False Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) (32 page)

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 wide; his teeth ground together with such impossible force that they visibly twisted and swayed in bloody sockets.

“Time to go somewhere else, yes?” Widdershins mumbled. The swell of agreement from Olgun was almost strong enough to lift her off the carpet under its own power.

“Oh, good. I'd hate for us to argue at a time like this.” A brief grunt of exertion and she was up and running, diving through the shattered remnants of the window before Iruoch could even begin to draw near.

The world spun around her (and
not
in the direction she was tumbling), as exhaustion threatened to yank her back off her feet. She managed, if awkwardly, to roll upright and stagger forward. The courtyard, a simple square lawn with a variety of flowers in neat rows around the perimeter, was empty, suggesting that the others had wisely continued their flight.

Well, empty but for…

“Julien?!”

He was heading back her way, his left hand clutching the bloody wound in his side but his right wrapped about the hilt of his rapier. “I wasn't about to leave you alone to—”

“Chivalry later!” she shouted as a dark silhouette appeared in the bishop's window. “Desperate fleeing now!”

They fled.

Stumbling, leaning, and sometimes falling against each other, Widdershins and Julien passed through the narrow archway at the far end of the courtyard, shoving the thin, ivy-decorated gate from their path with enough force to loosen the squeaking hinges. They rounded the corner of the church, Widdershins propping herself up against the wall when it appeared that both of them might fall. She scraped her palm against the stone a time or two, and didn't even feel it; just another ember in what was currently a bonfire of pain.

The others awaited them in the road beyond, and a sorry band they made. Only Igraine and Paschal hadn't been wounded in the fray, and the constable, of course, still wore a sling from his earlier injury. Brother Ferrand, limping from where Widdershins had plowed into him, carefully supported the bishop, who was struggling to focus past the blood that trickled from his scalp wound. The monk was tugging on Sicard's sleeve, trying to entice him into flight, but apparently the bishop refused to leave the others behind.

It was almost enough to make Widdershins believe he was genuinely sorry for what had happened.

They were, the lot of them, the only people in the street. The crowds that should have been present—not just parishioners lingering after morning services, but the early ebb and flow of the day's traffic—were absent. Dropped baskets and parcels littering the street, as well as the occasional abandoned wagon and confused-looking draft horse, suggested that the lane had been rapidly abandoned.

Probably due to the gunshots and other sounds of violence from within the church, Widdershins decided. Which meant they could probably expect a Guard patrol within a few more minutes, for all the good they'd do.

“There!” She pointed a shaking finger toward the nearest wagon, a dilapidated thing of rough wood and cracked wheels, hitched to a particularly bored-looking roan. The horse flicked its mane at the sound of her approach, offered a flat and largely uninterested glance, and then returned its attention to whatever sorts of daydreams the average Galicien beast of burden preferred.

“Uh…” She could feel Julien's disbelief, but it was actually Brother Ferrand who voiced the first overt objection. “I, um, I don't think that we can outrun the creature in
that
. Maybe—”

“Would you just
go
?!” Widdershins shouted at him. And as none of the others had any better ideas, they went.

Widdershins reluctantly pushed away from Julien—yanking his rapier from its scabbard as she did so, and ignoring his yelp of protest—and jogged unsteadily ahead, reaching the wagon a few seconds before any of the others. “Just go with it,” she gasped to Olgun. “We—”

“There!”

She didn't know who had shouted the warning, but a quick glance back was certainly enough to tell her
why
. Iruoch was emerging from around the corner to the courtyard and moving toward them with his usual erratic, impossible pace. At least he was actually on the
ground
, not the church wall, but his jumbled dance steps put the lie to any pretense of humanity he might otherwise have made.

Widdershins lashed out with Julien's rapier and Olgun's power. Hemp and leather parted beneath the edge of the blade—an edge that, really, shouldn't have been keen enough for such a neat slice—and then, ignoring the startled cries of her gathering companions, she carelessly dropped the weapon.

Not that it would have done her much good anyway. No, she bent forward, her numb and exhausted fingers a blur as they worked, and prayed that Olgun could keep her moving fast enough to make this happen.

A few more seconds, just a few more…

She heard the patter of rapid footsteps cease with a crunch, saw a shadow fall across her, and knew without looking that Iruoch had leapt toward her, arms outstretched. With a final desperate surge—the very last bit of strength that either she or her god could muster—she, too, took to the air, bounding not out of the creature's path, but directly toward him!

They collided in midair, and the startled faerie didn't quite have time to grab at his enemy before they both tumbled once more to earth, each landing in a crouch, staring intently at one another.

“What,” Iruoch asked, head cocked sharply to one side, “was
that
supposed to…”

He blinked, peering over Widdershins's shoulder toward the horse; toward the rope harness that no longer led to the wagon, but instead stretched across the ground toward the two opponents. One of those spindly fingers rose to poke at the awkward noose of hemp that now lay around his neck.

Widdershins stood, smiled, and raised the strip of leather reins that she'd cut free at the same moment she'd sliced through the rope.

“Oh, phooey,” Iruoch said.

Widdershins turned and snapped the leather, with a whipcrack, across the animal's chestnut haunches. A startled whinny and the horse was off, galloping through the abandoned streets. The rope snapped taut, and Iruoch, too, was gone, dragged across the dirt and cobblestones behind the animal's mad dash.

Again she turned, this time into a rising tide of disbelieving stares. She shrugged and tossed the rapier in a gentle arc toward Julien. He caught it awkwardly, apparently unable to tear his gaze from Widdershins to the blade.

“We really need to go,” she told them.

She got nothing but a few scattered blinks for her trouble.

“No, really,” she insisted. “That's only going to buy us a few minutes. We need to not be here when he gets back.”

More blinking, more staring.

Widdershins threw up her hands, grumbled something, and then proceeded down the street at a brisk pace, trusting the others to fall in behind her.

They did, but by the time they'd reached the Flippant Witch quite a few blocks away, the others hadn't said a word.

And they were
still
staring at her.

Nor was there a great deal of discussion about what had just happened immediately
after
they arrived, because Widdershins and Robin had spent a good twenty minutes just holding each other and alternating between laughter and tears.

Given that it remained early in the morning, and thus outside normal business hours for an establishment of this sort, the tavern was empty of customers. The group had pushed two of the tables together for use as a makeshift hospital bed. Igraine and Ferrand, using torn linens for bandages and various spirits—the cheaper ones, naturally—as disinfectants, had done their best to treat the various and sundry injuries. They couldn't do much about the deep bruises or other aches, but the gash on the bishop's head, the wound in Julien's side (thankfully shallower than it had first appeared), and the torn skin on Widdershins's arms had all been cleansed (with only a modicum of screaming and threats) and tightly wrapped.

The common room now smelled fiercely of alcohol, sweat, and greasy smoke; it was lit only by a handful of lanterns, as all the shutters were tightly latched, and was already growing uncomfortably warm. Widdershins and Robin sat side by side on one of the longer benches; Julien on the “operating table”; Renard on the bar, where he'd helped himself to a jug of something or other; and the others in the tavern's various chairs. The Finders who'd accompanied Renard on his rescue mission (for which Widdershins had already tearfully thanked him about a thousand times) loitered on the streets outside, where they could shout a warning if danger approached.