Chapter 37 - To the Last Ember

-Elsewhere-

Dropping to a knee, a fearfully shaking maid approached Durand and spoke in a haltingly anxious whisper, "Mistress, I have...news."

Not pleased with the interruption as she went over her final preparations for the ritual, Durand curtly replied, "Speak."

Her eyes remaining on the sumptuously carpeted floor of Durand's study, the maid nodded and began, "The intruder is being aided by the mercenary Dahlia. Penelope has engaged them in the western hall."

"And?" Durand's imperious voice demanded.

"Yes...and your...guest has escaped the dungeon," the maid nervously added.

That seemed to have gotten the lich's attention, her tone, however, remaining even as she answered, "Find out who among the staff aided him-his early escape would have been otherwise impossible. It is...regrettable to consider the likely scenario that is about to transpire. Contact me immediately if he reaches the eastern ritual chamber but do not otherwise impede him."

"Yes, mistress. Understood."

-

"Move, move, move, damn it," the woman cursed as she moved as quickly as her body would carry her.

The woman had two possible choices before her, given what she'd seen of how the battle was progressing.

Could she overcome the almost primal fear that suffused nearly every fiber of her being to act? Or would she remain idle and let things transpire as fate intended?

"Why did he have to get involved?!" she cursed as she made her way to her destination.

She gave up on reason and decided to let her instinct make the decision for her when and if the time came to make it. As she involuntarily shivered at the painful memory that rushed unbidden to the front of her mind, she gritted her teeth and continued.

Whatever choice she made would need to be made soon.

-

Eleven against one.

The odds may as well have been branded across the back of my eyelids for all the good keeping my eyes shut was doing at holding back the sickening thoughts of Zee's impending death.

Half naked, covered in blood that wasn't my own, and face down upon unforgiving stones that now drove the icy chill of the mountain through every inch of me, I shook my head and forced my eyes open. I loved Zee, and no matter what happened here or how badly I wanted to run away, I owed it to her to bear witness or to die beside her.

For all of the training Zee had put me through, I was likely to be outmatched by any single one of these women if she knew I was coming, but if any action I took drew even a single strike away from Zee, then I was more than willing to pay the resulting cost. I would be worth less than nothing if I did nothing and let Zee die while she fought for her lover-while she fought for me.

Blessing the haste with which Durand's elite had wanted to strip me that left my armored clothing still half-on, I was able to quickly and easily pull everything back into place before scrambling to grab my weapons. Moments later I was on my feet to survey the scene before me.

My rapidly darting eyes breathed in a scene that a vindictive war deity would have been hard pressed to assemble. It was immediately clear to any reasonable perception that the odds were impossible after all.

Even with several of the enemy soldiers only partially armed and armored as a result of their overeager preparations to steal a ride upon my overused sexual implement, that only bought Zee seconds as she was almost immediately surrounded. Terrified beyond measure and watching the entire world in an adrenaline-soaked slow motion, my advancing steps may as well have been the first of a hundred mile marathon.

Helpless in my approach as nightmare itself was drawn upon the reality of my perceptions, I watched as three cruel blades pierced Zee's already blood-covered armor with the sparking shriek of metal crossing metal. Zee stumbled for a moment as her frenzied breath seemed to quiet.

With Durand's soldiers still distracted, I swallowed the bile that threatened to well up within me at thoughts of the barbarism that was only moments from technicolor realization as I lunged at the first unprepared soldier between me and Zee. Dooming my action to almost certain failure as her eyes caught me far sooner than I would have hoped, she moved to pull her broadsword free from where it had been buried in Zee's belly only to realize the futility of her last moments as an unexpected resistance saw her arm jerk, unable to withdraw the weapon to defend herself.

"Mine…!" Zee hissed again, angrier and more powerful than the last time as her badly bloodied fingers wrapped around and held fast the invading blade, making it impossible to withdraw as my weapon struck true.

The shriek of pain from the unfortunately unarmored dwarf became a slow gurgling death rattle as I withdrew my blade from her punctured lung and stepped back. The confusion of the moment and my earnest desire to return some of the pain these women had dealt to my Azalea was bolstered by an ever growing desire to live as I held my ground, even as I fought to keep my shaking hands from throwing down my blades in disgust at what I'd just done.

