~~
A Disciple stepped toward Maya and flexed its fingers, golden claws glinting.
Maya took a deep breath, waited.
Her golden enemy shot forward, fast but obvious. A quick swing of her sword connected with its head. Applekill's energy flared, ripping through the gleaming skull and severing the head, which fell to the ground and rolled away. The Disciple did not fall. It just stood there as though confused.
Maya reaffirmed her grip on Applekill. She watched it, waiting.
After a moment, the creature turned, possibly taking directions from its comrades. She didn't let it attack again: spinning, she sliced its body, cleaving the metal torso almost in two. Her dead opponent fell forward, crashed into the grassland.
This round went to her.
She looked around. They were fighting right by the Great Road. Usually there would be carts and Merchants bombing toward and away from Aureu, supplying people across the west. She imagined that Aureu had cancelled all outgoing deliveries and that Merchants would either be waiting a way back or fleeing.
If, she realised, the Disciples had even left any alive on their march. Maya raised her sword. Bile rose in her, and she suppressed it. She needed to stay calm.
This time, a Disciple jumped at her without ceremony. She rolled away and brought Applekill along its sternum, tearing its armour and catching its arm in the process. Both girl and Disciple leapt to their feet and charged again. Maya ducked beneath cruel claws and cut through the Disciple's stomach, severing feet from body again. It twitched, perhaps in pain. She finished it with two quick slices, quartering the creature, then took a deep breath.
Using Applekill like this was easy – much easier than launching columns of fire – but her mind was tired and her reflexes had dulled from the effort of using so much Cyrus Force. This could have been a much more sensible approach. Instead she'd used those flashy means, taking Nephilim's orders too literally.
That was a lesson to learn tomorrow. For now, there were only eight more Disciples to kill. She could do this.
Two attacked her, quicker and more measured than the others. Maya blocked them both but only barely managed to do so. The Disciples did not pause in their assault, and suddenly Maya wasn't fighting effortlessly any more. She was dodging for her life, narrowly avoiding well-placed, brilliant attacks. Just as she was seeing a pattern in their techniques, the Disciples changed tactics and went for her strong arm and her legs. This forced her to always be on the move and stopped her evaluating the situation.
And they were so well coordinated: she tried to make them strike each other, but their wordless communication prevented this. Fighting them reminded her of sparring with Contegons during combat training at the Academy. They had that same intelligence and maturity.
Maya would have to do something different to defeat them. The challenge thrilled her.
Adrenaline pumping, Maya shifted her leg to avoid it being shredded by golden talons. An idea struck her. She jumped forward and placed a foot on the Disciple outstretched arm. With this step, she flipped over the Disciple behind her, avoiding the loss of her tendons by an inch, corkscrewed and brought her sword down its back, sliced at its internal workings.
The Disciples fizzled, whirred, gushed, then died.
Maya pushed the body over and launched herself forward. The other Disciple leapt back to avoid being crushed by the corpse and this left an opening. Maya took it ruthlessly, cutting its arms off. The limbs fell to the ground, grinding away indignantly, before she quartered their former owner.
She roared, victorious. Six left.
The adrenaline faded a little, and she saw herself as they would see her: she was breathing heavily; she bled from the numerous small cuts; Applekill felt heavier; and Maya's muscles gave gentle warnings that they were about to revolt. She was running low on strength of all kinds.
And the Disciples knew this.
The Disciples had been toying with her. No, she realised in a flash, it was worse than that: they were learning from her, gaining the advantage of her training by adopting her combat styles. So many of the moves they'd used had been hers! How could she have missed that?
But worst of all, by adopting her style, they could discover its weaknesses: use them against her.
Now, three Disciples stepped forward. If they truly had been learning, then they would each be her equal. Not only that, but they would expect the kind of flourish she'd just used. She'd have to be even better than she was before to survive. And even then, she'd have to face three more, even stronger opponents.
Maya was scared. Fighting three equal enemies was worrying, but fighting three equal enemies with far superior strength and communication was far, far beyond terror.
“Applekill... We may have to flee,” she admitted.
“Understood, Maya. I'm at your command.”
This wasn't a decision she took lightly. Tapping into Aureu's emotions wouldn't be enough, not when she was so weak. She needed to rest. It would take... a while for the six Disciples to capture Aureu. Hopefully it would be long enough for her to recover and return to before they were done.
“I'm sorry,” she said, thinking of those who would die due to her failure.
She could feel Applekill's energy now. Her Spirit had only had a little left. Either each attack had drained the Spirit, or Applekill had used up most of her reserve to create that final blast. Maya resolved to ask her afterwards.
“Okay, here we go.”
