Running my fingers over the title, I wondered for the first time what those beliefs had been. Whether, if I heard them, I might find something to agree with.
A sound drew me from my thoughts—a long, slow scraping, like two pieces of metal grinding against each other. Startled, I jerked my glove back on and glanced around. At first the room appeared unchanged. Then I saw it.
The dreadnought’s helmet had turned. It was looking directly at me.
“Run,” the revenant shouted. “Run!”
I slammed my shoulder against the door and dove from the room. Perhaps I should have grabbed something to use as a weapon, but just as quickly I realized it wouldn’t have mattered; even a sword wouldn’t be strong enough to withstand a blow from that flail.
Heavy footfalls shook the ground behind me as I dragged the unconscious sister out of the way—“Leave her!” spat the revenant, but I couldn’t let her die—and pelted up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, my lungs already on fire.
I was faster than the dreadnought. But unlike me, it wouldn’t tire. The tortured groaning and squealing of rusted plate chased me up the stair’s spiraling turns. At the top, I burst out into another corridor and tore down its length, statues flashing past. “Don’t step on that flagstone,” the revenant hissed, wrenching me aside.
Abruptly, without warning, the din of crashing armor ceased. I risked a quick glance over my shoulder. My feet pattered to a stop.
The dreadnought had halted at the top of the stairwell. It stood with a slumped-over posture, one shoulder lower than the other, dragged down by the weight of the flail. Even then, its helmet almost scraped the ceiling. Its monstrous bulk filled the corridor, swallowing up the shade-light. If I looked closely, I could see through the bars of the helmet’s grille into the hollow space behind them.
Somehow it was worse seeing the dreadnought like this, knowing that any second its armor could twitch, move, explode violently into action. “Is there a trap ahead?” I asked under my breath. “What is it doing?”
“It didn’t animate of its own accord. Someone’s controlling it—they commanded it to stop.”
Slowly, I backed away. I turned sideways, shuffling along so I could watch my path and the motionless dreadnought at the same time. Soon I reached the next intersecting corridor. It was the one with the portcullis trap, I remembered, and a sense of foreboding gripped me even before I approached the corner and saw that the portcullis had dropped, its bars blocking off the exit route. A black-robed figure waited on the other side.
I barely swerved back in time to hide myself. Peering out from behind the corner more cautiously, I saw Leander’s lips curve into a thin, rueful smile that quickly fell away, replaced by a meditative expression. Only his eyes looked alive in a face turned as still as marble. When he spoke, his voice was unexpectedly soft.
“I knew I was being followed. Show yourself, and I’ll call off the dreadnought. I truly would prefer not to harm you.”
He opened one of his hands. On his palm lay a key. It was large and blocky, with one square tooth at the end. I gathered it wasn’t the key he had taken from the sister to gain entrance to the chambers. After revealing it, he tucked it away behind his back.
The revenant winced. If its senses hadn’t been muffled, it would have been able to tell that Leander had tampered with the dreadnought.
“Are you certain?” Leander asked. A few heartbeats had passed. He waited a moment longer, then turned. He said over his shoulder, “Very well. If you insist.” Resting against the small of his back, his hand closed around the key.
Metal shrieked as motion erupted behind me.
“There has to be another way out,” the revenant spat as I ran. “Try those stairs,” it ordered. “Turn left. Left! Watch out!”
Something flashed past my face and thunked against the opposite wall—a crossbow bolt, I thought. I couldn’t look. My feet had lost sensation; every breath burned. Even if the revenant unleashed its full power, its fire’s soul-devouring ability would be useless against an empty suit of armor. It could temporarily increase my strength, but I was still made of flesh and blood. And my endurance was flagging; the dreadnought was catching up. The deafening clamor of its stride filled my ears. I could taste its hot stink of rusted metal.
I veered into another hallway and found it looked familiar—I had traveled down it before. The stair leading up to the graveyard lay at the end. My heart leaped with hope.
Then the mace slammed to the ground behind me, cracks racing through the flagstones beneath my feet. The dreadnought swung again; shards of stone went flying. I threw myself away, and didn’t recognize my error until too late. A statue’s patient half smile filled my vision. Metal glinted in the dark.
“Careful!” the revenant shrieked as I dodged the blade: a misericorde clasped between the saint’s folded hands, sharpened to a deadly point.
I skidded, rebounded off the wall, and lunged for the stair as the dreadnought’s next impact narrowly missed my head. Pieces of what had once been a statue hailed down, throwing powder and fragments of rock across the steps. I scrambled over them, ignoring the bruising gouge of the stone pieces, dizzily chasing the spiral upward.
There, at last, stood the door. But we weren’t safe yet. My survival hinged upon whether Leander had left it unlocked behind him. He might not have bothered, trusting the dreadnought to finish me off. Or he might have left it unlocked deliberately, granting me one last chance to escape, like a cat toying with a mouse.
I flung myself against the door, and it sprang open, tumbling me out into the graveyard’s damp. I didn’t have time to feel relieved. I threw my weight back against it, trying to force it shut.
Metal clashed against the other side. The dreadnought’s helmet appeared in the gap. It pushed relentlessly as the revenant fed an answering burst of power into my body—the best it could do, I guessed, without alerting the entire city to its presence. The armor’s joints squeaked, then groaned, but the extra strength wasn’t going to be enough. I was weakening. The nearness of the door’s consecrated iron blazed against my face like heat radiating from an oven.
Suddenly there were hands braced on the door beside me, muscles straining as they pushed. Another pair, much smaller, joined them on my other side. Inch by torturous inch, the door creaked shut. It thudded into place.
I looked up, meeting Jean’s and Marguerite’s wide eyes.
“What was that?” Marguerite bleated. I clapped a gloved hand over her mouth.
“Dreadnoughts are too stupid to tell a door apart from a wall,” the revenant hissed into the ensuing tense silence. “If it loses sight of you for more than a few seconds, it will think you’ve escaped.”
I stood there waiting, barely breathing, until I heard metal scrape against stone, ponderous steps moving away—the dreadnought retreating.
I dragged Marguerite down with me as my legs wobbled and gave out. Jean reached to catch us before we hit the ground, then suddenly balked. He backed up skittishly, his big hands held uselessly aloft as though he feared they might betray him.
A pang of sympathy shot straight to my core. I knew what that felt like—the horror of your own body turning on someone without your permission. In Jean’s case, he hadn’t merely hurt people. He had killed them. It would take him a long time to regain trust in himself, if he ever did.