Chapter 21 #4
These fools are using their God-given gifts most flagrantly and someone must call them to account.
The High Saint whirls away, prize in hand. I taste the violation of Victoriana’s person like rotted meat in my mouth. There will be war between the High Saint and me. I shall press him until he comes to her on his knees. Until he stands vigil for three nights in prayerful repentance. Until …
Swords clash again between the Majester and the Vagabond, released suddenly from the High Saint’s grip.
This is the High Saint’s gift, exercised now in a harsh way.
If he keeps his sacraments perfectly — and we all know he has — he may ask a request of any other follower of the God and they must give it.
In this case, standing still in the middle of a fight while he raids the Vagabond’s tears and blood.
But this is an abuse of the power bestowed on him. A blasphemy.
The God will judge.
I hope.
I channel my anger into forcing the veiled maiden back.
I lose track of the Majester and the Vagabond as I push forward, noticing, out of the corner of my eye, how the Penitent is taking blood from the fallen Inquisitor.
The milky paladin must have spilled tears as he lay there, crushed, for they are raided — most indecently.
I feel a pull, dragging me toward him. Perhaps it is not too late to save him? But if I divert my path, it may be too late for Victoriana.
I’ve always hated prioritizing those who need my aid. I hate it now.
“I’ll have your tears, girl,” the Majester is saying grimly as I finally break free from the attack of the veiled maiden. “It won’t hurt you, so why deny me?”
“I’m not your adversary!”
“Then what would you call this dance?”
I can’t see them.
The statues of the Saints are too thick for me to catch a glimpse as I try to push past a robed Saint waving a censer. He thrusts it at my face and it’s all I can do to dance back from the lunge.
I split his censer with my sword, spin a second Saint statue over my shoulders in a move I haven’t had to use in battle since the Sixth Plague War, and then aim a careful blow at the delicate ankle of the trident-bearing Saint just in front of me.
He tumbles to the ground in a heap and I leap onto his shoulders just in time to see the Vagabond on her knees, straddling the dog, sword held in both hands as she blocks a blow from the Majester with all her strength.
She’s bleeding freely from one side and for a moment I’m shocked that the Majester has managed to bring her to her knees …
until I see that her head is caught in the pale marble hands of a statue.
The curving female Saint looks past me as she holds the Vagabond in place, a look of empty nothing in her eyes.
Beside her, a second empty-eyed statue makes a grab for the paladin’s off-hand, catches her forearm, and levers it backward. She cries out in pain.
And that is too much for me.
I fling myself forward, uncaring of the blows aimed at me.
One takes me hard on the left scapula, barely deflected by my breastplate. I stumble, but move with the blow, forcing myself forward despite the flaring pain in that side.
Another knocks my right hip. Not enough to stop me. I’ve battered my way through worse.
I see the Majester raise his sword in what is clearly meant to be a killing blow, but I ram my blade through him before he can bring his sword down, right beneath the heart.
And now I’ve committed murder, too. Not my first. Never my last.
He stumbles.
I feel the tremor in my grip, through the sword, as his quaking flesh makes my blade shiver and buck. His collapse pulls the blade down with him, but it also drags down the statues he was maneuvering. I snatch my sword free before it can be further harmed.
My heart stutters in my chest as my lungs heave with effort. I swallow down bile. I hate killing. Hate wounding. I’m not sure which I’ve done now. Not sure.
I think I’ve killed him, but there isn’t time to check.
With a shuddering breath, I step back from his body and toward the Vagabond.
Shock paints her face with long lines. Her hair is spread and tangled around her neck and shoulders as if she’s been dragged down into a river and strangled by weeds. She’s forced her statue attackers away and is breathing as hard as I am.
“Are you mortally wounded?” I gasp out.
“You killed for me.” Her words are sharp, disbelieving. She looks every inch the warrior queen despite an arm that hangs at her side.
For just one sparkling moment in the middle of horror, it is just we two, looking at each other. Something sparks hot and fierce between us and it’s more than brotherhood or common cause. It’s something that shoots deep and hard through me and it’s never coming out again.
“I’ll heal you,” I gasp, struggling up to my feet. “I’ll heal you both.”
I’m surprised when she half shakes her head — is that denial or refusal? Will she not take my gift?
The strains of the organ turn to a sad, sweeping strain.
“The blood!” Sir Sorken yells down. “This isn’t over. Get the Beggar some blood for her cup or you’ll be crushed!”
I look up and see the statues moving past the ones that fell with the Majester. They have all turned toward us. With their targets winnowed down to two, we’ll be fighting all of them at once.
Before I can say a word, they break into a run toward us.
I growl in my throat and grab the Vagabond by the arm to guide her. She screams when I force her to her feet, but her teeth are gritted and her eyes are all determination. A broken arm, I think.
“The dog,” she gasps.
“We’ll come back for the dog,” I tell her. “After.”
I push her ahead of me with my off-hand. Hers falls uselessly at her side — a compound fracture, then, if I’m any judge.
I feel jagged inside, but the Engineer is right. We must get the blood and tears in the cup and we must do it now, or we’ll be clobbered again.
I glance behind us, guarding our backs as I hustle the Vagabond to her platform.
Over my shoulder, I see the Penitent at the Majester’s cup.
“If he still lives, he needs his cup filled!” Sir Coriand calls down.
They’ll have to work that out for themselves. I have no energy for traitors.
We’re at the stairs. I’m supporting the Vagabond as she ascends them, stumbling in a way that tells me she’s in a lot of pain.
She reaches the top and pauses over her cup.
“I have nothing,” she says through her gritted teeth, and her eyes are a little wild as her gaze darts back to the dog. Ha! She’d had the same thought I’d had about him.
“Let me,” I manage to say between heavy breaths. I still have angry tears on my face. It’s easy enough to let one fall into the broken cup she chose. Why a broken one?
“You’re not my adversary.” She says it like a declaration, like a queen awarding a prize.
I want to kiss her.
The thought is unbidden. Unwelcome. I thrust it aside.
“Aren’t I?” I grit out. “Have I not made things harder for you? Do I not make them harder now? Trust me, Lady Paladin, I am no proper friend to you.”
“Are you not? For you are a friend like no other,” she says, lips trembling at some emotion I cannot discern.
Her confession tears something inside me, opening me wide. I’m stuck in her gaze. I’m trapped like a fly in treacle. I can’t breathe.
“It’s not working!” the Penitent calls from behind me. “Why isn’t it working?”
Beneath us, our platform begins to sway and the sound of stone on stone rings as the statues throw themselves at our refuge.
I lift my hand up, press the cut in my thumb to her vessel, and squeeze a drop into her cup. Friend or not, I am indeed her rival. Her enemy. Because friendship with me is ruin to any woman.
Her cup glows bright, confirming that.
And as sudden as the sneaking dawn, silence falls. My breath saws in my lungs. Victoriana lets out a vulnerable, trembling exhale that melts me straight to the core. Hefertus’s organ lets out a last gasp and all is still.
“Well,” Sir Sorken calls out in his usual cheerful tone. “I suppose that’s done it, then.”