The Paladin Caper (48 page)

“I am the overseer,” Westteich said. “You will pay for any injury done to my slaves.”

“Might want to add a charge for fire damage,” Tern said, bringing up her crossbow and firing in one smooth motion. The fire bolt that was still loaded zipped out and caught Westteich square in the chest with an explosion of yellow-and-orange flame. “See, him I don’t even feel remotely bad about killing. That guy was a pimple on the ass of hu—”

She broke off as Westteich walked through the flames, his gray crystalline armor pristine.

“Okay, so, about your oath,” Tern said, and loaded another bolt.

Kail got up the ladder fast, hit the top, dove outside, spun to the side of the panel, waited until the footsteps on the ladder ended, and then slammed the panel shut on the head of Mister Slant.

At least, that had been the plan, and in a world with any kind of fairness, Slant would have been unconscious on the ground right then.

Instead, Slant caught the panel and kicked it back into Kail, who caught it on the forearms, stumbled, and then dove back behind the panel as the paladin raised his arm. The crimson blast of energy ripped past Kail, and Slant kicked the panel
again
, and this time Kail ended up on his butt.

Slant took his expensive coat off, folded it, and set it down gently. “Binjamet duQuaille, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to finally meet you face-to-face.” He rolled out his shoulders as Kail got up.

Kail raised his fists. “I go by Kail. It’s shorter, easier for your mother to shout over and over again.”

Mister Slant laughed through big shiny white teeth. “I go by Slant, ever since I left your mother walking crooked.”

Kail went in hard. Slant took the first punch with a boxer’s guard, ducked under the right hook, and slammed an uppercut into Kail’s stomach.

“Our greatest warriors say that our attack shows our weakness,” Mister Slant said, still smiling, as he slammed Kail into the great golden wall of the font. “You know, you are
famous
for your cracks about people’s mothers.”

“Speaking of mothers and cracks,” Kail said, kicking out with a cheap shot that caught Slant in the gut, “you should really tell yours to—”

His great line was cut off by a backhand that clipped his face and sent him staggering back.

“It’s a good gimmick, Mister Kail,” Slant said, “but it shows your own weakness. You hit people where hitting
you
would hurt the most.” He came in with a shot Kail dodged, and then a roundhouse kick that Kail tried to block and really just absorbed instead, taking the blow with enough force to slam him into the wall of the font. “You have a fast mouth, and as one liar to another, I respect that deeply.” He kicked again, and again Kail tried to block it and crashed hard into the wall. “But when
I
talk, the entire Republic listens.”

He kicked again, and Kail jumped up and grabbed the top of the font as Slant’s kick smashed into the wall below him. Slant snarled and leaped, and Kail pulled himself up. Slant’s fist struck the golden wall and rang it like a gong.

“Your mother doesn’t talk this much,” Kail shouted, pushing himself to his knees on the top of the font, which was a few feet wide, with the giant fountain of crimson fire blazing right there past the inner lip. “Of course, usually her mouth is f—”

He ducked down as a blast of crimson energy ripped past him, nearly falling into the damn fire, and as he regained his balance, Slant pulled himself up.

“Your problem, Mister Kail, is that you’re not actually a very good fighter,” Slant said, still smiling. “Sure, you destroyed an airfield the last time I did something to your mother, but most of that was anger and trickery.”

“Your mother
loves
my tricks,” Kail muttered, and snapped out a low kick. Slant knocked it down with contemptuous ease, and before Kail could recover, lashed out with a jab that rocked the scout’s head back.

“Your mother
this
, your mother
that
,” Slant said as Kail staggered, one sleeve brushing the wall of fire on his right with a quick flash of pain. “You can’t take it, Mister Kail.” He chuckled. “Not like your mother can, anyway.”

Kail lunged in with a cry of rage, and Slant caught the punch, locked Kail’s left arm at the elbow, and shoved him face-first toward the wall of fire. “Leave my mother alone!” Kail yelled, pulling back as hard as he could. The crimson fire was a searing heat against his flesh, and he smelled burning leather and hair as he struggled.

“Do you know what I’m going to do to her?” Slant asked, his grip steady. “You’ll be dead, but I want you to know that I am completely serious here. I wouldn’t lie about this. I’m going to kill you, and I’m going to spread the story of your death, and in my story, the story every puppet show tells, the only story everybody will ever hear? It’s going to be her fault.” He pushed Kail a little closer to the fire. “The piece-of-trash mother who raised a piece-of-trash son. Poor boy is responsible for his choices, sure, but what chance did he really have, with a useless drunk whore like
her
bringing him up.”

Kail’s skin was screaming from the heat of his clothes. “They’ll never believe you! She’ll tell them the truth!”

Slant laughed. “Seeing is believing, Mister Kail. I doubt your mother is going to have much of a counterargument, not when every puppet show has a glamour-screen showing you attacking a nice white man like a vicious brute.” His grip on Kail’s arm tightened. “Pod two, come in close for the finale.”

“Thanks,” Kail said, and twisted the arm Slant held in the joint lock.

There was a sickening snapping crunch as Kail’s left arm slid out of the hold, but Kail’s right arm was going into his pocket even as he spun.

He came out holding the crystal he’d taken from the console down in the control room. It glowed with steady magic, and Slant looked at it blankly as Kail scanned the sky.

“What the hell are you going to do with that useless little thing?” Slant asked.

Kail smiled as he saw the little glowing orb, just a few yards away, and he gave Slant one last look. “That’s what your mother said.”

