The Collector pushed toward the crowded rank, four arms reaching, and Didi slid her rapier beneath the raised one.
"Flank it! Spread where the ground holds, leave the front clear for the axe!" She flung her free hand toward the left pillar, jaw clenched.
"Flanking, Your Highness!"
"Capital road, go," Gazel barked, swinging his haft toward the driver, "find the guards, and tell them what crawled out of this ground!"
"Sir, what about Her Highness—"
"Now, damn it, go!"
The carriage tore through the lane, leaving eleven shields locked around Didi.
Gazel's axe hit plate before it could chase the carriage, and the clang shook the clearing.
"Damn thing doesn't even dent!" He spat and dragged the edge across a joint, jumping back as a lower claw raked past his hip.
Her ice locked both its ankles, and it simply leaned forward and crushed the binding to powder.
"Oh, come on—"
She jabbed her rapier at the gouged joint, "Together, hit where he hit, make it choose which side to cover!"
Spears slammed its chest and swords hunted seams, and every impact bounced shields backward.
"Shit, my spear's stuck—"
The shaft snapped when he yanked, and beside him another shield strap tore loose from its rivets.
Another knight stepped off her frost, and the road split and clamped around his foot.
"Pull me out! It's looking at me, I can't move this leg—"
Didi pushed frost beneath the stone, careful not to freeze his ankle in place.
Three Shards flared at Gazel's wrist as his axe drove into the seam, the fourth held in reserve.
The Collector ignored the blow, its gaze fixed on the trapped knight as a lower hand reached.
Gazel caught that hand on his haft, teeth gritted, while the captain dragged the knight onto firmer ground.
"Shield over him, nobody leaves him to the stone!" the captain roared.
'It's reaching for him instead of backing off, and my ice can't pull a foot out of rock.'
The Collector turned its eyes on her rapier, "That is all your lineage offers? Garden frost and a guardian who bleeds so you don't have to?"
"Garden frost?" Her lip curled while she raised the point toward its eyes, "come a little closer and I'll plant some in your face."
She narrowed the cold into one needle, the shape her father's lessons taught her.
"The bloodline sleeps, a royal title without its power, no wonder other people hold your shields for you." It tapped its chest seam with a claw, almost lazily.
"I stand beside them, you ugly bastard, so come close enough and learn what that costs." Didi bared her teeth and set her heel, drawing every scrap of mana into the point.
Its upper shoulder seam gapped a sliver while its lower hands wrestled Gazel and the captain.
She lunged past the halberd, and the needle pierced the seam, leaving a thin line of blood and a hiss.
'It felt that, it actually felt that, so find the seam again before our hands give out.'
"It bleeds! Hold your ground, the joints open if we make it turn!"
The Collector touched the frozen blood, studied it on an opened claw, and its smile spread wider.
"All that talk about blood, and yours spills like anybody's," she snapped, chest heaving.
'Why is it smiling, what did that cut just tell it that I can't see?'
Pressure crushed her frost, and the squire strained under his shield, half-drawn sword slipping.
"Stay up, hold it, hold—"
An arm rose and vanished, a shield split at her left, and the halberd rang under another impact.
'Where did it go, I saw it rise, somebody tell me where it hit.'
"Down!" Gazel grabbed her arm and yanked her behind his axe as the tail came sweeping back for her neck.
He took the blow meant for her, the blade bending at the haft, and a body hit the road.
"Captain? Captain, sound off... somebody answer me!"
Nobody called the formation back, and the squire's shield rolled to a stop against her foot.
Its owner lay beyond it, fingers curled around a sword he finally managed to draw.
'He finally got it out, and nobody is shouting at him to lift it.'
The captain lay beneath his broken halberd, and all eleven escorts lay still across her reinforced ground.
"I told them to spread, they went exactly where I sent them, how did it reach every single one?" Her voice thinned, and the rapier point dipped toward the stone.
"Not your orders, Your Highness," he said evenly, never taking his gaze off the Collector, "look at me, not at them."
It flicked blood off a lower hand, ignoring the open road.
'I sent them there, they trusted my ground, and it reached every shield anyway.'
He rolled his wrist, and the fourth Shard joined the three orbiting his hand.
But his next breath pulled light beneath the armor, up his neck and across his face.
No ordinary fourth-Shard strike needed that, and the Collector lifted its head to watch.
"At last, something worth collecting, show me what you kept for a road with fewer witnesses." It spread its hands toward the light without stepping into reach.
"Wait, what is that, what are you doing—"
Gazel drew the axe upright, set both feet, and began the oath without looking back at her.
"By the light of the fallen, carve the path of the righteous, through the blood of the sworn, shield the weak and purge the dark, let steel remember its purpose, let the spirit break the unbreakable, in the name of the sacred oath, I stand."
Light broke through every armor joint as the Crown Brand formed beneath his plates.
"Stop," she gasped, clutching for his arm as cracks raced across his cheek, "stop it, you don't need—"
'The books kept the victory, so why did nobody write down what happened to its bearer?'
He slipped past her fingers and struck at its head, and the road broke under the blow.
His kick drove its crossed arms into its chest and skidded it into a pillar.
She stared at the blood leaking past his lips, her jaw trembling, "Leave something for when we get home..."
"You're supposed to walk beside me, not become another name in a book that only remembers how you won."
'That light is eating him alive, and he keeps putting himself between that thing and me.'
"You pass me before you touch her, and I plan to make that passage cost more than you brought." He lowered the axe as blood ran down his chin, his tone dry and unbothered.
"Don't you dare talk like that—"
"Then I break you first," the Collector rumbled, rolling its struck shoulder and bringing two hands together, "a simple arrangement for someone so eager to offer himself."
Under its plate, her puncture closed until the seam showed only smooth surface.
'It closes everything I open while his skin keeps splitting, so I need something it can't undo.'
It reached one hand for her rapier while its other hand slammed the axe aside, "Wake that sleeping blood, your guardian cannot burn forever for you."
"Eyes on me, you overgrown—"
Three blows shoved Gazel across her thinning ice, heels carving trenches as light deepened beneath his skin.
'He can't burn while I watch from safety, I still have a blade and strength left.'
She flung frost at the advancing foot, then locked both hands on the grip until her knuckles whitened.
"Come on, try reaching me," she hissed, chin lifted in stubborn royal pride, "I'll keep opening you until that body forgets how to close."
Gazel held the bent weapon at her shoulder as the Collector stepped across shields whose owners no longer moved.