webcrawl/APGTE/Book-2/tex/Ch-059.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-46-squire-redux}{%
\section{Chapter 46: Squire (Redux)}\label{chapter-46-squire-redux}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Note: only offer the hero the chance to replace my right-hand
man when my right-hand man is no longer in the room.}

\emph{Additional note: find out estimated rebuilding cost for the summer
palace.''}

-Extract from the journal of Dread Emperor Malignant II
\end{quote}

Two things happened in quick succession.

First, I snarled something very unkind about Chider's mother and a
he-goat. Second, I snatched the sharper out of the air and threw it back
up. Unlike during my first run-in with the goblin, I was now familiar
with goblin munitions. I knew how long they took to blow -- the standard
issue stuff anyway. The sharper exploded halfway up, giving me a gentle
hint the mixture had been tinkered with. What was it with all my enemies
getting their hands on goblin munitions? The Legions really needed to
keep a closer eye on their stocks: they were supposed to be the only
organisation with access to munitions. I'd have a talk with Black about
it, I was starting to get pretty irritated with how people kept throwing
those at me.

``Yeah, I won't be calling you that,'' I said, dragging myself up to my
feet.

I'd expected to feel aftershocks of what I was pretty sure had been my
Name getting ripped out of me, but there were none. My limbs moved
surely and smoothly. The pain must have been in my soul, horrifying as
that thought was. I could still feel an itch in the back of my neck,
though, almost like I was missing a limb. Chider replied to my polite
announcement by dropping a brightstick, this prepared to blow up
directly in my face. One of these days, the Gods were going to have to
grant me dumber enemies. There had to be a finite number of clever ones,
and I was starting to murder my way through that list. I ignored the
falling cylinder and wedged my foot into a crevasse. The flash of light
and the deafening noise might have been a problem if I were still alive,
but at the moment I was past worrying about burst eardrums. They'd make
no real difference.

Jumping while in full plate would have been hard even when I'd still had
my Name, but I was just about done playing around. Ripping a few muscles
to get the job done wasn't something I was going to balk at. My first
leap got me halfway up and I forced my limbs into making me jump again
when I hit the side of the pit, landing in a sprawl back on top. I heard
Chider scuttling away from me, hiding in the rocks. The novelty of
having an enemy shorter and physically weaker than myself was quite
refreshing. Well, weaker for now. She'd be settling into the Name any
moment now, and it was all downhill from there.

``I should have seen this coming, really,'' I said. ``Warlock mentioned
the only place in Callow to `bind or usurp a Name' was in Liesse.
Figured I was safe with no other claimant around, but that was evidently
incorrect. Breaking the laws of nature to screw me over -- classic
Heiress.''

I heard the snap of a crossbow being shot and turned in time to see the
bolt coming for my chest. My hand snapped up, following my will, and
snatched the projectile out of the air. \emph{One out of two,} I mused,
breaking the haft and dropping it on the ground. I'd had better success
rates, but also much worse.

``The part of this that puzzles me,'' I continued, ``is \emph{you}.
You're smarter than this, Chider. I'm on my way to fighting my two
rivals and you're a middling threat standing between us. There's only
one way this can go for you.''

The undead goblin slipped out of the rocks to my side, jamming a knife
in my knee joint. Frowning, I slapped her across the face. I hadn't held
back even a little bit and it showed: her neck twisted sharply with an
unpleasant sound. She picked herself up from the rock the hit had thrown
her against, idly snapping her neck back in place. No full resurrection
for her either, then. Weren't we quite the pair, jolly undead
abominations brawling in the middle of place that had been freshly
forced into existence? I took the knife out of my knee, gauging the
weight of it. Good goblin steel. It would do.

``That would be true,'' Chider said as she rose to her feet, ``if you
were still the Squire. You're free meat now, Callow-girl.''

I sighed.

``I'm serious,'' I said. ``What's the end game for you here? Say you
manage to somehow destroy my body. Heiress manages whatever the Hells
she's up to with your help. What do you do \emph{after}?''

``I change things,'' Chider replied, pulling out another knife.

Gods, was that what I sounded like to other people? No wonder I got
stabbed so often. \emph{Never assume a goblin is out of knives}, I
thought, watching her twirl the blade between her fingers. Robber
carried so many that by all rights he should clink whenever he walked
around.

``As the Squire?'' I said. ``The moment Black meets you, he'll hack you
to pieces to put the Name back in play. If he's in a bad mood, he'll
give what's left of you to Warlock. Do you still dream, Chider? Because
that's the stuff of very real nightmares.''

``I have friends of my own,'' the goblin said.

