Brimstone Angels (18 page)

And Brin was his apprentice. What were the chances he was only learning the chain? Or the casting of rituals? Or … whatever else Selûnites did? Charting the moon?

Farideh almost wished that Lorcan were there. That she could ask him what to do. As much as he made her stomach twist, he did tend to be right. If she could piece off the parts of his advice that didn’t aid her and keep the parts that did …

If she could do that, she wouldn’t need to find another warlock.

She thought of the way Lorcan had grabbed her arm when Sairché appeared—as if he wasn’t going to let go of her, as if he expected someone was going to physically take her away. And he didn’t want that. He wanted to keep her close. Close as that night in the winter, his fingertips tracing her brand …

The thought sent a little thrill through her, and she shook her head as if she could fling it from her mind. Havilar was right: they needed to meet more people.

With a little distance, Farideh was certain that everything Lorcan had said and done was for Sairché’s sake. Because Sairché was clearly not supposed to know Farideh was Lorcan’s warlock.

Just as Farideh was not supposed to know that Sairché might care whether or not she was. All that teasing was just Lorcan leading
Farideh astray. Trying to keep her from worrying. But why would he worry about Sairché knowing she was his warlock? Why would it be better for her to think she was his lover?

The sun hung down to the treetops before they reached the edge of Neverwinter Wood. There the trees were thicker—evergreens and birches interspersed with broad-crowned oaks. They were close to the city, but not close enough. They’d have to camp one more night and arrive in the morning.

“We’re short on food,” Mehen said, shaking out his haversack. “We’ve waybread enough to get us to the city. But I think you’d all do better with something more substantial. Go bring down some rabbits.”

“
Karshoj
to rabbits,” Havilar said ripely, once they’d gone a ways into the thick woods. She kneeled beside a break in the brush and pointed at a small pile of droppings. “Let’s get a deer.”

“A deer?” Brin said. “There are only five of us.”

Havilar looked back over her shoulder and grinned. “You haven’t seen Mehen eat yet.”

Brin stopped walking to stare at Havilar, and Farideh had to laugh. “No, stop, Havi. Mehen doesn’t eat much at all. He says he uses his food better than us. We don’t
need
a deer.”

Havi smiled at her. “But it sure would be fun to take one down.”

“All right,” Farideh said. “But only once. If we miss we go back to pheasants and rabbits. We don’t have time to track a herd through the whole damned forest.”

“
I
only need one try,” Havilar said.

The deer left spoor enough to follow through the evergreens and spry birch saplings. They wound through the trees and around thickets of brambles, until the flora cleared. In a glade nearly a hundred feet across, a herd of half-a-dozen deer grazed on the thick patches of grass, their graceful heads lifting now and again to listen for danger.

Havilar gestured:
Go around. Flush them out
. Farideh nodded once and tugged on Brin’s sleeve, gesturing down the side track. She pressed a finger to her lips, and they started down the trail.

Farideh kept an eye on the deer through the brush and branches. They kept grazing, unaware of the hunters’ approach. They crept around them nearly a quarter mile.

The snap of a branch made Farideh freeze and the deer lift their heads in alarm. Behind her, she heard Brin come to a stop. The deer stared, one-eyed, in their direction.

Damn, Farideh thought. The deer did not return to grazing. Another sound—any sound—and they would flee.

Which was fine, provided they fled in the right direction.

“Brin?” she said, soft as she could. “When I reappear, run at them and keep them headed toward Havi.”

Without waiting for his reply, Farideh pulled Lorcan’s powers into her and she slipped through the folds of the world, bursting free along the herd’s left side. The deer scattered—but because she’d come along the herd’s left flank, at least one veered toward Havilar crouched in the brush. Brin ran at them, keeping the deer from breaking toward the rear. Two harts zigzagged toward Havilar’s hiding place.

“Havi!” Farideh shouted.

She heard the crash of Havilar’s glaive …

And then Havilar cursing, and the continuing crash of the tiefling and the hart tearing into the woods.

“Maybe she wounded it?” Brin said, catching up to Farideh.

“Maybe we’re eating waybread for supper,” she replied. “Come on.” They started across the meadow, when a strange growling howl confronted them from the far side. Both froze and Brin’s hand went to his sword.

