Seeing what had happened, Lani darted for Megan, trying to egg the right eye-golem to swing at her and giving Megan a moment to recover. Rather than trying to get to her feet, having seen the chair take the hit, Megan scrambled underneath it. Lani's game of chicken with the right eye-golem bought Megan time, but it also ended up leaving Lani vulnerable to a swing from the left eye-golem when she dodged a strike from the right. Though she managed to twist out of the way of the worst of it, Lani still fell with a vicious cut to her side, just under her ribcage. The sword swing's momentum carried it into the back of the throne, rattling the chair again, sending Ashling and the sword tumbling off of it this time.
While the golems were distracted, noticing the sword and colorful butterfly wings falling, Megan grabbed for Lani's leg, pulling her under the chair. She turned just in time to see a golem stepping into a swing at Ashling as the pixie strained at pulling the blade across the dais. "Ashling!" she called a warning. The pixie looked up in time to see the attack, diving out of the way, but leaving the sword behind. Past them, she could see the hand-golem and the boot-golem pulling themselves back to their feet, sights set on Justin again.
With the eye-golems looking at Ashling, Megan left Lani for the moment and crawled out from under the chair, grabbing for the sword. The movement drew renewed attention, one of the golems looking away from Ashling and taking a swing at Megan. Holding the sheathed blade, she dove out onto the floor, rolling away painfully as she landed amidst the wreckage in the room. For a moment, she nearly drew the sword, but looked back, to see the guardians once again standing, threatening and warning her away from the chair, but not pursuing even though she had the blade. While their attention was on Megan, Lani crawled out from under the back, and snuck behind the eye-golems, clutching at her side.
"Justin!" Megan shouted, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. As the boot-golem turned back to pursue her, Megan flung the sword.
It wasn't a particularly good throw, clattering to the ground several feet short. Both Justin and the hand-golem glanced at the blade, and the squire went for it as the golem struck. Megan screwed her eyes shut.
She opened them in time to see all attention shifted back towards Justin where he lay, good hand holding the sword. Though the hand-golem's strike had smashed him to the floor, he'd gotten the sheathed blade between himself and the iron edge of the sword. Neither sword nor sheath was damaged, keeping him from being cut in two.
Justin did his best to get back to his feet, but was unable to draw the sword with one hand. He managed to interpose it again as the golem struck, hitting the sword and smashing it back against Justin's chest. Instead of being cut, the Claiomh Solais held, but Justin was pitched back towards Megan, flying through the air before he rolled to a stop at her feet.
"Are you all right?" Megan asked, trying to help him back to his feet.
"Milad—Megan, grab the sheath, I need a sword." he grunted back, struggling back to his feet as the hand-and boot-golems advanced, trying to herd the pair back towards the guardians at the throne.
Megan grabbed on with both hands, and Justin pulled the sword free. As it was drawn, there was a flash of blue light. Holding a sword of pure white metal, wreathed in blue flames, Justin stepped up to defend Megan as the golems bore down on him.
Chapter 23: A Clash of Swords
The golems paused as if reassessing their opponent, then started in motion again. Justin moved to one side, moving inside the reach of the next sword-swing, lashing out with the magic sword towards the boot-golem's leg.
The metal impacted with a resounding clang, leaving a shallow scar in the metal of the golem's leg. The golem's own sword came down without a hitch, and Justin barely got the Claiomh Solais up in time to block just enough to let him stagger out of the way.
Megan ran to try to support Lani, then looked to Justin as he made two more swipes at the golems, the impacts ringing off their legs.
"Shouldn't that have, you know, cut its leg off or something?" Megan asked Lani.
“You'd think, but we have to focus. The maidens need to go rescue the brave knight now."
"Right," Megan agreed, searching for a few moments until she found Ashling, scooping up the exhausted pixie and holding on.
Justin's resistance and the flaming sword at least kept the pair of golems' attention, but he still had no luck. Each time, he had to dodge out of the way of the counterattacks quickly.
"It's not working," Lani yelled as they rushed for him. "Run!"
Justin fended off another attack, staggering under the impact, but at least much better suited to fighting now that he had the invulnerable blade. As soon as he caught his balance, Justin received a brief respite when the Count dive-bombed the hand-golem. The crow was barely able to bank out of the way of its next swing. As Justin ran past the distracted golem to join the girls, the Count flew after them, having to flap hard just to regain enough altitude to stay off the floor.
"Where to?" Megan said as they sprinted, her glance at the door not only confirming that it was still blocked, but that behind the tower-golem, reinforcements were arriving. The room would likely be full of golems soon.
"The stage!" Lani yelled, running ahead at the damaged stage and pulling herself up onto it.
"We'll be trapped!" Megan called after her, but she followed anyway, helping Justin up. The delay almost cost both of them, as a sword came crashing down on the floor just behind them.
"No, we won't. I have a magic trick!" Lani called, heading for the dressing room, the door hanging from one hinge.
"I thought faerie magic wouldn't work." Megan said, rushing through the door after her.
Lani waved Justin and the Count through. "Sure, but Houdini will work fine. Justin, attack."
