"Almost certainly. Now that's no longer a risk. I can't take a chance with my sisters' lives, Baras. The compulsion is a distasteful necessity."
That convinced Baras. "Yes, my lord."
Jyme pulled Nix to his feet. Nix wobbled. Jyme's breath was hot against Nix's ear.
"Say again who's got the luck, now?"
Jyme's tone sounded far less prickish than his words. The sorcery had unnerved him, too.
Nix shook off Jyme's grip, stood on shaky legs, and adjusted his shirt. He licked his lips and said, "The spellworm in my gut doesn't stop me from sticking a blade in your belly, Jyme. You remember that when smart words knock against your crooked teeth, wanting out."
The words came out partly slurred, but he'd made his point.
Jyme frowned, swallowed, and backed off.
"Jyme, you will accompany us, of course," Rakon said. "To Afirion."
"What? Afirion? No, my lord. I just wanted to see these two get what they had coming. And even then I didn't know they'd get this or…"
He caught himself and stopped talking.
"Jyme, you will accompany us," Rakon said. "That's an order."
"My lord?"
"Whatever business you may have, it'll keep," Baras said.
"This wasn't the deal," Jyme said to Baras. "You didn't say anything about this."
"You didn't ask," Baras said with a shrug. "You wanted in. Now you're in."
"Or if that's not enough to convince you," Rakon said, "perhaps another compulsion is in order?"
Jyme held up his hands. "Not necessary, my lord. I'm happy to come to… Afirion. But I have no kit. I'd need–"
"We have everything you'll need. The supply wagon and carriage are already loaded. You're not to leave Baras's sight. If you attempt to, my men are authorized to use force. I am understood, I trust?"
Jyme swallowed his anger. He looked at Nix, back at Baras, to Rakon. "You are, my lord."
Rakon pointed at Egil and Nix. "The compulsion is a blade at your throat. Do other than I've instructed and it will kill you." He sneered at Nix. "But maybe you already knew that from your year at the Conclave?"
Egil swayed on his thick legs, his clenched fists held clumsily before his face. Even the eye of Ebenor on his head looked disconcerted. He spoke in a voice more slurred than Nix's.
"I'm going to kill you, all of you. I'm looking at dead men."
No sooner had he uttered the words than he puked all over the ground.
"Bring their weapons," Rakon said, eyeing the vomit with a pinched expression. "And the small one's bag of tricks. They'll need them when we reach the Wastes."
"The Wastes?" Nix said. "What?"
He must have misheard.
"Yes, my lord," Baras answered. "Awake or not?"
Rakon eyed Nix and Egil. "I don't care. Just don't kill them."
"Understood, my lord."
"Shite," Nix said, a moment before the painful blow of a sword pommel sent him once more into oblivion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nix awakened with a groan, flat on his back, thrown once more into the back of a cart. He blinked, staring up at the canvas-covered ribs of the wagon. The gray light of dawn trickled in through the loose flap at the back. Rain tapped lightly on the canvas, and even that soft drumbeat made Nix wince. His head hurt worse than his worst hangover, and his tongue tasted like he had taken a lascivious lick of Shoddy Way.
At least he was no longer bound. He ran a hand over his skull, felt the tender, painful lumps under his hair. He seemed to be collecting them. He massaged the pink furrows the rope had left on his wrists. He was disarmed and his satchel was gone. He tried to sit up but dizziness and a flash of nausea put him back down.
Egil lay on his side beside him, still unconscious, snoring, drool collecting in his beard. The priest had a discolored lump as large as a gull's egg on the top of his head, the tattooed Eye of Ebenor with an eyeshine.
Nix swallowed down his dry throat, found it as coarse as sand. He flashed on the spellworm, Rakon's manic gaze, the slippery, squirming thing wriggling down his throat, expanding in him, stealing his will.
He thought of the mental space within himself that he'd tried to reserve. If he'd done as he intended, he could use that mental space as a starting point from which to try to slip the compulsion.
"I am Nix Fall," he said tentatively, the words little more than a harsh mumble. But even that small bit of resistance caused him a bout of nausea as the worm squirmed. The magic had rooted deeply.
He left off, in no condition at the moment to try to slip a compulsion. Instead, he sat up on an elbow and looked around.
Supplies filled the wagon: barrels of beer and skins of water, wheels of cheese, salted meat, sacks leaking onions and potatoes, rolled tents, straw and oats for draft animals, even a few stacks of firewood bound in cord. The abundance of supplies put him in mind of Rakon's mention of the Wastes. He'd hoped he'd misheard.
"Shite," he said.
Beside him, Egil groaned.
"Egil," Nix said softly, and shook the priest by the shoulder. "Egil."
The priest opened a bloodshot eye, blinked blearily, squinted at Nix, finally cocked an eyebrow.
"Nix?"
"Yeah. You all right?"
The priest lifted himself up, groaning and wobbly, and sat cross-legged. "Muzzy, but all right. You?"
