Exorcism, Marguerite recalled, involved drowning the victim in cold water. The demon would flee and there was a chance, albeit a slim one, that the victim could be revived. It was not anyone’s idea of a pleasant experience, though the priests of the Dreaming God were supposed to be very, very good at it.
“You can’t make them jump back out of the victim?” she asked.
“It’s not a kindness. Demons are like barbed arrows. If you drag one out, you do…well, a lot of damage.”
“How much damage?”
He glanced at her. “Lady Marguerite?”
“Yes?”
“If the situation arises? Choose the sword before that.”
“Noted,” she said. Sir Xavier went back to watching the Saint of Steel’s paladins. Wren’s attack on the hind legs had been successful. The demon was dragging its back half behind it now, lurching and writhing like a broken-backed snake.
“So you send them back to hell, then,” said Marguerite, disgusted but not daring to look away in case something happened to her companions.
“Yes, but we bind them first. You have to get up close for that, which is why we don’t just shoot them with crossbows. Once they’re bound, the demons don’t come back. If they’re not bound, though, they keep trying to come back from hell.”
“I wonder why.”
The paladin’s expression was wry. “It’s hell. Wouldn’t you try to get out?”
“Fair enough.”
Shane approached the fallen demon, holding his sword upright before him. It was a strange, ritualistic pose, not at all like the one he’d had before. The steer screamed again, louder, a scream
that seemed to have words in it. Marguerite jumped, startled, and the paladin of the Dreaming God put out a hand to steady her. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s nearly done.”
Shane bowed his head and spoke.
She could not quite catch the words, but her ears popped and the demon went to its knees as if its strings had been cut. Shane stepped back.
“Oh, very nicely done,” murmured the Dreaming God’s paladin, almost to himself. Ramsey the priest clambered over the fence and approached the demon. “I’m surprised the god let that boy go.”
Marguerite would have asked about that—from what she’d heard, there was no letting go and a lot more never-having-chosen-in-the-first-place—but Ramsey walked forward. The steer began to flail on the ground, but it could not seem to push itself up again. Ramsey uttered another sharp phrase and Marguerite’s ears popped again, harder, and the steer froze, then began to speak.
“Yaahaa n’gaaaah kalaak kalaak nhai!”
Its voice sounded like rotting meat smelled. She wanted to spit to get the taste out of her mouth, except that it was in her ears. She wanted to run and keep running, to get away from that thing and that voice and a world where such things were allowed to exist.
The priest set his palm on the steer’s broad forehead. Her nerves screamed in alarm, even knowing that the priest was an expert and wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t safe.
Ramsey spoke quietly. She could not make out the words. Shane stood to one side, his sword still held before him, showing no sign of strain.
The demon’s voice cut off as if a door had been slammed, and it lowered its horned head even further, until its muzzle touched the earth. Ramsey stepped back and nodded to Shane.
The paladin lifted the sword high overhead and brought it down in a sweeping overhand strike.
Marguerite looked away before it landed. She was no stranger to death, but she preferred not to watch it closely.
When she turned back, the steer had been separated from its head and blood was soaking into the thirsty ground. Ramsey went to Shane, reached up, and caught his head. He pulled the paladin’s face down until it was only a few inches from his. Marguerite wondered if the priest was about to kiss him. Seems a trifle odd, but then again, demonslaying is clearly very complicated.
Ramsey did not kiss him. Instead he stared into the other man’s eyes for a long moment, then nodded and released him. He went to Wren and performed the same gesture, though he had to bend down to do it.
“Checking to make sure the demon hasn’t jumped,” Sir Xavier said. “If I may, madam?”
“Go ahead,” said Marguerite, torn between horror and amusement. “You can tell by the eyes?”
“On a demon like this, we’d probably notice because you were screaming in tongues,” he said.
“But we check anyway.” He leaned forward, gazing deeply into her eyes. “Oh, dear…”
“What?”
“I fear that you have remarkably lovely eyes.”
She snorted. “How unchivalrous of you, sir. You’re injured, so I can’t smack you for that.”
He grinned, clearly unrepentant. Ramsey approached, clambered over the fence, and checked his partner’s eyes. “This man is a shameless flirt,” Marguerite informed the priest.
“Dreadful, I know. If he’s bothering you, tell me, and I’ll inform the nuns when we return to the temple.”
“Oh god, not the nuns!” Sir Xavier put his good arm over his face. “I shall be as humble and silent as a novice. Anything but nuns.”
Wren and Shane joined them. Ramsey cocked an eye approvingly at them. “That was good work, you two.”
“And you said you couldn’t use the imperative mode,” said Xavier, slapping Shane on the back with his good hand. Shane didn’t quite stagger, but it was clearly a near thing.
“I can’t,” he said. “Not truly.”
“It knelt, didn’t it?”
“But it tried immediately to get back up again.” Shane shook his head. “A few seconds, that’s all.”
“Sometimes a few seconds is enough.”
Shane sighed. “My heart is not pure enough,” he said simply. “The god was right not to choose me.”
Ramsey and the Dreaming God’s paladin exchanged a look.
Not pure enough? If Shane’s not pure enough, how do the regular paladins even function?
Apparently Sir Xavier agreed with her, because she heard him mutter, “You’re a damn sight more pure of heart than I am, youngster,” not entirely under his breath.
“All right,” said Ramsey, shaking his head. “We’ve kept you long enough, friends. We’ll see you back to the river, though.”
They collected the horses, although Wren looked at hers as if she would prefer fighting possessed livestock to mounting again. Marguerite glanced at the position of the sun, decided that they hadn’t lost a significant amount of time, and tapped the reins across her mount’s neck. “All right. Let’s get a move on, before we trip over another part of the world that needs saving.”
TEN
FOSTER TOOK the horses and bid them a good journey, then rode away, whistling tunelessly between his teeth. Marguerite, Shane, and Wren waited by the dock for their ride upriver to finish loading supplies. Shane was still keyed up from the fight with the demon, but he suspected that the adrenaline would wear off soon.
They had done well. Even the little voice nagging him that he should have been able to make the demon kneel longer couldn’t quite drown that out. There was one less demon in the world, and that was an unalloyed good thing.
Yes, but it certainly doesn’t make up for all the terrible—