They split the party, p.22
They Split the Party, page 22
Angel had brought the Rusted Star as close to the pass as she dared and then walked the rest of the way. There was only one real path leading to the site. All she had to do was find a spot along it with decently favorable terrain and wait.
The Dread Knight didn’t keep her waiting long.
Only an hour passed before a dark armored figure rounded the bend, marching straight toward her. Even at a distance, Angel felt the shift in the air as it approached. The same sickening wrongness that permeated the vault the helmet had been stored in followed it like a stormfront, growing stronger with every heavy metal footfall. Its armor was slimly profiled, black and jagged, evoking a skeletal bird of prey in its design. Tattered strips of cloth that might have once been a cloak fluttered off it, like the last molted bits of feather on long-decayed wings. Despite all that, it cut a surprisingly lanky figure, exaggerating the stretched, spindly silhouette of his shadow in the setting sun.
Her whole body was burning now, from her fingertips to her collarbone to her toes. Every fiber of her screamed for her to fight, but she held it back. She kept it contained, just a little longer.
It came to stop maybe twenty yards down from her. Eyes like blue-burning coals glowered at her from underneath its helmet. It spoke with two voices at once: Lestrade’s and the helm’s. One old and raspy, the other a rolling, metallic baritone.
“Sentinel. You cannot stop me. Not alone.”
So, this thing knew what she was, and it wasn’t worried. “We’ll see.”
Now her own voice echoed, doubled in much the same way as the Dread Knight’s.
Finally, she let the pressure inside her release. Divine fury flowed through her veins like a drug, explosive and searing. A corona of golden light danced across her skin as her eyes became a pair of blazing suns, and a burning halo roared to life over her head. Everything else went up in a flash in her mind, leaving only the Dread Knight and a single set of truths: there was good, and there was evil. Where there was good, it must be protected. Where there was evil, it must be destroyed.
She leapt from her perch with a growl, aiming straight for the Dread Knight. It caught her glowing fist in its gauntlet, and they both flashed with light where they touched. Loose dirt around them danced from the impact, but the Dread Knight itself did not budge an inch.
It answered with a cross and a backhand, both across her face, each one landing with a resounding crack. Angel grunted, caught the next blow before it hit her, and landed a punch dead center in the knight’s chest. This time, she staggered it, but not by much. It brought both of its fists down on top of her head and then kneed her under the chin.
She stumbled backward, unsteady on her feet and tasting blood. She was barely able to keep track of the Dread Knight as it lurched after her and unleashed a flurry of blows. She blocked some, answered a few. But most found their mark, cracking her across the ribs, the arms, and the face. All the while, the burning, searing divine wrath flowed through her veins. Normally, she would at least try to temper it, reign it in and keep it from burning right through her. But now, she just let it keep flowing, letting the fire inside her grow brighter and hotter, until she was blazing like a sun as she traded blows with the cursed helm and its puppet body. Because the more her power hurt her, the harder she hit.
It was a good way to burn herself out, but she was far past the point of caring about that. There was only the monster in front of her and the need to see it wiped from the face of the world. It didn’t matter how much she hurt, so long as the Dread Knight went down sooner than she did.
It hit her again and again, but the longer the fight dragged on, the less she felt it. And when she hit back, she felt its dark armor buckle beneath her fists. With every punch, she willed the bastard to fall. To die. To burn.
The Dread Knight slammed her face-first into the rocky mountainside, cracking the stone and causing a brief shock of pain as her messenger coil crunched into scrap metal under the blow. She shoved him off and returned the favor, but she went the extra mile and dragged it across the rock, carving away stone with its metal face. When she ran out of mountain, she jerked its head back and let loose twin beams of light from her eyes straight into its face, screaming as she did.
Its hands groped meekly at her wrists as its knees began to buckle. The faceplate of the helmet began to glow red hot. Then yellow. Then white.
And then a tusk twice the size of her body slammed into her, and she went cartwheeling through the air.
Her halo fizzled out, and the light faded from her body as she tumbled across the dirt and rock, losing track of which way was up, until she finally came to stop face down in the ground, smoke curling off her body. Her breath came out in ragged fits and starts. All at once, she felt lighter than she was supposed to.
One thought cut through the fog of pain and exhaustion fast forming in her mind:
The fuck was that?
She staggered to her feet and wondered whether it was the heatstroke or blows to the head fucking with her.
Because bearing down on her was a reanimated, undead mammoth. Its bones were wrapped in long dried out, decayed strips of flesh, and the patchwork remnants of armor clattered like chimes against its body. Its eyes had long since rotted away, but in their sockets were two bright orbs of light identical in color to the Dread Knight’s. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Angel realized that they must have been closer to the fallen Frelheim army than she’d thought.
A lifetime ago, Angel had gotten to see a Frelheim war mammoth up close and thought it was actually kind of cool. Now, she changed her mind.
She widened her stance, dug in her heels, and bent low just in time to catch hold of one of the monstrosity’s tusks with both hands. Her arms and legs buckled under the impact, and she went skidding backward, but she stayed on her feet. With a groan, she shifted her weight and pushed with everything she had, using the mammoth’s own momentum to throw it aside. As she struggled to right herself, her chest heaved and her lungs burned. She prayed the thing would stay down, at least long enough for her to catch her breath.
