Brimstone Angels

Lorcan made his way up the dark road and through the brush a ways before he found what he was searching for. The last breathing orc from the caravan attack lay spread-eagled on the ground, his midsection thick with blood and charred from the spell Farideh had cast. Lorcan rolled his eyes; a very good thing she hadn’t realized the damage she’d done. She’d probably have tried to nurse him back to health.

“End it,” the orc half-cursed, half-prayed at the darkening sky. The stars stared back, uncaring, watching the paralyzed orc weep blood from a hundred wicked burns. “Gruumsh, what have I not devoted to you?” he muttered. “Take my bloody soul.”

“Those sound like the words of a man ready to die,” Lorcan said. He called a ball of light into being, cupped in his palms. The orc startled-or would have if he could have moved, Lorcan suspected. As it was, only his face twitched.

“Arghash.” The orc sneered. “Leave me be.”

“I think,” Lorcan said, ignoring the epithet, “that you don’t want to die. I think if you did you would have gotten on with it a long time ago. I think you want to live.”

“Not for your price, devil,” the orc wheezed.

“You haven’t heard me out,” Lorcan said, squatting down beside him. “You ought to. I’m terribly reasonable and more than a little astute. There’s only one thing you want badly enough to treat with me: vengeance.”

The orc paused at that. “The bitch who burned me and left me here?”

“In a way. You can’t have her, but I want the boy and the dragonborn she travels with dead. Kill them, spare the warlock, and you’ll live out your days however you please.”

The orc’s face contorted in pain and he coughed, dark blood spattering his lips. “Not worth it,” he managed.

“Do you really think Gruumsh will take up your soul after a little tiefling girl laid you low?” Lorcan asked. “My offer’s far better than the one he’s making you.”

“I want the witch.”

Lorcan scowled. “I’m not bargaining,” he said. “Take what I’m offering, or go to your god and see what he says.”

The orc hesitated. “Why not her?”

“Because she and I have an understanding,” Lorcan said. “Trust me that she’ll agonize over that brat’s death though. The dragonborn’s far more so. And you’ll be alive. Better, don’t you think, than being hunted in the afterlife by Gruumsh One-Eye, and those who have not disappointed him?”

He could see the orc considering that. For all Lorcan knew, the vicious god of the orcs would think falling to a warlock in an ill-conceived supply raid was the most honorable death imaginable. But what was true didn’t matter. Only what the orc feared might be true mattered.

And, Lorcan thought, watching the orc’s breathing grow more labored still, this much is true: whether this orc is in for such a hunt or not, that death would be the worse fate. He hadn’t lied.

The orc’s silence drew on, and Lorcan’s temper started to fray. Perhaps he needed to make the orc’s situation worse-

The orc wet his lips. “I’ll take your deal, devil.”

“Lovely,” Lorcan said, his anxiety abating. Now it was business. Nothing else. He stood and produced a piece of parchment, a glass flask of a green and vile fluid, and a small bag. “Then we are entered into what we call the Pact Certain. Your soul is mine upon death, regardless of its disposition, and you get to live for the moment. Agreed?”

The orc’s eyes were starting to glaze. “Yesss …” The letters on the parchment flashed then faded, as the agreement was made.

“Good. Well met …” Lorcan skimmed the page. “… Goruc.” He rolled up the parchment, and flicked the cork out of the flask.

Lorcan poured half the fluid over Goruc’s wounds, then roughly tilted the orc’s head back and poured the remainder down his throat. The orc coughed and thrashed-Hells-brewed potions tasted like coals going down, Lorcan knew. He watched unconcerned as the orc’s face flushed again, as he stopped fighting, as he sat up, looking down at his bloody, burned, and tattered hide.

“That’s it?” Goruc asked. “A healing draft?”

“What did you expect?” Lorcan asked, standing. “A swim through the River Styx? You’ll find I’m a practical patron, Goruc. And-as I said-reasonable, as long as my terms are met.” He held out the parchment. “The details of our agreement. Your assent suffices and is binding, there is no need to sign. You want to read it, just ask.” He pinched a charm on his wrist between forefinger and thumb, and sent the contract to a safe place. Whether Goruc wanted to read the contract or not, it was all but impossible. The Supernal letters would look like nothing more than corby tracks to the orc.

“And this,” Lorcan said, holding out the small velvet sack, “is to help you complete our agreement.”

Goruc teased the package open. Inside lay a vial of dark red liquid and a wad of herbs tied with a dried piece of sinew.

“Take the liquid,” Lorcan said, “coat your blades in it and your enemies will suffer and die. The leaves are wyssin. When you find their trail, light the end and inhale the smoke. It will make you spot things quicker and give strength to your limbs like you’ve never had. Don’t waste it. Take a little when you’re ready to leave and a little before you go for the kill. That’s all you need.”

Goruc gave him a far cannier look than Lorcan ever expected. “Why do you want the boy dead?”

Lorcan narrowed his eyes. “Personal reasons.”

“Personal like he’s claiming your girl?”

“Personal like he’s getting under my skin and promising to make trouble. Not that it matters to you,” Lorcan said. “Just kill him and the dragonborn, and I’ll ask nothing else for the rest of your days.”

Goruc sniffed, but kept his mouth shut.

Lorcan eyed him, wishing he could hear the orc’s thoughts. It was Lorcan’s bad luck the only available orc was one Farideh had injured. But surely even an orc was not so stupid as to break a promise to a devil. Even if he were, chances were excellent that the orc would kill the boy and then find himself halfway up Mehen’s oversized sword. And Lorcan still could make certain Farideh was protected.

Nevertheless, the orc had a sly look about him.

“Remember, Goruc,” he said, reopening the portal. “Kill who you like, but you don’t touch her.”

“Aye,” he heard Goruc say as Lorcan passed into Malbolge. “Don’t touch the witch.”

The hallways of the palace of Osseia throbbed ever so gently as Lorcan walked along them, leaving a trail of bloody footprints where he stepped. Fleshy pink walls trembled with the tortured ghosts of the previous ruler’s thoughts. He brushed too close and a bloody mucus smeared across his sleeve. He grimaced and wiped it on a bit of bone that jutted out of a corner.

The barely living halls did nothing to deaden the piercing screams echoing through the skull palace as Lorcan made his way through his mother’s apartments. He pressed a finger to his ear-they were particularly loud today. Someone must have displeased Glasya, the lord of the Sixth Layer herself, to warrant such a torture session.

“May I never be so stupid,” he muttered.

Lorcan approached the drawing room where his mother had retreated earlier that morning, waiting for a guest, and slowed his pace. He heard Invadiah’s sharp voice as he approached and heard someone else’s muffled answer.

Like most of the items in her treasury, Invadiah found the Needle of the Crossroads-a singular artifact that opened a temporary portal that could be tied to anywhere in Toril-better suited to lording over her rivals than its intended purpose. Lorcan didn’t know if Invadiah had any idea he used it, but with Invadiah there was always a difference between what you did, and what she caught you doing while she was in a bad mood.

Fourteen of his dozens of half-sisters-all erinyes from before the Ascension-had died for that seemingly minor distinction.

Between the irritated tone of his mother’s voice and the fact that two of his half-sisters were certainly