The Vagabond spins out of the grasp of one adversary, kicking up a foot and pivoting in the tidiest spin attack I think I’ve seen. She executes it perfectly, fearlessly. Her quick strike hits the flat of a stone sword and it shatters. I haven’t seen her in real action before. Apparently, she was holding back in the friendly bout up top.
This Vagabond Paladin could hold her own against any fighter in the capital. I’m not entirely sure I could win if we turned on each other. This Vagabond is a fearsome thing indeed.
I’m impressed. I don’t mean to be, but I am.
Her second blow knocks the stone teeth out of a lion. It leaps forward, rearing up on hind legs from where a female Saint with many braids flicks out a stone whip in one hand and holds the lion with the other.
The Vagabond doesn’t hesitate. She spins under the lion and bashes it in the side of the head with both the hilt of her sword and her gauntleted hand. On her way past, she kicks up onto the lion’s haunch, spins into a double-footed kick, and both her hands wrap around her sword hilt. The stone whip catches her across the pauldron but she grits her teeth and lands her kick, knocking the Saint’s stone head off her shoulders.
She’s bold and powerful, skilled and agile.
But she’s only one woman.
More enemies closing in on every side and she won’t leave the dog. She circles it, batting back the enemy one at a time. She can’t hold on like that.
Grimly, I grab my second chain and tug hard, releasing the ratchet and sending my platform careening downward. Hopefully, there’s no one beneath me. I can’t stop this descent and I won’t.
I know one thing — whether we find the cup or not, whether we find a way out or not — I will not be whole if the Vagabond dies. I may never be whole again.
I crash to the ground and hear a cracking sound as the stone shard breaks away and shatters. Pain rips through my shins. I ignore it.
A sword is in front of my eyes before the dust settles, thrusting downward toward me. I use the Vagabond’s clever idea and hit it on the flat. It shatters in the most satisfying way, but I have no time to enjoy the victory.
I pivot, leap over an enemy, and almost crash into the Penitent, my heart in my throat.
He spins, looks at me wild-eyed without comprehension, and then spins away again, a whirlwind of movement and violence, kicking and lunging through the white, perfectly formed stone bodies surrounding us.
I feel like a child among murderous adults. They dwarf me, unfeeling, unknowing, bent on my destruction.
I try to do what the Majester has done and command them with my mind.
Move! I roar with all my thoughts, but nothing happens. Whatever trick is at play for him and for the High Saint has sidestepped me. I don’t have time to figure it out when these statues threaten everything.
I clamber over the body of a fallen stone Saint — I think she was a virgin sacrifice or something. Her pinched waist is the perfect place to plant my boot between the swell of her hip and the sweep of her rib cage.
I’m pushing up and over her cold stone flesh when I see the Majester raise his sword over his head and bring it down in both hands, tip pointed at a place between his feet. It’s not until it lands that I see what he is striking.
It’s the throat of the Inquisitor, pinned under the stone.
What has he done? I swallow down bile.
This is murder, pure and simple. No true paladin would commit such an unholy act.
My guttural roar of fury bubbles up at the same moment that the Majester is kicked from behind. He stumbles forward, spins, sword up, and then throws himself at his attacker — the Vagabond Paladin.
Of course.
She’s crying — tears streaming down her face — but her lips are clenched together and her eyes are narrowed in rage. Her strikes are fast and sure.
Her sword hits his in the familiar ring of steel on steel, striking at the exact moment that a crescendo peaks in the passionate music Hefertus is spinning from his haunted instrument. Perhaps he is finding his cadence in the rhythm of our deaths. There’s something poetic about having my last moments set to the melody of a friend’s tears.
The Majester’s blade slides down the Vagabond’s, locking them in a clinch for a half second, but it’s long enough for the High Saint to suddenly be there.
“Majester. Beggar. Don’t move.”
The High Saint’s voice is calm and precise but loud enough that I can hear it even as I sidestep a fresh attack from a female Saint with a light veil drawn round her head and hanging down to her knees. The fabric of the Saint’s veil is carved to be translucent so that the swells of her cheeks and her wicked smile are easy to make out while she still appears veiled. It’s artful. And terrifying. And not holy at all.
I breathe out as the combatants freeze in place. Good. They will listen to reason.