“Weak.”
The Dread Knight extended a hand, and blue-black wisps of smoke curled out of its gauntlet until they formed and solidified into a two-handed sword, its black blade shining like a mirror as wisps of smoke trailed off its edge. It crossed the gap between them with a burst of speed, and Angel only just managed to sidestep its swing. Refusing to be forced into a retreat, Angel tracked the next swing and caught the blade in her hands, feeling it bite into her as she did.
The weapon shook as each of them tried to yank it away from the other, leaving them both held in place. Blood ran down Angel’s palms, but she only tightened her grip and pulled harder.
“You cannot contain your own power,” the Dread Knight taunted. “Your mortal coil cannot withstand it. My helm has no such limitation.”
“Shut. Up,” Angel growled through clenched teeth.
She kicked the Dread Knight in the knee, buckling it and throwing him off balance enough to pry the sword from his hands. It dissipated to nothing between her fingers and rematerialized in his hand once more. She charged, hoping to get a hit in before he could force her back. She was too slow.
The tip of the knight’s sword sank into her shoulder and then twisted as he yanked it out. As she stumbled from the hit, the Dread Knight neatly stepped around her and raked its blade across her back, tearing a scream from her throat.
“Do you know why your power is so ill-suited to your form? Why you are so hampered? Because I chose this path. I conspired to have this vessel forged to be my means of remaining in this world without violating the Laws. But you had no choice.”
Angel screamed and let out another burst of light from her eyes, which the Dread Knight deflected with the flat of its blade.
“Humans think Sentinels are blessings from the gods. It is a lie told to hide the great shame of all your kind. There is no room in the armies of the gods for any who cannot fulfill their duty. True soldiers of the gods remain at their posts, but your kind obsesses with this world. With the scavengers that call it home. You were banished to the place of your obsession, condemned to rot in a human form. You did not descend from the heavens as a savior. You were flung from them in disgrace.”
Angel surged forward, propelled more by pain than determination. She managed to dodge and weave through the Dread Knight’s guard, knock the sword from its hands, and wrench it into a headlock. The helmet was the vessel for the Dread Knight’s spirit and power. Deprive it of a host and it was just a brooding, self-righteous metal bucket. It could say whatever it wanted about her. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. It couldn’t hurt her. Not more than her family had. Or her order. Or her company. Or herself.
At least, that was what she thought. Until it formed its sword in its hands once again and drove it into its own chest and straight on through into hers.
Her breath hitched, sending shooting pain up and down her nerves. All traces of fire and fury she’d felt still inside her were snuffed out at once. She couldn’t breathe right. She was tired. And cold.
The Dread Knight yanked its blade back out, removing the skewer that held them together. Angel staggered back, unsteady on her feet. Blood dribbled down her chin. If the Dread Knight noticed the wound it had made in its own chest, it gave no indication. It made no advance on her. It simply stood, sword in hand, waiting. Its eyes burned their cold, unfeeling blue.
Angel clenched her fists, trying to will some power back into them. Light sputtered across her skin, only to give out. Her head spun, and she nearly collapsed then and there. And then, the dirt around her began to stir.
It was just one spot at first. Then several. All around her, things began to poke out from the earth. Bony, weathered hands. The top of a skull. The jagged, rusted remnants of a sword.
They were much closer to the fallen Frelheim army than she’d thought.
All around them, skeletal warriors were clawing their way out of the ground, every one of their eyes matching the burning orbs of their master. One hand coming out of the ground grabbed her ankle, and in trying to kick free, she tripped and fell face-first into the ground. Not nearly far enough away, the mammoth began to rise to its feet.
Every heartbeat felt like a hammer driving another nail into her coffin. Angel grit her teeth, unable to taste or smell anything but her own blood as she willed her rapidly numbing arms and legs to move, to act, to stand up and fight. They refused to obey. The Dread Knight and its rapidly rising army stood over her, not even bothering to finish her off themselves.
With a last, desperate cry, Angel tried to leap to her feet and was rewarded for her efforts with a boot to the face that sent her sprawling backward. Her forehead cracked against a rock, and the wind was knocked out of her good lung.
As she tried and failed to push herself up, Angel thought back to the Rusted Star, which wouldn’t be far from here. She thought about Thalia and Ruby and Bart still waiting for her to return, blissfully unaware of the undead army that would be headed right for them now. They would be dead before they could even understand what was happening.
It was enough to get her onto her hands and knees, not that she had a damn clue what she would do even if she could stand. She was outnumbered, outmatched, and out of strength. She was—charitably—missing half a lung and too much blood. But she refused to die lying down.
Her eyes flickered and flared. The Dread Knight cocked its head.
“It is over, Sentinel.” It leveled its sword at her, readying for a final stroke. “You are going home now. Perhaps this time, they will let you stay.”
“Fuck you.”
