Arazni’s followers were near enough now, and Zae called down her own holy energy onto them. It pleased her to see them stagger. Ruby turned toward the soldier she fought beside, touching his shoulder and bolstering him. Zae didn’t want to have to hurt Ruby, so she kept her focus on the others, sending a ray of holy light at the Araznian undead who looked most wounded. He let out an unearthly scream and swayed on his feet. One of Iomedae’s knights cut him down where he stood.
All around, the clash of steel and the sizzle of flesh had replaced the sounds of the market. Up on the stall’s roof, Rowan and Omari still sparred. The monk was ducking and dodging the halfling’s strikes; he was smiling, as if this were just another casual workout with a friend. Rowan looked set and serious, and wounded to boot—a bruise had already bloomed across his cheek, and blood painted his lips and chin. Zae focused on him, sending him and the knights courage from afar. Then Omari’s expression turned sour, and he spared a hand to swat at the air. He did this a couple more times before Zae realized what he was actually doing: catching arrows and batting them away. Behind her on the opposing market stall’s roof, an archer in Iomedae’s livery shot over the crowd, hand blurring with a speed that even Zae’s sharp eyes could not follow. While it might have been only an annoyance to Omari, it still was a distraction that could give Rowan an advantage.
Keren was holding her own against her foe. One of Arazni’s other fighters, a thick meat-slab of a man who likely had some orc blood in his ancestry, caught sight of Keren and let out a battle roar, rushing to the defense of his companion.
But behind him came Evandor, resplendent in his gleaming armor. He cut the large man down in a single stroke, before Keren even knew there had been an adversary angling to take a chunk out of her back. With him at her side and Apple going for his calves, Keren’s interrogator went down quickly. One moment, he was fighting Keren, and the next, there was a hole in the sea of people where his head had been. The crowd flowed to fill in the gap so swiftly that Keren had no time to rest before facing off against another foe. Evandor handed her his shield and held off the nearest adversary while she secured it. Zae scanned the melee for her allies.
Yenna Quoros had found herself a spot out of the way, under the stall where Omari and Rowan still sparred. With a table upended as a barricade, she channeled holy energy against the undead, with much more power than Zae could have matched, while a foot soldier at her side threw fragile flasks into the thick of Arazni’s forces, scorching the few remaining creatures with holy water and showering glass shrapnel underfoot.
Keren was still full of vigor, and it didn’t look like any of the blood smeared across her armor or Apple’s white fur was their own. The two of them and Evandor were on the move, slicing their way through Arazni’s minions toward Omari. The monk wore a satchel much like Zae’s slung crosswise over his shoulder. The Bloodstone, undoubtedly, was in there. He would need to be parted from it.
Below the monk’s perch, Ruby faced off against Renwick. That startled Zae—when had the dwarf arrived? Moreover, how did he even know to come here? Had he been keeping tabs on them, or on Ruby? She supposed it made sense, though—of course he would have wanted to investigate the sabotage in the cathedral himself. She hoped he had brought others with him and felt momentarily guilty; he looked as though he’d rather have been anywhere else in the world than opposing his student in combat.
Zae wormed her way closer to Renwick. Though Ruby was subordinate in the workroom, here they were equals. Every spell Ruby could cast, Renwick could counter—yet he gained no ground on her, either. Zae prayed for a spell to make her falter, and then one to give Renwick an advantage, touching his sleeve. Sinuous coils of Ruby’s hair writhed out to grasp at him, but steaming flames flowed brightly from his mouth to singe the tresses away. She screamed, a sound of anger more than fear or pain. While she was distracted putting out the flames—with a flask of water, produced from her cloak and upended over her own head—Zae dug a device out of her bag. Before she could activate it, though, Renwick closed in. Without Ruby’s hair to keep him at a distance, he swept at her midsection with a short-handled hatchet.
It connected. Ruby staggered, hair cindered and steaming, clutching her belly. The witch wove in place, then crumpled, gasping, to the sticky ground.
