Beating her points out one by one, the girl tried to keep the undead leader in range of her banter. “Now I know what you’re all thinking. Aguy with real self-respect would never go around picking on a helpless little faerie with a cute butt, and you’d be right!” The faerie affably slittedup her eyes. “Hey, we all have momentary lapses! I don’t mind. So you just setme free, and we’ll simply forget any of this happened. It’s fine by me!”
The tent flaps swept aside and a tall, lethally thin figure appeared: a one-handed man with skin the texture of bubbling tar. The creature took a long, cold look at the captive faerie and bared its fangs with a hiss of evil joy. Escalla tried to meet the creature with a happy smile and gave a timid little wave.
“Boy, am I glad to see you!” A big bead of sweat traveleddown Escalla’s neck. “There’s been a wee bit of a mix-up. Your gang here hasmistaken me for someone else, but it’s all cleared up now, so I was just aboutto go.”
The black-skinned monster rubbed at the stump of its arm, then sidled silkily closer to the girl.
The faerie duly cleared her throat and said, “Ah, you’re acambion, right?” Escalla tried to shrink away. “That’s fine! I can see whereyou’re coming from. Now look, you’re a demon, I’m a faerie. One’s good, one’sbad-but both are simply different sides of the same coin, right? I mean, youcan’t have good without evil! So if you kill me, you’re just making life thatmuch more difficult for yourself!”
The cambion slid a knife out of its belt and slowly began to advance toward the girl. Caught like a fly in a spider web, Escalla began to fight frenziedly against her bonds. She changed to a snake and was still stuck fast, then turned into a spiny urchin, a winged piranha, and a slimy slug. She found no way to escape but did manage to lose most of her clothes. The girl popped back into faerie form and gave a frightened squeal.
“No! Look, I’m really little! You don’t wanna eat afaerie. You guys want to eat an elf! Just plant my feet in soil and water me for a few years and I’ll grow… honest!” The girl tried to lift a handand shape a deadly spell. “Look out! There’s a psychopathic ranger standingbehind you!” Her enemy refused to turn around. “Jus! Jus, time to cue the rescueparty! Jmuuuuuuus!”
Instead of the Justicar, a heavyset man wielding a hammer gave a great shout from the brush nearby. He held up a holy symbol, screaming an invocation to Bleredd, and a blast of light thundered toward the skeletons. Shambling corpses were suddenly blasted apart, pieces of bone crashing down at Escalla’s feet.
The white-faced cadaver withstood the storm, drew a sword, and ran toward the priest with an ululating cry. As it passed the man, the Justicar rose from the grass, pivoted, and sliced into the monster from behind. The creature stumbled forward with half of its torso severed from its trunk. Staggering, it tried to turn and attack with its sword, only to have the Justicar’s black sword hack it in two.
The Justicar felt power surge through him in a mad rush ofbattle rage as he rammed his blade into his foe. He whirled and saw the one-handed demon standing over Escalla. It was the same cambion he had fought beside the wagon trail a few days before.
The monster drew a dagger and stabbed straight for Escalla’sheart. Jus bellowed a spell and the air wrenched with energies. Frozen in place, the demons muscles bulged as it fought against the magic. The creature broke free and hurled itself backward an instant before the black sword could sever its head. The cambion dodged aside and cast a spell that struck and lifted the Justicar off his feet, throwing him a dozen feet through the air.
Huge with rage, the ranger surged back onto his feet. The ribs along his right side had broken. His enemy drew out a sword and ran to the attack, moving with the same blurring speed it had shown in the Razor Wood during their last battle. Jus whipped his blade downward and parried a lightning fast slash to his knee, ripped upward with his sword, and sliced into the teak-hard flesh of the demon’s inner thigh. The monster staggered backward, tookan arrow fired by the archer straight through its throat, yet still kept his feet to run screaming at the Justicar with weapon raised.
A lightning bolt whip-cracked across the grass from the sorcerer. With power grounding out through its flesh, the demon utterly ignored the spell and hacked down with its sword. The Justicar blurred his own weapon upward in a parry, deflected the demon’s blade, then drove the creature backwith a sharp stab.
“Allow me.”
A silver blade smacked into the cambion and sent it spinning to the ground. The demon turned, looked up at the paladin, and its eyes widened with hate. An instant later, Sir Olthwaite rammed his sword two-handed down the creature’s throat, twisting the weapon viciously to drill the monster to thesand.
Black blood spurted as the sword ripped free. With a flick of his blade, the paladin took a backward pace and let his target fall.
Breathing hard with exertion, Jus leaned on his sword and held a hand against his broken ribs.
“You know what that was?”
“Cambion, a type of lesser demon.” The paladin sheathed hissword. “Rather nasty.”
“And not used to being attacked from behind.” Shaking hishead to throw off his pain, Jus stooped over Escalla in her sticky web. “Did hemark you?”
The faerie swallowed, still seeing the cambion’s daggerstreaking for her heart. “No. What did you do-the magic, I mean?”
“Holding spell.” Jus reeled, then forced himself tostraighten. He drew in a deep, sharp breath, fought the pain, and then flicked a glance at Sir Olthwaite.
“Broken ribs. Can you heal it?”
Paladins had the healing touch, yet when Sir Olthwaite stretched his hands out to touch the wound, he frowned and slowly shook his head.
“Alas.” Sir Olthwaite’s voice rang with regret. “Such hellishmagic radiates pure evil. I cannot heal you.”
The Justicar held up his own hand, shaped a ball of light, and then stretched his ribs tight. As the magic hit them, his bones set with an audible crack.
It seemed… simple. The Justicar looked at Sir Olthwaite,then stooped to sweep Escalla up into his arms.
The web yielded to alcohol siphoned from Polk’s whiskey jar.Reeking like a brewery, Escalla stood and unhappily allowed Jus to peel her carefully free. She still hovered halfway between gratitude, annoyance, and aftershock.
“All I wanted was some damned honey!”
“I wouldn’t try it.” Working doggedly, Jus untangled stickyweb-strands from Escalla’s hair. “These bees give you the mummy rot when theysting.”
“Oh, great.” Dazed, Escalla accepted it all. “Those damnedcorpses had a web strung between the trees for me.”
“That cambion worked for our friend the librarian. I met himonce before on the wagon trail.” Jus tried to untangle gluey strands fromEscalla’s wings. “They know we’re coming.”
“Great.” Somewhat chilled and sobered, Escalla sat herselfupon a stump. “Hey, thanks. You know-for getting here on time.”
“You’re welcome.” The Justicar pulled a last gummy strandfree from the faerie’s backside. “I liked that ‘self-respect’ line, by the way.”
“Oh, really? It was pretty nice.” The girl held out her hairand grimaced at the damage. “Too bad they were just zombies and let it ride overthem. Damn, but I need a bath!”
Cinders instantly perked up. Heat water? Make fire?
“No!” Jus clapped a hand over the hell hound’s nose. Escallawas still drenched in whiskey. “We’ll stop by one of the streams running fromthe mountain. They’re hot enough to make a decent bath.”
From the bushes nearby, the Geshtai priestess quietly emerged. During the whole battle, she had been conspicuously absent. With a suspicious sideways glance, Escalla watched the woman go, feeling the hair prickle on the back of her neck.