“But did you need to make such a mess Sasarai, I mean we are going to be weeks getting this conference room to a point where it’s not mistaken as an abattoir.”

“I’m sorry Helgon, but what exactly would be the point of showing mercy towards those who might have exposed us? Do you think if the slightest hint of what we have planned were to reach divine ears, we would fare any better than this?”

“Well of course we would. Should one deity or another hear of our scheme we’d be reduced to ashes in an instant. Much cleaner than this. I mean, come now, there are splatter stains above the drapes. That’s simply needless.”

“Far from it. These were holy adherents to twelve different faiths. Their durability and regenerative capacity had to be accounted for.”

“Sasarai, there are miracles of healing, there are contingency spells, and there are post-mortem revivification techniques. Not a single one of those requires the dissociation of every bodily cell from every other one to counteract. I mean, come now, a single suppression spell and you could have silenced them all with a cantrip. We’re supposed to be better than…whatever this was.”

“It’s because we are better than they are that this is permissible. Perhaps you’re correct and perhaps you’re not. The important thing is that it is done and that it was done decisively.”

“Perhaps in the future we might attempt to do things correctly as well.”

– the moment when High Accessor Sasarai decided he was going to personally ensure High Accessor Helgon did not enjoy divine status a moment longer than necessary.

We could have hidden. Theia was the Blessed of Night, and Umbrielle was right there with us, giving Theia and the rest of us her full attention.

Even worse for the assassins that Sasarai had sent after us, we had Kalkit with us.

Do you know what assassins rely on? I hadn’t ever thought about, mostly because I thought assassins were a relic of the world that had fallen. We’d learned about them in history as an example of how duplicitous the ancient world’s nations had been. That Sasarai could conjure up a squad of them on command should have come as a surprise, it was decidedly out of character for the First Tender and contrary to every bit of doctrine he’d invented for us. Really though, he’d lost the ability to surprise me the moment I’d understand who Draconia really was.

And that’s why the assassins were doomed the moment they stepped on the train. What they needed most was surprise. Even if Sasarai had given them enough power to simply overwhelm us, a straightforward attack would have been disastrous for him.

Best case, they killed us and none of us got away. The chance that the fight of that magnitude would have escape the notice of the other Neoterics was nonexistent. The fact that I’d escaped from the garden as a roaring dragon wasn’t exactly something that was easy to hide either, but the Draconia, Umbrielle and Helgon seemed to think that the impromptu festival Sasarai had thrown would leave the other Neoterics to chalk up the light show as ‘Sasarai being a weirdo’, or him testing out a new source of faith generation as he’d done many times in the past.

One unexplained oddity wasn’t going to be enough for them to risk moving on, two on the other hand, or one display that he was absolutely not in control any longer? They’d fall all over themselves to claim his power before anyone else could.

The assassins Sasarai sent weren’t going to meet a ‘best case’ scenario (from their perspective though) because Sasarai didn’t know we had a Kalkit and trying to ambush a Blessed of Secrets was the definition of a catastrophically bad idea.

With less than half a minute to plan we didn’t have time for to belabour over elaborate schemes, but with the Blessed of Battle to lead us and forewarning we didn’t exactly need complicated plans either.

The first assassin to strike used a potent paralysis gas as their weapon of choice.

It was a smart move. Lyostine Gas was a readily produced byproduct of the aetheric lighting common in both the Garden and the Low City. Gathering a concentration of it was challenging since there wasn’t much released during a day of manufacturing, but its presence wouldn’t have been noticed since it was odorless and invisible.

Had the gas worked as intended, I would have been paralyzed before I was aware anything was wrong, with Theia likely joining me in helplessness. I don’t think, with her mechanical parts, Xalaria would have been as effected, but since I wasn’t keen on either asking Xalarai to fight alone, or being paralyzed in general, I called on my gift with the winds and blew the gas directly back out of the room.

One assassin down, temporarily, twenty three more to go.

I caught the scent of the other assassins thanks to Draconia’s aid, and have to admit to being more than a little surprised that there were so many of them.  Sasarai, it seemed, was not interested in risking undercommitting his forces to the effort.

The next assassin dropped down from the shadow above my seat, an obsidian blade aimed directly at my heart.

Oddly, that was not the best kill-shot he could have tried for. Sasarai knew the kind of healing gifts I had. If he’d been interested in killing me (and never recovering his divine fragments) he would have instructed them to strike for my brain (which would have been a nice confirmation that I had one given how much I’d seemingly lost my mind with my recent decisions).

Had the assassin gone for a heart strike a day or so earlier, he would have enjoyed a great deal more success. My options for survival would have been ‘have Theia knock him away first’ or ‘Xalaria steps in and block the blow for me’. 

The poor assassin was just a little late for any of that however. As he descended, I looked up and locked my gaze onto his. He was a Sylvan. And a demon, I think. Or at least a pretty nasty ancestor of some kind. What he wasn’t however was used to a Sylvan staring back at him with draconic eyes blazing with glee.