Most of the fighting had moved on, leaving the path to them mostly clear. Zae ran for it, pulling to a halt beside Renwick where he crouched over Ruby’s form. The rugged dwarf’s face was full of remorse; Ruby’s was utterly calm.
“Cheer up, old man,” Ruby said. “You couldn’t have known.”
“That may be,” he answered. “I should’ve, though.”
A shout from the rooftop turned Zae’s attention away from them. Omari was herding Rowan off the edge of the roof toward Geb’s remaining forces.
Zae tried searing Omari with a spell, but he seemed to be too fluid for even Brigh’s might to latch onto him. Despite all his talk of natural combat, she suspected he must have some unnatural resistance aiding him in order to evade her magic. She saw no way to wade safely through the combat, but she could still aid her allies.
Omari’s punch connected with Rowan’s face. The halfling tumbled off the roof’s edge.
Keren fought her way through to Rowan and shielded the fallen halfling while she hauled him to his feet. Then she lifted her chin and shouted a challenge at Omari. “Is no one paying attention to you? Come down here and join your own party, coward!”
Omari, grinning as if humoring Keren, sailed down from the roof with a flying leap that caught her square in the chest and knocked her off her feet. Zae’s breath caught in her throat, but Keren struggled upright again. Omari’s foot struck out faster than Zae’s eyes could follow, a solid kick to the side of her helm, yet she remained standing, if only barely. She slashed, he dodged, and Zae realized with horror that he wasn’t truly fighting her—he was herding her toward the edge of the pit. The distance between Keren and the abyss dwindled as she backpedaled, barely managing to avoid the monk’s attacks.
Zae surged forward, knowing she was already too late.
28
THE CHASM’S EDGE
KEREN
Omari’s face twisted in concentration. Keren was panting, her hair stringy with sweat that dripped down her back and soaked the layers under her armor, but still she pushed him, forcing him to dodge and jump and spin to avoid her blade. A few deep cuts on his chest and arms attested to her ability to hit occasionally, but he moved without fatigue, as if unaware of them.
Keren drew Omari sideways, still too close to the pit but putting more distance between her feet and the edge. She couldn’t take the chance of the Bloodstone going over with him.
He crouched, shifting balance from one foot to the other. She didn’t know whether he was going to lunge or leap, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out. She swung instead, feinting for his head and then dropping her wrists to move that momentum to his leg. He pounced forward, she turned aside but not fast enough, and he knocked her down onto her back. Armor hit stone and punched the wind out of her. Straddling her, he pulled at her helm. He might have been aiming to remove it so that he could reach her vulnerable face, or use it as a tool to smash her head against the pavement. She struck at his side with her fist, and at his other side with her sword pommel. At least she still had her grip on the sword. He had to have kidneys, and they had to be in the same place as everyone else’s—and unlike her, he wore nothing to protect them. No matter how perfect he was, armor was still harder than flesh.
A moment’s respite told her he’d given up on removing her helm, but a moment was all she got. Something immensely hard cracked down on the center of her forehead, sending her vision swirling red and black. Had that been his elbow? She couldn’t breathe or think now.
Her visor lifted. Keren caught sight of the great Starstone Cathedral looming large behind Omari, its spire stretching high into the heavens. It glowed, haloed in the first golden reds of dusk, and Keren thou
ght again of Iomedae’s ascension; her god’s heroics on this very spot. A fitting last sight. As Omari drew back his fist, she forced her eyes to stay open, fixed on the tip of the cathedral’s spire. And she prayed.
A nimbus of glowing light surrounded and filled her, red and gold like leaves glowing under an autumn sun. Something deep within her clicked into place. She felt invincible. She felt like justice.
Omari leaned over her, blotting out the sky. His fist became the world, and in slow motion she felt the crunch of bone shattering in her nose. She knew it would hurt, but it didn’t yet. She gasped, but still couldn’t take a full breath. That was all right. She only needed to be. The light, Iomedae’s light, would take care of the rest.