Maya sprinted between two Disciples, aiming for one beyond them. She would kill it before she flew off, save some lives...
The Disciples closed the gap and kicked at her. She couldn't avoid it. Their metallic feet and those strange, pearl-coloured soles crushed what remained of her protection. The force of the blow knocked her back, and she stumbled, trying not to fall.
She didn't see or hear the third Disciple step behind her. But she felt its presence when it sank its claws into her chest. Her dying shield prevented one attack entirely and stopped the other from passing right through her, but the claws still struck her heart and lungs.
Maya stopped moving. She felt cold. She felt agony. Her body shook. The world darkened. The Disciple dropped her to the floor, and she landed on her back with a dull thud.
All six of them stood over her, watching her die.
She had failed. Maya had failed Nephilim. This almost hurt more than the wound. She coughed up blood. It was hard to breathe. Her beating heart was slowing, torn and ripped from the attack. The world blurred. Her strength ebbed away. She couldn't feel her hands, her feet.
Everything was too painful, even as it all drained. Six golden masses gazed at her from above as her ragged heart reached its final beat. Maybe dying wasn't so bad. Her eyes closed, and she thought of Chain.
48
Chain leapt from the barge when it finished crossing the Journey. With the river flooded it couldn't have docked anyway, but she enjoyed the showmanship of leaping into action.
Her Militiamen followed with less vigour, landing in three inches of water before sloshing to attention. Chain grinned at them all. They were hers to command. She was exactly where she ought to be: on the front-line, fighting for Sol.
“Right, men, behind us a person unknown fights the Disciples. They are doing well but we're not about to let some stranger fight our battles for us, are we?”
Shuffled feet and scared glances suggested they would be quite happy with this.
Chain rolled her eyes and signalled for them to march toward the Great Road.
As they moved out, she and her cadre watched the strange and epic battle before them. Only Chain was waiting for a sign of failure or weakness from the magic user, for disproof of the 'Acolyte' status thrust upon them by her fellow Contegons. Everyone else would be hoping for this false saviour to do the job for them.
Chain hated their borderline Heresy.
Still, something about the 'Acolyte' seemed... familiar. They were too far away to tell exactl
y what it was that tickled some faint memory, leaving her with a maddening sense of semi-recognition.
Chain looked back over her shoulder. Thousands of Militia stood by the Journey or jumped from the swaying, unsure barges. None looked ready to take action. They would not even be there if not for Chain. Instead of standing on the ashes of a lost forest and watching with awe as they did now, they would have been standing on Aureu's side of Journey.
Somehow, the difference felt important.
There was a cheer, the guttural roar of a terrified city. Chain turned back to the fighting. One of the Disciples had been felled. The 'Acolyte' raised a weapon of some kind and invited another assault.
“Arrogant, aren't we?” Chain whispered.
As she watched the Disciples rejoin the fray, that idea that she was missing something became a burning itch at the back of her mind. A hateful itch, the kind you'd be tempted to dig out with a dagger.
Then eight Disciples remained. The 'Acolyte' was tiring, and the Disciples were improving. Chain was almost happy to foresee the inevitable failure of the 'Acolyte.'
“Keep marching, men,” she said, seeing that some of them were slowing in the hope that they wouldn't be needed.
Two Disciples assaulted the 'Acolyte.' This time, the creatures were faster and worked together. It was almost like... like they were learning! Chain's happiness dropped, and she felt real, personal terror: moves that deadly, that familiar, would soon be used against Aureu. She was seeing the coming shadow of a thousand deaths.
But these two Disciples died. The 'Acolyte' paused for a moment and tried to flee, realising as Chain had that it could not win. But the Disciples stopped its escape and killed the thing without ceremony. Chain couldn't help but feel sorry for the 'Acolyte' as it was torn by those cruel, golden claws.
The Militiamen wailed and screamed. Shock and tragedy rippled through them like a plague. Their will sapped. Chain could almost track the wave of panic as it flowed from the front to the Mariners fighting against the overflowing Journey and into Aureu.
But the 'Acolyte's' death confirmed the creature hadn't been holy: nothing that came from Sol would have tried to escape, and they certainly wouldn't die in Aureu's hour of need. There would be no saviour for Aureu. As Chain had said, they would have to save themselves.
“Do you see?” she screamed. “Sol wanted us to be active, to win this war. Because of our inactivity, he has allowed this Acolyte to die. We must earn his forgiveness. Forces, move out! Move out if you have any love at all for Sol in your hearts! We'll charge them and we will kill them!”
She pulled her axes from her back and roared. Then she charged.
A moment later, the sounds of a thousand people splashing through muddy waters followed.