The Paladin Caper (55 page)

Loch looked at him, the warhammer on the floor, shiny and silver and inset with rubies and runes.

She sighed.

“Fight the enemy, not their people.”

Now

Who are you?

Who are you?

You are confused. We feel it. You do not know? No. You know but do not want.

It is the outside. It mixes and changes and makes you different. But you are you.

You say you are different now. There is no now. No then.

Be you. Be you. Be you.

Up in the sky, the Glimmering Folk growled and snarled with sounds that made Loch’s mind ache, as though she were thinking things her head hadn’t been built for.

Given that Princess Veiled Lightning, Lesaguris, and Arikayurichi were trying to kill her here on the ground, however, it was something she planned to worry about later.

Lesaguris had tossed Arikayurichi to the golem that had once held Ghylspwr, leaving Loch and Ghylspwr outnumbered three bodies to one.

Up on the podium, the daemon Jyelle roared as beams of crimson energy slashed into her, but she fought on with savage fury regardless.

Loch parried a blow from Veiled Lightning, who held the Nine-Ringed Dragon, her family’s ancestral blade, then spun away from a slash by Arikayurichi, and then let Ghylspwr twist in her grip to block a blast of crimson energy as Lesaguris fired at them.

“Kutesosh gajair’is!”
Ghylspwr shouted.

“You’re a fool and a traitor,” Arikayurichi snarled, “and you could never take me in a true fight!”

Ghylspwr flashed through the air and smashed through the golem’s torso, blasting the thing into dozens of crystalline pieces and sending Arikayurichi toppling to the grassy turf.

This left Loch weaponless, but as Veiled Lightning lunged in, Loch sidestepped, took a shallow cut across the forearm in exchange for getting hold of Veiled Lightning’s arm, punched Veiled Lightning across the jaw, chopped down on her wrist, and stripped the Nine-Ringed Dragon from her grip.

“The real Veiled Lightning wouldn’t have lost her blade again,” Loch said, grinning, as she slashed at Lesaguris and forced him back.

Then Lesaguris held out his hand, and with a flash of light, Arikayurichi was there in his grip. They lunged in, a magical sword wielded by a magical man, and Loch barely turned the blade as it slid past her.

Veiled Lightning was on her flank. A kick caught leg, and as Loch stumbled, another kick slammed her to the turf. She rolled, got the blade up in time to block Arikayurichi as Lesaguris came in again, and then stumbled back as Veiled Lightning slammed another kick into her side.

Then, from nowhere, an armored Imperial woman tackled Veiled Lightning.

“General Jade Blossom!” the Imperial woman shouted, punching Veiled Lightning several times in the head. “The princess ordered me to hit whomever you were fighting!”

“Kind of her!” Loch parried another stab and risked a look to see where the hell Ghylspwr was. She saw him pressed under the heel of Archvoyant Cevirt, who was blasting the hammer over and over again with flashes of crimson energy. “It’s the paladin band!” she yelled to Jade Blossom. “Break it, and she’s free!”

She made for Cevirt, but Lesaguris was too fast, cutting between them and lunging in again with Arikayurichi. Loch blocked, took a kick to the ankle, parried but took a cut across the upper arm anyway, and saw an elbow coming in but couldn’t get the Nine-Ringed Dragon up to block it.

She hit the ground hard, lights dazzling her eyes, and in the distance, saw the Glimmering Folk sliding down the font, moving for the gate just as Tern and Hessler had hoped.

It was enough. The ancients would have to flee. Loch’s job was done.

Loch spat blood and rolled to her knees, the Nine-Ringed Dragon held in a weak guard.

Then, in the distance past Lesaguris, Naria flickered into view and slid a knife across Cevirt’s hamstring. The archvoyant yelled and fell.

Arikayurichi came down, and Loch came up to block, and again light flashed, and Loch caught the blow with Ghylspwr, who was free and back in her grasp, and then slashed out with the Nine-Ringed Dragon in her other hand and caught Lesaguris across the leg.

“Loch!” came the yell, and Loch stood, slashing and swinging, and saw Veiled Lightning and General Jade Blossom standing again, the paladin band a shattered pile of junk at their feet. “You stole my sword again!”

“Borrowed!” Loch yelled, and tossed it to the princess. Loch swung Ghylspwr, and Arikayurichi caught the blow. Lesaguris went for the kick, but Loch saw it coming, checked it, and came over the top with a punch that rocked him back.

He staggered away, bleeding and livid, and slammed a finger onto his paladin band. “Full release!” he shouted. “We’ll burn it from the other side!”

Every paladin on the field turned at once and began to run.

Cevirt was hobbling, his injured leg dragging.

Naria de Lochenville lay on the ground behind him.