The weight on her shifted and slumped, giving her the sky and the spire again. She drew on her last reserves and sat up, grasping for her sword and struggling to her feet. Omari remained where she’d left him stunned and unmoving, eyes staring past her and shining with the reflection of that golden light. Zae was at her side, steadying her arm. Apple was close behind her. His sharp teeth latched into Omari’s leg and his strong jaw shook the limb in rough jerks.
Blood poured from her nose now that she was upright. She curled her fist and punched Omari in the face with her gauntlet, just as he’d punched her. Blood flew, his eyelids fluttered, and his pupils rolled back in his head. Zae moved around behind him and slid the tip of her blade under the strap that crossed his shoulder, severing it with a twist of the knife.
There was a moment, paused in time, perfect and golden, when it seemed as if it would be that easy. But then time resumed, and Omari’s elbow shot out, catching the gnome under the chin.
Zae fell, momentum knocking her away from him and toward the edge of the pit. The gnome curled tightly around Omari’s bag, and only at the last second seemed to realize that it came at the cost of slowing herself. Keren dove after her, but time felt slippery, both too fast and too slow at once. She didn’t know whether she would make it to Zae, but she put everything she had into trying, praying to Iomedae for the strength. Lunging to reach out over the chasm, she was the bridge she had been unable to visualize in practice.
Warmth filled her, lending her confidence and hope. Her hand closed around a slender leg. She pulled.
Keren couldn’t see more than rough shapes now, between the blood in her eyes and the pain, but she held on tightly, easing back onto her knees. She felt strong arms around her sore ribs, pulling her back while she pulled Zae. Who—? Evandor?
Keren wiped the blood and sweat out of her eyes. Renwick. He handed her a potion, already uncorked, and she drank it down without hesitation, handing Zae over into his care. The gnome was wild-eyed and trembling, but alive.
Keren retrieved her shield and sword. Yenna was casting magic at Omari from a wand and Evandor, Rowan, and Appleslayer had him surrounded on three sides, slashing and biting. His attention was strained, juggling four attackers at once.
The world turned sideways as Omari took his one avenue of escape and tackled Keren, following her to the ground again, using her armor as his own shield against her allies. He was too close for her shield to help her, and with her sword trapped under her she couldn’t use it, either. But she didn’t need a weapon. With Iomedae’s grace inside her, she was a weapon. She prayed, and spikes grew from her armor, their sharp points sliding into Omari’s skin.
The monk stiffened and screamed, pushing against her now. But the advantage was Keren’s and she took it. Keren rolled onto him, letting the weight of the armor force the spikes into him and pin him to the ground.
His dazed pupils nearly engulfed the prized violet of his irises. “Your mortal laws don’t apply to me and your mortal walls won’t hold me. All you’ve done is shown me what sort of god I’m meant to be.”
She had him for now, but Keren knew she didn’t have much time to consider her next action. He would be deadly fast once he recovered himself.
She punched his broken nose to delay that recovery, then pushed herself to her knees, bracing him on the ground to peel him off her spikes. She held out a hand and Renwick took it. The few straggling members of Arazni’s forces were fighting their way toward Omari—and toward Zae, who held the Bloodstone in its shielded bag—but her friends were stronger in number and they were keeping the desperate cultists back.
If she let Omari up, he would try to take the test. Most likely, he would fail and die all on his own. But there was always that sliver of a chance that he would succeed, and even a sliver of a chance was irresponsible to discard. She could let the city have him, but no cell or exile would hold him for long. She took up her sword. She was sworn not just to defend against attacks on her faith, but to seek them out and eradicate them. Any man who would claim superiority over her god was certainly such an attacker, and she could not give him quarter. Her path was clear; as Iomedae’s divine instrument, she knew what she had to do.
Keren rose, planting a foot against Omari’s side. “Good luck meeting your god,” she said, and nudged him off the edge and into the endless chasm.
