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  Hell's Pawns © 2011 by Paizo Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

  Paizo Publishing, LLC, the Paizo golem logo, and Pathfinder are registered trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Campaign Setting, and Pathfinder Tales are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC.

  Story by Dave Gross.

  Cover art by David Bircham and Kieran Yanner.

  Cover design by Crystal Frasier.

  Interior art by David Bircham.

  Paizo Publishing, LLC

  7120 185th Ave NE, Ste 120

  Redmond, WA 98052

  paizo.com

  ISBN 978-1-60125-349-1

  Originally published in Pathfinder Adventure Path #25-30.

  Chapter One: The Plaza of Flowers

  The boss says the Plaza of Flowers is an ironic name, proving even he can be wrong.

  He tells me that a century ago blossoms spilled over every windowsill, but now the black-and-crimson banners of Asmodeus trail down from the upper balconies. And where he remembers flowerbeds encircling a fountain, eight viewing stands now surround a scaffold. Those stands teem with the gowns of the merchant daughters who hope to attract the eyes of the noble bachelors buzzing just beyond the picket of house guards. Matrons and spinsters clad in earthen tones sit to either side of each blossom while their lords and brothers mingle with the unmarried men, smoking cigars and nosing sachets to smother the stench of so many commoners.

  A hawker shoves past me and cries, "Skewered pork, sizzling hot!" I barely stop myself from giving him the elbow before one of the other groundlings filling the space between stands and scaffold beckons him away before the smell can make me sick. I don't understand those who can eat on Judgment Day.

  The sun reaches its zenith, but the canvas drape still conceals the central scaffold. The delay can mean only the Palace wishes to view the proceeding, and I say a little prayer of thanks to Desna—silently, of course. Waiting for the Royal Carriage to arrive is a boon to the vendors, and it gives the working class a little more time away from their labors. The benefit to me is that the royal interest reverses the usual order of events. Paralictor Ivo Elliendo likes to build suspense, so the most spectacular event is usually reserved for last.

  On the scaffold, a knobby-kneed herald emerges from behind the canvas. He looks to either side, shuddering with exaggerated fear when the guards eye him up and down. The groundlings laugh, recognizing him as one of the Fools of Thrune, a jester from House Sarini sent out to amuse them while they wait. I lose interest the moment he raises a trumpet to his lips and blows out a length of crimson silk and a pair of sagging pillows meant to suggest he's blown his lungs out through the horn.

  I see plenty of familiar mugs among the groundlings: stevedores, stable hands, street sweepers, barmaids, a seamstress I once gave a memorable night on the Bunyip Dock. A pickpocket I know tips me a wink as he pats a mark on the shoulder while his adolescent accomplice dips his hand in on the other side. A few others touch their chins or smile when they see me. I nod back.

  No one from the stands throws me a greeting, but more than a few know me better than they'd admit. I know several of them better than I'd like their husbands to know, but to most I am only the silent bodyguard of Count Varian Jeggare. The only one among them bold enough to return my gaze is Ivo Elliendo.

  The Paralictor glides out of the stands where he has been receiving the compliments of the ladies. His tall figure stands out like a plow cutting through a garden. The sharp red scourges on the ribs of his black leather jack give him a gaunt silhouette.

  He squints when he spots me, and I can feel his scorn hot on my face. What else can I do but shoot him my toothiest smile? All around him, ladies who had followed his gaze snap up their fans to shield themselves from the sight of a mouth that I'm told looks like a drawer full of knives. The commotion distracts Elliendo, and when he sees he is surrounded by a halo of fluttering fans, his lined face darkens.

  Elliendo stalks away from the stands and mounts the stairs, followed as usual by two hulking Hellknights. I begin to frame a prayer for rotting steps before deciding that's too much to ask, even on Judgment Day. On the scaffold, Elliendo peers north at the approach of the golden Royal Carriage down the Imperial Promenade. He snaps his fingers, and the clown retreats behind the canvas to a clatter of applause. Once the carriage halts and the window shades rise just enough for the occupant—no doubt some minor Palace official, rather than the Queen herself—to peer out, the canvas on the scaffold falls away to reveal the Instruments of Judgment.

  In the center is a blazing furnace in the shape of a three-faced devil. From each of its gaping jaws juts a bramble of iron implements: knives, spears, chains, rods, brands, and most conspicuous of all the Tines of Cheliax. Each is a two-pronged fork sized for a giant, and today there are two of them.

  Arrayed between the furnaces are racks of torture devices retrieved from every civilized nation on Golarion, and several not so civilized. The spiked cages of Geb are a crowd favorite, and two of them already hold prisoners. One is a fat man who begins screaming the moment he is revealed, while the other is pock-faced Gellius Bonner, the Butcher of Merrow Lane.