The obsidian blade shattering on my chest probably also came as a surprise.

I mean, when Draconia said she could protect me? Yeah. She was not kidding.

The clawed hand that caught the assassin by the throat and slammed him to the ground wasn’t something he saw coming either, and while it was technically my hand, its strength was very definitely not my own.

The fact that the assassin was battered into unconsciousness on the floor of the car with one sharp move, but not driven through the floor of the train and tossed under the wheels was a shown of supreme restraint on Draconia’s part.

Sure, Xalaria had said “capture them, no killing” but she wasn’t technically the boss of any of us.

That she had a good point was more compelling though, even for someone with Draconia’s level of long suppressed rage. Dead assassins weren’t a tool we could use. Living ones might be useful in convincing Sasarai to turn his thoughts and prayers towards hoping we’d leave him alone.

I wasn’t going to of course, but he didn’t have a Kalkit to tell him that.

Elsewhere in the train car, the others were dealing with the next waves of assassins in the own manner. Xalaria hadn’t bothered to draw a weapon at all. When two assassins materialized in front and behind her, she simply used one to bludgeon the other one. I heard bones crack, but neither one burst like a balloon so I suspected she was holding back too.

Kalkit avoided the assassins that were targeting them via the expedient of hopping on Fulgrox’s shoulder and letting the Blessed of the Harvest convince the assassins that approaching someone that large who was wielding threshing knife was, perhaps not the wisest move they could choose to make.

Theia took the simpler approach of simply not being there. The assassins who appeared in the room knew where she’d been but the strike at someone sitting in her seat did nothing more than ruin the upholstery of the seat back.

That assassin clutched his throat, trying thrash to freedom only to fall limp a few seconds later. We Sylvan consider ourselves kin to the Holy Tree and therefor believe that we grow like plants. We do however require blood, especially that it be delivered to our brains, and unlike a plant if that flow is stopped for even a brief moment, we tend to have issues remaining conscious.

Another assassin lunged out of nowhere, slashing at the spot where Theia had to have been holding the first assassin but a threshing knife pinned him arm through the bicep to the wall. 

It’s not like we were incapable of working together after all.

Another few tried to rush me at once, one appearing mid-leap to knock me through the curtained windows of the train. Theia stopped that one, and Fulgrox caught the next one, smashing him into an assassin he had splayed over a seat back.

The assassin’s strategy wasn’t the most terrible one they could have though and the third one to try found the opening the other two had missed. 

I was tempted to bite him. There was a good chance I could do so without fatal consequences, but Draconia suggested a different course of action.

So I let him knock me off the train.

Like I said, it wasn’t the worst possible strategy for the assassins, since it separated me from the other and let two more pile on as we crashed through the window.

They had made one small mistake though.

The train ran underground through a series of tunnels Helgon had arranged to create to connect several of the cities. Helgon hadn’t bothered digging through solid earth the whole distance though. To the greatest extent possible he’d made use of the nature caverns and pre-existing underground dwelling from before the Sunfall. That meant that when I let the assassins throw me off the train, I’d done so while we were passing through an old dwarven city-cavern the size of the Garden.

Which meant I could fly.

Being outside of the train also freed me in one other way, which I promptly displayed to them.

Breathing fire, as it turns out, is somewhat harder to deliver restrained blows with than threshing knives and unarmed attacks.

To my credit, one did survive!

I mean, they were a bit roasted. But, you know, conjured and enfleshed ancestor spirit. Kinda dead to start with? 

I chalked the drifting ashes of the other two up to at least not leaving mess for anyone else to clean up and soared back into through the broken window.

Unsurprisingly, there were twenty one disabled and/or unconscious assassins to which I add the final one I’d had to catch.

“We won’t have long to question them before Sasarai notices that they’ve been captured,” Xalaria said.

“You will have no time at all,” one of the assassins said, rising to his feet like his limbs were being pulled by invisible strings.

“Sasarai! How lovely to see you again my old comrade,” Helgon said, waving from his seat. “How is that perfectly secret vault working out for you?”

“I knew we should have razzed that city of yours to the ground,” Sasarai hissed from the assassin’s lips.

“Oh, you’re quite welcome to try. Do you know how many defenses are simply going to waste? I mean, please, do try. I’ve been, well I suppose not ‘dying’ to try out some new inventions, but you take my meaning.”

“I believe I do,” Sasarai said. “Which is why this group will not be allowed to reach your domain. Girl, thief, return to me now.”

I took a step forward until my brain caught up with the reflexive obedience that had been drilled into me.

“No.” It was unbelievably hard to say that. For all that I hated him, for all that I hated what he’d done, giving “The First Tender” a simple ‘no’ was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. “Yeah, no, not until I’m ready.”

“That was not a request,” Sasarai said. “Return now or your family’s will feed the roots.”

Far away, I could feel the truth of that. Kam’s panic. My mother’s confusion. My father’s terror. Sasarai was not bargaining and he would not hesitate.