"Demon's Twister!"

Shing.

A circular horizontal slash slammed against the armor and weapons of the knights, sending them flying away from Sayed and falling against the hard stone. Sayed grimaced as he stood to face more of the knights. He had to hold back because the men were not in their right mind.

Clank. Splash.

Across from him, Harut pushed one of the knights over and into the water. His long blue cloak fluttered in behind him as he turned on the men with his longsword. Already, the older man breathed in short, gasping breaths. They needed an alternative.

An illusion might buy them passage, and Sayed could manifest illusions if he opened himself up to his blessings greater stage. However, there was another option, and Harut was the key. Sayed turned to him as the knights advanced on both sides.

"Have you ever considered a different path?" Sayed asked. "Divide and conquer?"

"I can, but my power is not as refined as the main house." Harut sighed, sheathing his sword. "It will take me a few moments to gather the strength."

"Have no worries, brother." Sayed smiled. "I will cover you while you prepare."

Ting.

Sayed's khopesh swung, and the hilt reversed into the nearest pike. The hook on the sword did most of the work, allowing him to pull the pike out of the knight's hands and fling it over his head. That gave the rest of the knights pause. They had them surrounded, but they had no guarantee that they could all walk away alive.

"Surrender to the judgment of the crown and shield!" one of the knights yelled. "This attack will not go unpunished!"

This one still had his pike and shield. Sayed took a step forward, spreading his arms wide. He let out a laugh that echoed through the bridge, and several of the knights took another step in retreat.

So much in a fight was not just simple blade against blade. It wasn't about armor or about skill. What was most important was the presentation. It was the confidence you presented to your opponents.

"You seek judgment against me?" Sayed asked. "I will tell you now, there is only one who can judge me. There is only one in any world that can say whether I have sinned. You, petty knight, are not my God."

"Take them, now!" the knight lowered his pike in unison with the men around him. Sayed widened his stance, holding his khopesh high.

"Form Wedge!"

Bzzt.

At the same moment, two blue lines shot past Sayed, forming a wall and cutting between the knights in front of him. Sayed relaxed his stance, glancing behind himself to see Hariut standing with two arms outstretched to either side. The wedges formed an elongated square, almost diamond-shaped, Sayed imagined if he viewed it from above.

"Hrrgh." Harut grunted, closing his eyes and pushing with his arms. "Go!"

Clack. Splash.

The barrier responded to his movements, and the knights were sent crashing to either side over the bridge. Sayed smiled as he lay his khopesh against his shoulder. Truly, blessings were a remarkable gift.

"Come, brother, let us go!" Sayed started toward the first wall. "We will be the first to find Artur! I am sure of it now."

"One moment." Harut heaved, his hands dropping to his knees. "I need to catch my breath."

Sayed frowned, but he did not rush forward. They had each been paired off to help keep the other safe. While he could rush ahead, Harut would be able to navigate through the castle far easier than Sayed could on his own.

"This is why you must practice with your blessing." Sayed shook his head. "Power that is unexercised quickly grows staler than bread left to open air."

Crack.

"I haven't had much need to in the last few years." Harut grunted, rising from his squat and stretching his back. "I always found a sword more trustworthy than the power."

Sayed pursed his lips. To him, such a power, a blessing, was a gift from God. To not use it would almost be blasphemous. However, he was not in a position to judge. A person's relationship to the divine was their business, so long as they harmed none.

"Come on." Harut patted Sayed on the shoulder as he started by him. "I think I know what part of the keep we'll come out at."

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Sayed nodded and followed Harut through the gate. The portcullis was up, unlike the first, which they had to cut through to proceed. Immediately after the wall, the keep opened up into a wide courtyard. Immediately to their left was a stable with at least twenty horses still in place. Beside the stables was some housing and what looked like a smithy. On their right were several buildings, though none of them bore markings.

"Yes," Harut said. "We're close to the barracks for the Hell Knights. Follow me."

"Should we not search for Arutur?" Sayed frowned, stopping in his tracks. "He is the key to all of this, from what Alex said."

"He is." Harut nodded. "But what if the Hell Knights's gems are being stored in their barracks? We could gain them as allies as we push further into the keep. Your skills might be great, but having thirty skilled wielders of Halogi's flame could turn the tide against any opponent."

He had a point. Fighting wasn't as simple as the strongest person winning. A lucky strike, a blade in the dark, and surrounding an opponent to put a blade in the back were all just as easy ways to kill a stronger opponent. No one, except maybe those strange captains in the Military Police, could fight like they had eyes in the back of their head.

"We will face what we come to and search for Artur on the way." Sayed nodded, remembering the original plan. "Lead the way, Harut. Perhaps your Hell Knights will be our allies in the end."

