False Covenant

Everything. She-they-had hit Iruoch with absolutely everything they had, everything they could muster. And he'd laughed it off. Oh, she'd made her mark, made him bleed to the extent that he could bleed, but nothing more.

She felt the weight around her shift as one of the men with whom she'd collided-she neither knew nor cared which-hauled himself up and to his feet. She was now free to move, and so she did, rolling over and curling into a tight ball, face pressed to the leg of the bishop's desk. As the earlier rage had seemed to come from beyond, to belong to someone else, so too did the hopelessness nipping and gnawing on the edges of her soul. For a moment, Widdershins-who had watched the slaughter of two dozen of her fellow worshippers, who'd lost the two people closest to her barely six months ago, who had faced not only betrayal but a literal demon without giving up-Widdershins surrendered. Eyes squeezed tight against both sight and tears, she abandoned the world to do as it would. To do with her as it would.

But only for a moment.

It wasn't the peculiar music of combat that dragged her back, kicking and screaming, to herself. It wasn't the cackles and nonsense rhymes of the creature she so hated, nor the grunts and groans of pain from her allies-not even when she recognized, with a faint spark of concern, Julien's voice among them.

It was, in his own way, Olgun. It was always Olgun.

It was Olgun's acquiescence; the sense of resigned despondency that flowed through her, merging with and augmenting her own. She'd given up-and so had he.

He could not fight without her, no longer had it in himself to try. If Widdershins surrendered, so did Olgun.

And she knew, as she pried her eyelids open and dragged herself to her feet, that she couldn't do that to him.

The scene before her was just about as awful as she could have expected. Julien was slumped against the wreckage of one of the bookcases, half-covered in fallen texts and tomes, struggling to pick himself up. Blood drenched the left half of his tunic and had even soaked through his tabard, though Widdershins couldn't clearly see the injury itself. Brother Ferrand held the bishop's staff of office and was jabbing it as a makeshift spear, but proved unable to get close enough to do any good. Paschal, who no longer had a rapier and whose injured arm would have prevented him from using it to full effect if he did, was struggling desperately to stay out of everyone's way while he fumbled through reloading his flintlock. The Church guard-Martin, was it? — hung limp from the wall beside the door, where he'd been pinned with his own broken halberd. Portions of his face hung in tattered ribbons: a blotch of carnage that was a near-perfect match to one of Iruoch's inhuman hands.

Iruoch himself crouched on the very edge of the table, a position that should have sent the furniture toppling, but of course did nothing of the sort. He lashed out in all directions, turning his head at impossible angles to keep a watch on every one of his opponents, but they had learned-though too late for some-to stay well beyond his reach. The phantom children giggled, and Iruoch himself was chanting, “Monks and soldiers, thieves and priests! Toys and games and snacks and feasts!”

All this she absorbed in an instant. What took her longer to grasp was what the two priests were doing-and, more importantly, the implications.

Sicard and Igraine both stood perhaps seven or eight feet from their enemy; he by the desk, not far from Widdershins herself, she near the portraits, opposite where Julien had fallen. Both stood with their holy icons raised, reciting prayers and paeans to the gods of the Hallowed Pact. Sicard's emphasized Vercoule, of course, while Igraine's were devoted mostly to the Shrouded God, but both were broad enough to encompass other divinities as well.

And they were working! This was no magic as Widdershins understood it; she saw no flashes of light, felt no power such as when Olgun worked his miracles through her. But Iruoch cringed and flinched from them as they spoke, turning his squinting face away.

That, then, brought back to mind the sights she'd failed to absorb earlier: Iruoch's abbreviated steps, his apparent discomfort upon entering the chamber. “It's the church,” she whispered to Olgun, her voice shaking from all that had happened, all she'd seen. “Gods, that stupid rhyme was right!”

No mortals, magics, blades, or flames; He only fears the Sacred Names.

