by Will Wight
Kerian broke the trance, stepping back from the table and dropping to the floor in defeat. Until someone killed the Handmaiden, she couldn’t take care of the other Children.
So she had only to sit here, holding the Vessel and waiting for someone else to solve her problems for her.
She hated even the thought of doing nothing while her fellow Guild members died above her, but she stayed where she was.
Because she was a Consultant, and Consultants did their duty.
~~~
Shera made it to the base of the arena, but between the earthquake and the two combatants, the ancient stone wouldn’t last another five minutes.
Rocks fell all around her as she rushed through a tunnel at the arena’s ground level, so that she had to blink grit from her eyes and stare through the dust as she ran, leaping over the jagged maze of debris on the ground. For the first time, she was actually glad for the mask over her nose and mouth, because it kept her from taking in a lungful of dirt with every breath.
But the clouds of dust in the air still worked against her, because she was dodging more than rocks.
A fat Child of Nakothi, little more than a blob of blubber, waddled toward her, raising a pair of bone clubs and howling. She stabbed it at the base of the neck, dodged its strike, and slashed it in the side before moving on.
Something like a swarm of hermit crabs had taken up residence in human skulls, and they scuttled up to her as she ran, trying to grab her feet with sharp claws. She leaped over them, kicking off one skull and landing on a stacked pile of rocks, before continuing to run.
She had one goal, and one goal alone: she had to find the Heart. Maybe then, somehow, she could put an end to this.
Even if she had to destroy the Heart herself, Nakothi’s unleashed powers couldn’t make the island any worse than it already was.
Finally she emerged onto the sand of the arena floor in time to see the Gardener’s shears meeting the gladiator’s hatchets. They struck one another, ringing like a bell struck by a cannon, but then Meia managed to land a kick in his armored gut. When he doubled over, she struck at his throat with her shear.
Too shallow, Shera thought. If Meia had leaned forward a little more, the fight would have been over. Instead, Urzaia was able to dodge backwards, though he lost his balance and rolled down a flight of arena stairs. He tumbled down every stone bench, landing on a chunk of rock.
Meia advanced on him, blade raised, and Shera rushed forward to stop her.
She had to talk to him, to find out if he knew where the Heart was. She’d be willing to offer a truce, a ceasefire with Calder Marten, whatever it took if they could stop this madness on the Gray Island.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that someone had pulled a pistol on her.
Fueled by instinct and training, she threw herself into a roll, and the bullet struck the sand next to her shoulder. She came up in a crouch, shear leading and spade in her off hand.
Calder Marten stood in the arena, his blue jacket covered in stains and grit. The Emperor’s crown sat in the middle of his red hair like gold in a fire, and when he tossed his pistol aside, he readied a sword.
This one was new.
The cutlass blade was long and black, mottled with spots of orange that...well, they didn’t quite glow, but they shifted, like the patterns on a hot coal. It was as though the blobs of color on the blade weren’t really there, but were made by some alchemical paint.
Either he had invested in a clever forgery, or Captain Calder Marten had found himself an Awakened weapon.
They regarded each other without moving, sand rising up from the arena in streams even as pebbles clattered down from the ceiling far above.
I should have killed him weeks ago, Shera thought. It would have saved her a lot of headache, though not as much as if she’d simply thrown Nakothi’s Heart into the ocean. Even if Kelarac got his hands on it, it couldn’t be worse than what was happening now.
Her left shoulder still throbbed, the cut on the back of her neck blazed like a hot poker, and every muscle in her body felt as though it had been tenderized like a fresh-cut steak. But she ignored all that, focusing on Calder.
She shouldn’t have let him live before. Now she had a chance to correct her mistake.
So tight was her focus, that she almost didn’t notice one distinctive fact—the man had an Elderspawn on his shoulder.
It was a stubby little thing, more humanoid than most, with dark green skin and little wings that she thought surely couldn’t carry it into the air. Its black eyes glared at her with tiny fury that would have been adorable under other circumstances, and its mouth was covered by a nest of writhing, twisting tentacles.
The tentacles parted, and a noise resounded from the creature that Shera would never have imagined: a deep, resonant, masculine laugh.
It laughed hard enough to hurt her ears and then got louder, laughing like a Great Elder waking to consume the world, like a phantom from a nightmare. Its laughter grew in volume until the stones around her shook.
“KILL,” the Elderspawn declared, and then flapped its way off of Calder Marten’s shoulder.
That was a signal if she’d ever heard one.
Shera hurled her spade at Calder’s eye, more to distract him than anything else. He jerked his head out of the way and brought that orange-mottled blade down on her as she closed the gap between them. She knocked his cutlass out of the way, unfolding to stand inches from his body, driving a poisoned needle at his neck. This one would be lethal.
He stepped closer to her, slamming his elbow into her nose.
The world flared white and pain flashed through her head as blood, warm and wet, flowed over her mouth.
He was better than she’d expected. Swordsmen kept their distance against knives, using their reach to their advantage. Few of them had the presence of mind to adjust on the fly, to step even closer and fight her without their weapon. Even those that did try usually ended up dead on the end of her knife.
But he’d caught her off guard, and she staggered back, losing her grip on the needle.
