Chapter 172 The Unsung

The Unsung rose out of the flooded nave, water pouring off its gilded shoulders in long sheets over the altar. Its face was a smooth blank oval, ringing out with every step it took like a hymn sung terribly wrong.

Riven backed off a step, "Cael’s name is out of the song... so why is that thing still walking?"

"It’s built from leftovers," Nix said from behind a fallen pillar, "nine singers and a few hundred names nobody has claimed yet."

The first fist smashed into the cathedral steps, splitting them open like a loaf of bread left too long.

Riven slid through the gap between two falling blocks, Overdue trailing sparks along the flagstones as dust rolled over him. Veska planted her feet beside the pillar, raising her spear until thunder crawled along the whole shaft toward the point.

He pointed Overdue at the giant’s leg, "Veska, take the knee."

The bolt struck the giant’s thigh with a crack that shook the windows and tore a groove through the gilding. From inside the gilded body dozens of voices screamed in pain, while the giant itself barely staggered under the blow.

"Hold fire," he shouted, "every hit lands on the people inside it!"

Veska lowered the spear, knuckles white around the shaft, "Verified... the pain belongs to them, not to the monster."

’A hero nobody can hurt because the hurt goes to everyone else. That is a cruel design.’

"Then we open it up," Nix said, tapping her palm. "I stole the hymn’s lock-pattern back in the song, remember?"

She traced the stolen pattern against her palm, humming three notes copied from the hymn’s own lock in the song. Her chain-blades whirled at her hips as she sprinted across the flagstones, ducking a drifting cord to reach the shin.

"Door one," she said, slapping her palm flat to the gilding.

A door unfolded in the giant’s leg, thin as a paper cut, letting a woman in a nightdress tumble out. She landed coughing on her knees, her name tag glowing at her collar like a lit coal in the rain.

"Free refunds, no queue," she said with a grin, "and I only charge extra after ten doors."

"Then do ten," Riven said, rolling clear of a swinging elbow.

Riven kept the giant’s attention on himself, dancing between pounding fists while the crowd poured toward the narrow side streets. Each swing missed him by a hand, shaving splinters from the pillars and sending cracked slabs spinning across the square.

"The east street is clear," Veska reported, holding her spear low against the thunder.

The giant swung its other fist toward the crowd pinned against the cathedral wall, stone dust raining on upturned faces. Mara dropped into a crouch, her shadow tearing itself loose from her heels, splitting into three black panthers at once.

Each panther sprang into a different street, catching the fleeing crowd the way a net catches falling rain.

"Three streets," Mara said through her teeth. "I’ve got every one of them."

"You split into three... that is brand new, Mara."

"Nod or argue."

He nodded, ducking a second swing that took the head clean off a saint’s statue standing beside the cathedral door. Ysabel climbed the broken steps with her chin raised, the air around her bending like heat shimmering over a forge.

"Kneel," she told the giant, pressing one palm toward the sky.

The foot it was lifting slammed onto the flagstones, sinking to the ankle in cracked paving as the square shook. Its body lurched sideways, shoulder grinding into the nave wall with a long shriek of splitting masonry down the streets.

"It has no knees," Cassen shouted from the square.

"Then it can lie down."

Cassen hauled the freed woman by her elbow, Dawnblade flaring dull gold as he pulled her toward the side street. More sleepers came stumbling out of Nix’s doors behind her, dazed in nightclothes and apprentice aprons, clutching their glowing tags.

"This way, walk fast and keep your eyes on my back, nobody looks at the giant," he told them.

Two cantors blocked the cathedral doors at the top of the steps, red cords wound tight around their throats. Isolde met them with Sutureline drawn, her braid whipping behind her as she turned aside the very first strike.

"Drop," one cantor sang, "drop to your knees."

Isolde dipped half a step, then straightened with a tug of thread running from her needle-sword to the whole Company. Warm light stitched their ragged breathing into a single steady line, stilling every shaking leg on the steps below her.

"Nobody falls tonight, that is procedure, not a request," she said, parrying the second cantor without looking.

Yukine breathed out a cloud of frost beside the broken font, locking the giant’s wrist in a bracelet of ice. The ice shattered after two heartbeats, yet the swing slowed enough for Bram to catch the falling arch above them.

"Ten seconds of ice at best," Yukine said, shaking frost from her fingers. "Use them well."

Sarn stood on the broken altar, arms flung wide, red cords lashing from her throat to the giant’s back. Her scream cracked over the square, dragging the freed names backward on their cords toward the waiting golden body.

"Louder," she screamed, "sing it louder, all of you!"

Riven studied the cords binding the song to the giant’s back, counting the seconds between each verse and the next. Between the second line and the third lay a gap as thin as a held breath, audible only to him.

"They’re sliding back in," Nix said. "The doors are closing faster than I can open—"

"Then I’ll cut the cords."

A strip of torn banner drifted down through the dust and landed across his shoulder.

He vaulted the broken pillar and ran straight at the giant’s chest, reading the hymn’s beats as plain steps. Offbeat Step carried him through the gaps between verses like a man slipping through a crowd with Overdue low.

"A hero is born tonight, villain... nobody stops a birth," Sarn called down.

"The city didn’t ask," he said, "you stole the answer."

Overdue sliced a taut cord between two verses, ringing out with a sound like a snapped bowstring above the nave. Sarn staggered, blood on her lip, then clamped a hand over the bleeding cut and sang on through the pain.

’She would rather bleed than let the song break. I know that kind of stubborn.’

The giant stopped moving, every voice inside it falling quiet while the air drew tight as a sheet. Two white lights burned into its face where eyes belonged, throwing every shadow flat against the stone below.

"Why did it stop?" Mara asked, ears flat against her skull.

"Heroes don’t pause like that... something up there is deciding," Nix whispered.

"Everyone get behind me and stay low until it finishes whatever it is doing."

Both white lights swung down from the sky and settled on Riven, steady as a drawn bow.

Nobody in the square moved, every blade and spear half lifted while the red cords at Sarn’s throat went slack. Far above the roofs the bells of Solace began to ring one single low note, slow as a judge’s verdict.

’Right. A hero being born gets a Correction... and I’m the one standing in front of it.’