Getting clear wouldn't be an option as the two closest enemies quickly turned toward me. Facing a spear wielder as well as a paired sword and shield, my only chance at any sort of advantage was to stay close and risk the sting of that sword to try and gain some momentum.

Ducking back and under the expected swing of the spear shaft, I then heavily shifted my weight forward as I rose into a thrust at the unarmored armpit of the nearby minotaur, causing enough damage to almost completely immobilize that arm. I didn't account for the fact that she could still crush me with her good arm as I tried to leap further around the circle to avoid the other approaching warrior.

My following attempt at a feint resulted only in the almost sad ringing of Tizona as my blade was easily held aside by the shield of the far better trained orc in her approach.

I'd been caught by my critical misstep and both of them could see it as the minotaur moved to grab me and the swordswoman moved to prevent my escape. Faster than the pair of them, however, was the approaching bonfire of Zee's tail that hit me squarely in the chest and sent me hurtling across the room and momentarily out of the fight.

Fighting for breath as I rolled back and up to my feet, I began to dash back toward the fray. As I advanced, I watched as Zee pulled the broadsword free from her gut with a shower of blood, not hesitating even a moment as she turned and savagely drove it downward into the shoulder of an assaulting goblin that had been approaching from behind her. The blade passed through flesh, bone, and eventually stone as the flailing goblin was pinned to the floor, bend over backwards into a grim and broken tribute to the letter 'c'.

Any of the usual finesse of Zee's fighting style was buried beneath a bottomless sea of a boundless rage as she brought her falchion to bear upon her enemies more like an artless cudgel than like the masterwork I knew her weapon to be. In seconds, however, four more enemies were on the ground with wounds that would almost certainly be mortal, even with the benefit of magic.

In the span of the next three heartbeats, I watched as the ogre Maxine, still fully armed and armored, managed to deflect one of Zee's brutal swings on her shield and bring her warhammer directly into the salamander's chest. With a sound reminiscent of a train running broadside into a dump truck, Zee's breastplate gave way in collapse and bent inward in a way that couldn't have left a single one of Zee's ribs unbroken.

Even flying backwards through the air from the force of the assault, Zee grabbed an attacker with her broken left arm and another with her flaming tail as she fell.

Growling in determination, I put my head down and sprinted toward Zee as fast as my legs would carry me. Deflecting one incoming swing as I parried with both weapons, I spun around the blade and made two more steps before the wooden shaft of another polearm hit me high on the chest and clotheslined me.

Blessing the impossibly hard dragon scales that protected me, I still landed on my back nearly a meter away from my attackers and still well away from Zee. I was able to manage a single strike at the unprotected leg of my assailant that did little more than anger the approaching lizardman before she brought the shaft of the polearm across my face, snapping my head around and filling my vision with stars as I nearly passed out immediately.

I looked to Zee and watched with a growing feeling of horrified disbelief as my lover used the already dead body of a werecat she had grabbed with her tail and the choking and soon to be lifeless goblin in her broken left arm as a pair of shields until she was able to tear away her useless breastplate and rise to her feet.

There was no reason Zee should have still been able to stand in the first place as every moment painted her body with a quickly mounting panoply of horribly grievous wounds. With her hair soaked and matted with blood, her chest looking to be almost entirely caved in, and her wounds from earlier still seeping blood, she looked more like a walking corpse than even the most ragged zombie I'd ever seen.

"What are you?!" I heard the ogre Maxine shout as she took a wary step towards Zee.

I shook off my daze as best I could as my vision swam, dangerously close to that all familiar blackness. As I then looked up at Zee, I saw her spit a mouthful of blackened blood to the floor as her heaving chest returned to something closer to normal with a thunderous crack of mending bones.

Taking several deep breaths as her lungs were once again given leave to actually fill with air, Zee's feral voice split the air with a single word, "His."

There was no way that the small amount of mermaid blood I'd thrown at Zee would have been enough to heal any of the series of devastatingly grievous wounds she'd suffered, even if I'd managed to get her to drink the entire vial. Something else had to be at play here, but the luxury of a free moment to consider what that might be was an impossible fantasy. I'd worry about that in the unlikely event that we both survived this mess.

