Chapter 22 Faron #2
As for Sir Tristan’s group, they accompanied Isabelle’s on a straight march through the heart of Vendom.
Faron was all too glad to take point, and he rushed ahead, Iris and Sariel at his heels.
Smoke thickened, fires spreading unabated.
The first defense Faron encountered was thirty men trying to form a battle line to defend the Royal Manse.
Faron charged straight into them, a specter of the night they never saw coming.
Swords fell from limp hands, shields dented inward, the bones of the arms holding them cracking.
Iris leaped upon the nearest, her teeth opening the throat of a man so panicked he dropped his weapon and held his hands over his face in a futile attempt to save himself.
Sariel arrived last, his wide swings cutting open anyone foolish enough to stay. The rest flung down their arms and fled, so that when Isabelle arrived with her sword drawn, she had no one to face.
“Where are their soldiers?” she asked, sounding frustrated.
“Many will be on the walls,” Oscar said. “Galag’s soldiers can handle them. Our reports also said a large portion were bunked near the west wall. Pira should catch them unprepared. All that remain will be at the Royal Manse.”
“I’ll make sure to save you a few to murder, Your Highness,” Sariel said, overhearing her complaints.
The queen flashed him a wicked smile. “How kind of you.”
Onward, into the night, and into a city growing both brighter from torches and fires and yet darker and more clouded with smoke.
Ahead loomed the Royal Manse, the seat of power for all of Argylle.
Faron had been to it several times throughout his lives, having watched it first built centuries before.
A beautiful three-story mansion held up with a dozen limestone pillars carved into the likeness of spiraling iron-beech trees.
Dozens of triangular windows opened into every room, and they were filled with rare clear glass.
A towering gate surrounded the premises, the top spiked and the bars decorated with iron roses.
Before that entrance gathered what was left of Argylle’s defenders. Ninety footmen standing shoulder to shoulder, four rows deep. Three preachers of the church stood among their number with their lanterns held high.
“Hold faith in Father’s mercy,” one of them shouted as the Doremy army approached. “Stand strong, and believe in his protection.”
Sickly gold light pulsed from all three lanterns, washing across the defenders. Their armor shimmered, and yellow dripped from their weapons like water. Despite being outnumbered, they stomped and cheered, eager for the battle.
“Drunk with radiance,” Sariel muttered as they approached.
“Can you get to the preachers if I open the way?” Faron asked.
His brother feigned insult and lifted his dragon-bone blade. “Need you ask?”
“Show them no mercy!” Sir Tristan shouted, giving the order for their group to lead the charge.
Faron sprinted with his shield up and ready, his legs pumping and his grin spreading.
As much as he wished to spare the lives of these foolish humans, he could never deny the excitement he felt when diving into battle.
There was always something thrilling about reveling in his pure, unchecked might.
Faron struck the center of their line like a mad bull, trampling the first man he contacted and blasting the soldier behind him to her back.
His heel stomped on a throat, and then he was spinning, his sword lashing out at anyone foolish enough to test him.
Only one man managed to block the hit, and his reward was Iris diving atop him, her teeth latching on to his lower jaw and her weight slamming him to the ground.
Her snarl was bone-chilling, her shaking of his head back and forth vicious enough to snap the neck.
“Be gone, Doremy devils!” the nearest preacher shouted.
A circle of light flashed from his jar, strong enough to make Faron’s stomach perform loops.
Before the preacher could continue his prayer, Sariel’s sword plunged straight through his open mouth, turned sideways, and then ripped out his cheek.
The preacher fell in a shower of gore, the brutality only increasing as Sariel spun through the mass of soldiers, a most lethal dancer.
Redemption made a mockery of their armor. The blood flowed freely.
“Throw down your weapons,” Isabelle shouted above the din.
No one listened, and so she pushed through the battle line, her sword gleaming with light.
She hacked and chopped, surprising her foes with her every strike.
Faron fought his way to her side, blasting away Argylle soldiers as if they were children.
Side by side with the queen, he became her shield, annihilating anyone who tried to attack her.
Iris darted about in the thick of battle, keeping near his side and latching on to the limbs of fools who thought to catch him off guard.
All the while, Sariel slaughtered the left flank.
“Surrender!” Isabelle called again amid the screams of pain and clash of metal.
“Father protects us!” the final preacher shouted in response. He stood before the grand double doors of the mansion with his arms raised. Only a single line of soldiers guarded him, and Faron pressed into them, trying to halt whatever madness the preacher planned. “Father saves us!”
The preacher smashed the jar at his feet, and from it exploded a whirlwind of gold light and insect corpses.
It encircled his body, teasing his clothes and spinning his hair, and then extended over the Argylle soldiers, reshaping, becoming an enormous pockmarked golden hand reaching out for the Doremy soldiers with six crooked fingers.
“Leliel denies your hate!” Isabelle thundered before Faron could react.
She lifted her shield and light pulsed off it, clearer and brighter than anything coming from the wretched jar.
It rolled like a wave, crackling with fire, and struck the preacher’s ethereal hand.
The hand shattered like glass, the gold within it fizzling away.
A gust of air followed, combined with an agonizing shriek like scraping metal.
Soldiers on all sides grimaced and clutched at their ears.
Amid that cacophony, Sariel lunged ahead, plunging his sword deep into the preacher’s chest to execute him.
The remaining Argylle soldiers dropped to their knees, forfeiting their weapons and pleading for mercy, which they were given.
The way clear, Faron grabbed one of the long, ornate handles of the left door and tested it.
It was barred on the other side, and he mentioned it to the queen, who had stepped to the front of her escorts.
“Good thing we brought a battering ram,” Isabelle said, grinning at him.
Faron braced his legs, flexed his arms, and prepared himself. “Damn right, you did.”
He screamed as all his might and innate gifts gathered together into one undeniable pull. The bar locking the interior snapped in half, and with a groan of wood, Faron wrenched the door halfway open.
“After you,” he said, sweat trickling down his brow and neck.
The entrance room was open all the way to the ceiling, with winding stairs leading to the second and third floors to either side.
Paintings of previous kings and queens lined the walls.
Pillars painted over with thorns and flowers split the open space, and at the far end, standing before an ornate crimson throne, sword in hand and protected by four guards, was a haggard man in a crown.
“I am King Bentley Casthe of Argylle,” he said as Isabelle steadily approached. He dropped to one knee, bowed his head, and lifted his sword. The guards with him did likewise. “I hereby surrender to you, Queen Isabelle Dior of Doremy, and ask that—”
One clean stroke, and she cut his head from his shoulders.
His body crumpled to a bloody heap, the crown dislodging from his beheaded skull and rolling along the carpet before coming to a halt.
The shocked soldiers pushed to their feet, screaming out wordless defiance.
Sariel and Faron cut them down before they could bring their weapons to bear.
Between them, Isabelle stood over the corpse of the slain king. His blood dripped from her sword. The remaining Doremy soldiers lingered by the doors, uncertain if they should enter.
“Well done,” Faron said, sheathing his blade. “The city is yours.”
“But have you accomplished all you desired?” Sariel asked, Redemption resting across his shoulder. His silver eyes watched the queen closely, judging her ambitions, and if they must be pushed higher.
Isabelle lifted her sword and gazed upon its steel. Pure golden light shimmered across the blade, burning away the blood.
“No, Godsight brothers, this is not the limit of my desires,” she said. She looked to them, her eyes alight with radiance. “This is only the beginning.”