Chapter 715: The Pallbearer Weeps

Loccy stepped onto the bone bridge with her hammer on her shoulder and a cake box tucked under her arm. Juna’s blood still spotted the pale planks where the silent knight fell, dark drops drying slowly under the unborn stars.

"Blades Courtesy, second round," the masked chancellor announced from his stair above the span, "the floor is smaller now, mind your feet."

"I always mind my feet, they are very big, honestly," Loccy said, setting the cake box down on the last whole plank.

Something enormous climbed the far stair, each step shaking the whole bridge like a dropped drum.

Sir Boran Grim stood eight feet tall in armour the colour of a funeral, black cloth draped over every plate. A single candle burned inside the cage of his helm, lighting a face that was already wet with streaming tears.

"Condolences for your upcoming defeat," he said, in a voice like a cellar door closing softly.

"Why are you crying, did somebody step on you?" she asked, tilting her head until one ear flopped.

"I weep for you, little one, it is the courtesy of my order."

’He is crying for me before we even start, that is the politest thing anyone has ever done.’

Up in the stands the household crowded the rail, Juna sitting stiff under fresh bandages with her tail still wagging. Hajin hung so far over the edge that Vella kept one fist knotted firmly in the back of his coat.

"Hit him once for me, Bun, then hit him again for Juna," he called down.

"I will hit him as many times as he needs."

"Mistress Loccy, please do not die, I only just got adopted!" Pippa wailed from behind Juna, both hands over her mouth.

"I will not die, I have cake waiting," Loccy promised, the maid only crying harder.

Boran drew the greatsword Regret off his back, a blade longer than Loccy was tall, its edge weeping wax.

"Begin," the chancellor said, "and may the loser be mourned with sincerity."

The blade came down slow as a temple bell and twice as loud, splitting the old planks beside her feet. Loccy swung the Mallet of Daybreak up under his chin in answer, gold light bursting from the hammerhead like sunrise.

Boran’s helm snapped back with a clang that rang across every gallery, his whole bulk sliding backward three planks.

"My deepest regrets," he whispered, then swung the greatsword sideways through the nearest pillar.

The pillar broke in half with a crack like a tree falling, the top coming down across Loccy’s shoulders. She vanished under a ton of bone and dust, the gallery sighing like mourners when the coffin lid closes.

"Bun!" Hajin shouted, the rail cracking under his hands as Vella kept her fist locked in his coat.

"She is fine, darling, look at the dust."

"You broke a pillar on me, that was not nice," Loccy said, shoving the slab off her back like a blanket, one long white ear flopping out of the rubble.

"I did warn you, little one, with the deepest of condolences."

"Warning is not the same as nice."

[ashley(mod): She shrugged off a pillar. She SHRUGGED it off.]

[DarkBlade: The giant keeps apologizing and I honestly believe him every time.]

Boran raised the greatsword over his head with both hands, the wax along its edge dripping into bright tears.

The cut fell as a Condolence Cleave, a white line of wax-light that split the span clean down its middle. Loccy threw herself sideways while a yard of bridge dropped away beneath the line, tumbling slowly into the Bright Dark.

"Every cut forfeits a fragment," the chancellor said, "the span is eleven paces now."

Ferra came clattering down the near stair with a strap of iron in her fists, shouting over the noise.

"Your grip is loose, rabbit, I saw it slip on the first swing!" she yelled, jumping onto the span’s end.

"Ferra, get off the bridge!"

Ferra snapped, wrapping the strap around the haft, "I’m fixing her hammer, not fighting him, those are different things."

"Forgive me, this next one is for everybody," Boran said, lowering the greatsword point first toward the planks as tears ran into his beard.

"What is he doing with the point, why is he pointing it at the—"

He drove the blade through the span in a Weeping Quake, the bridge heaving like a struck bell. Cracks raced out from the blade in every direction, one gallery ledge tearing loose with three nobles aboard.

"Oh, not the floor," Ferra said, very calmly, as the span tilted and its anchor bolts shrieked out of the bone one by one.

Loccy planted both feet on the last anchored plank and turned her back to the falling span.

’Nothing falls past me today, so the floor, the smith and those three squealing people stay up.’

Her soles sank into the bone as Burdenfall locked her legs, turning her into a wall no weight could move. The tilting span slammed across her shoulders with Ferra sprawled on it, the torn ledge landing on top of that.

"Everybody hold on to something, I am going to walk now," Loccy grunted from underneath, the three nobles on the ledge screaming into their fans.

