a shield and was trying to force his way through the barrier of blades. They thudded into the shield with a loud clatter, driving him back.

The demon eyed them scornfully. Time to even the odds, it thought. It cocked its head to the side. Should it be dretches, or hezrou?

Marasa continued to chant her prayer, running a finger along Glisena’s wound. Slowly, the flesh knit itself back together.

“Marasa!” Arvin screamed. “The demon’s going to summon—”

The demon stared at Arvin with slit eyes. “So it was you whose voice I heard.”

An invisible force yanked Arvin’s dagger from his hand.

Let’s play.

The dagger reversed itself and drove, point-first, at Arvin’s chest, forcing him to twist aside. He shouted the command word that should have caused it to fly back to his hand, but the demon’s magic was stronger. The knife refused to obey. The demon, meanwhile, had begun the spell that would summon others of its kind; Arvin could hear the words of its summoning whispering through its mind. He glanced wildly at Marasa—she still hadn’t finished healing Glisena—and the dagger thrust at him, slicing a nick out of his left ear.

No time.

The demon would finish its summoning before Marasa could banish it.

The dagger flew toward him again; he batted it away with his left hand. The blade sliced a line through the ensorcelled leather glove.

His glove.

Leaping toward the demon, he slapped his gloved hand down on its tail. “Shivis!” he cried.

The demon disappeared into the glove.

For several moments, no one spoke. A muffled pounding continued on the door—the soldiers outside, trying to break in—while the blades continued to whir through the air. Then, all at once, they clattered to the floor, together with Arvin’s dagger. The three clerics hurried toward Davinu. Foesmasher stood gaping, his sword hanging limply from his fist.

Arvin held up his gloved hand, turning it slowly back and forth. “It worked.”

Marasa uttered the final word of her prayer, sealing the wound shut. She started to turn toward Arvin but then suddenly tensed. She leaned over Glisena, pressing one hand to the girl’s throat. Glisena’s chest was no longer moving. Her eyes stared glassily at the ceiling. “No,” she howled. “By Helm’s mercy, no!”

A distant voice whispered into Arvin’s mind. The binding ends. I am free!

The glove bulged. One of its seams split.

Ah. An exit.

The palm of the glove humped upward.

Terrified, Arvin yanked the glove from his hand and hurled it to the floor. “Marasa!” he shouted, allowing his manifestation to end. Too much was happening too fast. “The demon’s breaking free!”

Foesmasher stared at his daughter. A pained look on his face, he caught Marasa’s eye. “Is she…?”

Marasa hung her head. Foesmasher gave a grief-stricken sob.

The glove tore open with a loud ripping sound as the demon erupted from it. In the space of a heartbeat, the demon expanded to its full size. Even coiled on its tail, it loomed over Arvin; his head was barely level with its chest. The tail was as thick as a man’s waist, and each of the demon’s arms was twice the length of a human’s. Each hand held a long sword that was utterly black, save for a glowing line of red that edged its wavy blade. Where the weapons had come from, Arvin had no idea. Tendrils of darkness still wreathed the demon: the magic it had used to sap the baron’s strength earlier.