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fTHE NINE BEAST HELMETS II - BEASTS OF THE EAST

1. Frost and Burning Blade vs. Dragon

The oak door which blocked them was massive and intimidating, its thick planks reinforced with iron bands. The hinges and locks were not complex or modern, merely daunting. Two reluctant allies broke their uneasy silence as their progress was halted.

Slightly above average height, slender in her tight black field suit, Jessica Frost was strikingly attractive in a way she completely disregarded. Since the traumatic curse which had changed her appearance and given her the cryogenic power, nearly all of her emotions had been lost as well. The sole remaining tinge of feeling she retained was deep loyalty to the man who had kept her alive during that hellish ordeal, Jeremy Bane. It was to repay him that she had joined the KDF and become a knight of Tel Shai. Nothing else mattered to her. All attempts by her teammates to draw her out and to loosen her up with humor had fallen flat.

With her helmet held in the crook of her arm, Frost was revealed to have long fine-textured hair more silver than platinum blonde. If not for her eyes being saphire blue instead of pink, her flat white skin might have marked her as albino. When she turned those disinterested eyes on Dorgo, the Danarmyl felt an unreasonable irritation. Human eyes should show SOMETHING, they should not be as remote and frigid as doll's eye.

In contrast, the Seven Swords fighter wore only a loose mantle woven of stiff asbesto-like fibers, reaching to his knees and sashed at the waist. In the freezing hall, steam rose visibly from his hide. For Dorgo was a Danarmyl, one of the rare and little-known Cousins of Men who had been sorcerously modified to thrive deep underground. Dorgo's body was meant for high pressure and intense heat. His thick rugose hide was bright red, coarse-textured and thick as leather. His Race had neither hair nor external ears, the crimson-irised eyes were deepset and his mouth a wide toothy trap. It could not be seen easily in the dim light, but Dorgo had no fingernails and no separate toes.

This woman had done nothing overt to offend him, Dorgo admitted to himself. It was just her manner which infuriated him. He had wished to pair up with the Silver Skull, about whom he had heard many wild tales, but no such luck. With great effort, the Danarmyl focused on the challenge at hand and slid his sword from its sheath.

"In even normal hands, the Burning Blade can start fires and boil water," he rasped in a voice that sounded like rocks scraping together. "But in my grip, the sword can melt through steel walls. I will have this door down in a trice."

But Jessica Frost gave him a mere passing glance that stopped him short. She reached up, closed her hand on the lock and siphoned away every bit of heat in the metal. It cracked and fell into fragments without her even applying pressure. Frost swiped the broken apieces away and undid the hasp to open the door.

"Hear me!" he unexpectedly hissed. "I know your power has killed a Danarmyl like myself."

Frost turned her eyes toward him. "Hasak was a criminal mercenary working for Wu Lung. He had commited many murders."

"Even so. I understand you cracked him open with your gift as if pouring ice water on red hot iron. But do not think you could do the same to me. I am Dorgo of the Seven Swords. My core burns more intensely than that of my brethren. And I bear the ancient Burning Blade as well."

Jessica Frost lifted her helmet and brought it down over her shining head, fastening its lower rim to the high collar of her field suit. She had no reply to his comments.

"By Margoth, woman, you task my patience. Hagen has declared that the Nine Beast Helmets are an affront which must be destroyed. Shall such novices as you and your Dire Wolf, not even past a score and ten of years be taken more weightily?"

Without seeming to have heard him, Frost moved through the open door into the gloom beyond as if she were entirely alone. Dorgo shivered with repressed rage. So be it then. While he could with effort lower his skin temperature enough to contact Humans without harm, at the moment he had lost all control of that. His hide would have burned any bare skin touching it.

Following through the doorway, he saw the Tel Shai knight striding past a pair of narrow alcoves, not looking back to see if he was following. Dorgo fumed, physically and mentally. When this night's work was done, he meant to demand a reckoning. So worked up was he nursing his grievances that the thundering blow from that darkened alcove caught him completely unaware. A tight fist crashed against the side of his head and sent him reeling drunkenly. In an instant, he had regained his balance and the Burning Blade was ready in his grip. The Danarmyl rushed through the doorway and was ignominously thrown to the stone floor by a spinning kick that thumped violently across his back.

If Dorgo had been in a foul temper before, now he was on the edge of running amok. Nimble despite his peculiar traits, he sprang back up onto his feet and whirled his two-handled sword in a glittering circle that would have gutted anyone in its path. But the Dragon Helmet stood well out of reach.

