Chapter Thirty-Five - A Rebuttal

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

  Shorefarm, Yellowfield, Draya Calyrex

  Viridian barely had time to react before Highthorn hurled Lazur across the church, sending her crashing through a row of wooden pews. Splinters flew, the sound of snapping wood mixing with the heavy thud of Lazur's body slamming into the far wall. She didn't move.

  Carnel lunged forward again, her sword flashing in the cascade of differently shaded light pouring through the stained-glass windows. Highthorn twisted, his limbs elongating, his skin turning a deeper bronze-gold as more scales tore their way free. He caught Carnel's strike with one hand, the blade biting into his palm but stopping there, held fast by inhuman strength even as blood poured to the ground.

  "Do you not understand?" he asked. "You cannot stand in defiance of our godly dragon lords! Their beauty and strength is incomparable to what we mortals can achieve. And yet they are benevolent. They share of their excrement and waste with us, and we, like ants, profit from their offcast kindness!"

  Carnel tugged her sword back, the motion turning the inside of his hand into sliced meat, but just as it reached the tip, he tightened his grip, then twisted. Her sword was flung across the room.

  "You cannot kill what is blessed!" he roared.

  Carnel punched him in the face.

  Highthorn flinched back, touching his nose by reflex and spreading blood across his face.

  "Shut up," Carnel said. "You're not a dragon, just a man, and men die."

  The statement had Viridian moving again. It was true, wasn't it? Even with all the magic enveloping and twisting Highthorn's body, he was still just a man under it all.

  She turned her pike around, and putting all of her weight into the motion, stabbed him as deep and hard as she could. Her hand scraped along the shaft of her pike, her grip not strong enough, but the point still dug into his robes and punched into the scaly flesh behind.

  Highthorn gasped as her pike found a place to lodge itself between his lower ribs. She felt something crack through the connection to the pole. A rib breaking, maybe? Or scales snapping out of the way?

  In any case, when the man turned, she held her grip on the weapon and its point shifted around inside him.

  Highthorn roared, the sound no longer entirely human, a guttural, reverberating cry that sent fresh cracks through the already fractured stained glass overhead. His hands lashed out, clawed and inhuman, but Viridian dug her heels into the floor, gripping the pike with all her strength and twisting it deeper into his ribs.

  His body convulsed, muscles seizing, but he refused to fall.

  Instead, he turned toward her, his bloodied teeth bared in a rictus grin.

  "You… think this is enough?" Highthorn said with a gurgle. His body continued to change, bones cracking and shifting beneath his stretched skin. In some places, his skin expanded too much and started to rip, exposing muscles and flesh to the air. The transformation was incomplete, but it was still happening.

  Carnel came in from the other side and started to punch at the man. Her movements weren't too fast, and they weren't too fluid, and maybe she didn't have a lot of weight to put into the punches, but she was like a machine, delivering a constant and steady rain of blows against Highthorn's back and sides.

  Viridian winced as one of his clawed hands grabbed her gambeson and ripped into the material. Shifting her legs, she ripped her pike back, then took a few steps to make distance from Hightorn even as blood gushed from his side.

  He swung an arm out, making room as Carnel backed up as well.

  That left the two of them standing around a panting, bleeding Highthorn, his priestly robes covered in blood. Growths, like large lumps of hard flesh, pushed out to the surface of his skin. Some healed the few wounds they'd left on him, but others seemed to open new ones.

  "Why?" he asked. Highthorn howled, his voice warped, no longer the dignified priest who had stood before them. His mind was slipping, his body failing to hold together under the weight of his own blind faith.

  But still, he fought.

  He lunged at Carnel, his claws outstretched, but Viridian was faster. She pivoted, her pike arcing upward in a vicious swing, slamming into his jaw.

  There was a sickening crack.

  Highthorn reeled back, his head snapping to the side, jaw half-unhinged, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth.

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  But it wasn't enough.

