Chapter Thirty-Four - A Perfect Plan

  54th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era

  Shorefarm, Yellowfield, Draya Calyrex

  Viridian shifted so that she was holding her pike in both hands, the tip pointed towards the far end of the room and at the head priest behind his wooden pulpit. "Plan?" she asked.

  "Run up and stab him a lot," Carnel said.

  "I hate how simple that is, but she is right," Lazur said. "Aim for his vitals. Don't draw this out. Others outside might hear."

  "Do you really think I would stand here--" the priest began. He leaned backwards and a large, clawed foot came up and slammed into the back of the wooden lectern. "--And let you plan my demise?!"

  The priest kicked, and Viridian jumped out the side, narrowly avoiding the pulpit as it flew right through the space she'd occupied and crashed into the floor in a heap of splintered wood.

  Highthorn laughed, a deep, resonating chuckle that echoed over itself in the grand room. "I am blessed! And you are naught but trash unworthy of even feeding our lords!"

  The man's foot came down onto the dais, then he launched himself towards them with a great lunge.

  Viridian twisted, rolling away then quickly climbing onto her feet. She almost missed it as Carnel took a great step forwards and stabbed out with her pike, aiming at Highthorn's chest.

  He batted the end of the pike aside, then laughed as he reached a hand out towards Carnel. The puppet didn't stay within grasping range, instead hopping back and away while Lazur circled around behind him.

  Viridian regained her footing and prepared herself to strike. Whatever Highthorn was, he wasn't a fighter. Putting himself in the middle of them left his back and flanks exposed to at least one of them at all times.

  Lazur was the first to try and take advantage of that. Grabbing her pike with both hands, she rammed it forwards while taking two quick steps to be behind the priest. Her pike stabbed out towards the back of the priest's knee, and for a moment, Viridian thought that this fight was over.

  The end of the pike poked through the thick cloth of the man's robes and then skid off his skin with a metallic spark.

  Highthorn laughed as Lazur's pike slid away. "Foolish things," he said with a sneer. Whipping around, the man swung a closed fist at Lazur, but she stepped out of his range, jerking her upper body back. His fist made a deep thrumming noise, and several small pieces of scattered wood and a layer of fresh dust was blasted off the floor from his motion.

  Carnel didn't waste the opening. She stepped in without hesitation, dropping her pike and slashing with her sword. It was a quick, brutal motion, a downwards cut meant to cleave into Highthorn's neck.

  The moment her blade struck there was a flash of golden light.

  Carnel made an indistinct sound as she was blasted back. She struck a line of pews and sent them tumbling like dominoes even as she was twisted over them.

  Viridian acted on instinct. She dropped low, lounged forwards, and thrust straight into Highthorn's abdomen. His legs were scaled like a lizard, and he had magic protecting his head, but was he weak anywhere else?

  The tip of her pike struck true... and stopped.

  The fabric of the priest's robes were punched clean through, and she could tell that the skin beneath had shifted with the blow, but the pike hadn't penetrated. Viridian noticed that the long scarf the man wore, the one covered in symbols of faith, glowed faintly.

  Highthorn tilted his head back, arms raising towards the ceiling. When he opened his eyes they glowed, and so did all of the eyes of the dragons on the windows. "You... cannot... hurt... me," he said, each word careful and precise.

  "He's invulnerable?" Lazur hissed.

  "He can't be," Viridian said, though she wasn't sure if that was fact or hope.

  Highthorn laughed. "Faith is the strongest steel," he declared. "And you, hollow things, heretics, are faithless."

  The man wrapped the end of his fist with the long trail of his scarf, and then he stepped towards the nearest of them, Lazur. Highthorn cocked his fist back, then swung. It was an inexpert punch. Sloppy.

  It still let out a blast of golden-tinged light. Viridian felt a slight press against her front as the air in the room was pushed back. Lazur felt it more. The punch wasn't going to connect, not with the way his motions were so obvious. That, and Highthorn wasn't fast. He might have been red-faced with righteous anger, but Viridian suspected that some of that was just him being an older man, out of shape and unready for a fight.

