The Paladins

by David Dalglish

  The older man gave them a salute, then left to join the rest. Darius stared at the mug with a frown.

  “What?” Valessa asked.

  “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to drink this anymore. I’d need to ask Jerico.”

  Valessa stood, and her blue eyes flared with something dangerous.

  “I’d give everything in the world to taste that horrible shit burning down my throat,” she told him. “Drink it, now, or I’ll have you leave here without a tongue to taste anything again.”

  “Well then,” Darius said. “Bottoms up.”

  That crucial matter taken care of, they moved to the front of the army, crossing the two miles toward the Blood Tower under the cover of night. When they were several hundred yards out, just beyond any hint of light from the numerous torches, Daniel called for them to stop, then summoned Darius and Valessa.

  “Now is the time,” Daniel said, addressing only Darius and not Valessa. “Are you sure she can open the gates for us?”

  “I’m sure she can,” Valessa said, glaring. “So long as the lioness doesn’t eat me first.”

  “A hundred and fifty men will weep for your passing,” Daniel said as Valessa ran toward the tower. “If it’s before the gates open,” he added.

  Darius drew his sword, its light shining across the water of the river flowing beside them.

  “What will it take for you to trust her?” he asked.

  “What will it take?” Daniel pointed to the tower. “Let’s have that in my control. That’d be a start.”

  “So be it then,” Darius said. He waited until the shadow in the distance that was Valessa reached the walls of the castle, then counted another minute before lifting his blade high, letting all there see its light. “To the gates,” he cried. “To the tower. Some pussycat thinks it’s hers, and it’s time we take it back!”

  7

  Valessa ran without weapons toward the outer wall of the Blood Tower. For a moment she’d thought to bring her dagger when they left Willshire. Darius had locked it away in his tent, telling her it was for her own good. Truth be told, she didn’t want it. The thing glowed with a red power that strangely made her uncomfortable now. The thought of Karak’s presence shouldn’t do this to her, she knew. Her failure was growing, her betrayal all the more terrible. And now she fought at the side of a paladin of Ashhur.

  Out of your mind, she told herself. Put it out of your mind.

  She had a job to do, and it was all part of the plan. Killing Cyric would calm her mind, and killing Darius afterward would calm her faith. This was one step to that, and to do it, she didn’t need a dagger. Her hands were just as deadly, her very being shadow and frost. No armor or blade would stop her from taking their life. Just holy light and infernal claws. To her twisted amusement, she left one behind with Darius only to approach another with Lilah.

  Valessa paused a moment when she reached the wall, trying to see if she could sense Lilah’s presence. The beast was unnaturally quiet, and her intelligence frightening. If Valessa walked right into the embrace of the lioness, there’d be no opening the gate for Daniel’s men, just a painful death and an even worse eternity. But try as she might, she couldn’t sense anything. Banishing her fear, she made herself incorporeal, and through the wall she went. When she stepped out the other side, she was only fifty yards from the gate leading into the inner complex. Dropping low, she glanced about, scanning for guards. Two were at the gate, standing at attention with far more discipline than she remembered from their kind. Lilah must have kept them permanently in fear after Cyric’s defeat. Valessa could almost smell it reeking from the very stones of the tower, if she’d still had the ability to smell.

  Besides those two, she spotted another pair upon the wall above the gate. Staying low, her guise nothing more than shadow and her skin a softly shifting mass of black, she checked for Lilah. She saw more mercenaries guarding the wall, especially by the river. Tents dotted the spaces between the wall and the tower, along with a few dwindling fires, yet she could not find Lilah.

  If I can’t see her, she can’t see me, Valessa thought as she turned her attention back to the gate. I hope.

  She slunk along the wall. The torches atop it left heavy shadows below them, which wasn’t too surprising. After all, they guarded against the outside, not within. How many enemies could walk through walls? With each step she felt her anxiety grow. Once she exposed herself, it was only a matter of time before Lilah came running.

