Lyla took deep, short breaths as she struggled to her hands and knees, her vision still blurred but enough to make out that Elanna and Vixias were halfway to the others. Lyla looked beyond Aurae and the guards. Caphri was back there with some of the older kids, but huddled behind them were the younger ones. Eyes wide, some with tears, some hiding behind the adults, fear in their faces.

  They were something worth dying for. Her lost childhood was something worth dying for. She couldn’t let these kids die, nor be used for the Empire’s purposes. She refused to allow that to happen.

  Energy bloomed within her, coursing through her inner channels. She directed it to her arms and legs, used it to stop the flow of poison. She was weakened. Severely. She wouldn’t last long. She didn’t need to. She crawled over to her daggers, gripped the hilts firmly. One of them she sheathed.

  She turned her body to face Elanna’s back, her left palm on the ground, her right holding the dagger. She dug her toes into the ground, forcing energy through the channels and into the stone beneath. Small cracks appeared, splitting outwards in jagged lines from the pressure.

  She pushed off, covering the distance to Elanna so fast that she didn’t have the chance to defend. Lyla coiled her left arm around the other woman’s neck, charged energy into her right arm and jammed the dagger through the woman’s armour and into her back. The skin parted with a wet squelch as Lyla forced it in as deep as possible. Then she removed the dagger and forced it in again and again in the same spot, blood spurting wildly with each stab.

  From the corner of her eyes, she could see Vixias moving, his blade raised overhead. Aurae and the rest were moving slower, not yet aware of what was happening, their eyes desperately trying to locate the blur that was Vixias.

  Lyla grabbed the underside of Elanna’s chin, removed the dagger from her back and put it to the other woman’s throat.

  “I will not let you win,” Lyla said. Then she drew the blade across Elanna’s throat before driving the blade into the side of Elanna’s neck. She pulled it out and drove it in again. And again. Just to make sure. She let go of the woman, and as Elanna was falling to the floor, Lyla kicked her with energy charged legs. Elanna soared through the air, her head smashing into the wall in a shower of rocks that shook the entire hall. Her body twisted at an unnatural angle as it slid down, her head hanging on by a thread of skin.

  Vixias was upon her, his blade carving through the air at her head. She [Sidestepped]. She was ready to take the blow to the shoulder. She just needed one clean hit. He’d fought with Isabel and then with Khasran. She could see it in his face. He was almost as spent as she was and he hadn’t had the time to recover.

  As the blade almost hit her shoulder it stopped.

  Vixias was as surprised as she was but beyond him, she could see Aurae. Sweat beaded the elf’s forehead, her face straining with immense pressure. Lyla took advantage of the opening, grabbing Vixias by the collar and moving in closer to him. She jammed her dagger into the underside of his chin. His eyes widened with fear. Or shock. It didn’t matter. She put her other hand on the base of the dagger hilt, forced as much energy as she could into her hands and drove the blade through Vixias’ mouth, into his skull and into his brain.

  He released the grip on his blade. Aurae released the magic she had performed, collapsing to the floor as others rushed out to help her and ran towards Lyla too. They needn’t have bothered. It was over.

  Lyla released the dagger. Watched as Vixias stumbled back, clawing at the base of his chin as if removing the blade would help him. He fell backwards, his hands at his throat, blood and tissue pouring over them.

  Lyla looked over to Aurae, who was being helped to her feet.

  She smiled at the elf.

  Then she collapsed herself, falling to the floor, her energy spent and the poison streaming through her bloodstream. As her eyes fluttered closed, she saw the children behind Caphri. She recalled those nights in her dorm, with her friends. When they shared their dreams together. When they dreamt of a world where they could be free to make their own choices.

  As her eyes closed, her lips curved into a contented smile.

  Those dreams were worth dying for.

  ***

  Rose grabbed the turquoise amulet from the centre of the altar as a deep rumble echoed through the hall. Parek was screaming at the worshippers to get their backsides through the portal. A torch fell to the floor, the flames licking at the wooden pews nearby.

  The amulet pulsed gently as she wrapped her fingers around it, grabbed her staff and spun, charging down the steps of the dais. She noticed a woman, hands on the shoulders of a child looking at the portal with suspicion.

  “It’s okay,” Rose assured her with a smile. “We’re taking you to safety.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The woman looked at Rose with dull eyes and a dirt-streaked face. The child’s eyes were just as lifeless, long since devoid of hope. It was as if they couldn’t believe they had been rescued after however many months they’d spent down here. Rose put out her free hand to the woman, with a reassuring nod. The woman viewed Rose’s hand with just as much suspicion, eyes darting to the portal. A chunk of ceiling came crashing down to Rose’s right, a metre or two away.

  Rose grabbed the woman’s hand then. After everything she’d been through in the dungeon, she wasn’t about to be crushed to death because this woman wasn’t trusting. She yanked the woman’s arm and dragged her to the portal, the child holding on. Then Rose pushed both of them through. Elsie grinned from her perch on Rose’s shoulder. Rose and Parek glanced around for any stragglers as larger and larger chunks of rock fell from the ceiling around them, dust spewing forth as shards of rock clattered against the walls.

  “Go,” Parek screamed. Rose didn’t need to be asked twice, running through the opening with Parek at her side. She spun, taking one final look before pressing the centre of the orb hanging at her waist – the one Elliott had left her. The gateway compressed itself until it was just a thin line of white that twinkled before it disappeared.

