The Paladin Caper

by Patrick Weekes

  She smashed back down into them as a great white bear, and their spears raked her hide, and it hurt, it burned like fire, but at least it was an honest hurt, and she roared and ripped and tore with fangs and claws as the Hunters swarmed around her.

  The fight was too much for the old lift, and something snapped. She felt it as the Hunters did, and was at once the hummingbird again, but as the lift fell, a silver net flew out and fell over her, and its poisonous links wracked her with pain. And she fell, just as the Hunters did, as the lift rattled and bucked and slid and finally crashed, far below.

  The impact shocked and bruised her but also flung her free, and as she landed, she was herself again, or what she was now, anyway. Not a unicorn but a nightmare, her clawed hooves and fanged muzzle things of terror instead of beauty. She shrieked out a challenge to the Hunters, and they rose to their feet, shaken and battered but still ready to fight.

  She had forgotten the kobolds, the little magical fox people of the mine. They lurked at the edge of the cavern, slipping into the walls as easily as shadows, clearly afraid.

  She imagined the taste of their throats, crushed in her jaws, and then shook her head and looked back to the Hunters. There was no life in them to steal, but they were the enemy. The little kobolds were not.

  If she were to die, she would do so fighting those who deserved it, red in tooth and claw.

  She lunged, slashed, ripped.

  They were fast, even battered and broken as they were, and she smashed one apart, but the others sent spears into her flank, and she kicked and clawed, but they danced away. The pain was an all-consuming fire, burning away the magic that would let her shift and change, and so she stayed the monster that she was, and shrieked another challenge, and as two of them came at her, her clawed hooves struck down their spears, and with her jaws, she ripped one of their heads off.

  The third sank his spear into her side from behind, and she screamed and kicked, and though she sent him skidding across the floor, he had struck deep, and she staggered, her back legs weak and shaky.

  The one before her leaped upon her and grabbed at her throat, and as pain burned across her, she realized that he was using his tangled net to choke the life from her. She reared, but it was too much, and she stumbled back, crashed into the wall, and fell.

  It all hurt so much. It hurt enough to drive away the ugliness that had turned her into something else. Her horn flickered and went dark, but it took the claws with it, and Ululenia turned away, curled in upon herself, and tried to remember the happy bright days in the forest one last time.

  Arms grabbed at her from all sides, pinning her to the wall, and then everything went black.

  Twenty-One

  TERN WATCHED ULULENIA and the Hunter golems disappear into the red-glowing darkness of the mine below.

  For a moment, the elves and dwarves were silent, neither moving nor making the ugly noises they had made while Ululenia had held them in thrall.

  Then, as one, they slowly turned back to Tern and Icy.

  “I was really hoping the Hunters had been controlling them,” Tern muttered.

  She looked back to the lock. She’d made some progress, and in another five or ten minutes, she would have the damn thing open, assuming that the mind-controlled elves and dwarves gave her time to work instead of brutally hacking her to bits.

  “They are not in control of themselves,” Icy said as they started to come forward, knives and hammers raised.

  “Nope.”

  “I cannot kill them, Tern.” Icy looked over at her, his face tight with anger. “I cannot.”

  Tern nodded. “I’m not asking you to.”

  She lifted her crossbow and slid in a bolt whose head was bright red and filled with explosive powder. “Run. I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

  Icy looked at her in shock. “Tern—”

  “Damn it, Icy, get out of here.” Tern cranked the winch to ready her shot. “I can maybe burn them down if I use enough fire, but I can’t do it while worrying about you. You’re not a killer. You can’t do this.”

  “Tern, you helped me convince Ululenia to spare them—”

  “Ululenia wanted to kill them, Icy.” Tern raised her crossbow as the elves drew closer. “You think I want this? I want to get through that door and save lives.” She took a few steps back. “But in order to do that, I need these people not to hit me while I crack the lock.” She aimed, doused the head of the fire bolt with the accelerant, and gritted her teeth as her finger tightened on the trigger. “I’ve got no way to do that without killing them.”

