Chapter Eighty-Eight
Bikker was sweating. He wiped his brow with the back of one hand.
That was the extent of what Croy’s best efforts to kill him had achieved. His tunic was cut in a number of places, but that only showed that the mail shirt he wore underneath it was unbroken. Croy’s arm hadn’t been strong enough to pierce the chain mail, even with the good dwarven steel of the shortsword.
“Get up,” Bikker spat. “Come, now. I trained you to put up a better fight than this.”
It was all Croy could do to keep his eyes open.
“Damn you, a good stiff breeze could kill you right now,” Bikker insisted. His voice was not so hard as his words. “Croy, you don’t have a chance. I could have cut you down a dozen times just now. Don’t you want to live? Don’t you want to win?”
Somehow Croy managed to find a little breath, which he used for forming words. “I’ve already won, Bikker. I kept my faith. I kept to my beliefs. You can slay me now, certainly. Doing so won’t make you more of a man.”
“And letting you live will?” Bikker snarled.
“No. There’s nothing you can do to regain your honor. I understand that now. I had hoped to heal the wound on your soul. But it’s too late.”
Bikker growled then, or perhaps he shouted. It was an inchoate, wordless noise that came out of him as he clawed at the air with his free hand. He stamped his foot in rage. And then, little by little, he regained his composure. He came back to Croy and stood over him and looked down on him with something approaching calm.
“Draw Ghostcutter. Do me the honor of dying on your feet. Come!” Bikker seized Croy roughly under the armpits and hauled him upright. He held Croy there until the knight had his feet underneath him. He could stand, if he braced himself perfectly. But he couldn’t lift his arms. The mere effort of standing took all his wind.
“This is folly,” Bikker said. “You should learn from it, Croy. Sir Croy. You need to be woken up from your dreams of nobility and honor. Did I not teach you that even a mighty lord dies the same way as a humble villein? Apparently you weren’t paying attention that day. A shame-if I kill you now you’ll never learn. You’ll go and sit by the Lady’s side still thinking that heroes bleed a different color than the rest of us.”
“I kept my faith,” Croy whispered. “I lived that dream. I do not fear death.”
A mischievous light crept into Bikker’s eyes. “Interesting. Because it absolutely terrifies me. That’s why I trained so hard, learned to be so strong. Because I knew that the only thing standing between me and the pit is my right arm and whatever iron I hold. But perhaps-perhaps there is something more to life.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps,” Bikker went on, “it’s all true. All those pathetic slogans and vows of sacrifice you made, perhaps they mean something after all. Shall we see?”
“What do you mean?”
Bikker leaned very close until his face was only inches from Croy’s. “Let’s perform an experiment, like Hazoth in his laboratory. You’ll be my test subject. I’ll give you a simple choice and we’ll see how much you believe your own fancies. Hmm?”
Croy was too tired to reply.
“I’ll make you a promise. You can go free, and I won’t chase you. After all, killing a weakling like you isn’t going to be any fun. I’ll let you live the rest of your life unmolested. All you have to do is turn around and walk away from me, without another word.”
Croy frowned. This seemed unlikely.
“There is one proviso, however,” Bikker said. “You must leave Ghostcutter here.”
He looked very satisfied with himself for having devised this bargain. Croy’s lips drew back from his teeth and he snarled.
“ ‘My sword is my soul,’ ” he quoted. “You taught me that.”
“Exactly,” Bikker said. “So choose. Give up your soul, or forfeit your life.”
He said no more.
Croy shook his head, disbelieving. Bikker was an Ancient Blade, same as himself. How could he make such an infernal demand? It was counter to everything Croy had ever believed, everything he’d ever learned. A Blade died with his sword in his hand, or only after passing it on to someone who could make better use of it in the endless war against demonkind. That was the law of their existence. The most important rule of their order.
But of course, that was the point. Croy had called Bikker a faithless coward. That oath only meant something if Croy could prove he, himself, was otherwise. If he accepted the bargain, he would make his insult meaningless. But he would live.
Croy could never accept such a fate. Except If he died now, he would never see Cythera again. She and her mother would remain in bondage under Hazoth’s rule, forever. If he surrendered now, there would be another chance. Someday. Another possibility of rescue.
Croy made his choice. He lifted an arm that felt like a bar of lead and placed his hand around Ghostcutter’s hilt. Inch by inch he began to draw it from its scabbard.
Chapter Eighty-Nine
The demon howled in agony, and Malden had to hang on to the door frame not to be knocked down. It was a hideous thing to look upon, but he could only imagine its pain. It-Malden could not bring himself to think of the thing as a “he”-must have experienced every instant of its new life as an eternity of suffering.
As Hazoth had said, it was not ready to be born. It had no skin on its stringy muscles and it oozed pus every time it stretched. Steam lifted from its back in great white coils, and where its feet touched the marble floor, the stone grew slick with its blood. In shape it was not unlike a horribly deformed hound, though it had seven legs-none of them the same length or shape. Sprouting from its shoulders on long thick necks were a row of human skulls with wicked fanged jaws. The eye sockets were filled with wet red membranes that throbbed and sucked at the air. Malden assumed that was how it scented, and that this was the only sense it possessed.
When it screamed, the sound issued not from the clacking jaws of the skulls but from a gaping mouth in its chest filled with round half-formed teeth.
It pawed at the floor, stumbling like a newborn foal. Every footfall made the entire house shake. Its skull heads wove through the air at the end of the clumsy necks, and its nostrils squeezed shut, then shot open again. One by one the skulls turned to point directly at Malden. How it could smell anything through the thick reek of brimstone in the air was an open question, but he had no doubt it was quite aware of him.
Malden shrank back as far as he could, yet it was as if he were transfixed, so horrified by the thing’s appearance he couldn’t move.
The demon took a tottering step forward, its multitude of claws clacking on the floor.
Time to run.
The paralysis of horror left him in a rush of blood to his legs. Malden slammed the door behind him, only to hear it splinter and crack as the demon rammed its way through. By that point he was well down the hall beyond, nearly at the door of the library. The demon squeezed into the hallway and came galloping toward him, no longer so awkward or graceless. It was fast-far faster than he was-and it would be on him in a second if he didn’t move. He flung himself at the door to the library and, thank the Bloodgod, it flew open.
Inside the library he leapt over a divan just as the demon smashed through the doorway, shattering the door frame with its odd number of shoulders. It reared up and swung two of its legs through the air, an instant away from crushing Malden beneath one foot that looked like a hoof and another like the paw of a wolf.
Malden threw his arms across his face, knowing that if the thing struck him even once, it would be his end. He rolled back and away from the beast as it came lurching forward – and then stopped in mid-attack.
Kemper, I hope you made it this far, Malden thought. He’d given the card sharp strict instructions to include the library on his itinerary as he made his way around the house, but Malden also knew that if there had been any
