Kaldalis’s luck held out as he walked through the town. With the curfew on, the only people he saw on the street were the town guards. They were traveling in squads of between six and twelve, which was likely intended to ensure that they had the numbers to put down any smaller resistance, or to raise a loud enough alarm if they encountered anything larger.

What the numbers actually meant, though, was that when one or two of a group moved to intercept Kaldalis, there was always one or two of the group who felt strongly enough to oppose the action. And once that token resistance from their fellows was present, the attempts to stop Kaldalis turned into apologies.

Every guard patrol recognized him as a hero who had saved their lives.

Every guard patrol stood aside to let him pass.

Every time it gave him a little confidence boost.

Cotanaku was eerily silent. As Kaldalis, Balrim, and Myrin walked the streets, the only sounds were the quiet murmurs of half-hearted arguments as the groups of guards stood down, and the tapping of their feet on the well-worn dirt paths through the town. The smallest cough or clink of armor was deafening.

Even without an alarm going up, or audible fanfare, word seemed to spread about his intent. When he got to the town hall, he didn’t have to explain himself to the sizable platoon of guards encircling the building. They cleared a path, letting him approach the front door.

“Good luck in there,” one of the guards said, briefly breaking the tense silence that seemed to hang over the entire town.

“I never needed luck,” Kaldalis lied. “I just needed opportunity. Thank you all for giving it to me.”

As soon as Kaldalis entered the town hall, he could hear an argument going on upstairs. In the quiet that seemed to permeate the whole town, even here the usual bustle of activity here was paused. Kaldalis was starting to fear what that would mean for the town’s upkeep. But it meant that the raised voices of the Contender and the members of the Cotanaku council could be heard through the whole building.

It meant there was still time.

Kaldalis rushed up the stairs and to the meeting hall. Balrim and Myrin stuck right behind him as he ran to the door. He didn’t hesitate when he got there, and he was under no illusions about how his entrance would be construed. The Contender had eschewed the game of politics and struck the first physical blow. There was no more reason to play polite.

The door opened quickly and loudly before Kaldalis’s boot.

It hit the wall behind with a crack that rivaled thunder.

The council was gathered around the table, with the Contender sitting at the head of it, where Garyung usually would be. Other priests, ones Kaldalis had seen before, were flanking the Contender at the head of the table, and the green-and-gold clad temple guards lined the walls. Everything felt cramped with them all in here, presumably as a ploy by the Contender to intimidate the council.

It certainly worked to slow Kaldalis’s momentum. He wasn’t sure exactly what his plan was here. With all his focus on closing the gap to the Contender, he had kind of assumed that just being in the room with him was checkmate.

Now he had to actually follow through.

“You are no longer welcome here,” Kaldalis snapped. “Get out, before I throw you out.”

“Is that any way to talk to your leader?” the Contender asked without flinching. Ikzoz started to stand up to say something, but the Contender raised a hand, silencing the man and wordlessly ordering him to sit back down. “You’ve misjudged whose side the rule of law is on,” he continued, steepling his fingers with a self-satisfied smile, his slit-pupiled eyes dancing with mirth. “Unless you are threatening violent rebellion.”

“You chose this path to walk down,” Kaldalis responded firmly. “But you’ve reached the end of it. You gave violence the green light when you used it to steal that chair. Surrender it now, and I’ll spare you the indignity of a well-deserved ass-kicking.”

“I’m tired of your ignorance,” the Contender said, the veneer of smugness starting to come off of his expression. “I was sent here for a reason, and I don’t fail. The Glorious One’s will is absolute. You can’t fight it. All you’re doing is making my inevitable victory all the sweeter.” He gave a gesture, and the guards around the room drew War Weapons and leveled them at Kaldalis. “For that, I thank you. It’s been half a century since someone last dared to offer me a challenge. I’d forgotten the thrill of crushing a foe.”

Kaldalis drew his own War Weapon, and pointed the tip of the spear right at the Contender.

The sight of it changed the Contender’s expression. His smug grin had given way to an agitated grimace, and now that agitation turned into something so much more satisfying.

Fear.

“You keep choosing violence,” Kaldalis said, keeping his voice calm and even, putting every effort to show no fear. “Did you never consider - for even a second - the consequences of that choice?”

“Kill him,” the Contender snapped, forcing anger into his voice to try to hide his fear. “Kill him now!”

The Contender leapt from his chair. His guards swarmed forward. Meanwhile, their leader bolted towards the hidden panel that would let him escape to Garyung’s office.

One of Balrim’s arrows sprouted from the wall beside him, pinning his robe there for a second, but the Contender tore free of it, leaving behind most of his sleeve. Kaldalis recognized that he could have gone for a killshot, and had chosen not to. At least they were all on the same page there.