  “I do,” said Icy, and stepped in front of her.

  The first elf stabbed at him, his motions fast but mechanical.

  Icy checked the knife with the palm of his hand, chopped down on the elf’s wrist to send the weapon skidding away, twined his body around the elf’s outstretched arm, and threw the lean figure into a group of dwarves.

  “Finish with the lock,” Icy said, as he caught a hammer and twisted it from the grasp of the dwarf who had swung it. “Neither we, nor they, will die here.” He ducked under the dwarf and spun into a hip throw that sent the dwarf gently to the ground, tripping others as he rolled.

  Tern put her crossbow down and went back to the door, trusting that Icy was too busy not-killing-people to see her smile.

  She worked the lock carefully. It was high-grade dwarven security augmented by newer crystal enchantments that had to have come from the ancients. She bypassed the primary fail-safes by convincing the lock it was already open, which was great except for how it made the lock not want to then actually open, and she had to get around that by manually working the tumblers with enough force to overcome the dead-state magnets without snapping anything critical in the process.

  It took her closer to ten minutes than five, and as she worked, bodies hit the ground behind her.

  Finally, the door chimed, clicked, and slid open, and Tern lowered her cramping hands and looked back.

  Icy dodged a stab, caught it at the last moment to stop it from hitting another elf, twisted the knife away, swept both elves’ legs out from under them with a single circling kick, and came back to his feet, sweaty but smiling. “Nicely done,” he said.

  There was a great pile of bodies around him, elves and dwarves prone and tangled amid a field of fallen knives and hammers and picks.

  Tern saw not a single drop of blood.

  “Same to you, Icy,” she said, smiling as she picked up her crossbow.

  Icy ducked below a stab from behind without looking, reached between his own legs, and grabbed the leg of the elf who had tried to skewer him. He stood up, still holding the leg, and then let go. The elf hit the ground with a thud.

  He was looking at Tern’s crossbow.

  “You had the safety on.”

  “Oops.” Tern let him see the smile this time. “Come on, let’s go find out what the bad guys are doing and screw up their plans.”

  They walked into the processing center, and Icy shut the door behind them as Tern looked. She’d only caught a glimpse of it last time, but it looked like the damage had been repaired, and everything was back in full swing. Moving belts funneled crystals from one great machine to the next, polishing away imperfections and honing their natural magic into the precise power that the ancients required. There were no golems in the room any longer. The entire space had been automated, with little hooks and claws sorting crystals and plucking defective ones away with perfect precision.

  “You were never going to kill them,” Icy said with an accusatory look.

  “I don’t like killing people,” Tern said.

  Icy glared. “Why did you not simply suggest that I disable them without killing them, then?”

  “Because you swore an oath.” Tern met his look. “I don’t ask my friends to break their oaths.”

  Icy smiled. “You merely help them discover ways to twist the letter in order to keep the spirit.”

  “I’m a giver.” Tern walked past a
row of moving belts. “Now, the Lapitemperum schematics said that there was a room back here, where—”

  A door at the far end of the room swung open, and Westteich stepped out. He was clad in crystal, all of it smoky gray save the paladin band on his right forearm.

  “I am the overseer,” Westteich said. “You will pay for any injury done to my slaves.”

  “Might want to add a charge for fire damage,” Tern said, bringing up her crossbow and firing in one smooth motion. The fire bolt that was still loaded zipped out and caught Westteich square in the chest with an explosion of yellow-and-orange flame. “See, him I don’t even feel remotely bad about killing. That guy was a pimple on the ass of hu—”

  She broke off as Westteich walked through the flames, his gray crystalline armor pristine.

  “Okay, so, about your oath,” Tern said, and loaded another bolt.

  Kail got up the ladder fast, hit the top, dove outside, spun to the side of the panel, waited until the footsteps on the ladder ended, and then slammed the panel shut on the head of Mister Slant.

  At least, that had been the plan, and in a world with any kind of fairness, Slant would have been unconscious on the ground right then.

