Chapter 287 Armored knight

The blade finished its work, driving into the woman below, a fraction of a second before Lys could stop it from happening at all.

He did not slow down his charge at the man on top of her.

He just slammed into the armored man at full speed, shoulder and hip driving forward with everything his body still had. 

The impact of their collision rang through the plate armor and the bones of Lys. The knight was thrown several meters backward, boots skidding across the blood-slick dirt. He did not fall completely, but the force drove him down onto one knee. The long sword stayed where it had been planted, buried to the hilt between the woman’s shoulder blades, slipping from the gauntlet as the man staggered.

As the impact didn’t do much damage to him, Lys dropped to his knees beside the broad-shouldered woman. He turned her carefully to see if she was alive or not. 

Her eyes were already empty. The single thrust of that longsword was enough to kill her on the spot. Whatever last warning she had tried to give him had died with her.

He closed her eyes with two fingers, then looked up.

The knight was also rising.

“Why?” Lys’s voice came out rough, almost raw. “Why did you kill them? What is the meaning behind any of this?"

The man in the polished armor gave no answer. He simply lowered his shoulders and charged like a bull, without a single word spoken.

Lys barely had time to bring his CorpseSlayer up before the full weight of a grown man in a heavy plate crashed into him. The world around him spun. He hit the ground hard several meters away, the breath driven from his lungs. 

With this sudden impact, he felt the cursed sword tear free from his grip and skitter across the dirt, close to the knight.

The knight did not pause to finish him with fists or boots. Instead, he turned, spotted the dark blade lying in the open, close to his legs, and reached for it.

The moment his gauntleted fingers closed around the hilt, the silence of the night filled with a scream.

It was not a shout of anger or effort. It was the sound of a man who had just been struck by something far worse than steel. The knight convulsed, hand locked around CorpseSlayer as if the metal itself had become living lightning. Blue-black energy crawled up his arm in jagged veins of light. 

He staggered, still screaming, unable to let go and unable to endure the contact, either. Making him just suffer the consequences of touching something that didn’t belong to him.

Lys did not waste the opening.

Seeing the large man in a state of shock, his free hand closed around a short knife lying near the bisected corpse of the first woman. He shoved himself upright and drove forward while the knight was still locked in the curse’s grip. There was no elegant technique left in the motion, only speed and the narrow gap between the cheek plates of the helmet. 

The knife punched straight through the eye-slit of the metal helmet of the knight.

The screaming stopped almost instantly.

The armored body lost its strength and hit the dirt with a heavy, final sound. CorpseSlayer fell from the nerveless fingers and lay still again, the dark runes along its fuller pulsed once before settling.

Lys stood over the dead knight, chest heaving, the borrowed knife still in his hand. For a heartbeat the only sounds were his own breathing and the distant, ongoing fight farther down the western streets. He had killed monsters by the dozen tonight. But this was the first time, in his entire life, the blood on his hands belonged to a man.

He did not get the luxury of examining the feeling.

Before he could think to himself about any of this mess in front of him, movement at the edge of his vision pulled his head up.

Through the ragged new hole in the wall, the same wound the explosion had torn open, ranks of steel caught the faint moonlight. Knights and soldiers stood in disciplined silence just beyond the breach, easily crossing the number hundred. Their armor was the same polished, well-fitted make as the man he had just killed. Spears and swords rested in their hands. Every visor and every pair of eyes seemed fixed on the single figure standing over the corpse of their companion, at Lys.

Lys’s fingers tightened around the knife, realising the knight he had just killed wasn’t alone.

Looking straight at the men in front of him, some words left his mouth, quiet and flatly.

“…Fuck. I’ll be damned. Now what the hell is an entire army doing here?”

***

Unaware of what Lys was facing at the west gate, the people in the Veyne house had their own problem on this unlucky night.

Lighting the dark house, only two oil lamps still burned, one on the kitchen table, one near the narrow window that faced the western streets. Their light did little against the darkness pressing in from outside. The distant roar of the main fighting with the monsters had grown closer over the last couple of minutes. What had been a low, uneven rumble at first was now punctuated by sharper cries, the crash of things breaking, and the thin animal sounds of monsters that had slipped past the outer line, here in this neighborhood.

Helga sat with her hands wrapped tightly around a cup that had gone cold long ago. Across from her, Tresta rested against the back of her chair, one hand pressed lightly to her side.

For a while neither of them spoke. The house around them felt a little spooky, with people around this area, down the lane, shouting and screaming as monsters had likely broken into their houses. 

Not being able to keep it to herself, Helga finally broke the silence.

“Tresta… what do you know about Elara? You spoke as if you knew her before.”

Tresta’s eyes shifted toward her, but she did not answer immediately. She seemed to weigh the question in her mind for a while, likely wondering whether it was her thing to share.

“You should ask her that yourself,” she said at last. Her voice was quiet, steady. “If she’s decided to keep quiet about her past even after tonight, then that should remain her choice. I won’t be the one to drag it into the open and make things harder for her.”

Helga frowned. “Why? Why would you protect her like that? What is she to you? Were the two of you… related somehow? Before?”

“Hmff--f..”, Tresta gave a small, dry breath that was almost a laugh.

“No. We weren’t close. We just knew each other a little. That was all.” She looked down at her own hands, at the faint tremor from her curse. 

Then she spoke again, “The reason I’ll keep her secrets is because I know a thing or two about why a woman of her status would choose to bury her name and live like this in an outskirts village. After all, I did the same thing.”

The last words came out slower. Something in her face changed, an old, private sadness that settled into the lines around her eyes and mouth while she said it.

“Sometimes,” Tresta continued, almost too quietly, “it is better for the past of ours to stay hidden. For the safety of the people we still have left.”

Helga watched the shift in her expression and chose not to press any further. Whatever memory had surfaced behind Tresta’s eyes, it was not something a few curious questions would pry loose. The silence between them returned once again, heavier than before.

Outside, the sounds of fighting continued to swell. Closer now. Clear enough that both women could tell the monsters had reached the streets around their neighborhood now. Ordinary people, neighbors who had never held a proper weapon in their lives, must have been the ones making those desperate noises.

Helga’s fingers tightened around the cold cup.

Tresta’s gaze drifted toward the dark window. The faint pull of the curse in her limbs felt sharper tonight, as if the violence outside had reminded her body of everything it could no longer do. She could barely support her own weight on a bad day. Holding a weapon had become a memory that belonged to another lifetime.

Her voice, when it came again, was low enough that Helga almost missed it.

“…If only I wasn’t cursed by that fucking bow.”

Helga turned her head. She had no idea what the woman meant. Not knowing how to answer or console her, she said nothing.

Tresta did not elaborate.

She simply sat there in the lamplight, one hand still pressed to her side, listening to the monsters draw nearer while the weight of an old, unbroken curse kept her exactly where she was.

Both women knew it was only a matter of time before they both had to head out like others, to fight those vicious monsters by themselves. If they wanted to be alive any longer, that is.