by Isaac Hooke
But it didn't matter. Brute could hiss and snarl all it wanted, because she had Tanner now. The two of them fought in harmony. She realized she didn't have to say anything after all. Their mere presence bolstered each other, and gave them renewed hope in a battle they knew they could not win alone.
There was no one else in the whole world in that moment except her, Tanner, and Brute. It felt almost as if she and Tanner were part of the same body, anticipating and reacting against Brute as a single unit. Without looking at her, Tanner seemed to sense when she wanted to strive for an opening. He would beat back the two swords he handled on Brute's left, and then quickly intercede to parry the blades Ari faced on the right, giving her an opening. And she herself sensed when Tanner wanted to take a shot. She'd parry the swords on her side and then immediately occupy the two Tanner faced.
During these openings, three times they struck Brute in the face, just missing the eyes every time. Those were painful misses, because striking Brute's temple or cheek was like hitting mortar. The blades clanged, and vibrations ran up and down her arms, but she fought on, working through the next blows.
Together she and Tanner forced Brute backward. The Direwalker retreated to the stairs and backed up two steps.
And just like that Brute had the advantage again. Attacking from above in a sword fight was a position of power, and Ari definitely felt the weight in those blows. She no longer could spare any time, or strength, to deflect the blades Tanner was dealing with, and had to focus entirely on defending herself. Tanner was similarly occupied. To compound matters, Brute's head was now just out of reach.
The two sides were at a temporary stalemate, with neither side going on the offensive nor making any advances.
A third blade joined in. Hoodwink. His blade shifted the balance once more to Tanner and Ari, and Brute was forced to retreat up those steps again.
Ari attempted a jump attack twice, aiming for the eyes, but Brute blocked each time. Such jump attacks were dangerous, because if she lost her balance she had the entire flight of stairs to fall down, whereas if Brute lost its balance, the Direwalker would merely fall to the higher steps behind it.
Other swordsmen joined the fray at intervals on the wide stairway, either to launch flame or lightning during an opening, or to strike with the sword, but they quickly learned that Brute was immune to all three. Definitely not an enemy to toy with. Two men died, and a third lost his leg. The men stayed back after that.
When the group reached the platform set midway the two runs of stairs, Tanner tried a jump attack.
His sword struck Brute in the brow—
Tanner gave a shout, and fell backward on the platform, nearly tumbling down the first run of stairs.
From the corner of her eye, she saw blood spurt from the stump where his sword hand used to be.
Two more blades went for Tanner's head.
Ari was there in an instant, spinning in a deadly pirouette. She halted, and caught those blades, swiping her weapon left, right, and up, narrowly shielding Tanner.
She'd been caught off guard. She should've been there earlier. She should've blocked the blow. But she was growing weary, and it had cost Tanner a hand, and very nearly his life.
Hoodwink never let up on the Direwalker's other side, and together she and Hoodwink managed to force the Direwalker away from Tanner, and up onto the next run of stairs, the leftmost branch of the wide, forked staircase.
Situated two steps higher than Ari and Hoodwink, Brute had achieved the advantage once again. Neither side gave ground, locked as they were in a stalemate of blades.
"Go to him, Ari," Hoodwink said. "I have this."
She wanted to do as Hoodwink asked, wanted to make sure that Tanner was all right, but a part of her realized that if she did that, she probably wouldn't be able to return to this fight, at least not for a while. The sheer emotion of reuniting with Tanner would prove too overwhelming.
Besides, Hoodwink definitely didn't "have this."
The blades of friend and foe moved in a blur.
Someone shouted her name.
She parried two super-fast blows. Beside her, a swordsman distracted Brute long enough for another man to toss her a second fire sword.
Two other men did the same for Hoodwink.
They both fought with two fire swords each now.
"Shit!" Hoodwink said. "Never uploaded two-sword technique to my avatar."