  Instead, Slant caught the panel and kicked it back into Kail, who caught it on the forearms, stumbled, and then dove back behind the panel as the paladin raised his arm. The crimson blast of energy ripped past Kail, and Slant kicked the panel again, and this time Kail ended up on his butt.

  Slant took his expensive coat off, folded it, and set it down gently. “Binjamet duQuaille, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to finally meet you face-to-face.” He rolled out his shoulders as Kail got up.

  Kail raised his fists. “I go by Kail. It’s shorter, easier for your mother to shout over and over again.”

  Mister Slant laughed through big shiny white teeth. “I go by Slant, ever since I left your mother walking crooked.”

  Kail went in hard. Slant took the first punch with a boxer’s guard, ducked under the right hook, and slammed an uppercut into Kail’s stomach.

  “Our greatest warriors say that our attack shows our weakness,” Mister Slant said, still smiling, as he slammed Kail into the great golden wall of the font. “You know, you are famous for your cracks about people’s mothers.”

  “Speaking of mothers and cracks,” Kail said, kicking out with a cheap shot that caught Slant in the gut, “you should really tell yours to—”

  His great line was cut off by a backhand that clipped his face and sent him staggering back.

  “It’s a good gimmick, Mister Kail,” Slant said, “but it shows your own weakness. You hit people where hitting you would hurt the most.” He came in with a shot Kail dodged, and then a roundhouse kick that Kail tried to block and really just absorbed instead, taking the blow with enough force to slam him into the wall of the font. “You have a fast mouth, and as one liar to another, I respect that deeply.” He kicked again, and again Kail tried to block it and crashed hard into the wall. “But when I talk, the entire Republic listens.”

  He kicked again, and Kail jumped up and grabbed the top of the font as Slant’s kick smashed into the wall below him. Slant snarled and leaped, and Kail pulled himself up. Slant’s fist struck the golden wall and rang it like a gong.

  “Your mother doesn’t talk this much,” Kail shouted, pushing himself to his knees on the top of the font, which was a few feet wide, with the giant fountain of crimson fire blazing right there past the inner lip. “Of course, usually her mouth is f—”

  He ducked down as a blast of crimson energy ripped past him, nearly falling into the damn fire, and as he regained his balance, Slant pulled himself up.

  “Your problem, Mister Kail, is that you’re not actually a very good fighter,” Slant said, still smiling. “Sure, you destroyed an airfield the last time I did something to your mother, but most of that was anger and trickery.”

  “Your mother loves my tricks,” Kail muttered, and snapped out a low kick. Slant knocked it down with contemptuous ease, and before Kail could recover, lashed out with a jab that rocked the scout’s head back.

  “Your mother this, your mother that,” Slant said as Kail staggered, one sleeve brushing the wall of fire on his right with a quick flash of pain. “You can’t take it, Mister Kail.” He chuckled. “Not like your mother can, anyway.”

  Kail lunged in with a cry of rage, and Slant caught the punch, locked Kail’s left arm at the elbow, and shoved him face-first toward the wall of fire. “Leave my mother alone!” Kail yelled, pulling back as hard as he could. The crimson fire was a searing heat against his flesh, and he smelled burning leather and hair as he struggled.

  “Do you know what I’m going to do to her?” Slant asked, his grip steady. “You’ll be dead, but I want you to know that I am completely serious here. I wouldn’t lie about this. I’m going to kill you, and I’m going to spread the story of your death, and in my story, the story every puppet show tells, the only story everybody will ever hear? It’s going to be her fault.” He pushed Kail a little closer to the fire. “The piece-of-trash mother who raised a piece-of-trash son. Poor boy is responsible for his choices, sure, but what chance did he really have, with a useless drunk whore like her bringing him up.”

  Kail’s skin was screaming from the heat of his clothes. “They’ll never believe you! She’ll tell them the truth!”

  Slant laughed. “Seeing is believing, Mister Kail. I doubt your mother is going to have much of a counterargument, not when every puppet show has a glamour-screen showing you attacking a nice white man like a vicious brute.” His grip on Kail’s arm tightened. “Pod two, come in close for the finale.”

