Page 135 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

“I’m afraid not. Soliton’s basic controls are too powerful for you or me to take command of, under ordinary circumstances.” He pats the dreadwurm’s eye. “But this focuses and amplifies Eddica power. That is, the power of spirits. The power of death. For which our little massacre downstairs is a convenient source.” He taps the deck with his cane. “When it builds high enough, I’ll rewrite the machine to recognize me as its master.”

“You rotting bastard.” I’m within a few paces of him, now. “They’re fighting and dying downstairs.”

His lip curls. “That’s what they’re for.”

I thrust for his throat.

A pair of Melos blades cross in front of mine, catching my weapon. Fat green sparks jump between them, energy crackling and popping. Erin stands on one side, Arin on the other, each with a green energy blade emerging from her forearm.

“Isoka’s usefulness is at an end, apparently,” the Scholar says, with a sigh. “Kill her.”

Instinct takes over. I dismiss my blade, escaping the bind, and hastily backpedal a few steps. When they don’t follow at once, I settle into fighting stance, ignite my blades, take a breath, watch.

The twin sisters look perfectly calm. They fight with opposite hands, Erin’s left and Arin’s right, each half-turning toward me to lead with a single Melos blade. I don’t see the telltale crackle of Melos armor around them, though. So they’re not full adepts, which means I should have the advantage.

If they don’t have any other tricks. The Scholar is too confident. He’s seen me fight, so he knows—

“You don’t have to do this,” I tell the two girls. “I don’t know what he’s promised you—”

“He’s going to take us home,” Erin says. Arin nods, silently.

Rot. Worth a try.

Arin comes at me first, footwork smooth as fine silk, feinting high and then cutting at my waist. I parry the blow with my left-hand blade, and she spins past. It leaves her open, and I lash out. The blow would cut deep into her side, but she’s not there, fading away like a shadow with a liquid spray of dark energy.

I’m already turning back, knowing what comes next. But Erin surges forward, much faster than I anticipated, her limbs outlined in golden sparks. She twists her blade neatly around my parry, and I’m just able to turn in time to take a long slash across my belly instead of a hard impact. Melos energy spits and wars as blade and armor meet, and violent heat stabs at my skin. As I stagger away, I can feel blisters forming along the line drawn by her blade.

Xenos and Rhema. Shadows and Speed. Rotting wonderful.

The sisters look at each other, and something passes between them. Some plan, no doubt. They’ve clearly trained together, and I need to break up that coordination. So I charge at Erin, blades swinging horizontally, before they can set up their next attack. She dances backward, spinning out of reach of one of my blades and parrying the other with a fat green spark. I whirl, just in time to catch Arin coming at me from behind. She fades into shadow at my thrust, materializing to one side, blade swinging at my face. I bring my left hand up, dismissing the blade and unfolding my armor like a flower, summoning a shield of Melos energy that intercepts her weapon with a screech. She hops backward, pausing, and we square off again.

“Nice trick,” says the Scholar. “Zarun taught you, did he? He’s a tenacious little cockroach, that one.”

Erin and Arin come at me together, a coordinated flurry of swinging blades. I give ground, parrying furiously, staying ahead of them only by blocking strike after strike with the shield on my left hand. Their style is elegant, studied, nothing like the street brawlers I’m used to facing. Erin is fast, so fast she nearly gets around me more than once, and Arin switches positions with her shadow, trying to trip me up.

Rot. I don’t have time for this.

Elegant forms have their advantages, but so do street brawlers.

I surge to the side, switching my shield back to a blade and driving Erin away with a furious combination. She backs up for a moment, and I turn on Arin. This time, I’m watching her shadow. She’s expecting the first strike, which she evades by shifting postion; expecting the second, which she blocks, her blade held vertically. She’s not expecting me to bull forward afterward, my knee coming up hard into her stomach. She doubles over, gasping, and I spin around her, driving my blade into the small of her back. I rip it free with a twist and a spray of blood, and she collapses onto her knees, then falls forward.

“Arin!” Erin’s scream is high and piercing. Golden light flares around her, speeding her up until she’s a blur. She comes at me at a run, subtlety forgotten, trying to push through my defenses with brute force. I fade sideways, and it’s barely any effort at all to leave one blade hanging in front of her. It punches into her chest, my clenched fist pressed against her sternum as the spike of Melos energy emerges from between her shoulders. She coughs blood on my arm, where it sizzles against my armor, and then I step back, dismissing my blade. Erin staggers drunkenly for a moment, and then falls shuddering across the body of her sister.

I step around them, toward the Scholar. He’s watching me through his spectacles, unconcerned at the demise of his servants. Still too confident. Which means he still has a trick—

There’s a crack, like a tree branch breaking. The red glow from the dredwurm’s eye in the Scholar’s hand is matched, suddenly, by another. The great gray egg, behind the pillar, has sprouted a crystal like the one the Scholar holds, pulsing with crimson light in perfect time.

With another crack, part of the egg separates from the whole. It shudders, changing shape, becoming a leg, long and multi-jointed. Another crack, and another, as the thing comes apart.

Slowly, the angel rises to its feet.

Too late, I lunge for the Scholar.

A slender leg of hard gray stone comes down between us before my blade reaches him. Melos energy slashes against the angel’s flesh and rebounds, leaving little more than a burn scar. I dodge around it, but another leg intercepts, and then another comes straight at me, tipped with a vicious claw. I jump backward, and look up.

The angel is a sphere, held off the ground just a bit higher than my head. The glowing red eye pulses in the center, while around it the stony flesh is shaped into a sea of twisted, screaming human faces, one melting into the next, covering its entire surface. The faces shift as I watch, mouths widening, eyes darting, one swallowing the next and being swallowed in its turn. From the churning mass extend long, stick-thin legs with five or six joints, spread evenly over the surface like a halo of pins sticking in a pincushion. Underneath the angel, the legs fold in on themselves to support its weight, while those protruding from the sides and top hinge down to jab at me with horrible agility.

“I hope you didn’t think I was relying only on those two to protect me,” the Scholar says. He steps sideways as the angel advances, its legs passing neatly around him in a complex ballet. “I may not have control of the whole ship, but it’s simple enough to use the dredwurm’s eye for this.”