He sensed Jessica Frost coming in close behind him, but at this point he hated her as much as he did the Nine Beast Helmets. Dorgo twirled the sword and assumed an on guard stance with its pointed half extended. He found himself facing an stout man whose coarse tunic was stretched uncomfortably over a round belly.

The man's helmet was crafted to resemble a Hurimi beast, one of the more familiar Breeds in the Midnight War. The horselike head showed a higher brow than such an equine must display. Two twisted horns stretched back from the brow, and a pair of short barbels hung from the chin. From within the eyeholes, nothing showed. Those openings were as black as if the helmet were unoccupied.

"Lay down your weapon, fool!" shouted the cultist. "There is still a bare hope that you and the colorless woman might live to see the dawn in your surrender."

"Empty words! It is know that NO other sect in the Midnight War has been humbled so often and so throughly as the Nine Beast Helmets." Dorgo extended his sword in front of him with a two-handed grip. "You have been beaten into laughingstocks."

"No! Wrong! We are a new sect, not the weak old witchmen who wore these helms. Atrumo has gathered the greatest warriors and assassins in the adjacent realms, now we are masters."

Dorgo laughed out loud, twirled his sword and lunged forward with the point extended. His attack was halted in mid-step by a roaring stream of white-hot force which shot from the Beast Helmet's open muzzle. That dragonflame rushed out fast and hard. The Danarmyl was flipped over backwards and slid ten feet across the stone floor.

"Do you sing different words to your little song now?" asked the Beast Helmet man.

Dazed and gasping, Dorgo rolled over and got up onto his knees. His hide sizzled in the cold night air and his sword glowed like a coal. In truth, he was pleasantly surprised to find himself alive. Any true Human would have been incinerated at once by that blast but he was only battered and singed. Being a Danarmyl was the main reason but he also realized that the heat-channeling properties on his ensorcelled blade had helped him survive.

Still, he realized as he struggled to rise, a second such blast would finish him. He used his sword as a lever to push himself up onto his feet.

"My name is Chimu, I was the undefeated wrestler of all Perjena. Even without this helmet, I could slay a Subterran such as you." The metal face swivelled to regard the other enemy in that room. "Ah, but it is you who are the real threat, aren't you? We have been warned of the new Tel Shai knights. You are Frost, the heartless ice maiden who causes rivers to freeze!"

"Accurate enough," Jessica Frost admitted. She did not need to gesture to use her power. Her mind drew on the transendental gralic force to siphon heat out of the area around her enemy. The path of this transference showed as a swirling column of ice crystals rushing toward the Beast Helmet man. Another fierce gush of superheated force exploded from the metal muzzle and both fundamental forces stalled in a gout of steam and spray.

For a full five seconds, bitter cold and intolerable crashed against each other in mid-air. Then both fighters let their attacks fade. Chimu stepped back, breathing heavily, gathering his will power for another burst.

Frost turned to Dorgo, sweeping in her hand in a forward motion. "He can't hurt you! Kill him."

The Danarmyl had been on the verge of rushing the enemy anyway. Prudence and patience were not his strongest attributes. At Frost's admonition, he closed in quick as a fencer, with the Burning Blade drawn back at head level in both hands. A sputter of hot air flurried in front of the Dragon Helm but faded out instantly, then the ancient sword wheeled around in a horizontal arc and lopped the cultist's head off with a geyser of blood from the base of the neck. Helmeted head and robed body fell in different directions, one hitting with a clang and the other a damp thud.

The Danarmyl braced himself with feet wide apart, needing a second to let his victory sink in. He saw the blood sizzle and burn off his blade, leaving it clean. "Tel Shai, you blocked his attack with your freezing power?"

"Yes."

Swinging around to stare at that pale emotionless face, Dorgo felt weary. He sheathed his sword and fell to his knees on the floor, beginning the unsavory task of removing a helmet from a severed head. "I must admit, that was quick thinking."

"I judged he could have overcome my ability with repeated attacks," Frost said grudgingly, as if explaining anything was an imposition. "You would have been killed as well. By shielding you, I enabled you to kill him. It seemed the best strategy."

Holding the cursed iron helmet in both hands, Dorgo glared down at it, strongly desiring to cast it into the river Evanyl outside or to hammer it flat on an anvil. "It was only chance that we ended up as the right team for this helmet, if chance it was."

"Our partners are even now fighting," Jessica Frost said, going to leave the chamber. "We must help. You may carry the Helmet."

"It has been a pleasure to work with you, too," muttered Dorgo, but not too loud.
( the rest of the story )