They split the party, p.25
They Split the Party, page 25
Two knights moved to intercept Thalia, Ruby, and Bart, ushering them to sit while Angel was left to walk into the ring. Hilda was already waiting for her there.
She’d abandoned her hooded cloak, revealing short, sand-blonde hair that created an asymmetrical frame around her face. Her silver armor, and really the armor of most of the knights in attendance, was surprisingly dull under the lightstone lamps, worn and scuffed from years of abuse and repair. It only made Angel’s loaned armor look all the more out of place for how cleanly it glinted on her.
The two fighters took their positions.
The duel was first to yield or until someone was unable to fight, and neither had any illusions about getting the other to yield. The order had a cleric on standby to deal with injuries once the fight was over. That was it as far as rules went.
Make the other stop fighting. However you had to.
“You can still back down,” Hilda said.
“I never back down.” Angel rolled out her shoulders and assumed a fighting stance.
Hilda raised an eyebrow before settling into her own stance. “Liar.”
Even though the barb stung, somewhere in the back of her mind, Angel knew that if anyone in the world had the right to call her that, it was Hilda.
The two of them had both been training under her father, Sir Richard, to become paladins and members of the Order of Saint Ricard. They fell for each other, hard and fast like teenagers always did, complete with naive promises to be together forever. And then, one day, what should have been a routine training patrol went horribly, horribly wrong. Angel had been overzealous in following a trail and led the three of them into a hobgoblin ambush.
Under Sir Richard’s orders, a terrified Angel had carried a wounded Hilda kicking and screaming from the battle that followed, leaving the knight behind to die. Those screams, so fresh in her mind from her visit with the Oracle, sent a shiver down her spine. On that day, she’d broken both of their hearts. Not long after, Angel left the Order altogether. The only times they’d seen each other since then had been when the Order’s business and the Starbreakers’ briefly intersected. And none of those occasions had borne anything between them but dark looks and curt words.
And now, here they were. They stood still, eyes locked on one another, axes at the ready. Total silence fell over the room. For a single moment, no one breathed.
Angel and Hilda moved at the same time, rushing forward and swinging with their axes as both of their bodies were consumed in auras of light. Their weapons crashed together with a shattering clang loud enough for the spectators to feel it in their bones, and the whole room was consumed in a blinding flash.
Their axes deflected each other, and both fighters took a half step back before circling each other and swinging again with similar results. On the third swing, there was screech of metal on metal as their two axe heads interlocked.
Hilda reacted first, delivering a jab that caught Angel on the shoulder and sounded off like a cymbal as her gauntlet sang against Angel’s pauldron.
Angel staggered back with a dent in her armor. She’d been thinking of doing the exact same thing, but Hilda had been faster. Treating it like a wakeup call rather than a bad sign, Angel rolled her shoulder and charged again.
Every blow traded was a crack of thunder. Each one echoed in the room, several giving off flashes of light that forced spectators to look away. Their exchange rattled the walls, made the lightstones flicker, and on one occasion, the stone cracked under their feet. Angel hit harder. Hilda hit more often.
Just as Angel was beginning to think it was an even fight after all, it all went to shit. She braced her axe in both hands and used the haft to block a downward chop from Hilda, and the weapon bent in her hands. Cracks ran the length of the wood, and it was only the steel reinforcements that kept it in one piece. Her surprise slowed her, letting Hilda take another swing. The axe buckled further. Panic gripped Angel as she fell back and kicked with everything she had—too late.
Hilda’s third swing of her axe cleaved Angel’s weapon in two, burying itself in her chest. At the same time, her kick landed smack into Hilda’s stomach, and the knight was catapulted back, only coming to a stop after a long tumble across the ring.
Slowly, both women clambered to their feet. Blood ran from the fresh gouge in Angel’s armor, and her collar bone throbbed with pain. It hurt to move her left arm. And now her weapon was broken in two.
Somehow, Hilda had managed to hold on to her axe when she got hit, and though her armor had been caved in around her abdomen, she looked steady on her feet. Then she coughed, and flecks of blood spattered across the floor.
It was Angel’s turn to react faster than Hilda as she reared back and hurled her axe head as hard as she could. Hilda, still winded, barely brought her own weapon up in time to deflect, and even then, it clipped her forehead before sailing past and embedding itself into a wall—just above the heads of some of the knights watching the fight.
It was a good hit, but a lucky one, and it didn’t change the fact that Hilda had a weapon and Angel didn’t. Pressing her advantage, she rushed forward and grabbed hold of Hilda’s axe with both hands. But Hilda had the same read on the situation and wasn’t about to give up her edge without a fight.
With a savage yell, she reversed her grip on her axe and used it as leverage to throw Angel over her shoulder and down to the floor. Before Angel could even orient herself, Hilda was on top of her, bashing her in the face with the shaft of her axe before using it to pin Angel to the floor by the throat.
“Yield before I break your neck!” Hilda shouted.
In answer, Angel drove her knee into Hilda, knocking her loose enough to relieve some of the pressure on her throat. Hilda answered immediately with another bash to Angel’s face before trying to pin her again, but this time, Angel was able to get a hand between the axe handle and her windpipe.
