Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(25)

“Hurry,” the revenant seethed.

“I am.”

“Let me do it for you!” I felt a ripple of frustration. “Never mind, I can’t, not with the shackles… Just hurry, nun.”

Furiously, I continued jabbing. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched spirits swarm around the knights, who spun this way and that, shaking their heads like boars beset with flies. Some still thundered around on horseback; others had been dismounted, their riderless horses stamping and rearing in the chaos. The knights’ consecrated armor helped protect them from blight and possession, but they were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Several already lay on the ground unmoving.

At last the lock clicked, and the first shackle fell free. The revenant’s power surged eagerly, only to shrink back with a flash of pain that left spots dancing across my eyes. Gritting my teeth, I started in on the second shackle.

Nearby, Leander remained locked in battle with the rivener. He had somehow managed to light his incense and was fighting with his censer in place of the spar. His survival mystified me until he made a sharp gesture with his free hand, and ghostly chains materialized from the air, coiling around the rivener as though alive.

Every Fourth Order relic imparted an ability that could be used in combat. The chains had to be the penitent’s power. They tightened cruelly, and cracks split the rivener’s armor. It sagged, listing sideways.

Leander might have defeated it easily if it weren’t for the other spirits mobbing him, forcing his attention away. He spun to swing his censer through a feverling that had snuck up on him from behind, then a gaunt on his other side. He clenched his relic hand into a fist, and more chains sprang forth, binding several more spirits at once. I had never seen anything like it before, even in the convent’s training grounds. He moved as though the battle were a dance, his motions swift and vicious, every strike deadly in its precision. But it wasn’t enough. While his focus lay elsewhere, the rivener shook itself free from the slackening chains. Implacably, it advanced, forcing him backward.

“Nun.”

The revenant issued its warning in a low voice, as though it were in danger of being overheard. I glanced over in time to see a silvery knobbed spine glide behind the wheel’s broken spokes. A second gaunt’s bald head rose into view over the shattered remnants of an incense burner, its oversized teeth bared in a morbid grin. The spirits had found me.

The key slid into place. The revenant’s power roared up like an igniting pyre, the blistering force of it momentarily blinding me. When my vision cleared, I saw that the second shackle lay in the mud, cracked and smoking. And the two spirits were gone, obliterated: tatters of mist blew from the wreckage in their place.

I got one of my feet under me. My ankle twisted when I put weight on it. The revenant’s power rushed downward, bolstering me, and with its support I rose from the wreckage, lifting my bowed head.

At once, the nearest spirits paused. They stared at me. And then they fled, streaming away from the road toward the trees, flickering erratically as they raced over the trampled ground and the bodies of knights scattered across it.

The rest of the spirits hadn’t noticed. They were too busy swarming the remaining knights and thronging around Leander. He had been cornered against a weed-choked ditch along the roadside, battling for his life against the rivener’s relentless strikes and the half-dozen other spirits surrounding him. No matter his skill, it would take only one of the rivener’s blows to finish him if he lost his footing.

“Leave them,” the revenant said. It tugged my gaze toward the forest. Leander’s dappled stallion stood alertly by the edge of the trees, watching the battle with pricked ears and flared nostrils. Missing his rider, he had bolted.

I took a step in the opposite direction.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not going to leave someone to die. Even someone I hate.”

Leander faltered. Somehow, he had heard me—and my voice had distracted him in a way that the attacking spirits had not.

The rivener’s next blow took him off guard. He stumbled as the earth beside him erupted in a fountain of dirt and rocks. The lesser spirits surged toward him.

“Wretched nun,” the revenant seethed. Seeing that I wasn’t going to change my mind, it said quickly, “Watch out for the rivener’s strikes. I can’t protect you from those.”

As I waded from the wreckage, I paused to wrench another spoke from the harrow’s broken wheel. Its splintered end dragged on the ground behind me, plowing a groove through the debris. The spirits that saw me coming fled from my path like frightened shades.

The rivener had raised its sword high above Leander, poised for the same executioner’s strike that Mother Katherine’s spirit had performed in the chapel. Busy fighting for his life against the other spirits, he didn’t catch sight of it until it began to descend. His eyes fixed on the blade like a martyr awaiting judgment.

I wasn’t going to get there in time. I raised the spoke over my shoulder and threw it. It went spinning through the air and punched through the rivener’s form, leaving a hole that swirled with vapor. The rivener’s sword froze. Slowly, its helmeted head turned.

“Ah, fantastic. There goes your weapon. And here I thought you nuns were trained for combat.”

I braced myself to dodge its next strike. But before the blow came, chains whipped around its body, binding it in place. Then Leander was beside me, a streak of blight darkening one of his cheekbones. That was all I had time to register before he shoved his censer into my hands and turned to use his relic against the spirits behind us.