“Wait!” he cried out, little more than a whisper, waving his one good limb at the knight behind him.
To his surprise, the Exemplar halted her attack. Still, he could feel her hovering over him.
“Speak your last, Avan, while you still have the breath to do so.”
“I would die on my feet,” he said, barely able to get his tongue to form the words, “not like this.”
He heard Jacquial mutter a curse but the knight drowned her out. “Then stand, Prodigy. Stand and meet your last moment as a warrior. Avraxas will have your soul but, by all means, meet your end on your feet if it eases your passing.”
Gryl drew his knees beneath him, his face cradled in the crook of his arm. Out of sight of the Exemplar and her men, Gryl bit down and ripped a chunk of meat from his forearm nearest his wound, sealing it inside his mouth with a sour grimace. When at last he managed to stand, the floor slippery with his claret, he straightened and met the cold gaze of the Exemplar as best he could.
“Any last words?”
Gryl shook his head, wiping the blood from his mouth.
Jacquial loosed a bitter, “Noooooo,” and continued her futile efforts to pry the bars from the wall, motes of gray dust her only reward.
The knight stepped forward and aimed her blade at Gryl’s heart, cruelty slowing her hand, the need to make him suffer apparent. It was what he’d hoped for.
The prodigy slumped the moment the sword came at him and the thrust that would have ended his life pierced his shoulder instead. He screamed and dug his hand beneath the knight’s gorget and clasped the rim of her breastplate, tugging at it with all his might. She cursed and shoved him away, ripping her sword loose and sending him tumbling to his back. He stayed where he fell as the Exemplar examined herself.
The woman chuckled after seeing he’d done nothing more than smear his life’s blood down her chest. “Your last act of defiance was to sully my armor?” she asked. “I expected more from you, though I know I shouldn’t have. You aren’t the first of your kind to die at my hand but I’d hoped for a challenge this time around. The empress believed you were different for some reason, assured me of it, in fact.” The Exemplar advanced. “I’m sorry to have to report otherwise.”
Gryl grinned and met her stare. “Perhaps you should have listened more closely to your master.”
She raised her blade, ready to deliver the final blow, only to have a tremble rattle her frame and stay her hand. Her eyes went wide behind the slits of her helm, her free hand clanging against her breastplate as if hoping to break its shell. “What have you done?”
Gryl said nothing.
A hiss sounded beneath her armor and the exemplar gasped, stumbling and slamming her back into the cell. Wisps of black smoke billowed up through her helmet, spilling from the eye slits. Jacquial pulled the knight’s sword arm through the bars and bent it backward, leveraging it against the bars and jerking downward. There was a sharp snap, the sound of a tree branch giving way, and the exemplar shrieked while the guild lord pinned her in place on the ground before the cell.
The knights who’d stood at the doorway in arrogant complacence came alive and burst into the dungeon. Gryl, using his blood to grease his passage, slid across the floor and grabbed the dagger the Exemplar had forced from his hand. He clasped trembling fingers about its hilt and batted the woman’s flailing arm aside. As quick as he could, he slit the leather clasps on the side of her breastplate and rolled away.
“Lift her,” he shouted.
Jacquial did as ordered, not questioning his intentions. She ignored the woman’s screams and yanked the knight to her feet by her shattered shoulder. Her blade clattered to the floor. The Exemplar’s cuirass fell away as she was pulled upward, exposing the charred cavity of her torso, scored and blackened by the magic of the scars Gryl had slipped beneath her armor. Fire burned in the well of her chest.
The flames, not beholden to the laws of nature, erupted outward as soon as the steel carapace holding it in place was removed, a geyser of fiery energy spewing forth. The knights at the front of the charge caught the burst head on. They were dead before they could even scream. Like candles tossed in a campfire, the men withered and melted, flesh running in steaming rivulets, spreading their remnants over the floor. The tabards of those behind them caught fire, driving the knights back, the men struggling to keep the flames from spreading and taking hold.
Jacquial shoved the scorched remains of the Exemplar after them once they’d retreated, the fire gnawing at her insides and lapping at the floor where she fell.
“Not to sound ungrateful, but you didn’t happen to grab the keys off the guard before you set the place alight, did you?” the lord asked.
Gryl glanced to the doorway and groaned at seeing the waxen outline of what had been the sentry guarding the cell. “I… did not.” The only entrance to the cellar engulfed in supernatural fire that would burn for days before exhausting itself, he turned to Jacquial and let out a weary sigh. “I meant to rescue you, if that counts for anything.”
“Definitely the thought that counts,” she answered, offering up a weak chuckle. “Still, all said and done, I’d be far more grateful if you actually pulled it off, you know. I’m needy like that.”
The heat prickled Gryl’s skin, smoke stinging his throat, as he looked for another way out. His gaze fell on the Exemplar’s breastplate, his mind churning as to how he could use it.
“The sword!” He spun and pointed at the thin white blade laying inside Jacquial’s cell. “Pass it to me.”
She scrambled over and grabbed the weapon, handing it to Gryl through the bars. Flames snapping at his back, he ran a hand across the same sigil the knight had when she’d cleaved through his blade and willed it to life. It replied without hesitation, the sword quivering in his grasp.
“Stand back,” he said, barely waiting for Jacquial to comply before he struck the bars of her cell. The sword cut through the iron as if it were parchment. Gryl swallowed his thrill at seeing the severed bar and struck again and again and again, cutting a hole in the cell door. He squeezed through to join the lord inside, doing his best to ignore the sharp edges that scraped skin from his wounded body.
“Uh, the idea was for us to escape, not to imprison yourself alongside me.”
Gryl chuckled and gestured toward the narrow windows set high on the back wall. The bars gleamed in the moonlight. “I found the key but I think it best you turn the lock. I’m a bit winded.” He handed her the blade, still vibrating in his palm.
Jacquial grinned. “Forgot about those.”
She snatched the sword and went to work. Once she’d rid the window of its bars, Jacquial climbed through and helped Gryl to follow, pulling him through the slim opening. They crept across the moist grass, staying low to avoid the blackened roil of smoke spilling from the dungeon, the prodigy clutching to her to keep from falling over.
Jacquial stopped after a moment and stared at the red-orange tongues licking at the cell they’d just abandoned. “What is it with you and fire?”
“Not everyone had toys to play with, you know.” He chuckled and nudged her toward the wall. “This way. We’ve a slaver to collect.”
Jacquial nodded and handed him the runesworn's blade. “Here. You may need this.”
He took it, gazing at the flickering metal. "I think I know just where to put this."
"I thought you might." A flicker of a smile broke through the soot smeared across her lips.
They set off over the wall as Mallister's manse burned behind them, lighting their way.
GROUND ZERO
An Alpha Unit Story
Kirsten Cross