“Why?” Hilda asked. “Why are you fighting so hard to put us all at risk?”
Angel struggled to grunt out a retort as she pushed back against the weapon threatening to crush her. “Why are you fighting so hard to kill someone who doesn’t deserve it?”
With a grunt and a punch to Hilda’s already broken ribs, she managed to shove the woman off and scramble back to her feet, her own injury screaming in protest the entire time. She felt like shit. But as long as Hilda looked as bad as she felt, there was a chance.
And Hilda looked like shit. A stream of blood ran down her face from the head wound Angel had given her, her armor was bent and buckled in half a dozen places, and her lips and teeth were stained red. And yet, none of it seemed to slow her down.
“It’s not about deserving it,” Hilda protested. She charged forward, swinging her axe like a madwoman. The form and precision were gone from her attacks. Now it was nothing but pure, fanatic strength. “It’s about my duty! To Renalt! To this order! To everyone in Corsar!”
She punctuated every sentence with another wild swing. With nothing else to block with, Angel gave her best attempt at deflecting the blows with her gauntlets. The first time she tried it, she felt her collarbone explode in pain. The second, Hilda cut a gash into her arm. The third, she didn’t even try, only just managing to duck out of the way. The fourth caught her in the ribs, biting into her armor and sending her tumbling to the floor.
Pain and exhaustion welded Angel to the floor, her only saving grace that Hilda was too winded to press the assault. If she just stayed down long enough, it would be as good as yielding, and the fight would be over.
And Ruby would be dead.
Angel barely knew Ruby. Before this mess, they’d sat at the same table with a bunch of other people for lunch, once, months ago. She was supposed to be Church and Brass’s problem. Maybe she felt some sympathy for her current predicament, bombarded with problems because of a power she never asked for, but there was a line for what sympathy could explain. Letting her stay in the Star instead of taking her back to Aenerwin? Sure. This? This was insane. At the rate this fight was going, she was going to get herself killed for a woman she barely knew, who was probably going to end up summoning a demon by the year’s end anyway.
As she lay there on the floor, battered and bleeding, she caught sight of Ruby among the rest of the spectators. Out of her seat, a look of horror on her face. It was the face of someone who thought they were going to die. And next to her, Bart and Thalia, both seeing the same thing Angel was and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.
Hilda's words echoed in her head. It’s about my duty! To Renalt! To this order! To everyone in Corsar!
Angel grit her teeth and crawled up onto her knees as divine fire spread through her veins. The pain from her wounds was eclipsed in an instant by a searing, all-consuming burn spreading through every fiber of her being. Her eyes blazed, twin golden suns, and a burning halo ignited over her head. Her whole body glowed, too bright to look at for long.
When Angel spoke, it was in an echoing, doubled voice.
“Fuck your duty. Fuck Renalt. And fuck your order!”
Hilda realized what was coming in time to shield her face with her gauntlets and axe as beams of light surged from Angel’s eyes. Hilda was a paladin of Saint Ricard, trained to funnel divine power into her body and weapons. Her equipment was made to handle that power. But it could only take so much.
Hilda’s axe exploded in her hands, shredding her gauntlets.
The paladin stared at her arms for a moment, the ruined metal around them leaking blood in a dozen places.
Angel struggled the rest of the way to her feet, taking slow, pained steps toward Hilda. Her whole body shaking, Hilda raised her bloody fists. Angel matched her.
Angel’s first punch dented Hilda’s breastplate. Hilda’s split Angel’s cheek. Angel broke Hilda’s jaw. Hilda cracked another of Angel’s ribs. Angel grabbed both of Hilda’s arms, spread them wide, and delivered a headbutt that put Hilda on the ground.
Angel all but fell on top of her, less out of aggression and more because she ran out of strength to stand. With more desperation than anything else, she threw her weight into one last elbow, and Hilda’s eyes rolled back as her body went limp.
The light dissipated all at once from Angel’s body as she gasped. Her halo vanished, and her eyes returned to normal as smoke curled off her body. She rolled off of Hilda, on to her back, and blacked out.
Total silence took the room, broken by a muted whisper from a lone redhead, equal parts relieved and terrified by everything she’d just witnessed. Her words cut through the still air, echoing the thoughts of everyone present.
“Holy shit.”
40
ADRIFT
Too tapped to call on the power it would take to heal them, Church had fallen back on mundane treatments for his and Brass’s injuries, cleaning and bandaging them as best he could. It wasn’t perfect, but it kept them alive and stable long enough to crash the ship back into Puerto Oro’s harbor, by which time Ink and Quint had managed to subdue the rest of the Cord of Aenwyn.
Kurien was headed to Parthica, but the fastest way to catch up to her was waiting and recuperating until Ink was feeling strong enough for another teleport. The wizard was with Quint, helping him and the Cord settle affairs with the city they had just terrorized. Fresh from a trip to a local hospital, the two Starbreakers were out of danger but sore, tired, and feeling sorry for themselves. Which, of course, meant they had sought out the closest cantina.
