They split the party, p.28
They Split the Party, page 28
Anything but Monica.
The knight rapped her knuckles on the doorway, finally getting Naomi to glance in her direction for a moment.
“Commander.”
Hilda frowned at Naomi’s formality, but she soldiered on. “Missed you after dinner. Searched half the keep before somebody told me you took monitor duty tonight.”
“I wanted to give Cole the night off.”
“So, you’re not avoiding me?”
Instead of answering, Naomi turned her attention back to the pool. Hilda sighed, bracing herself.
“What did I do?”
“What did—” Naomi’s face flashed with indignation. “Hilda, you wanted to murder an innocent girl.”
“To protect the world.”
“And now you’re letting a town die!”
“I am following our oath!” Hilda said. “We stand—”
“I know what we stand for. I also know we could help the people of Loraine, and we are choosing not to,” Naomi said.
“You think I don’t know that?” Hilda asked. “You think this isn’t a hard choice for me to make?”
“I think you chose wrong,” Naomi said.
“We have our mission.”
“Then the mission is wrong!”
Technically speaking, Naomi had just spoken heresy. Again.
Even though she served as a member of the Order of Saint Ricard, it was the pendant of Saint Robyn that hung from Naomi’s neck. Robyn, the Saint of Revolution, was a symbol of change and rebellion against unjust rule. So, of course Naomi chafed against traditions and constantly questioned Hilda’s decisions. It was practically sacrilegious for her not to.
And of course Hilda had fallen in love with her. Why did she always fall for the troublemakers?
“Every time this order has gone off mission, things have gone wrong,” Hilda said. “When the order stepped in to help Roland I and Katherine claim the crown of Corsar, war broke out. When we answered the crown’s call to stop the Servitor, we were nearly wiped out, and the Horde of Stone invaded from Antem while we were weakened. When my father abandoned his post to train Monica, he died.”
“So, we sit here and do nothing while your ex dies trying to save the town we abandoned?”
“Monica’s not dying doing anything,” Hilda said.
“She came here, just for a chance to find help for that town,” Naomi said. “You really think she’d turn her back on it just because she couldn’t get it?”
“You don’t know her like I do,” Hilda said. “She acts tough because she’s stronger than almost anything she runs into, but when things actually get hard, she always runs. She tried to fight the Dread Knight, and it almost killed her. She’s not going anywhere near it.”
“Then explain this!”
Naomi splashed her hand against the silver surface of the pool, and as the ripples faded, an image of the streets of Loraine came into focus. The town’s guard had assembled on the street, manning makeshift barricades that enclosed a massive crowd of people. Desperate, terrified screams filled the air as the guards picked off the reanimated dead that were beginning to stalk the nearby streets.
The Rusted Star took in dozens of people at a time, closing its doors only when it began to get too crowded to move safely, after which it would disappear into the ground, returning a few minutes later. Manning its doors, alternately ushering people inside or consoling those left just short of the cutoff, were Bart and Ruby.
“Every time this thing has decided to show me something, it’s been Loraine,” Naomi said. “That’s her inn. She’s there.”
Hilda failed to hide her surprise. “She found a way to help without fighting.”
“Except they can’t save them all,” Naomi said. “The fringes of the Dread Knight’s army are already starting to enter the city.”
“Nobody ever manages to save everyone,” Hilda said. “Monica’s saving who she can, which is more than even I thought she would. The people who protect Corsar’s interior will do their job, and we will do ours.”
Naomi’s shoulders sagged, and Hilda’s frown deepened.
“You still think I’m wrong.”
“You’re the commander. You’ve made your decision.”
Naomi’s voice had a bitter tinge to it, but however much she disagreed with Hilda, she didn’t take it as far as desertion or insubordination. Hilda wondered whether it was because Naomi ultimately trusted her decisions as commander or she just couldn’t bring herself to stand against Hilda.
She prayed it was the former.
“I have. I’m sorry if you disagree with it.”
Naomi turned her back, refocusing on the pool. Hilda decided that it might be best if she gave Naomi some space and turned for the door.
“Hilda.”
The knight commander froze in place and instantly felt embarrassed. All Naomi had to do was say her name, and she could stop Hilda’s heart. For a moment, her chest tightened in anticipation, waiting for Naomi’s next words.
“You need to see this.”
The commander obliged her partner, coming back to the pool. She didn’t know what to expect. A new threat that they could ride out to meet felt like too much to hope for. Maybe things were taking a turn for the better in Loraine. Or a turn for the worse.
What Hilda saw instead was her one-time lover, surrounded by ruins and the scattered remains of undead soldiers, her eyes ablaze like white hot flames, in the middle of a fierce melee with what could only be the Dread Knight itself.
The longer Hilda stared at the scene, the more insane it was to her. Monica, who’d taken the name “Angel” as a sarcastic joke, who’d run from the Order of Saint Ricard not once but twice, who’d spent the last seven years hiding and hoping the world forgot about her, was fighting a monster she knew she couldn’t beat.
And where she was doing it—their surroundings were too dilapidated to be Loraine itself. Which meant she was fighting it outside the town’s defenses. She recalled the earlier scene from inside Loraine, where the guards were holding back only the small beginnings of an undead incursion, and suddenly the pieces began to fit together.