Harut nodded, racing off down the strangely empty streets as Sayed followed. Except for the defenders, it seemed that no one was in the main keep. That was odd. They had expected some people to be going about their lives inside. Surely, someone needed to be out to care for the horses, to mend and maintain the armor, and to dress the guards in their armor.

That told Sayed that their presence was expected. He was no fool when it came to tactics. He had survived the Civil War in Hajh. He resolved to keep his senses sharp.

He kept that confidence until they turned the corner to see all thirty Hell Knights facing them in the street. Sayed frowned. He had not expected them to be so ready nor so concentrated.

"Is it fortune or folly that brings them to us so easily?" Sayed mumbled as he embraced his gate.

"Folly." Harut spat, drawing his sword again. "We needed their gems, not the knights. And I do not like these odds."

The knights wore black armor, lined with red down certain areas to accentuate the black. Sayed could appreciate the style. It gave an intimidating presence, especially with the single, split red line around the visor, like a glaring red eye.

There were tales in his homeland of giants that lived in the distant western mountains. These giants ground men down to their bones with their teeth and carried massive spiked clubs. However, their most striking feature was their singular eye. A cyclops, that was what the armors reminded Sayed of.

"You returned, Harut." The head of the thirty knights drew his black blade, holding it in both hands before his visor with the blade pointing to the sky. "And you've brought one of the interlopers that have broken the king's law with you."

Sayed raised an eyebrow at that. He wasn't aware of any laws he had broken. He had fought in the counting house, and he had caused some damage, but that was just a part of fighting for his life. Alex had been the one to pull out the safe and use the money.

"No, that is some talk." Sayed shook his head. "To call us anything but the heroes of this tale would be a crime. By our hand were the people of Grim Aegis freed. By our hand, you will be freed as well. I swear it upon my word to God. By the end of this night, every person in Grim Aegis will be free of their haze."

"Madness." The lead night shook his head.

"Garrett." Harut raised his own blade, pointing it up to the sky in front of his face. "Understand that I do not wish this fight."

"Of course, you don't." The knight lowered his blade, sweeping it to the side.

Behind him, his other knights drew their swords—thirty blades against two. Sayed may not have been the best with numbers, but even he did not think it was possible to take them all without injury. They could each fail only once. The thirty knights needed to succeed only twice.

"You never wanted to fight. That's your problem, old man. You would train and spar, but when it came to real battles, enforcing the law of the land, you always stepped away. You were too good for all of us grunts. You couldn't dirty your noble hands with the dirty work."

"You are good with a blade, right, brother?" Sayed asked as he sized up his opponents.

He still kept his blade balanced on his shoulder. From experience, the knights would attack only once they ignited their blades. The two he had faced the day before had taught him that, though he gleaned, it was not a blessing similar to his.

"Better than he knows," Harut hissed.

"But now you've fallen in with the same dirt, I guess." The knight shook his head, though his helmet lessened the effect. "How clean is your noble status, now that you've taken against the crown and shield? You even forsook your armor when you fled the palace."

"I left the palace to find Artur!" Harut yelled. "At the king's request!"

"Arturia," the knight whispered. "You besmirch the princess's name still. This is why the king cannot trust you. You don't even recognize his own daughter. Instead, you pretend that he is a prince."

Sayed could not let that go uncontested.

"Artur is a brother, same as all of my crew." Sayed puffed out his chest. "If you have a problem with him, you have a fight with me."

"You're making this impossible to settle diplomatically," Harut whispered. "There was a chance I could have convinced him to step down."

"I think that was lost the moment you spoke of Artur." Sayed shook his head. "We do nothing but delay the inevitable. This was always going to be a fight."

"And how do you know?" Harut grimaced. "Do you know Garrett, as I have? Were you there to train each of those knights as I was? Do you even know their names?"

"No." Sayed huffed, scratching at his chin with his free hand and adjusting his khopesh so that it dug into a different spot on his shoulder. "I know none of these things."

"Then how can you be so sure?"

"Ignite your blades!" Garrett yelled.

Hiss. Fwoosh.

"Advance!"

A line of fire crossed Garrett's blade, and soon after, twenty-nine others followed. Sayed narrowed his eyes. He would have to do the same as them, though his power came from a wholly different source. Sayed reached deep within himself and opened his gate.

Raging fire raced through his veins, burning out through his heart and into his fingertips with an inferno. His sword burned bright orange as he raised it from his shoulder and pointed it at the knights. It was time for the story to truly begin.

"I can be sure for a very simple reason." Sayed smiled. "In a grand tale, this would be the perfect time for a fight."

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