* * *
In the wake of the chaos, order was relatively quiet. Graycloaks walked the grounds together, arresting anything living and sticking swords into anything that was dead but still twitching. Renwick crouched over Ruby’s inert form. Zae and Keren paused long enough for him to acknowledge them with a somber nod.
Rowan joined them, dropping something metal and inert onto Ruby’s body. Her hummingbird was mangled, full of tooth-sized dents. “I think it lived long enough to tell Ruby where we were, and then your dog got hold of it. He brought it all the way here in his mouth.”
Zae stroked Appleslayer’s ears. “Will you be all right?” she asked Renwick.
The dwarf inclined his head. “In time. Never had to kill my own student before.” He rose to his feet, groaning with protest. “Thank you for asking, though. I reckon I’ll take you up on a stiff drink soon enough.”
“We’ll all need one, after this,” Keren said. “I’m going to drink until I feel it.”
“I’ll clear my schedule,” Zae responded, not entirely in jest. With Keren’s tolerance, that much drinking could take a while. The gnome hesitated, then said, “You know, you could have just given Omari to the guards and gotten him sentenced to prison. Did you have to push him off the edge?”
Keren hadn’t stopped churning that over in her mind, either. “Yes. I think I did. He wasn’t going to stop trying for ascension, and if he could steal a Bloodstone, could any cell have held him? Who knows what else he would have done or how many others he might have hurt along the way.”
Yenna and Evandor had rejoined the rest of the order, what few of their hastily assembled force remained. Keren wondered if reinforcements would arrive, now that everything was over. Evandor’s breastplate was rent with a long, scorched scar from his earlier battle with the graveknight, but he seemed mostly whole.
Zae shifted the bundle in her arms, pulling out a roughhewn stoneware jar. Its carved lid sported a filial of some sort of grotesque creature, like a gargoyle on a gravestone. Though it seemed thoroughly affixed, a slow trail of viscous blood pushed its way out of the jar as Keren watched. Its descent was mesmerizing, but then Keren recalled Omari’s talk of drinking it. She had to shudder and turn away.
Yenna opened her arms for the jar, and Zae passed it to her, holding it as gingerly as she might cradle a patient’s beating heart. Yenna took it from her, grasping it carefully by the wrappings to avoid touching the stone or the blood.
“I will draw this away from Absalom, and then return.” Yenna met Keren’s eyes, and bowed her head slightly in thanks. Keren did the same, and stood aside. The priestess took several steps away from them, paused, and vanished from sight.
29
THE WORST PATIENT
ZAE
Would you sit already?” Zae demanded. The curtains at Lumpy Orange Crescent were already closed, but Keren made a point of checking every room. Zae trailed along behind her, frustra
tion rising to a simmer. When the whole small house was proven free of spies, monsters, and whatever else might have legitimately enabled her to further stall, Zae put her foot down.
“Keren Rhinn. Chair. Now.”
The mottled plum-colored bruise spreading under her eyes may have, to anyone else, added a certain degree of imposing menace to the knight, but Zae was unmoved by Keren’s glower. Keren loitered just long enough to show Zae that she, too, was unmoved by intimidation. Point made, she relented with a grimace and a sharp intake of breath, easing into the seat. She leaned forward with a gasp and tugged at her chainmail tunic to let it rumple off over her head with a loud chink of rings. When it was a steel puddle on the floor, she sat up with great effort, which she no longer bothered to disguise.
“How many broken, do you think?” Zae asked.
Keren, who was no stranger to such things, answered without a pause for thought. “Three over here. One on this side.” Only after speaking did she reflexively palpate her torso, confirming her prediction.
“Yenna could have healed you. Anyone at the church would have healed you.”
“I know. I wanted you to do it. I wanted to walk with it. To them, it’s impractical to wait. To me, it’s too important to just erase like it never happened. I needed to feel it first.”
Pathfinder Tales--Gears of Faith Page 24