  “Thanks,” Kail said, and twisted the arm Slant held in the joint lock.

  There was a sickening snapping crunch as Kail’s left arm slid out of the hold, but Kail’s right arm was going into his pocket even as he spun.

  He came out holding the crystal he’d taken from the console down in the control room. It glowed with steady magic, and Slant looked at it blankly as Kail scanned the sky.

  “What the hell are you going to do with that useless little thing?” Slant asked.

  Kail smiled as he saw the little glowing orb, just a few yards away, and he gave Slant one last look. “That’s what your mother said.”

  He threw the crystal and dove down from the top of the font.

  The crystal hit the orb cleanly, and there was a tiny pop followed by a massive blinding flare of light and a burst of force that buffeted Kail as he hit the ground, ruining his landing and making him jolt his broken arm as he fell back into the wall again.

  But he looked up anyway, because the agonizing pain he was feeling at that moment was completely worth it as he watched Mister Slant stagger back, hit the fire, and go up like a candle as he fell into the crimson flame.

  Kail made sure that the man didn’t walk out of the fire or anything magical like that. Then he sat back against the wall.

  “Talkin’ ’bout my mom,” he muttered, and waited to see whether the pain in his arm was going to make him vomit.

  Desidora let death come over her again as she faced Smith Lively, who still rode Pyvic’s body.

  “Bring the boy back,” she said.

  Smith Lively smiled. Desidora recognized the smile. She had felt it stretched across her face, the mirthless observation of a tiny thing that did not realize she held its life in the palm of her hand. His skin went pale, and his hair darkened to black. The simple brown riding leathers Pyvic had worn darkened to jet black, while the studs brightened to silver. Superfluous belts grew around the arm and waist.

  “You’re weak, Sister,” he said. “Pleading for his life.”

  “I was pleading for yours,” she said, and wrenched at his soul.

  Her magic glanced off wards that shone with the polish of well-forged steel.

  Smith Lively shook his head. “Why the single zombie trap, Sister? Why allow you to come to the temple? Why guard your back while you slowly, fumblin
gly groped your way through the wards around the zombies here?”

  “You made a mistake,” Desidora said, and struck the air as though her magic were a hammer. “You will not live to repeat it.”

  Again her magic glanced off Lively harmlessly.

  “I suspected I could kill you with the element of surprise,” he said as the floor around him went black and cold, “but a good craftsman measures twice and cuts once. I waited, and I watched.” The pews sprouted little silver gargoyles whose skulls screamed silently. “I have seen how your magic works.”

  “I’ve cracked your wards twice,” Desidora said, and lashed out again, her fingers curled like talons.

  Something in the magic caught, like fingernails clawing down a bedsheet as her magic slid down his wards.

  Lively sneered. “Love priestess.” He raised a fist, and his magic slammed into her aura and smashed her to the ground. “I’ve no doubt your little sex auras could seduce your way through my armor.” As Desidora struggled back to her feet, he gestured again, and his power blasted her through three pews in an explosion of bent metal and splinters. “But good steel slams right through bedsheets.”

  Desidora’s aura of death made her harder to hurt, but as she rolled over, shoving splinters and black iron aside, a drop of red blood stained the ground in front of her.

  She had never met another death priest. Beyond the terrible histories, her only guidance had been Tasheveth herself, warning her of how terrible the power of death could be if wielded by one who followed a god who preferred violence to love.

  That conversation with her goddess had helped her regain her power. She had thought at the time that had been its only purpose.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “What’s that?” Lively asked, his toothy smile diamonds on white satin.

  “I said, thank you.” Desidora got up. “For so long, I hated what I was. I thought I was a monster.”

  “Your priests are weak,” Lively said. “What was it my boy said? Animals don’t worship the gods? You things are a bare step better. This power, granted by the gods for their purpose, let me wrench apart reality itself to build the gate to the Shadowlands. You tremble at your power like a blushing virgin, for all that you worship the goddess of whores.”