by John Bierce
His sword was more than a match for hers if he could get close, but even with his paper armor fully constructed and active, he would burn to a crisp before he got near.
He cursed as he danced over the edge of a column that had been tilted by the roots growing down in between the columns. He could see at least three or four feet down into the crack. He shook his head. Alustin seldom tripped— any citizen of Helicote was trained in footwork from the time they could walk, especially those who would wield one of the Lord of Bells’ blades.
Not that there were any other citizens of Helicote left other than himself, of course. At least none worthy of the name. Just a few cowardly survivors hiding their pasts from Havathi assassins. Them and…
Alustin almost tripped on another tilted column. Then he stopped, and stared down at the exposed crevice. He smiled and began sending sheets of paper down into it.
When the Swordsman with the blade of lead approached, not even a minute later, Alustin was simply standing there, covered in his full-plate paper armor, his spellform-covered sabre casually slung over one shoulder.
The woman laughed. “Finally decided to stand and fight? Not much good it will do you. There’s not a chance you’ll be able to get close to me.”
Alustin didn’t reply, only shifting slightly.
“Who would believe that I would be the one to take down the Last Loyal Son of Helicote?” she asked. “Valia will be infuriated, but she’s had more than her fair share of opportunities to turn you.”
Alustin rolled his shoulders, then moved his sabre into a guard position.
“Nothing to say before you die?” the woman asked smugly.
“It looks quite comfortable where you’re standing,” Alustin finally said. “I’d bet quite a lot that you’ve got some way to keep the space around you cool.”
The Swordsman’s eyes widened, then she laughed. “Won’t do you much good.”
“It already has,” Alustin said, and then sheets of paper began rushing up from the cracks between the columnar basalt in a whirling column, completely obscuring the woman. There was a brief scream, then the flying papers turned red.
At that, the whirling cloud of molten lead began to slow. As it came to a halt, the lead rained down, completely coating the dead Swordsman, her weapon, and the paper in still-molten metal.
The lead started dripping down into the narrow spaces between the columns, and Alustin could feel the paper he still had down there igniting. It had been harder to fly the paper through the gaps than he’d expected— they were wide enough for a coin to slip between them near the top, but the gaps quickly grew thinner, until he couldn’t even fit paper between them a few feet down. He’d managed to get more than enough into position, though.
He briefly wondered how the city took care of water and garbage that got trapped down in there— they probably had a janitorial mage corps for that, he imagined. Water mages, most likely?
Alustin didn’t see what direction the arrow came from, but it punched through his armor like it wasn’t even there, embedding itself into the ground nearby. As the newest cedar tree in the forest began to grow, Alustin started to laugh.
And his armor dissolved into loose paper.
With no Alustin inside.
Sheets of paper wrapped themselves around his sabre, and began flying it back to him via a circuitous route.
“Nice try,” Alustin said. His voice echoed up from a sheet of paper lying by the new tree, one bearing spellform glyphs that let him speak through it at a distance. “Better luck next time.”
Grovebringer’s wielder didn’t answer, but then, no one had ever heard them speak, nor knew their identity. They also never attacked alone, so he should be safe until they rejoined another member of their Hand.
Alustin took off at a run as his armor and wings began to reform. He needed to get to his students before the remaining Swordsmen did.
Shards of stone hissed through the air, and Hugh felt a sting as one sliced his cheek.
Then the lightning strikes stopped, leaving only a crackling noise.
Hugh looked up to see a mage hovering above the pier. They were covered head to toe in plate armor lacquered white, with elaborate copper spellforms inlaid across its surface.
Lightning crackled around their armor and shivered down to the pier below, where a trio of metal rods were embedded between the basalt columns. It gave the mage the appearance of standing on a tripod of lightning. A vicious-looking harpoon hovered in the air next to them, galvanic arcs rolling between it and the armor.
“I feel a need to apologize,” the mage said. Their voice echoed and crackled like the lightning, and hardly sounded human.
Hugh blinked at that. He glanced over at Talia, who was toying with her necklace of bone shards, but hadn’t attacked. He readied a starbolt, but decided to wait on the others.
“Apologize for what?” Sabae called out, her own voice distorted by her wind armor.
“I assumed that your friend here,” the lightning mage said, “was Artur Wallbreaker. Clearly, however, I was mistaken.”
The lightning mage gestured towards where the colossal figure of Artur’s armor strode down a city street, swinging an implausibly huge metal hammer. Shard of ice were still dashing themselves against the armor, but the green-yellow mist had largely dispersed— most likely Artur had killed that attacker already.
Hugh started to prepare another starbolt, then paused, and tapped into his crystal mana reservoir instead.
That reminded Hugh of the spotter he’d just helped to kill, and he had to struggle to focus his attention on the current situation.
“Ah hope yeh can forgive me fer not really being happier that yeh were trying ta’ kill me da instead,” Godrick said.
“Of course,” the figure said, nodding its armored head gracefully. The harpoon floating in the air was turning away from them, focusing in Artur’s direction.
“What do you want with us?” Sabae demanded.
