We circled each other.

  Lance had let the helm of the golem suit melt away from his face. I saw him. Noticed again how his face had changed. The handsome young man that ruled the arena in the early days of the choosing was long gone. The creature that had replaced him was made of the same shape, but had somehow grown ugly. His skin was pallid and textured. The dark rings under his eyes had deepened to near blackness. His eyes were pinkish with broken blood vessels.

  I’d seen this descent. I’d seen him changing, wearing out from some unseen pressure. Was it madness? Some other illness? Or had he made this deal with F’ael longer ago than I might have expected? Had he been bonded to the golem-suit all this time? Was it devouring him? Draining him? He had been gone from Boston for months after he failed in the Choosing. I remembered that. When Chowwick had died, Lance’s father had said he would need to send for Lance. Lance had been far away.

  “How did you do this?” I asked. I did not feel threatened. I was nearly level 50. He couldn’t have progressed as I had. True, I did not know the capabilities of the suit he wore, but I doubted he could match me. It was the knights and the two golems that worried me. For now Lance seemed to desire to test himself against me, but I knew he could summon them at any time. My goal was simple: either kill him quickly, or maneuver myself so that I could free my friends.

  Lance laughed. “That’s what sets us apart, shopkeeper. You were gifted something. You didn’t earn your progression, the way you increased during the choosing, the way you’ve grown since. That was given to you. I told you before it wasn’t fair. That’s why I took the relic with me into the arena. I wasn’t cheating, shopkeep. I was leveling the playing field. Oh, but back then I had no idea how ‘gifted’ you were.”

  I circled to his left, aiming for Racquel again, but he stepped between. I circled right, keeping him engaged. For now the knights and golems only watched.

  I said, “What did you do? Sell your soul? To F’ael?”

  Surprise flashed across his face, the haggard features distorting in a net of wrinkles. The surprise passed and the hatable smugness reappeared. “You’re one to talk, aren’t you shopkeeper? When it comes to making deals with the devil… well, you’re leading the way. You’ve sold yourself and your city to that thing?”

  I gritted my teeth, “That thing?”

  He smiled. “Enki.”

  That did startle me. I supposed I should have imagined that if he’d communed with F’ael somehow that the deity might have shared this knowledge with him.

  He chortled. “Oh, didn’t expect me to know about your pet demon? Or your master, more probably?”

  “It’s not my master.”

  Lance spat. “You disgust me.”

  My eyes widened, “I disgust you? You’ve torn our city in half! You’ve killed your countrymen! Look at yourself! You signed a deal with F’ael and it’s destroying you!”

  He touched his sandy cheek with one hand and winced. He sighed, “It’s a sacrifice. I had a choice when the High Priest came to me. Live my days unremarkable, maybe winning a suit somewhere else, but likely not. I could live my natural days as a nobody, knowing that you were here gaining glory you don’t deserve, destroying my city by feeding it to Enki. Or I could give myself to F’ael. I won’t live five more years, can you imagine that? But they’ll be good years. I’ll be remembered as the hero who saved my city from the blood prince.”

  I heard my voice growing hot, “You’ve made a deal with a demon! What you’ve done today can never be taken back! Look around Lance! Look at those bodies! Those are our countrymen! You had them killed! You’ve gone beyond the limits. You’re going to be remembered as a murderer. The murderer I put down!”

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  He did glance around. For a moment a dread realization seemed to seize him and he trembled. I nearly struck in that moment, but something held me back. I enjoyed the pained realization he experienced. And, maybe, for my shame, I thought he might come to his senses.

  His head snapped back to me, eyes wide with righteous anger. He screamed, “YOU MADE ME DO THIS!”

  He flew at me, sword slashing. I wasn’t ready for the suddenness. I danced back, making room to counter with a CUT of my own. When our swords met I realized his power was more than I could have imagined. The golem-suit was something else, something different to the griidsuit. And he was different as well.

  The impact drove me back, stumbling, barely getting my sword back up in time to counter the next furious swing.