Lumbering out of the woods from the direction they were heading, a beast, heavy with muscle and bristling with brassy feathers, had spotted them. It swung its head, glaring at them with one bright yellow eye, then another, and clacking its beak. It drew back onto its hind legs and screeched again.

“Oh,
karshoj,
” Farideh swore. The owlbear screamed again and her knees buckled, but Brin grabbed her arm and started pulling her away across the glade, away from that spine-chilling scream. The owlbear galloped after them. At the edge of the woods, Farideh turned.

“
Adaestuo.
” The blast screamed across the field and struck the owlbear. It shrieked again but did not slow.

They darted through the birches that grew close together. The owlbear waded in after them, shoving the trees aside. As they rounded a small grove, Farideh turned again and pointed at a sapling.

“
Assulam!
” The tree shattered into chips and pieces. The owlbear kept coming, barreling over the snags of tree and into the cloud of splinters. It pulled up short and screeched, pawing at its eyes and snapping its beak.

Farideh and Brin ran, dodging through the trees, Farideh turning back again and again to cast blasts of energy. The owlbear howled and crashed after them, shouldering aside the saplings that blocked it. If she could set one on fire—

Brin threw up his arm and caught her. Farideh whipped her head around and saw, ahead of them, the ground dropped away into a steep ravine. The floor was a good forty feet below them, the opposite side a crumbling ledge at least as far away. If she’d kept on, she’d be lucky to have broken her legs.

The owlbear broke free of the tangle of birch saplings.

Brin started to pull his sword, but Farideh grabbed his arm. The Hells seeped into her blood with whispering promises and boiling shadows. The layers between the worlds split neatly as flesh beneath a scalpel, and she pulled Brin through. Where they went in those moments, Farideh didn’t know, didn’t want to know. She kept her eyes shut and focused on landing at the bottom of the ravine.

A gust of biting, hot smoke and they tumbled out of the passage, falling the last ten feet to the ravine floor. The wind went out of Farideh, and she lay on her back trying to catch her breath.

Brin rolled onto his feet and pulled his sword out, glancing around for a moment as if he couldn’t tell how he got where he was.

“It’s … all right,” Farideh panted. She pointed up the cliff. The owlbear was still up there pacing back and forth, stirring up the deadfall, whuffling and hooting.

Brin stared at the cliff a moment, as if waiting for the owlbear to tumble after them and resume the chase. When it continued its frantic pacing and did not, he turned and helped Farideh to her feet.

“That spell comes in useful,” he said, catching his breath. “Only I wish it didn’t smell so bitter. That and I wish I knew how you managed it.”

Farideh looked up the cliff. “I don’t think we should climb back up there.”

“There should be a way past it,” Brin said. “They’re territorial, owlbears—we must have crossed into its range. If we walk a little ways
along the ravine, it will be safer to climb up.” He shook his head and started walking. “Nothing makes you realize the world is a mad place like owlbears. You think they’re so silly-looking, and then they’re eating your face in strips.”

Farideh followed after him. “How do you know all of these things? Owlbears and types of magic and such?”

“Well-rounded education,” Brin said.

“I didn’t know Selûnites studied such things.”

“Who? Oh … right.” He looked at her sidelong. “Listen, please don’t tell Mehen, but … I’m not really Tam’s apprentice. I mean, I agreed to be until we get to Neverwinter, but not for any reason other than I needed blades to travel with. I’m not a Selûnite any more than I’m still Tormish.”

Farideh felt a weight come off her shoulders. “Good! Oh, good.” He gave her another look and she blushed. “I don’t know how to talk to priests.”

“Same as anyone else,” he said with a chuckle. “ ‘Fine afternoon. Do you come to this ravine often?’ ”

She smiled. “ ‘What is your opinion on owlbears?’ ”

Brin chuckled. “Precisely.”

Farideh glanced up at the ravine’s edge again. “Do you think it will go after Havilar?”

“Not if it knows what’s good for it.”

They continued along the ravine for a good quarter hour or more, before the calls of the owlbear faded into the distance, and then they walked farther to make certain it was behind them, before they came upon a scraggly tree clinging to the side of the ravine. Brin, then Farideh, clambered up the tree, then used the rocky outcrops of the ravine wall to pull themselves to the top.