But Ari had. And she pressed forward, constantly breaking through Brute's defenses and striking it in the chest. Her hands were beginning to numb from the constant vibrations that passed through the blade. Good. She pressed harder. The alacrity of her attack broke the stalemate and forced the Direwalker up the run of stairs once again. She saw Hoodwink's blades darting in and out beside her, and she knew he was providing backup as best as he was able.
At last the Direwalker ran out of stairs, and clambered up onto the level marble of the second floor. Ari and Hoodwink followed right after it.
She could reach Brute's eyes once more.
But though she struck again and again at Brute's weak spot, the Direwalker wouldn't let her blades pass. She was beginning to tire—the focus needed for two swords was even more draining than one. Gols could ignore pain, and they could fight longer than humans, but eventually even they must succumb to the physical laws of the simulation, in the end.
Brute seemed immune to those laws, unfortunately. The four-armed Direwalker showed no signs of letting up, and it could probably keep fighting like this all day.
Ari was going to lose.
She felt Tanner's eyes on her from the platform below and she had a terrible realization.
He was going to watch her die again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The swords blurred around her, and Ari felt her doom encroaching.
She'd come back from the dead, only to die again right away.
It just didn't seem right.
Her father abruptly swiveled in front of her, taking the brunt of three blows.
She hadn't been concentrating.
Those swords would have killed her.
She stepped back, taking a momentary break, and watched Hoodwink fight.
Or rather, watched him struggle to defend himself. A scimitar cut a flesh-wound into his arm. Another cut him a nice gash on the chest. A third split open his leg. It didn't help that his proficiency with two swords was terrible, whereas Brute was a master with four.
If Ari didn't intervene soon, those blades would take him down.
But she was tired.
So tired.
No.
She refused to watch her father die. After everything he had done for her.
She threw herself into the battle with renewed purpose, an inkling of an idea forming.
She fed vitra into the two blades as she fought, until both weapons glowed orange, then red, and finally white. The brightness of the blades left a trail of afterimages over her vision, but somehow, driven by the necessity of the moment, she tapped into a feature of the gol body she didn't understand, and she managed to negate the afterimages before she was blinded by her own swords.
Hoodwink's voice seemed distant beside her. "Ari..."
She could feel the heat emanating from her steel, could feel it scorching her face and upper torso with each swing. She didn't care. Couldn't. Not now.
Plumes of smoke rose from the weapons, and she focused, concentrating on the duel, anticipating the attacks, placing her sword by instinct when the smoke blocked her vision.
From the rings she wore, she fed lightning into the blades, making the weapons hotter still.
"Ari..." Hoodwink said again, but he stepped back to let her work.
She dug deep, putting everything she had left into this attack. Her hands moved in a blur, faster than a machine, creating a draft that pushed the smoke plumes aside. She shifted her aim down, and hammered the superheated weapons into the center point of each of Brute's four scimitars in turn. Again and again. C
LANG CLANG CLANG CLANG. CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG. And as her blades rammed into the same spots on the scimitars over and over, those parts of her enemy's weapons began to glow orange. Then red. Then white hot.
She was a blacksmith at the anvil of death, and today she forged her masterwork.
At last one of Brute's scimitars failed beneath the superheated blows and snapped in two. Brute held on to the useless weapon, but focused on the other three, struggling to present different portions of the blades to her attacks. With less scimitars to target she moved faster, and readily compensated for Brute's subtle shifts so that her weapons struck precisely where she desired. CLANG CLANG CLANG. CLANG CLANG CLANG.
Another of its scimitars gave beneath her blows.
Brute now had only two full-length swords.
"Hoodwink!" she said between attacks. "Pipe bomb!"
Hoodwink vanished from her peripheral vision, returning a moment later with the requested item.
"Wait," she said.
CLANG CLANG. CLANG CLANG.
Another scimitar broke in half.
Ari concentrated all her attention on the last unbroken sword, slapping it ruthlessly with both her blades.
"Wait," she said.
CLANG CLANG. CLANG CLANG.
