Chapter 16 #3
Drystan felt the bone-jarring impact, but the paralyzed limb registered no pain. He had intentionally sacrificed the dead meat to trap the weapon.
The executioner froze for a microscopic second, his halberd wedged in the anomaly's arm.
That was all Drystan needed.
Using his downward momentum, Drystan drove the three-foot shard of jagged ruby crystal directly down into the zealot's cracked crystalline visor.
The glass shattered. The heavy crystal shard punched through the compromised helmet and buried itself deep into the executioner’s genetically engineered skull. The zealot’s arms went limp, the golden armor collapsing backward down the rubble.
Drystan ripped his dead left arm free from the deactivated halberd, leaving a deep, smoking gouge in the brass plating. He landed heavily on a massive slab of crystal, his broken rib screaming, but he didn't stop moving.
The second executioner lunged, swinging a backhand strike with the butt of his halberd.
The heavy golden shaft slammed into Drystan’s right shoulder, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending him tumbling across the uneven glass. He hit the ground hard, losing his grip on the crystal shard.
The zealot advanced, raising the blade of light for a decapitating strike.
Suddenly, a chaotic, liquid shadow whipped around the executioner’s ankle.
Nymeria Shade had not stayed on the ridge. She had slid down the rubble right behind him. Holding the gravity-sink relic in one hand, she used her free hand to weave a localized shadow-snare. The twilight magic locked onto the zealot's boot, violently jerking his leg backward.
The executioner stumbled, his sweeping strike going wide, the blade of light singing over Drystan’s head and severing a chunk of red glass.
Drystan rolled violently to his feet. He didn't reach for a weapon. He threw his entire body weight forward, tackling the massive, off-balance zealot.
They crashed into the rubble, a chaotic tangle of heavy leather and gleaming gold armor. Drystan was vastly overpowered in pure physical strength, but he fought with the frantic, feral brutality of a man who had already accepted death.
He drove his right elbow repeatedly into the side of the zealot's helmet. He ignored the screaming pain in his own arm. He grabbed the heavy golden gorget around the executioner’s neck with his right hand and ripped it backward, exposing the flexible synthetic mesh beneath the armor.
Before the zealot could throw him off, Drystan dropped his head and slammed his own forehead directly into the cracked visor.
CRACK.
The impact dazed the executioner. Drystan scrambled upward, wrapping his heavy, dead left arm around the zealot's throat in a crude chokehold.
He used the fused brass plating of the gauntlet as a fulcrum, locking his right hand around his own left wrist, and twisted with every ounce of kinetic force his body possessed.
The genetically engineered neck snapped with a loud, wet crunch.
The second executioner went limp, his massive armored body sliding down the rubble.
Drystan pushed himself off the corpse, his chest heaving violently, blood pouring from a cut on his forehead and blinding his left eye. He turned, ready to face the third and final zealot.
He didn't have to.
The third executioner lay dead on a slab of ruby glass a few yards away.
Nymeria stood over the body, her torn velvet corset heaving, the heavy Shadow-Loom Relic tucked under her arm.
In her right hand, she held the deactivated, heavy golden shaft of a fallen halberd.
She had driven the blunt, metallic end of the weapon completely through the weakened joints of the zealot's back armor while he was distracted by Drystan.
The canyon fell into a deep, heavy silence, broken only by the distant bubbling of the magma and the ragged, exhausted breathing of the two survivors.
Drystan stood in the center of the massacre. His blood-red leather duster was torn and scorched. His silver-white hair was matted with crimson and red dust. He was standing on a mountain of shattered crystal, surrounded by the broken, golden bodies of an invincible army.
Nymeria dropped the halberd shaft. It clattered loudly against the glass. She walked slowly toward him, the freezing aura of the relic washing away the sickening heat of the battle.
She stopped in front of him. She looked at his bleeding forehead, his shredded right hand, and the deep, smoking gouge in the dead brass of his left arm. The cynical, paranoid girl from the slums was entirely gone. She looked at him with the profound, unshakeable reverence reserved for a king.
"The pass is clear," she whispered, her amber eyes glowing in the freezing shadows.
Drystan Harrow spat a mouthful of blood onto the shattered crystal. He didn't offer a corporate platitude. He didn't smile. He looked down at the ruined golden armor at his boots, fully embracing the absolute, violent reality of the monster he had become.
"Then let's keep walking," Drystan rasped, turning his back on the slaughter. "We have a god to dethrone."