I need to see.
She was still blinded by tears, but she anticipated his next move: he would try and finish her with a thrust to her midsection. She dropped into a low crouch, reversing her grip on her shear as she did.
The rush of air over her head meant she had chosen wisely.
Shera slammed the knife into a black blur that she thought was his boot, but he slid it across the sand and away from her in time. As soon as he did, she rolled away, expecting the counterattack.
On the way, she reached out and slashed his leg. The same leg she’d injured in their last encounter.
The edge of her blade tugged through a bandage beneath his pants and then bit flesh, telling her that she’d remembered correctly. She’d torn open his old wound.
She felt a surge of satisfaction that matched her pain. He deserved to hurt at least as much as she did.
And then he deserved to die.
Her emotions cooled to the familiar block of ice as she reached down for a spade. The triangular blade felt light in her hand.
She could see it now: she’d throw the spade, and he would react. Whether he swung his sword to try and knock it out of the way, or jerked back to avoid it, or even if it hit its mark, either way he would lean backwards half a step. She was close enough to take that opening. She’d bury her shear in his belly.
Her left hand had already started to come up when he met her eyes and issued an order.
“Stop where you are!” he shouted.
The crown seemed to pull her attention, and for a moment, she was a little girl standing in front of the most powerful man in the world.
When she finally broke free and threw the spade, he had already dodged, moving behind a half-shattered wooden rectangle standing on its end. It looked like the remnants of a woodshed that had been struck by lightning—or, more likely, caught in the battle between Meia and Urzaia.
Shera
almost ran around the “shed” to pursue Calder, but she caught herself. He would be waiting for her, sword ready.
With that in mind, she pulled herself up onto the broken wood. It started to collapse, so she leaped from it to a nearby pile of stone that had once formed part of the arena. She hurled a spade from above him, and as she’d expected, he leaned back as he tried to knock it aside with his sword.
The spade kicked up sparks as it hit his cutlass, deflecting off the flat of his blade and embedding itself into his shoulder.
She started to lunge forward, but something in his eyes stopped her. Even as he pulled the spade out of his flesh and let it fall to the ground, dripping blood, his expression said he had a plan. He looked firm, determined, as though he had one final card up his sleeve that he was simply looking for the opportunity to use.
He could have been baiting her, but she doubted he had the presence of mind to do so at this point. He knew something she didn’t.
And she’d already underestimated him once, earning a broken nose for her trouble.
So when he started limping to the side like he meant to find a better position from which to attack, she matched him from the other side, prowling opposite as though they each stood on the other side of an invisible circle. She pulled a poisoned needle into her left hand, waiting for the opportunity to use it. It was easier to jab with a needle, but she could throw it if she had to. As long as he was distracted.
When a shadow loomed up behind her, she realized her mistake.
He’s a Reader. He could feel the Children of Nakothi coming.
All he’d wanted to do was keep her eyes on him.
She spun with her shear in one hand and the poisoned needle in the other, facing the pale-skinned bulk of a headless gorilla from only an inch away. The needle pierced its skin and the knife drew a line of pale blood down its chest, but neither had any visible effect.
She tried to dodge as its fist descended, but it still caught her on the right shoulder with the force of a hammer. The blow flung her from the rock on which she stood, sending her tumbling to the arena sand.
At last, the pain was too much. She couldn’t see anything—there was dirt in her eyes, blood in her mouth, and pain in her whole body. She tried to roll to the side, to avoid the attack she knew was coming, but her body only arched and writhed.
She couldn’t see. She couldn’t move.
He was going to kill her.
~~~
Meia saw Shera run into the arena, saw her stopped by Calder Marten, and heard the echoing declaration of Calder’s horrible Elderspawn pet.
But she didn’t have the luxury of watching their fight, because she was in danger of losing her own.
By all rights, Urzaia should have been exhausted by now. His hair had been cut loose by one of her strikes that had come close to stabbing him in the back of the neck, and his face was covered in cuts—as much from debris and shattered rock as from her knife.
Instead of backing off, he came at her even stronger before, as though he fed on the battle.
Even the Kameira inside her were growing weary, snapping and growling in her mind but seldom pressuring her into action. The Deepstrider’s healing was growing slower and slower, leaving the minor injuries alone, and her stomach seemed to gnaw on her backbone. If she could think of hunger at a time like this, she must be starving indeed.
Her shears trembled in her grip, but she bit her lip, savoring the pain and blood that flooded her mouth. It focused her, kept her eyes on Urzaia, reminding her what she needed to do.
She needed to tear him to pieces.
Meia had rushed at him when, to the side, she saw a Child of Nakothi slam its fist down on Shera’s shoulder. She tumbled off of a rock, landing on the ground, and Calder killed the Elderspawn. For some reason, the heavily muscled gorilla dissolved into a pile of foul black waste. She wondered if that was the effect of his sword.
After killing Nakothi’s Child, Calder walked up to Shera. He reversed his strange orange-stained cutlass, ready to drive it through her and into the ground.
Meia’s vision filmed with rage.
