The three Blessed stared at each other across the platform. Elenya made the first move, sprinting toward the wails of the dead.
She launched a swift downward cut with the Blinking Blade in hand, shades of red flowing over her skin. The armored Blessed, Denmira, threw up the cross, now the size of a regular sword, deflecting the strike.
Wretch was already dashing around her, his strengthened tendons improving his already quick step. With Denmira’s free hand, she pointed toward him. A piercing scream bellowed through the room. It cut against his senses, producing a throbbing ache in his mind.
A tiny metal coffin was chained to Denmira’s armor, and from it two ghostly hands extended through the corroded surface. It was no larger than a child, bluish white, and constantly shifting between a humanlike face and a hollow skull.
A ghost?
It shot through the air toward Wretch with a screech, flying in an erratic pattern while Elenya launched another strike.
The bluish figure bolted straight for him, tiny hands stretched forward. Wretch dodged to the side, and bone pierced his forearms, growing into the shape of two blades. With a spin, he cut through the creature. The blade passed straight through it, and a shivering cold darted up his arm. The strength in his muscles evaporated. He glanced at it. The dark skin of his arm wrinkled, and the muscles atrophied in moments, spots of frost crawling over the limb. It looked as though it had aged decades.
Not going to take another hit from that.
With a rush of flame, the muscles bulged anew and the skin smoothed. But he had wasted time, and the ghost swerved with a screech, plummeting back toward him.
Elenya and the armored woman were locked in a furious clash. Elenya, with her one arm, led one cut into the next. Each strike was powerful enough to pierce metal, even with a simple weapon like the Blinking Blade. Still, her adversary kept pace, deflecting and sidestepping with impeccable movement.
When the short sword was stopped again by the black cross, Elenya pivoted and drove a kick into Denmira’s side. Her shin slammed against rusted plates, forcing the armored woman back. Elenya followed immediately, the blade whistling toward the narrow gap at the neck.
Denmira lunged forward instead, stepping inside Elenya’s range and driving the cross like a pike toward Elenya’s unarmored chest. Elenya twisted aside just enough for the spiked cross to scrape past.
Denmira pushed closer, wrapping one hand around Elenya’s back and the other around her only remaining arm. Beneath the fall of red hair, the hunter’s eyes widened.
A glow came from Denmira’s armored helm, and streaks of flame flowed from Elenya’s core into Denmira’s mouth. The hunter groaned and flexed her muscles, trying to break free from the grip. With two arms she might have escaped, but now she found herself overpowered.
The sound of squirming flesh bursting through skin echoed over the wails of the dead, and a massive claw, unnaturally formed from dozens of smaller counterparts, slammed into Denmira’s side, hurling her into the stone well at the center of the room.
Elenya staggered back. Wretch stood to her right, one massive arm plunging out of his back while the blue ghost whizzed around him. The new flesh squirmed and, just as quickly as it had appeared, plunged back into his body.
The tiny wraith gave a wail of fury and grief, darting to Denmira and circling her erratically as she struggled to her feet.
“Thanks,” Elenya said between heavy breaths. “She took a chunk of my flame.”
Wretch’s body was covered in patches of frost and atrophied skin. As he spoke, the ice cracked, and new skin grew over the dead spots. “I count three abilities. The aura of shrieks, the stealing of flame, and that ghost. She’s probably a Fireling with a Blessed weapon.”
“I’d be damned if the two of us can’t kill a lonely Fireling,” Elenya said, swinging the Blinking Blade in circles.
Denmira straightened, the tiny ghost twirling around her to the whispers of the shadows. Parts of her armor were buckled, but otherwise the metal exterior was undamaged.
“It’s not about her rank,” Wretch said. “She’s strong. That tiny coffin on her chest is anchoring the ghost. Break it, and we end this.”
Elenya nodded and blew hair from her eyes. “I’ll keep her distracted, then you move in?”
“Let’s go,” Wretch answered.
They moved at the same time, Elenya rushing forward and Wretch darting along the side. Denmira pointed toward him, and the ghost zigzagged in his direction with a buzzing scream.
The armored Blessed raised the cross to defend as Elenya crashed into her. Wretch flipped and dodged as the ghost zipped around him. At the center of the platform, sparks flew as Elenya and the armored woman fought, clashing weapons at a lightning pace.
Continuing to dodge the ethereal attacks, Wretch moved around the platform. The ghost shrieked in childlike fury, arcing high before diving straight at him. Wretch dashed and slipped behind Denmira. The chain holding the coffin stretched over her shoulder, rusted and brittle.
He hurled himself forward. The ghost missed him, vanishing through the floor. Before he hit the ground, he concentrated on a form around his flame, Milley. In a burst of ripping skin, arms twisted from his naked chest. They clutched the floor, and he shot forward with furious speed, crawling on his stomach like an oversized insect.
A projectile of corrosive spit launched from his throat, splashing against Denmira’s back. Elenya intensified her assault, forcing their enemy to remain turned.
The ghost shrieked somewhere behind him as he launched himself toward the back of the Blessed. He jumped, channeling every shred of focus into another form. The arms slithered back into his body as his left arm squirmed and cracked. He landed in a crouch on Denmira’s shoulder, gripping the armor.
