Brimstone Angels

“First, two people is not ‘all these boys.’ Second, you ran off without me the other night so how is it different? Third-”

But she never got to her third point.

A horrible, hollow sound interrupted her. Havilar cried out and fell back a step, clutching her midsection. Again the sound came, and Havilar started to fall, the shafts of arrows protruding from her stomach and ribs.

Farideh screamed-her sister’s name or just an animal howl? She couldn’t tell. Her senses were too full of the blackness of Havilar’s blood welling through her fingers, the whimpered pants Havilar made as Farideh caught her and slowed her fall. The uninterrupted dark beyond the campfire where the arrows had come from. The powers of the Hells beating her pulse for her, pouring their venom and flame and miasmas through her and into the etched rod she couldn’t loosen her fingers from.

A branch rustled and Farideh thrust the rod toward it. A blast of bruised light lit the forest beyond, sizzling with a sickly perfume. It lit the face of an orc for a moment before it struck him. Heavy brows. Deliberate scars on his forehead. A bow and an ugly notched axe. His eyes were hungry and fierce when he looked back at Farideh.

Him, she thought, not knowing where she knew the orc from, but knowing, certain, she had to kill him. He would kill Havi if she didn’t. He would kill Farideh if she didn’t.

She swept the rod forward and released a fiery bolt of magic toward the figure. The rod made the flame brighter, closer, hotter. It seared the orc as he approached and sent him scampering back.

Behind her, Mehen and Tam and Brin were awake and on their feet. She dimly heard Mehen’s bellowed orders, Tam’s clanking chain. The orc was charging at her through the brush. Let him, she thought, the pulse of the Hells whispering to her of vengeance, of protection.

There was hardly a need to pull-the powers were simply there, ready and waiting. She could see the lines of her veins, black and bulging, as the engines of Malbolge fed her. A storm of brimstone rained out of the air and shattered in sparks all around the orc. She saw in the flash of the spell, the priest leap backward to avoid the rain.

Mehen was shouting at her to stop, to let them pass, but she paid him no heed. It was her and the orc. She slashed the rod across her, and a wave of rotten-smelling heat roiled away and toward her prey.

The orc rolled under it, and came up much closer than Farideh expected. So close she could see the red line of poison dripping down the edge of his axe. Mehen shouted and she could hear him running toward her. Someone was praying loudly-Tam.

Farideh raised the rod, hoping to loose another fire bolt at him before the axe could fall.

Instead, a whole wall of fire exploded outward. It caught the orc as he started to swing the axe and flung him away like a rag doll into the pitch-dark night. Mehen and Tam barreled past her into the darkness of the forest.

Farideh shouted. She dropped the rod in surprise.

“M’henish,” she swore hoarsely. What in the Hells had that been? There was no answer-only the crashing of Mehen and Tam barreling through the forest and the crackle of smoldering brush where the flames had passed.

“Fari,” Havilar whimpered.

“Oh gods,” Farideh cried, and she dropped to her knees beside her sister.

The arrows had buried themselves deeply in Havilar’s gut.

Fatal, she thought, Mehen’s voice lecturing them about caring for wounds. Fatal, always fatal without healing.

Farideh reached for her belt, but the healing potion was missing. She grasped at the belt, it had to be there- then remembered, no, she’d given it to someone else’s sister to save someone else from an arrow wound.

“Mehen!” she screamed. “Mehen!” But there was nothing for Mehen to do. Tam could do something. Tam could do healing. “Tam!”

Havilar raised a hand and grasped at her own belt. Havilar had a healing potion too, Farideh remembered. She clutched alongside Havilar’s hands, trying to find it in the dark, among the pouches and buckles and blood. Their four hands closed on it, pried it loose. Farideh took it, but her fingers slipped on the cap-why couldn’t she grab it?

Brin was there, kneeling beside her. Where had he come from? Where had he been? She kept twisting at the cap, but Brin took the vial from her, and only then did Farideh notice her hands were slippery with Havilar’s blood.

Brin cracked the vial and poured half over Havilar’s wound, and half down her throat. She coughed and bits of the yellowish potion came back up, as well as a gout of her blood. Her eyes were terrified, and she clutched Farideh’s shaking hands in her own.

The wounds started to heal, the blood slowed … but it didn’t stop. No magic pushed the arrows back from Havilar’s ruined gut. The healing wasn’t working.

“Poisoned,” Brin said. “We have to get the arrows out. Do you know how to do that?”

“She’ll bleed to death,” Farideh said, the words coming out in a rush. “You don’t take the arrows out because she’ll bleed to death.”

“No,” Brin said, “I promise she won’t. Just get the arrows out.”

Farideh blinked back tears and nodded. Please be right, she thought. Please don’t let the last thing I said to Havilar be such a stupid, pothac argument. She crawled to her haversack and took out her knife, hoping it was sharp enough.

Havilar’s eyes were wild with pain and terror and shock. Brin held one hand behind her head, telling her to stay awake, to hold on.

Farideh could not look at her sister as she sliced into Havilar’s belly. Short strokes, small cuts, just enough to loosen the barb and pry out the arrow. The blood was gushing up now, over skin and yellow fat. She’d avoided the gushing vessels, but there was so much blood still and it was all over her. Still, she cut and wept, while Havilar whimpered.

She pulled the arrows out one by one and cast them as far as she could into the darkness. Brin was talking, but all she heard was a droning and the sound of her own thoughts: Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die.

Havilar was so pale, nearly gray. The last arrow came free, and Brin clapped his hands over Havilar’s belly, over the fountain of blood that welled up there, through his fingers.

“Loyal Fury,” he said, his voice shaking, “aid this servant of your justice.”

The air between hand and skin glowed with a sudden golden light. The hairs on Farideh’s nape stood on end and the light intensified. Havilar screamed again, but something strange and sharp, like the ringing of a sword being sharpened overlaid the sound. Farideh squeezed her sister’s hand hard as the light became blinding and the ring of the sword and Havilar’s scream twined into one sound … then faded.

Havilar lay still, her eyes shut.

“Havi!” Farideh cried, and she tapped her cheek. “Havi, no, Havi, wake up!”

Havilar twitched away from her sister’s hand by the second tap and flinched. She groaned and her eyes fluttered open. “Am I dead yet?”

Farideh burst into tears and threw her arms around her sister’s neck. “No, gods. No. You’re fine. You’re fine. Brin, oh gods, thank you! Thank you!”

Havilar reached up and hugged Farideh back. She was sorry. They were both sorry. Neither needed to say anything. It would be all right.

“Brin?” Havilar said, sounding dazed and weak. Farideh let her go.

“I’m here,” he said, leaning closer.

“I didn’t know you could do a priest’s magic.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

South of Neverwinter 12 Kythorn, the Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

Farideh stared at Brin’s bloodied hands, Havilar’s words bringing her back to her senses like a slap to the