  Anubis had promised to make me better and more powerful, but at the eventual cost of my humanity. There was to be a cost, a price, to choose the path of whatever Anubis could do to me. Lance had apparently surrendered his health and most of his life for whatever he had now. It was a terrible, terrible cost to be exacted, but the onslaught that fell on me was beyond my wildest imagining.

  His sword was fast. I knew his style and this was reminiscent. But the power and maddened ferocity were new ingredients. Our blades sang. I found my footing after a few exchanges and began to take some control of the ordeal. His deluge of blows should have been tiring to him, each swing a maximum effort, but he seemed endless in his stamina. I moved to the defensive, using POWER and AGILITY to keep him at bay. I maneuvered each time my CUT lashed out to turn his blade aside. There was no chance to counter. His sword thundered at me, I danced back, flicking mine out to turn his, and instantly it was coming back at me.

  I turned my head, finding the others. In the tempest of panic and chaos I knew I needed to find a way to get to them. I danced, summoning every trick I’d gained, drawing on every reserve of power I could muster. My knee throbbed with every step, the throb growing more and more pronounced.

  I screamed at him, “Stop this Lance! You’ll destroy Boston!”

  He roared back at me, his sword a force of nature, “I WILL BE SWORD!”

  The force of the blow broke through my CUT, knocking my blade aside. The tip of his blade crackled along my chest, scraping me. Pain flared as pulsing kinetic energy surged into me, tossing me back from him.

  I tumbled on the cobblestones. My knee twisted again, fresh pain lancing into my body. The wound to my chest hadn’t met my flesh, but the suit screeched pain into my neurons.

  He pounced on top of me, sword poised, but he didn’t drive it down. I scrabbled, bringing mine up to guard my chest, but feeling the impossibility of my situation. I couldn’t get back up from here, he controlled the moment.

  He said, “You see? I’m stronger than you. It feels like I have five, maybe ten levels on you. This suit doesn’t come with levels like that. It’s more of a set piece, it comes out of the box like this. But it’s enough. And it’s just what I said. You got your gift handed to you. I don’t know where you gained your powers, F’ael doesn’t either. But what matters is that you didn’t earn them. They cost you nothing. You sacrificed nothing for them. Me? Well, shopkeeper, I paid a price. I won’t get close to thirty years old before I burn out. But I EARNED this. I earned this power. I’ve paid with my lifespan. I paid with the lives of loyal soldiers. But you know what?”

  He leaned over me, peering down at my face. His downward-pointing blade never wavered, if I so much as twitched it would stab forth like a bullet. I was frozen in the path of a coiled snake.

  He spoke quietly, “It was worth it. Not for the city, not for my legacy. I fucking hate you. You know that, shopkeep? I fucking hate you. You took my Sword from me. You humiliated me in front of my father, in front of the city. You made me second best. I can’t live with that. I’ve got five years left, and you know what? It’s a gift. I’d have given all of it just for this moment.”

  I groaned, casting about. The others stood, restrained, tense and vibrating at my plight. I saw Racquel gesturing, shooing with her hands, begging me to flee. But I was trapped beneath him.

  He reached behind his back and produced a set of those glowing cuffs. “Put these on, Shopkeeper. Father and the others are out with the bulk of the troops, shoring up the resistance. We’ll keep the Lord Supreme and the traitor Griidlords alive until total order has been restored. Then we’ll have a party. With nooses. If you put these on you’ll have a few days more to live. You can have a cell next to your turncoat girlfriend. If you don’t, well…” he twitched the end of his sword.

  I felt the decision quavering before me. It was so sudden and terrible. Hours ago I had been a victor. We had beaten Buffalo. We had a second city vassaled to ours. We were negotiating with the nobles for the war that would come with the surrounding states. Now, suddenly, I was pinned to the ground beneath a demon. Worse than a demon, it was Lance himself. Harold was ashes in the wind, dead and gone from me. Everything I had built towards had been ripped away. And my decision was to die now or in a few days? My mind was a cyclone of disbelief.

  He jerked his wrist, “Come on shopkeeper. What’s it going to be? The sword today or the noose in five? I don’t really mind which. I’ll just be happy to see you ended.”

  Tom Wrath | Posting SCAPE and Gridlords 3X Weekly | Patreon