“I’m afraid my reasons are somewhat impolite,” the armored mage said. “Unfortunately, I find myself needing to take you hostage. Nothing personal, I assure you, and I intend nothing untoward.”
“Who are you, and who do you work for?” Sabae demanded.
Lightning began to wrap itself around the harpoon.
“My name is Sanniah of the Ceaseless Thunder, and I have the honor of being one of the Sacred Swordsmen of Havath and the wielder of the Needle of Leagues,” the figure said. “I stand to defend humanity from the monsters and petty tyrants that endlessly squabble over territory and power, and I promise to do my utmost to ensure your safety during the unpleasantness that is to follow.”
“I have a better idea,” Talia said, then launched a dreambolt straight at Sanniah.
It streaked towards the Sacred Swordsman, but as it approached, lightning lanced out towards the dreamfire, detonating it in midair. The lightning withered like a dying vine— which really wasn’t something lightning should be doing— but the dreamfire dispersed harmlessly.
“Huh,” Talia said.
“I truly mean you no harm,” Sanniah said. “It’s certainly regrettable that you killed my hireling, but ultimately, the error was theirs for mistaking you for Artur. If I had been close enough to see you personally, I would not have attacked you.”
The lightning around the harpoon vanished. Nothing happened for a fraction of a second, and then another massive lightning bolt shot out of its tip, straight as an arrow. If Hugh didn’t have his anti-glare spell up, he’d probably be blinking away afterimages for a good while. Hugh swiveled to follow the bolt, and saw Artur stagger in his suit of armor, a crater visible in the stone of its shoulder.
Hugh turned back to see lightning beginning to wrap itself around the harpoon again. He almost lost his focus on the crystal affinity spellform he was channeling mana into in his mind’s eye, but he managed to hold on.
“I only need the beacons at longer ranges, of course,” Sanniah said.
Hugh
swallowed. Artur was still a good quarter of the way across the city.
“Stones with that,” Godrick said. “Ah’m not standin’ around like a lump while yeh attack me da!”
He lifted his new hammer above his head and threw it. It shot forwards at obscene speeds, clearly propelled by his magic. Almost as if they’d planned it, Sabae launched a gust strike after it, propelling it even faster.
Lightning from the armor intercepted the hammer at the same distance the dreamfire bolt had been disrupted, and the hammer simply stopped in place. Sanniah was blown backwards a little by the gust strike, but the lightning she stood atop pulled her back into a hovering position between the three metal spikes in the pier.
“A word of advice, child,” Sanniah said. “A sufficiently powerful lightning mage can quite easily stop metal projectiles in midair. Most projectiles, really.”
Several more lightning bolts arced out from the armor to the hammer, which began to glow cherry red. The handle caught fire, and droplets of molten steel began to drip onto the stone of the pier.
“I will give you one more chance to surrender,” Sanniah said. “I can’t spare any more time than that to humor you, children. I beg of you to make the right decision.”
The harpoon launched another lightning bolt at Artur. This time, when Hugh turned to look, he noticed that several trees appeared to have started growing out of the stone mage’s suit of armor, and were badly slowing him down.
He didn’t take time to puzzle over that, however, as his spell finally completed. He quickly assembled a starbolt spellform in his mind’s eye and took a deep breath.
“Ward up!” he shouted, and fired the starbolt.
His stellar mana reservoir had refilled a little since he’d killed the spotter, but he’d still only get one more shot after this.
The instant the starbolt got into range, the armor’s lightning dropped the half-melted hammer and slammed into the glowing sphere. Both erupted into a flash of light bright enough to leave afterimages even through Hugh’s eye-protecting cantrip. A wash of heat rolled over the students.
“Very well, then,” he heard Sanniah say, and even through the afterimages, he could see lightning fire straight from the woman’s armor towards them.
It never hit.
The lightning simply scattered and burst in midair before it reached them. Hugh could feel his crystal mana reservoir draining, but at a rate he could easily handle for the moment.
As his vision cleared, Hugh watched the lightning crawl across the edges of his ward, trying to reach them. More bolts hammered into the ground at its edges, but the ward itself was several feet underground— he’d created it by altering the crystal patterns of the basalt below them. It had been somewhat strange recrystalizing the basalt— they were already essentially perfect crystals, so he’d actually been creating flaws in them in the shape of ward spellforms. The ward had been much more time consuming than the wall he’d built earlier had been, but it allowed them to fire spells out through it without exposing themselves to attack.
The others started casting spells like mad. Talia began launching dreamfire bolt after dreamfire bolt, some of which appeared to be layered. Godrick began tearing up chunks of stone from inside the ward, well away from its spellforms, and hurling them at the Havathi agent. Sabae launched gust strike after gust strike, and Hugh launched his third and final starbolt.
Sanniah handled all of them with ease.
She gracefully swayed about atop her lightning, dodging most of their spells, the lightning from her armor deflecting or destroying all the attacks that she couldn’t dodge. Lightning from the Needle of Leagues kept blasting towards Artur in the distance.
And the lightning just kept hammering into Hugh’s ward. He started funneling mana from his spatial mana reservoir into the ward as well, but he’d never used that reservoir for anything other than fueling wards and cantrips, and it was by far the smallest and least developed of his three reservoirs.