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  And yet, he was shielded by faith.

  Lazur spun around a pew, and when Highthorn punched it, the wood of the seat crunched and shattered apart. The puppet picked a piece of it up and flung it ineffectually at Highthorn's face.

  Growling, he grabbed half the pew with his clawed feet, then kicked it up and across the room.

  Lazur dropped, like a marionette with cut strings, and the pew flew past her. "Do something!" she shouted.

  Viridian nodded. "Carnel, attack him again," she said. "Trip him. He's clumsy."

  "Tsk," Carnel said as she walked over, short sword in hand. "Fine."

  Something was protecting Highthorn. His faith, certainly, but didn't faith need to be channeled through something? She eyed him, and then it hit her. "His scarf," she yelled. It was covered in symbols that glowed with every strike. "Aim for the scarf."

  Carnel didn't hesitate. She rushed in and slashed, but as her sword came close to the scarf, it twisted away and she struck nothing but air.

  "It's magic," Lazur said. "Eyes!"

  Viridian glanced away as Lazur cast her one spell. The church lit up as though lightning had struck its interior, and Highthorn flinched back.

  It was enough of a distraction for them.

  Carnel wrapped a hand around the scarf's middle and tugged it back, then she cut across it. The fabric seemed tough, but her blade was sharp. There was a loud fizzing sound as the scarf was shorn off at the end.

  "Back away from me, heathens!" Highthorn yelled.

  Viridian struck, then, even as the man was blinking wildly to regain his vision. Her pike slammed forwards, stabbing into his robes... and into his flesh.

  The man grunted and stumbled back, the motion pulling the tip of the pike out of him even as a spurt of blood followed.

  It wasn't much. He had skin like a thickened hide and the wound wasn't in a place that would be lethal, but it was something.

  "Where's your faith now, old man?" Carnel asked.

  Highthorn toppled back, a hand touching the fresh wound by his side. "You think... you think this means anything? I've given of my blood to the dragon gods before! I've given the blood of a hundred to them! This is nothing!"

  He crouched down, then started to scream.

  These didn't start as the wild roars of a powerful beast, they were the screams of an old, anguished man.

  Carnel moved up and chopped at him, and it was only a sway to the side that prevented her from connecting with his neck. The attack still left a cut into his robes and along his arm.

  The scream grew louder, more potent, and Highthorn twisted back. He grasped the front of his robes and tore them off of himself, exposing the naked flesh of his chest beneath. His stomach was a large, bulbous thing, and his body was fat and uncared for, but as he stumbled away, tiny lacerations appeared, and from these came the pointed ends of scales that ripped out of him and covered his skin.

  He convulsed, his scream cutting off as bloody bile spurted out from between his lips.

  "He's changing," Lazur warned.

  "Yeah, changing from alive to dead," Carnel snorted. She ran up to him and chopped down with her blade.

  Highthorn moved. Faster than he had earlier, and caught her blade on a forearm. It still bit into his skin, tiny scales splintering away to tinkle on the floor and blood leaking from the gash, but the wound wasn't fatal.

  "Faith!" he growled. "Faith without sacrifice is nothing."

  Carnel yanked her sword back, opening the wound further. "Then sacrifice yourself, old man," she snapped.

  Highthorn roared, and this time there was power in it. The windows trembled, and all along the stained glass, the dragons looking into the room writhed. Their images distorted as cracks appeared, and it seemed as though they all exploded with new limbs.

  Viridian surged forwards, slamming the butt of her pike into his knee where it landed with a hard crack. He buckled, but he wasn't done yet.

  Lazur came in from behind, pike held high with its point down, but as she started to stab, Highthorn spun around and grabbed her out of the air. "Fools," he said. "Do you think you fight a man? Today, you burn against the will of the divine!"

  ***