Chương 109: 100. Katharsis

"Do not record a candidate's convictions as righteous or wicked; the ledger has no column for it. Record one thing only. When the belief named its price, did the candidate pay, or set the belief down? Everything worth knowing about them is in that single line." — Codex of the Long Watch, Operational Directive"Sarah, change in plan. With me, take anything behind us." Arthur heard Donna adjusting the tactical parameters on the fly. He saw her activate Threshold Drive, and she was simply gone.

Her velocity overclocked into a blur, moving too fast for the human eye to track as she tore into the knot of guards who had escorted them into the yard. One of the men stepped directly into her path with a raised cleaver, only to stumble backward without a head. The Ravener axe had found the gap before his body even registered the fight had started, the entire swinging arc a stutter of afterimages in the firelight. An arrow took Arthur in the back as he ran.

He had the shield locked in front of his chest to clear his path directly to Drakos, and the bowman on the roof made him pay for the exposure. Or at least the man thought he would. The iron point hit just below Arthur's right shoulder blade and stopped dead. A second shaft struck a hand's width away a fraction of a second later, stopping just as abruptly. The heavy steel heads deformed against the density of the Bastion plate, the broken arrows falling harmlessly into the dirt. Arthur never even slowed down.

His peripheral vision caught a sudden, blinding flash of white-hot light to his left, and he grinned through the sweat on his face. Steve had crossed the hundred metres of open ground while every eye in the compound was fixed on the three, just like they had planned. His thermal lance took the bowman full in the chest, folding the sniper backward off the clay tiles and dropping him into the shadows behind the roofline.

The four guards around the central fire watched the sniper's arrows plink uselessly off Arthur's plate, and their eyes widened. The easy confidence they had held onto all evening crumbled into panic. Then Arthur reached the fire, and Drakos was waiting for him. His Nadi-Matrix flickered briefly and the heavy man swung a massive two-handed mace to meet the charge. Arthur triggered Counterforce Plant and took the full weight of the strike square on his shield.

If Drakos had activated some technique it hadn't made any real difference. The blow that should have driven his spine through his boots went into his arms and gathered, the etheric lattice flaring a blue-violet across his forearms. For half a second, there was silence, and Arthur caught the look of shock on Drakos's face as the man realised his target hadn't moved an inch. Then Arthur stepped through and swung the Skullcleft into the join of Drakos's neck and shoulder.

The face of the maul hit the meat of Drakos's shoulder but did not stop. The collarbone, the joint and the thick slab of chest beneath all caved inward and downward. The heavy man was driven into the dirt, the entire left side of his torso turned to mush. He was dead before he finished falling. The chair tipped into the fire.

"Drakos!" one of the guards screamed, his Greek vowels warping under sudden, raw terror.

"Malaka, he killed—" A loud curse from Steve cut through the noise behind Arthur. They had missed a bowman on the far roofline. When Steve fired on the left, the archer on the right had sighted him in the dark and put a shaft straight through the meat of Steve's thigh. Sarah saw him drop to his knees and instantly broke into a run toward him. A raider lunged into her path with his arms wide open to grab her, but she ducked beneath his reach and drove two fingers into the side of his chest.

Her Nadi-Matrix flared, but she didn't bother to look back as the man toppled into the dirt behind her. Donna would find him soon enough. Steve forced himself back up off his knee with the shaft still embedded in his leg, swearing through his teeth, when a second arrow punched into his bicep and spun him half around.

"Bloody hell. My turn." he said. He brought the focus rod up, took a second to steady his grip, and sent a second lance of flame rushing through the dark. He might have channeled a little more Ether than needed because the blast took the bowman clean off the roof and took out half of the roof with him. The courtyard had no more bows in it. Sarah reached him just as he sat down hard on the threshing floor.

"Through the meat, both of them, nothing structural," Sarah said, her hands already going to the arrow shafts.

"Brace yourself, I'll pull both on three."

"I know that trick," Steve said, panting heavily.

"You will pull on two, instead of three."

"No idea what you are talking about," Sarah said, and pulled the shafts out with a single, clean jerk.

"Goddamnit! Are you taking the piss." Steve roared, his head snapping back.

"You didn't even start to count!" The systemic shock of the lie acts as a natural analgesic, Archie's voice chimed in his ear, cold and entirely unbothered. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Sarah's Ether was already flowing into the torn muscle of his leg.

"It's gonna be fine, just flesh wounds. Those fifteen points of CON are earning their keep."

"Do not," Steve said, breathing hard through the sensation, "tell Donna." By the fire pit, Arthur set his boot against Drakos's crushed chest to free the stuck maul. He pulled the weapon clear and turned to face the four guards who had stood so comfortably around the warlord's chair, levelling the maul at the centre man's chest.

"It pisses me right off," Arthur said, watching them advance.

"How fast some men turn into absolute scum the second they think there are no rules." The first man lunged, swinging a heavy, broad-bladed falchion in a desperate arc aimed straight for his temple. Arthur didn't even blink. He met the blow with the centre of his shield, the iron surface drinking the impact with a flat, metallic clang that sent vibrations straight down the raider's arm. Before the man could pull back, Arthur dropped his weight and brought the maul around in a short, brutal backhand.

