Tossing the weapons aside, the scourge tapped into Void Form aetheurgy. Lojen grunted as the scourge tackled him with inhumir speed borne from Nocturne’s eternal hatred for Zenith and the rest of the Pentax Gods, hugging him close as they tumbled. Even though Lojen was bigger, the scourge’s aetheurgy-enhanced momentum carried them into the gun rack.
This time, Lojen’s skull cracked against the wall, and regardless of his drakken exoscales, a flash of jolting pain rocketed through his head. He tried to throw the scourge off, but found he couldn’t raise his arms, they were lethargic and useless. Dizzying nausea crept up his spinal cord as his head lolled.
Then the scourge was off him, their body flying as someone bulled into them. Through the haze, he realized it was Emre Benld. The scion of Drenth bore into the scourge, his own aetheurgy blazing in his green pupils. The Gutter King pummeled the scourge with aether-hardened fists until the Imperium assassin lay still, blood pooling underneath.
Lojen crawled toward his father, trying to remain conscious. Pain in his skull threatened to turn his brain to mush. “Father…”
Emre crouched beside him, a sadness marring his face, agony in his aetheric eyes as he looked toward the bikrome crouching over her brother. Something passed between the Gutter King and the bikrome, something Lojen vowed to discover.
“Son,” Tevun said, reaching for him with one talon while the other fought desperately to hold in his precious lifeblood. Red sprinkled his father’s snout. Tevun gripped Ruane’s claw as the blood poured from his mortal wounds. “Protect …nn.”
And then the wardkeeper’s eyes closed, Ruane bellowing in misery. Lojen felt empty.
XIII
Ashe
STUMBLING FROM THE Colosseum, Ashe tripped over the first (and only) stair and fell face-down into the hard-stone ground.
“Fucshen steppsh!” Her head was a clouded jumble, the spirits and mead tincture formed a pounding headache at the back of her skull.
“Ashe, you hurt?” Hands pulled at her tunic, turning her over.
She flopped onto her back and squinted through the darkness at Gargantua hovering above. A face poked past the floating fortress backdrop, Wren, who crouched over her.
“I’msh notta… your help.” Coherent sentences seemed tricky at the moment.
“Get that little bint up,” a feminine voice announced through the haze of Ashe’s drunkenness as they stepped out of the tavern and hobbled past the two girls. “I thought I told you, girl, don’t make a fool of me. Neenah LeFleur’s reputation is all she’s got. You’ve already ruined half my evenfall, don’t deserve the other half. Make me bloody rue the godsdamned day I brought you here. Get her somewhere off to pissing sleep, you voidspawn prick-suckers.”
Captain LeFleur marched off, Roland, Tris, Doll, and a young girl whose name Ashe hadn’t gotten, followed after, none seemed to register Ashe’s predicament. The hobgoblin twins Zig and Zag stopped to help Wren drag her limp body from the overpowering gravity of the ground. Or at least she figured they were themselves; she really only saw blurs and pops of color.
“I shhaid I wassh fine,” Ashe lisped as the two lifted her by the armpits. She cocked her head, staring openly at one of the voidspawn twins. “Who… fucsh are…? And why… are… me?”
“She’s bloody buggered,” one said over her head to the other.
“Proper buggered,” the second replied.
“You were supposed to watch ‘er.”
“No, I wasn’t. That was suppo’ed to be yous. Cap’n even said ‘Zag, you watch over her this time, this little bint made a pissing mess last time we were in town.’”
Zag pshawed so loud Ashe rubbed her ear in response, even wiping away some of the spittle. “She said notta, you firedrake’s tit. I specif’cly ‘member her saying ’Zig, you gots Stray Cat duty a’night cuz none else watch her drinking.’”
“Cap’n didn’t say that,” Zig argued. “That was supposed to be yous, and yous the firedrake’s tit ‘round here.”
Ashe’s legs wobbled as Zig let go of her arm. Zag nearly dropped her as he, too, stopped. She lazily plopped down to the ground. Slumped was more like it.
“Say it again, you… you…”
“What? Firedrake’s tit?”
“Enough!” Wren shouted. Through her drunken haze, Ashe miraculously noted an air of authority around the thief-girl. “You bloody fools just shut up! You’re more annoying than a fly on an ogre’s ass. Gods, I hate voidspawn.”
Ashe chuckled to herself over the visual of two annoying flies around a stupid ogre, and as she did, the contents of her stomach rushed up to say hail all over the ground.
“Godsdamnit,” one of the twins grumbled. “All o’er my new boots.”
“Bugger yer boots.”
Wren bent down and began to rub Ashe’s back as if she was a child. To the arguing hobgoblins, “Off with you now. Go get her some water.” It was a commanding tone, expectant of compliance.
“She’s gon’ need more than that,” Zag cackled. “Stray Cat,” followed by a furious belch. “O Zeni—”
“’Member that time, Zag,” Zig overrode his brother. “The one whe—”
“Now!” There was fire within Wren’s voice. Ashe wondered when the young woman had become so demanding, usually she was quiet as a dormouse, at least around the toughs of Slag’s End. Afraid, almost.
It made Ashe want her even more. The mist seemed to agree as it spun quickly about her while the hobgoblin dummies ran back inside The Colosseum.
Though, to be fair, she was more worried about the vomit charging up her esophagus than Wren’s tone. But the mist had other thoughts. As the pounding in her head raged, her fingers dug into the hard paving stones, and Ashe’s insides curdled. The mist rushed over her.
Her pulmo exploded out in tarry bursts, the mist climbing her body and filling her mouth as the fog wended down her throat. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. Wanted to cough but couldn’t.
“Ashe?” The mist bubbled around them, enveloping the two young women. Ashe could hear Wren’s breathing, quick and frightened. “Ashe, what’s happening?”
Ashe thrust out her hand, warding Wren away from her. It was only the mist, her friend. Her companion. Her eventual death.