"But the golems are..."
"Yes, yes," Lani agreed. "But the back wall here is just wood."
By the time the golems smashed through the wall to the dressing room, they found a hole carved into the back wall.
Navigating through the hall and back into the streets wasn't easy, with quite a few of the golems having been drawn by the grating bellows. Most of them had been drawn to the main hall, but a few still patrolled. Finding the doorways blocked, with another bellow from a sentry setting new golems chasing them, the group ran up the stairs, managing to duck into an empty side room just at the top before another golem could reach them and trap them on the stairs.
Lani ran to the window, checking to make sure the outside was clear before Justin smashed through it with the sword. With more golems in pursuit, they jumped out the window, each wincing from the impact on injuries before sprinting for the nearest alleyway.
After a few more twists and turns, the sounds of golem footsteps faded behind them. Justin finally chanced smashing out another window, before he accepted help climbing through. Once inside, the group collapsed, almost as one, trying to catch their breath. They only really relaxed at all, though, once the first golem patrols passed by them, ignoring the broken window.
As soon as she'd caught her breath enough, Lani turned to Megan. "How did you know about the sword and the chair?"
"What about them?"
"That they'd keep guarding the chair, and not chase us after we got the sword?"
"Oh, that. It was a guess. The Queen's story sounded like the sword might have been put there later. So when they were built, the golems were like the rest of this place—just a taunt. Their job was guarding the ruler's chair or whatever. Later, whoever brought the sword in just figured they could get two things guarded with one trick."
"Good guess."
"Speaking of questions," Megan said, glancing at Justin, "Why do you keep going for their legs? You're tall-ish.”
“I know I'm tall. But that's how it's done! Always go for the legs with a sword like this.”
Well, granted, he was the expert on what to do with a sword. “Why?”
“Less armor there.”
Megan paused, blinking. “Justin, they're solid m
etal robots.”
"I noticed," he agreed, re-sheathing the sword.
"So it won't cut them. What now?" Megan asked.
Lani and Justin exchanged a glance, then nodded at one another at some unspoken, practical-person agreement. "We get bandaged up and walk out of the city," Lani said. "We have what we came for."
"Oh...right." Megan said, before moving to help bandage Lani's side first.
With Lani's side bound, Megan's leg bandaged, Justin's arm sling adjusted and rewrapped, and Ashling and the Count on Megan's shoulders, they made their way to the city gates again. This time, while noises echoed through the streets still, they didn't have any more close calls, or even see any of the golems.
Their luck ran out when they finally came within sight of the gates. Thankfully, they saw the golems before they were seen, and ducked back around a corner. Peering out, they were able to see where the creatures had gone. They were lined up along the fence, one every twenty-five feet or so, standing sentry.
"What are they doing?" Megan asked.
"We're not just pests anymore. Someone invaded the main hall and escaped," Lani said. "They're making sure no one gets out."
Chapter 24: Escape from Findias
The group retreated back to a building to hide. Where before, the city had been nerve-wracking with all the noise, now, the eerie silence, broken up only by the singing wind, was almost worse.
"So we're trapped?" Megan asked, sitting up against one wall, with Ashling and the Count nestled together next to her. "What do we do now?"
"Try to get some sleep," Lani answered. "Maybe they'll move if we wait long enough."
Megan looked skeptical. "I guess we'll know if they do." For a while, she sat awake, listening for any sound of new noise, and eventually drifted to sleep, with the song on the wind playing over and over in her mind.
Megan woke up to searing pain in her leg. A quick examination revealed that the cuts had puffed up and grown angrier under the bandages, and her calf was swollen. She managed to stifle the sounds of pain, but the noise still woke Ashling next to her. Up close, the pixie looked paler—more of a dull yellow—and thinner than Megan remembered. Her wings drooped, and her eyes were sunken. Now, Megan had no question: the city was having an effect on the pixie.
A look around the rest of the room revealed Lani and Justin, sitting together talking in one corner, where Lani had stacked up some of her supplies. Graffiti, mostly equations, covered the walls.
Megan sat up, groaning as she did so, drawing attention in her direction. Trying to ignore the injury, she looked at the graffiti, then at Lani. "That is the nerdiest gang sign ever."
"Gang sign?" Justin asked, looking between the girls. Megan noticed the glint of the jeweled hilt of the Sword of Light, now replacing the empty sheath on Justin's belt.
Lani sighed. “To avoid letting your induced grasp of modern English get led astray, I should mention that technically, no gang sign is involved. That's hand signals. This would be tagging.”
“Right, right,” Megan said. “He can see gang sign when he sees you and Kerr.”
"Never mind that," Lani said, looking exhausted. The deep cut in her side looked worse than Megan's ankle, even with the heavy bandaging they'd managed. "I think we have a plan."
Megan glanced at Ashling, then back to Lani. "I think, whatever it is, we need to try it, and soon. Going to tell me what the math homework is all about?"
"Engineering as it applies to classical mythology," Lani said. "Every invulnerable thing in a story has a weak spot. If you know it, and have the right weapon, you can beat them."
"So we're going to stab them in the heels?"