The final scimitar yielded to the merciless forge that was her swords, and snapped.
She immediately launched her two swords at Brute's chin. The Direwalker attempted to block with its half-blades, but Brute couldn't compensate for her superior reach. The tips of her weapons struck the stone-hard flesh and knocked the Direwalker backward.
"Now!" she said through the vibrations that ran up through her arms and into her teeth.
Hoodwink bit the igniter and tossed her the pipe bomb.
She dropped one of the white hot swords—
Caught the pipe bomb—
And threw herself at the Direwalker, swinging the pipe toward Brute's eye.
Brute, still off balance from the chin blow, started to raise its half-swords—
Ari was the faster, and she slammed the hilt of her sword into the pipe's exposed end, hammering it into Brute's brain.
She launched a spin-kick into that stone-hard chest, sending Brute backward against the balcony. The balustrade gave beneath the Direwalker's weight and Brute tumbled over, vanishing from sight.
The air shook as the pipe bomb exploded. She'd expected a wave of heat, but there was none, and she worried for a moment that the Direwalker had somehow thwarted her.
She glanced warily over the broken balcony.
Brute lay spreadeagled, motionless on the floor one story below in the reception hall. The tiles were cracked in an outward, branching pattern all around the Direwalker. Its eyes were hollow black sockets surrounded by soot, and its mouth lay open, an empty, dark pit. Everything inside that head had been blasted away—there were no teeth, no gums, no eyes.
No brain.
The men let out a cheer.
Ari heaved an immense sigh of relief. She collapsed backward, away from the gap in the balustrade.
Hoodwink caught her, and she dropped the burning sword, from which smoke still rose in plumes. She just wanted to lie down. She felt so dizzy, and her face and hands throbbed painfully, particularly around the rings where the skin had swollen dreadfully. Her fingers were red and blackened in places, and pieces of skin sloughed off. She wondered how badly her face was burned.
It didn't matter. This was all an illusion anyway. They could just reset her avatar once she returned to the Outside. Still, she hoped she didn't look too disgusting...
"Ari." Hoodwink wrapped his arms around her. "No. No." He was gazing down at her body.
She felt another stab of pain then, right in her belly-button. She glanced down.
One of Brute's half-swords protruded from her abdomen.
Hoodwink wrapped his fingers around the hilt, and pulled the blade out. He pressed her hand over the wound. "Hang on. Stanch the blood with your mind, if you can."
That's right. Gols could stanch bleeding.
She didn't know how.
Hoodwink left for a moment. She thought he heard him arguing with someone, and she caught snippets of hushed conversations. "Not yet Tanner! You'll get your chance. Just a moment longer. Please."
He returned with four healing shards. "Sorry about that. Scrounged these from the men. Last they had." He applied one to her face, two to her hands, and the last to her belly. He released electricity from his rings into the small creatures, and the shards vanished, absorbing into her skin. The blisters on her hands faded. The bleeding on her abdomen seemed to stop, and the pain faded away. Hoodwink wiped the wound clean. Only a jagged scar remained.
Hoodwink studied the scar, and then held up each of her hands. Finally he looked intently into her face. He nodded to himself and smiled. "All done."
He glanced over her shoulder, and Ari followed his gaze to the battered group of men who'd climbed to the top of the stairs. One man in particular caught her eye.
Tanner.
Her gaze drifted to his stump of a wrist. He hadn't even wrapped it in bandages, but there was no blood.
"What about Tanner's hand?" she said to Hoodwink. "Why did you waste all the shards on me?"
Hoodwink shook his head. "Not a waste. Shards can't restore severed limbs. He'll have to cope until we reset his avatar. But do go to him, Ari. He let me do my duty. He let me heal you. But now it's his turn."
She rose heavily and, supporting her weight with one hand on the balustrade beside her, she went to Tanner.
He stepped forward. "You came back, Teach." Though his chin was trembling, he managed a weak smile.
Ari threw herself at him and gave him a hug like there was no tomorrow.
