The stables yielded Geneve’s prize: an ox-wagon front assembly. The hitch was sound oak, linked to two metal-rimmed wheels. Too heavy for her, but with four? Manageable.
They also stole chain and pulleys, a set of hammers, and shovels. Kytto’s hand to hand training might not have been good for beating Wincuf, but working beside the Smith taught Geneve a thousand things most Knights would never know.
They hustled the assembly from the stables with whispers and giggles. A few times they had to freeze, fearing a night-delivered noise as discovery, but through the Three’s grace no one found them.
They made it to the hall. Geneve directed them on her plan. Hettie shimmied up the walls, the glint of her bald head disappearing into the gloom. Raja and Barbet stayed with Geneve, humping the wagon assembly to the middle of the room.
They made quick work with hammers and chain, tossing ropes above to Hettie. The girl scrabbled like a spider across the roof, looping rope through a pulley she drove into the stone. Novices they might be, but hard training by the Tresward made them strong, and agile as acrobats.
They winched the entire contraption above. It rose as they grunted beneath it. A final step was securing the stay beneath the floor’s smooth stone. It involved lifting the flagstones, digging a trench, and then smoothing all so no eye would be drawn to it.
Dirt and excitement were on every face. Geneve led them through the clean-up, hiding their actions. The floor was swept, the tools and Novices both returned to their expected places.
She crept to her own bunk and slept like the dead until called to face Wincuf.
* * *
Which was how Geneve faced Wincuf, blade in hand, but no fear in her heart. The thug lunged at her, all pretense of form forgotten. He hungered to take her head, hack it from her shoulders, and leave her a corpse.
Geneve ducked, rolled, spun, and tossed Requiem. The skymetal blade’s lightness made this feel effortless. Wincuf watched her blade sail past him, a smile of delight blooming on his face. The sword thunk’d into the wall behind him, right at the flagstone’s lip, and severing the rope hidden within.
Wincuf came for her as the wagon assembly fell. The hissing sound of rope under stones was foreign, and he cocked his head at the unexpected noise.
Geneve didn’t glance up. She knew what was there and what it looked like. But Wincuf didn’t. The entire assembly crashed on the young man, hammering him to the stones like Khiton’s fist. His glass blade tumbled from his fingers, shattering as it fell. Wincuf’s armor was flattened, crushing him within a vice grip and not leaving him the room to breathe.
Silence held Geneve’s hand as she padded past the wreckage to retrieve her sword. Requiem slid from the stone, hissing as it came. She stalked back to the ruin of Wincuf’s body.
He gurgled, hand out. Blood leaked from his armor to stain the white stone beneath him. Geneve heard the shouts of Clerics and Knights, the jingle of armor and the whisper of fabric as they ran to help the fallen Novice.
Geneve saluted with her blade, then walked away. Wincuf would never be a Knight. His Trial’s failure ensured he’d never be welcome in their halls again.
She hadn’t needed the Storm to beat him.
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