"Excuse me?"
"Oh, for the decline of your order, the loss of your Fratriarch. Like when you threw my detachment of guards out of the Strength. A wise and deeply considered move, I am sure."
Simeon flushed and clenched his fists. The Elector was a much younger man, but he wasn't familiar with the fury of Morgan. Either that, or he was suicidal.
"I came here for your own good, Elector. For the good of the Fraterdom. If you'd rather take your chances with the Paladin, or the Amonite, then you are free to do so. But there is no cause to insult me."
"Insult you? No, no. That was not my intention." He paused again and leaned lightly against the rail. "We will take care of the girl. She will tell no secrets, either to Alexander or any of his children. And as far as chances go, I think you will find that we are not prone to taking them at all. Leash this one."
A shadow darted out from one of the passageways around the central room, skipping over the shattered mosaic and striking the Elder before he could raise his old hands. The shadow resolved into a man, bound in gray with an iron mask across his face, crudely molded to give the impression of a nose, eyes, a mouth. These features twitched as he attacked, as though laughing. He held a knife in each hand; wide, flat blades that flashed across the Elder's chest with such speed. Simeon gasped and stumbled back, then invoked a weak shield that could not hold long against such an assault. As the Elector looked on, another half-dozen figures entered the room from various doors and hidden chambers, closing on the old man. They were all similarly dressed, and all bore the icon of the Betrayer.
* * *
I intervened.
I had used a lot of energy keeping up with Elder Simeon. I was tired. My reserves were ragged from three days on the hunt. It had been like a long, running battle, a battle fought more in retreat than advance. So when I saw that first knife go into Simeon's chest and draw back with the Elder's blood all over its blade, I felt a moment of fatigued vertigo. Hadn't been preparing for a battle. I was like a scout who found herself too far behind enemy lines, suddenly thrust into the fight, without hope of relief. Desperately in need of relief.
But the Cult of Morgan was out of reserves. There were no more armored columns of Paladins waiting in the barracks, no more legions of initiates of the Blade and Bullet filling the training grounds with the noise of their practice. The battle was joined, and there was me. There was only me.
I drew my sword, incanted a scant few invokations of armor and strength, then drove my blade through the skylight I had perched beside and leapt to the Elder's aid. I hadn't been there for the Fratriarch. This was a doomed battle, but I would be there for Simeon. And then there would be none to take my place, but this is what warriors do. It is what we know.
I fell past the terrace, and was pleased to see a look of distress on Nathaniel's face. The Elector, or whatever he was, whichever God he was sworn to. Time for that later, if there was such a moment in my life. I landed in the middle of the mosaic, shattering brittle tiles in a ripple of sharded dust. The assassins stopped for a fraction of a breath, their murderous attention drawn from the Elder to this new threat. Simeon made a sign with his hands, a benediction of forgiveness, then collapsed against a pillar and used the last of his strength to invoke something hard and impenetrable. I was alone.
"One fewer that we have to hunt down, my brothers," Nathaniel sneered. "End this one, and then finish Simeon." He had drawn one of his daggers, a small, sharp thing of silver. He pointed it at me and laughed. "It will be good to be rid of this one."
They came at me in fluid attack. As soon as I engaged one he would melt away and I would find a knife at my back, probing the defenses of my sword forms. I had to be careful, never expending too much on offense so that my defense could remain solid. It was a mobile battle. I was glad it was my last. There was no need to hold anything back, no need for a reserve in anticipation of the next fight. There would be no other fight. I would die with the blood of a Betrayer on my sword, and that was enough for me.
"Morgan stood against the thousands," I incanted, leveling my sword against my foes. This is how the invokations of Morgan should be sworn, I thought. In battle, with blood on your steel and adrenaline in your lungs. We should burn down the monasteries and build a world of battlefields. "Their spears struck at him, and he stood. Their shields defied him, and he stood." One of them came at me, blades low and then high. His mask was a twisted visage of glee and malice. I blocked the attack and swept my sword back at the inevitable blindside attack. Metal found flesh, and I turned to see one of the assassins crumple, his lifeblood pumping out over the holy forged blade of my faith. "Their legions attacked him. He stood. Forever, on the hill of Dre'Dai-mon, on the eve of Cuspus, against the forces of chaos. Morgan stands. The Warrior stands."
The noetic power of Morgan wrapped around me, somehow drawing from the frenetic energy of my final stand. Or so it felt, to me. For years I had practiced a religion of forms and maps, studying the great battles of my god and my brothers. That time was past. The time of battles was upon me, and my faith was purified for it. Deep veils of power engulfed me, and the strength of Morgan filled me. I laughed with heartfelt joy, with gleeful abandon. My last battle, forever.
One down, but there were more. They were incanting their own rites of power and strength. I knew nothing of the forms of the Betrayer. The last time the Cult of Morgan had drawn steel against the scions of the Assassin, Amon was still alive, and Morgan was only freshly murdered. There had been pockets of resistance after the pogrom, but mostly we fought the enemies of the Fraterdom. The Feyr, the Rethari, the Yongin. People whose gods were waning, or had not yet fully ascended.
Best not to wait for them to find their forms. The closest one was incanting some story about the secret places of the Assassin, ritually invoking the hidden knife, the false partnership, the dark alley. It seemed to me that their powers were limited to the unexpected strike. They were here. I knew them, could see them. This was a battle now, not an assassination. While he spoke with the power of his lungs, incanting ancient rites of betrayal, I shuffled forward and brought the full weight of my double-handed sword against his skull. The tip split his forehead, parted his eyes, and ended the business of his mouth. He fell like a rag discarded by a servant. I exulted in the directness of Morgan.
His fellows howled like scalded cats and rushed me. Excellent, I thought. They abandon the shadows. This is the place of Morgan. In the light, in the field, in the battle fully joined. I danced between them, parting tendons from bone, opening flesh and revealing marrow. They hesitated, and I brought them the glory of battle. Morgan surged through me, as though he reached out from the grave to give his servant strength against the Betrayer. Of course. This is what I worshipped, the fallen warrior, the betrayed god. This is the battle I was consecrated to fight.
It was not enough. I ended two of them and maimed another. Perhaps he would find a beggar god, that one. But there were too many. I overextended. Too much offense, and one of their blades parted my armor and put barbed steel against my bone. I staggered back, and another found its way into my shield. They came at me like waves of hail, battering me and then falling back. One of them circled the room, cracking open the frictionlamps and snuffing each element. Soon, I was battling in the dark. The only light came from the invokation of my armor, noetic runes flaring in the shadows. It was not enough. They appeared before I could react, struck, disappeared. My defense forms were not enough. I fell back to the Elder, where he huddled behind his shield, comatose, blood seeping from his wounds. It would make a nice statue, I thought. The Paladin, last of her kind, standing between the darkness and the light. I would be content with that. They circled, and I invoked the last of my strength, then began to write the ballad of my death.