Knaarl took a long time in dying. The demon collapsed in pain and lay on his side while blood pumped from his nose and mouth. Soon his lungs filled with it and he shuddered for a time before lying still and lax.
Afterwards, Warren walked numbly through the burned and broken bodies of the Darkspawn. Three mummies still stood at attention. Another, missing both legs, poised on its arms.
Warren waved at them and released them. They fell in heaps to the ground like unstrung marionettes.
Two of Knaarl’s dead eyes stared sightlessly. The wooden splinter stillpierced the third.
Wary of the heart-render demons, Warren stayed well back of the demon’scorpse.
“You have learned much,” Merihim said.
Not knowing how he was supposed to respond, Warren turned to the demon and said, “With the tasks you’ve given me, I’ve had no choice.”
“Where did you learn about those demons?”
“I learned about them from the Cabalists.” For a moment Warren thoughtMerihim was going to challenge the lie.
“He won’t,” the voice said. “He still needs you.”
Warren hoped so. Otherwise he was going to die in the next moment.
“Even now,” the voice told him, “Merihim may not be able to kill you,”
May not, Warren repeated to himself. There were no assurances.
“At least it’s not a certainty.”
Warren quietly conceded that, but his knees shook all the same.
“One of Fulaghar’s lieutenants yet remains,” Merihim said.
“Toklorq,” Warren said. A vague stirring rose within him when he mentionedthe demon’s name. When he concentrated, he felt a directional pull.
“Yes,” Merihim said. “With two of Fulaghar’s minions dead, the third shouldbe easier to locate.”
“I think I can find him.”
“You’ll be able to,” the voice said. “I’ll help you.”
Merihim kicked the dead demon in the side. A heart-render leaped through Knaarl’s unmoving flesh and sailed toward Merihim’s foot. Almost lazily, Merihimlifted his trident and brought the haft down on the small demon. He pinned it against the floor and crushed the life from it.
“Toklorq will be harder to kill in some ways,” Merihim stated. “He is anautomaton, a weapon created on forges, birthed of steel rather than flesh and blood.”
“I’ll find a way,” Warren promised.
Merihim regarded him. “You’ve proven exceptionally surprising.”
Warren nodded. He knew he would have felt pleased if he hadn’t been soafraid. Praise had been a seldom thing in his life.
“That isn’t necessarily a good thing,” the demon said.
Reluctantly, Warren bowed his head. “I’m only trying to serve. I want tolive.”
“I don’t doubt that, but you humans are a treacherous lot.”
A pale blue circle opened in mid-air above Knaarl’s dead eyes and Fulaghar’sfeatures formed within it.
“Another of your thralls grows cold in death,” Merihim taunted. “Do you wantto mourn him now? Or would you rather spend your time fearing your own coming death?”
“You’re a blight, Merihim. Even now, when we should be working togetherbecause this world is still so young in the Burn and there remains so much at risk, you think only of your own wants and desires.”
“If I had what I deserved, I could think of other things. But the injusticethat has been done to mebecause of your interferenceconsumes me.”
“You deserve only a lingering and excruciating death. I only wished that Icould give it to you now instead of when you finally grow too bold.”
“The Dark Wills and Elders won’t act against me unless I act against a demonof my own ranking. That’s why you have your pawns and I have mine.”
“You can attack me,” Fulaghar said. “I am above you and fair game for yourattempt to become a Dark Will.”
“It’s the way of the demon hierarchy,” the voice whispered in the back ofWarren’s mind. “Demons may not attack demons of the same station or thosebelowunless they are the mindless beasts like the stalkers or those of limitedintelligence like the Darkspawn and Gremlins. But they make attack those above to try and take their place. The First had decreed this so that only those demons strong enough to rule will. Of course, once a lower caste demon has made an attack and hasn’t been successful, that demon’s protection from the higherranks is null and void. They’re also allowed their pawns to carry on their rivalry without thembecause not so much is at risk.”
Survival of the fittest, Warren thought. It’s the most basic rule ofthe predator. And it kept the demons from utterly annihilating themselves.
“In time, I will attack you and I will kill you,” Merihim promised. “But notuntil you’re bereft of your protectors. If I’d attacked you while they werestill alive, you would have called them to your aid.”
“If you ever get up the nerve to attack me,” Fulaghar said, “I won’t need to.I’ll take your head myself.”
“Tell Toklorq to watch out for himself. I’ll be there for you soon.” Merihimgestured and Knaarl’s body burst into charred embers. Warren never even saw thefire that burned it. The pale blue circle containing Fulaghar’s likenessdisappeared.
Warren’s fear increased. Before he wasn’t sure if Fulaghar had known who hadkilled one of his minions, or that Merihim was responsible. Now there was no doubt.
Merihim faced him. “You’ll have to be careful now. I don’t want you to diebefore you’ve finished the task I’ve given you.”
What about after? Warren wondered.
“Don’t worry about that now,” the voice told him. “By that time you’ll beable to handle yourself.”
Warren didn’t believe that. He only hoped he found a way out of his presentsituation by that time. But now he was marked by Fulaghar.
Merihim lifted a hand and sliced into the air to open a doorway to somewhere else. “Find Toklorq.”
Warren nodded.
“Then kill him when you do. After that, I’ll tend to Fulaghar.” Merihimstepped into the hole he’d cut into the air and disappeared.
“There’s someone else at the other end of that rift,” the voice said.
Warren sensed that as well. He tried to peer into the rift but couldn’t seeanything. However, he gathered impressions of the person at the other end of the rift with the psychic abilities he was still developing.
The person at the other end of the rift was
