“Kasmodeus, I presume? Did you think that would frighten me? Because the next thing I’m going to do is rip your entire head off and—”
**YOU KNOW ME?**
“Oh, I know the name. We haven’t met, but you know what gossips demons are.”
His tongue licked his cheekbones. **I WILL FEAST ON YOUR SOUL.**
“Aren’t you the flatterer.” The count laughed and raised her shield. “You’re going to have to use more than honeyed words if you want to impress me.”
He screamed and leapt at her. They rolled together. A terrible growling sound filled the air.
The crowd panicked. Half the audience didn’t know if they should run or nudge closer for a better look. No one was doing anything helpful.
Brother Qown began going over any possible action he might be able to take to help the count.
She’d given him the demon’s name. Brother Qown struggled to remember the names and qualities Father Zajhera had demanded he memorize.
Kasmodeus. A mid-level demon, associated with brutality and the desperation of those so starved by winter they turned to cannibalism. He preferred using a male form and liked sacrifices given to him as burnt offerings. His weaknesses included the first year’s snow melt and clean water blessed by holy men.
Clean water …
Nothing in the stands would be water. Plum wine or green tea or pepperleaf beer, but not pure water. Brother Qown reached inside the railing and grabbed Dorna’s stolen flagon and then sprinted for the horse troughs near the nobles’ box.
Behind him, Brother Qown heard screams. People ran, trying to escape the demon’s growling laughter. Qown dumped the cider as he ran.
Baron Tamin gestured to guards who seemed to have gone quite deaf. The old warden leaned forward and blinked in dumb shock, attention drawn to the tournament. The warden’s nurse, whom Janel had described as Yoran-like in coloring, leaned against the box’s rails. Her hands rested on the carved wood, all her attention focused on Dedreugh and Count Janel. As Brother Qown saw her, he knew why Count Janel had mistaken her race.
Not only wasn’t she from Jorat, but she wasn’t even Quuros. She was Doltari, a race from far south of the empire’s borders, usually only seen in Quur as slaves.
A shocked roar from the crowd made him stumble, and he turned back to the fight to see Janel’s family sword spinning in a lazy end-over-end arc through the air. The sword embedded itself a scant few feet away from the covered cages by the execution stakes.
The count was unarmed.
Dedreugh/Kasmodeus grinned and swung back to finish the job. Arasgon started to move forward, but Janel shouted for him to stay back.
She ducked Dedreugh’s swing and began running for the stakes.
Brother Qown forced himself to focus on the task at hand. In any other imperial dominion, he wouldn’t trust the water in a horse trough, but the Joratese elevated horse care to religion. The horses were given cleaner water than the people.
He pulled a copper sun medallion from under his robes and began praying over the trough water. As he did, Qown saw the Doltari slave withdraw a smooth stone slab from under her bodice, where it must have nestled against her bosom. Then she removed a small blue-gray glass bottle from her basket and a hair stick from her white hair.
No, Brother Qown thought, not a hair stick. A calligraphy brush with a barrel sharpened to a point.
Another roar. Brother Qown tried to ignore it, but keeping his focus proved difficult when he felt the blast of heat.
He blinked. Heat?
He finished his blessing and looked over. Count Janel had ripped a post from the ground, using the thing like a mallet. The demon was …
Kasmodeus was on fire.
Demons were great fans of fire. They set fires whenever possible, basking in the glow, absorbing the heat. They fed on fire.
Setting fire around a demon who had been summoned by a wizard was a terrible idea, but this was something else: a demon possessing a corpse. Kasmodeus needed Dedreugh’s corpse. He needed that link to the physical world. Destroying his body might well sever the demon’s ties to the physical world and send him back to Hell.
But what had set him on fire?
A mystery for later. Qown scooped his flagon full of the now blessed water and started to run.
“There you are.”5
Brother Qown turned. The Doltari nurse pulled her attention away from the fight for long enough to jab the sharpened point of her calligraphy brush into the back of her hand. Then she flipped the brush over to load the bristles with her own blood.
She drew a single glyph on her forehead. That same glyph immediately appeared on the foreheads of every guard.
A terrible foreboding came over Brother Qown.
He possessed a different definition of witchcraft from the Joratese, but he knew a spell being cast when he saw one.
“What are you doing?” Brother Qown yelled. “Stop her! Stop her. Baron! You must stop her!”
The white-skinned woman looked at him and smiled.
All of winter couldn’t have been as cold.
She tipped the glass bottle over. It tumbled off the railing’s edge and shattered against the ground, a tiny tinkling overlooked in the tumult raging in the tournament grounds.
Thick blue smoke poured from the shattered bottle. The smoke curled around the Doltari woman’s face without touching it. The old warden, however, was less fortunate. The smoke poured up his nostrils and pushed into his mouth. He began screaming, choking. The warden dislodged the dhole puppy, who whimpered and snapped at the curling smoke.
The Doltari woman picked up the puppy, drew the same mark on its forehead too, and turned to leave.6
“Senera, what have you done?” Tamin demanded.
“My job,” she snapped. “Follow me, boys. We’re finished here.”
The soldiers, who in theory worked for the baron, obeyed her command.
The baron started to protest, but the smoke hadn’t stopped its spread. It snaked tendrils up his nose, down into his mouth. The smoke billowed out.
Another roar sounded behind Brother Qown. The priest turned to see Janel standing. Dedreugh’s body lay on the ground, burning to ash. The count had raised an arm to hold Dedreugh’s head by his hair, black blood dripping down from the neck and spine. It looked for all the world as if she’d ripped the corpse’s dead head from its body.
Probably, she had.
The flesh burned fast, even without fuel. Brother Qown had no doubt nothing would be left behind for Kasmodeus to animate.
But they’d run out of time.
The blue smoke flowed over Brother Qown as well.
10: THE CHOKING OF MEREINA
Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Two days since the Breaking of Gaeshe
Brother Qown closed his journal and set it aside.
Kihrin waited a moment.
Brother Qown picked up his teacup and took a long, luxurious sip.
“So what happened?” Kihrin said. He pointed at the priest. “What happened with the smoke?”
Brother Qown cleared his throat. “I just, uh … perhaps if you might give me a moment. I find this next section emotionally draining.”
“Would you like me to continue?” Janel asked.
Brother Qown breathed in obvious relief. “Would you?”
“Of course.”
Janel’s Turn. Mereina, Barsine Banner, Jorat, Quur.