Maybe the unnatural aura of this unholy creature of the fae was enough to make even gods recoil in discomfort, but the same was true in reverse. That was why he'd focused on Widdershins and Olgun, why he'd taunted her specifically with his murder of the young nobles. They alone, among all he'd encountered, were…Well, a threat if they were lucky, but at least an irritant.

So maybe, if the two priests could just hold him for long enough…

As if mocking her for daring to plan, to hope, Iruoch chose that moment to act. He leapt from atop the table, flipping around so that his feet connected with the ceiling. There he hung, if only briefly, his coat still falling from his shoulders to his ankles in defiance of all natural laws. His spidery fingers closed on the nearest chair and tossed it across the room with brutal force. Sicard grunted, wood splintered, and the bishop fell, bleeding from an ugly gash across his forehead.

A second flip and Iruoch stood upon the carpet, stalking with stiff but inexorable steps toward Igraine. Apparently, whatever power the priests might have held over him together could not be maintained by one alone. The Finder began to sweat, and her voice grew louder, but the creature would not slow.

“Ready, Olgun?”

The god's reply, a muffled surge of doubt and hesitation, was not precisely reassuring. Nevertheless, Widdershins felt the familiar not-quite itch of his power flowing through her, suffusing her, brightening the air around her. One deep breath, to steady herself; a second, since the first was rather less effectual than she'd hoped; and Widdershins lunged.

No weapon in hand, no blade or even bludgeon held before her, she crashed into Iruoch as though catapulted, only steps away from Igraine. Guided by Olgun's touch, she struck, again and again, her hands a blur. She punched, bare-handed, at the creature's head; jabbed stiffened fingers into the soft spots at his throat, under his jaw, under his ribs, even at his eyes. Her intent wasn't to kill, not even to cripple. Widdershins was no brawler, and though she'd survived more than one fistfight in her time, she wouldn't have known how to render such blows fatal even if she'd tried. No, her goal was diversion. Her goal was pain.

Her goal was to strike Iruoch with every iota of power Olgun could give her, counting on the touch of his divinity itself to accomplish what blades of steel and balls of lead could not.

And to a degree, it worked! With every blow, Olgun's power swelled through her, overwhelming the faint burn Widdershins felt with even the briefest contact against Iruoch's skin. He flinched from every punch, every jab, every slap, crying out as he had not done even when shot through the shoulder or skewered through the chest. For the first time, he truly appeared uncertain of what to do, of how to react to the not quite mortal, not quite divine assault.

She couldn't take the time to plan her next attack, or even to think at all. All sense of technique was gone, all grace abandoned. She struck, again and again and again, a blur of violence, not daring to let up for so much as a heartbeat. Someone was yelling Julien's and Igraine's names, ordering them to get everyone else out, and Widdershins never realized it was she herself who shouted. She could only hope that the sound of shattering glass and feet tramping on wood-presumably the desk-meant that they were, indeed, making their escape through what had previously been the bishop's courtyard window.

Still she pounded on the creature she hated more than anything else in the world, until her hands were numb, her knuckles bleeding, her fingernails ragged. Had she been able to continue thus for minutes more, it's possible she might have done Iruoch permanent damage.

But she couldn't. Not even Olgun's influence could grant Widdershins the level of endurance she'd need to beat this murderous faerie to death. Gradually but inevitably, she slowed; her strikes coming less frequently, less powerfully. It was only a little, but it was more than enough.

Iruoch screamed, a primal sound bereft of meaning, and hurled Widdershins off him with both hands. She felt a brief sensation of freedom, until her flight was rather rudely-and quite abruptly-interrupted by the ceiling. She groaned, coughing up a dollop of blood-tinted spittle, and then a second, larger mouthful as she slammed back to the floor.

Some few paces away, Iruoch was rising to his feet, and whatever sense of humor (however cruel and twisted) normally occupied a portion of his expression was utterly absent. His eyes were impossibly, inhumanly