In that moment the warrior in Nona roared again, finding a last touch of speed, a last gasp of strength. She threw the spear she’d being clinging to. It hit hard enough to bury a couple of inches of the blade between Raymel’s ribs, enough to keep it there, standing proud. Rising with the throw, Nona tumbled between Raymel’s legs, plucking a discarded knife from the ground between them and slashing at the back of his knee where the armour plate hung on one rivet, exposing flesh. She cut deep, slicing tendon and muscle. Unbalanced, Raymel fell with a roar. Ruli and Jula scrambled clear with no time to spare as he fell, crashing between them.
The head of Nona’s spear erupted from Raymel’s back as the butt of the haft hit the ground when he fell, arms out to take the impact. Nona scrambled up Raymel’s pale and naked back as the huge man surged to hands and knees with a muted roar. She plunged the knife between his shoulders. Again and again. The devils beneath his skin screamed and surged, strange and alien forms moving beneath his flesh. Nona sliced at them, like serpents beneath a rug. The blood that spurted from those wounds came scalding and stinking, staining her hands, filling her with a black agony beyond comprehension – but her rage proved larger than any hurt and still the steel in her fist rose and fell. Nona rode her enemy, her howls a counterpoint to his bellows.
And still, despite the ruin of his back, Raymel turned and rolled, reaching for Nona, the spear through his belly snapping against the ground. She scrabbled away on her back but one huge hand closed around her leg below the knee.
‘No!’ Nona drove her dagger through his wrist, fear warring with her anger now. ‘Die!’
‘I can’t die.’ He kept his grip, spitting blood, and drew her towards him. ‘They won’t let me!’ His red eye met her black ones and she knew in that moment that no wound would stop him. ‘I can’t die.’
In the last heartbeat remaining to her Nona spotted Yisht’s amulet gleaming blackly between two rocks almost within reach. She lunged for it, arms out before her. But for the blood she would never have made it. Raymel’s gore-slick hand slipped down her leg from knee to ankle, and with the tips of her fingers she snagged the iron sigil.
‘I can’t die.’ Raymel loomed above her on all fours. Nona sat up and pressed the black sigil to his forehead with her thumb. ‘Yes you can.’ Her other hand pulled the knife from his wrist and drove it up beneath his chin, hilt-deep.
Raymel roared. Nona saw the blade, gleaming behind his teeth. The sigil of negation seared into his forehead, corroding, falling apart, a red mist rising around it, and with a chorus of screams the devils fled his flesh. The grip on her ankle slackened and Nona rolled clear, twisting her knee as she yanked her leg free. Behind her, Raymel Tacsis collapsed, twitching to the ground, arms sprawled, the rocks about him drenched with crimson.
Epilogue
It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient bravery. For when Sister Cage of the Sweet Mercy Convent steps onto the battlefield courage is often found to be in short supply.
She came from the undercaves, and the Rock of Faith shuddered to its base as if deep in the blindness of its roots the Rock itself had given birth to her.
She rose amid the convent buildings, behind the great Dome of the Ancestor. The youngest of the novices were still within their dormitory, a single ancient nun seated at the door. They watched at their windows, open-mouthed. Years ago, before some of these girls were brought wet and screaming into the world, a different set of novices had watched Sister Cage first arrive at Sweet Mercy.
There is little of that child to be seen in Sister Cage. She stands shadowless in the torch-ringed courtyard and in one moment the novices know that the stories are true. She glances their way, each eye utterly black, as if that missing shadow had been poured into both until it filled her skull.
A distant scream rings out, past the Dome of the Ancestor, deep among the pillars. Sister Cage turns her head. She is deadly pale, strange in her beauty, her hair jet and jagged, cut close. Her habit is faded, stained, trailing ragged tails of cloth, but it is still red, and as she runs she looks like death descending from some high place.
The Pelarthi stood between the pillars, a loose halo around the place where Sister Thorn lay in her blood. Clera Ghomal stood above the fallen nun, that once and long ago she had in this place called friend. It seemed that the world revolved about them, the pillars spinning about the axis that stood between Thorn and Clera as all the stars in heaven revolve around a single point of darkness.
Clera Ghomal opened her mouth to speak, and said nothing, for the years rob us of the words for such moments, making each truth too bitter for the tongue, too heavy to be spoken. She stood among strangers before the body of a sister.
Sister Cage drew her sword as she ran towards the first of the Pelarthi. Sister Tallow had pressed the weapon’s hilt back into her hand less than an hour before. A long blade, thin, carrying a slight curve, its edge cruel enough to cut silence and make it scream.
She didn’t seek the Path, uttered no battle-cry, made no challenge. She spun through a group of six and the clash of her sword upon the metal collar of the last of their number announced her arrival.
Sister Cage stopped, head down, sword trailing at her side, a crimson line stretching out across the rock from its point.
Before her dozens of mercenaries turned their heads to see what threat faced them, and behind her six bodies collapsed to the stone, some not yet realizing they were dead, for death had come among them so swiftly.
Out in the convent compound Bitel rang out. Where Sister Thorn offered protection Sister Cage offered only war, utter and without quarter. The years when they had called her the Shield were long past. Sweet Mercy would open her doors. Everyone who drew breath within its walls would issue forth, from youngest novice to ancient nun.
Sister Cage lifted her face to her enemies, night-eyed, a narrow beauty among the scars, half a smile that promised her to be more than a little in love with death, and invited them to dance.
Bows creaked among the Pelarthi ranks, spears were lifted, knuckles whitened on the hilts of sword and axe. A hawk-eyed archer, her cheek torn and bloody where Thorn’s throwing star had sliced past, took aim at the new nun’s face.
They knew her by many names, the Pelarthi did, but ‘Cage’ held as much fear as any other. Cage. She would not release you: you would not escape. The tales said she made her first kill in the same year she learned to walk. They said she tore a boy apart with her bare hands and took his heart to show her mother.
Sister Cage found the torn-faced archer among the crowded strength of the Pelarthi and a knowing passed between them, between the archer’s cold grey eyes and the Sister’s black orbs. The arrow fell with a clatter. The archer turned without a word and began to push her way back, past the warriors of her clan. To her left another turned, a man thick with muscle, the names of his forefathers inked in runes along his arms. Two of those he pushed aside turned and ran with him.
A trickle became a flood. The Pelarthi left the scores of their dead, still scattered or heaped where Sister Thorn had killed them. They ran, pursued by a terror they couldn’t name, something larger than the sister who stood behind them, but perhaps as small as the disappointment in her eyes when they turned to flee.
Clera waited beside Ara as Nona strode towards them through the pillars. In the heavens above the first crimson stars dared open their eyes.