  Shaking her head, Valessa chastised herself for her fear. This wasn’t her. She hadn’t been cowardly in life, and she would not start now in whatever her current existence counted as. No longer slinking, no longer shadow, she rushed the two guards. With her coming in from the side, only one had a reasonable chance to notice, and when he caught sight of her rushing from the corner of his eye it was far too late. Leaping at him, she made her hand become solid, and it chopped against his throat, crushing his windpipe and sealing away his startled cry. The motion of his slumping body alerted the other, who turned.

  “You all right?” he asked, and before the last word had left his tongue Valessa lunged at him with her foot leading. It was a risk, she knew, but she tried it anyway. Her foot passed through his breastplate, but in the gap between it and his chest, she made herself real once more. The blow cracked ribs in that brief moment, for she could not keep it up long. The rest of her passed through the man, and by the convulsions of his body she knew it must have felt like his entire being was encased in ice. Spinning about, she grabbed his head, and with strength far beyond what she’d possessed in life, jerked it sharply to one side. The sound of his neck snapping was louder than she preferred.

  The commotion was enough to alert the guards, but whatever noise they’d heard below was quickly forgotten when cries of battle from the north broke the silence. Valessa cursed silently. They’d needed to walk a fine line, waiting long enough for her to open the gates, but not long enough for those in the tower to notice and try to close it. In her opinion, Darius had acted far too soon, the impatient oaf.

  Just beside the gate was a heavy wheel attached to the wall, connected to unseen gears and pulleys that would lift and shut the gate. As Valessa grabbed the handles, she heard what she’d most feared: Lilah’s roar. Not daring to turn around, she pulled. The wheel was designed to be used by two men, but Valessa could still move it with ease. Advantages of being undead, she told herself, laughing madly. As alarms sounded, pierced by another roar, it seemed the two soldiers up top noticed her meddling, or at least, heard the clattering rise of the gate. An arrow pierced her chest and thudded into the grass. Valessa smirked. Two more arrows flew, and she ignored them, only spinning the wheel as fast as her arms could go.

  Realizing they couldn’t hurt her, at least not with arrows, the two rushed down the stone steps. One man latched onto the wheel, trying to stall its movements, while the other swung a sword at her neck. It passed through, nearly killing the other man in the process. Annoyed by the interference, Valessa shoved her hand through the chest of the first, her icy hand closing around his heart and crushing it. For a brief moment she felt the blood swirling about her fingers, then turned her attention to the other. Keeping her entire body solid, she kicked and punched him back, each blow denting his armor. He tried to block with his sword, but her movements were too deft, too blinding. A savage blow to his chin staggered him, and when he fell he lay there, vomiting.

  The gate was only half open. Men could crawl under, but they’d be helpless against any sort of defense. Turning the wheel, she ignored the mercenaries approaching to guard the gate. They couldn’t hurt her. None of them could, not with their feeble mortal blades. She had no flesh to pierce. But when the lioness let out her cry, and its sound was terribly close, she knew she’d failed her task.

  “You dare return here?” Lilah roared, and then something struck Valessa hard from behind. A terrible sensation of burning swarmed across her back, and she flew forward, through the wheel, through the wa
ll, and exited rolling across the grass. Letting out a scream, Valessa fought against the pain. Glaring at the gate, she watched as the mercenaries quickly shut it. Looking north, she saw Darius leading a charge, his glowing blade held high. In moments they’d arrive to find no way inside.

  “Is that it?” Valessa asked, even as she felt a form of madness overtake her. She approached the gate, where Lilah glared at her through the bars. She was just as large as she remembered, an enormous feline with molten fur and fire burning where her eyes should be. Only metal separated them, but it seemed the lioness still feared the forces arrayed against her, otherwise she’d have kept the gates open so she could attack. “Is that the best you can do to me?”

  Valessa showed the flesh rent by the lioness’s claws, which wept shadow, and no matter what form she assumed, would not change to match it, instead remaining a wicked scar.

  “Your body is a gift, one I can take away,” Lilah said, nose hovering just before the gate.