Loch was there within seconds, and had only to look to see that it was too late. Cevirt had gotten Naria’s knife, and then Naria had gotten it back right below the neckline of her pretty gown.

“I should’ve run,” she whispered. “Wanted to help you up this time.”

“You did,” Loch said, and then Naria relaxed and went still.

“Kutesosh gajair’is,”
Ghylspwr said sadly.

“Yes, she did.”

“Loch!” Veiled Lightning yelled, and Loch looked over. “The dragon!”

The paladins were running for the font, all of them, including the ones who had lashed Mister Dragon down.

He was up again now, and with a great roar, he sent flame slashing their way.

Kail dragged himself up the last rung of the ladder, pushed himself inelegantly over the top and outside, and saw all hell breaking loose. The Glimmering Folk were heading down into the font. A lot of nobles were running their way.

And Mister Skinner was battering Icy against the golden wall of the font with blast after blast of crimson energy.

“Now, now. Beasts get arrogant, they have to be taught,” Skinner said, and slammed Icy against the wall again with a blast that cracked like a whip.

Icy groaned. His bare torso was a mass of welts and bruises. Still, he got to his feet. “You will not shut down the puppeteers.”

Skinner sneered. “I’ll put a stop to their babbling, and yours.” He flung another blast at Icy, who dove to the side but still took a glancing blow.

Kail pushed himself to his feet with his one good arm, and edged slowly toward Skinner, hoping that the man was paying so much attention to Icy that he would miss his approach.

Skinner looked over almost immediately and, with a smile, flicked a surge of power at Kail.

It wasn’t much, but it didn’t need to be. It jolted the broken arm and slammed Kail to the ground with a white-hot flash of agony.

“Thought you’d come creeping in like a cat?” Skinner asked.

Kail groaned and rolled onto his back. “What did you say?”

“Must’ve been dawdling like a duckling, trying to climb that ladder with one arm,” Skinner sneered.

Then he blinked.

“Excellent eggshells, fondling fern, gullible goat!”
he shouted in sudden confusion, and dropped to his knees.

The grassy turf sprouted a field of flowers that blossomed with enormous rainbow-hued petals, and from each of the unfolding petals, a little creature came, something between a fox and a cat and a person, a few feet tall and flickering with pale-blue light. The kobolds from the mine. And among them, rising from the earth, her horn shining in all the colors of the rainbow, and her flanks pure and white again, was Ululenia.

That is who I am,
Ululenia said, and her gentle voice shook the ground.
I am too often arrogant, and I babble along with the sounds of the forest. I creep through this world, and I dawdle aimlessly, because I was told that I was just stolen magic, my life a theft from the ancients.

The kobolds chittered and clustered around Ululenia, their hands on her legs and flanks.

“That’s right,” Skinner said, shaking his head and fighting to get the words out. “You came from our magic.”

Yes, I was, imperfect as it was. I was corrupted, but the kobolds healed me. They could do that, because your magic came from them,
Ululenia said, and her horn flared with a brilliance that made Skinner hide his eyes.
Before there were artifacts, there were magical crystals, and inside those crystals, the kobolds lived.
She stepped forward, the grass parting gently beneath her hooves.
Peaceful. Harmless. Innocent, until you tore them from the earth and turned their lives into tools.

“Beasts.” Skinner sneered at her. “They did nothing with their potential. They did not even stand against us. It was our right!”

They did not fight back,
Ululenia said,
and so you decided it was your right. But you could not kill all of their essence, and when you left, some of it escaped, and pulled itself together, and tried to become alive again. The fairy creatures. All our lives, we have believed we were but stolen magic, and we were
. . .
but
you
were the thieves, not us.

Skinner fought back to his feet and raised his arm. “You are monsters.”

As Skinner fired, Ululenia’s horn flared, and when the light faded, Kail saw that she and all the kobolds stood unharmed. The air around Ululenia shimmered, and she stood before Skinner as a woman, her horn still shining.

The ground around Skinner opened up.

“I am a
nice
unicorn,” Ululenia said, “and a
pretty
unicorn, and the
people
you hurt are going to fight back.”

The kobolds surged forward, and Skinner had time for one last shout, and then they were on him, sinking down into the earth, and a moment later the ground closed back up, the grass clean and pristine, as though it had never been broken.

Ululenia turned to Icy and Kail. “What have I missed?”

“Oh, you know.” Kail waved with his less-bad arm. “The usual. Icy, fill her in.”

He crawled back to the doorway, pulled himself onto the ladder, and slid back down. “I think we’re clear,” he called to the puppeteers.

One of them met his gaze and nodded. Then he spoke in the dragon puppet’s voice.

“Remember, everyone. It’s your Republic.”

“Stay informed,” Kail murmured, and let himself ease off into the comfortable darkness.