Warning: Chapter contains violent sexual content. No carrion crawlers or common barnyard animals were harmed during the writing process. May belong on the Baldur's Gate version of Weeping Cock. Skipping to the phrase "sakphul slave" goes past the scene in question (no, really).
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"I'm one of the good ones," Viconia said, tugging at her neckline and on strategically placed tears in her dress. "I fled the Underdark for...for nourishing a human infant as if it were my own; feeding the poor thing my own milk..." She illustrated the task. Elven women all had small dugs but Montaron doubted she'd ever nursed.
"Poor child," the mayor said avuncularly.
"I...I wished to aid your village before revealing myself, that I might be trusted, for I know the ill reputation of my people," Viconia went on with her filcher's flim-flam. "Please forgive my slight deception! I have wanted only to do good and help kind people such as yourselves!"
"There, there, dear. You'll be quite safe in our town," the mayor's wife—a generous old lumpy thing with the figure of too much sausage in bright red wrapping, grey curls under a plain scarf on her head. Not even bright enough for jealousy. Montaron fingered the end of his wet blade.
"Imnesvale is poor in coin—" the mayor said. Montaron glared at him, and moved a step closer. "But we have other items to offer you, as we promised. A jewel, one of value from an adventurer daughter of the town; a suit of armour that I believe would fit you, madam. Its enchantment is worth a high cost. Would you care to come and try it on?"
"And," the mayor's wife said, patting Viconia's shoulder with a meaty hand, "I'll see if we can find any clothes of mine that can be altered to fit you. Poor dear, you must be frozen half to death. Perhaps something in a soft pink, with a ruffle or two..."
Viconia barely managed to suppress the look of horror on her face. "Oh, thank you, kind sir and madam," she said, refusing to spit the words, "you are most generous despite my dark skin. Your warm welcome makes me almost—sob—"
"Come on, mage, leave the lady her privacy," Montaron said, pocketing the jewel carefully away. He'd already slit open the bottom of the mayor's coin purse and grabbed enough gold to pay for dinner.
"The Cowled Wizard," Xzar said. "Monty, I've run out of spleens and I could do a lot with some livers. Do you think when we deliver him the head, I should ask for his daughter's hand? In a literal sense?"
—
He'd chatted to the Cowlie and picked up the reward for Corthala himself; got the mad mage out of poking and prodding Jermien's laboratory and making suggestions on the iron golem he was trying to build. (Mages were fools. A bit of grease on the floor and a knock to the leg and that thing'd be down and helpless as an overturned tortoise.) Then settled the mad mage with a history-book to read and a glass of milk; and got to a room of his own. They'd taken a couple days to walk back. Travellers must've noticed that the shadows were clearer and moved on, or taken the long way down south for heading up to Trademeet. Now there was another town that might be ripe for the pickings, merchants' place with plenty of travellers to hide between.
And he'd hired the barwench for one of Xzar's platinums; too much for a whore, but he'd get his coin's worth one way or another. Girl was a young fool of a human, not the cringing babbler the first time they'd come but a bolder one, with a balcony on her chest sized enough to hold a bardic circus or two; he liked 'em womanly, something to hold onto. Times like these, ye had a few desperate for coin, and then there were the sort who'd take advantage of that.
A sway of her hips below her thin skirt, and she closed the door behind her. "Get on with it," he said.
She was kneeling on the floor below the bed with her curly hair falling over her face, warm and wet and half-decent at using her mouth. He'd had better but a man didn't complain at a pair of choke-pearing lips. The globes of her arse wriggled below her back and he thought of the next moves.
The door opened on him; and Viconia DeVir went to ruin his night. The wench lifted her head from where it was, and screamed out that it was a drow; then made a mad dash below Viconia's raised arm. The drow sidled in, leaning back against the wall. In courtesy to her he didn't trouble to tie his breeches again.
"Do you like my new armour?" she said, all throat, spreading her body. All in overlapping black that clung to her chest like another skin, kirtle that ran past her knees, well-oiled and gleaming by some enchantment. Her holy symbol nestled openly in its front as if the bodice had been sewn on purpose for it. "Minister Lloyd...helped me to fit it."
"Kind of him, I'm sure," Montaron said, still hard as a poker. "Care to finish what ye drove away?"
She unfolded herself from the wall and leaned over him. "I was bored," she said, "and curious on how adaptive your endurance." She sat down, stretching herself on the bed. "Once I had a halfling slave who lasted an hour in my bed. Perhaps I used too much of the whip and did not trouble to heal him. He died for boring me." Her thighs flashed bare under the armour, and she pulled the bodice aside, drawing the eye to her breasts. She stopped just before the nipple, teasing and tormenting.
"Make up for what ye lost me," Montaron said, "on the floor."
"You'll give obeisance next, I promise," she said, moving as if she'd an itch to scratch in her nunnery. "Never forget my commands."