  Valessa walked closer, closer, and she made her form change to match her lunacy. She wore silvery armor, a crown, and a purple cape around her shoulders that flowed down to her ankles. She stared into Lilah’s eyes. They were so vivid, yet somehow dark, as if they were windows into a deep place in the earth filled with fire and molten rock. She saw no mercy in them, no understanding, only fury and disgust. At her closeness, Lilah bared her teeth, and her very breath was burning heat across Valessa’s body.

  “Take it,” Valessa whispered as she put her hands on the bars of the gate. “Take it, all of it, and let me die if that will grant me peace.”

  “You’ll know only pain.”

  Valessa laughed at the lioness.

  “That’s all I know now.”

  Daniel’s army was close, so close, and already she could hear panic rising as they realized the gate was shut. Arrows had started to rain upon them, and they’d grow thicker as the army gathered together in defense. Refusing to look, not wanting to see them dying, Valessa instead pressed closer, almost daring Lilah to strike.

  “Greet me when I enter the Abyss,” she told the lioness. “Because you’ll be there before me.”

  She was strong, stronger than ever. Her body was not tied to concepts of muscles anymore. Everything was fluid, changeable, becoming the form she imagined. And what she imaged was a woman with the power of a god, and her hands pulled. The gate groaned, twisted, then broke in half with a sound that shook the wall. The mercenaries stood stunned, but Lilah never hesitated, leaping through the permanently opened portcullis. Valessa’s sight filled with stark white teeth. She thought to fall through the world, as she had when Cyric attempted to kill her, but Lilah seemed aware of her strategy, and her teeth closed around an arm.

  It held firm, and Valessa could not pull free. She struggled, and the teeth sank in deeper. A strange black fluid poured from her body, and she felt herself becoming loose. Maintaining her shape grew increasingly difficult as Lilah shook her side to side, tearing deeper, jarring Valessa’s body. The pain increased tenfold. A scream exited her mouth, though it sounded like it belonged to another. And then her scream was overwhelmed by the sound of more than a hundred men howling at the top of their lungs.

  Darius’s glowing blade sliced through her Lilah’s jaw, and with a yelp from the great best, Valessa was free.

  I am anyone, she thought. I am anything.

  It was madness, but she had to try. The lioness roared with heightened fury. Mercenaries were rushing out of the gate, seeking to protect Lilah, for she was the only real hope they had left. They were met by Daniel’s men, and the blood quickly flowed. Only Darius faced Lilah, as if the rest instinctively knew it would be the paladin who must deal with the creature, and if he failed, there was little any of them could do. Darius stood between Valessa and the lioness, and though the light from his sword hurt, there was still comfort in its sight.

  “Fly away,” Valessa whispered.

  Darius swung, and Lilah reacted with the speed and reflexes of the cat she resembled, dodging aside. Instead of lunging at the hated paladin, she remained focused on Valessa, who stood there, a smile on her face. Lilah would risk everything, even defeat, to kill her now. But she wouldn’t. Lilah was just a giant cat. Giant cats couldn’t fly.

  Lilah’s jaws snapped at her, and should have closed around her neck. But Valessa had crouched down, the force of her will reshaping her, making her something new, something small. Her vision shifted, her senses overcome by the strangeness of her being. Only desperation kept her moving, kept her arms rising and falling, which were now soft white wings no bigger than a single claw on Lilah’s paw. She felt herself condensed, yet lighter. Her body lifted higher, higher, and when Lilah swung at her, she banked away. The wind blew across her eyes, face, and through the nostrils of her beak. Once more Lilah swung, but she was too high now, soaring over the battlefield.

  Down below, Darius’s sword gleamed with light, and with a single chop, it beheaded Lilah as she roared up to the heavens. Valessa soared on. Her back felt exposed, feathers missing from where she’d been clawed. Even now the wound would not heal. From her left eye she saw her wing blackened and mangled from where Lilah had held her. One by one, soft feathers fluttered away with each beating of the wing. Whatever strength kept her going, she felt it waning, already pressed to its limits.