She was going to get herself killed. She had to know that. But every second she didn’t was one that the Dread Knight would be fighting her and not the town. Hilda had been half right. Monica was saving everyone she could. But she was doing it at the cost of herself.
Hilda watched as Monica swung a haymaker that went wide, resulting in her taking an elbow to the head that sent her sprawling. She was up on her feet a second later, screaming bloody murder. This time, she landed a good hit, sending the Dread Knight through a wall that crumpled on top of it. It burst out from the rubble, unphased.
Only a brief exchange and Hilda knew. Monica stood no chance. She was going to die in those ruins. But every second she fought, the number of people who would die with her shrank.
In the face of that kind of sacrifice, all Hilda could feel was shame. While Monica fought and died, the order stood still. Would stay still.
Unless Hilda moved it.
“Hilda?”
“Get everyone ready to depart,” Hilda ordered. “Now!”
46
FIREWORKS
The Lysander Theater was a dilapidated mess of a place. The doors and windows had all been boarded up, and the paint on the marble walls was chipped and cracked in places where it wasn’t missing outright. The giant mask over the main entrance hung at an off-kilter angle, threatening to fall off completely even as it continued to cast its lopsided gaze over all who entered.
“Say one thing for Kurien, she really knows how to stay on brand.”
“I thought the authorities were searching theaters?” Church asked.
“We’re in Nikos,” Phoenix said. “Every building here is either a theater, a bath, or a courthouse.”
They searched the theater slowly and methodically, starting with a full sweep of its exterior before moving inward. The four of them split up, each making their way through a separate part of the theater. Though they wanted to be thorough and sweep the entire building, they all knew that there was really only one place Kurien would be waiting for them in a place like this.
And so, they all converged on the main stage itself.
Phoenix came in through the main entrance, staring down a wide aisle flanked on either side by a semicircle of stone bench seating. Brass came in from the west wing, Church the east, while Wings crept out onto a balcony seating box overhead.
Tattered, midnight blue curtains framed the edges of a slightly dilapidated wooden stage, while a small hole in the ceiling let a shaft of shifting light and colors shine down on it. And standing center stage, still as a mannequin and patiently waiting with her back turned, was none other than Kurien.
As the door closed shut behind Phoenix, Kurien brought her hands together in a slow, hollow clap.
“As soon as I heard about the fireworks, I knew you had some sort of trick to find me,” Kurien said. She turned around with a flourish, spreading her arms wide. “Well? Here I am.”
At the same time, Phoenix drew his wand and Wings knocked back an arrow. They shot as one, just in time for Kurien to vanish in a burst of ink-black darkness, leaving nothing but an echo of her laughter. Four heads moved at once, looking in every direction for any sign of where she’d gone.
“And yet, still I find myself disappointed.”
Kurien’s voice echoed, sourceless and omnipresent. “Am I not worth a proper reunion, gentlemen? Did I not warrant the full troupe? You’d have me settle for the three of you and one of the king’s lapdogs?”
“Rude,” Wings muttered.
“Honestly, how am I supposed to stage a grand return without proper antagonists? The Prince Killer versus the Starbreakers is a story worth telling. An iconic clash for the ages. The Prince Killer versus some of the Starbreakers and someone else doesn’t even roll off the tongue!”
Wings nocked and fired an arrow, a gust of wind banking it hard to the right in midflight, sending it straight into a seemingly empty dark corner in the theater. With a flash of steel, the arrow was sliced out of the air, and the shadows in the corner coalesced into the form of Kurien.
The Prince Killer cocked her head. “Well now. The lapdog knows a few tricks.”
“That was a warning shot,” Wings said. “Call me lapdog again and see where I aim the next one.”
The Prince Killer straightened her posture as, one by one, a row of weapons unfurled behind her like a set of razor-sharp, metal wings. There were even more now than there had been when Church and Brass had fought her. When she spoke, there was a new twinge of excitement laced into her voice.
“I suppose I can make do with the players I’ve been given.” With a flourish, she reached behind her, producing the final piece of her arsenal—Phoenix’s old blaster, crackling and ready to fire as she extended it toward her assembled adversaries in mock salute.
“Come now, everyone! Give me a show!”
Kurien punctuated her challenge by vanishing into a cloud of darkness as her weapons scattered off in four directions, each one moving to harry a different opponent.
As a trio of polearms came racing toward her, Wings dove from her balcony, her ethereal wings bursting to life behind her and carrying her into a quick, rolling turn to avoid them. The weapons altered their course to follow her, forcing her into further evasive maneuvers in the tight space of the theater.
Down below, the boys were having their own problems.
Brass was retreating backward, hopping over seating rows as he parried one errant flying sword after another. At the opposite side of the room, Church was struggling to keep his footing under an onslaught of attacks from a maul and a mace. And down in the center, Phoenix was being completely overwhelmed. A small swarm of daggers, along with a single chakram, were coming at him from every direction, darting in and out to make quick slices at him. For every one he blocked with his force shield or shot out of the sky with his wand, it felt like two more slipped through his guard and cut another slit in his armor.