Hugh briefly wondered where his spellbook was at, but he decided it was better off not near them— he had no desire to see how well it could stand up to lightning.
After firing his last starbolt, Hugh wished he’d brought his sling with him, but he’d left it at the inn, along with the small handful of wardstones he’d crafted since Midsummer.
A small, vicious little part of Hugh began to haul up those old feelings of worthlessness, but Hugh forced himself to watch the lightning hammering into his ward and smiled. He might not be able to attack at the moment, but he certainly wasn’t useless in the slightest.
“Godrick!” Sabae shouted. “The spikes in the pier!”
Godrick launched one more rock at Sanniah, then turned to the spikes Sanniah had embedded into the stone pier. Hugh could feel Godrick’s stone magic shifting the columns of the pier, and he suspected that he was using his steel affinity on the spikes as well, though Hugh couldn’t feel it. He could see the strain on Godrick’s face— the bigger apprentice was definitely better trained in melee range magic.
With the high-pitched noise of metal scraping stone, one of the spikes went flying out of the pier, and Sanniah lurched to the side. A shot from the Needle of Leagues went wide and hammered into a city street, leaving a smoking crater among the columns.
The lightning that had been connecting the armor to the spike lurched and began dragging along the pier, burning a crooked path along its surface before it connected to Godrick’s half-melted new hammer, which began to melt even farther down into the cracks of the pier.
Hugh was fairly sure that Sanniah hadn’t seen Sabae use a gust of wind to hurl something pale and white onto the pier, where it slid into one of the cracks between the columns. Hugh rapidly began adding modifications to his ward— not an easy task while it was active.
Sanniah straightened, crossing her arms. “This is truly regrettable, children. You show such promise.”
None of them responded, or launched any attacks at the Sacred Swordsman. Sanniah’s lightning continued to carve into the dome that Hugh’s ward had formed over them.
“I don’t know what your masters have told you about Havath, but we’re not evil,” Sanniah said. “We’re not simply conquerors bent on world domination. We seek to end the interminable feuding of the great powers, to make the weak more than simply cattle for whatever powerful mage comes along.”
The Needle of Leagues fired again.
The lightning from Sanniah’s armor that had been hitting the ward ceased, and Sanniah continued. “Artur Wallbreaker is powerful indeed, but not powerful enough to withstand an entire Hand of Sacred Swordsmen. Your teacher Alustin is already slain, and Artur will not last much longer. I offer you one last chance to surrender.”
Sabae glanced back at Hugh. He gulped, then nodded at her. She, in turn, nodded at Talia.
“Actually,” Sabae called out to Sanniah, “I’d like to offer you an opportunity to surrender.”
Sanniah simply stared at Sabae. Hugh imagined that if she weren’t wearing a helmet, there would be an expression of shock on her face.
Unfortunately for her, she should have been looking down, not at Sabae.
“You’re not serious, are you?” Sanniah said.
“Not in the slightest,” Sabae said cheerfully.
A loud cracking noise rose up from below Sanniah, and she looked down to see glowing spines of bone rising from the pier.
“Have a nice flight,” Talia said.
The pier exploded.
CHAPTER SIX
Ampioc
Shards of burning bone and chunks of broken basalt rained against Hugh’s ward, but the modifications he had made held. As the smoke and debris cleared without any sign of lightning, Hugh started to relax.
Only for a moment, though.
The pier was almost entirely gone. A handful of basalt columns still jutted from the water, at steep angles or with their tops broken off.
And atop one of those pillars stood Sanniah. Her armor was badly damaged, even
melted in places. The inlayed copper spellforms were broken and shattered, and the white lacquer of the armor was cracked and flaking all over. The helmet was especially badly damaged, its spellforms actively spitting sparks.
The Needle of Leagues, however, was perfectly intact, hovering beside her.
Sabae exploded forwards, windjumping straight through the ward at Sanniah.
Almost contemptuously, the Sacred Swordsman grabbed the harpoon floating beside her, swinging it like a club. Lightning tore into Sabae, sending her plunging straight into the water of the harbor.
Sanniah plucked off her helmet while Hugh stared at the water, willing Sabae to surface. The Sacred Swordsman tossed the ruined helmet into the water right where Sabae had fallen.
Sabae didn’t surface.
Sanniah was a nondescript middle-aged woman with close-cropped grey hair. The only noteworthy aspect of her face were the vicious-looking burns on her cheeks and forehead.
“I’m truly sorry it’s come to this,” Sanniah said, and lightning began to wrap around the Needle of Leagues.
Sanniah leapt straight towards them, lightning propelling her at terrifying speed. Talia fired a dreambolt at the Havathi, and Godrick followed up with half a shattered column, but bursts of lightning shattered both. Shards of stone cut into Sanniah’s face, but she didn’t slow at all.
Hugh funneled all his remaining mana into the ward, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough to stop a weapon as freakishly powerful as that harpoon.
The Needle of Leagues never impacted the ward, however. Something flickered across Hugh’s vision, and there was a massive flash of light. It wasn’t as bad as starfire hitting lightning, and Hugh’s vision quickly cleared.