"List, lookout!"
As soon as the words left Valerie's mouth, List spun on her heel, saw the dragon statue slowly beginning to stir, and ran. The statue went from slowly stretching its neck to lashing out with its claws so quickly the motion between the states was lost.
List dove out of the way just before a stone claw crashed down into the spot she'd been, cracking the floor and sending bits of stone flying. She rolled away, coming up in a crouching with her tattoos glowing and lightning racing across her skin. She glared at Xigbar.
"You had to say something!"
"Hey, you pushed the button!"
After its first strike, the dragon resumed its previous slow pace, slowly uncurling its body as it crawled off its old perch in the center of the room. Its body sounded like a rockslide as it moved, grinding and rumbling with every movement. Valerie had only barely added dragons to the long list of creatures she had to stay, and she didn't know much about them.
Still, she was reasonably sure this wasn't an actual dragon, but just an animated statute of one. Oddly, that made more sense than a dragon that had somehow taken on aspects of stone to her. That wasn't exactly comforting, since she didn't really have anything on her for fighting a creature made of stone, but still. Not a dragon.
She picked up a rusty sword from the floor, not sure what good it would do her, but feeling immediately better now that she was holding a weapon. Arden found a hammer, Xigbar what could only be described as prison shivs, Kaleb a broken and dented shield, and List a fallen halberd that was missing about a quarter of its length.
It occurred to Valerie that she, List, and Arden were all used to fighting together, and Kaleb and Xigbar had been working together at least for a time, but all five of them together was a completely different story. They needed to bridge the two groups, and since she was the only one with a non-adversarial connection to work with, that would have to be her job.
"List is going to be the only one who can hurt it," Valerie said. "The rest of us will just have to run interference."
Arden gave her a surprised look, followed immediately by a nod of understanding.
"Sound strategy," Arden said. "But don't count us out entirely."
Kaleb nodded. Xigbar had already disappeared. There wasn't time to worry about that, because the dragon statue finished waking up, and it attacked.
List and Kaleb went one way, Arden and Valerie went the other, and the dragon crashed down between them, claws flashing one direction, tail whipping the other. For a second, all of them were on the defensive, just trying to avoid being slashed open or crushed. Then Kaleb made the first opening.
He rushed forward, shield raised, eyes on the dragon's claws. When it swiped, he braced himself for everything he was worth. A chunk flew from his already broken shield, and he staggered back with shoulder screaming in pain, but he'd drawn the dragon's attack in a predictable direction, and List exploited it.
She came up right behind Kaleb, and when he took the statue's blow, she vaulted up and over him to bring her halberd down on the statue's arm. Her scavenged weapon let out of burst of red lightning as she struck, and the old and nicked head of the halberd cleaved a chunk from the stone and left cracks in its skin.
Arden came in at the same instant, striking exactly where List had hit with his hammer only a moment after her. And when he struck, the cracks in the dragon's arm grew.
Arden disengaged, but List was just getting started. She transitioned her landing into an upward chop with her halberd, taking the stone dragon under the chin. From there, she performed a sideways flip to leap over another of the statue's slashes, and in midair, she drove her weapon straight down to land another stab and redirect herself away from her enemy.
In that moment, Kaleb got the same experience Valerie had when she'd met List. Red lightning trailed off the hellborn and her weapon with every movement as she fought, wielding her weapon with impossible grace and ferocity like she was born to it. She was an inch, a single mistake, from death. And just as she had been in the fight against Darshan, she was smiling.
Kaleb was struck by the thought that this, and not anything before, was his first real look at List. In a mad, electric, terrifying way, it was beautiful.
Valerie had picked up on what Arden had demonstrated, and was already moving in. She struck in a place where List had, and she actually felt her weapon break away some of the stone. It didn't work as well as Arden's blow, but it was a lot more than she thought she'd be capable of.
Instantly, she felt a surge of hope. The more List hit the statue, the more places the rest of them would be able to hit and actually do some damage. If they could focus their efforts on one spot, they might even be able to break the thing apart.
Then she realized that while she was dodging a claw swipe, she'd all but thrown herself into the path of the dragon's tail.
Kaleb was there in an instant, throwing himself shield first into the incoming attack. He stopped it, but was hurled across the room, colliding with the control pedestal in the center.
"Shit!" Xigbar shouted.
Kaleb groaned, and looked up to see Xigbar hunched under the control pedestal, a panel in its side pried open, and the animaborn in the middle of picking and prodding at the device's interior with his shivs.
"Xigbar? Are you gonna help?" Kaleb asked.
"I am helping! I'm getting us out of here," Xigbar said. "Just need a little—hah!"