``No, what you have is an \emph{owner},'' I said. ``And she's not gentle
with her tools -- today should have shown you that clearly enough.
Chider, you're about to get thrown under the carriage. You really think
Heiress is going to stick her head out for you? Gods, you think the
\emph{Truebloods} will? They don't hide what they think about
greenskins.''

Snarling, the goblin attacked. Rude. She could have at least informed me
we were done talking. What was it with telling people they were wrong
about everything that made them so aggressive? Already Chider was
faster, quick enough she was hard to follow with the naked eye. I felt
the blade scrape my chest plate but it failed to go through and I kicked
her before she could stick it into my neck. Honestly, I wasn't sure what
she thought that would do at this point. Make me bleed out? My heart
wasn't beating anymore, and the stuff inside my veins was basically red
water giving me a little more mass. I caught her wrist when she came for
me again, initially forcing it back before something dark flared in her
leering eyes. She begun turning the struggle around. Name strength, I
decided, was a lot less pleasant from the other side. I spun around her
and helpfully handed her back her knife, sticking it into her neck.
Didn't seem to have much effect, but my boot on her back did: she was
sent sailing again.

``You think I don't \emph{know} all of this?'' Chider spat, landing in a
crouch, ``I'm not drowning in options, Foundling, unlike you. I'll
survive today, then tomorrow and then the day after that. That's what
goblins \emph{do}. We survive, even when Creation is out for our
blood.''

I unsheathed my own knife.

``You know,'' I said thoughtfully, ``I think that a year ago I would
have tried to help you. To compromise. But I've lost too many friends
since, Chider. Crossed too many lines to turn back.''

That burned face split into a horrifying grin.

``If you think I'll lay down and die for your little narcissism trip,''
she said, ``you're in for a rude awakening.''

Fair enough. I strolled forward, pace unhurried. She darted in my
direction but I feinted for her hand. Unnaturally quick, she brought up
her knife to block -- and I swiped mine across her face, ripping through
her teeth. She backpedalled hurriedly, free hand coming up to touch the
ruined fangs.

``I've been doing all this talking,'' I said. ``You probably thought it
was a blunder. She's been Named too long, she got cocky. What I was
actually doing, though, was giving them time to settle in.''

She leapt for me with a howl but that was mere savagery. I'd fought more
dangerous things than an angry undead goblin in the past, even a Named
one. Hells, I'd fought more dangerous things \emph{today}. I calmly
stepped aside, left her to slide on the rock and feinted for her eyes.
The knife came up again, faster than a blink, but I'd already redirected
the strike and was ripping through the shoulder muscles on the right.
She'd likely thought she was being clever when she'd traded chain mail
for leather, banking on speed over taking hits. Her limp right arm now
taught her differently.

``The reflexes, I mean,'' I said as I circled around her. ``They take a
while to get used to, don't they? I remember how odd it was when I first
came into the Name, getting a set of reactions that weren't entirely
mine.''

I brought up the tip of my knife and this time she reacted properly, not
falling for the probe -- which didn't help her when my other hand
unsheathed my sword and hacked through her bad arm. The limb fell to the
ground. I intended for this to be theme for the evening, as it happened.

``You can ignore them, of course,'' I said. ``But that costs you a
moment, while you push them down. A lot can happen in a moment. Still, I
imagine that given a fortnight you'd get used to it.''

My eyes turned cold.

``Unfortunately for you, you don't have a fortnight.''

Chider spat out teeth, bringing up her knife.

``Fuck you, Callow-girl,'' she said. ``No matter what you do, I will
\textbf{Surv-}``

I rammed my sword through her mouth, tip coming out on the other side.
There would be no aspect comeback for this one. I jammed my knife into
the soft side of her elbow, cleaving the muscle. Her fingers convulsed
around her weapon but there'd be no more swinging at me. Holding her
upright, I ripped out the clasps holding the upper part of her leather
armour together. The flesh under was scarred with burns, barely even
flesh at all.

``I warned you,'' I said, ``\emph{Now} \emph{give me back my Name}.''

I struck her as hard as I could, my armoured fingers ripping into her
flesh. I dug through the necrotized organs, finding the snake-like
length of her spine after jostling around a bit. Hand inside the goblin
up to my elbow, I grit my teeth and tore out her spine. It snapped
halfway through her abdomen and Chider fell limp. Dropping her to the
ground after withdrawing my smeared gauntlet, I wrenched out my sword
and beheaded her for good measure. I stood there, eyes closed. I would
have let out a breath if there'd been any air in my lungs. I did not
have to wait for long before awareness flooded into me for the second
time in my life. It felt like coming home.