His other hand grew an exoskeleton, and he slipped the still developing crab claw between the corroding links of the ancient chain. Denmira swerved, but it was too late. With a crunch, he clamped down on the metal links. Newborn muscles tensed, and chitin creaked. Then the chain snapped with a metallic ring.
Denmira slashed wildly. The cross grazed his chest as he flipped away and rolled to safety. He came up just in time to see Elenya bring the short sword down on the tiny casket on the ground.
With a crack and a screech, the adorned lid split. A tiny mummified figure rested inside, wrapped in linen. Elenya struck again, turning the coffin into twisted scraps of metal and broken bone.
With a gasp, the tiny ghost froze in the air, dissolving into bluish particles and dispersing like dust in the wind.
Denmira threw out a desperate attack against Elenya, forcing her back.
“Nice moves. Are you good?” she asked.
He nodded, blood freezing along the jagged wound across his chest.
“We are low on flame,” he said. “Let’s end this the way we do best. Brutal and overwhelming.”
By the fountain, Denmira crouched over the remains of the tiny casket. From behind the metal helmet came a cry, flowing through dry and cracked vocal cords. It was hoarse, barely human, yet contained such deep grief that a chill darted down his spine.
The whispers in the room, made real by Denmira’s Blessing, grew into a crescendo as she picked up her cross. Flame began to play along its edges, and it grew to the size of a halberd. She looked at them with fiery eyes and raised the cross. The filigree moved, dozens of white and blackish ethereal faces swirling and screaming around the black metal.
Not good, haven’t seen that before.
She jutted the weapon toward them, and the swirling faces roared forward in a cone.
Elenya dashed toward him, and he toward her. His flame followed his will, shooting into his flesh and growing into a multitude of humanlike arms, twitching out of his body and wrapping him in armor of skin and bone. He stepped in front of the barrage as Elenya slid in behind him.
Black explosions tore into him, ripping chunks from his front. Each hit left a freezing wound the size and depth of an apple. The rest of the projectile whistled past. From behind him, Elenya dashed out, grazing his skin with her arm just long enough to give him a trickle of flame.
Denmira swung the cross, now the size of a polearm, toward Elenya in reckless attacks full of openings. Red shades danced on Elenya’s exposed skin as she came at the armored figure in a storm of steel. The two fighters meet head-on.
Wretch charged the Blessed from the side, mending a wound that threatened to spill his guts onto the floor. Denmira pivoted, attacking him with a low swipe from the cross, but Elenya’s sword slammed the weapon aside. He stepped past the enemy on light feet, imagining a certain weapon in his hand. The blade in Elenya’s hand burned away and reappeared in his.
He jammed it into the back of the armored knee, cracking something within. Elenya’s fist slammed against the armor, and his tail wrapped around Denmira’s neck. He twisted, grabbing his own tail with both hands and pulling with all his strength and weight.
Elenya’s fist cracked again into the underside of the helm. Denmira staggered back, one leg buckling.
She crashed onto the stone floor, Wretch’s tail slithering away. Elenya pinned the cross with her boot. The Blinking Blade burned back into Wretch’s hand. He tossed it to Elenya.
“Well fought,” she said, raising the sword and driving it down.
Denmira raised her unpinned arm. With a piercing screech, the steel dug through the metal, skewering gauntlet and helmet.
The glowing eyes inside flickered and finally went dark, the whispers in the room dying with them.
Wretch fell to his knees, wiping sweat from his forehead with his tail. Elenya let the weapon fall to the floor with a clang and stumbled toward the fountain. She leaned over the stone rim and scooped a handful of water, pouring it down her throat.
Two ashen hands clawed onto the stone rim. Wretch’s head rose into view, and with a grunt, he dunked his entire face into the water. Elenya raised an eyebrow, then grabbed him by the neck and lifted him like a drowning kitten.
“Sweet victory,” he said, water pouring down his face.
“Don’t spoil the water. Are you hurt?” she asked.
Wretch, still hanging in the air, looked at her with his black orbs. “I am good. No flame left, though.”
“Thanks for shielding me back there,” she said, releasing her grip and letting him fall to the floor with a yelp.
“You’re welcome,” came the answer from below.
Elenya lowered her head to drink greedily from the well. She turned with a satisfied sigh. Wretch lay on the floor with his limbs outstretched and a look of pure satisfaction, his tail whipping slowly by his side.
A glow came from Denmira’s chest, where she lay defeated on the floor, the black cross still in hand. “What do you say, Ratty? I get the weapon, and you get the coal?”
Wretch rubbed his chin with his tail. “No chance. We flip a coin.”
“You don’t even know the drawback yet, and we don’t have a coin,” Elenya said.
“Just think of a number between one and two,” Wretch answered, peering up at the empty inside of the tower.
Elenya slumped down to the ground. “All right.”
Wretch furrowed his brow. “Two.”
Elenya looked at him for a good five seconds.
“Well?” he said.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Felt like you’d pick two,” he answered.
“Plowing fish guts. But I get the next two coals we come across,” she said with a sigh.
“Deal,” Wretch said, sitting up with some effort. He stood and walked to the cross, placing a finger on the black surface.
“Hey there,” he said with a toothy smile.