Stonehand, p.30
Stonehand, page 30
And then there was the Hyena. Her fighting spirit had not been quelled by the injury the Spymistress had inflicted on her. Indeed, the ferocity of her knifework had seemingly increased.
Satisfied with what she saw in her companions, Daine turned to Donal. “Do I want to know how you managed to gain access to the path of Gallant’s portalling Skill?”
He looked back at her, and something about the hollowness of the gaze struck her. “No, my Lady Darkhelm. You truly do not.”
*
The plan was very straightforward.
At Donal’s insistence, they had not included any of the members of the King’s Army in the discussions.
“If you are going to have me make use of incredibly rare and forbidden techniques, the very least you can do is do me the courtesy of not having me show my arse in public!”
“I can concur,” Taelsin had added dryly, “no one wishes to see your arse in public.”
As the Dark Warlord had explained it, Donal would, using the Blade of Ruin’s own movement Skill against him, channel a portal through which Daine, the Hyena, Azam and Jessica could pass and seek to eliminate the Stonehand.
Of course, only Daine would seek to fight him directly. The three members of the Cackle would be there to dispose of any bodyguards and to dissuade anyone from interfering with the fight whilst the Darkhelm, in the words of Donal, “took care of business.”
“Are you sure you can handle him?” Taelsin had asked, his eyes filled with concern. He was not used to seeing the woman so . . . skittish. It was like seeing a mountain offer an apology.
“No,” she had answered honestly. “I do not even understand how he is out there. When I last saw him — her memory flashed back to the crying, broken figure she had walked away from — “he was near the end of his life. I cannot see how he has recovered to be in the field again.”
She had sought to ask the Goddess about Old Gant’s reappearance, but their connection stayed cold as if she were deliberately being ignored.
“However,” Daine had continued, “I am the only one of us who has any chance of defeating him.” She hoped she sounded much more confident than she felt.
“There is no need for this confrontation,” the Hyena had spat out. “You are of better use against the main army. A few hours of you slaughtering his men, and he won’t have the numbers to take the City.”
But Daine had already been shaking her head. “Gallant Stonehand will not be interested in capturing the City. It won’t matter to him if we kill all of his men around him. He will keep coming and coming until everyone in front of him is dead. No. The only chance Swinford has of still standing when this is all over is if I get to him first and end it.”
It was then that Donal had theorised that he should be able to follow the path of the Stonehand’s portal ability if he were to manifest it close enough to the City. “We’ll just need to put on a good-enough show that he might want to come and have a look. Once he does, he’ll open a door we can follow all the way back to his command tent.”
“And you have an idea for what that ‘good-enough show’ can be,” Taelsin had asked.
Donal’s eyes had strayed to the Archmage for a moment before returning — somehow looking slightly darker — to the small group. “You know what, I just might,” he said cryptically.
*
Daine checked her gear for the final time.
Not that she thought it would make much difference if she ended up in a drag-out fight with Old Gant.
Even thinking about him in those terms brought heat to her face.
She recognised she had a complicated relationship with the man. More father than teacher. More mentor than drillmaster. But then, of course, more bully than friend. How many times had he nearly killed her when she was nothing but a child?
She knew — of course she did — that had it not been for the beatings, she would never have been able to make her initial Class Evolution. He had taken a Farmer’s daughter, broken her down, and transformed her into a Knight from legend.
But the experience had left deeper scars than could ever be healed.
And now she was going to kill him.
She’d wished him dead a hundred times. A thousand. But had she ever really thought she would be the one to do it?
Daine rehearsed what would happen in her mind.
They would step through the portal, her first, the others following closely in her wake. Anyone around the Stonehand was the Hyena and her Cackle’s problem. Daine would make straight for him and seek to end things with one blow.
Suppose it took more than that? Well, then all bets would be off.
Donal, his face still unusually gaunt, gestured them over impatiently.
“If we are going to do it, it must be now. Just so we are all clear — because no one else seems to agree with me that this is a terrible, terrible idea — this is a one-way trip. I can rip open enough of the residue of his Skill to push you in his wake, but I simply do not have the power to pull you back. Once you go through, you will be on your own.”
The Hyena laughed and tapped Jessica on the back. “Don’t you worry, old man. The Cackle have got in and out of tighter spots than this. You concern yourself with getting us there, let me worry about getting us out.”
Donal’s mouth tightened, but then he shrugged. He turned to Daine, and his voice was soft. “Don’t hesitate. Not for a second. He’s not the man you knew. Whatever means have been used to bring him back have turned him into a mad dog. What stands at the end of the portal is not Gallant Stonehand. It is not someone you used to know. All that awaits you is a broken, tortured thing that is merely wearing his face. As somewhat of a connoisseur of such things, I can tell you — categorically — that killing him will be the kindest thing you can ever do for him.”
Daine did not reply, merely drawing her greatsword in preparation.
