The Armored Saint

by Myke Cole

  “The shrine,” Samson said. “If the herber doesn’t come, then the least we can do is pray.”

  Heloise’s shoulders burned and her arms shook, but she held on tight. She would not drop Clodio, not after what he had done for her in the woods, not after saving them all. She would hold on to him until her arms fell off. You are not going to die.

  Leuba stood and took a few tentative steps, stopped, hand outstretched. The rest of the village clustered closer, but all stopped behind Sigir. “Don’t be a fool, Samson!” Sald shouted after him. “Think of your girl!” called Harald.

  Samson ignored them, grunting as he half-walked, half-fell backward toward the shrine’s spire. The building was enormous by the standards of Lutet, its spire so high that it could be seen from atop the Giant’s Shoulder up the Hammersdown road. It bore the golden eye of the Emperor’s vigilance at its peak. A sainted Palantine was painted above the double doors, hand extended, wings outstretched above his golden armor. A devil lay crushed beneath him, one of his armored feet on its neck.

  Samson paused to get a better grip on Clodio, then hurried up the dirt path toward the doors. Clodio jerked, suddenly going stiff, his feet tearing out of Heloise’s grasp. She stumbled back and Samson swore as the ranger’s boots thudded against the earth. He tried to drag Clodio on his own, but the ranger was twitching now, his head thrashing from side to side, spit flying from the corners of his mouth, his teeth clenched so tightly that Heloise worried they might break.

  Samson laid Clodio down as gently as he could.

  “What do we do?” Heloise asked. Ingomer Clothier had been prone to fits when he was a boy. The only thing Heloise could remember was that you were supposed to make sure they were on something soft, so they couldn’t hurt themselves by thrashing, and to put something in their mouth to keep them from breaking their teeth. But the cold ground beneath Clodio was nearly as hard as stone, and his teeth were so tightly clenched that she wouldn’t be able to get a piece of parchment between them.

  Samson had knelt, gripping Clodio’s head between his knees, stopping him from knocking his skull on the ground. He tried to grab Clodio’s flailing arms with his free hands, succeeded in grabbing one, only to have it ripped away when the other clouted him on the side of the head.

  Heloise dove for Clodio’s feet, stilled the drumming heels for a moment. But she was a girl of sixteen winters, and Clodio’s legs were strong from years of ranging. His boots rose and fell, lifting Heloise with them, and each time she felt her grip shaken, the tips of the ranger’s toes slamming painfully into her hips. At last, he kicked her free, and Heloise sprawled on her back.

  “Help me, girl!” Samson shouted, Clodio’s head still firmly gripped between his knees, reaching for his waving arms. “Get up!”

  Heloise jumped to her feet, her hips and stomach singing with pain where Clodio had kicked her. She had been kicked by one of Poch’s mules last winter, and had worn that bruise for the rest of the season. This felt almost as bad.

  Clodio had pushed his wizardry too far to save them, and now he was going to die. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to help him. Where was Deuteria? She cursed herself, cursed the whole damn village, standing by in their belief in the Order’s lies. She thrust her hand in her pocket, drawing strength from the warm touch of Twitch’s fur while she caught her breath.

  A sharp, stabbing pain in her finger.

  She yanked her hand out of her pocket, brought it up in front of her face. Two bright pinpricks of blood had appeared just below the half-moon of her fingernail. They blossomed as she watched, the crimson glowing in the dawn light before streaking down her hand.

  Twitch had bitten her.

  She sucked on her finger while she opened her pocket and looked inside.

  Twitch was curled on his side. Heloise’s heart leapt into her throat. Was he dead?

  Then he thrashed his tiny head, spreading the bead of blood on his mouth out to soak into the fabric beneath him.

  Her blood.

  His body went stiff, little limbs sticking straight out, then slowly curling back in.

  Does he bite?

  Yes, but not you. Never you.

  “Heloise!” Her father shouted. “In the Emperor’s name, help me grab his arms!”

  But Heloise stood staring at the mouse in her pocket. He rolled onto his back, little arms and legs kicking into the air, tail pin straight, the blood from her finger whipped to froth in his rapidly working jaws. A steady sound came from his mouth, low and creaking. Not squeaking, not the sound a mouse should make at all. She picked him up, lifted him out of her pocket, brought him closer to her face.

