Act Five, Scene Eleven
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Act Five, Scene Eleven
Tyrant’s Palace
Catherine accelerated her stride. The control room was just up ahead, past this cross-door. More elevator shafts, more robots that would come up - eventually - if she did her job.
“Elgolian, guard the door. Same tactics as before.”
“I will obey, Your Highness.”
The air in the room was still as she passed into it, disturbed only by the opening of the door and her entry. She glanced around the room and then locked and barred the door, then gave it a longer look. There were dozens of command consoles, and she headed for the nearest.
Nobody had made it there first, and she relaxed slightly. “Patience?”
“Yes, Catherine?”
“Find something to hide behind and take cover and don’t come out.”
“I’ve got a wild card you haven’t played yet.”
“If you’re old enough,” Catherine said. “That’s what, twenty percent odds?”
“Twenty-eight percent,” Patience said immediately.
“Patience, have some faith in me and don’t risk it if the odds I die are beneath twenty-eight percent. If you go first your blast radius might take the planet out.” Catherine made it to the console, entered passwords. Once the army started moving, their sheer numbers would be enough to end the war -
Wham! Wham! - heavy impacts against the door. Then the racket of gunfire, made distant by the weight of steel between her and them and amplified by the armor’s sensors, and words she still couldn’t make out.
Catherine’s eyes shifted to Patience, who wasn’t there any more. Good. She shifted Brickslayer to her left hand, unfolded the railgun on her right to aim at the door, let her shoulder-mounted lasers spin freely. Now she had nothing to do but wait until the fake Ilderia’s army broke the door down or her own army arrived.
The gleaming bullets struck sparks off her steel armor, flashing like quicksilver and Ilderia whipped behind cover.
“Get him off me.” Apparently Elgolian had a rifle as well as his swords and everyone was packing subsonics these days. Century was dropping left and right and the elf was practically invisible.
The remaining Century-bodies found cover, and Morgan was staying on the far side of a wall. Ilderia’s eyes flickered to her armor... the metal had warped and distorted. Not a normal gun.
“No-two, I’ll handle it.”
Ilderia’s eyes flickered over to him -
“- Elgolian, Knight of Novapest,” Jim said, “I challenge you to a duel.”
“I accept,” Elgolian said immediately. “Name your weapons.”
“Hand to hand,” Jim said.
“As you say, so shall it be,” Elgolian said smugly. “The battle will be in a day’s time, unless you object?”
“I was thinking here and now,” Jim said.
Ilderia heard the snick of a bolt moving. “How could I justly do so, when I am sworn to a contrary task?”
Could she aim off of that well enough to target him off of the bolt... no.
“One on one,” Ilderia said, “after the rest of us go back five rooms. It’s the only door,” she added, putting some amusement into the voice.
“So be it.” The voice came from nowhere and everywhere.
Five rooms back, Morgan gave her a questioning look.
“No,” she said, “we’re going through the wall.”
Jim loaded his pistols, then stepped out of cover and slowly holstered them. He drew a knife in his right hand, took a fighting stance. “Going to show yourself?”
Elgolian swept his chameleon cloak off, leaned his rifle against the wall, drew his two silver swords. “Oh, certainly.”
Just thirty-six feet away.
“Ready?” Jim said.
“Certainly,” and Elgolian blurred into motion. As he did Jim ditched the knife and drew both guns. Right-hand at center of mass, left in reserve. Elgolian was fast, but could he dodge bullets?
Didn’t matter - Jim’s bullets hit but the silver armor could take bullets as if they didn’t matter, and then Elgolian was on him and Jim backed off as the elf’s silver swords made the air sing, punching them out of the way with his shadowhands as they got close and trying to buy time.
Elgolian blurred back, moved a few feet away, and bowed. What was he playing at?
“An able foe, if lacking in honor,” said Elgolian. “Tell me, what name should they bury you under?”
“Any name’ll do,” said Jim, aimed between the eyes, and fired.
Elgolian could dodge bullets, and did, twitching his head to the side.
“Tsk, tsk,” he said, voice soft. “Hardly a worthy warrior.”
“Don’t care,” said Jim, ditching the empty gun for a new weapon. The new blade drew Elgolian’s eyes like a magnet; he’d studied up and while he wasn’t sure how Elgolian’s Achilles’ heel defined ‘cold iron’, his new knife was both cold-wrought and almost pure.
In an instant the Idealist closed again, hacking and slashing in a grinning frenzy, and Jim’s shadowhands dropped the gun into its holster and went back to parrying.
He saw his chance - there - caught both swords in his shadowhands to lock Elgolian in place and rammed the knife into his right arm where his chainmail ended. The scream was horrific, like nothing human; Elgolian staggered back forty feet in an instant, dropping the right blade and still holding the left one, a smoking hole in his arm and tears of pain in his eyes. Jim took a shot - his grip wavered and it deflected off Elgolian’s armor -
The elf ripped the knife out of his arm, holding it gingerly and then threw it away, and Jim aimed again -
He’d thought Elgolian had been fast before. He’d thought he had been strong before. Now he struck like the wind. Only one blade, but -
He slipped past the shadowhands. Jim wore a heavy leather jacket and kevlar under it, and Elgolian slashed through it, opening up his side, before skidding past.
The elf licked the blood from the blade with a vicious smile, and his wound slowly started to close.
“Screw that,” said Jim. He was bleeding badly, but his gun was loaded. Was there any way out? No, he wasn’t fast enough.
Elgolian charged again. Jim emptied the gun at him at point-blank range. Two of the shots stuck in the chainmail. One missed. One cut through his hair, one skimmed his cheek, leaving that bleeding and smoking.
One bullet left. He tried to block the blade with his shadowhands, but Elgolian was so fast -
The blade went through his heart even as he fired the last bullet - fired at a distance that could not miss.
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