They lined up in front of Donal, the three members of the Cackle tucked in behind Daine. The old man looked like he might say something else, but then he smiled broadly and clapped his hands together, then moved them apart, creating a dark tunnel in the air.
“Go get him!” he shouted, and then pushed the portal outwards.
It hovered between his hands and then expanded, swooping out to envelop the four figures. In an instant, they were gone.
Donal stood alone for a moment, the smile collapsing in on itself until only remnant remained.
“Please make it worth it,” he said. Eyes filling with tears.
Chapter Fifty-Five
“Unstoppable Momentum”
Daine stepped through the portal, taking a moment to orientate herself.
Her first glance took in the expansive interior of the covered structure they had stepped into. The sheer size of the tent was striking, easily twenty feet across. At its centre, a robust wooden table grabbed her attention, laden as it was with a schematic of Swinford and various documents, surrounded by a handful of portable stools and benches.
Daine assumed the portal had manifested them directly into the Stonehand’s command post.
So far, so good.
Donal’s worst-case scenario had been for the attack group to appear at the precise moment the Blade of Ruin was addressing the entirety of his troops. Despite everything, Daine felt a slight — an ever-so-slight — easing in her tension at seeing that had not come to pass.
Looking up, she judged that the tent’s roof was at least three again of her height, supported by a sturdy wooden frame. The heavy canvas walls were etched with complex runes. At least some of them were presumably fire-retardant ones, considering the plethora of open flames dotted around the space. The flickering light from these candles and oil lamps cast long, sinister shadows across the floor and against the walls.
To one side, there lay a modest bedding area with a cot and blankets, surrounded by wooden chests and leather pouches, presumably for storing scrolls and supplies. Daine’s mind flashed back to an ill-advised visit to Old Gant’s sad little room when it had become clear he was near the end of his life. It was as if someone had frozen that memory in time and moved it wholesale to the corner of this tent. The accuracy was eerily precise, even down to the empty bottles of whisky piled by the cot.
The tension that had somewhat released its hold on Daine returned with a vengeance. Any doubts she harboured about whether this was actually her old master vanished.
Daine felt the others join her and begin to spread out.
In the final moment before their plan was implemented, she felt a gentle draft from the high placed ventilation flaps brush her face. Instinctively, she lifted her chin, letting the coolness run through her hair, the fresh breeze countering the warmth generated by the lamps. And easing the white-hot terror blooming inside her at seeing her target.
Old Gant stood directly ahead, facing away from her. His long, white hair spilt down the length of his back but looked flecked by streaks of red. As had been his custom when training his students, he wore a simple outfit of a black leather tunic and trousers. At his waist, in matching sheaths, she could make out his twin daggers. But if Daine knew her man, others would be secured under his arms and more again strapped around his thighs.
Daine shifted her gaze downwards. Gant appeared to be holding something in his right hand. Was it a ball wrapped in string?
Her eyes slid away from that strange sight to the other occupants of the room. There were, as expected, two guards at the tent entrance, one on either side, and they were facing outwards, away from the portal. Again, that was about as good an outcome as they could have hoped.
However, there were five others — three with outlandish weapons strapped to their backs and sides, and two who were clearly Mages of some sort — looking directly at them. Well, that was why there were more than just her here. Ignoring everyone else and trusting her companions to do their part, Daine charged towards the Stonehand.
Without any communication necessary, the Hyena and Jessica ran past her, each making directly for a Mage. Azam paused for a moment — as if weighing up the distance — then generated one of his spheres of explosive energy and threw it directly at the guards at the entrance.
The first of the Mages had just enough time for her eyes to open wide in shock before the Hyena leapt on top of her. The assassin’s legs wrapped around her waist, momentum propelling the two of them to the floor in a muddle of flailing limbs. In a blink, though, the Hyena was sat on top of the Mage, plunging repeatedly downwards into her chest with thin stilettos.
Jessica vanished, then reappeared behind the second Mage — a tall, bearlike man — and looped a thin metal cord around his neck. The two of them disappeared, then returned again and again in different parts of the tent as the Stepper viciously garroted him. Despite the bigger man’s increasingly panicked efforts, the assassin eventually sawed straight through his thick neck and removed his head.
“No matter what else you find when you get there, you kill the Mages first,” Donal had drummed into them over and over again. “You shatter a glass cannon long before it gets a chance to fire. Once that danger is removed, then you see what else needs to be done.” In the time is had taken them to die, Daine had taken no more than two steps towards Gallant.
And yet, for all his legendary reactions, the man had not moved.
The sound of an explosion, followed by appalling screams, at the entrance suggested Azam had completed the first stage of his mission. He had successfully cut off any further immediate support. The flickering light of those roaring flames and the billowing smoke added to the growing chaos in the tent.
And still, the Stonehand did not react.
Daine adjusted her grip on the hilt of the greatsword and swept her arms backwards, just two short steps away from him being within reach.