She was already rushing at Urzaia, so instead of turning away, she doubled her ferocity, kicking off with speed that even he couldn’t match. She didn’t have to kill him; that would take too much effort. She had to tear him up, keep him out of her way.
Meia slammed into him with her left shoulder, jabbing her shear into his side.
At last, she got in a clear hit, slicing through what remained of his leather breastplate and carving a piece out of his ribs.
Even Urzaia screamed, sweeping at her with his hatchets, but she’d already pushed him away, turning around and rushing for Calder Marten.
He had gathered the hilt of his cutlass in his fists, prepared to drive it down into Shera’s chest.
She ran faster than she’d ever run before, the muscles in her legs bunching and changing shape.
It was all she could do to stop, kicking up a spray of sand as she arrived, one foot on the ground and one resting flat on Calder Marten’s gut.
He looked up, eyes wide beneath his bright red hair.
She’s not yours, Meia thought fiercely, but all that came out was a Kameira’s snarl.
Strength flooded her legs again, and she pushed him as much as kicked him.
It was enough to launch him into the air, sending him skimming over the ground as he tumbled backwards. His sword skittered free from his hand, sliding over the sand until it came to rest against a rock.
Much like Calder’s body.
His back crashed against a boulder that had once formed part of the roof, knocking the crown from his head. The Emperor’s crown rolled away like a coin on the street.
A roaring voice filled the whole underground chamber, as loud as Calder’s laughing Elderspawn from earlier. “Captain!” Urzaia shouted.
A second later, he was on her, driving his hatchets down at her head.
Her shears came up to hold him off, but she couldn’t understand where he found such strength. Even the Nightwyrm inside her was urging her to retreat and tend to her wounds, and she felt as though she would collapse from sheer exhaustion, but Urzaia hit her with more power than he’d ever used before.
He pounded at her blades relentlessly, and it was all she could do to hold on.
First she lost her grip on her left-hand knife, then his eyes lit up. He shouted, grinning like a maniac, and slammed one hatchet down on the flesh between her shoulder and neck.
The sheer pain...it was like nothing she’d experienced since the alchemist’s table. It didn’t feel like a shoulder wound, it felt like every one of her bones had turned to flame, and her muscles were being pulled apart until they tore.
Blood sprayed into the air, but she couldn’t even get the breath to scream.
As she fell backwards, she saw someone that she hadn’t expected to see—free and walking around—ever again.
Lucan.
She allowed the dark to take the edges of her vision. The three of them were all together again. They couldn’t fail a mission when they were together, no matter the odds.
Everything would be okay now.
~~~
Lucan saw the instant Meia took the black hatchet to the shoulder, and it was all he could do not to pull his own shears and leap into battle himself. If it was an opponent that could overpower Meia blade-to-blade, he had no chance. Certainly not without his Reading.
But there was one more thing he could do to ensure the big Izyrian’s death.
The blanket fell away, and for the first time since he’d created the weapon, he gripped Syphren’s hilt.
He has power... the knife whispered. Let me taste it.
You will, Lucan promised.
Shera was climbing to her knees, hidden behind Calder Marten, her mask soaked in blood. Lucan raised his voice.
“Shera!”
At the same time, Calder seemed to sense something. His eyes fell on Syphren, and they widened. He
turned to his Champion.
“Urzaia!” he shouted.
With all his strength, Lucan hurled the blade. Syphren cackled as it flew, delighted at the chance to draw blood.
At the same time, Urzaia Woodsman kicked Meia away, his face the very picture of bloody fury. He readied a black hatchet, turning to Lucan and glaring like death. His muscles bunched, and he prepared himself to lunge.
Shera’s hand caught her Awakened shear out of the air, and Lucan smiled.
~~~
The blade filled her mind with whispers. Not one, but a thousand voices, all speaking in unison.
They all wanted the same thing.
Power.
Power in his blood.
Power in the gold on his arm.
Let me taste it.
Let me take it.
Let me tear it apart, and use it for us.
The voices were all one voice, and it sounded like Nakothi, like the Emperor, like Shera herself. Even like Lucan, like some dark part of him that she didn’t know. Something inside Shera told her to cast the knife away, that the whispers were disgusting and shouldn’t be heeded.
But Shera was a Gardener, and each Gardener had a pair of shears. She couldn’t throw one of hers away now.
Not when she had a weed right in front of her.
“Behind you!” Calder screamed, pointing with desperate urgency at Shera. Or at her weapon.
It didn’t matter; he was already too late.
Urzaia spun, his hatchet blade swinging at Shera’s midsection, but she simply ducked the attack.
The moment seemed to freeze. He was wide open, committed to his attack, his chest exposed. In her left hand, she gripped her shear, stabilized and Awakened. The weapon with as rich a history as the Empire’s own: passed through generations of Consultants, of assassins, until it passed into her own hands. The blade that had taken significant lives, again and again, for over a thousand years.
The blade she’d used to kill the Emperor.
A memory, one that she avoided above all others, floated to the surface of her mind. The Emperor’s personal chambers were torn to pieces as if in a great battle, blood both inhuman and human spattering the walls. Shera crept out, bloody knife hidden in her sheath, listening to the Imperial Guard running here and there, shouting that they had to protect the Emperor.