“So what’s the plan here?” Balrim asked as the guards surged forward.

Kaldalis needed a second to think. There was a way through this, he just needed to figure it out. He wasn’t sure if Balrim and Myrin would be enough to buy him the time he needed.

But he had other friends in the room.

As the guards tried to charge, all of the council members at the table shoved their chairs back and stood up. Half of them started screaming bloody murder, grappling at the guards around them. It took Kaldalis a moment to figure out that they were beseeching them for protection, becoming distractions.

The other half were taking up arms. Ikzoz, Captain Filomena, and the shifty Suyon didn’t have War Weapons to match what the guards held, but they were important figures in Cotanaku, and the guards couldn’t risk killing them.

It was exactly what Kaldalis needed.

“Sorry,” he said to Balrim and Myrin, “but I’m the target of the kill order. You should be fine.”

“Sorry for what?” Myrin asked.

“How are we gonna be fine?” Balrim demanded.

Kaldalis activated his Jump ability and launched himself at the nearest window.

Crashing through the window, Kaldalis went flailing out of the building. He hoped that his friends would be okay, but he needed to give his next task his full attention. The town hall remained the tallest building in town, and so he landed on the roof of the wooden structure next door. Looking back up at where he’d come from, Kaldalis counted the windows in the side of the building from the one that he’d left shattered.

All he could make was his best guess at which window was Garyung’s office - where the secret passage would take the Contender - and kick off again. Kaldalis flipped over in the air so that he crashed into the window feet-first.

Kaldalis crashed through the window and landed on his back across Garyung’s desk. There was a sharp - and extremely satisfying - cry of alarm as the Contender was showered in glass.

“Where are your manners?” Kaldalis demanded, rolling off the desk and putting the point of his spear right in the Contender’s face. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s rude to walk away when someone’s talking to you?”

“You want to stand down,” the Contender snapped. He was trying to project anger and confidence, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the twisted red tip of Kaldalis’s spear, only two feet away from his nose. “You’ve had your fun and made your point. But you are going to surrender now.”

“Why would you want that?” Kaldalis asked, stepping closer. The motion forced the Contender to back away, trying to keep distance from the spear as he was forced towards the broken window. “You’ve been poking and prodding at me non-stop since you got here. When I didn’t bite, you bit me. Now that you’ve got my claws out, you want me to put them away?”

“I am more important than you,” the Contender snapped. Glass crunched under his boots as he backed towards the shattered window. He flinched when he felt the wall at his back. “I am… You want something from me. Something that will make you stop this.”

“Yeah, you have my town,” Kaldalis snarled, inching the tip of his spear closer to the man’s throat. “Garyung is on his way here under guard, and when he arrives, you’re giving it back to him. And then I’ll let you get the fuck out.”

“No, not that,” the man said, the fear starting to creep into his voice as he leaned backwards out the broken window, trying to keep distance from the business end of the War Weapon. “Not something that gets in the way of my goal. There has to be a way.”

“Ah, I see,” Kaldalis said, shaking his head. He kept advancing, and the Contender had to grab the windowsill to keep the few remaining inches of space between him and the tip of Kaldalis’s spear without just falling out of the window. “You’re a fucking idiot. You think just can’t lose? You’re going to learn today.”

“I understand now,” the Contender snapped. His hand lashed out and grabbed a hold of Kaldalis’s spear beneath the head. He must have been a DPS class, because his grip was as if the weapon was stuck inside a rock. “You’re the fool here, not me. I thought you were important, but you’re not. I see how this is supposed to end. I see how my story moves forward now.”

The Contender let go of the windowsill and kicked off out of the building. Kaldalis briefly wanted to let go of the spear to just let him have it, but the Contender’s other hand grabbed Kaldalis’s wrist, dragging him out with him.

There was a brief struggle in the air. Kaldalis was concerned with maintaining control over the spear, trying to keep the weapon from skewering either the Contender or himself. The priest, though, was entirely unafraid of the weapon, and the scepter on his hip - the mark of his office and station within the church - leaped to the Contender’s hand and he swung it at Kaldalis’s head.

Kaldalis managed to avoid getting clobbered, but only barely. He managed to turn a skull-cracking blow into a glancing strike off of his armored shoulder, but it meant he lost control over the fall, and when the pair hit the ground, the Contender rolled deftly away and back to his feet as Kaldalis landed hard in a heap.

Around them, the guards that had been stationed there in the Contender’s defense scattered, crying out in alarm.

“I’m not supposed to try and make a deal with you,” the Contender said, his fear gone once more, replaced with a cold confidence that made him suddenly more terrifying than he’d ever been before. He started to advance towards Kaldalis, with his scepter held high. “I’m supposed to kill you.”