Seconds later I watched as Zee's broken arm seemed to crack back into place, just the sound of it enough to send one of the remaining soldiers running.

She didn't get far as Zee's thrown falchion ripped straight through the back of what was ostensibly the wisest woman in the room. At that, the rest of the soldiers, save Maxine, ran screaming for their lives, leaving me alone in the blood-drenched gallery with Zee and Maxine.

Pushing myself up to a knee slowly enough to let my head acclimate to the change, I turned back to Zee to see that her eyes had abandoned their familiar steely grey color to take on a jaundiced yellow, any of her awareness beyond the battle seeming lost to the fury that consumed her.

Appearing to not care that she was weaponless, Zee charged at the larger ogre and tore her shield away faster than I could blink, ignoring the two thunderous impacts that hit Zee on her left shoulder and then deep into the ribs on her left side. The third swing Zee was able to catch as she grappled the ogre, the pair of them hitting the ground as they rolled toward the open sky of the west wall in their shared attempts to choke or beat the life from the other.

"No!" I shouted as I hopped to my wobbly legs and dashed toward them, casting my weapons aside.

After several more failed attempts by either combatant to take full control of the grapple, Zee grunted as her tailed wormed between the two to give her enough room to unleash a mighty kick into the ogre's chest, sending the woman sliding across the smooth stones and into the almost certain death of the open sky. Maxine wasn't about to give up there, however, as she took hold of Zee's tail in a vengeful act that would see them both falling to their deaths.

Still sprinting, I dove forward as I watched Zee's clawed fingers slip free of the stone. Diving forward and then sliding to the edge, I reached down and, nearly impossibly, grabbed Zee's arm in both hands before she could fall to oblivion.

With a reasonably solid grip on Zee's scaled arm, I brought my feet under me as I strained to try and pull her up.

"Don't take this the wrong way Zee...but you're...really heavy. Help me out here," I grunted as I tried and failed to pull her up any further. All she'd need to do is reach up with her free hand, and she should have been able to pull herself up.

Looking up at me as the rage slowly bled out of her, Zee took on a faraway look as she flashed a weak half smile. "Joe? Oh...right. Hey Joe...I need you to do something for me."

No...that was not what I wanted to hear.

Seeing the look on my face, Zee looked down before continuing, "I know that look. Fighting like that has always been taxing, but since Uruk it just takes everything out of me. I just don't have anything left."

I screamed as I continued to strain to pull Zee back up over the edge. "Then why did you fight?!"

She finally looked back up at me and answered with a smile, "Because I chose to. Somehow I knew you'd be here and a girl is allowed to show off to the man she loves."

"Come on Zee!" I pleaded as I looked around desperately for anything that might help me get any more leverage. "I...can't hold you much longer."

"I'm really really tired so just...take this and listen a minute." Weakly swinging her tail in my direction, Zee tossed a small pouch up onto the ledge. "Look at us, Joe-look at you. It feels like an eternity ago that I met you as an aimless, pathetic wanderer...and you met me as a soulless mercenary. And now? Even if I didn't love you...you're the best friend I've ever had and I'm not going to let you think this happened because you weren't strong enough. Strength isn't just in how hard you can swing a sword."

Zee stopped speaking as she made an anemic swing with her dangling arm upon one of my shaking hands as I put everything into holding on to her.

"I won't let go...please don't do this Zee…" I continued to plead, my whispering voice carrying even over the roaring din of the outside wind as my grip began to falter. "I need you to be my bodyguard-no...more than that...this isn't over yet."

She gave a weak laugh. "I'm your huckleberry, Joe...even if you can't see me, I'll never stop watching over you...in this life or the next," she stated with a smiling certainty as she blinked away tears before adding, "You...made me remember what it was to be happy. Not every choice is easy to make, love, and I don't want to let go...but I won't take you down with me, so this will have to be-"

As she cut her own sentence off, she brought her free hand up and, even in her weakened state, pried my straining fingers loose as she began to fall, slipping from my grasp.

Smiling as she fell away from me into the near white-out of the blowing snow of the mountain, I saw her mouth, "my choice," before I finally saw the bright flame of her tail disappear completely.