Enclave's Origin (II)

  Barely a second later, Otavio backed out, one hand on Inez's armor, the other still holding his spear, stabbing twice into the obscured room. He shouted, "Don't let go!" and hauled on Inez's armor with his other hand, jerking hard enough to whiplash a normal human.

  Inez came partially into the room with a sword tip sticking out of her scapula. "Keep pulling!" Pain and battle gladness rang together in her voice. "I've got her!"

  Gray-skinned Otavio stabbed his spear again, thrusting the red-tipped point past Inez's ear as he jerked her backward twice more. More of her emerged. Her shield was tight against her body, and a blade stuck through it, through Inez's armor, and through Inez. Someone had impaled three layers of mobeen and a heavily-blessed bulwark.

  Inez had dropped her sword to grasp the attacking hand, hold it fast against her body instead of escaping her impalement. As Otavio was dragging Inez into the room, Inez was dragging her attacker. Another jerk, another few centimeters, and Warden Helen's face came into view. Milo and Mila grabbed the ancient warrior and, adding their strength to Otavio's, hauled the joined women inside and slammed them to the floor. Helen was on top, Inez was on bottom, and the shield lay between them. Inez's steely grip didn't loosen but held their enemy in place.

  The cousins' swords rose and fell. Otavio's spear stabbed and stabbed, cutting through Helen's leather armor to clash against Inez's shield below.

  Impossibly, Helen was still alive. "You can't take it! No one can have it! It's Enclave!" Helen's free hand groped for a knife at her belt.

  "Kill her already!" Inez was leaving a copious amount of blood on the floor, but her enthusiasm didn't wane. "I'll hold her!"

  Mila plunged her sword into the Warden's hand, running it through, and kept pushing until the blade was buried in the floor. She used her sword like a nail, fixing Helen's free hand to the stone beneath them. She wouldn't be pulling any backup weapons. Milo and Otavio's weapons put more holes through Helen's body, but the Warden didn't seem to notice.

  Alice tried to hold him back, but Taylor pushed her aside. If he didn't end this soon, Inez would die. "Hold her," he commanded, and the bulwarks did their best to restrain a woman who should be dead but was merely crazed.

  "None will pass the door! Doom awaits you! Oblivion at the gates! All the world becomes darkness and the light of Olyon snuffed out! None will pass!"

  Taylor knelt beside her urgently. Simple organ damage wasn't enough. He had to be quick, or he wouldn't have time enough for Inez. He put his hands on either side of Helen's screaming head and filled her brain with fire. Not a phantom pain or a metaphysical phenomenon. He cooked her brain with real heat generated from raw, unsystemized magic. It was ugly, messy, and shockingly inefficient. She kept screaming apocalyptic nonsense well after her eyes were cooked to the solid white of boiled eggs, only ceasing when the built-up pressure in her head fractured her skull in a dozen places. As he cooked her from the inside, all his wasted spirit drifted toward the next room.

  "Pull her off, and cut off her head and limbs."

  Helen's body was yanked away. Taylor got his first unencouraging look at Inez. She was losing too much blood. Even her lips were pale, and mouthing words he couldn't hear through the rush of blood in his ears.

  "Cut off her limbs?" said Alice in a trembling voice. "Isn't that … "

  "She might regenerate or be undead. Don't ask what that is — you don't want to find out. If she's in pieces, she'll be less dangerous."

  Alice was indignant. "She's a corpse!"

  Taylor grasped the Warden's sword and braced Inez's shield with his other hand. He pulled the blade out of her as straight as he could, though it inflicted great pain. He threw the shield aside, while Mila knifed through the leather straps holding her brigandine closed so Taylor could get at the wound. The sword had cut through skin, muscle, ribs, and lungs. The struggle had caused even more damage.

  He stilled his mind and heart in a single beat. This is what he was best at. As long as she lived, he could fix her.

  Now that he was calm, her whispered words finally reached him. "Did I serve with honor?"

  "What kind of question is that?" He put his hand against the wound and extended his senses. "You're practically made of honor." The blade that cut her was impossibly sharp, but it left something behind. The bleeding slowed only a little.

  "It's all right," she said.

  "It's not all right!" He ripped her undershirt and plunged his fingers into the wound without apology. Something corrosive was at work in her body, something that refused to be touched by spirit. He focused on the tiniest edge of her injury, the smallest vessels in her lungs, and used the prayer to neutralize poison followed by healing. The corroded area only grew.

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  "Tough old bird," Inez sighed. "You get her?"

  "We'll have to burn her to make sure. But yes." The affected area was creeping over her heart. He could cut it away and heal what was left. Even a heart wound might be fixed if he was fast enough.

  "Don't." She grasped his bloody hand, pulled it from inside her wound, and placed it on her head like she had that night after he cut down the Satomen for stealing women. The night she pleged the rest of her life to him.

  Her weakened voice grew weaker. "I knew … in Tegea … I would die … in your service."

  "You shouldn't want to die!" He should be healing her, not crying over her. But he had nothing to offer her. No way to help her. "I don't want you to die."