  “Heloise!” her father called again, then Twitch shivered and split and changed.

  She bit back a scream, forced herself not to drop the tiny mouse, or whatever he was now.

  His tail was gone. His little nose still sniffed the air above the whiskerless snout. One eye was closed, the other opened so wide that it took up the entire side of his tiny head. The pupil was yellow, slit black down the middle like a cat’s eye, wide and staring. His fur had come away in patches, leaving most of his side bare. Scales showed beneath, silver-green and shining, like a garden snake made of emerald.

  Her pet mouse was gone. In its place was this mismatched thing. Slipped of whatever had held it together, it began to come apart in her hand.

  It couldn’t be. Wizardry was good. It had saved her. Twitch still felt like the piece of the world that stood between her and everything that loomed around her, her night with Basina, the Knitting, the Order.

  Samson looked at her hand, gasped. He let go of Clodio, scrambled back on his heels.

  It didn’t matter, for Clodio had stopped twitching, was sitting up, shaking his head. He blinked, looked around, his eyes wide and confused.

  The ranger’s voice was as dry as a creek bed in summer. “Heloise? What are you dag . . . here?”

  Heloise tried to speak, to ask him if he was all right, to ask how to help him, but the confused look in his eyes and the twitching creature in her palm made words impossible, and in the end, she only held up her arm, fingers spread to show the thing that used to be Twitch straining and kicking in her hand.

  Clodio frowned, confused. He reached out, stopping short of touching the thing that had once been a mouse. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s this?”

  “It’s Twitch,” Heloise managed. “The wizardry . . . went bad somehow.”

  Hearing Clodio speak, knowing that he could think well enough to talk to her brought a spasm of relief, and she sobbed, a great hiccup of air that made her hand move.

  Clodio kept looking at the spot where her hand had been, his eyes out of focus. His words slurred like a drunken man. “No . . . no, s’not raaaaght. S’not how it works.”

  He raised his head, eyes clearing as he found Heloise’s face.

  She dropped the thing that was Twitch and screamed.

  Clodio frowned again, his eyes glazing over once more.

  But all Heloise could see was his left eye, catching the thin light, white distorting into a cherry color sliding across the surface, a smooth, unbroken shine the color of the Sojourner’s cloak.

  Save one flaw.

  A white line, glowing as if from within, rising straight, then curving at the top, like a tree bending in the wind.

  Or the crack of a doorway, just beginning to open wide.

  I lay me down upon my bed,

  Thinking upon the words He said,

  Given us in His Holy Writ,

  To save us from hell’s fetid pit.

  I pray to live His holy word,

  And be spared of his righteous sword,

  And I shall never disobey,

  Spare me, oh Sacred Throne, I pray!

  —Children’s bedtime song

  CHAPTER 13: DEVIL

  “What?” Clodio asked, raising a hand, reaching for her. “What’s wrong?”

  “No!” Heloise shouted, falling back, “Don’t touc
h me!”

  “Heloise!” Samson cried, reaching for her. “What’s wrong?”

  Clodio turned to look at him, and Samson shouted, jumped to his feet. “Sahmshon,” the ranger rasped, swung his face back to Heloise.

  Over her shoulder, she could hear the villagers shouting now, Sigir calling to them to get back.

  True to the Writ, hell was coming.

  Clodio’s eye throbbed, bulging until it was twice the size of the other. A thin trail of blood tracked its way from the corner down the side of his nose.

  “Whasss gotten into you?” he asked. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  His right ear turned black, withered, dropped off his head, sticking to his shoulder before slowly sliding down his back and out of sight.

  There was a crack of thunder, the sky above them abruptly darkening, storm clouds boiling over the tops of the trees suddenly, a gray curtain thrown over the common.

  Heloise’s heart hammered in her chest. Her breath came in whooping gasps as she took another step backward, her heel catching on a root. She sat down so hard her teeth clicked painfully, her mind screaming at her: stupid stupid stupid.

