Tim Akers - The Horns of Ruin

"I thought he had convinced you," he said, quietly, his voice carrying through the bell-shaped room like an infection. "I thought Barnabas had turned you aside. Thought that you weren't going to come to me at all."

"You won't run from me this time, Betrayer," I said, though my voice shook.

"Oh." He smiled, then stubbed the cigarette out on the wall and dipped his head to place the mask on his face. When he looked up, it was with a gray visage, articulated into the shape of a face, cruel and sharp. "I wouldn't dream of it."

held my bullistic on him, trained at his heart. He smirked.

"Bullets, Eva Forge? Black powder? Is that how you wish to resolve this?"

"You dead. That's all I care about."

He nodded slowly, looking down at the floor. His hands were clasped behind him.

"I understand that. Expediency." His voice echoed off the high walls of the chamber. Behind me, Amon burbled on his eternal bed, iron creaking through his chest. "The Betrayer follows a similar path, Eva. One knife, rather than two, rather than a legion. One knife in the dark."

"Driven home by a coward," I spat.

"Well. Why fight when you cannot win? Why not fight the battle you are guaranteed to win? Efficiency of force." He was getting close enough to make me nervous. I poked the revolver at him. He smiled. "And still you haven't shot me."

"Whatever you want," I said, and sighted the shot.

"We dream Morgan's death every night, Eva. His last moments. The blood on our knife. The sirens in the camp as the body is found. I close my eyes at night and dream that glory." He stood straightbacked, halfway to the Scholar's coffin, arms still behind his back. Like a schoolteacher, standing in front of a gifted though stubborn student. "Is there anything about that you wanted to know?"

"Nope." And trigger. The thud of gunpowder roared through the chamber, flash and shock shuddering up my arm.

His swing was quick, quick as a bullet. Quicker. He swung his right arm up, holding something loose and silver. Sparks showered the white of his armor, but he kept smiling. I backed away as he slithered forward, cycling hammer and cylinder, taking even breaths, timing the shots to match the quiet of my body, putting round after round on target. And every shot, every booming report, met by that arcing silver that ended in sparks and his smile.

We stood, separated by ten feet, immobile. That dry clicking sound was the hammer landing on an empty chamber. He was in a relaxed stance, swinging his weapon casually across his chest in a figure eight. It looked like a chain, mirror bright and as long as my leg.

"Reload, if you like. I'm in no rush."

I stared at him in empty panic and fought my way through the nerves, through the antiseptic terror of his defense. I flicked my wrist and emptied the shells, clattering, to the floor. Calmly as I could, I pinched bullets out of my belt and seated them in the empty chambers. He watched me with idle amusement.

"If you prefer, we can start again. I can go back to my wall, there. Light a cigarette-"

"What happened to the darkness, Nathaniel? What happened to the expedient blade in the middle of the night?" I slapped the cylinder shut. "Why are you toying with me?"

He bowed ever so slightly. "A final kill, Eva. We have been counting the days, praying for the sheath to be dropped, the cloak pulled aside. There have been many deaths in these two hundred years. In the house of Morgan, in the temple of Amon. Even in the halls of Alexander. But it is drawing to an end. I am savoring the last bite of a marvelous feast."

"The halls of Alexander? You would kill your own?"

"They are not all our own. Very few are, in fact. We kill those who must be killed."

"And Morgan? Why must we all be killed?"

"You come here, and do not know the answer? No, I think you do. Come," he raised a hand. "The feast is getting cold. Let us dine."

I slapped the cylinder closed then holstered the revolver. I was never a lady of the bullet, anyway. Blade was my soul, and blade my heart. I raised my hands, and the sheath fed me my sword. Nathaniel laughed.

"Excellent! I would have it no other way." He stopped spinning his chain and held it limp in front of him. The links of the chain were sickle sharp and barbed, oddly formed to let the chain lay nearly flat when it was still. It swung slowly by his chest like a pendulum. With a quick hand he snapped it to one side. The chain stiffened, the links collapsed together, and suddenly he was holding a sword, full of barbs and gaps and links and sickle-shaped cruelty. Idly, he twirled it in his hand, and it droned as it cut the air.

"What amuses me is how little curiosity you show for your brothers of Morgan. Tomas? Isabel? You have yet to ask if they still live, or if I have named their judgment and declared their-"

I struck, without invokations or rage, without thought. I was mesmerized by the pattern of his blade, its path burned into my mind, its farthest orbit, weakest point, just as I stepped forward and put my blade neatly into his chin. Just nicked it, like an accident you might have while shaving.

He stumbled back, blood coursing down his throat and onto that gloriously bleached doublet. The mask went flying, to crack against Amon's charred boat. It ended up on the floor, spinning like a dropped plate. I barked out a laugh.

"Show your face, coward," I said, and swung in again.

* * *

He answered, his face angry, the blade swift as he countered my stroke, countered again, then riposte. I took the stroke on the wide, flat face of my sword and twisted the handle to throw off his weight. I lunged again. He back-stepped from the attack, and collected himself.

"Not talking so much now, eh?"

"Why do you attack without your invokations, Eva Forge?" he chided. "Has Morgan left you? Have you lost your faith in the old Warrior?"

"I don't need the rites to put down a dog. Even Alexander's dog."

He settled his face, assumed a stance of defense, and swung the chain-sword in a close dance. That drone hummed off the high ceiling and drowned out Amon's unnatural chorus.

"You seek to unsettle me. You think that because we fight in shadows, we do not know how to fight. You demand proof." He skittered forward in a series of quick half-steps, his balance always at center. "Proof you shall have."

Proof I had. I didn't think that, of course. I knew damn well they could fight. Elias had put up a fight. I had crossed blades with Nathaniel's boys over Simeon's body. He could fight. I just didn't want to waste my noetics this early on. Reserves for the long battle. If he was going to gloat, then I was willing to stretch it out.

I did just enough to keep him away, and he did just enough to keep me moving. We retreated across the chamber in a slow circle, blades dancing through sparks, the room quiet except for the metal strike and the drone of his blade, the scratch of grit under our feet as we moved. One circuit, and I had seen enough.

"Barnabas, never dead, son of hammers, son of light," I incanted, and the room began to hum with power. "Elias, green life and dark soil, warrior of wood and woad, blood feeding the life of us all. Isabel, ink-stained and careful shot." As I spoke the timber of our blades changed, the drone muting to be replaced by the high song of my sword. The sparks began to mix with a clinging fog that trailed my swings. The air cracked. My voice snapped like a flag in a hurricane. "Heridas, who stood at Chelsey Gate against the Paupers' Tyrant, dead for a day and still fighting. Bloody Jennifer, two swords against the night, never to see the dawn!"

The tide shifted, and we balanced against each other, blade for blade, stroke for stroke, countering each counter and stepping past each heart strike.