The arcane weapons were more than a match for the protective enchantments in his armor, and taking them out one by one was going too slowly. Sooner or later, one of them was going to hit something important, which meant he had to end this quickly.
Holstering his wand so he could keep his shield up, Phoenix dug as many dispelling discs as he could out of his belt and tossed them out in a wide circle around him. With a flash of light and a crash, the discs dissolved into embers, and every single weapon attacking Phoenix dropped to the ground, completely inert—along with every enchanted piece of equipment on his person.
Dispelling discs couldn’t destroy the kind of permanent magic woven into Phoenix’s equipment, but they could absolutely disrupt it. In that moment, Phoenix’s armor, his wand, even the bottomless pockets in his belt and coat, all briefly became ordinary steel and leather.
And then Kurien reappeared center stage.
On an intellectual level, Phoenix understood that Kurien was using his old weapon. When Brass and Church had first told him, it hadn’t taken him too long to work out a chain of events that might have led to the old thing ending up in some wealthy individual’s private artifact collection. He’d even prepared to deal with it, tuning his armor to resist the energy the blaster fired.
But it was different seeing his own creation pointed at him, charging to fire, and knowing that not only had he built the thing that was about to put a hole in his chest but that he’d also just disabled the one thing that might have protected him from it. As Kurien pulled the trigger, Phoenix recalled the old fable of the Architect of Oblivion and the old adage about creators always being undone by their creation.
It really was a stupid way to go.
Luckily, if there was one person with plenty of experience saving Phoenix from himself, it was his wife.
Wings dove down from the air, bringing both feet onto Kurien’s back in a flying mule kick, and Kurien’s shot went wide. She disappeared into a cloud of darkness again, reappearing a few feet away. With a twitch of her finger, the weapon fired itself once again.
Wings almost got clear of the shot, taking a blast aimed for her heart in the shoulder. She ducked out of the way of the next one and was back in the air by the time the third went off, dodging blast after blast.
Brass and Church both tried to close the gap on Kurien, only to be cut off by more flying weaponry as Kurien conducted her arsenal against them. Her hands twirled in a flourish of movement, all while she still found time to mentally aim and fire Phoenix’s blaster at Wings.
Back in the stands, Phoenix was deeply annoyed at Kurien and himself. None of his equipment was functioning yet, but after years of working with it, he’d become a particularly accurate throw. And Kurien had given him plenty of weapons to choose from.
Phoenix scooped the bronze chakram off the ground, waited for a moment where Kurien’s head was transitioning to look up at Wings, and threw the weapon straight into the Prince Killer’s face. It struck dead on, snapping Kurien’s head back as it took a chunk out of her previously pristine mask.
Kurien staggered backward, cackling.
“Oh, very good!” Her head snapped forward once again, displaying the deep, jagged crack running down the side of her mask and the massive nick at the top of it. “That’s talent! Delivering even when diminished! Don’t disappoint me now! It’s time for the grand finale!”
Kurien’s remaining weapons retreated from their bouts, returning to their position at her back as the shadows of the theater began to warp and pool around her, seemingly unaffected by the fireworks from outside. Brass, Church, and Wings all rushed the stage as the darkness seemed to swallow Kurien, closing in just as she vanished from sight.
“Oh, come on!” Wings cried. “Is she just going to keep doing this the whole time?”
Phoenix looked around, thinking. This was different from Kurien’s other disappearances in the fight. She wasn’t taunting them from the shadows, and her weapons weren’t attacking them to create any kind of opening. That, and her mention of a grand finale, pointed to one conclusion.
Kurien wasn’t in the theater anymore.
“Ink, she’s on the move,” Phoenix barked into his messenger coil. “If she’s covering her tracks with the Heart, you should be able to see the gap she’s creating with a detection spell.”
“Well then, we’ve got a problem,” Ink’s voice came back. “Because I’m seeing four gaps leaving the theater in different directions.”
“Is she trying to distract us?” Church guessed.
“She’d have to know how we were tracking her to game it like that, and I don’t think she does,” Phoenix said. “This isn’t her trying to throw us off her trail, this has to be part of her finale somehow.”
“How?” Wings asked.
“Enough of this. I’m following the one headed for Roland,” Ink said.
As soon as Ink spoke, a realization struck Phoenix. Kurien was here to make a statement, to reinstall herself as the terror of nobility and leaders everywhere. Everything they knew said Roland was her target.
But that didn’t mean Roland was her only target.
“No!” Phoenix shouted. “We need you here, now!”
“Why?”
“Because Roland isn’t the only world leader in the city!”
For a split second, neither Snow nor Silas moved as they stared each other down. Snow took in her surroundings.
Three people were here to sell weapons to Silas, all armed but visibly skittish, and they already had their money. When violence broke out, they’d run. Silas had two identical women with him to make the exchange. Silas and the twins all wore wristpockets, and the twins were also each wearing another piece of Old World jewelry around their wrists that Snow couldn’t place. The associates of criminals in hiding didn’t usually wear Old World jewelry purely for the sake of fashion, so it was safe to assume they did something magical. She’d have to keep an eye on them.