An exhausted silence hung between the two men as Brass smoked his way through a nail and Church nursed a cup of wine, his head propped up on one hand. Brass blew out a ring of smoke into the air above him and stared into it, as if it were a window to another time and place. Given what he was smoking, it might actually have been to him.
“Are you really just going back to Aenerwin after all this?” Brass asked.
Church sighed. He’d been wondering when they would have this conversation. Versions of it had come up early into Brass’s stay in the town as the glintchaser grew restless.
But things were different now. Going back to freelancing wasn’t just an idea in Brass’s head, sprung of boredom and nostalgia. They’d gone and done it. The others might be thinking of it as something different in their minds, but to Church and Brass, this job working for Roland was freelancer work, plain and simple. From the moment he’d agreed to work with Brass, Church knew that sooner or later, he was going to ask for more.
And the priest was going to have to break his friend’s heart.
“Yes, I am,” Church said. “It’s my home. Maybe not where I was born or raised, but it’s where I’ve built a life, a purpose. I have people who depend on me, I have work that needs doing. And I’m happy there.”
“I just figured, after these last few days . . .”
“Brass, there are things I miss from freelancing. Really. But it’s not for me. Not anymore.”
“I know that.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Church, I’m a big boy. I know my moms and dads got divorced and went their separate ways and people change and move on and all that other stuff you and Phoenix never stop spouting. I get it. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I get it. I’ve known since we were kids none of you wanted to do this forever. And if it’s really over and you’re all really done, then that’s that.”
“Then . . . I’m confused now. What’s wrong with me going back to Aenerwin?”
Brass looked directly at Church now.
“Oh, come on. Have you seen yourself the last few weeks? You convinced an immortal wizard to help us by asking nicely. You prayed hard enough to drop a casino full of people without killing a single one while they were all beating the shit out of you. You’ve got a heart so golden dwarves want to eat it for breakfast and more power in your back pocket than most bishops, and you’re just . . . sitting on it.
“Not that Aenerwin’s not nice, but it’s one town. One tiny, boring town. And maybe you needed that for a while—after Relgen—but forever? You used to have dreams. Plans. Big ones! You could be archbishop of wherever you wanted. You could have a hundred churches. You could change the world. Or at least put a hell of a lot more good in it than one town’s worth.”
Silence fell between them as Church stared at Brass, mouth agape. The priest sat there, struggling to process Brass’s words. And more to the point, struggling to process how deeply they’d cut him.
How many times had he stood in front of the people of Aenerwin and told them that when Renalt gave a person a strength or talent, he did it so they could use it? That when a person found their calling, it was their duty to pursue it with everything they had? And for all of that talk, all those sermons, Brass was right.
Seven years he’d been in Aenerwin. Not once in those seven years had he ever tried to reach out beyond it. To do more. Aenerwin was small and manageable and, quite frankly, easy. Apart from his usual drain from public speaking, being the vicar of Aenerwin was barely work at all. There was no shame in reaching a limit, in doing all he could. But in his heart, Church knew he had more in him.
And Brass knew it too. Only a few months spent with the priest in Aenerwin and a few weeks back on the job and Brass, of all people, had seen what he couldn’t about himself. Had believed in him on a level that he hadn’t even believed in himself.
And Church had absolutely no idea what to do with that.
“That was . . . a lot.”
“Well, I am smoking something to pass the time. I can get very profound when I’m high.”
Church smiled. “Thanks anyway. It means a lot. Knowing you think about me that way.”
Brass shook his head as if to say no thanks were necessary.
“I think about all of you that way. I mean, I know what I am. I’m a fun night in a purple vest and perfect eyeliner. But you? Phoenix? Snow? Angel? I was so thrilled to be in a company with the rest of you. Because I knew I was working with people who were going to change the world one day. And when the history books talked about all of you, I’d get to be in the footnotes as one of the lucky people who got to watch you do it.”
“Brass . . .”
“I also thought you were all really hot. Like, aggressively hot. Phoenix kinda lost it a little bit, but he’s also kind of making the gruff-dad thing work now. But the rest of you? Gorgeous as ever.”
“If you two are quite done flirting,” Ink interrupted as she sauntered into the bar. “We’ve got work to do.”
41
HURT
When Angel woke up, she was greeted by an unfamiliar face and the all-too-familiar grinding sensation of her bones unbreaking. No matter how many times she’d been given healing prayers, she never got used to the feel of them.
After taking a second to collect herself, she recognized the woman hovering over her as the priest who’d been with Hilda up on the mountain and standing by during the duel. Given how much better Angel felt, it seemed the woman was good at her job.
“Thanks,” she muttered, her voice hoarse.
Before the priest could say anything, she was cut off by Thalia.
“You’re insane. You know that, right?”
She was wearing a relieved smile, same as Ruby and Bart, as for the second time, Angel found the three of them surrounding her bedside. All of them looked unscathed, free of any chains or other signs of impending execution.
Ruby was the first one to hug her, with a surprising amount of strength for her small frame.
“Thank you.”
“You were . . . that was . . .” Bart’s tongue stumbled, at a loss for words. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Angel gingerly peeled Ruby off of her and waved off Bart’s praise, uncomfortable at the gratitude and awe being thrown at her. At least Thalia wasn’t losing her shit.
