The Last Goddess

by C.E. Stalbaum

  ***

   

  Rynne flattened herself against the rough stone wall and took a few seconds to catch her breath. This was already their third fallback position, and they were almost out of options. The Darenthi had split their forces and started herding the defenders back into the corner of the base. Under different circumstances, the bottleneck could have served the smaller group well, but that particular logic didn’t apply when one was talking about Faceless. So far their mobility had allowed her and Rook to drop two of the still-human soldiers as they gradually retreated, but once their backs were to the wall they would finally have to deal with the Faceless themselves, and she wasn’t looking forward to that at all. 

  Rook raised a warning hand from the opposite corner. He held a firm grip on his pistol while Tiel stood behind him, muttering various prayers under his breath. Van was right behind her, the unconscious mystery woman in his arms. She gave him a nod, then slid another cartridge into her crossbow and drew in a deep breath…

  A second later, an armored figure lumbered around the corner up ahead. Sheathed in thick black metal plates, its thinly visored helmet glowing with a faint violet light, the sight of a Faceless was unmistakable. Rynne clenched her jaw—apparently the time to deal with them was now. She glanced once to Rook, and almost simultaneously the two of them spun around the corner and fired.

  At a mere forty feet away, it was an easy shot for her. The bolt lodged into its breastplate, and any normal man would have probably been dead. The Faceless, unfortunately, didn’t even flinch. Rook’s pistol wasn’t nearly as precise, but what it lacked in accuracy it made up for in power. The bullet blasted into the creature’s hip, and it staggered briefly before lurching towards them again.

  When no marksman rushed in behind it, Rynne stayed out of cover and continued to fire. She released two more shots—neither of which had any more of an effect than the first—and by then it was suddenly halfway to them. Worse, its partner had appeared around the corner behind it.

  Rynne fired again, and by this time Rook had reloaded and joined her. His shot drilled through its shield and sent the metal wedge spinning down the corridor, while her bolt slid through the creature’s leg armor and dropped it to a knee. It wasn’t dead, but at least they had slowed it down.  She started to slide in another cartridge but noticed the other Faceless was holding position at the opposite end of the hall. She frowned, wondering what it could possibly be waiting for…

  And then one of the human soldiers stepped around the corner behind him. Draped in light armor and a flowing purple-black cloak, he didn’t seem to have a weapon at all. It only took a second for her to realize why. He thrust his arms to the side, and the palm of his hands suddenly exploded in light.

  “Mage!” she yelled, diving away from the corner and flattening Tiel to the ground. Mere seconds later a ball of glimmering blue energy smashed into the wall next to her, and a wave of invisible force hurled them both down the passageway. The entire compound seemed to rumble, and half the stone in the corridor turned brittle and crumbled, leaving a thick cloud of dust in its wake.

  Even if they had infinite room to maneuver here, standing off against two Faceless was anything but a sure victory. Standing off against two Faceless and a mage was suicide.

   “Back to the room!” Rook screamed in warning, firing a covering shot as he charged across the passageway over to them. Rynne scrambled to her feet and Van did the same, and even as they started to spring away, another ball of energy hit the wall and shattered the rock with the power of a full-blown seismic wave.  

  Rynne bit down on her lip and ran as fast as she could even as it felt like the compound was exploding around her. They managed to dodge the crossbow fire from a group of flanking soldiers and pile into the coffin room they had originally come from. Once they were all inside, Rook grabbed the metal door and slammed it shut.

  “That’s not going to do a damn thing,” Van hissed as he dumped the Kirshal back into her coffin.

  Rook reloaded his pistol again, his face twisted with some combination of anger and frustration. “I’ll try and stall them. Take a shot at the mage if you get it.”

  Van shook his head as he drew his sword and shield. “You know that won’t work, Nate. If you give her up they might just leave us alone.”

  “We’re not doing that.”

  “You really want to die for some unconscious—”

  “Wait a minute,” Rynne interrupted, glancing about the room. “Where’s Tiel?”