"What was it, coin toss between me and the mad wizard?" he said. "Ye came to the right one."
"You're correct that I—deprived you of a service," Viconia said; and then she did exactly as asked, dropping to her knees while he sat on the edge of the bed. "This encounter once and only once, sakphul, hmm? We'll see how long you survive." He was waiting for her to stop the talk and get on with it, and then she took him into her mouth. She used her teeth as if she threatened to bite it off, and her eyes burned red up at him. He didn't find himself caring for her consideration. She'd a courtesan's tricks, moving back and forth, nipping with shocks of pain. Then he pulled the dagger from his sleeve and held it to the skin of her neck. Viconia glared at him, red-brown eyes alive with anger, and grunted some indistinguishable words around his shaft; she wasn't talking now. The pace became faster and her teeth bit deeper, not yet piercing skin. She could harm him as much as he.
"Test how long I last, bitch," he said, distracting himself, mind on holding back. The violence had her going, fighting him with the knife by her skin. Little man, he knew she'd be calling him between her gulping, and yet he wasn't. He'd show her—match her fury and spill into her, furnace-hot and burning. If she kept doing that she'd win, and triumph lit up her face as her tongue wrapped around him—
—
Being a cleric meant she'd flung a healing spell or two on him after. She'd not needed to cast any restorations, and he took pride in that. And she wasn't even down here. Montaron moved his still-bruised shoulders and got up on a seat by the mad mage, calling for something to get his strength back. Strong enough to last me, sakphul slave, don't dare play the eunuch with me— He hadn't. Xzar sat reading his book.
"Did you know, Monty, in 1258, Zhentarim working in Darkhold discovered the first way to weaponise Hands of Glory?" Xzar carried on. "Really rather sophisticated enchantments, at least for the time. You'd animate them and add a polymorphic mentality twist. A very interesting history of our order. I've been divining on it." He tipped back his chair and hummed like he was trying to make some mystery-production from it. Under the table he pointed to the bookseller, a tall weedy human with a face like a cat's rear end who glanced nervously around every so often.
Montaron stared across the room, triumphant that the drow hadn't dragged herself down yet. A lady half-elf who'd tried to sell trinkets, counting over her wares and gimcracks not worth the dipping. Pack of kids pestering the stockboy, and glancing at the adventurers as if they were gathering up courage to step over and ask what it was like to go down damp dungeons hazardous to life to fetch up blood and muck for yourself. Brats always thought it was funny.
Xzar started talking to thin air again. Babbled: DarsinolesindareolDarcin Cole Carcin Dole Dare sin old Darse thy soul Sine dracol Nil deco arc Calcined or Darcin Cole. He bent down to the book's margins as if he wanted to eat the paper. He sung to himself, and it worked handy to unnerve the village brats watching. Crazy wizard wouldn't smell burning chicken feathers in front of his nose if he was thinking about something else—never noticed a damned thing.
"Darcin Cole," Xzar said loudly, flipping down the book, and walked off to the seller. "Darcin Cole! That's their name, Darsin Cole. A merry old soul."
Cat-face jumped half a mile in the air and paled like death, and Montaron got a good grip on his dagger.
"—Have you no sense?" howled the bookseller. "You know, you must know, you must be. But you are—"
"Mad?" Montaron said. "Ye get used to him."
"Oh, Monty, I didn't know you cared."
"That's it. Mad. Still, it would take..." Cole glanced in Xzar's face, and might've decided to be a coward. "Come to the outhouse, separately. We'll talk." He swept up his books like a hurricane and stuffed them into his bag.
"Until we meet again, Darcin Cole!"
"Do ye have any idea what that was about, mad mage?" Montaron said, the smell of cooked meat behind them. Time to hold the crossbow ready.
"Of course not, Monty, I just divined his name from his book. It's written in all of the margins in between recto and verso, in the middle of the folios' caliper." Xzar flung the book into the air, managing to make it land in the folds of his robe. "He must be up to plots and plans."
"Some people just aren't up to any good," Montaron said, testing a bolt's sharpness in his hand. "Ye can't trust anyone these days. Cruel shame, it is. We could just leave him be, or shoot him in the back..."
"Or I could find out," Xzar said. "Behind me, Monty."
Place stank of the pigs and chickens the innkeeper kept out the back. Montaron crept into a dark corner to get aim at the twitchy bookseller. A moment later the mad mage walked in, whistling, ambling over to Darcin Cole like he'd happened to bump into him.
And what they were talking about sounded like some freak's combination of alchemy and sewing. Xzar showed a patch on a tear of his robes to make some point, and then started muttering about reagents; Darcin Cole passed him over a scroll with some mage-lettering to put away. Rabbit-twitchy, that man, worse than the mad mage, and Montaron kept the crossbow trained on his back standing in what smelled like pig crap.
