a chain, mirror bright and as long as my leg.
'Reload, if you like. I'm in no rush.'
I stared at him in empty panic and fought my way through the nerves, through the antiseptic terror of his defense. I flicked my wrist and emptied the shells, clattering, to the floor. Calmly as I could, I pinched bullets out of my belt and seated them in the empty chambers. He watched me with idle amusement.
'If you prefer, we can start again. I can go back to my wall, there. Light a cigarette-'
'What happened to the darkness, Nathaniel? What happened to the expedient blade in the middle of the night?' I slapped the cylinder shut. 'Why are you toying with me?'
He bowed ever so slightly. 'A final kill, Eva. We have been counting the days, praying for the sheath to be dropped, the cloak pulled aside. There have been many deaths in these two hundred years. In the house of Morgan, in the temple of Amon. Even in the halls of Alexander. But it is drawing to an end. I am savoring the last bite of a marvelous feast.'
'The halls of Alexander? You would kill your own?'
'They are not all our own. Very few are, in fact. We kill those who must be killed.'
'And Morgan? Why must we all be killed?'
'You come here, and do not know the answer? No, I think you do. Come,' he raised a hand. 'The feast is getting cold. Let us dine.'
I slapped the cylinder closed then holstered the revolver. I was never a lady of the bullet, anyway. Blade was my soul, and blade my heart. I raised my hands, and the sheath fed me my sword. Nathaniel laughed.
'Excellent! I would have it no other way.' He stopped spinning his chain and held it limp in front of him. The links of the chain were sickle sharp and barbed, oddly formed to let the chain lay nearly flat when it was still. It swung slowly by his chest like a pendulum. With a quick hand he snapped it to one side. The chain stiffened, the links collapsed together, and suddenly he was holding a sword, full of barbs and gaps and links and sickle-shaped cruelty. Idly, he twirled it in his hand, and it droned as it cut the air.
'What amuses me is how little curiosity you show for your brothers of Morgan. Tomas? Isabel? You have yet to ask if they still live, or if I have named their judgment and declared their-'
I struck, without invokations or rage, without thought. I was mesmerized by the pattern of his blade, its path burned into my mind, its farthest orbit, weakest point, just as I stepped forward and put my blade neatly into his chin. Just nicked it, like an accident you might have while shaving.
He stumbled back, blood coursing down his throat and onto that gloriously bleached doublet. The mask went flying, to crack against Amon's charred boat. It ended up on the floor, spinning like a dropped plate. I barked out a laugh.
'Show your face, coward,' I said, and swung in again.
* * *
He answered, his face angry, the blade swift as he countered my stroke, countered again, then riposte. I took the stroke on the wide, flat face of my sword and twisted the handle to throw off his weight. I lunged again. He back-stepped from the attack, and collected himself.
'Not talking so much now, eh?'
'Why do you attack without your invokations, Eva Forge?' he chided. 'Has Morgan left you? Have you lost your faith in the old Warrior?'
'I don't need the rites to put down a dog. Even Alexander's dog.'
He settled his face, assumed a stance of defense, and swung the chain-sword in a close dance. That drone hummed off the high ceiling and drowned out Amon's unnatural chorus.
'You seek to unsettle me. You think that because we fight in shadows, we do not know how to fight. You demand proof.' He skittered forward in a series of quick half-steps, his balance always at center. 'Proof you shall have.'
Proof I had. I didn't think that, of course. I knew damn well they could fight. Elias had put up a fight. I had crossed blades with Nathaniel's boys over Simeon's body. He could fight. I just didn't want to waste my noetics this early on. Reserves for the long battle. If he was going to gloat, then I was willing to stretch it out.
I did just enough to keep him away, and he did just enough to keep me moving. We retreated across the chamber in a slow circle, blades dancing through sparks, the room quiet except for the metal strike and the drone of his blade, the scratch of grit under our feet as we moved. One circuit, and I had seen enough.
'Barnabas, never dead, son of hammers, son of light,' I incanted, and the room began to hum with power. 'Elias, green life and dark soil, warrior of wood and woad, blood feeding the life of us all. Isabel, ink-stained and careful shot.' As I spoke the timber of our blades changed, the drone muting to be replaced by the high song of my sword. The sparks began to mix with a clinging fog that trailed my swings. The air cracked. My voice snapped like a flag in a hurricane. 'Heridas, who stood at Chelsey Gate against the Paupers' Tyrant, dead for a day and still fighting. Bloody Jennifer, two swords against the night, never to see the dawn!'
The tide shifted, and we balanced against each other, blade for blade, stroke for stroke, countering each counter and stepping past each heart strike.
'What sort of invokation is that, Paladin? I know the names of your dead.'
'The dead and the living,' I spat. 'Simeon, barrels hot, chamber dry, his eyes the eyes of heaven, his bully the hammer of gods. May the warrior never die!' And the chamber echoed with my voice, the warrior never die, never die… 'Jeremiah Scourge, last of the living shield-brethren of dying Morgan, carrying the flashing steel into the Straits of Armice, unyielding as the Rethari swarmed. The massacre at Middling Hall, the charge of Maltis, the siege of Or'bahar. The hundred years of the warrior, and a hundred more, and a hundred more!' I bullied into him, blade swinging wildly, fire in my eyes and in my hands, wicking from my sword as I struck again and again. 'A hundred years forever, and may the warrior never die!'
He was in earnest now, falling back, sweat and blood dripping down his face and neck. Reckless with his blade, he left openings that I widened, revealed weaknesses that I pursued. He fell back, and I advanced, the warrior in me rising like the sun.
'I bind myself to the legions of the blade, to my brothers of sword and sisters of bullet. To the thousand years of Morgan, those who fell in his service, and those who fell in his defense. I bind myself to the battle unending, the hunt eternal.' I spat the words, my voice rising into a crescendo of mad fury. 'To the living sons of the warrior, and to the dead.' And with each oath I struck, sword hammering against his defenses in glory and light. 'To the dead! To the dead of Morgan! The dead of Morgan! Morgan!'
I threw him back and blood spilled out from his chest. He gasped and brought his sword around to defend. I hammered it aside and drew blood again. He was on his knees in the presence of the warrior god. I howled and rushed in.
The blade came from nowhere. From the shadows. It took me in the back, sliding smoothly between doublet and ribs, hot metal straight through me, and when it left there was nothing to fill that void but cold. I stumbled. I fell.
Nathaniel dragged himself to his feet, supporting his weight on the sword of chain. His servant ghosted behind me, shaking blood from his weapon and muttering invokations. I was on one knee, trying to get my breath against the pressure of the blood that was filling my mouth.
'The dead of Morgan,' he said, and spat. 'Morgan, warrior of the field. Champion of the people. Damned butcher.' He raised his sword. 'Hail to Morgan, the Brother Betrayed. Long may he die.'
I twisted and swung my sword behind me, rising on one foot, just enough strength to drive the sword into the other ghost's belly, punch it in deep. The air smelled like piss and blood. I drew the sword out and up, rasping the blade against his ribs before exiting the steaming corpse just below the throat. He gurgled, already dead, slumped to the side. My return strike blocked Nathaniel's startled swing, corrected, then two quick punches that put the sharp base of the blade into his thigh, then his belly. We fell apart, leaving a pool of spilled life between us.
'The dead of Morgan,' I burbled. He stared at me, face pale as his cloak, lips quivering. I was on my knees, gasping, grating my teeth.
Nathaniel leapt to his feet, hand on his opened guts, and invoked something short and arcane. Two quick steps and he was in the air, off the wall and higher up, disappearing into one of the archways. He left his sword and