"Walk where, you mad rabbit, there is no where left!" Ferra shouted, flat on her stomach.

"Over there, where the floor still is."

She took one step with the bridge on her back, then another, Worldbearer burning gold down her spine.

Every gallery went silent as a rabbit girl carried a bridge, a smith and three nobles across the dark. Hajin stopped shouting, his mouth hanging open, while Juna’s tail thumped the bench so hard that the wood splintered.

[ashley(mod): She caught a BRIDGE. With her BACK.]

[LurkerNoMore: The three nobles are still holding their teacups, I checked twice.]

"Off, please, all of you, this is a fighting floor," she said, setting the span against its anchor with a thud while the nobles scrambled away on hands and knees.

"Grip’s fixed, you absolute lunatic, now go break him," Ferra said, rolling off last to slap the hammer’s new strap into Loccy’s palm with a shaking hand.

Boran waited at the far end with the greatsword grounded, bowing his candle-lit head in something like respect.

"That was beautifully borne, little one, I confess I wept a second time," he said.

"You are always weeping, how do you know when it is a new one?"

"The second kind tastes different... sweeter."

She crossed the eleven paces at a run, ducking under the sword’s slow rising swing before he could finish it. Loccy caught him around the waist, lifted all that mourning armour off the planks, then flung him over the edge.

The whole court screamed as the giant dropped toward the unborn stars, his candle streaming like a comet.

"Wait, I did not mean all the way down," Loccy said, then dove flat and grabbed.

Her fingers closed on one armoured ankle a yard below the edge, her shoulder joint popping with the weight. She hauled him up hand over hand like a bucket from a well, the greatsword clattering down beside her.

Boran lay on his back on the planks, staring up at the drowned ships, tears pooling inside his helm.

"You threw me away, then you fetched me back," he said wonderingly.

"I only wanted you off the bridge, not dead, those are different things."

"Blades, second round, goes to Loccy of Silverwood," the chancellor said, sounding faintly disappointed.

’I won, so now there is cake, that is how fights should always end.’

She fetched the cake box from the last whole plank and sat down next to the giant, opening the lid. Grave cake, black and glossy, sat inside the box, a sugar skull grinning wide on top of the dark icing.

"Pippa baked it this morning, she cried into the batter a little," Loccy said, breaking off a wedge for him.

Boran took the cake in two fingers the size of her wrists and ate it in one careful bite. His candle flared bright inside the helm, the tears stopping for the first time since he climbed the stair.

"I love this more than death... I have never told anyone that," he said quietly.

Loccy looked at him for a long moment, serious as a stone, then nodded once, very slowly.

"That is a good reason to be alive."

Boran’s candle guttered, then steadied, his huge gauntlet coming up to wipe his face.

"Nobody in my order has ever said so, we only talk about the dying part."

"Then your order is missing the best part, the part with cake," she said, patting his knee.

[DarkBlade: Rabbit girl just taught a death knight the meaning of life with CAKE.]

[GrandmaViewer: I am crying harder than the big man and I’m not ashamed.]

She broke off a second wedge before walking the span to where the stands hung lowest over the planks.

Hajin leaned down over the rail, already grinning, until the fork came up to meet his mouth.

"Open, Hajin, you need to taste it too, it is good," she said, pushing the fork in before he could argue.

He chewed with his whole face going red from collar to hairline, the nobles around him gasping behind their fans. Juna snarled something about public feeding, Vella laughed into her sleeve, while Cessy fanned herself twice as fast as before.

He mumbled around the mouthful, "Bun, you can’t just... in front of the whole court."

"Why not, you were hungry, your stomach made a noise during the fight," she said.

"That was the bridge."

"It was not the bridge, I was holding the bridge, I would know."

He laughed so hard he nearly fell over the rail, Vella’s fist tightening in his coat again.

’His face is the same colour as the sugar skull’s cheeks, I like that colour on him.’

Far above the galleries Ibaran sat on his balcony with a cup of tea, watching the pair of them. He raised the cup toward Loccy the way a grandfather salutes a child who finally sang the right note.

’He claps for us like we belong to him, but we do not, I do not like his tea either.’

Boran climbed to his feet behind her, every plate of his armour clanking like a kitchen falling downstairs.

"Little one, a word, before they take me back to my candle," he said, bending down until his helm nearly touched her ears.

He glanced up at the balcony, then at the chancellor gliding away, before dropping his voice to a whisper.

"Do not win the Names trial, little rabbit, they steal winners."