Farideh took a moment to dust her robes off and rub her aching palms where the sharp rocks had scraped the skin. She glanced up at the sun: they’d lost Havilar almost an hour ago. Hopefully, she had the presence of mind to go back to Mehen and Tam instead of coming after Farideh and Brin. Havilar could make an owlbear plenty angry, but Farideh wouldn’t place odds on who would prevail between the two.

“That’s odd,” Brin said. “What do you suppose it is?”

Farideh looked where he was pointing. A tall, silvery-barked oak tree stood in a sparse patch of the forest, away from the firs and birches. The trunk of the tree had been burned with three triangles, their points nearly touching. The outline of a larger triangle surrounded them, as did a nine-sided shape.

“It’s branded on,” she said. Her head was getting muzzy. “Do you think it’s a message? A sort of warning?”

“No,” Brin said. “I mean, they aren’t runes of any sort. Not any sort I know.” He tilted his head. “Why would someone burn it into a tree? Way out here too.”

Farideh didn’t know. But something about it
tugged
at her. The way her brand tugged. As if the tree had sent out an invisible vine and wrapped it around her sternum, pulling her nearer. She wanted to touch it, to run her fingers over the charred bark. It would feel alive, she thought.

She also wanted to run, fast and far.

No matter where you run, her thoughts whispered, it will be here. It will remember you.

“Farideh?” Brin’s voice sounded thin and distant. “Farideh?”

Why would it remember? she thought. It’s only a picture burned on a tree.

“Farideh!”

She reached out a hand toward it, noting—not surprised, merely noting—that the symbol had somehow grown.

No.
She
was closer. She’d walked toward the tree. The brand lay mere inches beneath her palm and—

The portal cracked as it opened. Brin cried out as strong hands seized Farideh from behind, wrenched her away from the tree, and broke the spell. Lorcan spun her around, lifting her off her feet. He all but threw her down and she tumbled to the ground, Lorcan standing between her and the strange tree.

“What in the Hells are you doing?” he roared. Embers swirled and popped around him.

Farideh opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. It was as if her mind were spinning—the thoughts wouldn’t come together. Her scar screamed with pain, and she stood unevenly.

“You little fool!” Lorcan snarled. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her backward. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

Brin’s sword scraped against his scabbard.

Farideh found her voice. “Brin, don’t!” Brin bellowed as he threw himself at Lorcan. The cambion turned on Brin.

A gust of fire cast Brin backward into the deadfall, scorching his clothes. He threw up his hands to ward off the devil’s attack. Flames built in Lorcan’s hands to cast again.

“Stop it!” Farideh stepped between them, the burning smoke burgeoning in her own palms. Lorcan’s eyes widened, and for a moment, he looked surprised. Then rage came down over his features again.

“Get out of the way.”

“And then what? Let you burn him alive and leave me to take the blame?”

“Get out of the way or I’ll burn you both!”

“No you won’t!” Farideh snapped. Her arms were shaking, her whole frame was shaking, but of that much she was certain; he wouldn’t dare.

Lorcan bared his teeth in a cruel smile. “I can hurt you without killing you, my darling. I’ll kill him and bring you—”

“No,” she said, “you won’t.” She took a step toward him. “You kill him? I’ll break the pact.”

Lorcan went very still. “And how do you plan on doing that?”

She wet her lips. She thought of naming Tam—surely the priest could do it if she asked. But Lorcan might only swoop in and kill Tam then. Her heart rattled. He could. He probably would. He wasn’t afraid of the priest—

“Sairché,” she blurted.

Lorcan started. “Don’t.”

“I’ll find her.” Farideh felt her cheeks burning, but she dared not back down now. “I’ll find a way. I think your sister might be willing to help me. That’s why you lied, isn’t it? So she wouldn’t know I was your warlock?” The words spilled out, much as she meant to stop them. “It was nothing about … about …”

“Hush,” Lorcan said.

Farideh stepped back, watching for his inevitable temper. It didn’t come. Something she’d said had eased his rage. Lorcan stood, glaring at Brin for a long moment.

“Get up,” he spat. He tried to take Farideh by the hand, but she pulled away. What had taken him down so quickly? she wondered. She had been ready for a fight, and Lorcan’s sudden calm frightened her more.