He threw the crystal and dove down from the top of the font.

The crystal hit the orb cleanly, and there was a tiny pop followed by a massive blinding flare of light and a burst of force that buffeted Kail as he hit the ground, ruining his landing and making him jolt his broken arm as he fell back into the wall again.

But he looked up anyway, because the agonizing pain he was feeling at that moment was completely worth it as he watched Mister Slant stagger back, hit the fire, and go up like a candle as he fell into the crimson flame.

Kail made sure that the man didn’t walk out of the fire or anything magical like that. Then he sat back against the wall.

“Talkin’ ’bout my
mom
,” he muttered, and waited to see whether the pain in his arm was going to make him vomit.

Desidora let death come over her again as she faced Smith Lively, who still rode Pyvic’s body.

“Bring the boy back,” she said.

Smith Lively smiled. Desidora recognized the smile. She had felt it stretched across her face, the mirthless observation of a tiny thing that did not realize she held its life in the palm of her hand. His skin went pale, and his hair darkened to black. The simple brown riding leathers Pyvic had worn darkened to jet black, while the studs brightened to silver. Superfluous belts grew around the arm and waist.

“You’re weak, Sister,” he said. “Pleading for his life.”

“I was pleading for yours,” she said, and wrenched at his soul.

Her magic glanced off wards that shone with the polish of well-forged steel.

Smith Lively shook his head. “Why the single zombie trap, Sister? Why allow you to come to the temple? Why guard your back while you slowly,
fumblingly
groped your way through the wards around the zombies here?”

“You made a mistake,” Desidora said, and struck the air as though her magic were a hammer. “You will not live to repeat it.”

Again her magic glanced off Lively harmlessly.

“I suspected I could kill you with the element of surprise,” he said as the floor around him went black and cold, “but a good craftsman measures twice and cuts once. I waited, and I watched.” The pews sprouted little silver gargoyles whose skulls screamed silently. “I have seen how your magic works.”

“I’ve cracked your wards twice,” Desidora said, and lashed out again, her fingers curled like talons.

Something in the magic caught, like fingernails clawing down a bedsheet as her magic slid down his wards.

Lively sneered. “Love priestess.” He raised a fist, and his magic slammed into her aura and smashed her to the ground. “I’ve no doubt your little sex auras could
seduce
your way through my armor.” As Desidora struggled back to her feet, he gestured again, and his power blasted her through three pews in an explosion of bent metal and splinters. “But good steel slams right through bedsheets.”

Desidora’s aura of death made her harder to hurt, but as she rolled over, shoving splinters and black iron aside, a drop of red blood stained the ground in front of her.

She had never met another death priest. Beyond the terrible histories, her only guidance had been Tasheveth herself, warning her of how terrible the power of death could be if wielded by one who followed a god who preferred violence to love.

That conversation with her goddess had helped her regain her power. She had thought at the time that had been its only purpose.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“What’s that?” Lively asked, his toothy smile diamonds on white satin.

“I said, thank you.” Desidora got up. “For so long, I hated what I was. I thought I was a monster.”

“Your priests are weak,” Lively said. “What was it my boy said? Animals don’t worship the gods? You things are a bare step better. This power, granted by the gods for
their purpose
, let me wrench apart reality itself to build the gate to the Shadowlands. You tremble at your power like a blushing virgin, for all that you worship the goddess of whores.”

“Used to,” Desidora agreed. “But now I’ve met you, and I see why I was chosen. I see that for all the darkness I found within me, all the cruel magic I’ve unleashed, I am still
me
. I am still a love priestess. And you are still a thug.”

“A thug with a hammer,” Lively said, snarling, and brought his fist up again.

Then he blinked as Desidora flickered and dwindled before his eyes, and when he brought his magic down, it did not smash against where she had been, but sank in slowly with a muffled impact.

“A hammer, yes.” Desidora let the cloak slip away from her, and Lively spun, realizing that she had stepped several yards away from her earlier position. “And all I have are bedsheets. Funny thing about bedsheets, though. A man who never learns subtlety might have a hard time finding a woman in them.”

She pulled the cloak of her power around her again and stepped aside as his magic crashed down. The force was unstoppable, but she wasn’t trying to stop it anymore, just letting it slide by her and making herself easy to miss. He glared and looked around, trying to track her.

She kept her footsteps light and quiet as she circled him, and then let the cloak slip. “You can’t really have bedsheets without the mattress, can you, Smith Lively?” He spun. “So I suppose I have the mattress too, and the funny thing about a good mattress—and as you so crudely implied,
I’ve known a few
—you can swing a hammer at one all day without doing a damned bit of harm.”

His magic crashed down, and then slid away, muffled and useless as she brought up her power.

“A good smith has tools beyond just his hammer,” Lively snarled, hands curled into claws as he spun, looking for where Desidora had made herself fade away. “Like fire. I wonder if those sheets of yours will burn?”

Desidora laughed then, and let herself be seen as she stepped to the anvil. Where she stood now, it was between her and him, and she rested her hands on the altar possessively. “Idiot,” she said, and he flinched from her voice, “how many lovers have first kissed by candlelight? How many have gloried in the glow of firelight on naked skin?” His magic danced around him like flame, hot and angry, and she took it and used it, and it crackled as Lively cried out in pain. “Tasheveth accepts Pesyr’s mastery of
steel,
but
fire
is as much mine as yours.”