  I fell into the Bonner case when the boss sent me to nose around the tannery across the river. I was supposed to catch a stable master selling the carcasses of his lady's mysteriously sickened horses. That went nowhere, but I spied the tanner sneaking out of his own home well past midnight. Curious, I followed him into town, expecting to discover nothing more than a mistress in some Cheapside flat. Instead, he led me to Bonner's shop, where he joined six men wearing crude robes. Bonner greeted them with some fiendish phrase, though I could understand only a few words before he led them downstairs. I let myself in for a peek. When I saw the yak-headed thing Bonner conjured and what they intended to offer it, I ran to Greensteeples and beat on the boss's door until his sleepy halfling butler woke him. With a few questions, Jeggare confirmed that the cult was demonic, not diabolic, so he sent a message directly to the Temple of Asmodeus, who in turn asked the Hellknights to capture the cultists, minus a few who resisted arrest. They even recovered two boys who had not yet been devoured.

  The discovery broke the cases of more than a dozen missing children, disappearances that Elliendo had publicly sworn to solve. As he was not on duty that night, he was surprised to hear the criers' announcement of another mystery solved by the celebrated Varian Jeggare.

  If it were for the murders alone, Bonner might have met his
Judgment at the edge of an axe or, if it were only one or two killings, in hard labor for a decade. The devil-worshiping lords of Cheliax, however, do not suffer the denizens of the Abyss in the city. For consorting with demons, Bonner earned his special voyage to Hell.

  While not an admirer of the spectacle, I make a point of witnessing the Judgment of anyone convicted on one of our cases. This time, the boss insisted that I bring something to confirm it was Bonner and not some magic-masked substitute who did the dance of the Tines. He sent me to the Plaza of Flowers with a couple of sakava leaves plucked fresh from a plant in his greenhouse.

  Once the Instruments are unveiled, four proper heralds stand on the corners of the scaffold and announce the list of Judgments. Behind them, brawny shirtless men in red hoods prepare the braces for the Tines.

  When a couple of the big men unlock Bonner's cage, I slip the sakava leaves from a sleeve pocket. The size of my thumbs, they are thick green ovals with tiny white hairs glistening with oil. Just before I crush them, someone calls my name.

  She is taller than me, which is not too uncommon, but most of that height comes from a pair of legs snugged in black calfskin trousers with tiny stars and suns cut out along the outer seam to reveal bare skin. Her blouse hangs loose except in just the right places to make a celibate throw himself off the roof. Her big hazel eyes are too far apart with heavy eyebrows, but they look fine above a long nose pierced above one nostril with a tiny ruby. The stone sets off a hint of late-summer red in her brown hair.

  I'm staring at her over the little green leaves.

  "Elliendo isn't exactly fond of me. Or anyone."

  "Are you Radovan?" she asks again. I could listen to her say my name all day, but then she ruins it by adding, "Count Jeggare's servant?"

  "His bodyguard." Immediately I think of three or four suave answers.

  "My messages to Greensteeples have gone unanswered, and I require the count's assistance," she says. "And naturally his utmost discretion."

  "Naturally," I say, but before I can give her the pitch, I feel a sharp poke just below my shoulder blade.

  "Say goodbye to the girly, copper-tongue," reeks a voice inches beneath my ear. I know who it is from the stench of garlic and boiled eggs.

  "Not now, Ursio." I try to sound casual, but the scratch he gave me starts to itch. Out of the corners of my eyes I see a couple of shapes that must be his backup. "I'll stay in this very public place while you and your playmates go climb your thumbs."

  "These bolts are tipped with black lotus venom," says Ursio, and I know it's his treasured hand crossbow with its steel "fangs" jammed into my back. "You'll be dead before your body hits the street."

  It seems unlikely that Ursio has acquired the deadly and expensive poison, but on the scaffold I see the hooded men dragging Bonner to a table, where a third man awaits with a pair of curved knives held high for the crowd's acclaim.

  I crush the leaves and wipe their oily surfaces over my eyes. It stings at first, and then my vision blurs and snaps back to vivid clarity, better than my usual vision but with an unreal heightening of every hue. Bonner looks the same, although his fervid muttering breaks into a panicked gobble. I'm not sure the sakava leaves have done their magic, but then I notice a fiery halo around one of the hooded men. Behind him, huge leathery wings twitch as his fellows hold Bonner screaming to the table.

  "Now," says Ursio. He shoves hard enough to make me drop the leaves.

  "Zandros said to bring him back in one—" One of the figures behind me has a boy's voice with a country drawl, cut off by a smart crack to the head.

  "Quiet," says a third voice just behind my elbow. He snuffles back a load of phlegm, and I know it is Rennie the Quick, a halfling notorious for the instant conjuration of makeshift blades.

  "My apologies," I say to the woman. "My schedule is busier than I thought."

  "Wait," she says. "Where will I meet you?"

  "You won't," says Ursio. He pulls my arm and shoves his weapon into my back.

  Rennie grabs the other arm, and they guide me away from the crowd. Behind us, Bonner screams like a damned soul, which soon won't be a simile. I know what the torturers are doing to him, but I'm glad I don't have to watch as they slice open his skin to sew in packets of writhing scarabs imported from the dank crypts of Katapesh.