Then Cole jerked back. "You have spoken what should not be spoken!" he said. "You are not my contact—" His arms came up to spellcast. Montaron loosed the bolt into his back. It was just when the potboy had come out, too; lanky young longlimb slack-jawed and gaping. Cole's back turned stone in that instant before the bolt struck, and it stuck in but didn't bring him down. "I'll—I'l show you what it means to cross us—" Montaron was already up and rushing away from the mage's next target; spell-fiddlers could spread stuff everywhere but a quick move could stab them beforehand. Green fire spewed out of Cole's hands: the mad mage, blast him, jumped out of the way and the potboy screamed. Montaron stabbed, then felt himself flung against the far wall like a giant hand'd slapped him back. He heard the crack of his skull hitting wood.
Then the mad wizard was kneeling and snivelling. "But, Mister Darcin Cole, please—I was a devotee! I've always looked up to your work since I was little! Can you have the heart to punish an aficionado?"
"Yes," Cole said, gathering himself for another spell. "The Twisted Rune brooks no—!"
Then the air changed. Three figures came, air popping to make space for them. Hulking orcblood, short elf, tall lanky and—not quite human, not moving right—? They hadn't seen him. Rune—heard the name, Zhentil high-ups, kill the mad wizard later—
"Darcin Cole. You speak a name you should not," Montaron heard. The three raised their hands; then three upright lines, black and purple and blue, split Cole's body to four pieces.
"No witnesses," the one who wasn't human said, and then more of the villagers started to scream.
"You're a vampire," Xzar said, pointing to the woman, something bright kindling in his hands. Above her, a hole he'd torn in the roof was lit gold.
"Spells protect me, meat," she snarled, and then the necromancer pulled off throwing his spells at her. Sunlight rained from the roof as if it was midday instead of morning and she burned to a crisp. Montaron ran past the shadows, gathering some of the natural resources of the area, and launched a wet handful to the eyes of the short one. Finicky elf, hadn't bothered to protect against commoner ways of blinding. Montaron hacked a line through his kidneys, bloodying him, and the orcblood with the finger-pointing hand for a deity's symbol still hadn't lifted up his flail. The caster chanted. The mad wizard stepped over the bloodsucker's ashes and flung missiles at the priest. They didn't even scrape the hide. The elf below Montaron writhed and struggled, death-throes and mage-triggers coming to him. Shove a hand down the throat, step on the fingers, slash deeper in the guts to stop the casting before it took—
Viconia's voice joined, slightly out of breath, waving her hands and crying out while the mad wizard tried ineffectively with his dagger. Powerful casting out of the orcblood, Montaron knew as he flung himself off the stilled elf and started hacking. There were shields around the greenskin that stopped even Corthala's knife, and there'd be no chance left to run.
The drow finished first. She pointed a finger and slipped forward clutching her stomach, and something in the air around the priest unravelled. He roared. Then fast as lightning his thick flail swung around, clearing a wide-open path. He started another casting, but his face changed and his tusks clenched together. The mad wizard was too far back, but Montaron got under the chain, and this time he sliced a line in the thick skin. The orcblood cursed, and grabbed the elf's body with right hand raised for a different spell.
They were blinked-out, gone and not invisible-lurking by the lack of sudden death. Things were on fire, half the village was up and screaming, and not far from them was a bookseller's body in four linear slices and the potboy's black corpse.
"Dos naut tlu iblithen? Waelen, waelen, waelen, vith'ir zatoasten—" Viconia screamed out. "I leave you free from my command for bare hours and you do—"
Yeah, score one drow, one tattooed necromancer, and a bunch of corpses and there weren't much that fast mouth-flapping could do to get you out. "Mad wizard? Throw a sleep spell. Or better yet one of those clouds," Montaron snapped. Bought 'em a few moments from the mob getting out their pitchforks.
"—I had plans for this place. Beautiful, dark plans of my lady," Viconia said, and behind her on the wall of the outhouse a shadow detached itself from the dark, exactly as those ones in the temple. "The mayor is a Sharran. How did you think he gave me this armour of the night? Darkness to Imnesvale, darkness anywhere in the world that we go—"
"The Rune," Montaron said through gritted teeth. "Bloody group of liches and mages strong enough for the likes of those three to get together. Got to lose them in our tracks, get out and make sure they never find us."
"Got to find the blood of a silver dragon." The mad mage's hair streamed wildly around his face in the light and he failed to give anything useful to them. "Darcin Cole gave me a necromantic recipe for potent flesh armour. Splendid research—I could just kiss you, Monty. Both of you!"
"Nine Hells, no, freakshow!"
"Nec'perya, sanctuary," Viconia snarled, and not long after that they were running out of town with the weapons and clothes on their backs. Imnesvale faded from view among the trees, first a blur of far buildings and then only a bit of smoke rising above the branches, and then almost nothing.
"My shadows," Viconia whispered back in Imnesvale's direction, "kill." She closed a dark grey fist on thin air.
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