Chapter 2: The Last of the Initiates
The tunnel beyond the grate let out into a stream in the thick beech forest over Westcrown's north wall, the light of the coming dawn as smooth and gray as the bark on the trees. Mathal had counted the minutes. It was five twenty-three, which left her thirty-seven minutes to get to the choke-point.
"See ya," said Mathal.
"But we're in the middle of a forest."
"The city's south-can't miss it."
She snapped her fingers cold and sharp in the brisk spring air. The coin in her chest burned with magic that spread through her entire body, filling her with nature's own guiding instinct.
"True, but I feel safer with you and Chelon."
Mathal's head dropped back and she groaned through the wall of her teeth. Moris shrank three inches into a cringe. Chelon shook his little bald head.
Mathal flung one arm out toward Moris, extending an open hand. His hand wavered but joined hers. Her spell of guidance flowed into him and filled him with a pale yellow glow. He'd still have to follow her, but at least now he'd be able to keep up.
"You're free to run off whenever."
"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind."
-/-
They trekked in a northwesterly direction through the forest of pale trees and lush, dark moss that swallowed the sound of their footfalls. Though the thick spread of the beeches blocked all sight of the stream, Mathal kept them on a parallel course. Its waters would widen, deepen, and course fast enough to necessitate a bridge.
They spotted it through the thinner trees of the bank only minutes before the breaking dawn. Mathal ended her spell with a shift of thought.
"Stay out of sight."
She scrambled down to the edge of the treeline on the bank and kept low in the spiny, scratching underbrush. The sturdy bridge was made of mortared stone and spanned the stream in a single arc that crested a mere two feet over the water at its highest point. The fast-moving stream shut down any chance of hiding under the bridge. The closest the underbrush could take her still left a hundred-yard stretch of bare stone and pebbles between her and her target. Which meant she had one shot.
Mathal rattled the bushes with her shudder. Chelon touched the top of his to her cheek. She allowed herself a quiet, nervous chuckle.
Pink light lanced the sky overtop of the trees. Dawn. Mathal fixed her eyes on the near end of the bridge and counted the seconds, fingers flexing.
Wheels and horses clacked up the gravel road. A small cloud of dust poofed in the corner of her peripheral vision.
"Bang."
She shot toward the bridge with a magic surge in her soles. She'd barely made fifty yards by the time that the iron carriage had driven halfway to the mouth of the bridge, but if any of the ten Hellknights on the carriage-top or horseback had seen her, they hadn't cared enough to stop. Their apathy was just enough.
Not ten feet from the mouth, the horses reached the edge of the bridge. Mathal hexed the ground. The gravel road erupted into a grasping tangle of quagmire under the wheels and horses.
The horses reared in primal terror. Their sudden stop swung the full weight of the carriage onto the two narrow wheels of one side. It teetered for less than a second. The iron side smacked down into the quagmire, crushing two Hellknights and throwing four others.
Mathal didn't have the time or spells to waste. The hexed road turned to solid gravel once more. Before the four mounted Hellknights could regain control of their steeds, she ran up to the nearest, bucking two and opened her mouth wide. A swarm of scuttling, coin-sized spiders exploded from between the rows of her teeth and blanketed the nearest two horses and riders.
Horses and riders screamed. The two riders clawed at the seething carpet of spiders but mostly at themselves and fell from their mounts. The two horses, much cannier about these things than the humans, galloped into the river. It swept them off in a northwesterly direction.
One of the two remaining riders cursed in Infernal, Hells's own tongue, and galloped after the horses. The other glared daggers at Mathal from the other side of the ten by ten foot roiling mass of spiders, but they neither rode around nor between their screaming, clawing companions, so Mathal ran to the iron carriage. The last rider galloped in a northwesterly direction behind her back.
The two Hellknights wheezing and gurgling under the carriage had been crushed from the ribcage down, goners. Her black nails swept under their displaced helmets and ended their suffering.
Polished steel flashed in the corner of her eye. The first of the four thrown Hellknights to recover roared and charged at her. They dodged her lashing witchlocks and swung with a longsword.
The blade sparked against Mathal's armored aura, the spell barely deflecting the powerful blow. She clawed at them. One hand clanged against their swiftly tilted shield. The other found a chink between their armored plates and came away red. It was not enough.
She grit her teeth and hexed herself. A shock of magic pulsed from her coin into her muscle and bone. Fibers frayed and bones snapped only to bind and set harder, stronger. She roared at the height of adrenaline having lost all sense of pain.
The Hellknight's longsword slashed at her open chest. Her witchlocks turned the blade. The Hellknight, undeterred, spun with the momentum into a second slash. Their arcing blade pierced her aura in a flare of sparks and flung a line of red spray onto the grass and gravel.