  But oh, how it felt to fly…

  She circled, just a night dove, watching as Darius leapt into the center of the mercenaries’ line. Already outnumbered, they could not hold against his skill and strength. They broke, and with a cheer Daniel’s army surged forward, overwhelming them. Bodies fell, and Valessa fell with them, circling lower and lower, unable to beat her wings. Floating in that downward spiral, she felt free for the first time since she’d thrust her neck against the tip of Darius’s sword. A shame it couldn’t last.

  She hit the ground amid the corpses outside the gate, human once more. Her flesh was pale, and she wore no clothes. The scars on her back still bled shadow. Glancing only once, she saw her left hand had regrown from where Darius had cut it off, but everything below the elbow was rotting flesh. No matter how she tried, she could not make it look pristine.

  “Darius?” she whispered, knowing she could not be heard over the cheerful celebration but asking for him anyway. She tried crawling to her knees, but her hands were shaking, and her body was more like fluid, resisting any attempt to stand. She just wanted to lie there. She just wanted to pass away.

  Valessa?

  She opened her eyes. Darkness encroached upon the edges of her vision. Amid her pain, she heard her name cried once more.

  “Valessa!”

  Darius was suddenly above her, his armor blackened by fire, much of it covered with blood. Somehow she knew none of it was his. He lay his sword beside her so it would not glow. Valessa stared at his face, at his worry, and tried to hate him.

  “You did this,” she whispered.

  “Shush now,” Darius said, and if he heard her, he did not react. He pulled off a gauntlet, then put a hand on her forehead. She almost laughed. Was he searching for a fever? She was ice. No heat. No life.

  “Help me,” she said more forcefully.

  “I...” Darius pulled her shoulder, saw the marks of the lion clawed across her back. “Shit.”

  “Please, help. I don’t want to die like this.”

  Darius gently laid her back down.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I don’t even know what you are, Valessa. I don’t know what I can do.”

  “Not that.”

  She reached with her good arm to the blade that lay dark beside her, lifting it up an inch before dropping it. A shadow passed over Darius’s face.

  “No,” he said. “We’ve won. We’ve crushed them and retaken the tower. We’ll beat Cyric next, and it’ll be you who cuts his head off, I promise. And after that, you can spend the rest of your unnatural life trying to kill me.” He laughed. “We’ll make a game of it, right Valessa? You’ll keep trying, I’ll keep l
iving, until we both get bored and I get old…”

  A shiver ran through her. This was not how she wanted to die. The Abyss was waiting for her, and she would not be safe from its cleansing fire.

  “Do it,” Valessa said. “I won’t be a coward, and I won’t let that damn lion be the one who kills me.”

  Darius reached for the blade, and his fingers touched the hilt. It shone a soft white. For an instant she felt the light bathe over her, burning away the pale color of her flesh and exposing the shadow swirling beneath. And then Darius released it.

  “No.”

  He turned her over, and she did not resist. His bare hands pressed against Lilah’s cuts. The pain of it was intense, and her fingernails clawed against the dirt, periodically sinking through to fall into the earth itself. And then she heard him pray.

  “I’ve never healed anyone before,” Darius whispered. “And forgive me if I’m insane to do so now.”

  Valessa had felt the light from Darius’s blade burn her. She’d felt Cyric reach into the core of her being and try to rip it to shreds. This was beyond any of that pain, so strong her body felt paralyzed. Darius’s hands dipped into her, and amid her delirium she heard his gasp. The paralysis suddenly stopped, and with strength born of pain she flung herself onto her knees.

  Screaming, screaming, always screaming.

  The light on her back wasn’t leaving, even though Darius’s hands no longer touched her. It was growing, burning away everything. She beat against the dirt, and from her eyes fell tears that shimmered red like the blood of the sun.

  “Stop fighting it!” she heard Darius shout, as if from a different world.

  Fighting what? She didn’t know. Didn’t understand. Fight against the pain? It was killing her, consuming whatever darkness that was her. And he wanted her to let it? So be it. She fell onto her haunches, arms out at the sides, and shrieked out every shred of her misery and torment and anguish and abandonment that had consumed her since that terrible moment her god had demanded she take the life of a simple wayward paladin named Darius.