"As well as I might." He touched the lumps on his head. "A bit tired of getting knocked unconscious, though. Let's avoid that in the future, yeah?"
"Agreed," Egil said, rubbing his head, the back of his neck. "Where are we?"
"I fear to guess."
"The last thing I remember clearly is that sorcerer's spell," Egil said, grimacing at the recollection.
Nix leaned forward, earnest. "Did you do as I said? When the spellworm went down? I told you to focus on Ebenor. Tell me you did that, Egil."
Egil's brow furrowed with thought and he nodded, but not convincingly. "I… tried. I thought of Ebenor, my faith, as you said. A lot of good it did, though."
"You may be surprised," Nix said.
Egil pinched his nose between his fingers. "How do you mean? Gods, my head. Not sure if it's a hangover or the blows."
"Both, I'm sure. Get it cleared. If we're where I think we are, we're going to need our wits."
"Aye. Gods, I'm thirsty." Egil eyed the barrels hopefully, but before he could grab one, the flap at the back of the wagon parted and a pockmarked, mustached face appeared, the hiresword Jyme, now helmed. He must have heard them talking.
"They're up!" he shouted over his shoulder.
"Not so damned loud," Nix said with a wince.
Baras soon appeared, also helmed. He looked grim behind his beard. "Welcome back."
"Uh, thanks?" Nix said.
Baras nodded at a blanket-covered pile in the far corner of the wagon. "Your weapons are there. You carry a lot of blades. Your bag with all the… things in it is there, too."
"Gewgaws," Egil said.
"As you say. The priest's hammers are there also." Baras leaned into the wagon and spoke in a lower tone. "Listen, don't get stupid because you're armed, eh? Stupid will mean you ride in the wagon unconscious. The lord Adjunct doesn't need you until we reach the tomb in Afirion, but I'd rather you awake and walking on your own feet, since I'm not sure your heads, hard as they are, can take another meeting with a sword pommel."
"Yeah," Nix said, massaging the lumps on his scalp. "We were just talking about that. Walking sounds right to me."
Nix crawled to the corner of the wagon and unrolled the oilcloth to reveal his blades, sling, pouch of lead bullets, his satchel of equipment and magical items, and Egil's hammers. He handed the priest his weapons and the crowbar he'd taken to carrying.
"I don't know how you survive with just hammers," Nix said to his friend, while repositioning sharp things all about his person.
"Crowbar, too," Egil said, as he slipped his hammers into loops on his belt. To Baras, he said, "You said Afirion
, but we're not on a boat."
"I was going to mention that," Nix said.
"Mention what?" Egil said.
"We're not on a boat," Baras said, "because we're cutting through the Wastes."
"The Demon Wastes?" Egil asked.
"You know of others?"
Egil sniffed, cleared his throat, and said matter-offactly, "Then we're all going to die."
Nix just shook his head. "Traveling the Wastes is madness, Baras. Everyone knows that."
"My Lord Norristru–"
"Is mad," Nix finished. "No one gets through the Wastes."
Baras's face remained blank, the vacant look of a soldier falling back on a sense of duty to get him through. "We do and we will. My lord has his reasons for the route he's chosen."
"Then his reasons must be to get us all killed," Nix said. "Egil has the right of it."
"Give us his reasons," Egil said. "I'd hear them."
Baras shook his head. "His reasons are his own. Now, get up and get out. You walk like the rest of us."
He turned on his heel and left them, the flap closing in his wake.
The moment he disappeared, Egil scooted to the back of the wagon, stuck a hand between the flaps, and looked out. He hefted his hammers and closed his eyes in a silent prayer.
"What are you doing?" Nix asked.
"I'm getting out of the wagon," Egil said. "Isn't that what Baras said to do?"
"He did."
"I'm also causing a ruckus with these slubbers."
"You're what?"
"Meet you out there," Egil said, and bounded out the back of the wagon.
"Egil, wait," Nix said, but the priest was already gone. "He didn't say to cause a ruckus, dammit."
Outside, the priest shouted his usual challenges. A driver shouted at the horses and the wagon lurched to a stop. Horses neighed, men cursed, hurried footsteps trod on coarse ground. More shouts, curses.
Nix knew Egil wouldn't get far, but he didn't want his friend to get hurt. He put his falchion in his fist and slid out through the flap. He blinked in the drizzle and gray light of dawn.
He and Egil must have been unconscious several hours, for they were already in the Wastes, on the scree-covered plains east of Dur Follin. The jagged, broken boulders and rust-colored rockscape stretched around them, the land devoid of everything but the toughest scrub and an occasional malformed tree.
Seven of Rakon's guards, including Baras and Jyme, stood in a loose circle around Egil. The men had swords drawn, though they made no move to attack. An eighth had a cocked crossbow leveled at the priest.
Nix caught a glimpse of Dur Follin in the distance behind them, its crumbling gray walls and the monumental span of the Archbridge ghostly and faded in the dim light and rain.
Egil, hammers in hand, lunged first at one guard, then at another. The men backed off, positioned their blades defensively, but didn't engage.
