The Last Goddess

by C.E. Stalbaum

  ***

   

   “So I guess it would be too much to ask for them to leave the door open,” Rynne grumbled as they skulked up the tower. Before the Arteris Blitz, it would have been suicide to approach like this with all the arrow slits lining the walls, but they had long ago been sealed shut. The only opening at all was on the top floor, and it faced the opposite direction. Rynne didn’t even know why the Empress had left the building intact; it wasn’t even much of a historical relic at this point.

  Van stepped to the opposite side and tested the strength of the chain and padlock holding it shut. “Why can’t anything ever be easy…?”

  “Stand back,” Rynne told him, popping out the cartridge from her crossbow and grabbing another from her bandoleer. Tiel leaned down to help when her limp arm struggled to hold it steady, but she shook him away and managed to slide it in. She took a few steps back from the door and fired.

  The bolt exploded on impact, throwing bits of flaming debris in all directions, and Rynne smiled. The bolts were loaded with a similar powder used in Kimperan firearms, and she’d wanted to try them out for months. Unfortunately they were prohibitively expensive as well as incredibly short-ranged.

  Van stepped up to the door and hacked away what was left of the lock. “Nice shot. Too bad everyone in town knows we’re about to bust in now.”

  “That’s why you get to go first,” she said wryly, taking a knee on the left side of the door and signaling Tiel to do the same on the right. The monk pulled out his own crossbow and dropped into position.

  Van hoisted up his shield and stood in front of the door. “Glad I’m still useful. All right: on three.”

  He finished the countdown and flung the door open, but to her pleasant surprise, they weren’t greeted with a storm of arrows. Once glance inside quickly revealed why. 

  “Shakissa’s mercy,” Rynne whispered as she peered past his shield. The room was littered with corpses—all men and women wearing Darenthi uniforms. Most of them appeared to have been shot in the back.

  “They had men on the inside, probably loyal to Bremen,” Van commented.

  She crept past him, sweeping her crossbow around in case someone was lurking in the shadows. When no one popped out and started firing after thirty seconds, she stood and nodded back to the others.

  “We have four floors to climb,” she said. “Let’s get to it.”

  Van took a deep breath. “I have the lead. Kid, you’re right behind me.”

  Tiel dragged his eyes away from the bodies with obvious difficulty before finally nodding. He was probably thinking of Jehalai, Rynne guessed, and imagining the monastery probably looked much the same as this now—bodies strewn carelessly about, the floor coated in a river of blood…

  “I’m ready,” he said softly.

  The trio dashed over to the first set of stairs leading up. Rynne whispered a silent prayer to Shakissa that the Balorites hadn’t reinforced this place too heavily. Each set of stairs only led up a single level, at which point they would have to cross the entirety of the next floor to reach the next one. It was built for defense rather than convenience; the idea was that any attackers would have to literally fight through four floors worth of soldiers just to reach the top. She just hoped Bremen hadn’t risked sending so many of his own people here, lest they tip off the Empress’s forces that something was amiss.

  Fortunately, for once luck was on their side. No one guarded the second floor, and in only a few seconds they were making their way up to the third. It, too, was empty, and that actually made her worry a bit. Bremen might not have risked an entire garrison here, but he certainly would have left something to defend it…

  The answer came the moment they hit the top of the steps to the fourth floor. A pair of bolts deflected off of Van’s shield, and one had enough force to imbed itself into it. He propped it down as cover at the lip of the top step, and Rynne leaned up and over it to fire back. Her shot was mostly blind, and the bolt exploded somewhere in the middle of the room.

  The two shooters inside called out warnings as they flattened themselves against wooden barricades. A thundering clomp echoed in the back of the room, and a lone black-armored figure lumbered slowly towards them.

  “Faceless,” Rynne warned.

  “And we’re fresh out of magic princesses,” Van muttered between clenched teeth as another bolt slid halfway through his shield. “I’m really, really sick of these screlling things. Make sure you don’t miss.”

  “I won’t,” she promised.

  “Nate definitely owes me triple for this.” He stood and let loose a guttural cry before charging forward.

  Rynne leaned out and didn’t even wait for the other shooters to show themselves before she fired. Her shot struck the right one’s cover and detonated in a plume of flame; the incendiary powder in the bolt quickly spread across the barricade, and the shooter was forced to leap out from cover. The moment he did so, Tiel fired. His shot wasn’t perfect, but it struck the man in the leg and knocked him to the floor screaming in agony.

  As Van charged forward and collided with the Faceless, Rynne fired at the left barricade. This shooter tried to weather the assault and stay hidden, but a second later he shrieked and leapt out as flame spread across his arm. This time Tiel’s shot was right on the money, drilling straight through the man’s breastplate.

  At nearly the same time, Van reeled backwards when the Faceless slammed against his shield with an overhead, two-handed chop. The bodyguard took the opportunity to throw himself backwards to give her a clear shot.

  “Bring it down!”

  Rynne fired her last bolt. It stuck the Faceless in the torso, and his thick armor immolated in flame. The creature roared in protest, the violet glow behind its visor flickering wildly. Tiel joined in her barrage, but even with a half-dozen bolts sticking out of its armor, the deathless creature lunged after Van once again.

  Rynne bit down on her lip and tore off the cartridge to grab another. She lost precious seconds as her useless arm struggled to slide it in, and she heard Van cry out after a ringing clash of steel meeting steel—

  And then suddenly, all she felt was pain. The crossbow fell from her hand as she hit the floor, gasping for breath and trying to figure out what was going on. Then she saw the bolt lodged right above her heart, a thick river of blood already spreading across her armor. She reached up to try and yank it free, but the strength had already left her muscles.

  Across the room, half crouching down on the stairway to the fifth floor, was an armored woman with a crossbow. And just as she lined up the shot that would kill Tiel, Rynne fell into darkness.