  Clodio stood, bent toward her. “You’re hurting yehrself.” His voice sounded wet, as if he were speaking through a mouthful of curds. “Stop screaming.”

  She scrambled back on her palms before flipping onto her knees, scratching them painfully on the hard ground. Samson’s ink-stained hand snatched her under the elbow, yanking her to her feet and propelling her toward the knot of villagers, side-stepping now, some of them beginning to run. Heloise saw the terror etched on their faces and felt it kindle her own.

  She gave in to the fear and let it set her feet to running. She heard howling behind her, howling that sounded like talking, like a person calling out to her, desperate and lonely and in need of help. She hit the line of villagers at the edge of the common and burst through.

  “Heloise!” It was an effort at speech by a mouth not made for words, a voice gargling through packed gravel. If it had been an animal, Heloise wouldn’t have been frightened. She had lived beside these woods all her life. She knew hungry animals. This was something different, sounding just enough like Clodio to shake her to her bones. She glanced over her shoulder.

  The thunder pealed again and fat drops of rain began to fall. Heloise felt them striking her face, her shoulders, cold and thick.

  “Heloise,” the thing that was Clodio croaked again. A crack appeared in its eye, working its way slowly down the center of its body. White light spilled forth, dazzling in its brightness. A sick stink came with it, powerful even from this distance. What was left of Clodio continued to move toward her, taking shambling steps, quaking arms outstretched as it split in half.

  The grass beneath it shriveled and died, first shrinking, then graying, and finally reducing to a thick, black slime. It oozed outward, as if Clodio’s step infected the ground, spreading to consume root and rock and Pilgrim’s corpse alike, turning all the same fetid, liquid black.

  Heloise stumbled, turned, tried to find her father, but he was lost in the press of villagers. They were backing away slowly, and she could hear pounding feet as the ones furthest back broke and ran. Where was Basina?

  She hear a wet slurp and looked back up at Clodio.

  No. Not Clodio. Not anymore. A new thing was pushing up and out of him, stepping through the shimmering, stinking light, rolling its shoulders and shaking off Clodio as if he were an old cloak. The ranger pooled on the ground, split and ragged, like a sheet that had blown off the drying line. The thing that unfolded from inside him reared up and shrieked.

  She had thought such a giant would have a deep, throaty roar, but instead it cried high and piercing, like a hawk’s call on sighting prey. The sound hurt her ears, sent chills through her.

  It was nearly as tall as the shrine’s spire, taller than any house in the village. Spade-shaped scales covered it, a mix of ill-looking colors, the purple of sick flesh, the yellow-white of rotten bone. Six arms ended in clawed hands, each with five fingers ending in gray claws, dirty and hooked and sharp. Her eyes skipped over the thing, so stunned by its appearance that they kept leaping from detail to detail, unable to focus. A long black dewclaw sprouting below a knee the size of a tree stump. A pale body, not unlike a man’s, the color of rotten fish. Rippling shoulder joints: two, four, six.

  At last her eyes found its face and stopped.

  It didn’t match the stories. Heloise had always expected a man wreathed in fire, face contorted in rage around a mouth full of sharp teeth.

  The teeth, at least, were sharp. They stuck out from a smaller mouth than she’d expected, sloping up as though it had been cut into the long face, a sculptor’s mistake discovered too late to repair. The thing’s two eyes didn’t line up, one high on the forehead and the other in the space left by the rising mouth. The eyes squirmed, wriggling toward her. Each circle was a bunch of smaller white eyes, stalked and pale like poisonous mushrooms. There was no sign of a nose, only two black cuts in the center of the face. Long horns corkscrewed up from its head, arcing unevenly until they nearly met above it. The tiny mouth snapped once, twice. The eye bunches curved, narrowed. It screamed again, and the raptor cry made Heloise’s ears ring.

  A devil. Come through the portal in a wizard’s eye. Just as the Order, the Writ had warned her since she was old enough to understand.

  It charged, and the villagers all broke and ran, scattering in all directions. They needn’t have worried. The devil arrowed straight for Heloise, reaching as it came.

  It wanted her.

