Vicious Magick (22 page)

The four of them walk along the solid sodden
path leading through the Mucklands. A few feet on either side of
the path, the thick grass fades into a swampy, marshy, bubbling
bog. Unseen, crouching in the shade of the trees, thunderfrogs make
their mammoth presence known through a series of bass-laden
croaks.

“Do you think,” Madra asks, “this place might
be dangerous?”

“Oh, most definitely,” Varello answers, “it
ranks right up there with the Deathstretch on the
Kleighton
Gadabout
’s list of ‘Places People Would Rather Die Than Risk
Visiting’. I think it came in at Number 3. The Deathstretch was
Number 2.”

“Oh? What was Number 1?”

“The Deus Palatium.”

“Lovely.”

“You can always turn back, you know,” Zanther
says.

“Turn back? After these bastards confiscated
my kingdom? No, I’ll have my revenge.”

“Speaking of revenge,” Varello says, “aren’t
we a little under-armed for whatever it is we’re planning?
Shouldn’t we go in there with powderblasts a-blazing and some
giant, gleaming longknives?”

“Oh yes,” Novanostrum says, “that’s why we’re
stopping in the Darrinian Capitol. They’ve got the best weapons on
the continent.”

Paterlinguists

Paterlinguists have made much of the spelling
of the phrase ‘The Darrinian Capitol’. While they are pretty much
agreed on the spelling of the first two words, it’s the third, that
word ‘capitol’ that causes barfights and minor civil wars. While it
meets the definition of ‘capital’ in the sense that it’s the city
that serves as the seat of the Darrinian government, it also
contains the buildings where said governmental functions are
carried out. Since the buildings comprise the bulk of the city, the
local consensus, one which frustrated Paterlinguists burble
endlessly about over tall bottles of Jubjub Ale, is to call it ‘The
Darrinian Capitol’.

Not coincidentally, being a Paterlinguist in
Darrinia is punishable by expalement.

As they make their way down the
thickly-vegetated path, their eyes and lungs are assaulted by
thick, black smoke. They can hear screaming.

“Seems like someone’s house is on fire,” Zanther says.

“Who’d wanna live out here?” Madra asks.

“You guys just sit tight here while I go save
the day,” Novanostrum says before walking off the path towards the
burning structure.

Madra makes a sour face. “Should we follow
him?”

“Nah,” Zanther says, “he’s a big boy. He can
handle himself.”

As Novanostrum approaches the house, a large
wooden maze of verandas and porches built on stilts anchored in the
swamp, he looks over his shoulder for the others, but they don’t
seem to be coming.

“Need to have a little talk with those guys
about
sarcasm
,” he says to himself, walking down a plankway
connecting to a short set of stairs.

With the screaming continuing unabated and
smoke and flames billowing from the windows, he blasts open the
front door with a gust of wind and enters the fray. Inside, the
flames illuminate a trail of blood leading into a bedroom. He
follows it to find a woman bound to a bed, beat and bloodied and
hysterical.

“Get out!” she screams, “They’re still
here!”

“Who?” he manages to spit out before being
tackled by a sinewy stack of red muscle. The daemon has his foot on
Novanostrum’s throat, eyeing his prey carefully.

“But I need…proof…” he says, thinking it
over, “a head should do, I’d think.”

Novanostrum lifts his staff a tiny bit,
managing to shoot a plume of flame out the window which explodes
vibrantly in green and yellow. The daemon is startled by this, and
other daemons converge upon the room.

“Hey, Scanthyll, this is my shot to get out.
Not gonna let a hoofhead like you ruin it for me. The human is
mine
to kill,” one of them says to the daemon standing on
Novanostrum.

“Bonk off, both of you, his head is MINE!”
says another one.

As the three of them duke it out, Novanostrum
tries to crawl to the bed where the woman is bound.