Page 73 of The Iron Hex

Hugo looked back at Eira and Evangeline as the three knights noticed them—he hadn’t told them about the papers yet, and if they didn’t all die here, he needed to. A shiver rolled down his spine as the Soulless Knight turned its head and looked at him. Hugo stepped out from behind Arthur, recognizing one of the faces in front of him.

“How are you three?” he said, spreading his arms wide in greeting.

“Hugo Venton,” the tallest one, Sir Franklin, said. “You are an enemy of the Iron Empire and have been sentenced to death.”

“Not this again,” Hugo groaned as he leaped into action. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Evangeline pull a dagger out of her belt, holding it up defensively.

Civilians who had been walking through the square gasped as weapons were unsheathed, and Hugo desperately hoped that Eira didn’t cast anything. They couldn’t deal with managing random people seeing her magicandfocus on surviving this fight.

Hugo swung, pivoting his focus to the Soulless Knight so that they wouldn’t go for Evangeline or Eira. The knight, monster, whatever it was, swung eerily fast, and Hugo was reminded of the challenge he had faced when he’d fought Saoirse weeks ago.

The lumbering knight looked vaguely familiar, but Hugo couldn’t place it. He suspected a knight from another regiment, no recognition as he looked into the misty white eyes.

Hugo turned, parrying Sir Franklin as he swung his sword at him, making it a two-on-one fight.

The third knight headed toward Evangeline and Eira, and Hugo watched out of the corner of his eye as Evangeline darted forward with exceptional speed. Eira’s eyes closed and her hands moved, as if she was about to cast.

Before he could warn her to stop, the Soulless Knight swung at him, forcing Hugo to dive out of the way. He rolled toward the lake edge, both knights in front of him as they crept forward, looking for an opening.

He heard the distinctive clang of metal and a scream before hearing Evangeline speak.

“I’ll take that,” she said sweetly, pulling the third knight’s sword out of his vine-covered hand, Eira’s magic writhing around a soldier’s body. “Let’s make this a fair fight.” Evangeline smiled, twirling the sword in her hand as she appeared on the other side of the two knights who had been focused on Hugo.

As they looked toward the princess, Hugo took the opportunity to dive at the Soulless Knight, wedging his sword in its back and kicking the weapon out of its hand. He rolled out of the way toward Evangeline, waiting for the Soulless Knight to fall.

The three watched in horror as the inhuman thing before them twisted its arm to pull Hugo’s sword out, picking up its greatsword from the ground and throwing Hugo’s back at him, the sword clattering to the ground at his feet.

“What the hell is that thing, Venton?” Evangeline hissed.

“Now’s not the time to explain.” He shook his head. Hugo leaped at the Soulless Knight as Evangeline circled Sir Franklin.

“You’re traveling with a witch?” Sir Franklin asked Hugo, ignoring Evangeline.

“He is,” Eira answered, hands up as she looked between the two sword-wielding members of her group. Hugo assumed she was trying to figure out how to cast something that would help them, and he had a fleeting moment of thankfulness that the Iron Empire soldiers who had found them thus far had all been smallfolk before the empire had arisen. None of them had encountered her when she was Viscountess Westcotte, and had no hope of recognizing her for who she once had been... her, or Evangeline. Eira had been practicing her magic over their travels, puzzling out small spells on long nights, but Hugo didn’t know if vines would stop whatever this creature was.

“Your betrayal runs deeper than even the lord general knows,” Sir Franklin responded.

“The lord general,” Hugo said to the living knight, a man he’d once worked closely alongside, as his sword clashed with the Soulless Knight’s, “is hiding things from you.”

He swung again, watching Evangeline deftly hold her own against Sir Franklin, moving as gracefully as a dancer with the Iron Empire’s sword in her hand. Hugo wondered where she’d learned those skills, and how she’d kept up with them.

“The glory of the Iron Empire requires the sacrifice of knowing only what needs to be known!” Sir Franklin screamed in response to Hugo’s heretical words.

Hugo rolled his eyes as he swung fruitlessly at the monster in front of him; it wasn’t even breaking a sweat. Had Hugo been that annoying, once? He knew he’d been brainwashed by the Iron Empire, but he hoped he hadn’t been this bad.

The Soulless Knight’s sword hit Hugo’s side, cutting through his leather armor and into his skin, deep enough to start bleeding, but not dangerously. Hugo looked toward the knight, who was already moving his sword to take aim at him again. Hugo couldn’t keep up with this pace; he was going to lose.

With a wet slosh, the Soulless Knight’s feet gave way under him. Hugo blinked. Seaweed wrapped around the creature’s ankles and dragged him toward the frigid lake before he could so much as scream. Hugo looked to Eira, her eyes closed tightly before they shot back open, her hands raised and fingers twisting as the seaweed twined around the ankles of the creature.

It turned emotionlessly, hacking at the plants that bound it, but that moment gave Hugo the break he needed. Leaping forward, he drove the tip of his sword into the knight’s head. The frantic swinging finally stopped, the dead eyes it had always had now unblinking and wide open, unchanged.

Evangeline screamed. Sir Franklin was overtaking her, knocking the sword out of her hand. Hugo started running, not sure if he’d make it to her before Franklin dealt a lethal blow. Neither Evangeline nor Eira were wearing armor. No!

“NO!” Eira yelled, turning her gaze to Sir Franklin.

Hugo watched the magic rippling around her clawed hands change, and he saw her eyes narrow but not shut completely as water rushed from thin air to form an impenetrable bubble around Sir Franklin’s head.

The orb of swirling water encircled his face, and his handsinstantly dropped his sword as he scrambled to try to pull the churning liquid away from himself.