It was not the first volley of stones from the catapults that ripped through the wall of the cathedral, but the third. The first series of stones hit low on the building, enough to make it shudder, for cracks to run through the walls. The second struck high, almost at the same time, high enough to shatter the tall windows Ayae had passed on the stairwell, and to rip parts of the roof away. The cathedral rocked as both volleys hit and, inside, Ayae struggled for balance. Ahead of her, Jae’le did not move, nor did Aela Ren. The two behind them, however, had spread out. Not one of them showed concern at the attacks on the cathedral. As if to challenge their disregard, a third volley came, and it was this one, the largest of the three attacks, that tore open the cathedral.
The roof shattered inwards, stones the size of her body breaking through the wood and metal on the roof, splintering the windows and smashing into the floor.
Ayae turned instinctively, shielding her eyes as the room burst apart. When she removed her hand from her eyes, she found herself staring at the staircase she had come up. For a moment, it did not register to her that it was no longer there, that the stairwell led to a long drop into spiked wood and shards of glass, but then her stomach lurched, and the sight of Ranan alight with battle came to her in a dizzying, unframed openness.
She turned, but in doing so, found that the broken edge of the cathedral revealed even more of Ranan. A thin half-moon of the room’s floor extended out over the sight, with buttresses of glass and wood offering a symbolic protection from the elements and arrows. Ayae heard a creak as she gazed at it, and when she turned, she saw the hulking creature running from the broken, shadowed part of the middle of the room. She grabbed the hilt of her sword, but Jae’le’s hand pulled her back and he stepped into the creature’s path, his sword drawn.
Jae’le’s sword ripped through the armour and skin of the creature, but as it did, the creature dropped to the ground and revealed the slim figure of the strangely armoured Zilt behind it. He led with his knife and barrelled straight into Jae’le, catching him off balance. He lost his sword, but trapped the soldier’s arm against his side and smashed his palm into Zilt’s face. The other man wrapped his spare arm around him just as the creature Jae’le had slashed rose.
With a roar, she charged, and with her arms spread, picked up both men. With them in her grasp, the creature went over the broken edge of the cathedral, into the wood and debris below.
Ayae threw herself after Jae’le, but she was not close enough, not fast enough to grab part of him, not even the edge of his green-feathered cloak, before he fell.
Gripping the edge of the broken floor, Ayae looked over, but she could see nothing.
Behind her, she heard a step.
She was on her feet, both swords drawn, before she realized that there was only one other person in the room with her.
The Innocent stood in front of her, his weapons still sheathed. Behind him, the smoke-filled moon and firelit sky shone through the broken room, highlighting the scars that mapped his body. There was not a part of him that was untouched: the lines, both jagged and straight, thin and thick, ran across his neck, his face, and beneath the black shorn stubble of his hair. It left him with the appearance of a man who was not so much born, but built. A monster made from an old world. ‘I doubt that any of them are dead.’ He spoke in a voice that was mild, even polite. ‘At least, not yet.’
‘Feel free to chase them.’ What was it that Jae’le had said about the Innocent? What did he say was important? ‘I’ll even step aside for you.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ He regarded her intently. ‘You are from Sooia, are you not?’
Hide who you are from him. ‘Mireea. I was born in Sooia.’ The distinction was important to make, even as she heard Jae’le’s voice.
‘I was born in Sooia, as well,’ Aela Ren replied. ‘It was in the southern part of the country, in a village that no longer exists, near a mountain long gone.’ He offered her a faint smile. ‘It was there that my god found me. I was a loyal servant to Wehwe for thousands and thousands of years, but I never forgot my home. It was why I returned there after the War of the Gods.’ The Innocent responded to the horror on her face with a twist in his smile, a deepening of the scars around his face, an acknowledgement of what she felt. ‘A god is alien, child. It is not like you or me. Not in substance, not in thought. You cannot explain it in your own words. You must use the language it created. When that is all that remains of the gods, you have only echoes of what once defined the world.’
‘Is that how you justify what you have done?’ Ayae felt her voice catch. She took a breath and tried to calm herself. ‘You sought to kill an entire race of people – your own people!’
‘I thought to spare them the emptiness that is the endless silence of their soul. In my despair, it was all that I was capable of.’ His scarred hands fell lightly to the hilt of his sword and dagger. ‘It was not until recently that I realized I was doing what my master and his kin wished. The fate that we stand in is their creation. It is also the creation of Se’Saera. In both these creations I have been used to define the world without gods.’
‘You could have said—’
He was upon her before finished speaking, his sword and dagger drawn.
He moved with such speed, such deadly accuracy, that had Ayae’s swords not been drawn, he would have cut through her defences, and into her.
But her swords were drawn. She turned away his first thrust, blocked his stab, parried a third attack, and stepped to her right for the fourth, conscious that each move was a retreat, an attempt to buy time to calm herself, to find the centre she needed within herself, and without. She needed time to position herself, to push aside her fear, to find the divinity that was within her. In her head, she could hear Jae’le’s voice, urging her to hold a part of herself back, to hide it, but she could not find a part of herself to present to him, yet.
Her turn to the right, towards the mostly entire wall, presented the Innocent to the night sky, to the world defined by war. A gap appeared in his defence and, without thinking, Ayae pushed it, her hands cold and heavy, her blades not as fast as she needed them to be. He ducked and weaved and continued her turn, so that it was her back, not his, that was against Se’Saera and Zaifyr.
He pressed her, then. He came forwards and she caught his dagger, turned it away, blocked his sword, stepped away from the stomp of his boot. Ayae cut down, was blocked, weaved back. She thrust forwards, parried his sword, and as her left-handed sword came up, felt his dagger punch into her right hip, felt it bite deep into her armour, through to her skin. Panicked, she slashed downwards and pedalled back. As she did, Ren ripped the knife out of her, tearing it through the leather armour as he did.
She dropped her hand to the wound, to staunch the blood, pressing through cloth and leather to find that what was lodged in her was a piece of steel.
‘How interesting,’ Aela Ren said, examining the broken blade of his knife as she pulled the end out and dropped it, bloodily, to the floor. ‘It felt as if I was stabbing stone.’ He lowered the blade, met her gaze. ‘Still, unless you have other tricks, child, it won’t be enough.’
Fire burst along the blade of her sword suddenly. Hide who you are. ‘I’ve a few,’ she said, ignoring Jae’le’s voice.