“Kill them all,” Elyse said calmly. “Don’t let them escape.”
Isu was among the slavers, her dagger performing precise cuts while she cackled. She didn’t seem to care for justice; she was simply enjoying the chance to send them to their deaths. She lifted her hand, and an acrid, green smoke shot out from her palm. It enveloped a slaver, and he choked as his skin bubbled and putrefied. Rami ran him through with her sais before she plucked them out and pounced on the nearest slaving bastard.
My zombie Crusaders had been very powerful as living men, but they were easily twice as strong now that they were zombies. As the thug tried to stab Jandor, the zombie caught his wrist and yanked him in close for a headbutt with his great helm. When the man staggered back, Jandor smashed him with such a powerful gauntleted uppercut that the man’s head was half torn off his neck, opening up his throat with the sound of ripping flesh and spraying a torrent of blood as he fell.
Another Crusader blocked a wimpy punch from a slaver and picked the man up with both hands, held him high above his head for a couple of seconds, then slammed him down with such force that the man’s torso burst open, spraying everyone around him with gore.
A thug, in his desperate attempt to evade justice, broke free of a Crusader’s grip and went for Elyse instead.
She lifted her eyes to the heavens. “Lord of Light, hear my prayer!” she said with a voice that seemed to come from somewhere else, to stand out above the sounds of pain and panic without being too loud. A beam of moonlight shot down from the heavens and bathed her in its incandescence. Armored plating formed over her clothes, and the flanged mace in her hand became a two-handed warhammer.
As the thug screamed and charged her, his dagger raised high above his head, she darted in, her new warhammer gripped in her right hand. Moving with a newfound speed and agility, she angled her body in low and brought her weapon whipping up in a savage arc that caught the man on his chin, crushing half of his jaw and sending him flying up and back. As he landed, stunned, she pounced on him and finished him off with a merciless blow that cratered his face.
“Nice,” I said. I liked this Elyse.
“No one will evade justice today!” Elyse roared, her eyes aflame with the madness of battle. Behind her, one of my zombie Crusaders ripped a slaver’s head off his neck with his bare hands. It was quite a fitting backdrop.
The slavers’ escape attempts were as short-lived as they were futile. Within what must have been less than a minute, their pathetic rebellion had been put down, and my zombie Crusaders had ended their lives in a number of grisly ways.
Their souls flooded my body, leaving me feeling like a wineskin filled to bursting. Every fraction of my being pulsed with power, and I swayed on my feet like a drunkard who’d been imbibing for years on end.
“Let this be a lesson to all of you!” Elyse stood proudly before the hushed crowd with the Crusaders positioned behind her. “Slavery will never be tolerated in Erst again. Any citizen who even contemplates committing such a crime will meet the same fate as these criminals. As Bishop of Erst, I hereby declare that, in accordance with the Lord of Light’s own scriptures, anyone found to be involved in slavery in any manner will be sentenced to death! Does anyone here wish to challenge this?”
The entire crowd was completely silent. Nobody was going to say anything, not after what they’d just seen.
“Get out of here then,” Elyse snapped. “Go enjoy what’s left of Saint Jorl’s night. And don’t forget to pray before the sun comes up.”
Murmured hasty prayers came from the crowd before the first of them scurried away. Elyse stayed on the platform, watching them leave. When they had finally dispersed, she jumped off and walked over to me with a wide smile on her face. Her warhammer became the flanged mace, and her armor melted away.
“How did I do?” she asked. “Was I a convincing figure of authority?”
“Convincing enough for me,” I answered, “and just about everyone else in Erst, I’m sure. Damn, you were pretty savage up there—no mercy!”
“Brutal, uncompromising, and committed to hard justice,” Isu piped up. “And all those souls are now yours, Vance.”
“I must admit, I feel pretty good. You must miss it.”
Isu glared at me. “You forget what I once was.”
“Not at all. Which is why I’m keeping an eye on you.” I gave her a wink.
“You fight well,” Rami said to Isu.
The former goddess shrugged. “I suppose.”
Now that the slave market had been taken care of, and justice restored to Erst, it was time to go find the old fountain. Hopefully, it would give us some clues as to the whereabouts of Xayon’s body. But first, since I figured neither Xayon’s corpse nor the fountain were going anywhere…
“How about we take some time to unwind with a drink or two?” I suggested. “After all this being the long arm of Sacred Law, I’m feeling pretty parched.”
Elyse laughed. “You didn’t do anything.”
“What my Crusaders were doing was all me.”
“It wasn’t your body doing the fighting and killing, you just sat back and pulled the levers,” Rami said.
I chuckled and winked at her. “Fine, I just wanted an excuse to have a drink. There are a few hours left before dawn. And I think you would all agree that we best continue on our great quest when we’re least likely to come up against obstacles? I’d say dawn is probably the least busy time of day around the fountain on a night