  The other bulwarks were kneeling around her, mindless of her pooled blood, holding her free hand, stroking her hair, touching her however they could. Inez lacked the breath to carry words to them, only the urgent grip of a calloused hand. Taylor wasn't the only one weeping.

  Alice gently spoke to him. "She wants to hear the rite before she goes. Remember, she asked if she served with honor?"

  The words. The ones for dead bulwarks. He had practiced them like he practiced all the rites, but he had never used them. Her death was too awful. He couldn't remember it.

  But, it started with honor.

  "You have served with honor," he began, and the next words followed easily, "in the highest of callings."

  How many hours had she spent teaching him and the younger bulwarks how to fight?

  "You brought light to those in darkness. Aid to the defenseless."

  How many nights had he slept soundly while she kept watch?

  "Hope to the hopeless."

  She believed in his basic goodness, even when he wasn't good.

  "You were our sister in faith and companion on the road."

  Her hand was so still. Her body seemed to shrink under his hands.

  "We who journeyed with you give our thanks for your life."

  Her head was lolling. She was dead because of him and, for some fool reason, acted like she was glad of it.

  He could only choke out the final words. "Journey onward, Bulwark Inez, to where Olyon awaits you."

  She had loved a good hunt against a strong opponent.

  "And Olyon," he sniffed back his tears and running nose, "this one has some special needs, okay? Give her a righteous cause and good companions in her next life. No feckless kings for masters. They can't appreciate someone like her. She should be with friends."

  A pain squeezed his chest and wouldn't let him go. He couldn't breathe, couldn't sit straight, and he doubled over Inez's lifeless body. The wail escaping him wasn't dignified enough to be called human but it was too enormous to keep inside. It hurt to let it out, but it hurt worse to keep it in. So Taylor shouted his grief. He didn't know how many times.

  Someone pounded on the scriptorium door. "What's going on in there? Is everyone all right?" The door handle rattled. Taylor clamped his hand over his mouth because he couldn't stop his crying.

  Alice wiped her eyes and strode to the door. "We're fine! Just a little accident." She pulled open the door suddenly to reveal a young priest trainee on the other side. She grabbed the smaller man's shoulder, pulled him in without warning, and locked the door behind him. His vulpine nose smelt the blood before his eyes found the dead forms of Inez and Helen. He would have screamed, but Alice had him in a sleeper hold before he knew what was happening. She laid the unlucky novice out of the way.

  "We have to drag her out and burn her when this is over," said Taylor, pointing at Helen's body. The interruption had broken him out of his crying spell. Mostly. He wanted to hiccup something awful. "We'll wrap up Inez, preserve her, and take her with us. We'll figure out something appropriate later."

  "No, you won't." It was Milo who spoke. Milo, never said no to anything Taylor wanted and never tried to moderate his behavior (except to make him wear more stylish clothes). The company was silent with shock.

  "What I mean to say, Young Master, is we all know each other's preferences. For burial. She wants to be buried here."

  Taylor was confused. Why would Inez, who had followed him on his path to eradicating the rotten church, want to be buried in it?

  Otavio had his arms crossed and his face screwed up tight. He was acting strong for the group's sake, but he wasn't fooling anyone. "Her exact words were, I'd love to be buried in the ruins of a defeated enemy's fortress. Well?" He spread his arms to encompass the whole building.

  "So, to bury her we just need to collapse the basilica." Taylor shrugged. For her, he'd do it. She earned it. It might come down on its own anyway because Bahram didn't design his buildings to stand on their own. "Why didn't she ever tell me?"

  They looked back and forth at each other but didn't speak. Nobody wanted to say. "Wait! Don't tell me you all know each other's last wishes and haven't told me!" The glances turned guilty. "You do!"

  "Dear," said Alice, "you have all the world's troubles on your shoulders. Nexus, Enclave, the Calique, Kashmar, the burning sun … it's our job to take care of you. It felt wrong to burden you."

  "Well … " He didn't know what he wanted to say. These people's love for him was more than he deserved. Nobody in the world was that good. "That's something I want to know. Because it makes me feel better," he hurriedly justified, "knowing there's something I can do at the end besides giving a prayer. So as soon as we get out of this mess, you're making a list. Or you could just tell me about it."

  His teary bulwarks agreed, and they got to work. Inez had to be cleaned with the arts and moved away from the doorway. Helen showed no signs of regenerating or rising from the dead, but Taylor demanded her head just to be safe. Otavio and Alice took charge of that grisly task. Taylor put the novice into a deeper sleep and enchanted the scriptorium door with Overlook. Anyone who had an errand in the scriptorium should temporarily forget it as they passed by. A practitioner would recognize something strange was going on, but Enclave didn't have many good ones left. Perhaps some of the older healers could recognize the faint aura of an active Art, but Taylor doubted it.

  The grief was still there, looming by his heart, pulling every little thought toward what he'd lost, what they'd all lost. But their enemy wasn't vanquished, and the fortress remained standing. They could grieve after their friend was buried properly, the way she wanted.