I heard the rising venom of a spell on Merulo’s lips, but before he could complete it, Gareth smashed a fist into his jaw. The sorcerer stumbled backward into the waiting knights, his thin frame dwarfed by the burly men. Gareth pressed forward, snatching the front of Merulo’s ruffled shirt and slamming that oversized hammer of a hand, again and again, into his mouth.
The same mouth I’d been in the process of kissing. Needless to say, this pissed me off.
With the men caught in their haze of testosterone, flesh smacking destructively into flesh, nobody paid poor womanly me any mind as I padded through the wet grass. Dodging the backward swings of Gareth’s jackhammering, I reached for the broadsword at his waist, and pulled it free from its sheath with barely a sound. One of his companions called a warning, but too late; I had the sword pricked into his back, with enough pressure to drive the tip through his shirt and an upper layer of skin. He howled like a dog—but even through the cloud of alcohol, Gareth had enough sense not to move.
“I’ve always had passing adequacy with a sword,” I slurred proudly.
Freed from the barrage, Merulo did not waste time. He completed his foul utterance, and Gareth toppled—onto the sorcerer. While the other two knights scattered, shouting and near-tripping in their haste to escape down the empty street, I dropped the sword and pushed at the deadweight that was Gareth, using every muscle in my transformed body to roll him off the crushed sorcerer.
“I could so easily have bought you a pretzel.” Merulo lay stunned, but free of injury. Remarkably so, considering what I’d just witnessed. I could only imagine that he’d expended another dragon scale outside the pub, in anticipation of conflict.
“Is he dead?” I reached out a hand to help him to his feet. No longer a pastel wash, the clouds burned a lifeblood red behind him.
Merulo wrinkled his nose at the prone knight. “Unconscious. I applied the command word for ‘slacken.’”
“The same spell you used on me?” I nudged Gareth’s side with a tentative foot. “It doesn’t smell as though he’s shit himself.”
“Most people don’t.”
We stood in sudden awkwardness. Was the sorcerer expecting to resume . . . ? But there came William with his marionette strides across the deserted cobblestone street.
“I had him unloading groceries through the portal,” the sorcerer explained, with a hint of sheepishness. “These trips areusuallyuneventful. Now, however, I’ll have to find a town of comparable size to fulfill my needs, which means trying new vendors, some of whom are bound to be low quality or otherwise disappointing.” He sighed, a touch dramatically. “And of course, every minute spent on domestic matters is one in which I could have been attending to my constructs. The Order will certainly take advantage of that, with their constant advancements on my stronghold, the end result no doubt being an interruption of my reading. It’s fair to say, Cameron, that this chain of events will substantially delay the death of God. For apretzel.” The sorcerer brushed dirt andstreet filth off his clothing; given his unbroken skin, it was the only sign he’d been assaulted by a trio of knights.
“Not just for a pretzel. I also got the crucial intel that everybody hates me.” I kicked Gareth’s side again. This time, the burly man let out a low fart. “You see this? You see this? And you’re saying it’s not a shit-yourself spell.”
“Are you still on about that?” Merulo sighed, then straightened, his face attempting something poignant and solemn. “Cameron, listen. I have been an outcast my entire life.”
“Oh good, something to bond over.” I pried the sword belt off unconscious, farting Gareth. The world had begun to double, with two sorcerers, two Gareths, and four of my own hands manipulating the belt.
“Would you just . . . even when I’m making an effort, you’re COMPLETELY infuriating.” His fists had balled, like a child being denied a toy.
“Making an effort at what? Should I be forgetting I have a torture needle in my chest, just because you’re getting sentimental over grabbing some tits?” With some drunken struggle, I buckled the sword belt around the waist of my already much-abused dress, so that the sheath fell down a hip. I retrieved the deadly steel from where I’d tossed it in the wet grass, and (nearly impaling myself) sheathed it with a satisfying rasp.
The sorcerer threw his hands into the air with a shout of frustration. “This is immensely unimportant. I am SUPPOSED to be finding a way to slay God.”
“Well go on, then,” I said, with a shooing motion. “Go slay God.”
“I will,” snapped the sorcerer, and I imagined I could make out the gleam of his eye, even through the illusion.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” he spat, storming away down the cobblestone street. With a sigh, I followed in his wake, stopping only once to vomit up alcohol.
CHAPTER 12
In Which Glenda Is Belatedly Rising through the Ranks of the Order by Means of Her Family’s Wealth and Status, All because She Wants to Kill Cameron So Bad, Oh She Wants to Kill Him So Bad, You Don’t Even Know, She Really, Really Wants to Kill Him.
And the mad sorcerer was seen in broad daylight, ‘making out’ with his . . . sister?”
The three knights nodded enthusiastically. Though they knelt in the shaded interior of a high-topped tent, the summer heat baked the air about them, drawing sweat from their rugged faces and moistening their leather armour. Altogether, they produced an unbelievable odour.
Elder Beth, with her braided cone of white hair, sat patiently before the kneeling men in a wooden chair carved with vines and leaves. A gift from the elves—and one such elf stood at her side.
Before the Elder could launch into further inquiries, Glenda interjected, “Could we have a physical description of this ‘sister’?”
The knights looked at one another, frowning with the effort of remembering, before the bearded one spoke. “Pretty little thing. Wavy golden hair in eh, ringlets. Had some strange mannerisms.”
Glenda wrinkled her nose, turning to the Elder. “It’s Sir Cameron.”