  Ursio and his henchmen guide me into the narrow alley just north of Mercy Street. We thread our way through a platoon of cooks grilling skewered meat over coals. Whenever one notices the crossbow pressed against my back, Ursio growls a threat that stifles all curiosity.

  Eventually we turn off the main alley into a cul-de-sac containing a sewer grate. While I know Ursio has gotten his hands wet for Zandros more than once, I remember what the boy said. No one knows the sewers better than Rennie, so he is the one usually sent to deliver messages or escort those summoned to the Goat Pen unseen.

  "What's it to be, boys?" I take a couple of big steps forward and turn around with my hands in clear sight. I get a good look at them.

  The boy is pale as harvest straw, and he weighs about as much as two handfuls of the stuff. The way he keeps glancing at Rennie and Ursio for direction, he must be a raw recruit. He holds a broken chair leg close to his hip, afraid someone will spot him with the weapon.

  Ursio looks the same as when I first met him, as if someone had taken a proper dwarf and dragged him through a garbage dump. The beads and fetishes tied in his tangled beard look more like the detritus of last week's suppers, and he has more brown teeth than yellow. The last two fingers of his right hand once fed a shark, or a crocodile, or a bunyip, depending on which story you hear. I like to think he lost them in a bet.

  Rennie, on the other hand, looks nothing like I remember. The halfling's always been known as "the Quick" among the Goatherds, a gang so mean and ugly that I had to leave on account of my good looks. Now I see that "Ratface" would suit him better, because in the weirdly sharp vision of the sakava leaves, I see his usually pocked face smoothed over with brown-black fur, his prominent nose elongated into the pointed snout of a halfling-sized rodent.

  I gape at Rennie, maybe a little too obviously, but the boy buys it and takes a step back. Ursio ignores my mugging, but he spares Rennie a glance before fixing his tiny black eyes on me. "Zandros wants a word."

  Obviously they see a halfling, not a wererat.

  "They have no idea, do they, Rennie?"

  The halfling scowls, confused but with a dawning realization hardening his jaw.

  The boy takes another step back. Ursio jabs his crossbow at me. "None of your tricks, Hell-spawn."

  "The trick is on you," I say. "Or have you always known why Rennie knows the sewers so well?"

  "I'll cut you," hisses Rennie. A blade fashioned out of a blacksmith's rule appears in his furry grip. Even as I tense for an attack, the sakava vision wavers, and I see Rennie as the others do. The rat was cuter.

  "Those leaves I rubbed on my eyes show me things the way they are," I say. "You're still ass-ugly, and the kid is a kid, but Rennie here is one of those wererats Zandros thought we wiped out last—"

  I leap back just in time to avoid a slash across the belly, but Rennie nicks my favorite jacket. My back hits the alley wall, and I kick Rennie in the chest, forcing him back.

  "Stop it!" shouts Ursio. The point of his crossbow drifts away from me, but I'm not close enough to make it work. I stagger a few steps closer to him, pretending to move away from Rennie.

  "He's tricking you," cries Rennie. He turns toward Ursio, losing his halfling appearance along with his temper. "You halfwit!"

  Ursio's face twists up as he retreats. Rennie should know better than to insult the sensitive dwarf.

  "Don't you talk to me that way, you sniveling slip!" He points his bow directly at Rennie, whose mutton-chop whiskers have spread over half his elongating face.
<
br />   Rennie hisses, and the boy falls over himself trying to get away. He knocks his head against a box of coals and lies stunned on the street. The diversion is enough for me to reach Ursio.

  I grab the crossbow just as he starts to turn it toward me. He pulls the trigger, but the string snaps over my hand, flipping the bolt harmlessly against the alley wall. I kick him behind the knees and he falls, still gripping his weapon. I bring my elbow down on his arm and hear a satisfying crack as my spur splits the bone.

  Ursio screams as I spin away. Rennie is no fool. Seeing Ursio crippled, he leaps toward me.

  His whole body transforms, claws tearing through his soft leather shoes to let his black nails clatter on the cobblestones. He is even bigger than before, swelled with blood as he scrabbles toward me. I carry no weapon potent enough to slay a lycanthrope, and Rennie knows it.

  Just then, a thunderous roar fills the alley. Rennie freezes, his ruff standing out from his neck, whiskers twitching. The roar becomes a rumbling growl moving closer to our sewer niche. It is unmistakably the sound of a great cat.

  Rennie squeals and leaps past me, wrenching the sewer grate away and vanishing into the stinking hole. I consider following him, but then a shadow falls upon me.

  The woman from the plaza peers around the corner cautiously, a thin scroll dangling from her hand. The glittering mist from the expended magic trails off the parchment. She glances at the sewer entrance, then down the alley where I see Ursio staggering away, cradling his broken arm. Not far away, the boy moans and clutches his head. I offer him my hand.

  "You all right, kid?"

  He hesitates, eyes wide.

  "I'm not going to hurt you," I say. "What's your name?"

  He takes my hand and I pull him to his feet. "Gruck," he says.

  "What about you?" The woman touches my arm. "Are you all right?"

  "Never better," I tell her. "Thanks to your little trick."