"Right principle, wrong mythology. I spent the night trying to reverse engineer them."
"I didn't think faerie magic would work here."
"Menehune, we're not quite as vulnerable to iron as the Celtic fae. It's actually still really unpleasant here, but I think I still made it work, once you got to sleep. My conclusion is that it’s best to go for the eye."
"So what do we do?"
"We need bait, and then we need Justin."
Megan was about to speak up when Ashling interjected. "The Count and I are agreed: we're the bait."
"Caw."
"You're both hurt. You could just get out of here now," Megan said. "I should do it."
"On that leg? And Lani can't do it either. Not all cut open. We're not leaving until you do. What do we need to do?"
Lani looked about to object, then changed her mind. "Get one of them to swing down at you, we need to get the head within Justin's sword reach. Are you sure the Count can fly with you on his back?"
"Caw, caw."
"He says that last time he flew without me, I almost got myself killed, so we're sticking together, bad wing or no. He also mentioned that Justin snores. And recited his favorite limerick to get his spirits up."
Megan glanced at Ashling. "Really, he said all that?"
"Corvid is a very efficient language," Ashling explained. "It's like Spanish that way."
"Corvid is like Spanish?"
"Close cousins, yes. After all, he is named in honor of Alvaro Queipo de Llano, Count of Toreno."
Megan opened her mouth to mention her father's explanation of the name, then thought better of it, guessing that the pixie was trying to put on a brave face of normality. "I see. Okay, so what do we do?"
Lani checked her own bandages one more time, then started for the smashed-open window. "We run as best we can and keep running until we're out of the city. I don't think they'll follow us, based on your little trick with the golems and the chair."
"Okay, got it," Megan said, limping after Lani. "I hope you're right."
"So do I," Lani agreed, giving Megan a brief hug. "If not, we try to make sure someone gets away with the sword, agreed?"
"Agreed," Justin answered, following them out through the window.
Megan took a deep breath, not at all liking the notion of leaving anyone behind. "Agreed." There were bigger things at stake.
At first, the Count looked to be unsteady in the air, wavering in flight and flapping more than usual, but after circling a couple of times, he finally seemed to have the hang of it and headed for the main gate.
As soon as they approached the gates, the grating shouts began. The two golems standing sentry near the gate, each with a tower on their shield, closed to block the path out of the city. Others began stomping towards the group to surround them as they neared the gate.
Ashling gestured, and the Count dove at one of them. The golem's initial swipe at the crow missed, but the bird didn't climb, instead, landing on the ground in front of the tower-golems. The one on the right swung his sword downward. The blow came close enough to send feathers flying, but the Count had managed to take off just in time to avoid anything more serious.
Justin charged while the golem had its sword buried in the stone walk, then thrust upward, burying the flaming sword into the golem's eye. The eyeball shattered like glass, and a burst of blue flame shot into the socket. Something inside seemed to be still flaming as the golem staggered backwards, then fell over, unmoving.
"Run!" Lani shouted, as golems closed in on their flanks. Megan didn't need to be told twice, sprinting as hard as her leg allowed towards the gate, despite the pain.
Justin held his ground against the remaining tower-golem. It raised its sword for him and slashed downward. Justin side-stepped the blow, the sword coming down an inch from him. Then he thrust the Sword of Light upward, striking the eye, with the same results as before.
He spun, readying himself for more golems. Megan ran by him first, rushing out of the gates, then Lani followed, clutching at her side. Justin started backing towards the gates, defending the retreat.
He was almost to the gates when a golem caught up to him. He blocked the blow with his sword, only to have it smashed back into his chest. The force of the blow lifted him off his feet and through the air. He hit the ground and, unable to get back
to his feet before they caught up, rolled out of the way as another sword blow hit where he'd been lying. He started trying to get back up and ready to fight, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Justin, we made it," Megan said, looking at the line of golems stopped at the gate, watching, but not moving. Then a panicked realization hit her. "We need to go back for..." Her words cut off as the Count flew over the gate, flapping hard to keep control as he descended, and landed on Megan's shoulder. "Right. Bird," Megan finished.
"We need to keep moving," Lani said. "We have a long trip ahead of us, and not many supplies left. Besides, I know they're stopped right now, but..."
"But I'm not going to feel any better until the city is out of sight either," Megan said, trying to help Lani move with as little stress on her side as possible, while Justin moved to help take some weight off of Megan's leg. "But what do we do about the dogs?"
"I remembered to ask for passage both ways," Justin said.
"Of course you did."
Chapter 25: Regrouping
Megan's leg was throbbing as she tried to keep supporting Lani on the hike down. She was wondering just how much longer Justin was going to last trying to climb one-handed when Ashling shouted, “Okay, we're far enough from the city now!”
“Glad to see that you're feeling better,” Megan muttered. The black mark on Ashling's leg had faded to light gray.
“Yep! Your turn. Sit down and get the music book out of the bag. There's a page the king probably still has bookmarked. It might help.”
Everyone sat down. Megan got out the book and opened it. “There's...two ribbons and a piece of paper shoved in the book. Which page do you mean?”
Foul is Fair Page 11