  Rose leant on her staff and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Elsie didn’t. She jumped up. Rose glanced at her, then noticed the five men walking towards them. A tall, wiry man with a wrinkled face and a long, silver beard strode in the middle, his turquoise robe touching the floor. The men on either side – all middle-aged – wore similar, though theirs were red. All of them displayed a pentagram symbol stitched into the breasts of their robes.

  She gasped as she noticed the man in the middle’s forehead. In the centre, he displayed the same pentagram symbol as Elliott.

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “Who—” Rose began, when she felt a crushing force slam into her chest like a battering ram. She dropped the staff as she hurtled backwards, the back of her head thumping against the ground, her shoulders pressing against the carpeted stone as her legs went over. The momentum sent her tumbling into an uncontrolled backwards roll until her back thundered into the wall, her head snapping back and forth.

  She took a few short, shallow breaths. Shook her head to clear her vision. Flashes of light flickered around her. She was alive only because of Elliott’s shield, but she doubted she would survive another blow like that. A few metres to her right, Parek was rising to his feet unsteadily, drawing his sword like a fool making a last stand against overwhelming odds.

  Still, whoever they were, Elsie was here.

  A crack of thunder exploded next to her ear, the stone from the wall blasting outwards into the palace gardens as dust and debris flew. When it had cleared, Elsie lay on the floor at her side.

  Rose blinked, trying to understand what she was looking at before tears came unbidden.

  Impossible.

  Half of Elsie’s face was torn, one of the black button eyes missing, pink and purple threads ending in frayed edges. She held a black pin in one tiny hand, but her other hand was missing along with the arm it had been attached to. The light brown, orange and yellow threads of her dress lay in an unravelled mess, her pink and blue stockings singed. Her remaining eye had lost its whimsical gleam.

  Not Elsie.

  Rose dropped the amulet in her hand, scrambled over to Elsie and shook her gently. “ELSIE,” she screamed. She felt mana gather in the air near her, but it wasn’t Elsie. She glanced at the amulet as it rose from the floor and shot across the room.

  The bearded man with the turquoise robe caught it in his fist.

  “Mother,” he said to the amulet. “It’s good to see you again.”

  A sliver of horizontal light formed behind him and expanded into a gateway. He stepped through, looking at the four red-robed men. “Destroy the rest of the doll, kill the girl and the guy. The army should begin its attack.”

  It was then Rose noticed the worshippers. The ones she thought she was rescuing. They lay on the floor, heads twisted or tongues sticking out. Eyes staring. There was no blood. No missing limbs. They had just been…silently killed.

  Two of the red-robed men stepped forward. The one on the left had long black hair that came down to beneath his shoulders, and a goatee on his face, the black flecked with silver. The other was a bit younger, blonde hair cropped short and a fervour in his light-blue eyes.

  “Who…are…you?” Rose asked.

  It was goatee that answered. “We are the Disciples. And we’re here to restore balance to the world.”

  Rose glanced at what remained of Elsie. Ahead of her, Parek held the sword in both hands but his knees trembled, his legs doing all they could to keep standing.

  “You have what you need,” Rose shouted. “You don’t need to do this.”

  Blondie smiled as he advanced towards her. “Abominations like her and those who assist them are a blight upon this world.”

  She felt him draw mana, far more than she could. Maybe as much as she’d felt Elliott and Elsie draw. She covered Elsie’s body with her own when a shimmer of light just in front of her caught her attention.

  The shimmer coalesced into leather boots, linen trousers and further ahead, a black cloche-styled skirt. She glanced up to see Elliott standing in front of her, Isabel to his right, her large axe in her hands.

  Blondie stopped walking towards them.

  “Elliott,” she blurted out. “They killed Elsie. And there’s an army about to attack.”

  Elliott glanced down at his sister. He pressed his lips together and Rose saw the flash of anger pass across his eyes. There was an intensity to his black pupils that she hadn’t seen before. She heard him whisper something and another shimmer before the clothes he had been wearing were replaced with his Murderhobo outfit. The black combat boots, the leather trench coat, the weapons strapped to his back and the orbs on his belt.

  “Ah, the Murderhobo,” one of the red-robed men said. It was one of the two standing further back, clean-shaved with messy black hair. “And his Murdermaid. We’re so glad you showed up. Saves us the hassle of finding you.”

  “Isabel,” Elliott said. “Find the kings. Help them with the army. I’ll join you shortly.”

  Isabel nodded and turned to the hole in the wall, briefly glancing at Elsie’s ruined body.

  “You really think we will let you leave?”

  Isabel glanced at them. “Yes. Unfortunately for you, he’s decided to deal with you personally.” She nodded in Elliott’s direction. “By the end of it, you’ll have wished it were me.”

  Rose felt the air crackle with unrestrained fury as Isabel leapt through the opening in the wall. Mana gathered around Elliott like he was the centre of a black hole and it was fighting to not be consumed. This was no trickle, nor flood, nor ocean. This was reality being torn apart and remade. It was as if all the mana in the world was rushing towards him.

  All four of the Disciples’ eyes widened, Blondie and Goatee taking an involuntary step backwards.

  Elliott snarled, his eyes glowing.

  “Shall we dance?”