  His legs shifted, the muscles bulging unnaturally beneath his torn robes. His feet, now closer to talons, scraped against the stone floor as he tried to stand his ground.

  "I will not fall!" Highthorn screamed, his voice broken but still filled with rage and faith and something more.

  Lazur rose from the wreckage of the shattered pews, her movements stiff but steady. "Carnel, catch!" she screamed before tossing her sword across the room.

  Carnal caught the sword, still in its sheath, then brandished it towards Highthorn.

  Lazur limped forward, her pike gripped in both hands. Her steps were unsteady. "He's unstable,"she said, eyes sharp despite her battered state. "This transformation isn't complete. He's trying to force it."

  "Then we stop him before he figures it out," Viridian said.

  "I'm trying," Carnel said.

  She ducked under another wild swipe, pivoted on her heel, and slammed the sword straight into Highthorn's gut.

  The blade punched through muscle and thickening scale, sinking deep--but not far enough.

  Viridian acted on instinct. She lunged forward, grabbing the sword beside Carnel's hands and together, the two of them drove it deeper.

  Highthorn shuddered, a sound that was more guttural growl than human breath. He staggered, his knees buckling, but still he refused to fall.

  Lazur's voice cut through the chaos. "Get back!"

  Viridian and Carnel tore the blade free just as Lazur swung her pike in a downward arc, slamming the butt of the weapon against the side of Highthorn's skull with a thunderous crack.

  His head snapped to the side, his legs buckled--

  This time, he fell.

  Highthorn collapsed onto his knees, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his golden eyes wide and wild. His hands twitched, claws scraping against the floor as though still trying to reach for them, still trying to fight.

  His body convulsed, the twisted remnants of his half-transformed form writhing, as though something inside him was rejecting itself.

  Viridian stepped forward, her pike leveling at his throat. "Annoying," she said.

  "He's not dead yet," Lazur said. "He might not die for a while. The essence is healing him."

  "Can't we take that?" Carnel asked.

  The three glanced between each other, then at the writhing man on the ground. "We'll have to be fast," Viridian said, but she was already undoing the front of her gambeson.

  Soon, all three of them were kneeling on the ground, holding Highthorn down in a growing puddle of his own blood. Even as his blood turned reddish-yellow and his eyes glowed, he was still weak.

  Weak until their siphons plunged into him and started to pull from his essence.

  Highthorn died with a pitiful whimper on his lips.

  Viridian glanced at her essence counter. It had, for the first time, hit a fourth digit. 1027. More than she'd ever gathered before. Maybe enough to make her truly stronger. But first, they'd have to survive Shorefarm.

  "High Priest Highthorn!" someone screamed from the rear entrance. The younger priest. He looked at them with naked horror in his eyes, the blood draining from his face.

  The man turned and ran before any of them could stand.

  "We might want to go," Lazur said.

  "Yes," Carnel said. She grabbed Lazur's blade, then with her body weight bearing down, cut Highthorn's head off. "Proof," she explained.

  The stained glass windows all around the church exploded all at once, and all three of them flinched.

  "I... don't like that," Lazur said. "We need to run. But I don't know if I can. Carnel, give me back my sword."

  "I'll get mine, then we leave," Carnel agreed.

  Viridian was looking forward to being out of here as well. She was discovering a certain dislike of places of worship.

  She found her pike, then idly wiped the end of it on Highthorn's once-white robes. Then Carnel tore the robes off the man and used them as a sack for his bleeding head. It left the High Priest as an ugly, bloated corpse in the middle of the church floor.

  There was something about that that felt deeply improper, but Viridian chose to move to help Lazur walk instead of dwelling on it. Her companion had a limp, and sneaking out of the town was more important now than ever.

  "To the mansion again?" Viridian asked. "Or back to Maldrak?"

  "Or we split up," Lazur said.

  "No," Viridian said decisively. "Not that."

  ***