Infinity Blade 02 - Redemption

“Whatever has drawn their attention, it’s to our advantage. Let’s break this place open like a walnut.”
    The three of them continued on toward the front gates. They crossed almost the entire distance without incident—but then Siris heard a hissing from behind.
    He spun, hand on his sword. The daeril must have been prowling the hallways on watch. It wore a mask—it was favored among its kind, then. The wicked, horned thing accompanied a body with twisted limbs, knotted like wood but colored red. It hissed again behind its mask, but raised its sword in a sign of challenge, after the ancient ideal.
    “You hit it straight on,” Terr said, voice muffled by his helm. “I’ll come in from the left.”
    “No,” Siris said, raising his sword to acknowledge the challenge. “I will face it alone.”
    “Don’t be a fool,” Terr said. “I realize that you can’t die, but if you let the thing raise the alarm, we could be done for. We should fight it together—”
    “No,” Siris snapped, striding forward. “It showed us honor. I must return that honor.”
    “It’s a monster!”
    Siris ignored him, falling into a dueling stance.
    “This is ridiculous,” Terr hissed.
    Honorless peasant, Siris thought, snarling softly. “Go on,” he said to Terr and Isa. “I stay to duel.”
    They left, and Siris fought.
    He’d practiced with the sword all his life. Fighting was something familiar to him, something noble—one of the few skills he felt that he had earned, rather than just inheriting from another self. True, he likely owed some of his prowess to his ancient self, but he had worked hard during his youth to grow, to progress. Whatever skill his former self had once possessed, he’d added to it during this lifetime.
    The beast also fought with skill—it was indeed among the God King’s most elite of creations. The duel ended in the familiar way, however, with Siris slamming his sword into the beast’s chest, sinking it in deep. The thing growled softly, blood from its hidden lips spilling out through the front of the mask.
    “You did well,” Siris said to the daeril. “You fought with honor and prowess.”
    The thing sighed, almost seeming content as it slid off his sword and stopped moving. In some ways, he envied the creature, created for a single purpose and living its life simply, doing nothing but fulfilling that purpose. He doubted it had ever questioned its existence.
    Siris wiped his blade clean as Isa returned.
    “I’ve killed the bowmen in their watchposts,” she said. “Terr is at the gate.”
    Something thumped in the near distance.
    “Onward, then,” Siris said, rising and charging back toward the inner chamber where the God King’s soldiers awaited.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
    ISA SURVEYED the dead, stepping carefully to avoid the blood, both human and daerilic. Old instincts itched at her to search the bodies, but she suppressed them. It had been a long, long time since she’d been forced to sink so low as to rob corpses. She held no illusions that she had grown beyond such things—you did what you needed to in order to survive—but this was not the day for looting.
    This battle had been far too easy. It had felt like a trap up until the end. The soldiers had been crowded around the entrance to the rebirthing chamber, swords out—as if they fully expected the threat to come from inside . Lux and the troops had been able to take them with a surpising degree of ease.
    They’d lost men, of course. That was part of what Isa hated about leading, and was why she had Lux perform the actual management of the troops. Isa avoided looking at the faces of the fallen. She would ask their names. Later. For now, she stepped into the rebirthing chamber, passing Dynn and Terr, still helmed and armored, standing guard at the door.
    Don’t deceive yourself, she thought. You might not be robbing bodies, but today is about plunder. You’re still a thief, you’re just a higher-class one.
    That thought actually comforted her.
    Siris sat inside, hands clasped before him, helm off, blood in his hair. Not his own. It had dried, crusting.
    What was she to make of this man? Half the time he seemed so confident, as if he could stride off a cliff and not fall, gravity itself too intimidated to inconvenience him. And then there were the haunted times. Eyes that had seen too much. Shadows moving behind them.
    She had a habit of preferring dangerous men. This one, however, was a different beast