Now that the Hyena and Jessica had finished with their first victims, they had moved to engage the other three figures in the room before they could intercept Daine’s assault on their commander. The Hyena threw a bottle of something foul-smelling at a man reaching for a crossbow — he quickly lost interest in doing anything other than screaming — and began duelling with a swordswoman who had drawn a long curved blade. The assassin’s knives flicked and deflected the wild swings of her target, seeking to close the distance as soon as possible.
Jessica made for the final other figure in the room and cracked out a whip to ensnare the axe he was bringing to bear. She tugged on it, seeking to disarm him, but he was too strong, and she was forced to release her weapon. She vanished and reappeared a few steps further back, reassessing her options for attack.
Daine could not spare any further attention for her companions, though, as her sword completed its backswing and began to careen forward, the white-framed head now finally within her range.
Her slash chopped onwards, empowered by every moment of fear, of anger, and of pain that this man had ever caused. The attack was fuelled by the nightmares of a young girl, by the Strength of a Knight and the determination of a Templar. It was the most potent attack she had ever launched, and she knew in her heart that nothing could possibly turn it aside.
Her sword sang through the air, streaking towards its destination with unstoppable momentum.
And still, the Stonehand did not move.
But then, at the moment the blade kissed his neck, Daine became aware of the rattling of dice in a cup in her head. The noise lasted no more than a moment, and then it was followed by a throw. She heard the cast clatter as if across a stone floor and come to a halt.
The Goddess gasped.
And Gallant Stonehand, her friend, her mentor, her horror, was no longer in the path of her sword.
He was not stood before her at all.
He was instead behind her, twin daggers licking forward to drive and twist deep into her back, severing her spine in two places. He left the blades in place, preventing her from healing and repairing the damage.
Then, her legs no longer her own, she was crumpling downwards with just his whispered words in her ear. “Still too slow, dearest Daine. Too slow, by far.”
*
Alone in the sewers, Donal felt the casting of the dice.
He tried to offer to trade in every one of a millenia of favours to any deity who would listen. None were willing to intercede. He reached out with every power he possessed — and many he should not — to seek to alter the course of that cast.
But his efforts were rejected, and the dice came to a rest.
He did not hear the gasp of the Goddess, but he surely made out the laughter of the Dark God.
And then he felt the twin blows bisect Daine’s spine and foresaw all their doom.
“Taelsin,” he mentally sent to his friend and master, “she failed. Tell Souit to move immediately to the evacuation plan and let Lady Stelton know the portal in the sewers is open for the civilians to flee. I’ve left enough power there for them to all get through if they’re quick.” He thought of what would be appropriate final words to a man — in his more unguarded moments — he liked to pretend was his son. But there did not seem to be any. “Take care, Mayor Elm. I hope this buys you enough time.”
Donal ran his hands through his hair and smoothed down the collar of his cape. It was so important to make a suitably dramatic entrance, after all.
And, as the last of its energy dissipated, he stepped through the Stonehand’s portal and into the command tent.
Chapter Fifty-Six
“A Lion in Winter”
Donal stepped through the portal and took in the scene before him.
Despite everything, he felt a little spurt of triumph that it seemed most of what he had predicted had come to pass.
Near his feet, the corpses of two berobed figures suggested the Hyena and Jessica had followed his advice and taken the spellcasters off the table with alacrity. Those two were currently engaged with the only other enemy occupants of the room, and whilst the fighting was fierce, Donal did not feel any intervention would be necessary.
Azam was standing in the middle of a fire blazing away in the tent’s entrance, tossing further balls of energy out into the night. By his loud laughter and shouts of encouragement to those outside, if he was worried about what was happening behind him, he was hiding it well. The screams from those beyond had a panicked quality, suggesting an organised and concerted effort to charge the tent was still quite some time away.
Everything was going exactly to plan.
And then Donal turned to the centre of the room, to the thin figure of an elderly man standing over the motionless body of the Lady Darkhelm.
Well, all apart from this bit, he thought. Can’t win them all.
With that, Donal reached into the pockets of his robe and withdrew — quite literally — his trump cards. He clutched a deck of cards in each hand, but these were far from the typical collections of numbers and pictures used in card games. Each was etched with a rune — some already glowing faintly with arcane energy — ready to be employed in this last, desperate gambit.
Across his exceptionally long life, Donal had always been fascinated by runes. No matter the Class he inhabited, nor the role he sought to play, he was always careful to dedicate time to further his appreciation of the art. And over the centuries, he had developed quite the unusual collection.
Most were entirely trivial, quality-of-life runes. The sorts of things that an effective functionary might etch around a castle so that its latest Grand High Lord was never without light, heat or a space in which no one could eavesdrop upon his latest torture victim. Indeed, Donal had spent many happy hours in Swinford using his encyclopedic runic knowledge to forestall some of the depredations of time on the fabric of that once-great City.