Mathal went silent. She raised her head and gave them a tilted grin.
Their steel flashed.
But she was faster. She sidestepped into the Hellknight's guard and uppercut with her nails under their jaw. Their helm went flying. It spilt red like an upturned can of paint. She didn't stop to watch the body drop, turning instead to fend against two charging Hellknights.
The first's longsword glanced harmlessly off her aura. The second's sliced between her ribs and waist.
She pounced on the second. Her claws rent in a fury of red and black that tore the Hellknight's body from their head before they could scream.
The first swore in Infernal and swung into her back.
The blade sparked off her witchlocks. She turned and tore her blooded nails through their throat like tissue paper.
The Hellknight dropped to their knees beside their sword, both hands clamped over their gushing wound.
Mathal plucked the useless helmet off their head. She set one nail against the weakening pulse at their temple.
A fourth blade drove through her aura into her open back.
She collapsed onto the dying Hellknight, but immediately rolled onto her back with a wheeze of blood. Her witchlocks caught the next blow.
The Hellknight roared. They forced the edge of their sword down through her hair to her neck.
Mathal slammed her crossed arms under her witchlocks, stopping the blade but pinning herself.
A fifth blade flashed.
The Hellknight's helmed head flew clean off their shoulders at the end of a wickedly curved blade. Moris stuck out his foot and tipped the falling body so it fell beside rather than on top of Mathal. He offered her a hand.
"I've never seen anyone run that-are you alright?"
She spat a mouthful of blood.
"Just gimme a sec."
Mathal grit her teeth and ended the strengthening hex. Her muscle and bone popped and atrophied back into place. One witchlock rifled through her backpack and retrieved a brand new, blackthorn wand. It placed the casting tip against her temple.
The wand sparked twice. Two crackling, snapping charges of healing energy surged through her body. They staunched the bleeding and dulled the pain but didn't entirely mend her, which was good enough for now. Her witchlocks returned the wand and conserved the remaining forty-eight charges.
Mathal sat up on her aching arms. Her witchlocks gently reset the fully entombed Chelon onto her shoulder before shrinking away.
Moris's hand remained in the air. She took it and let him pull her to her feet.
"So, uh, why are we attacking Hellknights?"
"I honestly thought you'd run."
"You kind of saved my life, so I kind of consider you a friend."
Mathal could kind of see that.
Moris followed her to the back door of the iron carriage. She whipped out her sturdiest lockpicks and went to work. The lock clunked sharply.
"Clear."
An olive-skinned Varisian immigrant with thick black locks less tousled than dishevelled crawled out of the iron carriage in chains. She waited for him to sit up, violet eyes squinting in the daylight, before working on his chains.
"You really took me for a tumble there, Agent…?"
"Don't be disgusting."
"Says the person dripping blood onto my very bruised and tender body-oh, hello. Who's your pretty friend?"
"Who, me? I'm Moro-Moris, a genderless he/him."
"A pleasure to meet you, 'Moris.' You can call me Fakename McAlias or Rizzardo, but only you, beautiful. I'm enthusiastically male."
"I'll bring you back in chains, enthusiastically emphasizing your failure, to an institute that doesn't tolerate failure."
Chelon radiated approval from her shoulder. Rizzardo winced and let her finish in merciful silence.
"This is less exciting but better, thanks," said Rizzardo, rubbing his wrists. "Just let me get my affects and I'll be all set for my less-than-triumphant return."
He crawled back into the iron carriage with as much dignity as he could muster.
Mathal sat on top of the carriage's upturned side to wait. She had a clear view of the bridge, the road, and the rushing stream as well as the poisoned, bloating corpses left by the now-vanished spider swarm. Moris sat beside her on the far side of the corpses.
"You've seen the crux of this job, so I've got to take you back with us for a debriefing."
"For a bunch of criminals, you sound awfully professional."
"Excellence in all things."
It was more Chelon's motto than her own, as far as turtles had mottoes, but it was close enough.
"They're going to offer you recruitment or a mind wipe. Take the wipe."
"What would you say my chances are of finding a job in Westcrown?"
"Take the wipe." Before he became a liability like Rizzardo.
At the thought of the devil, he crawled back out of the iron carriage in full recon gear, an outfit casual enough not to attract attention in the target district and neighborhood but practical enough to permit breaking, entering, and hasty retreats. Rizzardo swaggered over with an open envelope bearing the broken seal of Aberian Arvanxi, lord-mayor of Westcrown, flapping between his fingers.
"A little something to-"
He stopped at the sight of the corpses, turned, and vomited.