Xigbar grinned as he did something that produced a shower of sparks from the pedestal's inner workings, and the light coming off the sigils and walls changed from red back to a blue-white. There was a hum in the floor, followed by a lurch, and the ground began to rise.
"What happened?" Valerie asked, looking around in confusion.
Xigbar threw his arms up in triumph. "I did, bitches! Never met a prison I couldn't break out of!"
"What about the one I broke you out of?" Kaleb asked.
"Yeah, let's just forget about that one, okay?"
"There's a likely to be a way out at the top," Arden said. "We just have to hold on."
"Fuck that," List growled, eyes like crimson lightning storms. "It dies!"
List raced forward again, dancing between the statue's attacks to land more of her own. With their choice being to either abandon her or follow, Arden and Valerie both rushed to join her.
Kaleb got to his feet, looking for his shield. He found what was left of it on the floor nearby—little more than the handle had survived the last hit. It would have to do.
He'd been focusing on defending the others up to that point, but he'd worked out the effect List's assault had on the dragon. If he hit where she did, he could do real damage.
He watched the fight for a moment. Each of its members—List, Valerie, Arden, and the dragon—all danced around each other in an unconscious rhythm. He studied it, learning the pattern. Al-Sakr would have clipped him over the ears for taking so long—a real fighter, Kaleb was sure, would have been able to make this assessment at a glance—but Al-Sakr was dead, and Kaleb's best would have to be good enough.
Once he had it, he started running. Timing was everything. Whatever effect List's attacks had, it didn't last forever. The bigger the delay on the follow-up attack, the less effective. Hit right after List did. That was the key.
Valerie and Arden aimed their attacks in the most recent place List struck as often as they could. But as Kaleb ran forward and clenched his fists, he didn't aim for where List hit. He aimed for where she was going to hit.
His eye tracked each of the fighters, how their movements pushed and pulled one another, and when he was close enough, he threw his punch, wielding the remnants of his shield like a knuckle duster.
The motion started in his hips even as List descended from her most recent leap head of List's halberd bit into the statue's side an instant before Kaleb's blow.
Kaleb's punch blew a hunk of stone the size of his torso out of the statue's side, and the animated statue staggered with new imbalance. List met Kaleb's eyes for a split second, and she gave him an approving grin.
Then she drove her halberd into the statue's side, used the weapon to flip herself up onto its back, and then yanked it free to deliver a slash to the back of its neck. Kaleb had to jump clear of a whipping tail, but Valerie had seen an opening, and when she brought her sword down in the same spot List had.
All three of them scattered as the dragon's rampage abruptly slowed, and rapid cracking sound spread through its whole body. Cracks spread across its entire body, the sum of everything they'd done, but especially those last two combinations. The statue took a step forward, another, and then the stress proved to be too much for whatever magic was giving it life.
There was an ear splitting crack, and the dragon's head split off from its body, falling to the ground with a resounding thud. A moment later, the rest of the body crumbled into nothing more than a pile of rocks.
As it did, the light of the glyphs and walls faded as the elevator they'd been riding came to a stop, and they all found themselves in a new room. One with windows, and sunlight, and an open set of doors that led out to what looked like a church's knave.
Clapping sounds echoed in the room as Xigbar gave them all a quick round of applause. "Great job everyone. That was a team effort."
A moment later, he had to duck as List hurled her halberd at him like a javelin.
The church the elevator had taken the outsiders to had been abandoned for some time, if the rotted wood, broken glass, and encroaching dirt and overgrowth were any indication. They found nothing of use in the few rooms on the ground floor, unless you counted rats, which no one but List did. Somewhere overhead, the bells of the church were ringing, but none of them found any path up to them to see who was ringing them. So, after a few minutes of searching around, the five of them staggered out of the church's front doors.
Sunlight and open air greeted them in a rush as they stepped outside, a sharp contrast to the darkness and must of the underground stone prison. It was the freshest air any of them had ever smelled, and even though it was mostly overcast, the sky had never looked more beautiful.
And yet, what else was waiting for them almost made List turn around and go back inside.
Sitting on a small seat cushion, a cross-eyed horse tethered to a stake in the ground behind him, and a small campfire burning away in front of him, was a small, raggedly dressed old man. And he was wearing a blindfold.
"Hello, brave heroes!" Gidus greeted with a smile. "It is so good to see you all once again!"
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," List said.
"Interesting," Arden murmured.
"Um," Kaleb said. "Can someone explain to me what's going on?"
"Of course, dear boy," Gidus said. "Come, sit! There is much for us to discuss."
Kaleb looked at List and Arden. List was furiously shaking her head, but Arden had not taken his eyes off of Gidus. Cautiously, the priest of Saint Hedwig approached the mysterious old man. The others followed his lead, List bringing up the rear and muttering to herself.