"Come on, slubbers!" Egil shouted.
"I can order him to shoot," Baras said to Egil, nodding at the guard with the crossbow.
Nix filled his off hand with a throwing dagger. "He'll die before he fires. I don't miss at this range."
Eyes turned to Nix. The guards shifted on their feet. The crossbowman, a young man of perhaps twentyfive winters, licked his lips, backed off, and moved his crossbow from Nix to Egil, from Egil to Nix.
"Take your finger off that pull, boy," Nix said to the crossbowman, his dagger ready for a rapid throw. "Ere I put this dagger in your eye."
Egil lunged at one of the guards and he backpedaled so fast he slipped and fell down. Egil stomped on his wrist. He squawked with pain and released his sword.
"Could have broke it, but I didn't," Egil said to the downed man, and backed off. To Baras, he said, "We just want to walk away, yeah?"
"We can't allow that," Baras said.
"Then we've got a problem," Egil said.
Rakon's voice sounded from a nobleman's lacquered carriage, one of the two horse-drawn vehicles, along with the supply wagon, that made up the caravan. "Let them go, Baras."
Baras looked over his shoulder. "My lord?"
Rakon slid aside the window slat on the carriage and leaned out, looking back. He wore a skullcap and a scowl.
"I said let them go."
Baras's expression remained puzzled, but he said to his men, "You heard."
All of them backed away from Egil. The priest backed off a few steps in the direction of Dur Follin. He grinned.
"Let's go, Nix. Now."
Nix nodded and headed after his friend.
They wouldn't make it far, he knew, but at least he could evaluate the power of the spellworm.
As he passed Baras, Nix said, "We'll be right back, I think."
Baras's puzzled expression deepened.
By the time Nix reached Egil's side, he felt the compulsion working against him. At first he felt only mild resistance, like muscle fatigue and a pit in his stomach, but both grew stronger with each step.
As he and Egil started to back away farther, he felt as if he were yoked to the wagon. His stomach twisted into a knot. Bile crawled up his throat. He found it hard to lift his legs. His falchion and dagger felt like hundredweights in his hands.
Egil, too, had slowed, one thick leg thudding into the rocky ground, then a long pause, then another step.
"What… is… this?" the priest said.
The guards trailed after them, uncertain, weapons held loosely.
Egil began to curse, his arms fell to his sides, as if unable to bear the weight of his hammers. The priest lifted a leg, took another step, one more, then fell to his knees and violently vomited.
"What sorcery is this?" Egil said, down on all fours, spitting the last of his vomit onto the ground.
"The spellworm," Nix said, and fell to all fours. "We have to stop."
"My very teeth ache," Egil said.
"A few more steps and they might have cracked," Nix said. "Or your heart might have exploded. It's a strong worm."
The guards circled them at a distance. Nix felt like a fool down on all fours before them, bent by Rakon's sorcery.
"You two make everything difficult," Baras said.
"It's… a character flaw," Nix said, and hissed at a sudden flash of pain.
"My lord," Baras called back to the carriage. "What should we do with them?"
Nix lifted his head, looked back, and saw the carriage door open. An enormous man in a sweat-stained shirt and pantaloons emerged first, the carriage bouncing on its suspension as he debarked. He stood a hand shorter than Egil, but much wider at the shoulder and middle. His misshapen bald head wouldn't have fit in a well-bucket. Small unblinking eyes floated in shallow sockets, giving him a wide-eyed, wild look. His gaze flitted over Egil and Nix, the guards, and seemed to deflect off without seeing them. His mouth hung partially open, frozen in a vacant smile. His appearance struck Nix as… bulging, overstuffed, as if there were too much of him packed into the bag of his skin.
Probably a eunuch. Definitely a servant of Rakon's.
A large, curved knife hung from the broad sash that circumnavigated the eunuch's waist. He lifted the thick trunk of an arm to assist Rakon out of the carriage.
Rakon stepped onto the scree and eyed Egil and Nix's suffering with a smug smile on his thin lips.
Nix would've given much to punch him hard in the balls. The thought, however, caused the spellworm to twist his stomach yet again and he groaned, holding down the vomit through sheer force of will. He hated vomiting.
"I trust this will prevent any further attempts at escape," Rakon said. "Had you gotten much farther, the spellworm would have maimed or killed you. Did you learn nothing in your year at the Conclave?"
"Fak you," Nix tried to say, but instead the vomit finally won the war with his will and rushed out between his teeth in a flood. Nix coughed, eyes watering, and spit puke onto the rocks, cursing through the chunks.
"Did I not say they would try to run, Baras?" Rakon asked the guardsman.
"At first opportunity, I said."
"You did, my lord," Baras answered.
To Egil and Nix, Rakon said, "You must do exactly what I say, when I say, or you'll suffer. The worm feeds on your resistance, whether in thought or deeds. Do you understand?"
"Fak you," Egil grunted.
"Seconded," said Nix, and felt the worm squirm.