Holy Sister

‘You know me.’ Regol’s smile twisted. ‘Darling of the Sis. Everyone wanted me in their personal guard. I had to choose which invitation from which lord’s lady I wanted to accept.’

Even before he had finished speaking Nona knew that she would be asking no more questions. She had to get to the others. ‘A blue room. A room with blue light. I need to get there!’

Regol frowned. ‘I know it. Follow me.’

Nona followed, her pace even, the shipheart held in her two hands, as far out in front of her as she could reach. Its light infected the illumination of crystal lamps hung on golden chains, turning each corridor into something otherworldly and sending straying servants back screaming into the rooms they’d looked out from. She fixed her gaze on Regol’s retreating back and walked on.

He’s betraying you with some Sis whore.

The voice in Nona’s head was hers, but she didn’t own it.

What you had together was precious, sacred, holy. A different voice. Also hers. Also not hers.

Tear out his heart!

Nona felt her flaw-blades spring into being and a liquid rage replaced her blood. Her eyes fixated on the spot between Regol’s shoulder blades where Sister Tallow used to instruct her to sink the knife for best effect. She tore her gaze away and a glance at her hands confirmed her fears. Both were stained with devils of her own making, writhing in the shipheart’s glow.

She choked down a horrified laugh. To pass Abbess Wheel’s Spirit-test and take the black of a Holy Sister every novice had to be able to recite the thirteen methods for purging a devil and to give a detailed account of how the victim should be put to death, and how their corpse should be disposed of. The method depended on the nature of the possession and whether the devil was driven from the victim successfully or not. She’d not worn the black a week and here she was, unholy and unclean, fit only for killing.

Nona! A fresh voice shook her from her contemplation. This was a voice she didn’t own. One she knew. Urgent. Desperate even. Nona! Where are you?

Nona let the thread-bond take her. Anything to get away from the shipheart. She left just enough of herself behind to keep her upright, legs moving.

Kettle sprinted across a terracotta expanse, pushing herself to the limit. Ahead flames leapt, roaring from a shattered roof. She raced along a blazing rafter, too swift to burn. Bursting clear of the fire, she ran on with reckless haste. Apple needed her. She leapt from the slope of one tiled roof, across a broad street, and crashed into a roof on the opposite side. Hunska speed carried her up the slope, scattering broken tiles beneath her heels. She crested the roof ridge and before her lay the wideness of the King’s Road, crammed with Scithrowl warriors from one side to the other, their numbers stretching back a hundred yards to the shattered walls of Verity and the ocean of their countrymen still massed beyond. Their howls and screams shook the air, resonating in Kettle’s chest, an inhuman noise, at once terrifying, desperate, exhilarating.

The emperor’s lines stood ten ranks thick but the Scithrowl’s surging advance had isolated pockets of defenders. One such group lay beneath her, now twenty yards within the Scithrowl horde, trapped against the wall of some lord’s townhouse. The stranded defenders included a score of empire soldiers and all of Abbess Wheel’s party. Kettle’s gaze anchored itself on a glimpse of long red hair, the owner on the ground between Leeni and Alata who fought like demons to clear the space around her.

‘Apple!’

Without hesitation, Kettle threw herself down the far side of the roof and jumped from the guttering, trailing shadows. She drew her sword and dagger as she fell, dropping deeper into the moment than any but a full-blood hunska can.

Kettle’s descent became a flying kick that broke a man’s neck and she rode him to the ground, cutting the throat of a Scithrowl to the left and taking the head off the one to the right. Before that head had bounced its way from chest to back to ground among the tight-packed enemy, Kettle had struck half a dozen more blows and six of her foe were starting to pump their life’s blood from the wounds that would kill them. She caught glimpses of her sisters, a face here, spattered with blood and twisted with rage, another pale and serene. A novice bleeding so heavily from a head wound that Kettle couldn’t even recognize her but swinging her sword all the same. Nona knew Ara would never forgive her for having her left at the convent, but part of her rejoiced that her friend wasn’t here and that she didn’t have to watch her die.

Wrapped in hunska speed Kettle sidestepped a lazy knife thrust and leaned away from a swinging blade. A series of kicks and trips sent four more Scithrowl to the floor, clutching their spears. Kettle swirled the darkness around her, lent it teeth and poisoned it with fear. Lacerated by unseen edges and filled with horror, the nearest of the enemy threw themselves back, clearing space.

‘Apple!’ Kettle was on her knees at Apple’s side. The nun’s habit glistened above her ribs.

Apple reached for Kettle’s cheek with bloodstained fingers. ‘I knew you would come.’

Kettle’s hands were busy tearing the stubborn cloth to expose the wound. A spear thrust, a crimson hole in Apple’s pale flesh. A hole that bubbled and sucked. Kettle’s horror tore through Nona with such ferocity that she was nearly driven back to her body in the palace halls. The Grey Sister let none of it show on her face but worked calmly, maintaining her peripheral awareness of the battle around her.

‘It got your lung.’ Kettle took Apple’s hand from her face and set it to the wound. ‘Pinch it closed!’

Leeni staggered back, spraying blood and Kettle lunged back to her feet, seizing up her weapons again. Three huge Scithrowl with large round shields and short but heavy axes pursued Leeni’s retreat. Kettle dived between their legs, cutting tendons and muscle on her way through until she found herself in a forest of Scithrowl. Rage bubbled at the edges of her serenity. Apple lay dying. Apple! A gerant warrior tried to stamp on her while on all sides others changed their grip on their spears, preparing to stab down at her as she rolled and twisted.

A heavy boot kicked the sword from her hand. Kettle tried to pull venomed pins from her inner pocket but had to abandon the attempt to writhe between the first two of many spear thrusts. The Scithrowl hammered down at her in the same manner that peasants pound grain with milling poles.

In the midst of Kettle’s thoughts Nona could see the situation offered no hope for survival.

Give me your body. Nona reached out along Kettle’s limbs, seeking to drop the dagger she still clenched.

Save her, Nona. And in a show of ultimate trust Kettle surrendered her will entirely.

Nona abandoned the dagger and bunched Kettle’s hands into fists. In Nona’s own two hands she held a power so great that it was killing her, driving every talent she had past its maximum potential, burning her up. She drove forth the flaw-blades that had been part of her life for so long, not from her own flesh but from Kettle’s, and made of them not many blades but one from each hand, both as long as a greatsword. As they sprang from her flesh the nun’s blood painted their invisible length, giving them form.

Nona used Kettle’s breathtaking speed to lift her from the ground, flinging her arms wide and spinning as she rose. The Scithrowl fell to pieces on all sides, chainmail, shields, spears, swords, all sliced apart. Kettle cut a broad path back to Apple, restraining her butchery only when Alata came into view, battling several of the foe.