Gideon the Ninth

Crouching in front of the hatch was a rangy, underfed young man: he was wrapped in a grey cloak and the light glinted on the spectacles slipping down his nose. Standing next to him holding a big wedge of broken sculpture and the flashlight was a tall, equally grey-wrapped figure with a scabbard outlined at her hip. She had hair of an indeterminate darkness, cut blunt at her chin. She was restless as a bird, stepping from one foot to the other, quirking her elbows, rocking from the balls of her feet to the heel. The boy had one hand pressed to the heavy corner of the hatch, brooding over it like a seer with a piece of ritual intestine, lineated weirdly by the half-light. He was using his own tiny pocket torch to investigate the place where the seam of the floor met the metal of the hatch frame.

Both were filthy. Dust caked their hems. There were odd, still-wet smears on their clothes and hands. It looked as though they’d both been wrestling in some long-forgotten Ninth catacomb.

Gideon had moved too close: even in the darkness, hooded and cloaked, they were both nervy. The young man in glasses jerked up his chin, staring blindly back to the stairwell: at his sudden switch in focus, the young woman with the sword whirled around and saw Gideon on the stairs.

It was probably not a comforting sight to see a penitent of the Locked Tomb in the half dark, swathed in black, skull-painted. The cavalier narrowed her hooded eyes, fidgets gone and absolutely still; then she exploded into action. She dropped the wedge of sculpture with a clonk, drew her sword from its shabby scabbard before the wedge had bounced once, and advanced. Gideon, neurons blaring, drew her own. She slid her hand into her ebon gauntlet—the grey-cloaked girl let the flashlight fall, drew a knife with a liquid whisper from a holder across one shoulder—and their blades met high above their heads as the cavalier leapt, metal on metal ringing all around the chamber.

Holy shit. Here was a warrior, not just a cavalier. Gideon was suddenly fighting for her life and exhilarated by it. Blow after lightning blow rattled her defences, each one coming down like an industrial crush press, the short offhand knife targeting the guard of Gideon’s blade. Even with the advantage of higher ground she was forced to mount the steps backward. They were fighting in close, cramped quarters, and Gideon was getting pinned. She smashed the other girl’s offhand out of the way and into the wall, scattering loose glass tiles in its wake as it fell: her opponent dropped as though shot, crouched, kicked her dagger up into her hand, and did a handspring backward down the stairs. Gideon descended like an avenging necrosaint as she rose—slicing down in a winging cut that would have destroyed the blade given a longsword and the right footing, just for the pleasure of seeing her partner duck, huff between her teeth with exertion. Her sword met the other cavalier’s dagger and she pressed, both leaning hard into the blow. The cav in grey’s eyes were only mildly surprised.

“Camilla!” She only distantly registered the call. Gideon was stronger; the girl’s arm was buckling—she brought up her rapier to harass Gideon’s blocking arm, stabbing at the ebon cuff of the knuckle-knife, the tiny torch spotlight wavering drunkenly from face to face, turning their pupils into big black wells—“Camilla the Sixth, disengage!”

“Camilla” brought her elbow forward, sliding her sword down Gideon’s, jabbing it away with the hilt. Momentarily discombobulated, Gideon backed into the stairs and reset her stance; by then the cavalier in grey was already backing off, sword held high, offhand held low. The necromancer in matching grey was standing; the darkness in the small room was banded with hot shimmers, as though with heat. She thrust her arm forward—

—and stumbled back. Her heart was panicking in her chest, seized as though in the midst of a cardiac arrest, and her hand seemed to wither around the hilt of her sword—the flesh melting before her eyes, the fingernails going black and curling close to the skin as though burnt. She snatched her fist back and found that, clutched close, it was whole and unaffected again, but she did not press onward. She wasn’t a total goon. She backed away from the necromantic seal and sheathed her sword instead, hands held out in the universal ceasefire! gesture. The necromancer in grey, torch hand outstretched, exhaled: he wiped faintly pinkish sweat from his face.