  Terror blossomed in her gut, so fierce that it overwhelmed her, boiling in her head and nearly blotting out her sight. Her body belonged to the fear now, no more under her control than the devil itself. She forgot about Basina and her father and everything other than the need to run.

  Heloise stretched her legs and ran like she had never run in all her days. Her legs burned and her throat felt as if she’d swallowed a bolt of cotton, but still she ran, listening to the thundering of the devil’s steps behind her. The big creature was heavier, slower, but its strides were so much longer, and she could smell it as it drew nearer. It stank of rotting leaves, the slime of dried pools, of tree trunks gone to their graves on the forest floor. The odor was deep and earthy, so thick that Heloise gagged.

  The storm was coming on in earnest now, the rain falling so hard that it lashed her face, soaking her through in moments. Her pounding feet kicked up puddles of wet mud. Don’t slip, don’t slip, she repeated to herself, over and over, praying that the muddy ground would slow the devil. Judging from its steady tread and the rising stink, it wasn’t.

  She ran like a wild animal, with no plan other than escape, but if her mind didn’t know where to go, her body did, and she soon saw the rain-lashed slate roof of the Tinkers’ workshop in the distance. Bolt and Blade circled before the great doors, barking with the savage enthusiasm that only dogs can muster.

  Heloise sprinted through the opening, and the heat of the workshop enveloped her, blessedly warm after the run through the chilling rain. Barnard stood inside the vault door, the iron key in his hand, mouth open in shock.

  “Devil!” Heloise shouted. “Run!”

  “Heloise!” Barnard gestured to the vault. “Get in here!”

  But the terror would not let her go back into that vault. Heloise pelted past him, heading deeper into the house, but Barnard reached out and seized her wrist. His grip was as strong as an iron vise, and Heloise nearly flew off her feet before she arrested her momentum, stopped. She tried to tell him to run, that the devil was behind her, that this was all her fault, but her lungs were on fire and she couldn’t breathe and in the end all she did was put her hands on her knees and cough.

  Bolt and Blade were yelping and running into the workshop. A boom shook the ground outside the doors and Heloise saw the devil’s massive, scaled foot slam down, spattering mud so far that drops landed on the crucible’s edge and disappeared
in sizzling puffs of smoke.

  “Hide, girl,” Barnard said. He yanked on her arm, swinging her across him. Heloise went, staggering, helpless against the tinker’s strength, not understanding his aim until she felt the cold air of the vault touch her, went sailing through the door.

  “No!” She shouted. She couldn’t be shut up in here. Not now. Not when all this was her fault.

  She threw herself against the door, trying to wrench it open. “No!” she managed. This was her fault. Her fight. She had to be in it.

  But the tinker’s strength and the door’s weight were far too much for her, and the last thing Heloise saw was Barnard snatching up his long forging hammer as the door slammed shut.

  She tensed for the hungry darkness to seize her. There was no sack of candles for her this time, no way out if Barnard fell. But she blinked as the light remained, dancing orange and yellow, sending shadows spooling against the walls. Barnard had lit candles, three at least, and set them to burn on the vault shelves.

  That wasn’t all he’d done.

  One of the war-machines had been taken down off its rack. It stood on its metal feet, back rigid, helmet held high. Heloise could smell the acrid tang of seethestone. Barnard had attached a giant shield to one of its metal arms. It was featureless, so long that it covered the machine from face to knees. It looked heavier than the workshop itself, and Heloise didn’t doubt that its weight would crush a man without the tinker-engine to drive it.

  A warhammer lay on its side in the dust, its metal tang pointed at the slot on the war-machine’s empty fist. Heloise whirled away from the machine and back to the door, hammering against it. She could hear the dogs barking, Barnard calling to his sons, their short replies. Metal scraping and boots pounding. And then, the devil’s eagle scream, high and piercing.

  Boom.

  The vault shook, dust raining from the rafters above her. The tinker-engines jumped on their shelves, rattling toward the edges. A small length of pipe rolled off one of them and clouted Heloise on the head before clattering against the war-machine’s leg and falling to the floor. She leaned to avoid a canister that followed, looked around for shelter. There was nothing, the shelves too narrow to offer any real protection should the roof come down.