The iron head smashed into the guard's knee with a dry, splintering crack. The man folded instantly, and Arthur caught him on the way down, reversing the momentum to drive the maul straight through his skull. The other three were better, faster and more coordinated. Keeping low, they jabbed with their spears, trying to keep him at a distance. They had more brains too as they avoided jabbing at his plate and instead tried to catch his bicep or his things.

Arthur advanced with the shield up, his face lit from below by the shifting firelight. He dropped his shield low as a spear came from the left and deflected a second thrust with the haft of his maul. That cost him. The third spear slipped through the gap, catching him between the iron plate and his jeans, drawing a dark line of blood. The man who had stuck him grinned, seeing the red on his spear tip. Arthur grinned back.

Instead of twisting away, Arthur dropped his arm, trapping the spear shaft firmly between his side and his shield. For an instant, the spearman didn't understand why the weapon wouldn't move. Then he tried to pull back, his boots skidding on the gravel as he realised he couldn't. Panic flashed across his face as Arthur closed the distance. Then the panic was gone, and his face along with it, as the maul came down on his head.

The remaining two were shaking visibly now, holding their spears up in trembling hands to ward him off. Arthur would have walked away in almost any other circumstance, but people who had no qualms about using human beings as live bait would revert to being predators the second his back was turned. He didn't claim any moral high ground, but he was not going to set aside his convictions. The world was simply better off without a certain type of person.

His thoughts flashed to the Baron for a split second, the times he had been forced to walk away because the odds were too high, the fights too many, the innocents too exposed. Not today. He turned toward the man on the right, and the Skullcleft rose. The edge crashed straight through the spear's wooden guard, smashed aside the man's frantic parry and buried itself deep into his ribs with enough kinetic force to lift him clean off the ground.

Arthur ripped the weapon free with a wet wrench, and the spearman collapsed to one knee, clutching at the ruin of his chest, staring up in mute disbelief. Arthur ended it with a second blow. The last man threw down his spear and sank to his knees, crying. He was repeating a single Greek word over and over again through his sobs. Arthur didn't know the translation, probably please, or sorry, or some variation of a plea for his life.

But this was one of the men who had snickered when Drakos had mentioned he had a use for Sarah. Across the yard, Donna's flickering afterimages finally came to a stop. She had burned through her Threshold Drive in short, hard bursts of five seconds. In and out. She now stood motionless in the centre of four dead bodies. Her speed, coupled with the Ravener, had ended her side of the fight before it had properly begun.

She looked back toward the edge of the threshing floor, where Sarah was just coming into the courtyard, supporting a limping Steve. Together, they looked across the gravel at Arthur standing over the pleading man. The central fire was scattered now, throwing long, jagged shadows over the broken bodies that littered the yard. The maul found the side of the kneeling man's head. It was a quick death. It was more than he deserved. Then the courtyard went quiet.

Under the steady snap and hiss of the dying fire, the only sound left was four people breathing. ETHER ABSORBED: +4, 800 (11 KILLS) LEVEL UP: LEVEL 18 LEVEL UP: LEVEL 19 INTEGRATION: 1, 570 / 3, 456 ATTRIBUTE POINTS AVAILABLE: 6 SARAH LEVEL UP: LEVEL 17 LEVEL UP: LEVEL 18 INTEGRATION: 1, 544 / 3, 200 ATTRIBUTE POINTS AVAILABLE: 6 The numbers came up in the same calm blue they always did. Two levels in less than a minute.

Arthur thought of the survivor camp back in London, of the first time he had been forced to kill a man, and what Archie had told him then. Humans gave three times the Ether of a comparable beast. He dismissed the thought and turned back toward the others. Logic and old societal norms dictated that he should feel some shred of remorse for killing people. He tried to find it in his heart, but all he found was a cold contempt for this lot. Sarah sat Steve down against a low wall and walked over to him.

"You okay?" she asked, placing a hand gently on his shoulder.

"Yes," he said, looking down at his plates.

"Yes, actually, I'm fine." His eyes met Donna's. She simply gave him a short, approving nod before turning her attention to Steve.

"You did not even enter the courtyard. How did you end up being the only one hurt?"

" Donna said, stepping over a body.

"I wouldn't have, if you had spotted the second bowman." Steve muttered, wincing as he shifted his leg.

"Excuses, excuses," Donna said with a small smile.

"I suppose it's time to introduce ourselves to the captive audience," Steve said, and Arthur barked a short laugh.

"Really?" Sarah said, looking over her shoulder with a frown.

"Hey, we just took down eleven men on their behalf," Steve said, leaning back against the wall.

"I'm entitled to a little joke." Sarah shook her head and made her way across the gravel toward the stone house. The heavy timber door had been bolted from the outside, held fast by a thick iron bar with no lock on it. She reached out, grasped the iron and slid the bolt open with a heavy, scraping screech.