"You protected us against the petrification," Arden said.
"A clever deception on my part in the face of your predicament," Gidus said. "Digax's forces are not so easily overcome for one such as myself, but they are not immune to subversion. That reminds me! I have something for all of you."
Gidus grunted as he got to his feet and walked away from the campfire. After a few seconds of watching him meander around, groping at empty air, Valerie cleared her throat.
"A little to the right."
Gidus adjusted himself, and his hands finally found the saddlebags of his horse. He beamed with pride before smiling in Xigbar's direction. "My thanks, young lady."
He rifled through the saddlebags. After a moment, he withdrew an armload of equipment: a smaller bag, a shield, a miniature crossbow with an attached series of straps, an engraved crossbolt case, a whip, dozens of knives, a cane, and a small silver pendant.
"I believe these," he declared as two of the knives fell out of his grip, "belong to you."
Kaleb and Valerie both rushed forward, partly out of excitement, partly because it looked like Gidus was about to drop everything. Everything was quickly handed out, and the relief everyone felt was palpable. Arden physically shuddered when he slipped his pendant back around his neck.
"What exactly was your problem with this guy again?" Valerie asked List.
List had just finished absorbing her weapons back into her tattoo, and she shot a look toward Gidus. "Wait for it."
"I was able to procure these after your execution," Gidus said. "You'll need all the tools at your disposal and more if you are to successfully oppose the King."
"There it is."
Valerie blinked. "Oppose the King?"
"Of course!" Gidus said as if he were saying a joke they were all in on. "You are the brave heroes whose arrival was foretold by the Light! It is your great destiny to depose the Mad King Digax, and bring freedom and prosperity to Xykesh once again!"
"The…Light?"
"Yes, dear girl. The Light of the Seven. The Great Gods of This and Every World, long may they smile upon us," Gidus said. "Long has this land waited for you, but now at last, you are here, shining with the Light's promise like the sun."
He gestured to her, or at least tried to. He actually gestured at Arden.
"So there's a . . . a prophecy? About us?" Valerie asked.
"Oh yes," Gidus nodded. "When Digax first subjugated these lands to his will, the Light bestowed unto him a truth; that his undoing would come, not from within his own domain, but at the hands of brave heroes born to soil beyond the shores of Xykesh. And now, at last, you have arrived."
"You really think that's us?" Kaleb asked, and there was a trace of hope in his voice.
"There is no doubt in my mind, dear boy."
"Well there's plenty of doubt in mine," List said. "Since I don't want to pick a fight with a mother fucking dragon."
"Didn't we just do exactly that?" Kaleb asked.
"I meant a real one! One with an army, and a whole country full of people he can mind control whenever he or any of his minions want."
"Only the Chosen and the elites can borrow the King's Authority," Gidus chimed in. "The urks are mindless creatures, and have no sense for it."
"Not the point," List snapped. "I don't want to overthrow a king. I just want to live my life, and go a year without some arsehole throwing me in a cage!"
"We all have goals that don't make room for opposing an entrenched tyrant," Arden said. "They'll be complicated enough with everything that's happened. We need to find a town, and find some way to replace all the supplies we lost in our arrest."
"Oh no, you mustn't go to town, brave heroes," Gidus said. "The closest ones will have all dispatched forces to apprehend you by now."
"What?"
"How would they know to do that?" Valerie asked.
"Why, because of the church bells of course! They're a signal to a nearby military outpost that the guardian of the cathedral has been defeated, and prisoners have escaped. The outpost will have spread the word by now. I imagine we have only minutes before the first forces arrive."
The outsiders stiffened, and two of them swore as they all scanned the horizon.
"We need to be somewhere else," List said. "Now."
"Agreed," Arden said.
“I can see how this might be concerning,” Gidus said. “But I’m certain this will make an excellent first stand against the forces of Digax. When you topple the Dragont Tyrant from his throne, you will look back on this day and—are you still there?”
The priest and his apprentices were already running.
"Come on," Kaleb said to Xigbar, even as he already moved to follow.
"You want to go with them?"
"Do you have a better idea?"
"Maybe we follow someone who doesn't want to stab me in my sleep?"
Kaleb looked at List, then back at Xigbar, and shrugged as if to say "What choice do we have?" Then the boy left, leaving Xigbar alone with Gidus. The blind man turned his head this way and that, trying to figure out where everyone had gone.
“Erm, brave heroes? Are you perhaps plotting an ambush on the enemy forces?”
The animaborn groaned, and hurried to catch up. Already, he knew, this was a bad idea.