I was Catherine Foundling, daughter of no one and nothing. I'd broken
armies, snatched victory from the jaws of my enemy. I'd spent lives like
coin and bought the fate of a kingdom, cheated death and spat in the
face of Corruption. On the night I'd first claimed this Name, I'd
branded my path on the soul of a hero. And on the night where I claimed
it again, that path was coming to an end. I was, once more, the Squire.

My senses sharpened and I waited for the beast that rode my shoulders to
make itself known, already smiling. I'd almost grown fond of it. The
expression faded when it made no appearance. I frowned and sunk in the
depths of my Name. They felt shallower now. Not weaker, but as if the
depths had not yet been\ldots{} earned. My blood ran cold when I
realized I had not claimed \emph{back} my Name -- I'd just claimed it,
period. I was starting at the beginning again, and I couldn't feel a
single one of my aspects. Just the potential for them, those bundles of
shapeless power. My eyes opened in sheer surprise. Those \emph{three}
bundles of shapeless power.

``Oh, Heiress,'' I said gleefully. ``You \emph{fucked up}.''

Chider had been her work, of that there was no doubt, but why would Akua
have done this at all if she knew it would give me back strength? I
might not have my aspects anymore, but my Name was effectively restored
to the strength it had possessed before my run-in with the demon. I had
the well of power to effectively use the tricks Black had taught me once
more. Why would Heiress make me stronger? She'd made a habit out of
sabotaging me at every turn. Even if she was planning on using me
against William, this made no sense. \emph{Unless she didn't know she
was doing that,} I thought. Only two people knew there had been more to
my crippling than the leg: Masego and Hakram. And Black, though that
hardly counted.

I'd not told another living soul, and as far as I knew neither had they.
And it wasn't like Heiress could just take a look at my aspects whenever
she pleased: Apprentice had needed to set up an entire room full of
hellishly complicated wards to operate on my soul. Akua had never been
allowed into the Fifteenth's camp without heavy guard, and any use of
magic on her part would have been met with immediate force. She hadn't
known, I realized. She hadn't known I'd robbed myself of an aspect.
She'd thought that by using Chider as a receptacle for my Name she could
weaken me for months, maybe even kill me when she ripped it out -- if
she was lucky. That was the thing with luck, wasn't it? It never landed
quite where you'd thought it would.

``And instead you put me back on the horse, you scheming bitch you,'' I
murmured.

Gods Below, it was about time one of her little plots backfired. Now I
just needed to cram her next one down her throat and make her choke on
it. I knelt by Chider's twice-dead corpse, wiping my sword on her before
sheathing it. I did the same with my knife after wrenching it out. If
I'd had anything to set her on fire just to be sure I would have, but
for now this would have to be enough. I didn't have any munitions on me,
much less goblinfire -- not that using a substance that burned magic in
a dimension made by a mage wouldn't have been a horrible idea anyway. I
peered in the distance and saw the gate of light was still there. For
how long that would remain the case I wasn't sure, but I thought it best
to hurry.

Feeling the mantle of my Name on my shoulders after that distressing
period where I hadn't made a tedious procession more tolerable. I could
no longer remember what I'd felt like before I'd become the Squire.
Being entirely human was just a\ldots{} hazy concept. I was beyond
sickness now, beyond the old limitations of my body like heat and cold
or not being able to tinker with my own senses. After tasting true
power, there was nothing more horrifying than being powerless. The
honesty of that thought made me uncomfortable.

It was hard to gauge lengths of time in a place without a real sky, but
I felt like I'd kept a good pace. The gate of light I'd glimpsed at a
distance was even taller than I'd thought, thrice my height -- so more
or less twice anyone else's -- and almost as broad. I couldn't make out
anything beyond it. Apprentice had said there would be a way into the
ritual site, but I found it odd he hadn't said anything about a gate.
For that matter, if he could make a gate why hadn't he crafted one for
me to enter here in the first place? I frowned, then picked up a stone
from the ground and threw it. For a moment it looked like it would pass
through, but then there was a flash of light and a loud bang.

``You're getting predictable, Akua,'' I said.

Stepping around the gate, I found the exit Masego had actually made
after looking for a few moments. Like the portal that had allowed me
through, it was transparent and hard to make out in the lack of proper
lighting. Akua's false gate was just close enough to make it hard
through wiggle through, because why make it just a death trap when you
could also make it an inconvenience? I took a deep breath I didn't
strictly need, finding the familiarity of it reassuring.

``Final round, winner takes all,'' I muttered before passing through.