Her whole body erupted in a corona of golden light as her halo returned, and beams from her eyes carved into the mountainside surrounding them. She only managed about a second of a burst, but it was enough. The rock groaned and rumbled under its own weight, suddenly too weak to support itself. With a thunderous crack, a portion of the mountain sheared off, tumbling down onto all of them in a massive rockslide. The Dread Knight growled in sudden fury, and Angel smiled as she collapsed.
She never hit the ground. Instead, pricks and stings of pain danced across her skin as something wound tight around her whole body and yanked her off her feet and away from the Dread Knight. It took her a second to find the source—a long, sickly black vine with red thorns biting into her. And holding tight to the other end was Ruby, pulling like her life depended on it.
Bart was at her side, pulling on the vine right along with her even as the thorns sliced his palms open. And behind both of them was the Rusted Star and Thalia standing in its doorway, shouting for them to hurry.
Son of a bitch. They had one job.
She tried to yell at them, but the only thing that escaped her lips was more blood. Ruby and Bart finally dragged her close enough for them to grab her. Angel was vaguely aware of skeletal figures chasing after them as they all retreated into the Star and shut the doors behind them.
“Is she alive?”
“She—I think she’s breathing.”
“Oh my gods. Oh my gods.”
Banging on the walls. Undead maybe. Bad maybe. She was so tired.
“We need to move! Thalia!”
“I’m trying! Just worry about her! Don’t let her die!”
“Bart, what do we do?”
Her pain was gone now. Gone away, numb and cold and tingly. She breathed out. Forgot to breathe back in.
“Bart? Do something!”
“I am! I just—I’m trying to remember the words!”
“What words! What are you—?”
A dull warmth trickled through her chest, removing the numbness and leaving her with a deep, throbbing ache. The faintest hint of energy came to her, like a little fit of movement in between trying to fall asleep. It was enough to keep her awake just long enough to feel her stomach lurch and to hear a sound like rumbling earth all around her.
Then everything went quiet.
35
SENTINEL
“Ow.”
Monica winced as Sir Richard wiped the scrape on her arm with an alcohol-soaked rag. The cleaning stung, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as her own pride, which was in shambles. She’d hurt herself training.
Again.
It was almost impressive how many times she’d done it, given how ostensibly durable she was. But as it turned out, one of the few things strong enough to hurt her was herself, and it was starting to look like that was the only talent training with Sir Richard was honing.
It was such a simple, basic technique for a paladin: funneling the divine power of Renalt into her body and weapon to enhance her strikes. The worst an apprentice should have been able to mess it up was not summoning enough power and being left with a weak attack.
Monica’s practice axe had exploded in her hand.
“Stop your whining,” the knight said. “Getting the wound hurt twice as much, and you made half as much noise.”
“That was different,” the girl muttered. She winced again but managed to stay quiet this time. “Can’t we just let the priest heal me?”
“There are better uses of Renalt’s power than cleaning up your messes,” Richard scolded. “And besides, there isn’t always going to be a priest around to pray you all better. Best to learn how to get by without one now.”
“This is so stupid,” Monica said. Another wipe, another wince. “Why can’t I just stop?”
“And let all your progress be for nothing? I won’t allow it. You were born for this, Monica.”
“If I was born for it, why am I so bad at it?”
“You’ve only just started your training. Mastering most of these techniques takes years of—”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” Monica yanked her arm free of Richard’s grasp as her threadbare patience broke, and she shot him a demanding glare. “Why am I like this? Why . . . why does it hurt?”
Her voice cracked for just half a syllable. In seconds, all traces of the fire in her glare melted away, leaving only a young girl, tall for her age and yet so small. Sturdier than some armors, stronger than half a dozen men, and scared out of her wits.
Richard leaned back in his seat as his brow furrowed. They weren’t talking about her arm anymore.
When Richard or even Hilda called on the Vigilant Saint for power, the strength of Renalt flowed through them and their weapons. Using it tired them, sure. Hilda especially could barely maintain it for a few swings. But it was still pure empowerment while they were using it. Whenever Monica summoned power, she got stronger, but it felt like she was burning up from the inside out.
She knew it wasn’t supposed to be like that. From the moment she was old enough to understand the world around her, she’d known she was different. Her parents, her village, and Richard all said she was special. But the more she trained under Sir Richard, the more aspects of being a paladin she managed to fuck up or just hate, and the more she just felt wrong.
“It’s likely my fault,” the old knight said.
“How?”
“At its core, you use the same power the same way as any paladin. Divine presence fills your body, makes you stronger and faster and harder than you could ever be on your own. And because of that, I’ve tried to teach you to use it the same way I’ve been teaching Hilda,” Richard explained. “But the more this keeps happening, the more I’ve thought about it, and by now, I have to conclude that even in this, you aren’t like Hilda. Or me or anyone.”
“Because I’m a . . .” Monica paused, trying and failing to remember the word Richard had given it.
“A Sentinel, yes,” Richard finished for her. “You have the body of a human, Monica, but you have the soul of an angel. And that soul comes with power. I’ve been acting under the impression that angels draw on Renalt’s power at least similarly to how we do. But there is another theory regarding them and the Sentinels who bear their souls. That they don’t need to call for power because it’s already inside them.”