She didn't say anything. She couldn't.
She didn't have to.
"I missed you so much, Ari." Tanner's voice was almost lost in a sob. "I thought, I wanted—"
"Shh..." she said. And she just held him.
"I'm so happy you're all right," Tanner managed after a moment. "So damn happy."
"Happy to see you too." She squeezed him tight, her cheek against his hair. She wanted desperately to hold on to him forever, but she couldn't, not here, not when death waited a few chambers away. But maybe that was all the more reason to just hold on and never let go.
She didn't know how much time passed in his arms. A minute, maybe two. Finally Hoodwink's voice interrupted them.
"Ari," Hoodwink said. "We have to go. Ari. We have to finish this."
If she didn't let go now, she never would.
Reluctantly she pulled away.
Tanner smiled sadly.
She hadn't noticed it before, but his canines were as long as a Direwalker's. She kind of liked how it looked on him, actually.
She clasped his good hand, giving him a last, wistful look, and then loosened her grip. Her fingers lingered a while longer before dropping away.
That hug—that entire moment with him really—had filled her with renewed life and purpose, and the will to go on.
"Let's finish this," she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Swords in hand, Ari, Tanner and Hoodwink led the group across the eerily deserted second story hallway. The sound of distant fighting floated up from the streets outside, but otherwise Ari heard little else save the jingle of sword belts and the hiss of nervous breathing from her own company.
"There's still something I can't figure out," Tanner said.
Hoodwink glanced at him. "What's that?"
"The Direwalkers were coming down these halls in a never-ending column. But when Brute came, they just stopped."
Ari exchanged a look with Hoodwink. "The tweaked gol mind disease?"
Hoodwink shook his head. "No. One knows we're here. It's got something special in mind for us."
They hadn't gone more than a few paces when a sudden cough drew everyone's attention back to the stairs.
A beaten-up man strode onto the second floor. "Feel l
ike I've been run over by a horse-drawn carriage in full flight."
"Calico Cap?" Ari said. She hardly recognized the leader of the Black Faction. His usual calico-colored furs were all matted and grubby, and his face was half burned. Her heart went out to him, because he looked so much like her father.
"In the flesh," Cap said. "Or partially, anyway." He smiled with half his face, and gave her a bow.
"Dad, are you sure we don't have more healing shards?" she said.
Hoodwink turned to Tanner, who shook his head.
Another man joined the group too then, coming from the shadow of one of the balconies.
"The whoremongers always win," the newcomer said.
"Briar!" Ari would have hugged him if she weren't holding a sword.
Briar forced a grin. "Yes. Unfortunately."
"You've lost weight," she said.
Briar's grin became scornful. "Refer to my previous sentiment."
Hoodwink grimaced, obviously not too pleased to see his brother-in-law. Cap meanwhile was wearing a look that would've flayed Briar if his eyes had been swords. She wondered what reason Cap had to hate the man.
Cap read her thoughts. "He did this to my face."
Ah.
"What happened to the others you were with?" Tanner said. "To Al?"
Briar shook his head. "I don't know. They went into Jeremy's bedchamber. I didn't."
Hoodwink snorted. The implication was clear. Coward. "Let's go. We don't have time for idle chitchat."
Hoodwink walked on, and Ari and Tanner joined him. The others fell in behind. Except Briar, who came to her side.
"Why do they hate me so?" Briar kept his voice low. "What did I ever do to deserve such ill-contempt?" He scooped up the small bit of flab that remained of his belly. "Is it because of this? Because I like my debaucheries and my wenching?"
Ari patted him on the shoulder, too worried about what lay ahead to really concentrate on what he was saying. She'd only just been reunited with Tanner. To lose him now would kill her.
Tanner must have felt her gaze, because he glanced back and gave her a reassuring smile.
"Between you and me," Briar said. "That was brilliant work you did back there with that four-armed whoreson. Just brilliant. I'm proud to have you as my niece."