Of Kings and Killers (Elder Empire Sea #3) - WIll Wight Page 0,34

gets her Vessels back.”

Kern lifted the sheathed Tyrfang out and looked up through the hole in the ceiling, from which plaster rained down as the battle raged overhead.

For the first time, Calder noticed that not all of the deafening sounds of battle were coming from above. Gunshots and screams rang out from all around the Rose Tower.

The battle had begun outside.

“Would you do me a favor, Marten?” Kern asked.

He wasn’t watching Calder, but Calder almost couldn’t believe that the Head of the Champion’s Guild would ever ask him for anything. “Name it.”

“Back everyone off. This is going to get messy.”

Kern tucked Tyrfang under his arm, reaching into the leather satchel. He pulled a helmet out and somewhat awkwardly shoved it onto his head. Then he let the satchel fall to the floor, holding a pair of maces in a single hand.

He turned to face Calder, so Calder saw his transformation.

The helmet, carved into the aspect of a snarling bull, flared with red light as though a crimson quicklamp had been ignited within. The light shivered through every plate of the armor he wore, traveling from his neck to the bottom of his boots in an instant.

Dim scarlet energy radiated from within the armor. It was barely noticeable, but the Intent that rolled off the Champion…

It was bloodlust, desire for combat, distilled and focused into pure violence. Calder and the Magister both stumbled back, bowled over by the force of the Soulbound Vessel’s Intent.

A chuckle began deep in Kern’s chest, slowly gathering and building to a wild laugh that competed with the blows from above. The laugh became a deafening roar, and suddenly Kern leaped up through the hole in the ceiling in a blur of motion.

An instant later, an explosion sounded from the top floor. Through the window high on the wall, he saw debris raining down.

The Magister fell to her knees, breathing heavily. “That was…I don’t…I thought we were all going to die.”

So did Calder, but he grabbed his own sword from the freshly opened box and buckled it onto his waist. He had a job to do.

“Open the door,” he commanded.

The Guards hurried to obey, unbarring the doors and pulling them open.

Immediately, the battle spilled inside.

Guild members swarmed all over each other, stabbing and beating each other and hurling weapons of all descriptions. They were a mess of color and motion, so that he could barely tell any of them apart.

But he didn’t have to.

He let the Emperor’s Intent trickle down from the crown just a little.

“RETREAT!” Calder shouted.

The melee froze. A second later, all of them—Independents and Imperialists both—scrambled away. Allies stuck to allies, and a few took parting potshots, but in a matter of only seconds, the doors were clear.

However, the command had been too broad. His own Guards scurried up the stairs, dove behind boxes, or hid in the corner.

Calder tried again. Most of his attention was focused on keeping too much of the Emperor’s power from leaking through; he could already sense new memories pressing against his awareness like half-remembered dreams.

“Imperial Guard, to me!”

A mob of red-and-black-uniformed men and women condensed around him out of nowhere. Surrounded by their broad shoulders and inhuman limbs, he was reminded like never before of how much bigger the average Imperial Guard was compared to him.

“Half of you protect the boxes. Don’t let Estyr get her skulls back. The rest of you: get me to Bliss.”

They practically carried him out the door.

The streets of the Imperial Palace had turned into a nightmare.

The Champions, which he had been certain would put a quick end to any violence, had been set upon by gangs of alchemists with gas, darts, traps, and some kind of sprayed adhesive that kept the Champions bound to the floor.

If that were enough to stop them, though, they wouldn’t be Champions. Calder saw mercenaries with Awakened weapons among the alchemists, as well as leashed Kameira or even Soulbound.

Even so, the Champions strained against the poison and their bonds, and the broken bodies of many an alchemist littered the street.

His own Guards kept him hurrying down the road, but the fellow members of their Guild were engaged with everyone, most of all the Luminian knights.

From the bits of the fights that Calder could see, any knight was worth two or three of the Guard, catching blows on their shields and returning strikes with swords that flashed unnaturally bright.

Eventually, numbers would carry the day for the Guards. Some of the knights had been overwhelmed in the same way